Blood in the Past (Blood for Blood Series) Read online

  Jillian swirled her vodka and orange juice. She could never drink liquor straight like Mel, especially now. She took tiny sips of the screwdriver, but she only allowed the drink to touch her lips. If any entered her mouth, she discreetly released it back into the cup. They sat in silence for a long while. Well, Jillian was silent. Mel chattered on about the aches of moving back home and how cute her philosophy professor would be if he dyed his hair black and dressed “darker.”

  Jillian nodded and pretended to be grateful for the distraction. A few hours passed before she ushered her friend out. When they reached the door, she grabbed Mel’s arm. “If anything happens to me—if anything ever happens to me—the bloody clothes, the knife, the teacup I stole, everything is in a shoe box in my closet. No matter what, there will always be a shoe box.”

  Mel yanked her arm free. “Jill, you’re freaking me out. What do you mean ‘if anything happens to you’?”

  “Just promise, okay? Two days from now, twenty years from now...You’re the only one who knows the truth. One day, I want Calvin’s daughter to know the truth, too. About her mother. It’s the least I can do.” Jillian paused and swallowed hard. She preferred her fidgety hands over her urge to caress her belly. “If it were me, I’d want my child to know the truth. So promise.” Jillian nodded emphatically, waiting for her former roommate to agree.

  “All right, all right, I fucking promise,” Mel said, visibly shaken. She loitered in the doorway as though she wanted to say or do more. “I’ll call you later. But I still think you should burn that shoe box.”

  3

  Home is Where Your Story Begins.

  LYLA CRADLED HER mother’s lifeless body. Her essence had leaked from the lengthy, jagged cut in her forearm. Blood had crept through her blue shirt like a plague, turning it purple with infection. Lyla Kyle felt her own life ending. She may have been daddy’s little girl, but she confided in her mother, her best friend. Lyla lowered her mother back to the bedroom floor and brushed her fingers over her mother’s vacant eyes. If Lyla ignored the blood, she could almost imagine her mother had fallen asleep on the floor.

  Lyla should have seen it coming: her father’s infidelity, her mother’s withdrawn demeanor increasing every day. The night before, she’d visited for dinner and the phone rang. She could tell by her mother’s austere tone that it was one of her father’s girlfriends. When her mom returned to the table, the atmosphere cooled and conversation lulled to a standstill. Lyla had practically scratched her way out of the house after dinner. If only she’d stayed.

  Then realization clouded her features: her father had caused her mother’s death. His lies, his cheating—her mother couldn’t take it anymore. Lyla had just found her own apartment, essentially leaving her mother alone. How could her father have been so blind? How could he not see how his actions affected her? Lyla stood and crossed the room. Her sanity cracked and shattered like the glass exploding around her as she punched the mirror above her parents’ bureau. Each sliver reflected her mother’s corpse as it spiraled through the air—a million reminders magnifying Lyla’s grief.

  The front door opened. Lyla had left it unlocked when she’d called the police. She heard footsteps on the stairs, and voices.

  “Did someone call my brother?” a familiar female voice asked.

  “He’s on his way, ma’am,” a man, presumably a detective, replied.

  “Did dispatch tell her not to touch anything?” a different man asked.

  Then the female voice again. “You expect her not to touch her dead mother?”

  “This is why you shouldn’t be here, LeeAnn. You’re too close to this. It sounds like a cut-and-dry suicide. Our office shouldn’t even be here.”

  “But I appreciate you making an exception for my family, boss.”

  Lyla heard it all. She wept and stared at the empty space where the mirror had been, trying to avoid the scene behind her. Fewer footsteps made their way down the hallway, growing ever closer until they entered the bedroom. Without turning, Lyla knew who the woman was: her aunt LeeAnn, Associate Medical Examiner.

  LeeAnn placed a tender hand on Lyla’s shoulder. “Sweetie, you should come with me. We have to get you out of those clothes.”

  “What?” Lyla glared at her aunt, stunned by her sterile nature. It matched her appearance: pallid cheeks framed by chin-length dark hair that had lost its luster years ago. She worked with death, and it showed.

  “You might have evidence on your person. We have to take your clothes and give them to the technicians to bag and label.” She met Lyla’s glare before continuing. “I know this is difficult for you. I’m sorry.”

  “‘Difficult for me?’ My mother just killed herself because she couldn’t spend another day with your brother!”

  LeeAnn cleared her throat. Lyla watched her aunt’s eyes awkwardly shift sideways behind the narrow lenses of her glasses. “You don’t know for sure that’s what happened, dear,” LeeAnn said in a hushed tone. Clearly, Lyla had embarrassed her in front of the numerous technicians and police personnel mulling about the house.

  “Don’t ‘dear’ me. You saw her in there. She slit her wrist to the elbow!”

  “I understand you’re upset, but her death has to be treated as a homicide and then ruled a suicide. That’s how this works.”

  “Can you do me a favor and stop being a medical examiner for two seconds and be an aunt? Please?” Lyla’s voice quivered.

