Page 57 of Donut Disaster
“Drake is always embellishing a thing or two. It’s what he does.”
She called him Drake. Technically, it’s all right to do that, but it was so casual as if it were his first name after all. Of course, she knows, thus the slipup.
“Sandra, you know, don’t you? You weren’t kidding that night. There is no Colin Drake. It’s Drake Nylan, just like you told me.”
She takes a quick breath and stumbles as she takes a step back. I reach my hand out to keep her from falling, but she bats it from her person.
“Don’t you touch me.” Her feet are still carrying her in reverse. “You know—and you’re trying to trick me.”
“Trick you? What would I be trying to trick you with?” Suddenly, it feels as if the ground is shifting beneath me and my adrenaline kicks in. It’s so murky out I can hardly see her face, but I can smell her fear, her vodka, and I wonder what it means. “Sandra,” I whisper her name low. “This has to do with Morgan’s death, doesn’t it?” Of course, it does. Why else would she be acting this way? But why in the world would she cover for Drake? Whoever he is?
“I knew it,” she hisses. “You’re trying to get a confession out of me.”
A spiral of celestial light swirls its way over as Cookie comes in hot, barking and snapping at her as if she could see him.
“A confession?” I’m stunned to hear her say something so out of left field. And then it hits me. “Oh my God. You killed Morgan?”
Her chest bucks as Cookie jumps up on her over and over again.
“Oh God.” She staggers, holding her chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“Please, sit down. You’ll be fine, I promise.” I help her to the ground and plop next to her, waving for Cookie to stop the assault. “Now tell me what happened? I’m sure it wasn’t you’re fault.”
“It wasn’t, Lottie.” Her eyes glisten in the dull light. “I promise you, I had no choice. My hands were tied.”
Her hands were tied? In what regard?
Is she actually confessing? For whatever reason, I can’t wrap my head around it.
“Last fall, my sister’s insurance policy was cut in half. They wanted more money—twice as much to give her the care she was already getting—and we couldn’t afford that. Then, one night, Morgan was getting off late and so was I, and we got to talking. He said he could get me a few things on the sly. A few good drugs that would quell my sister’s pain. Light doses of Versed mixed with Fentanyl. The stuff they give you to relax before surgery. That’s all she needed. That would be good for her and for me. I don’t like seeing my sister in pain.”
“Of course not.” A mean shiver rides through me.
“Lottie,” Cookie barks out my name. “Something is very wrong. I sense a darkness encroaching.”
Sandra slumps over, her affect waning as if this confession were draining the life right out of her.
“Cookie, get help.”
Sandra perks to life once again as he takes off like a rocket.
“I don’t need a cookie, love.” She pats my knee.
“So Dr. Dawson supplied the drugs your sister needed?”
“Oh, he did. But this last month he was up for chief of surgery, and he told me in no emphatic terms that he would be cleaning up his act. No more girls, no more parties, no more medication for my sister. And I panicked. I started looking for anything that might give me the upper hand. If he wasn’t going to give them to me willingly, blackmail would certainly work. He would see the light eventually. He tried to steer me to that little girl he was seeing, Cassie. ‘She has all the medication you could want,’ he told me. But I wasn’t about to give my sweet sister street drugs. She certainly wouldn’t forgive me. And I don’t need an addict on my hands. Besides, I wasn’t going to get those drugs for free.”
A breath hitches in my throat. “It wasn’t Dr. Dawson you found dirt on, was it? It was Dr. Drake.”
She gives an aggressive nod. “I didn’t need Morgan anymore. In fact, he was a hazard to my sister’s health. I promised my parents I’d look after her. Colin was far easier to blackmail. I have miles of dirt on him. Of course, with the way he keeps running his mouth, he’ll arouse suspicion sooner or later, but with my new position as head nurse, I figure I’ll have better access to the drugs I’ll need. It won’t be easy. They monitor everything nowadays.”
“I’m so sorry you felt this was the only way.”
“It was, Lottie. The night of the party, I didn’t set out to kill anybody. But just before the fireworks began, Morgan let me know he would be turning in anyone who he suspected of illegal activity, and that included staff. He not only wanted to be chief of surgery but a hero, too. He said I was acting unstable, that I needed help. I took off and found that little slut of his. I thought of shoving a fistful of dollars at her and telling her to give me the strongest stuff she had. But then, she would have been able to point her finger at me. So I snatched her purse off the rocks while she danced, and I took what I could find from inside. I didn’t know what it was. I certainly wasn’t expecting to find a syringe and several vials of God knows what. I didn’t hesitate mixing them all together. That’s when I tracked down Morgan. The fireworks started, and we went into the woods so we could have a conversation. That’s when he threatened to have me arrested. I lost my mind. I pulled the syringe out and jabbed him with it. I figured if anything it would make him look like a drug addict. I thought for sure they’d find him and he’d be automatically dismissed as a candidate.”
“You weren’t trying to kill him,” I say in an effort to make her feel as if I’m on her side. I need to get her out of here. I need to get us both back to Noah so we can explain this all to him.
My phone chirps over and over again. I can feel it buzzing in my pocket.