Cutthroat: Sutton Capital Series, Book Eight Read online

  “He named me after the man who carried him four miles to safety and medical care when he was injured. My name was Michaela when I was born.”

  “It’s not anymore?”

  “No.” She tasted the eggs now and had to bite back a sigh at the amount of butter the man had used. They were delicious and she had a feeling the toast would taste just as good. He’d laid the butter on thick there as well. She didn’t know how he could eat like this without gaining a ton. When she cooked for herself, she cut out half the yolks and used olive oil and Herbs de Provence instead of butter. Hers tasted wonderful, too, but there was just something sinful and decadent about really buttery eggs and toast.

  “My mom said people kept mistaking me for a boy when they saw my name, but I think in a way maybe it was my mom’s way of fighting back after my dad left, even though it was years later when she changed my name. For a long time, she seemed like she was trying to fight off his memory somehow. She’d still tell me about him, tell me he was a good Marine and I should be proud of him, but I’d hear her crying at night in her room. She dated one guy for a long time and they even got engaged, but he left one day. They’d started fighting a lot. I think he knew she still loved my dad.”

  Mia bit her lip, realizing she had completely veered off the topic of her name and how it had been changed.

  Reading her mind, Jax pushed her back on track. “And your name?” He set his plate down and leaned back against the sink.

  “She changed it officially when I was seven. It says Mia on my birth certificate.”

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “She had to petition the court, but I guess the judge gave my mom discretion and allowed it. She told him my dad wasn’t in the picture, so …” she shrugged.

  Mia’s phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen.

  Back soon?

  It was her mom. She pushed off the bar stool she’d been sitting on and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I’m sorry, that’s my mom. I really need to get going.”

  “Come on,” Jax said, following her toward the den, “I’ll drive you back to the hotel.

  “Oh, you don’t need to do that.” She looked down at the heels she’d worn the night before. No wonder her feet were sore. She hadn’t exactly been dressed for walking.

  Jax gave her a look and she knew there wouldn’t be any arguing with him. He grabbed his keys and held the door for her. “You took a real risk walking over here in the middle of the night, by the way.” There was no by the way about his tone. “That wasn’t smart.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve been all that smart about a lot of things lately,” Mia mumbled as she crossed the porch toward his driveway and the waiting Jeep.

  As she got in, her phone rang.

  “I’m sorry, mom,” she said as she put the phone to her ear. “I’m on my way right now. Jax is dropping me off in just a minute.”

  As soon as she said the words, she realized her mom would want to know why she was with Jax and what they’d been doing all night. Great. Not very smart was the understatement of the century.

  Chapter 13

  “Detective?” The small nurse who’d shown him into the employee break room to wait for the doctor now gestured to him. “Let me show you to Dr. Coleman’s office. He’s waiting for you.”

  Jarrod nodded and stood. He’d told Chad’s friend he would swing by and talk to the doctor, and he’d had some free time this morning.

  The nurse knocked before opening a nondescript door and letting Jarrod enter, while she remained in the hallway. He understood why immediately. The room was tiny. Filing cabinets lined one side of the room and a medium-sized desk filled the rest of the space. There was room for a single chair in front of it.

  “Good morning, detective,” said a balding man in doctor’s scrubs. He ran a hand over his head, as though his fingers itched to run through the hair that no longer existed on its crown. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m just here hoping you can give me some information on a former patient of yours. It’s nothing, really.” He threw the comment out there, sitting in the chair and drawing an air of casualness over him.

  “Uh,” the doctor hesitated, and rightfully so. Patients had rights.

  “I’m sorry. I should clarify. The patient is deceased.” Before he could continue, the doctor held up his hand.

  “I’m sure you understand, detective, that the confidentiality still exists even after a patient’s death. I’m afraid I can’t share any information with you without a warrant.”

