17
ANDY
“Is that water?”
Andy didn’t want to show any sign of weakness, but his throat was so dry, it hurt to swallow. Speaking was even worse. The glass was on the table next to the bowl with the rabbit, and he couldn’t stop looking at it.
“When you and I first met, I injected you with a drug called Etorphine. It’s an extremely effective paralytic and sedative. Unfortunately, it also causes severe dehydration. Tell me, do you also have a headache?”
Andy nodded, and that slight movement rippled through his skull from back to front like a jagged wave. When it hit his eyes, he had no choice but to pinch them shut against the building pressure, like his eyelids were the only things keeping them in his head.
“Dehydration is a peculiar thing. The texts break it down into three stages: mild, moderate, and severe. Mild and moderate can typically be reversed with a simple intake of fluids, ideally containing electrolytes, while severe may require intravenous intervention. You’re still early in your condition—exasperated by the Etorphine, to be sure, but still relatively mild.
I imagine your tongue is swollen, and you’re probably craving sugar along with water. Am I correct in those assumptions?”
Andy nodded again and immediately regretted it. The pain was sharp, like an icepick to the temple.
“The good news is that withholding liquids will decrease your blood pressure. I’ve seen a significant drop just in the past several minutes.
Unfortunately, the reason for the decreased blood pressure is the taxing nature of dehydration on your heart.
It causes your heart to beat faster, but with less force.
And, of course, the stress can act as a multiplier.
Your heart rate is currently at ninety-eight beats per minute and increasing.
” He adjusted his glasses. “Most people believe the human body can survive up to three days without succumbing to dehydration. They think the thirst is what kills them, but that is actually untrue. It’s not the thirst; it’s heart failure.
Lack of water typically ends with some type of coronary event.
Of course, the subject usually isn’t aware at that point because dehydration also makes a mess of the brain.
A simple two percent drop in brain hydration will cause short-term memory loss.
Prolonged dehydration causes brain cells to shrink in both size and mass, resulting in a condition not unlike dementia in the elderly.
The kidneys and liver don’t fare much better.
It’s honestly amazing some people live such long lives, considering how fragile our bodies really are. ”
Andy eyed the glass. “Can I have some water?”
“No, you may not,” the man stated flatly. “At this point in our work, I feel that would be counterproductive.”
Andy knew what the guy was doing. Just talking about water and all this garbage was making him thirstier.
Psychosomatic suggestion. Andy had no idea where he’d heard that term, but he was pretty sure that was what it was called.
You tell someone they’re thirsty, and they become thirsty.
You tell them they’re sick, and they feel sick.
You tell them they have a headache . . .
He did have a headache, though, and he was fucking thirsty. When was the last time he ate or drank anything? He wasn’t sure. He’d had a corn dog and bottle of water for lunch, but when was lunch, exactly? Had that even been today? He had no idea how much time had gone by.
Andy licked his lips and tried not to think about how dry they felt. “If I don’t have water, I won’t be able to think clearly. I won’t be able to answer your questions.”
“Nobody said you have to speak to answer my questions.”
As if in response to that, the cuff on Andy’s arm tightened, held, and released. The man checked the monitor and made a note on his pad.
“You said you were born in Toledo. Is that also where you grew up?”
Andy swallowed and tried to ignore the sandpapery texture of his throat. “Haskins.”
The man nodded. “Forgive me if this is insensitive, but do you know both your parents?”
“I never met my father.”
The man tapped his pen with impatience. “I didn’t ask if you’ve met your father—I asked if you knew your father. It’s important you pay attention.”
“I knew of him,” Andy answered, and when the man didn’t object to that, he went on.
“He’s in Ohio State on a third strike. He got caught in possession of thirty-two grams of coke for some buddy of his.
Enough for a trafficking charge. He drank a lot, and Moms said he used to hit her, so she wasn’t too sad about him going away. ”
Twisting to the desk at his back, the man studied several folders.
When he found the one he wanted, he turned back around and opened it on his knees.
“Your father’s name is Brian Dickson. Thirty-seven years old.
Inmate 98503. Would it surprise you to learn he claimed your mother planted the drugs on him and tipped off the police to get him out of the house? ”
“Moms wouldn’t do that.”
“You were eighteen months old at the time,” the man stated. “What qualifies you to make such a statement?”
“I didn’t know my father, but I sure as shit know Moms, and she don’t got a hurtful bone in her body. She bent over backwards to raise me right.”
“Yet you ran away from her and you’re living on the streets cultivating a burgeoning criminal record of your own.”
Andy fought the urge to tell this guy to fuck the hell off.
What did he know? He knew how to lure a kid into his car.
He knew how to jab him with some kind of knockout juice.
Knew how to strap him to a chair. But he didn’t know jack about him and the bullshit he’d been through. He knew nothing about Moms.
“Your father said your mother was sleeping with other men for money while you were in your crib. Apparently, she hauled you and your crib out to the living room while she was ‘entertaining’ and wheeled you back into the apartment’s single bedroom when they’d gone.
He said he’d sometimes come home to find you wearing the same diaper you were wearing the previous day.
Your person and sheets covered in leaked shit and piss. ”
“That’s not true.”
“She once forgot to feed you for two and a half days.”
“Bullshit.”
“Your mother planted the drugs on your father when he threatened to report her to Child Protective Services.”
“He was a drunk piece of shit who beat the hell out of her.”
Reaching into the folder on his lap, the man withdrew a single sheet of paper and smoothed it out. “Aside from the cocaine, would you care to hear what your father had with him when he was arrested and booked into the Wood County jail?”
Andy didn’t want to hear. He didn’t want to hear any of this. That didn’t stop the man from reading it to him.
“The possessions of one Brian Dickson upon intake: one Casio wristwatch, thirty-eight dollars in cash, a tube of Chapstick, mint-flavored, a pack of Marlboro Reds—six cigarettes remaining—and one ninety-day sobriety chip from Alcoholics Anonymous. He volunteered for a blood draw. Blood alcohol came back at zero point zero, and the only drug found in his system was ibuprofen.” He stared down at the page for a moment, then looked up at Andy.
“Does that sound like the kind of man who beats his wife on some stoned bender?”
“The chip don’t mean shit,” Andy shot back. “You know how many people I know who got those? Just ‘cause he was sober when they brought him in doesn’t mean he was any day before that. And he had all that coke on him, too. He probably just didn’t get around to putting it up his nose yet.”
“The cocaine was found stuffed under the passenger seat of his pickup truck. He claims it was planted. He’d never seen it before. Who told you he was holding it for a buddy? I imagine that was your mother?”
Andy pinched his eyes shut. His head was killing him. His throat. He needed water, but he wasn’t about to give this guy the satisfaction of asking again. “Why are you telling me all this?”
The man didn’t answer; instead, he read from another sheet of paper in his folder.
“Shortly after your father was arrested, you were removed from the house by child services. You were placed with a foster family. Where you, at eighteen months old, were treated for heroin withdrawal. Your mother’s habit found its way to you through her breastmilk. ”
“She got me back,” Andy told him. “You think I don’t know all this? She sobered up and got me back six months later.”
“She did,” the man conceded. “Apparently, she was far from done with you.”