Chapter Ten

My heart raced my sneakers down the white corridor. Nurse Smith had assured me that Pen would be okay, but on the drive over my adrenaline had spiked to dangerous levels.

In my head, I was remembering the day six weeks ago when Danny’s body had been wheeled in after Gray Wolf turned him into a monster and we’d had to shoot him with a salt flare to stop him from killing me.

“Kate!” Nurse Smith called. As I moved toward her, I tried to find some solace in the fact that she was assigned to Pen. Back when she’d treated Danny, I appreciated that the nurse didn’t candy-coat and she never lost her nerve when shit got tense.

“Special Agent Morales,” the nurse said in greeting to Morales. They’d met when Danny was in his coma.

“Thanks for calling,” I said. “Is she okay?”

Smith rubbed her eyes and stretched her back, indicating she was well into a long shift. “She’ll live, but she might not be happy about it for a while. In addition to the concussion, her left wrist is sprained, and she has a couple of broken ribs, contusions all down the left side of her body, and a nasty case of whiplash.”

“Any idea how the wreck happened?” Morales asked.

Smith jerked her head toward a uniformed cop loitering by the coffee machines. “That’s the responding.”

I nodded. “Is she awake?”

“She’s having her dressings changed.” She gave me the number of a room about four doors down the hall. “By the time you’re done getting the story they should be done and you can check on her.”

“Thanks, Nurse Smith.”

She smiled genuinely. “If there’s anything you need…”

Morales and I approached the uniform a few moments later. “Excuse me?” I held out my hand. “I’m Detective Kate Prospero and this is my colleague Special Agent Drew Morales, MEA. I’m Penelope Griffin’s best friend.”

The officer swallowed his mouthful of coffee hard and his eyes widened at hearing our titles. The guy couldn’t have been old enough to have outgrown wet dreams. “I’m Officer Murphy. I responded to the wreck?” When I nodded and waited expectantly, he shuffled on his feet. “Can we discuss your friend’s wreck someplace private?”

I was torn between annoyance and pity. The kid was obviously fresh out of the academy and just trying to do a good job. But his deferential demeanor struck a chord in some jaded part of me that had forgotten the days when I had that same ambitious shine in my eyes. Back when I thought I could make a difference. Back when I still believed there were good guys and bad guys, and it was always clear who deserved to win.

“Detective?” he said hesitantly after I didn’t respond.

I snapped myself out of the dark spaces and cleared my throat. “Yes, of course. Sorry.”

“Totally understandable, ma’am.”

It was the “ma’am” that spelled his doom. “In there,” I snapped, pointing to a small consultation room off the main waiting area.

Murphy, Morales, and I entered the empty waiting room. My partner shot me an odd look, like he’d seen something on my face that concerned him. I shot him a dismissive frown.

The door wasn’t even closed when the kid started in. “Does Miss Griffin use illegal Arcane substances?”

I paused in the process of shutting the door behind us and then slowly snapped it shut. Talk about choosing the absolute worst question to lead with. I turned to face him, my back against the closed door. “Are you sure that’s what you meant to ask me?”

He frowned. “Yes?”

I pushed away from the door. “Really? Did you have any evidence from the scene that might implicate her in potion use? Further, was there evidence that the wreck was her fault?”

“Err—no. I’m just trying to cover my bases.”

I narrowed my eyes. “By putting the interview subject on the defensive before the conversation even starts? Bad form, Officer.”

“Kate,” Morales said under his breath. I ignored him and continued to stare down the rookie.

His mouth worked for a second. I let him flounder on the end of the line for a few seconds before I continued. “If you want someone to be open and honest with you, you need to first establish rapport. Most of the people you will talk to in this line of work are emotionally distraught and/or hiding something. If you come at them head-on you’re going to hit one brick wall after another.”

His expression became wary. “Okay?”

“May I see the initial accident report,” Morales asked. The guy shrugged and handed it over.

I made a disgusted sound. “How long have you been on the force?”

He pulled himself up straighter. “Six months, ma’am.”

