Deadly Messengers (43 page)

“Yes,” she said, haltingly. “But I wasn’t responsible. I was under the influence of a powerful drug. That, Dana, is what makes me the perfect person to talk about these drugs, the SSRIs, anti-depressants, which are still being prescribed as though they’re just headache tablets.”

Dana nodded slowly as Kendall spoke, as though she were agreeing with her answer, but then asked, “But these drugs weren’t the ones found in your system after you shot and killed sixty-nine-year-old Doug McKinley and Detective Trip Lindsay. So why would you then take on the drug companies and the F.D.A. regarding them?”

“Because, like everyone else, I did take them. That’s how I was targeted. Doug McKinley believed those drugs carried a side effect risk of violence. It wasn’t something I fully understood before. That particular risk was never explained to me when they were prescribed. These drugs can influence non-violent people, like you or me. It’s like a lottery. You don’t know what impact they might have. They don’t tell you at the drugstore or at the doctor’s. These drugs have snuck in and become an acceptable part of our lives. Little friends to help us get through the day. Or the night.”

A door opened to Kendall’s right. She looked over for a moment as Dana bowed to her notes. Lance O’Grady entered the room, moving quietly to the side to stand against the wall next to the producers.

He caught her attention and smiled. Kendall smiled back, and suddenly felt more relaxed, more confident. Those brown eyes always had that effect on her. His eyes were the only other thing she remembered from that day.

Even the scar high on her shoulder, the bullet entry wound, provided no memory prompt. She remembered awakening in the hospital and feeling the pain of the wound. How she was injured was forever gone from her memory, a byproduct of the drug given her by Doug McKinley.

Lance O’Grady was the last person she’d expected to see sitting by her bed the day she awoke. He looked terrible, as though he’d hardly slept. Turned out, he hadn’t. He’d been by her bedside for most of the three days she’d been unconscious.

When she thought of Trip, she only thought of his smiling face. Then the guilt quickly closed in on her. She worked on that daily. Therapy helped. Lance helped her, too. When the nightmares grabbed her by the throat in the night, when she awoke screaming and crying, he held her until she fell back to sleep.

Sometimes, although she’d never tell Lance this, she believed there should have been a full trial, that she should pay a price for what she’d done.

The medical reports were thorough, though; the law was on her side. You couldn’t be convicted of a crime if you weren’t in your right mind. At the indictment, her lawyer argued it would be the equivalent of accusing a person of promiscuity when they had been slipped the date rape drug rohipinol
.
With all the scientific evidence presented along with Lance O’Grady’s testimony, the grand jury agreed.

It still didn’t stop her from blaming herself.

Dana fixed Kendall with one of her famous piercing, cold, journalist stares.

“Kendall, you’ve constantly claimed you have no memory of the murders. A year later, is that still true?”

Kendall raised her chin, held her head higher. Lance constantly told her, she had nothing of which to be ashamed.

“Yes, that’s still true. I live with it every day, and I’m constantly reminded I’ve taken two lives. That’s a terrible thing to know. Every time I do an interview or talk about it, I’m forced to face the same question.”

“So why do you do it, then? Why do you continue to remain in the public eye and agree to do interviews like this one?”

Kendall glanced over at Lance. He gave her
the
smile, the Mark Ruffalo smile, the one that gave her the strength to go on, the
I’m with you and you’re doing good, baby
smile. That smile gave her courage to keep facing the public and keep confronting her own demons.

Kendall looked back to Dana, her posture stiffened, her jaw more squared, and replied, “You do know a senate committee has been appointed to look more closely at multiple pharmaceutical companies’ research, showing a correlation between SSRI’s and increased aggression, suicide, and mass killings. These companies hadn’t made the dangers clear to prescribing doctors or the public?”

“Yes, I did see that,” said Dana as she looked down at her notes.

“Dana, this is progress. This came as a fallout from what happened to me, from all the news and magazine articles and current affairs shows. As crazy as Doug McKinley was, he
had
a point. These drugs
are
dangerous. I guess, because of everything that’s happened, fate dragged me into this, and I’ve found my purpose in life.”

Kendall paused and looked directly into the camera, understanding the impact it would have on a viewer. She’d practiced it enough. She drew in a quiet breath, settling and calming herself. Knowing she spoke for all those people who’d died, not just on that day but all the years before, Kendall’s voice held conviction.

“Dana, I do this because I have a message to deliver, and I will not stop until somebody listens. Think of me as a messenger.”

Sometimes authors enjoy challenging themselves, so they do something crazy they’ve never before attempted. I say
enjoy
loosely, because, occasionally, it works out to be tough at times more than fun. Count me as one of those authors.

I’d just sent
Back Again
off to the editors and was musing on how much I enjoyed writing the antagonist Kylie from that story. In a moment of inspiration (or madness), I thought:
why don’t I write a book filled with evil antagonists and really have a party?

So for the three weeks
Back Again
was away at my editors, I tasked myself with crafting a story about a series of seemingly unconnected mass killings which were, in reality, connected.

