Constance Hodges leaned on her desk and closed her eyes. The dull throb at her temples had turned into a gnawing headache. She wanted to go home, but it wasn’t even two o’clock. She could still see that detective’s face in her mind and hear her voice as she held up the medicine cup. This is our way out. But what if it wasn’t? What if something other than diazepam showed up in the cup? I should never have signed that authorization form. Why did I allow that detective to talk me into it?
These thoughts expanded the oil spill of her panic. Her arms felt weightless. Her hands were vibrating. She could no longer keep Julia Merchant’s accusations to herself. She would have to call the Foster Health Enterprises chief of operations, Michael Berger, and tell him what had happened yesterday. Berger would recognize the potential impact of the situation on the pending offer from Eldercare Elite. He would probably call a senior management team meeting with the corporate communications VP and the legal counsel, and she would be summoned to headquarters to give a full account. She would have to sit at the FHE conference room table with six Ivy League MBAs and summarize her conversations with the Merchants. She would be forced to tell them about Julia Merchant’s surveillance video, and unless she could think of a very creative excuse, they would rake her over the coals for waiting twenty-four hours to give them a heads-up about it. And after she had spoken, they would discuss strategies for dealing with the situation, and all the while they would look past her as if she weren’t even there.
She pictured Thomas Merchant. Where was he right this moment? He must know that she was in the hot seat because of his daughter. Why hadn’t he shut Julia down the moment she opened her mouth? Had he known in advance that she was going to make that accusation in her office yesterday? BNA was financing Eldercare Elite’s pending purchase of Park Manor. Did it serve his client’s interests to see Park Manor’s reputation besmirched? Was he planning to use the situation to demand a lower price for his client? Well, she had her own interests to serve and her own stories to tell, and she didn’t intend to be the scapegoat in whatever financial gamesmanship was going on.
She studied her hands. Was it her imagination or were they trembling more than usual? Michael Berger would think she had Parkinson’s if he saw her shake like this. Any observant person would think there was something wrong with her. She opened her bottom desk drawer and reached into the purse she kept there. Her fingers fumbled through the disorganized contents until they grasped the narrow neck of one of the miniature bottles she had been carrying around for a week. She’d spied the little bottles behind the register at the Murray Hill Wine and Liquor Shop the last time she had purchased a large bottle of Courvoisier. Something had propelled her to tell the proprietor, “Let me have a couple of those minis, too. They’re so adorable.” All week she had enjoyed knowing that the little bottles were with her. And now she realized that she’d purchased them for a reason. She had known—subconsciously, of course—that a time was coming when she wouldn’t be able to get to the end of a day without them.
She pulled the miniature out of the purse and held it in her lap. The bottle’s smooth contours comforted her in a way she knew they shouldn’t. She unscrewed the cap, brought the bottle to her nose, and sniffed deeply. The aroma of vanilla and candied orange intensified her need. She closed her eyes and held the vapors in her lungs. This is medicinal, she told herself. I’ve had a shock. A little sip would calm me down. Memories contradicted her words—her mother cleverly stashing miniature bottles of vodka inside coffee mugs at the back of a kitchen cabinet, beneath sofa cushions, behind books in the bookshelves, under the box springs of her mattress—but Hodges dismissed those memories as soon as they surfaced. No. I’m not like that.
She put the bottle to her lips and tilted it up for just a tiny taste, and then she couldn’t resist any longer. She raised the bottle again, tipped her head back, and sucked out the 80-proof liquid like mother’s milk. She was guzzling the last drops when she suddenly registered that eyes were upon her, and she yanked the bottle from her mouth so quickly that a drop of the amber liquid dribbled down her chin.
Heather Granahan stood in the doorway. She had entered without knocking—or maybe she had knocked. Hodges wiped the droplet from her chin as casually as she could while she lowered her other hand, the one with the bottle, carefully below the horizon line of her desk. For several seconds, her eyes were locked with Heather’s in a magnetic field of uncomfortable silence. How much had the assistant seen? Did she know what cognac bottles looked like? Was she standing there right now and thinking, Constance Hodges is a secret drinker?
It occurred to Hodges that if she were accused of drinking on the job, she would be fired and all her accomplishments would be overshadowed by this short interaction with the small vessel in her hand. At the same time, she realized that the thought did not alarm her. She was pleasantly disengaged from her own emotions. The cognac was already spreading warmth through her extremities. Her tremors were relaxing. She was beginning to float within a bubble of chemically induced calm. She said with confidence, “Yes, Heather. Is there something you need?”
“I can come back later,” offered the redhead uncomfortably.
“No.” Hodges tucked the empty bottle between her knees. “Come in now. I can spare a moment before my next call. Tell me what you need.” And she watched Heather move to a chair. I sound completely normal, she assured herself. Not defensive or overly solicitous. I could just as easily have been drinking ginseng from that little bottle. And Heather would never know the difference. Heather’s not that bright.
“I was wondering,” Heather began timidly, “if I could take next Friday off. My mother is flying in and I’d like to spend the day with her.”
The younger woman’s needs and concerns were so trivial, Hodges thought, and suddenly she wanted to laugh out loud. Instead, she made a show of checking the Outlook calendar on her screen. She stared at the calendar for several seconds, not wanting to appear too unconcerned or too accommodating. And she felt Heather tense with anticipation and hope. Finally Hodges smiled and said, “I think that would be all right, but fill out the usual paperwork of course.”
The young woman sighed with relief. “Thank you, Ms. Hodges. My mother will be so happy. We’re going to go to Ellis Island.”
“How lovely.” Hodges watched Heather rise from her seat and close the office door behind her. Her assistant had seen without seeing, she concluded, like so many unobservant people in this world.
Hodges took the bottle from between her knees, screwed the top on, and returned it to her purse. Next time she would lock herself in the powder room at the end of the hall, she decided. And she ignored the small voice in the back of her mind that whispered, There should never be a next time. Her confidence had returned. She had done the right thing with Codella, she told herself. She had to work with the police. It had been smart to let the detective take those samples. If she hadn’t, Park Manor would look very bad in the press. She would look bad.