My eyes narrowed. “Ma’am is something you call your Sunday school teacher or your mother, not a goddamned detective, son. When you’re talking to a superior female officer, you call her sir or by her rank. Got it?”

He nodded slowly and backed up a step, like he was worried I was mentally unstable. I suppose I was in a way. Unhinged. Yeah, I felt about two screws away from becoming totally fucking unhinged. “Now, as to your question: It’s pointless to ask me if Pen’s had a history of Arcane because even if she did and you tried to pin a DUI on her, the evidence wouldn’t hold up in court because her lawyer would have it dismissed as hearsay.”

“According to this,” Morales said, holding up the paper, “Pen’s car was T-boned by the other vehicle, which means she is not at fault for the accident.”

My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Seriously?” I grabbed the report from Morales. “In addition, the car that hit her was a potion-fueled vehicle that was in hover mode. With the two full moons this month, owners of those cars have been cautioned to drive in Mundane fuel mode so as to avoid collisions caused by the unstable lunar energy.”

The kid nodded. “I—”

“Why don’t you cut the shit and tell me where the other driver is?”

He blinked once, twice. Cleared his throat. “Um, the other party didn’t survive the accident. That is documented if you’d kept reading, sir.”

I sucked on my teeth and glared at the smart-ass.

He grimaced. “Look, I’m sorry I got this off on the wrong foot. It wasn’t my intention to insult your friend.” He sounded so sincere that I lowered my hackles. “I asked if she had a history because she had on one of those recovery token necklaces.”

I glanced down to be sure my own necklace was tucked inside my shirt. “And that made you suspicious?”

“No offense, Detective”—he nodded toward my own necklace—“but being in dirty magic recovery doesn’t mean she’s clean.”

That took a lot of the wind out of my sails. “I see.” I quickly pushed the necklace back inside my collar. “Was the other driver freaking on anything?”

Murphy nodded. “As it happens, yes. There were two empty ampoules with traces of Arcane substances found in the car, and the ME said preliminary signs indicate the deceased had been using some sort of Arcane substance. Said he likely wouldn’t test it, though, since the cause of death was obviously the collision.”

“How does he know the guy didn’t have a heart attack or stroke while driving?”

Murphy shrugged. “Suppose he doesn’t, but as it happens the guy lost his head.” He mimed slicing across his neck. “So I guess the ME figured that was good enough for the death certificate.”

Not long after that exchange, Murphy escaped to go file his paperwork at the precinct.

“Went a little hard on him, don’tcha think?” Morales said.

I grimaced at him. “He deserved it.”

He raised a thick brow. “Did he?”

I sighed. “Maybe I rode him a little hard, but he was lucky I was a cop and not some hysterical civilian leading with that question.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

I was saved by Nurse Smith, who called across the way, “She’s awake.”

I swallowed the last dregs of frustration from my conversation with Murphy. The last thing I wanted when I saw Pen was to walk in lugging a chip on my shoulder. I’d already dumped one of those on her during our argument the night before. I cleared my throat and ran my hands through my hair.

“Be right back,” I said to Morales. He nodded and leaned on the counter like he planned to work his mojo on the nurses. Three of them had found excuses to linger and make doe eyes at him.

Leaving him in their capable hands, I walked to Pen’s room. Because of her crappy health insurance plan, she was stuck in a joint room with three other patients. A TV droned from the wall, and the chatter of the other patients and their families rose from behind the partitions. The curtain was pulled around the bed marked as Pen’s, but a couple of weak coughs came from the other side. I poked my head though the panels.

It had been one thing to hear Smith’s list of Pen’s injuries. Seeing her battered face was a shock to every protective instinct in my body. Her left eye was totally swollen shut and her right was surrounded by abrasions. The anger threatened to erode my intention to put on an upbeat facade. I wanted kill the asshole who’d done this all over again. While I was at it, I also wanted to kick my own ass for being the reason she’d been at that sham of a party in the first place.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hi.” The sound was a barely audible scrape of words against air.

