CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

Brody and I head into Nashville, and I don’t think either one of us is sad to see Hawthorne Grove retreating in the rearview mirror. We park in the general vicinity of Vanderbilt University and wander around the maze of streets, hand in hand, looking for a place for lunch. We finally settle on a cozy little coffeehouse called Java Jive, the perfect place for a first date, if you want to call it that. I guess Brody and I sort of had a first date already—the night we were forced into our blind date at Vibe and ended up hanging out together all evening. But as with most (all) blind dates, it ended badly, so it doesn’t count.

I don’t anticipate today ending badly. We’ve already been shot at, so really today couldn’t get too much worse, right? We talk and laugh and flirt our way through lunch and then head out to my brother’s apartment, mountain of cookies in tow.

My “little” brother, all six-foot-four of him, opens the door, beaming down at me. “Hey, old lady,” Ryan says, scooping me up off the ground in a hug. He sets me back down and says, “Look at you. You’ve finally lost your baby fat.”

I grin at him. “It’s nice to see you, too, bed-wetter.” Ryan and I love each other dearly, but our relationship is firmly built on insults and name-calling.

His face grows serious. “Before I let you in, I need to know—did you bring the goods?”

“Yeah, I brought the goods.” I lower my voice and whisper, “The baked goods.”

“Shh, not so loud. The cops might hear.”

I nod toward Brody. “He is the cops.”

Ryan turns to Brody and deadpans, “Officer, I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.”

I grin. “Ryan, this is Brody. Brody, my brother Ryan.”

“Hey, man. How’s it going?” Ryan says, smiling at Brody as he greedily grabs the cookie boxes from him, opens one, and snatches a cookie.

“Good to meet you,” replies Brody.

“Come on in, guys,” Ryan says, beckoning us into his apartment. He grabs a pizza box off of his couch and tosses it on the floor. “I’m sure we have some room to sit amongst the old pizza boxes and textbooks.”

I take one look at Ryan’s broken-down, icky couch and say, “I am not sitting on that thing. Didn’t mom and dad give you any money for furniture?”

“They did, but I needed that cool pinball machine more.” He gestures over to a full-size arcade style pinball machine in the corner of his living area. “So, I had to freecycle some furniture.”

Confused, I ask, “Freecycle?”

“People put crap they don’t want out by their trash cans. If you’re lucky, you can grab some choice stuff before the garbage truck comes. And it’s free, so I have more money for important things, like pinball machines.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Really?”

“You’re a girl. You don’t get it.” He turns to Brody. “Am I right?”

Having noticed the pinball machine, Brody is already halfway over there. “Sweet. I used to play this when I was a kid. Where did you get a Simpsons pinball machine?”

“On eBay. You wanna play it?”

“Absolutely.”

Ryan yells into the small hallway leading to the bedrooms, “Tyler, come out and play pinball with us!” He says to Brody, “My roommate can kick anyone’s ass at pinball. Any game.”

“We’ll see about that,” Brody mutters, concentrating on the machine.

Ryan’s roommate, Tyler, emerges from his room. Rubbing his eyes, he gives me a sleepy wave.

“Hey, Ty,” I greet him.

“Hey, Lizzie.” He squints at Ryan, “What’s with all the yelling, bro?”

Ryan replies, “Did you fall asleep reading the pharmacology text again? That’s it—I’m taping your eyelids open.”

“It’s not that I’m tired…it’s that pharmacology blows. Too much like chem class. Besides, podiatrists don’t prescribe that many scripts. I don’t even know why I have to take the damn class.”

“C’mon, man, we’ve been over this. If you don’t learn this shit now, you’re going to kill someone someday by dishing out a lethal combo of meds. I know what’ll wake you up—a nice, friendly game of pinball. I may have finally found you a worthy opponent. This is Brody.”

As the boys are exchanging pleasantries and chowing down on cookies, the wheels are turning in my brain, thinking about what my brother just said. A person could be killed by taking the wrong combination of drugs. I wonder if such a combination could cause a heart attack or for someone to lose control of his vehicle.

“Ryan, can you answer a medical question for me?” I ask.

Grudgingly, he rips his gaze away from the score on the pinball machine and jokes, “That rash should be gone by now, sis.”

Brody gives me a questioning eyebrow, and I shake my head, saying, “Seriously, it’s about drugs.”

Tyler chimes in, not taking his eyes off his game. “Drugs are bad. Don’t do drugs. Stay in school.”

“I’m taking my cookies back if you won’t listen to me,” I threaten. Three horrified, and thankfully quiet, faces stare back at me. “That’s better. Now, as I was saying, I want to ask you nerds some questions about drug interactions.”

“Shoot,” says Ryan.

“Say, hypothetically of course, that someone were to give someone else a combination of drugs, or even a single drug that might react badly with their particular health problems. You’re saying that could cause some type of fatal event?”

“What kind of fatal event are we talking about here?” asks Tyler.

“Oh, I don’t know…heart attack, car accident, death by drug overdose?”

I can feel Brody’s eyes boring into me, but I’m not going to look at him.

Ryan says, “Thinking of offing your ex or something? There are support groups for that, you know.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t you know the answer, genius?” I ask.

