Sunset Beach(119)

“Dad! I swear. I promise you, I am not a pill head! It was Ben. He tried to kill me.”

“Ben? Our Ben? Ben Fentress?” Brice looked stricken. “That’s just nuts. It must be the pills talking.”

“It is not the damned Oxy!” she cried. “Ben came over this afternoon. He brought me a kale smoothie that he’d spiked with Oxy, which the doctor just told me was itself spiked with fentanyl. Only he didn’t know that I’m allergic, sort of, to drugs with codeine. It makes me violently ill. So I puked up most of it—before the fentanyl could kill me.”

Brice shook his head sadly. “Why would Ben do something like that? You’re friends. You’re colleagues, for God’s sake!”

Drue slid off the examining table, hurriedly pulling the hospital gown closed. She swayed slightly, grasping the edge of the table for balance.

“I figured it all out today. When Neesa came to my house, she admitted most of what we’d already guessed. That Byars made her help him after he killed Jazmin. And Dad, it was just like what I thought. He called Jazmin, just as she was going off shift, to tell her to come to that room. And when she got there, he was waiting. And there’s more—”

“I don’t care about that,” Brice interrupted. “Talk to me about Ben Fentress and why you think he would try to kill you.”

“I am so stupid,” Drue said, smacking her forehead. “Such a freakin’ idiot. I basically called Ben this afternoon and practically invited him over to try and kill me.”

She walked unsteadily over to a narrow locker in the corner of the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for my damned clothes.” She flung open the door of the locker and found a large plastic baggie containing her belongings. She opened the bag and fished out her cut-off yoga pants, sliding them up beneath the gown. The T-shirt was next, but it was spattered with still-damp vomit.

“Eew. Gross.” She dropped the shirt onto the floor of the locker. When she glanced over at her father, he was staring at her, momentarily speechless.

“Shoes, Dad!” she said, impatiently snapping her fingers. “Where are my shoes?”

“You’re not leaving here,” Brice said. “The doctor said they’ll probably admit you, as soon as a bed opens up.”

“Nope.” She fished her bra out of the bag, turned her back to her father and proceeded to don it.

“I’m not checking in, I’m checking out,” she announced.

“To do what, exactly?” he asked. “You can’t even stand up straight. You came here by ambulance, Drue. Five hours ago you were found unconscious in a pool of your own vomit. You practically flat-lined.”

“I’m not near death. I’m a little groggy, is all.” She pushed past him and poked her head out of the curtain. “I know Corey and Jonah are the ones who found me and called nine-one-one. Where are they?”

“I sent them home,” Brice said. “They wanted to stay, but I convinced them to go. Frankly, I think they were relieved because they didn’t want to be here when I confronted you about your drug use.”

He paused. “They found the pill bottle in your purse, Drue. Your friend Corey went looking, so he could tell the EMTs what you’d overdosed on.”

Drue was so angry she was shaking. “Why is it so damned hard for you to believe that I am not a pill freak? I already told you, I don’t do drugs. Didn’t I pass your stupid drug test? As for that pill bottle, I’m sure Ben planted that in my purse so that when you found my body, you’d come to the conclusion you are so eager to reach.”

Brice looked stricken. “I want to believe you, but this story of yours is just not credible. Listen to yourself, Drue. You’re telling me that Ben tried to kill you with a smoothie? Where’s the smoothie?”

She closed her eyes and tried to find an elusive sense of calm.

“He came back,” she said, remembering one of the last moments before she passed out the first time. “I started getting really woozy after I’d drunk about half the smoothie. He didn’t have the balls to hang around and watch me die. I’d crawled into the bathroom, and I heard the front door open, and then footsteps. I tried to call out to him for help. I didn’t realize he’d deliberately poisoned me. I bet he came back to collect the evidence—the smoothie.”

She snapped her fingers again. “My files. The files and all my index cards. I bet he took them too.”

“You’re still not making sense,” Brice repeated. “What does Ben have to do with Neesa Vincent or Jazmin Mayes?”

“He figured it out. All of it. Somehow, he tracked Neesa down after Jimmy Zee couldn’t. She claimed she didn’t tell him anything, but he figured it out. I think he went to the hotel’s insurance company and convinced them to pay him to keep what he knew quiet.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ben,” Brice argued. “He’s a computer geek. Not a blackmailer. Certainly not a killer.”

“Just get me out of here, okay?” Drue pleaded. “Sign the discharge papers, do whatever it takes, but get me out, and I’ll explain everything. And then we’ve gotta call Rae Hernandez and let her know what happened.” She grasped his arm. “Please, Dad? You have to trust me. We can’t let Ben get away with this.”