Page 11 of The Broken Places

Jett’s eyes shift, and his knees bounce again before he reaches for the cigarette, seems to remember he’s already stubbed itout, and drops his hand. He sits back on the couch. “Physical. He beat the shit out of me whenever he felt like it, which was just about every day of the week. He beat my grandma, and if we weren’t enough, he’d find a dog to beat too.”

“I’m sorry. That’s awful.”

Jett’s gaze meets Jamal’s, and he looks vaguely confused. “So, yeah, I got out of there as soon as I could.”

“And you ended up here. How far did you make it in school?”

“I graduated high school.”

Jamal looks slightly surprised. “You did? That’s great.”

“Yeah, I liked school. It was a place to get away, you know? Get away from home.”

“Did you have friends?”

Jett shrugs. “People I got high with.”

Jamal nods as Jett fidgets. “What’s your drug, Jett?”

“Meth. Heroine. Whatever.” The knees start up again.

“So both stimulants and opioids. Do you prefer one?”

“Depends.” Jett doesn’t elaborate.

“Any diagnoses?”

Jett pauses. “Yeah, uh, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, can’t really remember them all. Long names.”

“Do you take prescription medication along with the street drugs?”

“Sometimes. When I remember to make it over to the free clinic.”

“When you remember. And how do you pay for the street drugs?”

Jett glances off camera and then back at Jamal. “Illegal shit.”

“Have you been arrested?”

Jett brings his hands to his knees and stills them. “Nah, haven’t caught a case yet. No arrest record so far. Lucky me.” He laughs at that, but again, the laugh dies quickly.

CHAPTER SIX

Ambrose had never been inside a medical examiner’s office before. Right off the bat, he hated the smell of the place, and he also hated the cold. He had to admire people who spent all day with the dead in a frigid, stark room that smelled like formaldehyde and decay in an effort to bring those souls justice. Or at least answers.

Or maybe they deserved some amount of general skepticism, considering they could tolerate a work environment like this without going mad.

Whatever the case, many of the people who ended up here had families who’d do far less for them than the doctors at this lab. A tragedy that the first time some of these individuals were taken care of was after they’d ceased breathing.

“Just as suspected,” said the medical examiner, Clyde Gates, whom he’d met a few minutes ago and insisted Ambrose call him Clyde. “The homemade hallucinogens are the same as the ones found at the previous scenes. A mixture of ecstasy, dextromethorphan, psilocybin, and food coloring. However, these ones have the fun addition of a light LSD coating.”

Jesus.When he’d seen the “BB” on the top of the purple pills, he’d guessed at the concoction, but hearing it confirmed made his stomach roll. The additional LSD coating was unexpected, though, and he’d need to inquire about that. “And it was found in these victims’ systems too?” he asked.

Clyde nodded. “In high doses. They’d popped more than one. These people were certainly in la-la land. And this one”—he pulled the sheet back to reveal the young woman who’d been on the floor of the vacant motel the last time Ambrose had seen her—“was pregnant.”

Across from him, Lennon’s eyes flared subtly. “How far along?”

“About twelve weeks.”

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