  Jarrod nodded. “I do, doctor. I appreciate where you’re coming from. Here’s the thing, though. I understand you can waive that confidentiality when there’s a social need or safety concern or some such.” He played it up for the doctor, as though he didn’t know for sure what the law was. Jarrod was very familiar with the American Medical Association’s recommended guidelines on this issue. “It’s just that, a patient’s medicine has been stolen, and I want to be sure we don’t need to go hunting it down. All I want to do is try to be sure we don’t have something really dangerous floating around out there.”

  The truth was, they had a lot of really dangerous substances floating around out there. Prescription drugs of all kinds could be bought and sold on a number of street corners in the city. But he hoped it would be enough to get the doctor talking.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, the doctor paled. Jarrod plowed on. “The patient was Leo Kent. I understand you’re aware he died? That he was transferred from your clinic to the hospital?”

  The doctor definitely paled at that. He was very aware of who Leo Kent was. “Yes. It was horrible. Not something that happens often, thankfully, but certainly something we have to be prepared for, nonetheless.”

  “And were you?”

  “Were we what?”

  “Prepared for it?” At this point, Jarrod wanted the doctor talking. He’d steer him around to where he needed to be later, but for the moment, simply talking was all he needed.

  “Oh, yes.”

  The man didn’t expand on the statement, and Jarrod sensed the doctor’s hesitation. He didn’t want him to stop the conversation all together. He decided to abandon the attempt to get Coleman to talk more about Leo, and honed in instead on the medication.

  “So, what can you tell me about the medication Leo was taking? Is this something I need to be worried about getting out there on the streets, Doc?”

  The hand went back to the doctor’s almost nonexistent hair and Jarrod hoped the doctor didn’t play poker.

  “No, uh, I don’t think so. I’ll be honest with you, detective.” Again, the hand ran front to back over the dome. “I gave Leo some sample sleep aids and pain killers. He wasn’t really ill. He’d been having a lot of discomfort in his residual limb. You know he was an amputee?” He paused and looked to Jarrod, who nodded. “Anyway, he’d been having some pain lately and hadn’t been sleeping well. We’re not supposed to do it, clinic policy and all that, but I felt bad for the guy. I gave him some samples.”

  “What kind of samples?”

  The doctor looked nervous, that hand going to the head again. “Pain meds. Sleeping pills.”

  “I see.” Jarrod watched the doctor for a minute, before asking, “Is there any possibility those medications could have contributed to the heart attack he suffered, doctor?”

  The doctor reddened and for a minute Jarrod thought the man was going to explode. Then he simply looked defeated and shook his head. “No more so than if I’d written him a prescription and he took them inappropriately. If he took too many of them, combined them with alcohol, then yes. But I didn’t get the sense he was doing any of that when he came in to the clinic that morning. He was coherent, he was seeking regular medical treatment.”

  Jarrod wasn’t sure how much he should push the doctor to speak to him. Technically, the doctor was now on the edge of violating his patient’s rights. “What was he complaining of when he came in that morning?”

&
nbsp; He saw the doctor’s hesitation, but it didn’t last long. “He’d been tired and not feeling well, overall, for several days, but when he came in that morning, he thought he was experiencing heartburn.”

  “Heartburn? He mistook chest pain for heartburn.”

  “No. He was having pain in his upper abdomen, so he thought it was heartburn. I saw it for what it was. A heart attack often presents as chest pain, but people can also feel pain somewhere else in the body. Some feel it in their back, others the neck or jaw. His was presenting in the abdomen.”

  “So you sent him to the hospital?”

  “No, we called for an ambulance. He was in no shape to make it there on his own. He collapsed just as they arrived. They were able to get an AED on him right away, but it was still too late.”

  “AED?” Jarrod asked.

  “Automated External Defibrillator.” The doctor shifted in his seat. “You said someone stole his medication?”

  “Yes. Any ideas about that?” Jarrod had his own ideas but he wanted to see what the doctor thought.

