Bitter Pill Read online

  If anyone would’ve asked me if I’d acclimated to my role at F-Pimp, I would’ve laughed in their face—or at least turned away and camouflaged a chuckle with a dry cough. But given how surprised I was over being resented for my inside information really gave me pause. “I’m sure the Program’s got…records. But I don’t. Not me, personally.”

  “I tested average in everything. Twice.”

  “We’re on the same side, you know. I’m just trying to get a handle on a drug that’s been killing Psychs. That’s all.”

  Erin accepted my explanation with a somewhat-mollified shrug, then printed out the most recent bulletins from her pharmaceutical feed regarding Kick. I folded the papers into my pocket and, to both our relief, left her to her work.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised to encounter hostility as an FPMP agent. Heck, usually I was the one who felt violated. No one likes to be checked up on. I get it. Still, I was pretty sure Erin wouldn’t be baking me brownies anytime soon.

  Or if she did, they’d be full of Ex-Lax.

  I spent the bulk of the day at HQ with a pharmaceutical consultant trying to explain an unfathomable table of numbers to me, then swung by the surveillance department to see what they could tell me about Erin’s movements. According to the experts, she ran a tight ship, the company she kept was benign, and the shadiest place she visited was the public library.

  And she truly had scored a big fat “average” in every psychic ability. Twice.

  As an FPMP investigator, the amount of information I had on Erin Welch was staggering. The ease with which I could obtain it, even more so. And while I was 99% sure she was on the up and up, I wouldn’t have minded running her through a polygraph, just to be sure.

  Not really. I valued the relationships I’d fostered within The Clinic, and I suspected all that trust and goodwill could eventually uncover some important piece of info no video surveillance or wiretap would ever dredge up. A sure way to turn a workplace against you is to start hooking people up to lie detectors. Even the less social members of the crew, like Erin.

  I was pondering this as I pulled up to The Clinic, spotted the Impala, and remembered Carolyn was on my team. I found her and Zigler combing through records with my buddy Gina, who glanced up and shot me an “oh God, please help” look I didn’t need telepathic skills to pick up on. “Say, can I borrow you?” I asked Carolyn.

  Gina looked very grateful. I suspected there might be some homemade snickerdoodles in my future.

  “I need to clear the pharmacist,” I explained.

  Carolyn nodded. “Given that we’re dealing with a pharmaceutical, and this particular place will have the most experience with psyactives, it seems like a logical choice to me. So, why do you seem so reticent?”

  “I’m not,” I said…and she shot me a look. I sighed and reconsidered sharing my real reason. “Back at the Fifth, no one wanted to deal with me. I could clear a room just by crossing the threshold…and then there’s all the Spook Squad comments from the peanut gallery. I guess I got a little too spoiled by the camaraderie here, and if I’m the one who finds someone on the team is part of the Kick pipeline, I’m back to being the odd man out.”

  I thought Carolyn would tell me to grow a pair and stop worrying about winning any popularity contests, but instead she just said, “Welcome to the club.”

  It was getting late, and we found Erin neck deep in her whatever rectification procedure she did at the end of every day. Apparently psychic pharmaceuticals are even more rife with paperwork and red tape than police work. She looked up from the report her printer was spitting out and said, “Can I help you?” in a tone that clearly conveyed, And make it fast, I’m busy here.

  “I just needed to verify a few things, and then we’ll be out of your hair.” I tried for an encouraging smile. She gave me a blank look in return. “So, there’s no Palazamine currently in stock, right?”

  “Why would there be? I told you, it was never approved.”

  Carolyn gave me a subtle nod.

  “What about in the testing phase? Don’t clinical trials happen here?”

  “Very rarely, and usually just for antipsyactives. The last psyactive trial that was run, I wasn’t even working here yet. I was at the Drug Right on Lawrence.”

  That answer jibed with the mass of documentation I’d scanned back at HQ. Plus, Carolyn nodded again.

