When the door opened, though, Ford hadn’t anticipated seeing Adam in his office, or the angry black-and-purple bruise that marred the skin beneath Adam’s eye.
“Jesus Christ. Adam, what happened?” Ford asked, entering Sam’s office and closing the door behind him.
Adam shrugged one shoulder. “You should see the other guy.”
“He got into it with your boyfriend, defending my honor,” Sam added.
“He’s not my… wait… what?” Ford looked between them, studying their expressions and trying to work out in his head what would have led Nash to become violent with Adam. Or Sam for that matter.
“I went down to the station this morning to give Nash a piece of my mind over breaking your heart. Things got heated, and Adam walked in when Nash had me pinned against the ambulance. And they both have tempers, apparently.”
“You went down to the station to talk to him? Why?”
“You’re my friend. My best friend.” Sam ignored Adam’s growl. “I warned him not to hurt you, and he did. You spent the night drunk and miserable on my couch, watching Hallmark channel romance movies and trying to hide the fact that you were weeping.”
Ford was still trying to process the information. Maybe he should have slept longer. His mind felt sluggish all of a sudden, and he could feel the tears welling up again. He wasn’t sure if it was over hearing about Nash having been in a fistfight with Adam, or that Sam cared about him enough to stand up for him. Probably both.
“But it became obvious that I didn’t have all the information,” Sam continued. “You didn’t want to talk about it, and I jumped to conclusions, but maybe you would like to talk about what happened now? And why you broke up with Nash when you so obviously have feelings for him?”
“I’m gonna go and let you guys talk,” Adam said, standing from where he’d been leaning against Sam’s desk. “I’ll see you at home when you’re off.”
Sam bent forward, kissing Adam quickly before taking his seat again and pinning Ford in place with his stare.
“All right, talk,” Sam demanded when the door clicked shut behind Adam.
“I can’t believe you went to talk to him. You shouldn’t have done that.” Anger ripped through him. He loved Sam to death, and a part of him felt grateful that he had Ford’s back, but going down to confront Nash over their breakup was beyond crossing the line.
“You don’t get to be mad about me sticking up for you. I get to be mad because you led me to believe he’d dumped you. Why the fuck did you break up with him?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I got all day.” Sam crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. Ford felt like he was being given detention, which didn’t help his mood.
“If I want to break up with him, the reasons behind it are absolutely none of your fucking business.”
“You made it my business when you ended up sobbing on my couch at three in the morning. You’re my best friend, Ford. I want you to be happy, and I honestly believed Nash made you happy. I am trying to wrap my head around the idea that you would end things with him when they seemed to be going so well.”
A little of the fight seeped out of Ford. “I am completely fucked up.”
“No one is arguing that. But how does that explain anything?”
Ford took a deep breath and released it in a sigh. “I have never had a successful relationship. I keep picking these guys who are bad for me, or maybe they’re not bad for me, but somehow I turn them into guys who are bad for me.”
“You’ve had one bad ex. I get that he was an asshole, although you’ve never told me exactly what happened there either, but one bad relationship does not mean every relationship you have is doomed to be bad.”
“It’s not the guys, though. It’s me. Every single time, I let them change me. I lose myself in them and I become someone different. I’m too weak to be with someone else. Until I can figure out who I am and how to be strong enough not to change for a man, I need to be on my own.”
Sam took a moment to digest what Ford said before he spoke. “What a pile of absolute bullshit.”
“It is not,” Ford protested, his nose a little bent out of shape over Sam’s reaction to his revelation.
“How do you think you changed when you were with Nash? Because maybe I wasn’t in the relationship with you, but I can tell you we probably have very different ideas about what that man did for you.”
“The same thing I always do. My personality started to blend with his and I lost who I was. We were together all the time, and I didn’t have my own life anymore. Everything was about him, for him. If I wasn’t at work, I was with him, and I even rearranged schedules to be with him. When he asked me to take time off, I did. I ignored my friends. I went
hiking
for him.”
