Chapter Sixteen
Sharp stopped in the restaurant lobby and spotted the responding cop talking to a man of about thirty or so. The man had short dark hair and a split lip. A busboy brought him a dish towel, presumedly filled with ice, which he pressed to his mouth.
Sharp knew the cop. Vince Tuckey had been a rookie when Sharp had retired from the Scarlet Falls PD.
The restaurant staff was straightening chairs and getting back to the business of serving food.
Tuckey flipped his notepad closed. Sharp approached. “Hey, Vince.”
“Sharp, haven’t seen you in a long time. How’s the PI business?”
“Good. Fewer rules, and I like being my own boss.” Sharp gestured to the bar behind them. “That young lady in the ambulance is my niece.” Claiming Nicki as his own family seemed simpler than explaining their actual relationship. She felt like one of his own anyway.
Tuckey’s smile evaporated. “Sorry to hear that. I hope she’s going to be OK.”
“Me too. What can you tell me?”
“Not much yet. According to the manager, she appeared sick and ran for the ladies’ room.
When she didn’t return to the table, her date followed her.
Maybe ten minutes or so after that, the date and that guy”—he glanced at his notes, then nodded toward the dark-haired man—“Brandon West, argued in the hallway. The date tried to carry your niece away, but West wouldn’t let him.
The date punched West, and West hit him back, but harder. ”
“What happened to the date?” Sharp asked.
“I don’t know, but I plan to find out,” Tuckey said. “According to multiple witnesses, he claimed to be her boyfriend.”
“I don’t know of any boyfriend,” Sharp said.
Tuckey shrugged. “They don’t always tell their family.”
“True.” Sharp nodded in acknowledgment. Nicki was cagey about her dating life with the rest of the family because they could be intrusive, but if she was serious about a guy, she’d tell Olivia.
Those two were tight. But he didn’t argue.
The cops would only work with what he could prove. “What about her food and drink?”
Tuckey frowned. “The waitstaff had already cleared the table when I got here.”
“Damn.” No chance of testing the contents for drugs.
“I know. I hope whatever she was given, it shows up in her lab work,” Tuckey said.
The hospital would run tests for the usual substances, but if it was a designer or atypical drug, it might not show up.
“Can I talk to him?” Sharp nodded toward West.
“Sure. I already got his statement.” The cop waved him toward the witness. “I’m going to have a look at the security vids. See me before you leave.”
“Will do.” Sharp headed toward West, who was pulling a jacket from the back of a barstool. “Hey, can I have a word?”
West turned, shrugging into the jacket, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Sharp continued. “The young woman you helped tonight is my niece. I wanted to thank you.”
West’s mouth flattened as he nodded. “I was just going to head over to the hospital to check on her.”
Sharp lifted his brows. “Oh?”
“I’m a doctor. I work in the ER. That’s why I didn’t let your niece’s date leave with her.
I strongly suspected she’d been drugged.
I’ve seen it before.” Anger darkened his eyes.
“The guy claimed to be her boyfriend, but when I asked to see pictures of them together, he got belligerent.” He pulled the dish towel away from his face and licked his split lip.
“I appreciate you stopping him. Where did he go?”
“No idea. I was busy.”
“You don’t know who he is?”
West shook his head. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Do you come here a lot?” Sharp asked.
“No. I’m new to the neighborhood. Just moved here when I took this job a few months ago. I work long shifts. I don’t go out much.”
Sharp fished a business card and his phone out of his pocket. He handed West the card. “Would you mind giving me your contact information in case I have any follow-up questions?”
“I already gave my info to the police.” West studied the card. “You’re a PI?”
Sharp nodded. “I intend to follow up on this.”
“Won’t the police do that?”
“They’ll try, but they have limited resources.
” And procedure to follow. Sharp was in a rule-breaking mood.
When he’d been a cop, he’d been constrained by procedure.
He’d been a by-the-book detective. That was not the case anymore.
He had no tolerance for this bullshit, and whoever had attempted to prey on Nicki was going to find that out.
“Sure. You can call me.” West recited a phone number.
Sharp entered it into his phone. “Thanks, and thanks again for looking out for my niece.”
“You’re welcome on both counts.” West headed for the door.
Sharp found Tuckey in the restaurant manager’s office. The patrol officer sat at a computer, studying a slightly grainy video. He gestured toward a plastic chair next to the desk. “You’re welcome to watch.”
