The Bitterest Pill

Seventy-nine

Petra North’s face went blank when she saw Jesse walk into the ICU. Her parents were on either side of her, and it was clear Annette had been crying. The shocking thing for Jesse was that Ambrose North’s eyes were no less red. Maybe, Jesse thought, it isn’t so shocking after all. He couldn’t imagine how he would have reacted had the Explorer crash been worse and Cole’s injuries more serious.

“Hi, Petra,” he said. “Can I borrow your parents, just for a minute?”

She seemed relieved and a bit confused. “Sure.”

The three of them stepped outside the unit, where Robbie Stanton was now stationed.

“Go get a cup of coffee, Robbie.” Jesse tilted his head at the stairway door.

Before Jesse could speak, Ambrose said, “She’s scared, Chief.”

“Of what? We don’t want to get her into trouble, we just want to get her help.”

Ambrose turned to his wife. “Annette, go be with her. I’ll be in momentarily.”

Annette looked scared, opened her mouth to protest, but instead placed her hand on Jesse’s forearm. “She was desperate, Jesse. Please remember that.” Then she walked past him and back into the ICU.

“Jesse, I heard you have a teacher in custody. Is that correct?”

“Am I speaking to Ambrose North, Petra’s father, or Ambrose North, attorney at law?”

“Both, I’m afraid.”

“We have someone in custody.”

North took Jesse by the left biceps and began walking down the hospital corridor. Jesse walked with him. “What if I told you I have it on good authority that you have the wrong woman in custody?”

“I know that already, but the evidence is damning. Until I can have someone or something to refute—”

“And what if I could give you the identity of the person you should have in custody? Would you be willing not to press charges of distribution of a controlled substance? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“She dealt drugs, your hypothetical daughter?”

Ambrose flushed red, coughed. “This isn’t easy for me to say, Jesse. This person, this other teacher, she... she seduced Pet — my hypothetical daughter. She promised to... God, this is difficult. She promised to continue their affair and to supply this daughter with drugs if she... did what she asked. It lasted for only a few days. Jesse, please. I’m begging you as a father not to imperil her future.”

Jesse dropped the hypotheticals. “You know the charges are up to the prosecutor, but if you give me the name now and Petra is willing to testify, I will go to the wall for her with the prosecutor.”

“That’s not a guarantee, Jesse.”

“Not mine to give, but I’ll keep my word. I don’t want to hurt any of these kids.”

“I’m sorry,” Ambrose North said, the strain evident on his face. “She’s already been through so much and we didn’t do the best for her in the past. Now we must. Call the DA’s office and get someone over here.”

“You’re willing to let an innocent woman sit in jail?”

“I’m afraid so, if it means protecting Petra.”

Jesse glared at the lawyer. “Then don’t expect help from me, Mr. North. I was a professional baseball player. Trust me when I tell you, you don’t know what hardball is. I walk out the front door of this hospital without that name and Petra’s on her own with no backing from me.”

Robbie Stanton returned, a white foam cup in hand, steam rising through a hole in the lid. The aroma cutting against the medicinal smells of the hospital.

“She’s a target now,” Jesse said to Robbie, loud enough for North to hear. “No one in but the parents, the doctors, and the nurses. Any of the visitors you don’t recognize need approval from a nurse or a doctor. No excuses, no stories. I’ll have Suit send someone down to help, but no bathroom breaks until your backup arrives.”

“Okay, Jesse.” Stanton took a sip of his coffee and put the cup on his chair. He stood outside the ICU entrance, arms folded across his chest.

Before leaving, Jesse turned to Ambrose North. “Remember what I said.”

She had whittled down her essentials to two suitcases and a gym bag, but she knew her only real essentials were the dwindling tablets she rattled inside the white pharmaceutical container. She had just crushed up one of the few left to her and snorted it. It helped calm and focus her, but it removed some of the urgency from her packing.

Her plan, such as it was, was to head down to Boston. She still had some connections there that might help her out, at least enough to get her through for a few days. Then she was going to head west, call in to work from the road about a dying aunt or a sick uncle. Maybe if the girl died and things calmed down, she could come back and reclaim her job, but that was all too far ahead for her. At the moment, she was waiting for a call back from her old boyfriend from Boston, a doctor who had once professed love for her. If he allowed, she would put that faded love to the test. She was perfectly willing to prove herself to him. She hoped he would ask. She liked the idea of sleeping with an adult again, especially one who could write scripts and make her healthy.

The phone rang, and when she answered, she fairly purred into the mouthpiece.