Fatal Reaction (30 page)

CHAPTER 84

The room temperature solution felt like ice water running through Ana’s veins, adding to the already bone-deep chill of the dark basement.

“Help!” Her voice was dry and gravelly.

“Ana, where are you?”

It was Jared.

“Jared, help.”

“Ana, where are you?”

Mike was with him
.

“Mike, I’m downstairs.”

The switch clicked on and off, a thin sliver of light bathing the wooden stairs in a white glow.

Mike ran into the darkness and collapsed at her side. “Are you all right?”

Jared fumbled with his phone, and the bright white flashlight pierced the darkness.

Ana squinted, having been in the dark so long that her eyes couldn’t immediately adjust.

Mike pulled at the tape holding the IV sheath in place.

Jared turned off the drip, checked the IV bag labels, and all but knocked Mike out of the way.

“Here, hold this.” He handed the cell phone to Mike. “I need both hands.”

Mike kept the light trained on the IV site.

“How long have you been hooked up?” Jared said.

“Minutes, not longer.”

“Ten? Thirty? How many?” Jared brushed Ana’s hair back from her face, and even in the dim lighting, she could see his concern.

“Somewhere in between.” Ana leaned her head back against the chair and sighed. She felt terrible, but things could’ve been so much worse. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Noreen isn’t as smart as she thinks she is.” Jared pulled the sheath from her hand, holding pressure on the site until it stopped bleeding.

Ana closed her fingers around his. “Thank you,” she whispered, and turned to Mike. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t sure—”

“I’ll be mad at you later. Right now, I’m glad you’re alive.” He welled up with tears. “What can I do to help?”

“I need something to cut this with.” Jared pulled at the layers of duct tape.

Mike handed Jared his pocketknife. “Here.”

Jared cut the tape and eased Ana forward. “Can you walk?”

A surge of pins and needles came and went as blood pumped through her extremities. “I think so.” She tried to stand up, and her light-headedness turned to vertigo. The room spun and her knees buckled.

Mike reached out to keep her from falling, but Jared beat him to it. He cradled her in his arms like a child and lifted her.

Ana wrapped her arms around his neck and nestled against him. He smelled of cologne and car exhaust, and felt like safety.

“She needs sugar—juice, candy, something,” he said to Mike.

“I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen.”

CHAPTER 85

Dorian held Noreen under her armpits and dragged her off the bed. The give of the mattress made it nearly impossible to do CPR. Her heels hit the floor with a thud, and her shirt, Colby’s shirt, fell open. A bright red dot from the friction of Dorian’s hands against her ivory skin filled the space between her breasts. Dorian’s shoulders, arms, and hands ached from nonstop compressions.

“I’m not going to let you die,” he said, unable to reconcile his feelings for her. Weeks ago, he’d have considered her a confidante, a friend, and a necessity. She had been part of his daily life for years, helped build his practice, and it seemed impossible she’d have ever set him up. Guilt surfaced, the feeling that all of the flirting and false hope had been too much for her, and that she was more fragile than he had considered. None of that mattered now. He needed her to live in order to get out from under the disaster she’d made for him, and for her to pay for what she’d done.

He pinched her nose, delivered two more breaths, and shouted, again, for help.

“Jared,
dammit
, will you answer me? Help!”

He’d heard him arrive with someone else, but he had no idea who.

Sergeant Mike Richardson, not at all the person he’d expected, appeared at the top of the stairs.

His breath caught at the realization he was about to be arrested, again. He interlaced his fingers and thrust the heel of his hands into Noreen’s chest. Her legs fell open, exposing her completely.

Mike kept an indirect gaze, his head turned from the blatant, if not vulgar, nudity. He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Dorian said. “She shot herself up with something and stopped breathing.”

“Succinylcholine,” Mike said.

The symptoms fit.

Dorian pinched Noreen’s nose and covered her mouth with his own. He delivered two breaths, and her chest rose with each inhalation. “Where’s Jared? I need his help.”

“He’s downstairs, with Ana. Noreen had her tied up in the basement.”

“Is she all right?” Dorian asked between shallow breaths.

“Jared says she’s going to be fine.”

Dorian looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand next to the unmade bed and calculated the elapsed time. He’d been at CPR for more than five minutes. He’d heard of those who had performed CPR for hours until help arrived, and had been successful. He didn’t know how they managed.

He gave Noreen two more breaths, and she gasped.

Finally.

“Jesus. Thank God.” Dorian sat back on his heels.