Sharp planted his butt in the seat. “Find anything?”
“Yes and no.” Tuckey angled the monitor toward Sharp. “Here’s the lounge area of the bar.” He clicked on the “Play” button. “And your niece walking in.”
On the screen, Nicki sat down at a small table.
She was focused on something intently for a short time.
Then the waiter came to her table and took her order.
“As you can see, she appears to be feeling fine at this point.” Tuckey fast-forwarded.
A blond man approached the table. They shook hands, and he sat opposite her.
The waiter brought her a beer, which she sipped while she talked to the date.
“They shook hands, so they’re not in a relationship.”
“I agree,” Tuckey said. “That’s not how a boyfriend and girlfriend greet each other.”
The waiter returned and set a tall glass of beer in front of the date. Sharp watched Nicki’s beer. Olivia had lectured Nicki long and hard about dating safety. Sharp could hear her in his mind.
Even a Coke never leaves your sight. It only takes a few seconds to be roofied.
You could blink and miss it. You don’t accept drinks from strangers.
You don’t drink anything out of a punch bowl or anything mixed in a bathtub.
If you go to the ladies’ room, you get a freshie, and you don’t trust anyone with your beverage that you wouldn’t trust with your life.
Date-rape substances can be deadly. Women die from this shit.
But do these rapist assholes care? No. They do not.
Clearly, Nicki had listened, because she protected her beer like a lioness with a zebra carcass.
“I’m letting it run, though not much happens for the next fifteen minutes,” Tuckey said. “I didn’t see him slip anything into her beer on the first watch, but I’m happy to have your second set of eyes.”
The waiter brought two appetizers and a second beer for the date.
Barely five more minutes passed. Nicki shook herself.
Her face changed expression. She placed one hand on her belly.
Not long after that, she bolted from the table, her steps unsteady.
The date let her go, following her and waiting outside the restroom for a reasonable five minutes.
Sharp made an attempt to view the video objectively, like he’d done hundreds of times when he was on the force, but it wasn’t possible.
There was no suppressing the raw rage that filled him.
“She’s feeling it.” Sharp checked the time stamp on the video. “It’s a little less than twenty-five minutes from when she got her beer. Right on schedule if she was roofied.”
“And she is clearly not drunk,” Tuckey said. “She looked stone-cold sober when she walked into the bar and only drank a quarter of her beer.”
Sharp leaned back. “He didn’t get close to her drink, and no one approached their table.”
“So, if she was drugged, it had to have happened before she got her drink.”
“Do you know what time he arrived?” Sharp asked.
“About ten minutes after your niece.” Tuckey switched windows.
“As you can see, the bar camera is focused on the register, and not all of the bar is visible. But this video of the back hallway is more interesting.” He clicked “Play.” “Obviously, they don’t have a camera in the bathroom, but here is the date trying to drag her down the hallway. ”
Sharp noted the time stamp again. “She must have texted us while she was in the bathroom.”
“She puked in there too, which may have kept at least some of the drug out of her system.”
The blond man had one of Nicki’s arms over his shoulders.
He was carrying the bulk of her weight, while her feet stumbled to keep up.
Anger and pity twisted in Sharp’s gut. Nicki was smart, and also a smart-ass—a younger version of her aunt.
She didn’t do stupid things, at least not big stupid things.
She’d arrived for her date separately. She’d kept her drink covered.
She’d done everything right, and she’d still been doped.
The blond man barely dragged Nicki three steps before Brandon West appeared, blocking their path.
The video was soundless, but the confrontation was obvious.
The date tried to go around him, but West wasn’t having any of that.
He sidestepped to block their path. The date let Nicki slide to the floor.
West turned toward her, and the date sucker punched him in the mouth.
It was a shitty, weak-ass punch, and West took the blow with a shake of his head, then pivoted, using his hip turn to add power, and drove an uppercut into the date’s gut.
The date doubled over, heaving. West gave him a shove and a command, stabbing the air in the direction of the door for emphasis.
Then he turned back to Nicki. Then Olivia pushed through the crowd.
Sharp gnashed his teeth and pointed to the screen. “If West hadn’t been there, the blond guy might have gotten her out of the bar.” Would he have taken her home? Or would he have taken her somewhere else? She would have woken up with no memory of what had happened to her.