Chapter 24 #2
Flint shifted beside me, his thigh pressing against mine beneath the table. A constant reminder that he was there, at my side and he had my back.
Brewster looked down at his coffee. “I withheld the toxicology because the results were inconsistent with the official cause of death.”
No segue. No warning. Just the bomb placed neatly between the sugar dispenser and laminated dessert menu.
I forgot about coffee. “What was inconsistent?”
“Guy had a sedative in his blood.”
My pulse kicked. “What sedative?”
“Midazolam.”
Flint leaned forward.
I knew the name. “Versed.”
“Yes.” Brewster nodded once.
“Hospital administered?” Flint caught the thread of my questioning and jumped in.
“No.” Yet, the way he said that one word suggested either he didn’t believe it or there was something else he was holding back. Elliot was a very good liar, skilled at compartmentalizing but Flint and I were throwing him off his game.
Or maybe his suspension was. I shoved those both to the back of my mind. Not important at the moment.
I went with my next question. “When was the sample taken?”
“After admission.” Brewster took a sip of his coffee.
Flint’s turn. “How long after?”
“Approximately four hours.” That information left a disgruntled expression on his face.
“Approximately?” I raised my brwos.
With a sigh, Brewster went from sipping his coffee to turning the cup into a slow circle. “The draw time and processing time don't match.”
I stared at him. “How badly?”
“Thirty-seven minutes.”
A huff escaped Flint. “That isn't a rounding error.”
“No.”
The waitress returned with coffee. Bless her. She put it in front of me without looking at Flint. I liked her and she was getting a huge tip including the five bucks I scored off of Flint.
I took a sip as Flint sighed in mock disappointment. Everyone else might think he meant it, but I could feel the flex of his thigh and caught the barest curve at the corners of his mouth.
“Give us a little longer,” Flint told the waitress. “We haven’t looked at the menu yet.”
“I’ll be back then.”
Brewster waited.
It was a fresh pot, strong, and rich. I savored the first sip and then the second before I resumed the threads of our questioning. “When was Guy given Versed?”
“We don't know.”
“Then how do you know the hospital didn't administer it?” Flint took a long drink of the glass of water she’d brought him. She’d also brought me one, so he’d be well-hydrated.
Rubbing a hand over his face, Brewster suddenly looked tired. “No corresponding medication order.”
“That doesn't mean it wasn't administered.” I blew lightly at the edge of my mug before taking another drink. It was just this side of scalding. Seriously perfect coffee.
“No.” Yet, Brewster wasn’t happy with that answer either.
“Could have been emergency use.” Flint speculated.
It was my turn. “Verbal order.”
“Charting error.” Brewster shrugged. “Whatever it was, the first tox screen showed no signs of it.”
That… was significant.
I stopped with the coffee halfway to my mouth.
Flint went still.
“Two tests. The standard blood draw in the ED when he was admitted and a second one four hours later. Midazolam appears on the second.” That summed it all up. Brewster’s recitation still didn’t explain why he hid it, but we’d get there.
I lowered the cup. “So, we can deduce that Guy received the versed at the hospital.”
“We can speculate,” Brewster corrected me. “But we can't establish that.”
I stared at him. “You just established the first sample was clean.”
“For midazolam.”
“And the second wasn't.” I raised my brows. I hadn’t imagined what he said.
“Yes.” For a moment, Brewster just looked weary. Soul weary and I sympathized with him there.
Flint saw it before I did. “You don't know which if any of those two samples are reliable.”
“If hospital staff drew the samples and they labeled them correctly—I’m assuming chain of custody was involved because of the investigation.” Now I was thinking out loud. “Why are you uncertain if either sample is reliable?”
Brewster hesitated.
“Elliot.”
“The second sample wasn't processed through the hospital's primary laboratory.”
I’d always possessed a kind of internal radar that would go off when something sounded like bullshit. That didn’t mean the words were wrong, but the what and the why behind them were suspect.
“Then where the hell was it processed?” Brewster’s last admission just felt—wrong. “FBI facility?”
“No, an offsite—contracted one.” Those few words pulled from him with almost agonizing slowness.
“Which one?” Flint asked.
“I can't tell you.”
I laughed. I genuinely couldn't help it.
Brewster's expression hardened.
“You came to my boyfriend's apartment—” The word escaped. Everything stopped.
Oh. Well. Fuck it.
Flint turned his head slowly. I refused to look at him. Not because I regretted it. Because if I saw his face right now, I was going to lose the thread of this conversation entirely.
Across from us, Brewster’s face became unreadable.