That was all I had. No plotting. No months of thinking about it. The next day I started
Deadly Messengers
with the first massacre scene. Then the rest came quite easily, until half way through, I found I was in trouble. I still hadn’t worked out how my mass killers were being controlled (which is what happens when you don’t plot).

I believe, though, for those who are in the writing arena and fighting those lions, a muse watches over. You often feel tested as to whether you’re worthy to be granted the answer to your plot problem. This was one of those testing moments.

The answer came from a surprising source—my twelve-year-old son Harry. We were driving back from his soccer practice one night and my mind was with my story, thinking this must be how writers’ block feels.

He said: “Mom, did you know there’s a drug which can make people do whatever you want them to do and they won’t remember. You just blow it in their face.”

Well hit me over the head with a muse. I was so surprised I pulled the car over to quiz him. He didn’t know I needed that drug as a plot device for my story. My son is a mad Youtube watcher—aren’t all kids these days?—and he’d found a video entitled
The 10 Craziest Drugs You Never Knew Existed
.

It can’t be true
, I thought, even as my mind was playing
push it around and see if it fits
with the idea.

Sure enough, when I checked, there it was as he’d said:
Devil’s Breath
, from which a drug called Scopolamine is derived. I changed the name of the plant to
Zombie’s Breath
and the drug to Seratolamine in the story. The properties of
Zombie’s Breath
are the same as the real drug, but I’ve nudged them a little further in their ability to control human behavior. However, the real drug is one scary chemical, and its effects are pretty close to my fictional creation.

Even now, with the book published, I can’t believe my son delivered the solution to me. Nowadays, I’m not so quick to tell him to get off YouTube. Who knows what else I might need him to tell me in the future?

You may be surprised to find the idea regarding the relationship between SSRIs and violence is based on some fact. I know, scary! During research, I found many articles discussing this relationship. If you’re interested, read some of the reports on this website:
http://www.ssristories.org
and
http://www.corbettreport.com/medicated-to-death-ssris-and-mass-killings/
.

This book is the story of the characters and is fictional. It doesn’t represent my opinion on these drugs. In no way do I mean to create a negative view of anyone who takes or prescribes anti-depressants. Many people do benefit greatly from their use. Although I’m not advocating those who need them shouldn’t have them, I wonder if there should be a little more awareness of their potential to cause harm for
some
people. The advances we’ve made in society with our more sympathetic acceptance and understanding of mental disorders is a very good thing.

In the end,
Deadly Messengers
became mostly fiction with a little bit of science woven in. I know it’s a little different to anything else I’ve written, but I can only travel where my stories take me. I do hope, wonderful reader, you’ve enjoyed this unplanned journey as much as I did.

I will leave you with a final thought: Should you find yourself in South America and feeling weary, don’t fall asleep under any trees with beautiful, trumpet-shaped flowers. You never know where you’ll wake up.

This novel wouldn’t exist in its present form if not for the help of a few brilliant people who play on my team.

My husband Franco has been my staunch supporter since day one. Thank you my most loved best friend and soulmate. Every writer should be blessed with a friend or family member like him. When I’m feeling disheartened that I’ve lost the plot—literally lost the plot, it happens—he’s there assuring me I’ll work it out.

Thank you goes to my children, Bailey and Harry, who go away when I tell them to go away because I’m finishing something. They drive me mental many times, but I love their brave hearts.

This book would be riddled with silly errors and inconsistencies if not for Christie Giraud at
EbookEditingPro.com
, the best editor a writer could have. She’s tough and blunt, but she has a great sense of humor. Christie makes me feel as though I have an advocate for my characters riding on my shoulder as I run through the edits.

Late hour thanks go to Paul Litherland of
www.surfonlinesafe.com.au
. I’d just finished the final edits of this book, when I attended a presentation of Paul’s at my sons’ high school college. Paul is an ex-policeman and passionate about Internet safety for kids (and adults). The small part about how Doug McKinley geo-tracked his potential subjects was already there but not in the detail it now enjoys. Until I saw Paul’s presentation, I had no idea how easy it was to track and locate people from the metadata contained in an uploaded photograph. Nor did I understand clearly all the dangers of social media and the Internet for my children and myself. My recommendation is that no matter where you live, visit his site and read everything there. It’s a cautionary tale.

You’ll also find several pages included, front and back, filled with amazing and humbling praise for this book from my early readers on GoodReads. They deserve to be part of this book forever as their comments and reviews have put the wind beneath my fingers on the keyboard on the final edits of Deadly Messengers and in writing future books. A very special thanks goes out to a few hawk-eyed readers who caught typos and little mistakes and were good enough to let me know, Chris Terrell, Carrie Glover, Amanda Gillie, James Hayward, Vicki Tyley, and Jan Graham.

Last but not least, thank you, wonderful reader, for taking the time to read my book. If you enjoyed
Deadly Messengers
, please leave a review wherever you purchased and/or
Good Reads
. Reviews really help an author. If nothing else, it brightens my day to know somebody is enjoying my work.

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I hope to see you again. It’s been my pleasure to entertain you.

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