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Mark
Mark’s sister Melinda had arrived at the hospital ten minutes after Darby had left and promptly driven him home. She’d proceeded to force him to rest even though he was mostly just sore, and made him eat a dinner of chicken salad and sourdough bread. He’d snuck a beer when she’d gotten on the comm with her husband.
While he was grateful for his sister’s caring nature, what he really wanted was for her to head home and quit mothering him.
“I’m fine!” He insisted when she wandered out to the garage after she’d ended the call to her spouse.
“No you’re not,” she said. “You had a horrible accident today. You should be in the hospital.”
He scoffed as he grabbed the last bundle of shingles for the dollhouse from the workbench. “They wouldn’t have released me if I wasn’t okay.”
She scowled. “Isn’t it about time you started riding a desk?”
He shook his head. “Few more years before I can take the lieutenant’s exam. Besides, I’d miss the streets.”
She crossed to him and laid a hand on his arm. “We already lost Dad. I don’t want to lose you, either. Today was too close. You could’ve been—”
He put a finger up to her lips, silencing her. “What was Dad’s rule, Melinda?”
“Don’t talk about dying in the line. A close call can make us grateful for the time we have, but it’s what you both signed up for.”
He nodded. “I signed up for this. Now, maybe more than ever, I get that life is fragile. But I’m not going to put aside my badge, not when there are bad guys still out there.”
She bobbed her head. “Even if you have a family? What is it going to be like if you have kids?”
Mark lifted his finger again. “I’m ready to go down in the line if it happens. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have kids now.”
“Mark...”
“Look, are you going to nag me or what? Because you can go home. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. But I need to get this dollhouse done.” And I need Darby to come back.
She nodded slowly. “Okay. I’d rather wait until someone else can be here to keep an eye on you.”
“Fine.” He lifted his small hammer and pointed it toward her. “But I don’t want any more second-guessing.” He paused a beat. “You want to help?”
She nodded and took the hammer he held.
Melinda had just put the last piece on the dollhouse when Mark heard a door slam outside. He glanced at the clock. Barely nine, and Darby was back? His radar went up.
“Didn’t you tell her ten?” Melinda asked.
He nodded. “I kind of expected her in late.”
“Maybe something happened.”
“One way to find out.”
“I’ll put your tools away.”
He wiped his hands on his pants. “Leave it. I’ll never find it if you put it away.”
Melinda didn’t respond to the dig, just followed him inside.
Darby was fumbling to get the door open. Mark frowned as he undid the bolt and security system. It wasn’t like her to be sloppy.
She nearly fell when he opened the door.
He caught her in his arms before she could make it to the floor.
“Get off me, you bastard!” She swatted and forced herself up and away from him.
What the hell? “Darby, what’s wrong?”
He glanced back at Melinda.
She shook her head.
“You!” She stumbled into the end table, knocking the lamp off.
“Me what? I haven’t done anything!” He closed the distance and caught her before she fell. “Careful, Darb.”
“You’re an asshole.”
Melinda came around and took Darby’s other arm. “Darby, look at me.”
“Melinda,” she slurred. “I didn’t see your car.”
“It’s parked down the street. Now, I’m not going to disagree with you about Mark. But what’s going on?”
She pouted, but let his sister help her to the couch. “He slept with my best friend.”
A punch to the gut would have been less painful. “Genova told you?”
“See! It’s true!”
Melinda shook her head and looked to Mark, scowling. “Mark, did you?”
“It was a mistake.”
By the glare she gave him, Melinda wasn’t exactly on his cheering squad.
“Never mind. Darby,” Mark said, “have you been drinking?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Isn’t it obvious?” She shoveled her fingers through her hair.
“How many?” Melinda asked, smoothing Darby’s hair from her face.
Darby shook her head. “Double bourbon. Glass of wine.”
“Did you have dinner?”
“Yeah. With Will. He doesn’t sleep with my best friend.” Darby got up, or tried to. She managed to make it to a cushion further down the couch before her legs gave out.
Melinda gave her a once over, then turned to Mark. “I have a test kit in the car. Why don’t I get it and see what her blood alcohol is?”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Have you ever seen her this plastered before?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve seen her have three glasses in a night and never get this hammered. She’s small, but she can usually handle alcohol.”
“Well, if I was in her shoes and found out you’d slept with Genova Murphie, I’d probably want to get hammered, too.”
“We can discuss my moral failings at a later time.”
“In what state of mind did you decide sleeping with your partner’s best friend was a good idea, Mark?”
He opened his mouth.
But she held up a hand. “Wait, don’t tell me. I actually don’t want to know.”
His sister returned her attention to Darby, then frowned. “Still, something seems off.”
Good. Get the focus back on Darby. Help her get better. “What can you test for?”
“A little bit of everything.” She owned a drug testing laboratory which contracted locally with Bendex.