I cleared my throat.
“You came to Flint's apartment,” I corrected, approximately nine hundred years too late, “after being removed from the case, told me you withheld evidence, dragged us to a diner—”
“You chose the diner,” Brewster murmured.
“Not helping,” Flint murmured in a low voice that said he really didn’t give a shit if Brewster helped his own case or not.
“Sorry.” He absolutely was not sorry.
I continued. “And now you're invoking confidentiality?”
“I'm not authorized to release laboratory information.”
“You aren't authorized to do anything right now.” I snorted.
The comment landed on the table like a grenade. Brewster’s expression froze.
I regretted it almost immediately. Not because it wasn't true. Because I'd wanted information, not blood. Dammit, I was too tired for this. “Elliot—”
“You're right.”
That shut me right up.
Brewster sat back. “I don't have authorization.” His voice had gone quiet. “I'm not here in any official capacity.”
Flint's attention sharpened but Brewster ignored him and kept his gaze locked on me.
“I'm here because Simon contacted me.”
The name sounded wrong in his mouth. I also couldn’t tell if he was using to just get one over on me or to deliver a subtle dig. Maybe both. “What did he say?”
Brewster reached into his shirt pocket.
Flint's hand caught my thigh.
Brewster flicked his eyes toward Flint, then slowed his motions. With no challenge or sudden movements, he removed a folded piece of paper and placed it on the table. Once there, he pushed it toward me with two fingers.
Undeterred by his choice, Flint intercepted.
The profiler’s eyes flashed.
“My house,” Flint reminded him.
“We're in a diner.” The snap was equal parts outrage and anger.
“My rules traveled.”
Despite myself, I smiled then I leaned against Flint as he unfolded the paper so I could read over his arm.
Three lines.
You keep asking what I told her.
Ask yourself what she will discover without me.
Guy already has the answer.
I read it twice. Then a third time.
“Guy already has the answer,” I murmured.
“He's dead,” Flint said.
“Yes.”
Brewster watched me. Too closely.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head.
“Bullshit.”
His expression tightened.
I leaned forward. “What do you think it means?”
“I don't know.” A lie. It registered like a ping on a sonar.
“That's why you came here?”
“Yes.” Another lie.
“No.” I shook my head and then tapped the paper. “This didn't send you here.”
“Yes, it did.”
Somehow, I doubted he could convince himself with that tone. “It made you afraid.”
His gaze cooled. “Mallory.”
“What did you ask him?” I ignored the warning in his voice.
“I told you.”
“No. You told us you asked him about what he told me about you.” The devil was always in the details.
He grimaced, but didn’t deny it.
“So,” I said, circling back to my original question. “What exactly did you ask?”
Brewster stared at me.
Flint stroked his thumb along my thigh beneath the table. It was a comforting gesture, warm and steady.
I waited.
Finally Brewster admitted, “I asked whether he'd told you why I withheld the toxicology.”
Flint’s hand stilled.
“And?” I raised my eyebrows when Brewster didn’t finish his sentence.
“He said no.”
That surprised me and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. “Simon answered you directly?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me more. He always seemed to circle the questions, asking his own, honing the information down like a wood carver.
“What else?”
Brewster looked toward the windows.
“Elliot.”
“He said he didn't need to tell you.” He didn’t look at me, his gaze seeming to search the passing traffic outside.
A cold little sensation crawled along my spine. “Because Guy already has the answer.”
“Yes.”
I sat back, hands wrapped around my coffee mug as I raised it for another sip. The weight of Flint’s hand on my thigh was a comfort but it also grounded me as I sorted through all of the information.
Running down what we knew, and what questions we still had. Guy died. His medical records were doctored. Fourteen pages were missing. There were two toxicology reports—one of which had been processed outside the hospital per Brewster.
“What happened to the original sample?” Most blood draws took more than needed in case the test had to be rerun. I hadn’t even realized that we didn’t know or how important that was until I asked it.
“What?” Brewster frowned.
“The blood.”
“I heard you.”
“Then what’s the answer?”
His expression had frozen like someone hit a pause button. The tight furrow of his brow coupled with the whitening of his knuckles on his coffee mug before he drained it also told me something.
“The first draw had to go somewhere.” When Brewster continued to say nothing, I laid out my thinking for them both. “If there were two tox screens, there were samples. Tubes. Chain of custody. Lab accession numbers.”
Flint looked at me. I could practically hear his brain shifting gears.
I continued. “The records are missing because we've been looking at results.”
Brewster said nothing.
“Not specimens.”
Still nothing.