“When are you going to get it through your head that I know everything? Here. I’ll prove it.” My brother clears his throat and continues in a professional-sounding voice that totally doesn’t go with his rumpled, frat-boyish appearance, “Drug interactions are a fairly common yet preventable cause of illness and death in many patients. Take benzodiazepines, for example.”

“In English, por favor,” I complain.

He grins. “Benzodiazepines are a class of psychoactive drug found in Valium and Xanax. Combine that with a glass or two of grapefruit juice, and you’ve got yourself a horse tranquilizer.”

“Which could potentially cause, say, a car accident, if it kicked in while someone was driving,” I muse.

“Absolutely. Combine monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which treat depression and are more commonly known as MAOIs, with practically anything and you’ve got trouble. MAOIs plus MDMA, or ecstasy, generally results in death. Eating aged or fermented foods like cheese or beer with MAOI drugs in your system can cause a sudden spike in blood pressure, resulting in a stroke.”

“How about a heart attack? Could a certain mixture cause that?” I ask, sneaking a look at Brody. Cop face again. That boy can be intense.

Ryan replies, “Yes, beta blockers and amphetamines react badly and can cause heart attacks. Even taking something as seemingly insignificant as cough syrup and St. John’s Wort together can cause serotonin toxicity, which can lead to death if not treated.”

“That’s frightening.”

“Exactly. And that’s why Sleepy here needs to quit being a slacker and do his homework.” He gives Tyler a good-natured punch on the arm. “I’m not bailing your sorry ass out of jail for malpractice.”

Tyler rolls his eyes. “I’ll study, but only after one more game. Double or nothing, Brody?”

Breaking out of his stern expression, Brody says, “You got it.”

While Tyler and Brody are vying for the title of Biggest Geek, Ryan comes over to me and steers me into his bedroom. Closing the door, he asks worriedly, “What’s really going on, sis? Why do you want to know all of this morbid stuff?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Does it have anything to do with Brody? He went awfully dark while I was talking about all that drug stuff.”

“Sort of.”

“Lizzie, are you mixed up in more trouble like before?” he asks, anger flashing in his eyes. “You know how mom and dad and I felt about you putting yourself in danger.”

“Yes, your intervention and subsequent ass-chewing last summer made it pretty clear.”

My parents and brother, after realizing I was going to fully recover from the injuries Sarah inflicted on me, decided to rip me a new one about getting myself into trouble, especially since I’m a single girl, living all alone…blah, blah, blah. I may have “forgotten” to tell them about my other life-threatening incident on Halloween.

“You didn’t answer my question, sis.”

“Fine, I’ll fill you in on the whole gory story, but you can’t say a word to mom and dad, or I’m telling them you bought a pinball machine with your furniture money.”

He grins sheepishly. “I guess you got me there.”

I launch into an abbreviated version of the story of Lydia/Catherine and all of her dead acquaintances, and my brother gets paler and paler as I go. After leaving out the part about Daddy and his shotgun, I finish with, “I’m guessing Brody can take all of this evidence and run with it.”

Pausing for a moment for the color to come back into his face, Ryan finally asks, “Is there any actual forensic evidence linking this woman to any of the deaths?”

“I guess maybe not. If all the killings were done with drugs, she probably wouldn’t even have to be physically there at the time of death and could have a killer alibi in place. Pardon the pun.”

He shakes his head. “Promise me you’ll stay away from this woman. Brody’s a cop—let him handle it. And, by the way, what’s up with you two? Are you like dating or something?”

“Or something,” I smile. I couldn’t put a label on our relationship if I tried.

We return to the living area to find Brody and Tyler still glued to the pinball machine, Brody concentrating on his game while Tyler cringes and shakes his head.

Ryan asks, “Aw, Ty, are you getting your ass handed to you, buddy?”

Tyler looks pitifully at us. “He just blew away my best score ever, and he’s not even finished yet. I can’t watch. I’m going to go study.”

I smile, surprised that Brody has a hobby aside from torturing me and cleaning his gun. Gaming isn’t exactly the manliest of hobbies, but hey, he and my brother have something in common, so I’m happy.

We hang out for a while longer, and once it starts getting dark, I say, “Some of us have to work for a living, so we’re probably going to need to head home.”

Ryan says, “You call what you do work? You sit around and read all day.”

“I have to read badly-worded, horribly boring articles all day. And a staggering number of my past and present co-workers are nutjobs. Trust me, it’s work.”

“I guess your other job makes up for it. I wouldn’t work for Cousin Morticia if you paid me. Millions. Is she as much of a shrew at work as she is at home?”

Let’s just say there is no love lost between Ryan and Becca. She’s five years older than Ryan, and she always teased the poor kid mercilessly when we were growing up. Even now, it’s still a little tense when the two of them are in the same room.

Brody snickers, but doesn’t add anything to the conversation.

I reply, “Pretty much. But, she runs a successful business. Sometimes you have to be a bitch.”

“Still, I can’t imagine you touching dead people. You were always kind of squeamish.”

“I don’t have to touch the dead people. And I’ve grown out of my squeamishness, mostly.” Stumbling onto freshly dead bodies has cured me of that. I turn to Brody. “Are you ready?”

“Whenever you are.” He shakes hands with Ryan. “Thanks, Ryan. See you around.”

I hug my brother tightly, and we say our goodbyes.

As Brody and I are walking back to his car, he asks, “Would you like to drive downtown? It’s beautiful at night.”

“Sure.”