He grabbed her arm. “Whatever you find out, you can’t report to Bendex.”
“I’m not going to use it against her.” Melinda stood. “Try to get her to bed. If she’ll let you.”
Darby had curled up in a ball. She was clearly sweating but hadn’t taken off her coat yet.
He crouched next to her, running a hand over her forehead, pushing her hair back. Guilt riddled him. Maybe they should have owned up to it when it had happened. Maybe things would have played out differently. “Darb, I’m sorry you found out like this.”
“I didn’t jus’ find out, I figured it out. You thought you were being so smart about how you reacted to her name. It jus’ clicked.”
Mark wasn’t so sure. He wouldn’t put it past Genova to tell Darby to get at him.
Not that Genova was vindictive. But she may have accidentally-on-purpose let it slip. Just to mess with Darby.
And it had clearly messed with her.
What if her finding out ruined any chance he’d had with her? She might definitely say no. Stupid, knee-jerk reaction three weeks ago. He shouldn’t have gone to Genova’s, shouldn’t have put them both in that position.
Then again, she’d been rejecting him the last two years. What right did she really have to object to how he spent his nights—or who he spent them with?
Still, he wasn’t going to argue with her now, not when she was so drunk she was slurring her words. Tomorrow, they could duke it out.
He pressed his lips together and leaned back. “Darb, we didn’t plan it. It just happened.”
“And it wouldn’t have if you hadn’t been pissed with me! If I’d told you two years ago that your DNA was off.”
Of course, Melinda would pick that moment to come inside.
She looked at her brother, eyebrows raised. “Your DNA is off? What the hell is she talking about?”
“I’ll tell you later. Figure out how smashed she is.” He backed away as Melinda helped Darby sit up.
After three rounds of breath testing, Melinda stood, shaking her head. “She should be passed out. Her blood alcohol is .137.”
Mark blinked, then stared at Darby. “No way.”
Melinda nodded and turned back to Darby. “She’s going to have a major hangover in the morning.”
“Even for being drunk, she’s not acting right.” How had she managed to get so smashed? Had Genova intentionally let it slip, knowing Darby was drunk, just to get her stirred up? Or was there actually more going on than met the eye?
She’d gone to the SHS meeting, intent on confronting Richard Pierce. If he’d been there—if he was guilty of anything, could he have given her something? Something to sully her reputation, to distract her from his crimes?
Melinda stared at him. “Umm, she accused you of sleeping with her friend and some other crap. Sounds like typical drunk-mad.”
He dragged a hand down his face. “Can you test her for other stuff?”
Melinda sighed. “I’ll have to do a blood draw. She may refuse.”
“Do it. I know drunk. She’s way more than drunk.”
Melinda ignored him. She crouched down in front of Darby and talked with her quietly.
Darby opened her brown eyes and watched Melinda closely, then nodded, and with Melinda’s help, sat up again enough to shrug off her jacket.
Melinda grabbed the case. “She agrees. Said she has a headache and feels really uninhibited. Could be the alcohol but...”
“Yeah. I have a bad feeling. It’s unlike her to drink so much in such a short time, and even then, something’s off.”
“So you’ve said.”
Melinda opened the kit and pulled out a syringe. “This won’t be exact, but I can check for narcotics, amphetamines, date rape drugs and at least get in the ballpark. For anything else, I’ll have to take it back to my lab.”
“That’s fine.”
Darby barely flinched a minute later when Melinda drew blood from her elbow.
“Mark, put pressure on this.”
He stood behind the couch, pressing his hand over Darby’s elbow while his sister found the second syringe to clot the spot and help it heal quickly. She dabbed it over the bloody spot, then turned her attention to the syringe of blood.
Mark watched his sister work for several minutes as Darby began to snore.
“I’m going to carry her to bed,” he announced.
Melinda nodded. “Good idea.”
Mark rounded the couch and lifted Darby into his arms. It hurt a little with the soreness from his injuries, but the electrical charge fired.
It must have done something to her as well since she frowned and pushed against him in her sleep.
“Easy,” he whispered quietly. “Moving you to the bed.”
“You’re a bastard,” she murmured, but her eyes were closed.
“You can insult me in the morning.”
“Remind me.”
He sighed as he laid her down. Yeah. Remind her. He hoped she’d wake up in the morning, better able to handle the news. Maybe, as drunk as she was, she wouldn’t remember in the first place.
After removing her shoes, he covered her with a blanket and returned to the living room, careful to leave the door open so he would hear her if she stirred.
Melinda was frowning when he came back.
“What?” he asked.
“I want to check this back at the lab, but her blood’s testing positive for ecstasy.”
Mark gawked toward where Darby lay, sleeping off her dangerous cocktail of alcohol and date rape drugs. With that mix, there was the very real possibility she wouldn’t remember any of this. “Who the hell drugged her? And why?”