Noreen stared at the ceiling for a moment, languid and seemingly confused. The wail of police sirens filled the room.

Noreen, as if she knew they were coming for her, rolled her eyes toward Dorian.

In them, he saw nothing but hate.

CHAPTER 86

Ana sipped a glass of orange juice that did nothing to soothe her nausea. She was tired from the insulin, but thankful to be alive, to be with Jared, and to see justice being served.

The front door opened, and several uniformed officers filed in. The swirling squad car lights reflected off the snow, the walls, and the windows.

Mike read Noreen her rights and a list of charges ranging from kidnapping to murder. She stared blankly ahead, almost catatonically, dressed in a pair of ill-fitting sweats that Mike told Dorian he took from the bedroom dresser.

Dorian couldn’t have looked more relieved that he wasn’t the one in handcuffs.

Noreen’s gait had a psychiatric-ward shuffle to it as Mike handed her over to Coop for transport.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mike set his hand on Ana’s shoulder.

“I’ll be fine.”

Jared held her shaking hand; an act that Ana could see from Mike’s steely stare upset him.

Ana pleaded silently for him not to react.

Mike must’ve understood the look in her eyes, or he’d have never backed off.

“Dorian, I’m going to need to take your statement regarding what, exactly, I walked in on.”

“Whatever you need.” Dorian stared out the living room window, watching Noreen go. The swirling lights appeared, and then disappeared, shaking him from his trancelike state. He took a second orange juice carton from the refrigerator and set it in front of Ana. “You need to keep drinking.”

“No more juice.” The acid from the last one left a sour taste and a burn in her stomach. She held up her hand and he pushed it closer.

“Drink.”

“Ana, please,” Jared said.

“No. More. Juice. I’ll throw up.”

The crime-scene unit’s arrival interrupted their debate.

“Sergeant Richardson.” Ronald Graham nodded in greeting.

“Ana, are you all right?” Elsa rushed into the kitchen, and Mike steered her away.

“She’s fine,” he said. “Did you call EMS?”

“They’re on their way.”

Ron opened his kit on the kitchen table.

Mike handed him the lightbulb from the kitchen counter. “Start in the basement. That’s where she was holding Ana. You’ll need this.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Elsa asked Ana from across the room.

“I’m positive.” Ana, who had never been one for being the center of attention, stood to prove her point. A haze settled over her vision, and she was unsteady on her feet.

Jared tried to have her sit back down, but she refused.

“I need to move,” she said. Her stiff knees ached, but she took a few steps, holding on to the counter. She looked out the window at the fresh snow covering the newly arrived cruisers, and filling the tracks of those that came before them.

Some things covered up more easily than others.

Her wounds weren’t so effortlessly erased.

The familiar blue-and-white ambulance barreling down the driveway struck her with dread.

“I don’t
need
an ambulance.”

Jared tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. “Well, you can’t ride with me. My car’s in the ditch.”

Ethan rushed through the door in an obvious state of panic. “Where’s Ana? Is she all right?” His eyes settled on Jared’s hand on Ana’s shoulder. “Oh thank God.” He dropped the strap of the medic bag off his shoulder and hurried her toward the sofa.

Jared immediately bristled.

“Ethan, you don’t have to do this. I’m fine, really,” Ana said, sitting down.

Ethan dropped to his knees and grabbed Ana’s wrist to take her pulse. “What happened?”

“Insulin. Noreen put me on an insulin drip.”

“I need a glucose meter,” Jared said.

“All due respect, Doc, you’re not my contact on this one. Back off.”

Ana reached down, unzipped the familiar bag, and searched for the meter.

Ethan gently nudged her away. “You’re the patient, remember?” He set the test strip and punctured her finger. “Ninety-seven, almost normal.”

“Test it again,” Jared said.

“No,
don’t
test it again,” Ana said. “Can you give us a minute?”

Jared reluctantly agreed.

“What’s going on here?” Ethan asked.

The question wasn’t health related; it was personal.

“Honestly? I don’t know.” Jared’s doting behavior, the openness with which he attended her, and his obvious feelings for her, had them in new territory. “I never meant to hurt you. You’re important to me, Ethan. You’re my—”

“Friend.” He spat the bitter word. “I know.”

“Is she good to go?” Mike asked impatiently. “I want to make sure she gets a good once-over.”

Ethan nodded and packed up his bag.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Ana picked at the adhesive on her clothes and skin, and Mike stopped her.

