Bitter Pill Read online

  I looked on as they moved through my place. Once you dug down past the superficial stuff—the ballsy hair, the in-your-face fashion sense—they were total opposites. But together, they were less like oil and water and more like yin and yang…or maybe that was just the impression I got from all of Red’s punk-meets-boho jewelry and tattoos. Crash forged ahead, following his gut. Red hung back, guided by his mind. Between the two of them, no corner of the cannery was left unsmoked.

  They finished just as the boiling pasta hit the strainer, right on time for an early dinner. I pulled a couple of chairs into the living room so we could eat around the coffee table without disturbing our notes. Crash moved a wedding ring catalog out of his way. I was beyond relieved he’d been in a relationship himself, back when we dropped our engagement bombshell—but even so, he still treated me to a catty smirk as he dumped the stack of glossy paper unceremoniously on the floor.

  “Have you two given any more thought to the yoga?” I asked, hoping to stave off any prickly questions about our wedding. “I’m probably unteachable.”

  Red joined us from the kitchen with flatware in one hand and a handful of paper napkins in the other. “Of course, you’re teachable. You’ll need to be willing to learn—and to be gentle with yourself if results don’t happen overnight.”

  Jacob set plates heaping with pasta in front of our guests, then fetched ours. Crash dumped half the can of parmesan on top of his mound, and stirred until the red sauce went stringy and pink. “For most people, ‘yoga success’ might be a sturdier headstand—or, if they’re being real about it, firmer buns. But riddle me this, Mr. F-Pimp. What exactly are you hoping to achieve?”

  “Well, it’s obvious,” I said. But judging by the way the other three were staring at me, maybe it wasn’t. “I want to be stronger.”

  That answer wasn’t good enough for Crash. “But how so? Take today, for instance. You saw a freaking ghost, literally saw it. You exploded it with white light when it got too close for comfort. What more do you want?”

  “I have no idea—but maybe if I’d been more on my game, I could’ve convinced him to tell me where he got the Kick.”

  Red considered his own ability. “A telepath picks up on what’s already there. We can’t plant thoughts in other people’s minds. Maybe that’s all anyone can hope to do. And maybe that’s for the best.”

  I decided not to mention that I knew an empath who could make people shit themselves. That would only muddy the waters.

  Once we finished our food and I suggested we get going on the yoga portion of the evening, Red said, “I only practice asanas on an empty stomach.” Oh, sure, now he tells me. “But even if we hadn’t just eaten, I wouldn’t guide you through any poses tonight. I’m no psychic neurologist, but if you’ve got a severe headache and your blood pressure is up, I can’t in any good conscience encourage you to hold your head below your heart. What I can do is show you some techniques to make you more aware of your breath.”

  Why did New Agey types have to be so insufferable? “Maybe next time. I’m done for the day—I’m just gonna go lie down.”

  And I was sure to swing by my medicine cabinet first.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jacob never throws pills away. We have four types of antacid. We have antibiotics that expired before we moved in together. We have cold remedies out the yin-yang. We have a multivitamin that revisits my taste buds every time I burp.

  And then there’s my prescriptions.

  The pain meds I was set up with by The Clinic weren’t half bad. Mostly Tylenol, but laced with enough opioids to knock me out good. I slept so soundly that I didn’t wake up until Jacob gave me a shove that rolled me onto my face. “What?” I said into my pillow.

  “Quit elbowing me.”

  “Well, you’re no fun.” I pried an eye open and noted it was almost light out, then checked the time. I couldn’t even recall the last time I’d slept past six o’clock—and I’d turned in early, too. I shoved myself into a sitting position and tried to think past the brain fog. Was this what well-rested was supposed to feel like? Maybe my body just didn’t know what to make of a full night’s sleep. Plus, my arm was numb, the shoulder I’d been lying on hurt, my legs felt antsy, and I had a wicked kink in my neck.

