“I don’t have any Nancy Reagan lectures, Spence. Just think about this—what makes you feel better, the Percocet or your wife? Because you damn well can’t have them both.”
I stepped back from the door, and he got up on his knees and slammed it shut.
I stood there seething—filled with anger both at him and at myself for being stupid enough to think that I was the miracle worker who could rehabilitate Spence and patch up his floundering marriage.
Obviously, I had seen too many soap operas as a kid, and they had completely screwed up my thinking.
Chapter 64
It was 11:30 when I finally got to Cheryl’s apartment.
“You look like you could use a drink and a hug,” she said. “Not necessarily in that order.” She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her lips to mine.
I scooped her up and held her tight, and my body went straight into sensory overload. All five of my senses were on point. I shut my eyes, turned off my hearing, and let touch, taste, and smell have themselves a field day.
Her mouth tasted like wine, her hair smelled like jasmine, and the feel of her body close to mine helped me block out the first twenty-three and a half hours of an exceptionally grueling day.
We stood there for at least a minute without uttering a sound. Finally she whispered in my ear, “You missed a fantastic movie.”
“Was it as good the eighth time as the first seven?”
“Zach, I may be a grown-up scientist on the outside, but inside I’m still a little girl who believes in fairy tales. It was just as wonderful this time, and it will be just as wonderful every time I watch it. You’re a man. You wouldn’t understand.”
She stepped back. She was wearing fitted black yoga pants and a hot-pink curve-hugging V-neck T-shirt.
“I thought you said you were wearing sweats,” I said.
“I was, but watching Julia Roberts transform from a streetwalker to a lady inspired me.”
“You both clean up well.”
She led me to the sofa and poured me some wine.
“So how was your day?” she said.
“Not the best. It started with a violent kidnapping and ended with me flinging my partner’s drug-addled husband to the floor. How was yours?”
Her mouth opened, first in shock, then it morphed into something resembling a puzzled smile. Or maybe it was a condemning frown. Whatever it was, it was a look I hadn’t seen before. Certainly not from her.
“Run that drug-addled husband bit by me again,” she said.
I had decided early on that win, lose, or draw with Spence, I wasn’t going to hold back on Cheryl.
“Despite my doctor’s best advice,” I said, “I went to see Spence tonight. I guess you’d call it an intervention.”
“No,” she said. “I’m more inclined to call it a misguided, self-serving bad decision, but let me withhold judgment until I’ve heard the details.”
“Sure, Doc,” I said, taking a strong pull on my wine. “Do you want me to lie down on the couch while you go and get a pad and pen?”
The joke fell flat. This time I knew a condemning frown when I saw one. “Please just spell it out,” she said.
I launched into my story, starting off with my good intentions, working my way past Spence’s initial resistance, and elaborating on his steadfast denial. She didn’t say a word until I got to my dramatic ultimatum.
“Your Percocet or your wife?” She let out a hoot. “Brilliant technique, Doctor Jordan. Where did you get your degree—the Dirty Harry School of Addiction Therapy?”
“Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or do you want to sit around and critique my methodology?” I said.
“He just slammed the door in your face,” she said. “I thought you were done. Is there more?”
“Yeah. I stood there feeling like crap. I realized I should have listened to you, but I didn’t. Case closed. I walked back to the elevator, and before I could even hit the button, he opened the door and told me to come in. So I went back.”
Her expression softened. “And then what happened?”
“Nothing. He just stared at me. I wasn’t sure if he was going to take a punch at me or call Kylie and tell her what an asshole I was. And then he turned around and started walking toward his bedroom. Halfway there, he stopped and gave me a nod to follow him. So I did.”
“Into the bedroom?”
“Through the bedroom and into his bathroom. He went to the medicine cabinet, took out a bottle of pills, opened it, and shook one out into his hand. Then another. And another. He stared at them, and I really thought he was going to pop them all into his mouth. But he didn’t. He just held his hand over the toilet bowl and dropped them in. Slowly. One at a time. Then he turned the bottle over and dumped the entire lot of them into the water.”