  “Then you haven’t handled any Palazamine recently?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Erin jumped up from her desk, red-faced. I thought she was angry—until I realized there were tears glittering in her eyes behind the thick barrier of her prescription lenses. “You want my official statement? Here? Now? In front of her?” She swung an arm at Carolyn with such force I was worried she’d dislocate her own shoulder. Good thing for the barrier of the safety cage between us. “I’ve never so much as seen Palazamine. I’ve never seen Kick. I have no idea where you might find any. And I most certainly am not dealing it myself!”

  Carolyn answered—thank God, because I had no idea how to respond. “A piece of advice, Ms. Welch. Most investigators will presume you’re hiding something if you overreact like that…so be thankful the person you just blew up at is a telepath.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I hadn’t really considered that most everyone at The Clinic had access to our files, and they’d know full well if I had Carolyn at my side, she was doing a lot more than just listening. Suddenly the idea of investigating the place that dispensed my Auracel and touched my urine samples took on a whole added layer of complexity.

  “I thought that talk would go a little smoother,” I admitted to Carolyn as we headed back upstairs.

  “You can cross the pharmacist off your list now. Was it pleasant? Maybe not. But you got what you wanted. Sometimes, that’s the best you can hope for.”

  We were just coming out of the stairwell when the sound system that usually piped in banal smooth jazz came to life with a startling beep. “Code Blue.” Was that Gina? I’d never heard her sounding so official. “Repeat, Code Blue.”

  The Clinic bolted into action. Doors flew open up and down the hall. Half the staff ran toward the entrance, the other toward the emergency bay. It was the end of the day and a lot of them had on their winter coats and hats. A few ran back in from the parking lot. The doors with electronic security locks swung wide open. Within seconds, the whoop of an ambulance siren approached.

  Paramedics shoved a gurney through the doors like they were in the final stretch of a soap box derby. The guy on the stretcher was some kind of construction worker, judging by all the reflective tape on his work clothes. Between the paramedics filling in the doctors and the doctors ordering around the PAs and the whole mob hurtling down the hallway as fast as humanly possible, it was a barely controlled chaos. But there was one shout I picked out from all the others. One of the staff exclaiming to her friend, “Oh my God, is that Reginald?”

  White light. I opened my valve wide and sucked it down for all I was worth—and I wished I’d found the time to grab a yoga lesson, because if they were on a first-name basis with Reginald, he was a well-known Psych. I might not know what Reginald’s talent was, or if it might make him more likely to be able to possess me. But I didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  The staff was administering activated charcoal now in an attempt to soak up whatever was in his stomach, and I’m guessing it was more than just his lunch.

  I realized I’d been holding my breath and reminded myself to keep breathing. The full-of-mojo feeling washed over me with its cottony lightheadedness. Or maybe I’d held my breath longer than I realized. Either way, I was all hopped up and ready to ghost. Vaguely, I heard Dr. Bertelli nearby, trying to get rid of us investigators while Jacob steered him in the opposite direction. Bob Zigler was at my side, a familiar presence, sharp and observant—and I knew that he’d been paying attention to all the bazillion details I couldn’t afford to take in. “Is it Kick?” I said softly.

  He nodded. “Sound
s that way.”

  “Is that guy gonna make it?”

  “We’ll see.”

  It was a tense half an hour that felt like it stretched well into the night. There was no known antidote for Kick. The team got as much out of Reginald’s system as they could, and then pumped him full of IV drugs to stave off seizures and bring down his blood pressure, and then they waited.

  He still wasn’t conscious by the time they were through with him. But they stabilized him well enough to transfer him to intensive care at LaSalle, where they could keep him overnight.

  Jacob and I took the first shift outside his room, with Carolyn and Zig promising to relieve us later. Eventually, the adrenaline rush of high alert wore off, and I eased up all the internal clenching. I can only hold the white light for so long. Maybe if I figured out some yoga, I could extend my holding power. But as it was, eventually I got wobbly and weird until I allowed the light to recede to normal levels.

  Jacob stepped away as I was counting linoleum tiles in the floor, and came back a few minutes later with a wrapped sandwich. “I don’t know how good it is,” he said. “It might’ve been sitting around since lunch.”