  And yet, beneath all that, the bone-deep satisfaction I felt from being unconscious for eight-plus hours was impossible to deny.

  A blast from the shower cleared the sleep fog from my brain—the gray matter I’d so recently viewed. How anyone ever mapped the regions to their various functions, I’ll never know. Or maybe I just preferred not to think too hard about it, given that bone saws and electrodes were probably involved. How close had I come to being vivisected, back in Camp Hell? I hadn’t actually heard of it happening to any of us…but I wouldn’t have put it past the regime in charge, either.

  Especially with Dr. Kamal on the team.

  I waited for a useful memory to emerge, something that would aid our investigation, but got only a queasy sense of something lurking just beyond my current awareness. Anxiety spiked. Probably blood pressure, too. I was supposed to take the beta blockers soon. But it seemed more logical to treat the cause than the symptom, though…didn’t it?

  And what if the beta blocker stopped my blood from rushing to the part of my brain that kept dead people out of my body?

  Jacob was powering through some evil breakfast shake in the kitchen when I went to grab my coffee. I said, “There’s something I want to check before I head over to The Clinic. Can you grab a ride with Carolyn and Zig?”

  “Sure,” he said…by which he meant I’ll call an Uber, but I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.

  I pulled up at LaSalle General beside Dr. Gillmore’s scuffed silver Prius and waited. Lucky for me, by the time my morning briefings were read and I could see the bottom of my travel mug, she finished up her night shift and was heading toward her car. I expected her to look annoyed with me for stalking her, but she didn’t. She just seemed incredibly tired.

  I rounded the Crown Vic while she leaned against the car and crossed her arms. “We lost another one to Kick last night,” she said wearily. “Telepath level two. No known substance abuse issues. According to her records, she wasn’t even a social drinker.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said reflexively, and then added, “It can’t be easy.”

  She beeped open her car and motioned for me to join her. The inside felt cramped compared to the expansiveness of Jacob’s gas-guzzler. With the press of a button, she started the ignition, then cranked the heater all the way up. The engine died. Gillmore didn’t seem particularly alarmed.

  “Is that normal?”

  “Yeah, it’s a hybrid thing. Took some getting used to, though. My last car stalled out at traffic lights, which felt pretty much the same as this engine switching from gas to battery power.” She fiddled with the blower settings. I waited until she was ready. After a few seconds, she figured out how to broach the topic she was wanting to talk about. “You asked me whether addiction could be measured. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But since you showed me how useless that psychic evaluation was, I’ve been digging into the reading. Lots of folks believe we’re made up of more than just the physical body.”

  “Subtle bodies,” I said, more or less to myself.

  “You’re familiar with the theory, then.”

  “You could say that.”

  “No way to measure, quantify or record an etheric form.”

  Unless you can actually see them. “They’re real, all right.”

  “Not surprising. Now, what if illness exists in more than one plane, across multiple bodies? Maybe you can treat the physical body with drugs. But what about the etheric body?”

  Not to mention the astral…and whatever else was tucked inside everyone like a ghostly set of Russian dolls.

  Gillmore looked at me meaningfully. “What if addiction is more than just mental and physical?”

  I shivered, and not entirely from the cold—s
eriously, her “hybrid” took forever to warm up.

  My lack of response gave her the impression I needed more convincing. “It would explain faith healing. Positive thinking. Law of Attraction.”

  It would explain habit demons, too.

  Everybody asking me lately why I might want to strengthen my ability—here was a prime example. Those creepy etheric barnacles were really freaking hard to see. Con Dreyfuss had a whole school of them tethered to his ragged fingernails, and I didn’t even know it until a GhosTV shed light on them. I shivered again, so hard that Gillmore turned up the ineffective heat another few degrees.

  Dreyfuss must’ve been exposed to all kinds of freaky psychic shit in his line of work. Not to mention the fact that he had talent. “Your homeless woman,” I said carefully. “The one you won’t let me follow up on….”