Sam laughed, but Ford hadn’t been trying to be funny. It may have sounded like a joke, but it was evidence of how he’d changed for someone else. Before they met, nothing could have convinced Ford to leave the house on the morning of his day off other than the promise of waffles and mimosas at Greystones.
“I’m being serious,” Ford said indignantly.
“I know you are. I’m sorry. But you’re an idiot.”
This day was getting better by the second. He was seriously regretting coming by to see Sam. He should have gone directly to the police station instead of stopping in for his friend’s help.
“Changing to be with the person you love isn’t a bad thing. It happens to everyone. Those differences are not necessarily a negative thing. People transform and grow when they find someone worth changing for. Look at Adam and me. Adam came out for me, which was a huge life alteration for him. You went for a walk in the forest. It’s not like Nash forced you into something horrible, like cult worshiping or square dancing.”
“This is how it started with Peter too. I got all caught up in things, and I let myself be used. I lost all respect for myself.”
“Peter?”
“My ex,” Ford answered.
“Not Peter Provost.”
Ford nodded slowly.
“Jesus, Ford. Really? That’s the asshole who shit all over you? Fucking Peter Provost?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck, I wish you’d told me that. Goddammit, Ford. You should have told me. That guy is a fucking sociopath. The only reason he became a surgeon was so he could carve people up without getting arrested, I swear to God.”
Ford sighed. “It took me way too long to realize what he was doing to me, and it took me even longer to come back from it. I had to collect the torn and battered pieces of myself and put them back together. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same person I was before I met him.”
Ford felt small and vulnerable admitting that, just as he had when he’d told Nash. He was open and raw, but this time he didn’t have Nash there to gather him into his arms and wash away all thoughts of how Peter used to make him feel.
Sam stepped forward and pulled Ford into a hug. “I’m sorry you went through that, and I’m sorry I didn’t see what was going on. I knew you were going through something, but I didn’t realize how bad it was.”
“It’s okay,” Ford said weakly. “I didn’t want you to know.”
Sam released him and stepped back. “But you know Nash isn’t like that. He loves you.”
“I know. He told me.”
“Is that what brought all this on?” Sam paused. “You need to fix things with Nash. He loves you, Ford, and he’s hurting as bad as you are. Call him and fix this before you lose him.”
Sam was right. Ford was an idiot. He missed Nash. He needed to make it right before he did lose him. He shouldn’t have let him go in the first place. Flimsy excuses had covered up the fear of letting himself fall in love, but if he stripped away all the bullshit and took a hard look at himself, he knew deep in his heart that had already happened.
“I love him too.” Once he admitted it, his whole body radiated with it. It was incredible how those words, which had instilled so much terror in him only the day before, now made him feel lighter than he’d ever been.
“Good. So get over there and start groveling. He’s probably going to be pretty cranky. Adam got a few good hits in too before Caleb broke up the fight.”
The phone on Sam’s desk rang, and he answered it before Ford could say good-bye. As he listened to whoever was on the other end, his expression became troubled.
“Okay, thank you,” he said before replacing the phone in the cradle.
“What was that?” Ford asked.
Sam paused, as though he was trying to decide whether or not he should say. “That was the lab. When I performed the autopsy on Joel there were some odd metabolites in his urine. They were in trace amounts, but I decided to run a more comprehensive drug panel on him.”
“And?”
“There was suxamethonium chloride in his system.”
A sinking feeling tugged at Ford’s insides. “What’s that?”
“It’s a paralytic. It’s usually used in combination with other meds for anesthesia.”
“Why would Joel have that in his system?” But even as Ford asked the question, he already knew the answer.
“He was murdered.”
“YOU’RE SURE?”
Ford asked, barely able to breathe as he waited for Sam to answer.
Sam’s expression was grim. “That’s the most likely explanation. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest, but with this new information, it’s clear that it could have been caused either by blood loss or by the paralysis caused by the meds he was given. Suxamethonium chloride is fast acting. It doesn’t stay in the body long, and had Joel lived any longer, it would have been completely metabolized. He died quickly after the drug was administered or it wouldn’t have shown up in the panel at all.”