“Next time you want to clean the street try to remember not to use your face,” I joked lamely.

The corner of her lips lifted but immediately dissolved into a pained grimace. “Ow.”

I moved forward to comfort her, but she was so banged up I was afraid to touch her. Instead I settled on adjusting her pillow a little. It wasn’t much but it was movement, and it made me feel a little less useless.

“You here alone?” she asked finally.

“Morales is out in the lobby. He insisted on coming after I got the call at the gym.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry—”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just—Look, it’s no big deal. He wanted to come to make sure you were okay.”

She nodded but looked down at her bandaged hand. According to the nurse, when her car flipped, her left arm was trapped between her body and the door. An image of her unconscious and unprotected in that car for hours made my stomach turn with fear and guilt.

I shuffled my feet. “I’m sorry.”

Her head jerked up, but the move made her wince. “Why?”

“That you’re in pain. That I’m a dick. That we fought last night. Lots of things, I guess.”

Her eyes widened. “It’s not your fault, Kate.”

I snorted out a breath. “Like hell. I—”

She held up her good hand. “Stop it, okay? I’m not going to let you make this about your guilt. I’m the one in the hospital, and frankly I don’t have the energy to try to make you feel better about that.”

My mouth fell open at the unusual bitterness in my friend’s tone. “I—” But then it hit me that she was absolutely right. I should be comforting her, not the other way around. Which was also why I wouldn’t be bringing up my surprise visit with Uncle Abe the next day. Normally, Pen was my sounding board and best advice dispenser, but now she needed me—not the other way around. “Do you need anything?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but a nurse whipped the curtain back. She rolled a cart ahead of her that was filled with a bunch of tiny plastic cups and potion vials. “Time for your pain potion, Miss Griffin.”

Without thinking, I spoke for Pen. “She doesn’t take potions.”

A hand slapped mine. Hard. I turned to see my best friend frowning at me like I’d kicked a puppy. I hesitated. “What?”

The nurse answered for her. “Your friend has a sprained wrist, two broken ribs, and whiplash. She needs pain relief.”

I put my hands on my hips. “She’s also a recovering potion addict, which should be in her file.”

The nurse’s brows rose. “So? This is a clean potion.”

I crossed my arms and pinned her with a glare. “Clean or not, it’s still common for people to become addicted to pain potions, correct?”

Her eyes shifted. “Occasionally, but—”

“But nothing. If she needs pain relief, surely there are Mundane remedies.”

“Kate—” Pen’s voice was small.

I turned. “Do you want to throw away ten years of sobriety because you’re in a little pain.”

Her eyes went all squinty. It took me a second to realize her expression wasn’t from pain, but from irony.

I pressed my lips together. “Do what you want, then.”

Pen’s gaze flicked from me to the pills in the nurse’s hand and back to me.

“It’s up to you, Miss Griffin. I can give you some high-dose acetaminophen and ice for the swelling, but it’s not going to do as good a job as a potion would.”

Indecision was sketched clearly into her features. Part of me wanted to relent and tell her to just take the damned potion already. But what kind of friend would I be to enable her like that?

A small voice in the back of my head reminded me that she’d encouraged me to accept Volos’s help with the Danny situation. But I’d like to think if she’d known that decision would have ended up with me cooking, she would have helped me find another solution.

Anyway, I hated the idea of dooming her now to live with the same guilt that had been eating me alive for weeks.

“It’s not worth it, Pen.” She paused, looking me directly in the eyes. I shook my head to underline my plea. Finally, she sighed.

“I’ll just take the aspirin and an ice pack.” She certainly didn’t look or sound happy about it. In fact, she looked pretty pale and her movements were too careful, like any sudden gesture would jack up her pain level.

And then I really felt like an asshole. Because deep down I had to admit that I hadn’t talked her out of using potions to keep her from feeling guilty. I’d done it to save myself guilt.

But by the time I realized this, the nurse had shrugged, muttered “Suit yourself,” and walked away shaking her head.