sob story about having our passports and wallets stolen. We assuaged her immediate suspicions by producing a large enough cash deposit to counterbalance any qualms that we were about to trash the place and skip out. I think our air of bone-deep weariness mixed with English respectability won her over.
She gave us adjoining rooms, told us what time the complimentary breakfast would be laid out in the lobby, and had already wished us a pleasant stay before it occurred to her that might be difficult.
As we trudged back out to fetch our luggage I was aware of being so tired my vision was vibrating with the effort of keeping my eyes focused. I noted the movements of the people in the lobby almost on autopilot. If someone had pulled an Uzi out from under his coat I would have seen it, but I was probably too far gone to comprehend what it meant.
More than twenty-four hours sitting in a car without sports seats made me feel like someone had been kicking me repeatedly in the base of my spine. I was praying that, sometime sooner rather than later, the nerves into my left thigh would overload and shut down.
Walking out of the hotel, I could feel the gathered heat releasing from the ground up into the darkness. The night air was hot, and humid enough to drink, sticking my shirt to my back almost instantly. Sean popped the boot and he and my father grabbed the bags while my mother wheeled out a luggage trolley from the lobby.
It was only as Sean swung my bag up with the others that I remembered I hadn’t re-zipped it fully after our last stop. I stretched out a hand, but I was too tired and too slow. The little brown plastic bottle of Vicodin I’d stuffed just inside the top of the bag went spinning onto the ground and rolled to a stop by my father’s foot.
He picked it up before I could stop him, recognized the type of the bottle and scanned the label automatically. He was halfway through handing it back when he stopped, frowning, and looked up at me.
“These are yours, I assume, Charlotte?” he said. He held the pill bottle top and bottom with a disdainful finger and thumb and shook it gently, gauging the level of the contents by the resultant rattle.
“Yes,” I said, reaching for the bottle, but he whisked it out of reach. Fatigue is not a good sedative for temper. Mine lurched into life, leaving blotches of vivid color splashed behind my eyes. I held my hand out. “Do you mind?”
“That my daughter’s on Vicodin? Certainly,” he said. He shook the bottle again and peered at the date on the label. “And, it would seem, consuming them at a rate of knots. How long have you been taking these?”
I glanced to Sean for support, but he had that closed-up look to his face. He didn’t need to speak for me to see his mind working it out.
“On and off,” I said bluntly, “since I was shot.”
“I see. Naturally, you are aware that Vicodin is addictive if taken long term.”
“Of course I am,” I said, aiming for haughtiness but not making it much past defensive instead. “I don’t use them regularly—just when I need to. When my leg’s bad.”
“Were you taking them the day you passed your physical?” Sean asked suddenly, and the unexpected coolness of the question took me by surprise. Our closeness in the car, our solidarity, suddenly evaporated in the face of his veiled accusation.
“I—”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, both of you, leave the poor girl alone!” my mother said. “Don’t you think she’s got enough on her plate without you both jumping on her over this?”
“I’m sorry if you feel that the danger of our daughter turning into a drug addict is something we should just ignore, Elizabeth,” my father said.
My mother laughed. It was a bone-tired laugh, with a touch of hysteria skimming just under the surface. “Of course we shouldn’t ignore it, but I hardly think this is the time or the place to make it into an issue, either,” she said stoutly. “How many times have you told me people make bad decisions when they’re in pain? Surely you agree that’s the last thing any of us want at the moment—least of all Charlotte?”
“Vicodin is a mix of acetaminophen and hydrocodone,” my father bit out. “Hydrocodone is a narcotic pain reliever and acetaminophen increases its efficiency. Among the many possible side effects are impaired reactions and reduced mental alertness. In other words, it can severely affect the decisionmaking process. One has to be careful about letting a patient drive, or operate machinery. But you’re quite happy for Charlotte to be running around with
My father must have been tired, too. It was the first time I think I’ve ever heard him sound so testy with her, but my mother was undaunted. She drew herself up straight as a duchess and treated him to a lofty stare.
“And have Charlotte’s actions so far shown her to be anything but entirely rational?” she asked with brittle dignity. She allowed herself a shaky smile. “Terrifyingly so,” she added, and her voice softened. “Whether we like it or not, Richard, our lives are in Sean’s and Charlotte’s hands and I, for one, am prepared to trust her judgment implicitly.”
My father gave a single muffled tut, the only outward sign of his annoyance. He glanced at Sean, as if for support. I didn’t expect for a moment that he’d get it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still taking painkillers, Charlie?” Sean said quietly.
My brain was working too sluggishly to do more than gape at him for a moment. “Don’t start, Sean,” I snapped. “Nothing I’m taking has stopped me from doing my job. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, but are you doing it in spite of the Vicodin?” he said. “Or because of it?”
My mother stepped between us and put an arm around my shoulders. “Be sensible and leave it for now, Sean,” she said gently. “We’re all tired enough to say things we’ll regret in the morning. Come along, Charlotte,” she murmured steering me towards the hotel entrance. “I think for once we can forget equality of the sexes and leave the men to bring in the luggage, hm?”
I shrugged her arm away. “I can still do my job,” I said, dogged, stepping away from her and struggling not to stagger.
“Of course you can, darling,” she said, “but at what cost?”
As we walked through the automatic doors into the lobby, I glanced back and saw Sean and my father, still by the open boot of the car, watching us. They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, I noticed, unconsciously presenting a united front. Ironic that the first time they were in any kind of accord, it was to team up against me.
We slept like the dead, all of us. Ten straight hours. When I woke, I reached out a hand and found Sean’s side of the bed already empty but still warm from his body heat. When I lifted my head I heard the sound of running water in the shower, and I rolled over slightly to check the time on the digital clock by the bed. It was 6:08 A.M.
And as I moved, I noticed something else on the bedside table that hadn’t been there when I’d crawled into bed the night before—my bottle of Vicodin. For a moment the fear ran through me that perhaps Sean had junked the contents, to prove some kind of a point. I reached out and picked it up. The plastic bottle had some weight and I couldn’t help the sense of relief that went with that discovery.
“If you need them, take them,” Sean said from the bathroom doorway. I hadn’t noticed the water shutting off. The light was a little behind him, so his face was in shadow. He had one bath towel wrapped loosely round his hips and was wiping his neck with another.
I felt something hard and frozen tighten at the center of me. “For the moment,” I said baldly, “yes, I think I do.”
“I know,” he said, moving so he was in the light. His eyes were very dark and very cold. “But when we get back to New York, you are going to come off them. And if you need help to do that, we’ll get it for you.”
My chin came up and I met his gaze steadily. “I’m not hooked, Sean,” I said. “I won’t need any help.”
He regarded me for an elongated moment, then nodded just once.
“Okay” was all he said.
The business center was deserted when we went down to the lobby, so Sean was able to log on to the e- mail account Parker had given us without fear of anyone looking over our shoulder. There were two e-mails in the Inbox from the nondescript address Parker had set up for himself. Not worried about downloading viruses, Sean opened the first one.
