“No, I’m ready. In fact, I’m going stir-crazy. I know you’re jammed up, but I’d love to see you some time. Don’t get me wrong—Ginger is great. She’s just not much of a conversationalist.”
“Maybe Thursday. I have to go out of town tomorrow for a good chunk of the day.”
“Where are you off to?”
“To see a donor who lives out of town. They need handholding through all of this mess.”
“Okay,” Phoebe said, though it seemed odd for Glenda to be leaving town for a day when the campus was in so much turmoil.
“There’s one thing I want to bring you up to speed on,” Glenda said. She let out a long, weary sigh. “It bugged me when you said that Trevor Harris had felt the campus cops were out to get him, and I decided to discreetly investigate. From what I can tell so far, it seems Ball’s been shaking down certain students—pressuring them to make payments to him in exchange for not slapping them with charges for things like drugs or vandalism. No wonder campus drug use seems to be down.”
“Oh, man,” Phoebe said. Though she’d never cottoned to Ball, she hadn’t seen this one coming. “I think I may have even spotted him in action. I came across him having a talk with the same male student twice, and he seemed sheepish about it.”
“The bodies just keep piling up, don’t they? I need you to go through the student handbooks and see if you can find that kid. But no one can know anything about this yet, okay? We’re going to try a sting operation. Of course, this could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back for me.”
“G, I’m sorry. Let me know if I can help in any way.”
She had planned to pick Glenda’s brain about what she’d heard today regarding the doctor, but changed her mind. She would wait until she had more information. There was no point in upsetting Glenda any more than necessary.
She fell asleep at about ten thirty, a book still on her lap and Ginger curled between her legs. Sometime during the night, something roused her—as forcefully as if she’d been shaken awake. She shot up straight, confused. Both her back and her elbow hurt like hell, probably from being scrunched up on the couch. Was it pain that had woken her? Or something else? At her feet, Ginger remained motionless but emitted a long, steady growl.
“What is it?” Phoebe whispered urgently. She froze and listened. The dog stopped and then started again almost instantly, this time her growl laced with threat. Somewhere nearby there was something the dog didn’t like. Phoebe searched with her hand to make sure her phone was within reach on the trunk next to the couch.
For a minute Phoebe detected nothing. But then, from outside a window along the side of the house, she thought she heard a sound. She strained to hear. It might have been nothing more than the creak of a tree branch in the wind. No other sound followed. For the next two hours Phoebe lay with her head against the armrest, listening. Around dawn she finally fell back to sleep. When the sun nudged her awake an hour later, Ginger crawled up toward her head and licked her face.
“You’re such a good little doggie,” Phoebe said. “What if you stayed with me forever?” Her words surprised her—she hadn’t even sensed them in advance—but as soon as she spoke, she knew it was what she wanted to do.
Ginger licked her face again.
“I’ll take that as a yes, okay?” Phoebe said.
She spent her morning reviewing the assignments that had begun to trickle in. But her mind kept returning to the appointment with Dr. Rossely that lay ahead. She wasn’t sure why she felt so agitated about it. It all
His office wasn’t far from her, just two blocks south and one west in an area that was part residential, part business. There were a few older clapboard houses still on the street, but others had been torn down to make way for two-story office buildings like the one Rossely was in.
The space inside wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting. Rather than some fussy or run-down-at-the-heels reception area, there was a spare, modern space with posters on the wall from exhibits of the Barnes Foundation. The two patients in the reception area never gave her a second glance, but the receptionist, a middle-aged woman dressed attractively in a pink satin blouse and pearl stud earrings, seemed to study her with recognition. Of course, Phoebe thought as she filled out the necessary forms. I’m a celeb around here now. I can’t tell
A nurse popped into reception about ten minutes later, called out Phoebe’s name, and led her to an examining room. The doctor arrived shortly after that. He was around Phoebe’s age, six-one, and more urbane than she was expecting. He had on a pair of fancy-looking frameless glasses, and he’d had his thinning hair trimmed into a buzz cut, a hip look she rarely saw in Lyle.
“Dr. Rossely,” he said, shaking her hand. He practically oozed bedside manner. “My, you’ve had a busy week.” So either he’d recognized her, too, or the receptionist had tipped him off.
“Oh, so I’m busted, then?” Phoebe said, smiling.
“I’d hardly say busted. You’re a local star. It must have been some ordeal to go through.”
“Yes, unfortunately it was. I’m a bit battered and bruised.”
Rossely glanced down. “I see from your records that you were treated at Cranberry Med. Aren’t you working with the doctors you had there?”
“By and large, yes,” Phoebe said. “From what I can tell so far, they did a nice job repairing my elbow. But I’d like a second opinion on my right shoulder blade. It got whacked pretty bad and hurts like crazy. They told me it’s only a bruise, and there’s nothing they can do for it.”
The words had sounded so forced and fake as she said them—it was as if she were doing a bad job performing in a high school play—and she wondered if he suspected that she was remolding the truth.
“And they didn’t prescribe anything?”
“Tylenol with codeine. I tried it just for a few days.”
“Well, let’s take a look,” he said. “In my opinion, there’s always something that can be done. I don’t like seeing people suffer needlessly.”
He edged around the side of the examining table and opened the back of her gown. With a firm but careful touch, he probed the area with his fingers. Twice, she winced in pain. The part about her shoulder hurting hadn’t been a lie.
“Sorry about that,” Rossely said. “The area definitely seems inflamed. Let’s get an X-ray and see if there’s also swelling.”
Rossely departed, and the nurse came back; she escorted Phoebe into another room for the X-ray. As Phoebe was led back to the examining room, she heard a buzz of activity coming from rooms up and down the corridor. Finally Rossely returned. He was holding an X-ray, and with one swift movement of his hand snapped it onto a light box mounted on the wall.
“Well, the good news is that there’s no fracture,” he said, smiling. “But as I said, there’s definite inflammation, and that should be treated. Off the record, they should have paid more attention to this at Cranberry, but things get pretty crazy up there.”
“Thank you,” Phoebe said. Rossely opened her folder on the counter and jotted a few words down. Out of the corner of her eye she studied him. Though she found him unctuous, he certainly didn’t look sinister in any way. Was this just some stupid wild goose chase on her part?
He swung around slowly, smiling.
“I also want to give you something for the pain,” he said. “Pain’s a funny thing. People often think they should tough it out and try to ignore it, but you can start a weird cycle that way. The pain almost feeds on itself, and then the cycle is hard to break. It’s better to nip it in the bud.”
“Of course, I did try the Tylenol with codeine,” Phoebe said. “But I didn’t feel it helped.”
“This is much better,” he said. “It’s OxyContin. You should take two every twenty-four hours.”
Instinctively, Phoebe’s mouth parted in surprise. OxyContin, she knew, could be addictive. Hutch had even mentioned it going for $80 a pill on the black market.
“Is something the matter?” Rossely said, obviously noting her reaction.
“No, I was just wondering if it was safe. I’ve heard people sometimes have problems with it.”
“It’s safe if used correctly,” Rossely said. He smiled tightly. “It’s essential with any drug to follow the directions to a T. No more than two a day, as I said.”