“If you’re medically cleared, I’ll take you home after we’re done collecting the evidence we need.” He patted Ethan on the back. “Load her up.”

Ethan held out his hand and Ana took it, grateful for the olive-branch gesture. “I assume you want to walk?”

She smirked. “Unless you want to carry me.”

“I’ll ride along,” Jared said.

“No, you won’t. Chain of custody. I’m going with her. You’re the one who put the car in the ditch?” Mike asked Jared. Jared nodded, and Mike tossed Dorian his keys. “Then
you’re
driving. You two came out here together, you can go back together, and you can both give me your statements when you return my truck.”

CHAPTER 87

With Ana safe, the tension between Jared and Dorian returned with a vengeance.

Jared took his coat off the hook by the door, leaving Dorian to freeze.

Dorian followed him out into the cold and unlocked the truck. “Do you see a snow brush anywhere in there?”

Jared rummaged behind the seat and handed one over without saying a word. He considered briefly helping Dorian clear the snow and decided to wait in the passenger seat instead. The truck bore the ghost of heat, enough that Jared couldn’t yet see his breath.

He watched Dorian scrape at the ice dam under the wipers and tried not to fixate on the image of the shirt one of the investigators had come downstairs with.

Anger was a reaction Jared wasn’t sure he should have anymore.

Dorian climbed in the driver’s side, started the truck, and turned the defrosters on high.

Jared fumbled with the buttons on the radio, finding the presets tuned to country music, talk radio, and easy listening, which he settled on for lack of anything better.

“Thanks for the help.” Dorian warmed his hands in front of the heater vent and adjusted the mirrors.

“That was Colby’s shirt the cop brought downstairs.” Jared looked straight ahead, into the vanishing tree line, as he asserted his observation.

Dorian looked over his shoulder, neither confirming nor denying the fact, and backed down the driveway with the truck in four-wheel drive.

A quarter mile down the road, the BMW was still in the ditch, buried under a heap of fresh snow with no sign of help coming.

“Good thing we didn’t wait for a wrecker.”

Jared wasn’t amused. “You really don’t have anything to say? Colby was there, wasn’t she?”

Dorian pressed both hands into the steering wheel, stretching his shoulders and back. “Yes, she was.”

A door had opened between them, one Jared was reluctant to walk through. “How long?”

“A few hours?” Dorian seemed confused by the question.

“How long have the two of you been sleeping together?”

“A year or so, not counting the few times she broke it off.”

Jared thought about the times Colby had tried to reconcile their marriage and wondered if her trying to fix things was out of guilt. “She told me she loves you.” The words almost wouldn’t come out.

“And where does that leave us?”

Jared wasn’t sure which “us”
Dorian was referring to. “You and me? Nowhere, at best. You and
her
? That’s up to you two. Either way, I’m done.”

“You were leaving, anyway.” Dorian glanced over. “You served her with divorce papers. Did that have anything to do with Ana?”

“Coincidental timing. Don’t put me on your level, Dorian.
I
didn’t sleep with her.”

Dorian chuckled. “But you wanted to. That’s the difference between you and me, Jared. I go after what I want. Life’s too short. I don’t know what happened with you and Colby, other than she says you stopped paying her attention. At this point it doesn’t even matter. She’s in the hospital, alone, probably scared, and she’s been through hell. She cheated death, Jared, and I’m betting, knowing her, it’s changed her perspective. This thing with Noreen . . .”

“Totally your fault, by the way.”

Dorian waved his hand. “I’m not taking credit for Noreen’s lack of mental well-being. There was no way I could’ve seen any of what happened coming, but I am sorry for any part I might have played in it. Whatever misguided motivations I had for the surgeries, the God complex is gone. I’m an unlicensed, unemployable, center-of-the-media-circus freak show, and you know what? All I can think about is Colby, lying in that bed, wondering if anyone cares if she lives or dies.
I
care. Yes, there’s some baggage between her and me after this, but we have another chance, all of us. I saw the way you looked at Ana, Jared. And I’ve seen you with Colby. Night and day, my friend.”

“You’re really giving me relationship advice right now?”

Dorian shrugged. “Someone has to. What point does it serve holding on to someone you don’t love anymore?”

“I do love Colby, and I’m sure, on some level, she loves me. We’re just not
in
love.”

“The difference between being happy and settling.”

Jared didn’t want to admit it, but Dorian was right. After all Colby had been through, she needed someone to care for her in a way that he couldn’t bring himself to. The lies had to stop somewhere.

His relationship with Ana couldn’t move forward until they did.