  Dr. Coleman shook his head. “I’m afraid what comes to mind is that he was selling the meds I gave him. Either that or he just told someone about them and that person heard about his death and decided to act.”

  Jarrod nodded. That had been his immediate thought, too, and knowing he’d had pain medication and sleeping aids firmed up that theory. He stood. “Well, doctor, thank you for your time.”

  “Anytime, detective.” The doctor stood as well and Jarrod got the distinct feeling he couldn’t wait for Jarrod to leave. That was understandable, he supposed, given the fact he’d been doling out medical samples he wasn’t supposed to. There wasn’t anything against the law about that, though, unless they were given out by someone who didn’t have the authority to prescribe meds.

  As Jarrod walked back to the parking lot, he answered a call from his partner.

  “What’s up, Cal?”

  “I talked to the uniforms we had canvassing over at Leo Kent’s apartment. They found one neighbor who saw someone leaving the apartment.”

  “Useful description?”

  “Not the best I’ve ever heard, but not awful. One things stands out. She said the man was huge. Big linebacker kind of guy is how she described him. Sound like someone we know?”

  “Hell yeah. That backs what the doctor just told me.” Jarrod and Cal were both familiar with Carlos Perez, a street dealer known for pushing prescription meds, among other things. He certainly fit the woman’s description.

  “What’s that?”

  “He gave Leo sleeping pills and pain meds.”

  “Shit. So we think he was selling his meds to Carlos and word got out when he died?”

  “Yeah, I figure if he was selling his meds, someone heard about it and broke in to get whatever might be left. I wouldn’t put that past Carlos,” Jarrod said, starting the car. He sat and let the car run while they talked. “I’m headed to the station now. I’ll meet you there and we can track down Carlos?”

  “You got it.”

  Jarrod hung up, then dialed his phone again. He wasn’t thrilled with what he had to tell Jaxon Cutter about Leo Kent, but he believed in getting the shit work done right away.

  * * *

  Jax wondered for a minute if he should have told Mia about the break-in at her dad’s apartment as he watched her walk to the elevators in the hotel lobby. He felt guilty as hell for keeping it from her.

  Combine that with the guilt he was feeling for fantasizing about her being in his bed all damned night, and he was feeling like shit. She was Leo’s daughter and she was dating someone. The only problem was, she had his body screaming go, go, go when what he needed to be doing was saying no, no, no.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” He asked aloud. He didn’t have an answer. It had taken all his control not to ask if he could see her again, but he’d clamped down on that urge and let her go.

  The phone rang, giving him a reprieve. He hit the phone button on the steering wheel.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Jax. It’s Jarrod Harmon.”

  Jax pulled into a gas station and took one of the parking spots on the side of the small building. He lifted his phone out of the dock it sat in on his dashboard and hit transfer before putting it to his ear

  “Hi Jarrod. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.” That wasn’t exactly true. He hadn’t been a bit sure he’d hear back from the detective at all. There wasn’t really much the detective could do about the break in at Leo’s. Leo was gone and all that seemed to be missing were some meds. Not even a whole lot of them, at that.

  “Well, I had some time this morning so I drove by the clinic and talked to Dr. Coleman.” Jarrod filled him in on what they’d found so far. “I don’t think much will come of it, but we’re always glad to have the chance to go talk to this dealer, see if we can catch him with anything that might get him off the streets for a little while.”

  “Huh.” Jax didn’t really know what to say. It made sense that the doctor would be nervous about breaking the clinic’s policy. “So you think someone just broke in to grab the meds? Why wouldn’t they have taken the TV, or tossed the place for cash?”

  “I don’t know. We got a description from the neighbor and it sounds like a dealer we’ve dealt with before. If it is him, he wouldn’t want the hassle of the television. He’d just want what he has ready buyers for: drugs.”

