Page 68 of High Society

“How, Graham?”

“Like I’ve been telling you, my new company is on the cutting edge of surveillance products.” He grins. “We have the absolute dopest gear. And we get tons of new gadgets to test at the office.”

Aaron can feel his ears heating. “Surveillance gadgets? As in bugs?”

“Yeah. Voice-activated shit. Some of them not much bigger than the head of a pin.”

Aaron rises from his seat. “Did you tap my phone?”

“No, not your phone!” Graham gets up and hurries over to the far wall. He stops at one of Aaron’s favorite paintings, a charcoal sketch of a woman in a dress drawn only from the neck down. He reaches behind the frame, fiddles for a moment, and pulls out what looks like a tiny USB plug-in. “It’s the only one I placed in the house. I swear.”

“Goddammit, Graham! How dare you bug my house!”

“What? I was just testing out the effective audio range. It’s not like I bugged your bedroom or something.”

“Christ! Even you have to know better than this!”

“I was going to tell you, Dad.” Graham folds his arms across his chest. “It’s only been there for like three days. I just happened to pick up another one of Holly’s damsel-in-distress convos with you.” He scowls. “And what do you mean, ‘even you’? What the fuck, Dad?”

“You have no right to—”

“Kind of hard to overlook, though, isn’t it? Two dead patients in a couple weeks. Both under sketchy circumstances. Both of whom had dirt on Holly.”

“You don’t have the first clue,” Aaron growls.

“Come on, Dad. Just like Holly said to you last night. It’s pretty fucking convenient!”

Aaron only glares at his son, feeling closer than he has in years to hitting the boy.

CHAPTER 34

Though it was Salvador’s idea to meet, Simon is happy to host the others in his home, where they all sit in a circle on the blue velvet chairs in the living room. Salvador and Liisa are on either side of him, Reese and Baljit across from him. It’s as close to a family as Simon has these days. But JJ’s absence is palpable. And there’s an edginess to the gathering. It reminds him of how awkward and painful things got with the band after Jeremy’s suicide. Nothing was ever the same, and the band soon dissolved. He wonders if that will be the fate of the tribe, too.

“I heard a rumor that JJ was drinking again,” Baljit says.

“Who told you that?” Salvador asks.

“A friend,” Baljit says. “Her little brother is a paramedic in Newport. He says they found empty bottles at her place.”

“JJ was drunk most nights before she began treatment,” Liisa points out. “And she never jumped then.”

“But she was completely bent out of shape over Elaine’s OD,” Simon says.

Salvador nods vehemently. “And throw in the shame of having fallen off the wagon…”

Baljit glances from Salvador to Simon and shakes her head. “Is that what you figure, doctors? That’s literally what pushed JJ over the edge?”

Reese’s head snaps toward the other woman. “What’s wrong with you? Is nothing off-limits?”

“She wasn’t exactly my friend,” Baljit says unapologetically. “Besides, sometimes humor diffuses the tension.”

“Well, she was my friend. And you’re not funny.”

Simon has a mental image of the two women naked and bloodied, tied at the wrists and ankles, wrestling on an oily mat. He forces the fantasy out of his mind, aware that he’s slipping again.

“Why don’t you dial down the meanness, Baljit?” Salvador says, siding with Reese. “We’re all in shock after losing JJ the way we did.”

Simon nods. “I can’t imagine what was going through her head after she jumped.”