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I drove away from the house.
Angry.
My hands were tight on the steering wheel as I crossed the bridge over to downtown.
Elizabeth had caught me by surprise. It was the last thing I'd been thinking she might want to talk about. I figured it would be about her classes or her roommates or her running, or something else that might not turn my stomach.
But I'd been wrong, and I'd reacted poorly.
I'd broken my promise to not get pissed.
I knew that even as I drove away from the house and over the bay. I knew that I'd end up apologizing. I knew that I'd overreacted and if anything, I might've pushed her away by being so obstinate. I knew all of those things even as I stormed out of the house.
In the same way that I couldn't understand Elizabeth's need to have any attachment to people she'd known in her other life, she was never going to be able to comprehend what it had been like for me. I didn't expect her to nor did I need her to. But there was no way she'd ever be able to understand how much I detested everything related even remotely related to her abduction. It would never change. Every time it was mentioned, it was like a knife right into my stomach.
Every single time.
I hadn't left the house with a plan because I hadn't planned on leaving. I didn't want to turn around and deal with Elizabeth at that moment. I wasn't ready to do that.
So I took the five around Old Town and then headed east toward El Cajon.
My visit with Thad Paulus had given me information I hadn't expected. I didn't want to go back to Mike until I had a few things clear. I didn't want to give him all of the confusing details Paulus had given me and then dump those in his lap. I wanted them sorted out so that I could present them in a way that meant something.
When I pulled up at the house where I'd found Patrick Bullock, Ricky Brown was dragging an armchair down the front walk and toward the back of his pickup. He was in a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans that were ripped at the knees. He glanced at me as I pulled up behind the truck, then lifted his chin in recognition.
“Thought you guys were already out?” I asked when I got out of the car. “Didn't we get it all before?”
He pulled the beaten armchair near the bed of the truck. “I had to come back and meet the guy to give him the keys. He'd emptied out the garage and just set it all outside.” He shook his head. “Literally just threw it all outside once the cops got rid of the tape, I guess.”
I nodded, looking at the other stuff in the truck. A dresser, some boxes, a couple of lamps. A black guitar case jotted out from between some of the boxes.
“Told me if it wasn't gone today he was gonna give it away,” Ricky said, frowning. “No idea what I'm gonna do with it all, but I didn't think it was cool for all of Patrick's stuff to get dropped off at Goodwill or wherever.”
“Right,” I said.
“Ruben and David were supposed to be here,” he said, glancing around. “But I guess they overslept or something.”
“You find a place to stay?”
“Staying with my sister for now,” he said. He rubbed at his chin. “But she just had a baby so I can't stay for long. I think David and Ruben are at Ruben's mom's for now.”
None of those living arrangements sounded ideal, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for them. It sucked losing a friend and losing a house all at the same time.
He squatted down to lift the chair into the bed of the truck and I moved closer to help him.
“You know Thad Paulus?” I asked.
He straightened, squinting at me for a moment. “What?”
“Thad Paulus. Do you know him?”
He shook his head. “I don't think so.”
“Patrick's dealer? He had to have been around, right?”
He blinked a couple of times and something flitted through his expression. “I don't remember.”
I didn't say anything.
“He might've been, yeah,” he finally said. He lifted up the armchair without my help and shoved it into the pickup. “Patrick had a lot of friends.”
“A lot of friends that were dealing to him?”
“Look, man,” he said, closing up the bed on the truck. “I wasn't into that shit. Ever.”
“Heroin, you mean, right?”
“Yeah. I've never touched that shit.”
“What about pills?”
Ricky fiddled with the latch on the truck bed. “Pills?”
“Xanax, specifically.”
He unlatched the bed, pulled the gate down, then pushed it close again. “What are you even talking about?”
“I'm asking if you ever bought Xanax or something like it from Thad Paulus,” I said. “It's a pretty specific question.”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I am,” I said. “You want me to remind you when and where you bought it?”
“Are you a fucking narc or what?”
“Nope. Just looking for some answers.”
“What the fuck does asking me about buying pills from Thad have to do with Patrick?” he asked, his face screwed up in anger.
Thad.
That confirmed the first part I was trying to get at. I was fairly certain that Ricky knew him.
And based on his reaction, I was dubious that Ricky had given the pills to Patrick. He genuinely had no idea why I was asking about them.
So I made a decision.
“The toxicology report came back on Patrick,” I said. “You know what that is?”
He leaned against the truck. “Where they tell you what shit was in his blood?”
“Yep,” I said. “He had Xanax in his system, but Thad said he never sold it to him.”
He thought for a moment. “But I thought you said there was a needle in his arm? That he O.D.'d on heroin?”
“That's what I thought,” I explained. “But there was barely any heroin in his system. Virtually nothing.”
Ricky looked confused. “That doesn't make any sense.”
“I agree.”
“No, not what I mean,” he said, shaking his head. “So, maybe last year? Patrick got strep throat. He freaked out. Not because he was sick, but because he had to take pills. We were totally giving him shit because he hated swallowing pills. Like, hated it.”
“So he never took a pill?” I asked. “Ever?”
“Well, no,” Ricky said. “He did. But he absolutely hated it. It completely stressed him out.”
“Was this when he was using or when he was clean?”
Ricky frowned. “No idea. If I had to wager a guess, probably when he was clean. He wouldn’t have cared about it if he’d been high, you know? At least I don’t think he would have.”
I thought about what Patrick’s mom had told me, how his addiction had started with pills. Maybe he had some sort of PTSD associated with the physical act of taking pills, like he thought it might start him down the path to using again. It was the only explanation that would make sense of what Ricky was telling me.
But he still hadn't answered my question.
“Did you give him any of the pills?” I asked.
He didn’t answer right away, but I noticed the tells. His gaze shifted from me to the ground, and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “No.”
“But?” I prompted.
“But what?”
“There's something you're not telling me,” I said.
He finally glanced back up, his mouth twisting back and forth as if he were physically trying to find the words he wanted to say. “Look, I didn't give Patrick anything I bought from Thad. Ever. I knew Patrick was trying to stay clean. Shit, I didn't even bring beer in the house because I didn't want it to seem like I didn't care about what he was going through.”
I waited.
He didn't say anything.
“But?” I repeated.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I gave them to somebody else.”