  Jax mulled it over and thought about the money Leo had tried to give him and the money he’d been sending Mia. Shit, he really didn’t want to think Leo had been selling meds on the street. If it was true, it also meant Leo had flat out lied to him about picking up work.

  “Thanks for looking into it, Jarrod.” His gut churned with the idea that Leo had done that, but he guessed it didn’t matter. The issue was as dead as Leo.

  Then why did Jax still feel that fucking buzzing at the back of his neck?

  “Anytime. Jax. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Jax drove back to his place and quickly changed out his walking leg for his runner and put a matching running shoe on his other leg. He grabbed his earbuds and hit the road. He was glad he’d gotten in to see his prosthetist for an adjustment. If he ran long and hard enough, he could quiet his mind. And until then, he’d just drown out his thoughts.

  He cranked Metallica and focused on the slow burn in his thighs.

  Chapter 14

  Coleman’s hands shook as he dialed the phone. He’d told the clinic staff he wasn’t feeling well and had to leave, which left them short a doctor for the day.

  Pacing the length of his home office wasn’t helping and the damned man wasn’t answering any of his calls. The old man probably spent half his damned day out on the golf course. He smashed the end button with his thumb and threw the phone on his desk.

  He’d almost pissed his pants when that cop had walked into his office. The phone rang just as he was shoving three more antacids in his mouth. Not that they did any good.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour. Where the hell have you been?” He was tempted to yell, but he couldn’t risk his wife overhearing this conversation and asking questions.

  The response didn’t sound at all bothered. “In my lab. I do have work to do. Were you under the impression I sat by the phone waiting for your calls all day?”

  Coleman ignored the scientist’s sarcasm. “A police detective showed up at the clinic. Did you have someone go to Leo Kent’s place and take the medicine?”

  “Of course I did. We can’t have this stuff floating around out there for anyone to find.”

  “Well, they came to question me about it.” Coleman sat in his desk chair, then popped back up and crossed to the window again.

  There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment so Coleman continued. “They wanted to know what I’d given him.”

  “And?”

  “I told them I gave him some samples of sleeping pills and pain killers fro
m one of my reps.”

  “Good. Problem solved.”

  Coleman exploded. “Not problem solved! Not problem solved at all. This isn’t what I signed up for, damn it. I’m not doing this anymore. I can expose you, let the whole world know what you’re doing.”

  The shift from bored to stone cold anger in the man’s voice came through the phone loud and clear. “You’ll keep it up until I tell you we’re finished, Dr. Coleman. Don’t forget what you’re up against. If I stop making your payments, do you think the Gianellis will simply forgive the debt?”

  “I’ll deal with the Gianellis myself,” Coleman bluffed. He didn’t know how he would do that, but he’d figure something out. When they’d begun this, Coleman had believed in the drug they were creating. He’d wanted to help people as much as he’d wanted the money that had been offered.

  His own brother and father had died of heart disease far too young. Perfecting this drug could mean other families wouldn’t have to go through what his had been through. The pain of seeing life cut far too short for no good reason.

  But people were dying because of the drugs they were doling out and he couldn’t ignore what he was seeing now. He could see so clearly that this man had no interest in the science of this. There was something else at play here. He didn’t know what the hell it was, but he couldn’t sit by and let people continue to die.

  “Do that and all this lands on your head.”

  The words shocked him, slamming into his brain with the force of a truck. “What the hell is that supposed—”

  The man didn’t let him finish. “It means I’ve got plenty of evidence that you were behind the drug trial. I’ve got logs of you visiting the lab at Simms Pharmaceutical”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I never stepped foot in the lab when I went to Simms Pharmaceutical. I’ve never even seen the lab side of the facility. I’ve only been there to visit Warrick Staunton!”

  “Of course you have. The logs reflect it. The police won’t have any reason to think I was involved. In fact, why would they look at me at all when you and Warrick are the ones who are old college buddies? Add in your father and brother’s deaths from heart failure and you have all the motive in the world to work with Warrick on this.”