  Despite her petite size, LeeAnn quieted and guided her niece without effort, around the body and out of the room. Lyla felt her aunt’s fingers, cold underneath the latex gloves, caressing her hand as they stumbled through the blood-soaked hall. Lyla wondered if she’d ever forget that sharp, metallic smell.

  As they descended the stairs, Lyla realized her aunt was the worst possible person to comfort her through a tragedy. She was so callous and calculating. Then she saw him—her father—rushing through the living room. He moved in to hug her, and she almost retched.

  ***

  Lyla shouldered past her father, leaving him gaping with confusion. Thankfully, LeeAnn kept him from chasing her. Lyla stormed down to the basement laundry room, hoping to find something to change into so she could hand her current clothing over to her anxious aunt. The thought of going back up to the bedroom to borrow something from her mother muddled Lyla’s consciousness, causing both her vision and her stomach to stir.

  Nothing was on the folding table, but when Lyla opened the dryer, she found a full load of clothes and rifled through them. She set aside her father’s shirts as she imagined her mother washing lipstick stains and women’s perfume from them for who knew how many years. Lyla found a pair of workout pants and her mom’s favorite T-shirt: the faded, primrose-yellow one she wore when she painted or tended her herb garden. Lyla clutched the soft cotton to her face. Even fresh out of the dryer, it still smelled like her. Lyla shed a single tear into it before putting it aside and removing her clothes.

  “Ms. Kyle?” an unfamiliar voice called from the top of the stairs—probably one of the technicians.

  Then her aunt said, “Lyla, are you decent?”

  “I’m getting something to wear,” Lyla huffed.

  “Okay, I’m just going to bring down this bag”—she started down the stairs—“and then I’ll give you a minute of privacy.”

  A whole minute. Lyla took the bag without objection but avoided looking her aunt in the eyes. LeeAnn’s obsession with the evidence agitated Lyla. Clearly, her mother killed herself. It was clear, wasn’t it?

  As Lyla rolled her blood-dampened shirt over her head, the collar snagged on the back of her earring and sent it flying across the laundry room. Lyla followed it, hunching to avoid hitting her head on the low-hanging ceiling beams. As she approached the tiny silver stud, she heard muffled voices above her in the living room.

  “She thinks I did this?”

  Her father. Hearing his voice, Lyla felt a heavy coiling in her gut, like thick, knotted rope.

  “I didn�
�t say that. She thinks you caused this.” They remained silent for a moment, then LeeAnn continued. “I’m not so sure it’s a suicide, Calvin.”

  Lyla stumbled backward, aghast. She managed to take a breath and perk her ears in the direction of the ceiling.

  “What makes you say that?” her father asked.

  “Well, for one, I can’t find the knife Susannah used on herself. And there were no hesitation marks anywhere on her arm. I think it’s highly unlikely that someone as—how should I say this—docile as Susannah would just commit to and inflict an eight-inch gash to herself without second thoughts.”

  What Lyla heard next caused fire to rise to her cheeks.

  “Did Lyla and Susannah get along well? Maybe they’d argued recently?”

  “So let me get this straight. My daughter thinks I did it, and you think she did it? What is going on? I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “You’re a cop; you know how this works. Your men and my office will investigate this as a homicide until everyone can conclusively rule otherwise. I’m sorry I’m asking the hard questions you don’t want to hear, but it’s not like you won’t be asked them again during the course of the investigation.” She paused and, in a quieter tone Lyla could barely decipher, continued. “I want to see justice done for all involved. But I’m not so sure my boss does. He retires in two weeks, and ultimately, it’s his call. If he smells suicide, that’s the box he’ll check on the death certificate.”

  Lyla heard her father grunt in protest, but from the sound of the creaking floorboards, they parted ways. Her father’s heavier footsteps became fainter as LeeAnn’s softer footfalls grew louder, heading Lyla’s way. Lyla stuffed her clothes and sneakers into the evidence bag and took the steps two at a time, beating LeeAnn to the doorway. She threw the bag of clothes in her aunt’s face and ran barefoot to her car without a word.

  ***

  Faded blue scrubs and starched white lab coats buzzed around Lyla. Their steady flow was parted only by a tented yellow sign that read Caution Wet Floor. The men and women streamed around it seamlessly as though it were a boulder in a river. The difference between Lyla and her colleagues was that they had somewhere to go.

  Lyla shuffled, bewildered, through the halls of West Philadelphia General Hospital. She shouldn’t be there. She’d been granted leave due to her mother’s passing, yet Lyla couldn’t stay away. She needed to be there, needed to be in the hospital where her mother had given her life. But why? Did she think that was where she would figure out what to do with that life? Maybe she just needed a sign. And not the Caution Wet Floor sign.

  Lyla glanced back at the scuffed yellow sign, and when she faced front again, a friendly face stood in her path. He pushed a pharmaceutical cart, and if he hadn’t looked up from his phone at that moment, he would have bulldozed into her.

  “Lyla, what are you doing here? I heard what happened. I’m so sorry about your mom.” He placed his free hand on her shoulder, caressing her with his thumb. “I tried to call...”

  CJ and Lyla had shared classes as undergrads. He had taken a position as a pharmacist at the same time Lyla began her first year of residency. Working alongside each other had made them close, although Lyla suspected he longed to become even closer.