“Either way, his death was not self-inflicted.”
“Unless he got his hands on anesthetic drugs, injected himself, and then slit his wrists, I would say no.”
“Fuck,” Ford muttered. He felt like he was going to throw up. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, hoping to push down the bile that was rising in his throat.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked, his eyebrows knit together in concern.
“Yeah, I’ll be all right.”
“I need to call Jack and update him. Why don’t you go talk to Nash?”
Ford felt almost catatonic. “Yeah, okay.”
“Good. Call me later and let me know how everything went, okay?”
Ford nodded, and as Sam picked up the phone and dialed, Ford slipped out of the room.
The hallways were quiet as he made his way to the stairwell. He was still processing when he hit the first flight. Joel had been killed in the hospital while his room had been guarded by a police officer. His mind raced through the possibilities of who could have done it. And why?
He pushed past the renewed sadness and forced himself to concentrate. Pieces were flying into place, and the more Ford thought about it, the more complex it became.
Whoever killed Joel was more than likely involved with the deaths of the other kids. It had to be someone the cop would allow into the room with no questions asked. Could it be someone who worked at the hospital?
Ford stopped in his tracks, holding tight onto the railing to keep his balance as his head reeled.
Peter.
Ford thought back to all the times he’d seen Peter since Joel arrived at Saint Joe’s. He’d been lurking near the psych unit more than once. He worked on the floor where Joel had died, and no one would ever question a doctor entering a patient’s room. Was Peter capable of killing?
The more Ford thought about it, the more certain he became. Sam said himself that Peter was a sociopath. He was cunning and manipulative and had access to the anesthetic medications. He could easily have slipped into Joel’s room without raising any suspicions.
Ford really was going to throw up.
He pulled out his cell phone and glanced at his screen, only to see that he had no reception in the stairwell. He raced to the top and out the door into the parking lot, waiting for the bars to appear before he scrolled through his contacts and dialed.
Jack’s phone clicked over to voice mail. He must still be talking to Sam.
“Jack, call me as soon as possible. I think I know who killed Joel.”
Pain sliced through his skull as something collided with his head. It took a moment for him to orient himself, and Ford felt cold metal pressed against the side of his temple.
“Drop the phone.”
The voice was so familiar and so filled with hate. Ford’s stomach dropped when he realized the metal was the barrel of a gun, held tight against his head.
Ford did as he was asked, letting the phone fall with a clatter onto the uneven pavement.
“What are you doing, Greene?” Ford asked, horrified by the trembling in his voice. Despite living on his own downtown and walking by himself at all hours of the night, he’d never been held at gunpoint before. Hell, he’d never seen a gun other than the one Jack kept holstered on his hip. This was much more terrifying. It wasn’t something Ford would ever have suspected the hospital administrator capable of.
“Move,” Greene ordered, pushing Ford forward with enough force that he nearly tripped. Images of Greene blowing his brains out because he was klutzy filled his head, and he began to sweat.
Greene led him to a car parked near the entrance, a white Buick that looked like it belonged to a seventy-year-old man. With the gun still pressed against Ford’s skull, Greene unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“Get in. And if you make a noise, I’ll put a bullet right through that pretty head of yours.”
Ford climbed in, aware that these could be the last few minutes of his life. He took stock of the situation, surveying his options. Ford couldn’t concentrate on anything other than that goddamn gun that Greene had trained on him as he rounded the car, the matte black of its barrel unnervingly sinister.
Ford took deep breaths, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart, his palms slick with sweat. He rubbed them on his jeans and sat still, crushing the urge to squirm. There would be a moment—there had to be—when Ford could run. Maybe he’d get shot, but if he stayed with Greene, his chances of getting shot were exponentially higher.
Greene pulled out of the parking lot, turned onto the street and drove through traffic. No one saw the gun, held below the frame of the window, pointed at Ford’s chest. No one heard Greene, his voice cold and hostile.