  And with that, I realized my stomach was currently attempting to digest itself. I’ve always had to fend for myself, and having someone looking out for me was definitely nothing I took for granted. The longing to touch him welled up inside as he handed over my turkey and swiss on rye. Just a tiny brush of the fingers—anything more would be unprofessional—but I refrained. I wasn’t clutching my white light, but its levels were still high. I didn’t want it to jump over to him and leave me wide open to be hijacked the minute someone in the hospital died.

  While I scarfed down my stale sandwich, I pulled out my phone and had a look at the files Laura sent me on Reginald. He was a well-documented empath, high level three. That’s pretty darn high, when you consider that Stefan could trigger a bowel eruption as a five. For some reason, I always presume empaths will land themselves in fields well-suited to their talents. Doctors and nurses. Therapists and counselors. Teachers and coaches. Even salesmen, like Crash. But Reginald had been working for the Department of Transportation, pouring sidewalks and patching potholes, since he dropped out of community college after the first semester. He was several years younger than me, so he’d escaped the “human guinea pig” phase of psychic discovery I’d suffered through. No, younger Psychs had a different path than my generation. They were often caught up in a net of optimism from a time where corporations left and right were sucking up anyone with talent.

  Some Psychs thrived.

  Lots of them didn’t.

  Reginald was not one of the success stories. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and never had any reason to learn impulse control. The emotional signals he picked up on were distractions at best, obstacles at worst. He was considered untrainable. Eventually, he found his groove working with his back and his hands among a crew who said what they meant and meant what they said, and went home alone each night covered in asphalt crumbs. The highlight of his day was Netflix and a six-pack.

  I was pondering what my life might’ve been like if I’d ended up more like Reginald, when a nurse came out of his room looking wide-eyed and a little freaked out, and told Jacob, “He’s awake.”

  Although Reginald’s eyes were closed, the top half of his bed was elevated, and he was pulling on the straw of a hospital cup. He cracked open one eye, took a look at my suit, and said, “You here to arrest me?”

  “Uh…no. Actually, it’s so new, I don’t think you’ve broken any laws.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Well, that’s a relief. Even if my head is pounding and I feel like the devil just shit in my mouth.” He opened both his eyes now, and looked from me to Jacob and back again. “I’ll talk to you. Not him.”

  Jacob has a tendency to freak out empaths. He knows this. But he still takes it pretty personally. “I’ll be right outside.”

  There’s empathy…and then there’s empathy. With all the dubious pills I’ve swallowed over the course of my life, all the things I’ve huffed and smoked and snorted, it could’ve been me in that bed. Easily could’ve been me.

  There was nowhere comfortable to sit, just a rolling stool, but I perched on it so I wasn’t looming over the guy. “Was this your first time?”

  “Kick? Naw. First two, three times you do it, ain’t nothing too bad, except the cramps.”

  I tried to wrap my head around the reason anyone would subject themselves to that experience more than once. “So, it must do what it claims to do. Psychically.”

  Reginald shrugged.

  “There are other ways to get that hopped-up feeling.” How hard would he roll his eyes at me if I suggested yoga? Maybe there was a better way I could phrase it.

  But before I could make a fool out of myself, he said, “That’s the thing. When I was tweaking?” He thumped his sternum for emphasis. “I hated it. Like someone skinned me alive, then fed me through a cement mixer. Angry. Jealous. Depressed. Scared. All of it flashing by, one thing after the other, so quick I didn’t even know who it was connected to. Just me. Rolling in a bunch of shitty feelings till I came down.”

  We sat with that for a couple of seconds. “And then you did it again.”

  “I can’t explain.” My heart went out to the guy—it so could have been me—and for a change, it worked to my advantage to be an open book to the empath in the room. “Don’t make a damn bit of sense, I know. But as soon as the Kick wears off…I am jonesing for another hit.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  By the time we headed home from LaSalle, it was pretty late. The streets were peaceful, with few cars and even fewer repeaters. But the bars were still open. In particular, a bar I used to frequent every couple of weeks, and not because I was interested in happy hour, either. My happy hour started back at home with my little red pills.

