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“I think you need to go, Jake,” said Sam.
“I don’t want to go. I want to stay and help her out. Can’t you see that?”
“She needs to calm down. And you need to face what you’ve done.”
“No!” said Jake. “Alicia, please.” He took a step up the stairs.
“Go away,” I said, but I said it so weakly I doubt either of them heard me. They were too busy fighting.
“Get out of here!” shouted Sam. I could see our neighbors looking through their windows at the confrontation taking place on our doorstep.
“Please, don’t … don’t fight,” I said. I felt dizzy, and the pain in my stomach was growing.
“Let me talk to her!” said Jake.
“Let her rest!” said Sam. He took a step back and opened the door.
The world was swimming in front of me.
“Alicia!” said Jake. He lunged forward, but it was too late.
Because all of a sudden, I was falling.
I heard an unpleasant sound, a little like the crack when you drop a can on a hard surface. Then, as pain swam through my body, I realized it was my head.
I screamed as the pain in my stomach blossomed in response, and then, I passed out.
Chapter 24
Jake
Onthewaytothe hospital, I thought about how I’ve always hated hospitals. I remember my mom, clinging to life in a bed, and I just think how, of all the places it doesn’t make sense to die, one of them is a place where people should be getting better. I believed, when they took my mom away, that they were taking her to the hospital so she could get better.
They fooled me, I guess.
I pushed Sam into the back of the ambulance with her—he was standing there, eyes glaring, with his forehead wrinkled in shock—and drove myself to meet them. In the waiting room, we sat for a while, not saying anything. I could see the hurt, disgust, and anger on Sam’s face. I didn’t know how to fix it.
The doctor came in. “I’m notifying you about the condition Miss Matlock’s in,” he said. “But I’m also letting you know I’m calling the police.”
“The police?” said Sam. “Why?”
“Someone,” said the doctor, “has been injecting Miss Matlock with slow-acting saline.”
“Saline?” I repeated. A saline injection, straight to the muscle, was one of the most painful things you could possibly endure. No wonder Alicia had collapsed.
“Who’s her previous physician?” said the doctor.
I sighed. Patricia. Of course.
“It’s an experimental compound that is supposed to allow the body to administer saline levels over a long period of time,” said the doctor. “However, when injected in large quantities—”
“It could cause serious pain,” I finished.
“Yes,” said the doctor gruffly. “I don’t know who’s been providing her medical care, but I’d frankly like to have them sent to jail. It’s the cruelest and most unusual thing to do to any human being or animal for that matter. She’s been poisoned, effectively.”
“Dr. Patricia Knightly,” I said. “She tried to shoot me this afternoon.”
The doctor looked at me. “Goddamnit,” he said. “You were … you were on the news this morning, in L.A. What are you doing in Chicago?”