  His normally skittish demeanor seemed intensified, as though he were in a rush. A thin layer of perspiration glistened in the valleys between the acne peppering his face. Lyla presumed he was juggling tasks.

  “I know. Thank you, CJ.” Lyla placed her hand on top of his, rubbed it briefly, and coaxed it off of her shoulder. She held his hand just long enough to disguise the act of removing it. “I just can’t sit home right now.”

  “Yeah, but you wouldn’t be alone. You’d be with your family.”

  Lyla wanted to say something like Fuck family, but she decided against it. “I know this sounds weird, but I just want to act like everything’s normal, at least until I’m ready to deal with the fact that it’s not.”

  “Well, in that case”—CJ cleared his throat—“excuse me, Dr. Kyle, can you bring this to Dr. Chambers in the O.R.? I gotta get back to my station.”

  He shoved a hard plastic tray toward her. The compartments’ contents were sealed in with a translucent, peel-away film.

  “Now you wouldn’t be trying to get me in trouble, would you, CJ?” Lyla asked with her head tilted playfully, batting her lashes. Everyone knew non-pharmacy personnel weren’t supposed to handle controlled supplies unless they were the prescribing physician.

  “Of course not. Actually, just walk with me. Is Dr. Chambers’ O.R. on the way to...Where did you say you were headed?”

  Lyla eyed the tray. A fresh one was brought to each O.R. prior to surgery, and unused vials and materials were returned to the pharmacy and inventoried. The patient was billed for the items that were used. Lyla thought about the tray’s contents: multiple vials of medications intended to quell different surgical emergencies. One drug stood out. One could be as fatal as it was helpful: succinylcholine.

  Anectine, its commercial name, was used to help intubate a patient under anesthesia. It relaxed muscles, even the ones that facilitated breathing. Since the patient was on a ventilator, that wasn’t a problem. But if one wasn’t on a ventilator...

  “Lyla?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I’m not headed anywhere. I can take a walk.”

  Lyla strolled beside CJ but contributed little to the conversation. She felt a plan forming. She wondered if revenge was one of the five steps of the grieving process, but that thought was quickly dispelled by the memory of something even more magical about succinylcholine: it was virtually imperceptible in a dead body. It metabolized too fast, and whatever components it left behind were already present in the human body. Elevated levels could be expertly argued away in a court of law. She recalled the Coppolino case of 1966 where the jury acquitted the infamous doctor of murder. Sure, he was convicted of a second murder, but Lyla chose to focus on the positive. She tried to keep her face solemn, but she still grinned like a fool, which served her well: CJ had apparently just made a joke.

  Lyla needed to get a hold of the drug. It was perfect, the sign she’d hoped for. But how could she obtain it? Unused vials were brought right back to the pharmacy. Lyla’s forehead furrowed and her grin dissolved into a frown as she puzzled over her newfound purpose and the obstacle it presented.

  Lyla and CJ neared the operating room where Dr. Chambers would soon perform laparoscopic surgery. She smiled briefly at those prepping the room before remembering that she was supposed to be grieving, not giddy with the idea of exacting revenge on her father.

  CJ knocked on the outer door, and an anesthesia tech emerged from the inner O.R., already donning her sterilized paper accessories. She received the tray and returned to the inner room. Through the window, Lyla watched the tech peel the film back and slide the tray into an empty slot in the anesthesia cart. On Lyla’s way back out to the hallway—CJ was already there, gazing at her—she nodded at the nurses. Then a collection of boxes in the corner caught her attention.

  The receptacle that had caught her attention was similar to the biohazardous waste and sharps receptacles next to it. Doctors used it to discard vials of drugs used during surgery—even those not entirely empty. The vials’ occlusive rubber stoppers kept the unused portions from leaking out and sloshing around in the box. 10ccs of succinylcholine was a lethal dose. A few leftover vials would be more than sufficient. How often is that box cleared out?

  With her head down, she joined CJ. His gaze had morphed from longing to quizzical, either because of the length of time she’d lingered or because Lyla had realized she wasn’t ready to return to work and it showed on her face. Not just yet, she thought, but not due to conventional reasons. She didn’t need to grieve the loss of her mother, but rather avenge the loss of her mother.

  CJ placed a sweaty hand on the small of Lyla’s back. She felt the moisture through her scrubs and
her mother’s favorite yellow shirt, which she was wearing under her scrubs.

  “So, you said you weren’t scheduled anywhere?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Actually, I think I’m gonna see if I can get out of here. Take that leave they offered, even if only a day or two. I’m not ready to be back. I thought I was, but...Plus, I want to gather some things of my mom’s and bring them to my new apartment,” she lied. “Do you think they have empty cardboard boxes in the supply room?”

  Lyla hoped that sounded like a plausible reason to visit the supply room. She did need a box she could conceal the receptacle in, but she could swipe some empty syringes there as well.

  “They should. Do you need help? I get off in a few hours.” CJ looked at his watch.

  “No, thanks. Anthony’s gonna meet me at my parents’ house.” Another lie.

  “I didn’t think you two were still...I mean...I’m sorry, I just haven’t heard you speak of him in a while.”