  “You think her alcohol addiction’s more than physical.”

  “It’s…a theory.”

  Gillmore scowled at her heater vent. “I don’t doubt you’re sincere. But I made an oath to give all my patients the dignity they deserve. Whether or not they have a traditional home and job and health insurance. Whether or not they’re struggling with addiction.”

  “But what if I could help them with that struggle?”

  She held up a hand. “I’ll track her down and try again to get her to reach out. And I’ll pray she does.”

  I supposed that was the best I could do—at least for now. If that didn’t pan out, I’d have to keep wearing Gillmore down. “Listen, I know you’re not technically on the clock, but….” I gave her a rundown of my adventures in magnetic tubes yesterday and then listed my new medication. “Is it possible that it’s all a matter of how much blood is getting shoved into the psychic part of my brain? And if that’s the case, will a beta blocker leave me standing around with my thumb up my ass waiting for some jenky ghost to slip under my skin?”

  The air blowing out of the vent turned warmish.

  “I don’t even know where to begin.” Gillmore turned around a few ideas in her mind. “Antipsyactives work on ligands and vasopressin uptake, and probably more processes than we even understand. But more importantly, correlation and causation are not the same thing. You don’t know if blood pressure causes psychic phenomena or if it’s the other way around—or if it’s neither, and some undefined third variable is causing both. Logically speaking, if spikes in blood pressure cause extrasensory experiences, people would be tripping on birth control pills and some researcher somewhere would have figured it out by now. My guess? Certain compounds affect both physical and nonphysical bodies, and where those overlap, that’s the sweet spot.”

  Sure. A spot where you’re cramped in a ball, jonesing for your next hit, and eventually wind up dead.

  I thanked Dr. Gillmore, left her in her lukewarm hybrid, and headed up to The Clinic.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I’m no pharmacologist, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the drugs that affected the extrasensory parts of the brain affected more than just the physical blob of gray matter sloshing around in a person’s cranium. Did all the alternative things I’d tried in the past—from herbs to incense to cheap, perfumey hoodoo charms—have the same potential? If they did, additional trial-and-error was required. Because their effects were so subtle I could chalk them up to wishful thinking.

  And what about yoga? Did the practice affect the subtle bodies, or did bending into a Triangle Pose just send all my blood rushing into my head? Or was it a little bit of both?

  I was pondering this as I pulled into The Clinic’s parking lot…and found Carolyn pacing back and forth in front of the door. I didn’t need to be an empath to read her body language, arms crossed, shoulders hitched up.

  She was royally pissed.

  “Nice of you to join us,” she told me.

  “I was interviewing the ER doc in charge down at LaSalle,” I said. “One who’s got a front-row seat on this whole Kick epidemic. Thanks for asking.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just aggravated. Bertelli’s suddenly convinced we’re a liability issue. The Clinic’s attorneys made some calls that have Sergeant Warwick scrambling for subpoenas.”

  “Is that where Zigler is? Waiting on the paperwork?”

  Carolyn gave a curt nod. “You might as well get in there so Jacob’s got some backup.”

  She didn’t mention that we feds were apparently above whatever rules kept her and Zigler out, but the way she glared at me, she didn’t have to. I could’ve pointed out that we were all on the same team and it was a good thing some of us weren’t hamstrung. But she’d already told me she was aggravated. No need to wave it under her nose that both she and Zig could’ve sidestepped Bertelli’s machinations if they’d thrown in their lot with the FPMP.

  Then again, you never know. Even though Warwick occasionally answered to F-Pimp, he wasn’t nearly as easy to spook as Laura Kim. And maybe it was best not to traipse around with all our eggs in the same basket.

  I ponied up to Troy’s window, and he hefted a massive sheaf of paperwork onto the ledge for me to sign. I considered reading them, but zoned out before I got to the end of the first paragraph. “Did Jacob sign this?”

  Troy assured me he had, and that was good enough for me.

