Page 78 of Doug

Will spoke the truth. It’s what Doug had been telling himself since he’d met Pixie. He needed this to help him deal with the past.

Doug took a deep breath, then tossed the contents of the tube down his throat.

“Echh,” he grimaced as his taste-buds complained. “That’s supposed to be palatable?”

Will chuckled. “When compared toactualmushrooms, yes.” He took the glass container from Doug. “Now lay back and relax.”

“Easier said than done,” Doug groused. “What do you have up your sleeve that will help with my nerves while we wait for things to kick in?” he snarked.

“Well, why don’t we talk about Pixie,” Will suggested.

“Smart bastard,” Doug huffed. “Youknowthat will distract me.”

“That’s my job. Knowing what you need.” He didn’t say it smugly, and that was good, because Doug would have called him on it.

“Fine. What do you want to hear about Pix?”

“Well, you hinted that something is going on with her that warrants your protection, but you haven’t told me what that is.”

Doug tensed up a bit before he reminded himself all was well with the woman who fascinated him. Pixie was with Talia today, and would then be with her parents until the wedding. The LT was trained to deal with a bad situation if it arose, and SPD had promised to keep an eye on Pixie’s parents’ house. Still, he was uncomfortable when Pixie was out of his sight

“She has a few things going on that make me worry,” he admitted. “I know we talked about her past, so you remember her high school boyfriend turned a gun on her and her sister. I’m not sure if I mentioned that he also shot his brother.”

“No. You didn’t,” Will responded.

“Well, he did. And the guy, Harlan, was left with some kind of brain injury. Word around town is that he’s…kind of simple now.”

“An antiquated term,” Will nodded, “but I get the picture.”

“Anyway, he’s been following Pixie around, and I’m not sure what his intentions are. There’s a spot up in back of Pixie’s home where someone’s been parking on the regular, and it’s suspicious as hell. It could be Harlan, or…” Doug pondered the things he knew, and oddly began seeing details a little more…clearly.

“You know, now that I’m saying it out loud, Harlan drives an old Chevy Impala, and I don’t think the wheel-base of the tire impressions I saw in the field were big enough to be from his vehicle.”

“I’ll make a note of that so you can follow up,” Will assured him. “Who else might have an unhealthy interest in Pixie?”

Unhealthy…Yeah.That fit the guy, Peter to a T.

“A colleague of hers at work,” Doug spat. “He’s not only been after her almost relentlessly for the entire school year; he seems to have some strange fixation on her injured arm.”

Will huffed. “I’m not cop, Will, but he sounds more like your man than that Harlan guy.”

“Right. But there’s another possibility as well,” Doug supplied with even more clarity. “You saw the bruises on Pixie’s face.”

“It was hard to miss them, but I didn’t want to pry.”

“There was an altercation at work,” Doug growled, then paused. “Let me rewind a little. A student of hers has shown signs of neglect all year, and Pixie’s had some pretty volatile words with the boy’s father. The man actually threatened to come after her if she kept prying into what he said was his business.”

“And did he?” Will continued. “Come after her?”

Doug felt anger, and it was making swirling red streaks appear in the room. He ignored them and went on. “This weekthings escalated because Pixie suspected that Jason showed signs of sexual abuse, so she called in MECASA.”

The pictures from earlier in the week now became vivid in his head. “Things got a little screwed up between our agency and the SPD, so Pixie had to confront the guy pretty much on her own. He started getting physical before we arrived to intervene.” He knew his voice had gone to an even deeper growl, but he felt almost…euphoric in his gut, like something good was about to happen. It was confusing.

“Why am I angry, but it also feels like I’m almost…giddy? Fluttery. In my…stomach,” he clarified.

“You’re starting to feel the effects of the psilocybin,” Will assured him. “It’s a normal progression, and the butterflies in your stomach are part of the journey. It’s been about,” Will looked at his watch, “thirty minutes, so things are starting to kick in.”

Before Doug could quite come to grips with that, the walls around him seemed to start moving. It was like they were taking huge breaths, in and out. In and out. It was highly disquieting, like space wasn’t behaving normally, and Doug felt himself almost whimper. “I…can’t breathe. The walls…”

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