The Inn - James Patterson Page 0,62
on the payroll.”
“But who do you prescribe the pills to? Cline and his crew?”
“No,” the doc said. “He brings me names and details. I don’t know who the people are. They’re probably stolen identities. Homeless people, maybe. I’ve never seen anyone in person. I prescribe whatever they want. Oxycodone. Vicodin. Fentanyl. Sometimes I just get a prescription pad, sign my name on every page, give it to them, and let them do the rest.”
“You let them prescribe whatever they want?” I turned, clenched my fists, tried to resist the urge to scream. “This is why you wanted me to back off them.”
I took a step toward the doctor, telling myself not to hurt him. I felt my resolve failing.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
I GRABBED THE air right in front of the doctor’s face but held myself back. I growled with fury and turned away.
“You’ve got every right to be angry with me,” he said.
“Angry?” I snapped. “You acted like it was the people of this town you cared about when you asked me to walk away from Cline. You were just trying to save your own skin!”
“I still think you should look at the people who go to Cline for help,” the doc said. “You don’t understand what they go through.”
“You would know,” I said. “You’re a part of all this!”
“I am.” He nodded. “I’m a fundamental part of Cline’s business. He and his crew take the pills they get through me and mix them and cut them with other things, then that goes into those little colorful capsules they sell.”
The doc fell silent. I couldn’t respond. It felt as though Cline himself had reached inside me and was twisting my organs, laughing in my face. He had done more than send his guys to pepper my house with bullets, execute my people in their beds. He had been in my house the whole time. In Siobhan’s house. His evil stink lingered in the halls, billowed through the rooms.
“Did he tell you to confess to me?”
“No,” the doc said. “I don’t think he knows I live here. I can’t be sure. He hasn’t mentioned it, and I saw him only two days ago. I have always dealt directly with the youngest member of his crew, a boy they called Squid. He’s gone now.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said, rubbing my eyes. I was suddenly exhausted.
“Neither can I,” the doc said a little sadly. When I didn’t respond, he opened his hands, trying to make sense of it. “I wish I had some reason to give you for doing it. Some understandable justification. But I don’t. I’d been bored and lonely for almost two decades. I had enough money to survive comfortably but soullessly. And then someone came to me and said he’d pay me seven thousand dollars a week to sign meaningless little slips of paper. That first night, my head was filled with all kinds of dreams. I’ve been saving for a boat. I’d like to try to sail to Italy. Maybe see the Greek Isles.”
I went to the corner of the porch and breathed slowly and evenly, trying to dissuade my body from reacting as it wanted to. I felt like punching the wall. Picking up the chair I’d been sitting in and smashing it to pieces.
There was also a burning for violence against the doctor himself slithering like poison in my veins. He’d been dreaming of sailing around the Greek Isles while doling out the drugs that had helped kill Marni and countless others. But when I turned back to look at him, all I saw was a good, kind old man who’d done a terrible thing. The same guy who had leaped in to help a would-be assassin bleeding to death on my driveway, a man who had been a slave to his loneliness and purposelessness, just like me.
“What’s your plan?” I asked. “You’ve told me the truth, and you must know I can’t have you living here and doing what you’ve been doing.”
“I’m going to leave.” He nodded. “If Cline doesn’t know I’m with you now, he’ll find out soon enough. I’ll be in danger. I’ve got plenty of money. Give me a couple of days to make arrangements, and then I’ll be out of your life.”
He started to leave, and I turned away, not wanting to watch him go. All that I wanted to say was left unspoken, just like it had been with Marni. Another person I cared about had been stripped from me by Cline’s