  It had been a while since I’d slept the sleep of the blissfully sedated. It took Con Dreyfuss flinging drugs at me in a panic room under the railyard to make me realize I couldn’t afford an addiction. Not if it gave Big Brother another potential weakness to exploit. Was my ex-boyfriend’s pot dealer still holding court in the same sticky naugahyde booth?

  Guess we’d soon find out.

  “Pull in here,” I told Jacob. He was puzzled, but he did what I asked.

  According to Reginald, he’d scored the Kick at a party from “some white guy” nobody knew. He refused to tell me anything more about the party, but it gave me the idea to see what my old contacts might know.

  I glanced down at myself. I wasn’t exactly a fashion plate, but I suspected there’d be subtle cues that I’d leveled up. My sleeves fit me now, for instance, and my haircut didn’t scare small children. And the types of people who frequented this bar wouldn’t take kindly to my success.

  I loosened my tie and pulled it askew, then ran a hand through my hair. Hopefully it was dark enough inside that my quick rumple would do the trick. “You’ll need to wait in the car,” I told Jacob.

  He gave me a look.

  “I know, I know. You never get to have any fun. But trust me…if they see us together, I’ll get nothing but some stale popcorn and a bunch of dirty looks.”

  When I walked through the door, the smell hit me first. Fake butter from the popcorn machine, cigarettes and BO from the customers, and stale beer from the pores of the wood. I should have been disgusted. But some small part of me perked up at the anticipation of a really freaking wonderful night’s sleep. I ignored it and headed toward the back corner.

  There was a big-screen TV mounted on the wall—that was new. My old dealer sat with a half-eaten personal pizza at his elbow and a half-drained beer between his hands, staring blankly at a dull sports recap on ESPN. I wondered if the TV had been hung where it was specifically so he could see it from his favorite booth. I suspected it had.

  I paused beside him in my usual spot. It took him an extra heartbeat to acknowledge me, but then I saw it. The ti
niest of nods. Just like always.

  Someone told me the guy’s name at one point, though once it slipped my mind, I made no effort to re-learn it. Seemed safer that way. To see him walking down the street, most people’s first thought wouldn’t be “drug dealer.” He looked more like the type of guy who’d fix your computer—and insult your choice of anti-virus programs while he was charging you an arm and a leg to do it. He was pale and hirsute. A hefty guy who kept the table shoved off-center for easy booth access. It irked him that I could slip into the seat across from him without sucking in my gut.

  “It’s been a while,” he said unenthusiastically. “No joy for you here. I stopped selling Reds a long time ago—they’re hard to find and there’s no market for them. It’ll take at least a week to get more. And not at the old prices, either.”

  “I’m not interested in Reds,” I lied.

  Wait. No lie. I wasn’t interested. At all.

  “I heard about something called Kick—”

  The dealer cut me off with a scoff. “Have you been under a rock? That shit’ll mess you up. One hit of Kick and you’ll wish you’d only been snorting bath salts and chewing off people’s faces. Unless you’re psychic…and then, supposedly, it’ll blow your mind.” He had himself a good chuckle. “You’re not suddenly convinced you’re psychic, are you?”

  His reaction nearly threw me, but I recovered. Convincingly, I hoped. “I was just curious about all the hype.”

  “On Kick? You see stuff.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Lots of drugs’ll make you see stuff. Save yourself a fuck-ton of trouble and drop a hit of acid instead. It won’t leave you cramped up like a ten-pound rat in a five-pound bag. Now, if it’s psychedelics you’re looking for, Special K might be more up your alley, since you like to keep things mellow. I don’t have any on hand, but I could certainly get my hands on it…for a price.”

  Normally, I wouldn’t challenge him—his ego didn’t take kindly to being challenged—but since I didn’t need to worry too much about ending up on his shit list anymore, I decided to turn the thumbscrews on the Kick. After all, if I managed to score, maybe we’d find some prints we could actually use. “Horse tranquilizers aren’t really my style. I’m only in the market for Kick. I heard you couldn’t score—just thought I’d check. For old time’s sake.”