  By the time I got to the bottom of the sheaf, I’d received a rundown on the entire spring primetime lineup, and my already-loose signature had become a meaningless squiggle.

  Starting off the day by signing waivers until my hand hurt was bad enough—especially to a tedious retelling of some lame psychic crime drama—but to add insult to injury, once I was through the door, I nearly collided with Dr. Bertelli.

  “Agent Bayne,” he said grandly. “What a relief to know you’re still working with us. Recent events have been so tragic—losing not just one of our longtime clients, but two—I’m thankful the investigation remains a top priority with the FPMP.”

  That’s what he said. With his mouth. But he was standing so that I couldn’t walk toward the urgent care part of the building without shoving him out of the way. I was fairly sure the ghosts of the two dead Psychs hadn’t somehow come back, but I didn’t want to just presume. After all, Jackie’s demeanor shifted inexplicably—sometimes she had a sense of who I was and what history we shared, while other times she didn’t know me from Adam. Maybe the Kick victims would have a similar kind of reset. And it would be a shame if I wasn’t there to question them if they showed up again.

  I said, “You know who else would be helpful? The PsyCops from the Fifth Precinct.”

  Bertelli pretended to be contrite. “Such a shame. All the legal red tape. Rest assured, I’m doing everything I can.” To let Carolyn and Zigler back in? Or to toss Jacob and me out alongside them? “In the meantime, to satisfy our legal team, I’ll just have to ask you to follow a simple new protocol.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “With all the liability issues that have come to light, certain areas are, understandably, off limits to anyone but staff.” He indicated the floor with a sweep of his hand. It was a typical medical floor made of rubbery gray linoleum tiles with flecks of lighter and darker gray. But now it was decked out with strips of tape—garish safety tape covered in red and white diagonal stripes. “I’d really appreciate your cooperation, Agent. These are trying times…for all of us. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my inbox has blown up and I’ve really got to get back to my office.”

  I watched him turn and walk away on the opposite side of the tape. Once he turned the corner, I glanced down and gave the tape an experimental tap with my toe. Nothing happened. Then again, it’s not as if the tape would know whether I actually worked at The Clinic or was just visiting. Any discomfort I had with it was purely psychological.

  The summer I was nine, I briefly shared a bedroom with an eleven-year-old foster kid, Charles. To say the two of us never got along was an understatement. Charles dumped grape juice on my favorite Simpsons T-shirt, peeled the stickers off my knockoff Rubik’s cube, and st
uck his grubby fingers in my dessert whenever Mama Brill or Harold weren’t looking. Usually, I gave Charles a wide berth. That year, though, one of our foster parents’ adult sons was between apartments, and Charles found himself displaced.

  He ended up in my room.

  It was the world’s most passive-aggressive summer. We wound up with our every last toy “accidentally” broken, though how you can accidentally tear all the hair off a plastic troll, I’ll never know. In desperation, Mama Brill attempted to mark off our respective territories by running a strip of masking tape down the center of the room and forbidding either of us to cross it.

  The main thing we learned that summer was how far each of us could spit.

  We also learned that Harold wasn’t above doling out a good spanking.

  Corporal punishment has fallen out of favor these days, but in my case, it had clearly done its job. As much as I would’ve loved to step over the boundaries just for the sake of being contrary, I felt a visceral aversion to crossing that red-and-white striped line.

  I decided I should at least get an idea of how far my approved area extended. I turned and followed the tape. It rounded a corner and then ended within sight of some exam room doors, though I was at an angle where I couldn’t quite see through any of the doors, and at a distance where I’d really have to yell to get someone’s attention.

  I backtracked and followed my safe zone into the stairwell. Second floor admin…off limits. Break room…off limits. Even the janitor’s closet was off limits. When it was all said and done, the only thing I could access was the stairwell, a bathroom, the boiler room, and the conference room Jacob was using as an impromptu office.