I said to Gabrielle, “I’m glad I ran into you. Rick Janeway is looking for you.”
Her smile was grateful. Rick was her direct supervisor. “I better go see what he needs. Please, excuse me?”
Spence didn’t move, so she had to scrape her body past his. The contact set her mouth in an angry line.
As soon as she was gone, I whispered, “What was that, Spence?”
He had the grace to look a little bit embarrassed. “What was what?”
I gave him mom eyebrows, stern but much more loving than I felt toward him. As if he were being nothing more than naughty. “I think you know.”
He shrugged, faux sheepish. A boy with his hand in a cookie jar. “I was flirting. I’m six inches from single, so what’s the harm?”
“You’re her boss, for starters.” Still not stern. More amused, though I wanted to smack him. Gabrielle was talented, but he was a named partner and a rainmaker. In a he said/she said, the firm’s bottom line would listen to him. At the very least, he owed her an apology. But I had to get him in the mood to have a friendly drink with me, and quickly. Something irreplaceable, more precious than a woman’s career or dignity, was at stake here. A life. Robert’s life.
He blew out air like a frustrated horse. “Yeah. I know. I do know better. I was talking about the divorce, and she was being sympathetic. . . .” His ruddy cheeks flushed deeper red.
This felt like an opening. “Well, nothing happened, really. Let’s have a drink and forget it.” If the mother had her way, he would forget a lot of things tonight. And she was going to have her way. I pulled the flask out. “I packed a little of Trey’s Pappy. I have a shot left. . . .” I shook it, tempting him with the slosh of it.
Spence blinked owlishly at the flask, and I realized he was drunker than I’d thought. He carried it well, I had to give him that. I held the flask out, my heart hammering, willing him to make this easy. But he shook his head. I paused, surprised and instantly afraid. I’d never seen Spence turn down a drink, least of all a truly high-end bourbon.
“I better not. Was I really out of line with her?”
“Yes,” I said truthfully, before I could think better of it. Telling him the truth was the wrong way to get him to keep drinking.
“Shit. It’s been a day. I had to meet with Charlotte and her lawyer, and she’s being an unmitigated bitch.” His mouth crumpled. His eyes looked wet. “Divorce is the worst damn thing. You don’t know. You and Trey are lucky.”
I wanted to scream at him as he rambled that no, we weren’t. I wanted to pinch his nose shut until his mouth popped open and I could pour the bourbon in.
Instead I shrugged, casual. “It’s a party. Forget about it. I bet she already has. She was drinking, too. Here, hold out your glass.” I started unscrewing the cap.
He waved it away. “I really better not. I think I’m in bad shape, and I have yet to check in on half my clients. God. I better get to it. People are going to start leaving soon.” He shook his head, then moved to go past me.
“Wait,” I said, desperate. I grabbed his arm. “Want to sober up, fast? I can help with that. I have these pills . . .” The lie came out of nowhere.
“I need some food. And maybe a cup of coffee.” He was trying to pull loose.
I shook my head, kept my hand on his arm. “These pills work so much faster. Charcoal pills.”
That got his interest. “Charcoal pills? I think I’ve heard of that. Is it a prescription?”
“No, of course not. It’s more like a vitamin. You can get them at CVS.” I traded the flask for the pill bottle and rattled the capsules for him, careful to keep my hand over the label. “They line your stomach. They’re for if your kid accidentally takes too much medicine or eats a Tide Pod.”
This was true. I still had some at home, left over from when Peyton was a toddler on a mission to find something poisonous and shove it into her little pink mouth. Activated charcoal came in capsules much like the ones in the bottle. They were black instead of blue, but it was dark. If he ever saw a real charcoal pill, it wouldn’t look that different.
At the same time, this was insanely risky. Hypnodorm, I assumed, would only wreck memories formed after it was in his system. He wouldn’t remember the daughter, but he might very well remember me giving him these pills. That might be the last thing he remembered, actually. I had no idea what the mother wanted her girl to get from him, but all I could do was hope he was too drunk to connect it to this moment.
I opened the bottle, dumped the pills into my hand, and then quickly put it away. I was worried he might get it in his head to read the label. I held them out for him. “I bring them to parties in case I overdo it. A couple of these babies and I’m good to drive.”
This was pure fantasy. Activated charcoal didn’t absorb alcohol.
“They really work?”
“Sure,” I said. “I mean, it isn’t a miracle or anything, but they’ll undo a couple of drinks.”
I could see a faint shaking in my hand. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.
Spence was interested. “I take three?”
God, I didn’t want to hurt him. Roofies could interact with alcohol. Dangerously. Google had said so.
I said, “I usually take two.”
I almost whispered it, hiding the words under the moan of the distant cello, in case the daughter was nearby. She might be hiding in the curvy paths of the Orchid Center, waiting to take Spence in hand. I said it as a sop to guilt, even as I rendered him helpless for a woman who wished him ill. And truthfully, I would have done much worse than this to Spence. To anyone. To save Robert.
“Yeah, but you weigh what? A buck-twenty?” He grabbed all three out of my hand and popped them into his mouth, then washed them down with the dregs of his drink.
I was instantly so relieved it made me dizzy. I felt myself sway, putting one hand on an arch to steady myself.
“Easy there, hon!” he said, smiling. “Maybe you needed those pills.”
I smiled back, light-headed. I had obeyed, fully, and whatever happened now, my part was finished. I would get Robert back. She had promised. I was woozy with joy and a thousand other, fainter feelings: guilt and worry and mistrust and a sick, sick fear.
I said, “I took a Lyft here, no worries.”
He smiled. “Then you can drink that Pappy. I’m jealous, but I need to go butter some clients. I haven’t so much as said hello to the Clausens, and you better believe I will hear about it from Jim Astor if they escape before I do.” He turned to go, lumbering up the narrow path. At the turn he paused. “Thanks, Bree. You and Trey, you always have my back.”
Then he was gone. My spine sagged. I almost sat down right there on the hard stone floor. I leaned against the arch instead, digging in my purse for the cheap phone. The mother had told me to text her as soon as I got the pills down Spence, but I wanted to call. I wanted to hear my son breathing or eating or even crying.
There was only one number in the contacts. Robert. I stared at his name, as if the letters could bring me closer to him. I would have him soon, back in my arms. Tomorrow, she’d said. I pressed the message icon instead of the call button. I wanted to do everything perfectly. The hard part was over. I could not mess up now.