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“The hospital.”
“The cops didn’t beat the shit out of me or anything. I’m fine.”
“How often do you not remember what happens?” he asks as he pulls into the parking lot of the hospital.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” I argue.
Kincaid sighs before giving me a weak smile. “I think you were drugged. The loss of memory, the overly drunk symptoms when you hadn’t been drinking heavily. The new guys were with you so they didn’t know it was out of character.”
I shake my head, rejecting the idea before really thinking about what it could mean.
“I need you to be cleared medically before you can go back to work.”
“How could someone get the jump on me?” I ask, feeling violated and more pissed now than ever.
“It happens,” Kincaid says, not bothering to sugarcoat it.
I know he has to be right. I can’t remember even going to the bar that night. Hell, I don’t remember much from earlier in the day at the party, but he’s right. I never drink too much and even when I get drunk, I don’t black out.
I look to the entrance of the hospital, watching a man carrying a small infant carrier in one hand as he struggles with the decision of who to help as a woman stands from a wheelchair to climb into the backseat of an SUV. Eventually, they work it out and drive away.
“If it happened over a week ago, nothing will be in my system.”
“I know, but let’s get you cleared, anyway.”
I climb out of the SUV when Kincaid does, my mind racing a million miles an hour. I know myself. I know I had to have been injected with something. There are very few people that walk the earth that would be capable of overpowering me long enough to hold something over my nose. I’m too observant, even at Jake’s, for someone to slip something in my drink without me knowing. Add in the three other guys with me that night, and there’s very little chance that’s how I was drugged.
“What if they used a dirty needle?” I ask, lifting my hand to my neck, unsure of where I would’ve been injected, but feeling completely disgusted all over my body at the prospect of it happening.
“We’ll get you started on any medication needed to fight anything you may have come in contact with,” Kincaid assures me as we walk toward the front of the hospital.
Instead of checking in at the front desk or heading to the nonemergency entrance to the ER, Kincaid presses the button on the elevator, directing us to the third floor once we’re inside.
Of all fucking people, Camryn, a fucking OB/GYN, is standing there when the door opens. She’s in a committed relationship with Samson who is Snatch and Itchy’s, two of the original members of Cerberus, son.
“I can help you right in there,” she says with a soft smile, pointing to the open door of an empty room.
Kincaid waits outside, and I’m grateful for that. I respect the man, but I don’t need my hand held while I’m getting bloodwork drawn. It’s bad enough the man witnessed me getting handcuffed and dragged away from the campsite. I’m innocent, and that was proven within an hour of getting back to Farmington, but it has to leave some sort of mark on the man. If anything, he’s probably not impressed with having to end his trip with his family because of me.
I try to concentrate on what Camryn is saying as she prepares to take my blood, but my mind refuses to focus. I should be pissed at what happened to me today. I should be able to hold my head high and take a little satisfaction in the way Detective Lennox Maison looked when she offered her forced apology. I’ve eaten crow before. I know just how bad that shit tastes.
Other than some of her facial expressions, I’d say the woman operated in a professional manner, other than that little jab about my personal affects.
I grind my teeth at the memory of that young guy watching me while I twisted the ball off the end of every fucking barbell. He wasn’t weird about it, but it’s not something I ever imagined I’d experience.
“Am I hurting you?”
“No,” I say, giving her a quick smile.
I haven’t had much interaction with this woman other than seeing each other at clubhouse events, and chatting in passing because it would be rude not to speak. She works a lot and she and Samson have their own place.
“I appreciate the discretion,” I say when she pulls the needle from my vein and presses a piece of gauze there.
She hands me a bandage to cover the wound rather than applying it herself. It makes me wonder if she does it that way because she thinks that maybe I was somehow involved in that woman’s murder or if she knows I’m in no mood to be coddled like a child right now.
