Page 114 of Last Chance Love

“Like me, you mean?”

“No,” I scowled, “that’s not what I meant.”

Reed sighed. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, she said you used doctor credentials to cover your tracks. She didn’t say which one, but I’m betting it was Dr. Gideon’s.”

“Great,” he groaned. “Even more reason for her to believe I did this. I haven’t exactly kept it a secret that I can’t stand him. If my supposed activities were going to be noticed, I would want someone like him to take the fall.”

“Would you?”

“If I was doing something like this, repeating my past butworse, then why not? I’ve already thrown away the last shred of medical professionalism and my morality. Why not go further and potentially drag down the useless asshole who antagonizes me constantly?”

“Thank you for getting into the head of your alternate universe, morally bankrupt version of you.”

He turned his head, and I could see his brow pinching this time. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about things, Leon. This is worse than prison. At least in prison, I got some free time to roam around, go to the library, talk to people. So far, the only people I’ve talked to, I have the same conversation with as with Mona, and then Rip talks to me when he brings my meals.”

“Personal food delivery from Rip? That’s fancy.”

“Cute, very cute.”

I tried for a smile because I didn’t want him to see how badly this whole thing was affecting me. “Sorry, bad time for a joke, I know.”

“It’s okay. I wish I was out there to smack you for being an insensitive dick.”

“I kinda wish you could too.”

He bowed his head. “And it’s bothering me that guys were buying or hooked on this stuff, and I didn’t know. I should have recognized the symptoms.”

“Or,” I said, wishing I could pick his head up to look at me, “you kind of did.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if you saw the symptoms but didn’t connect the dots? Because you wouldn’t have expected someone to be hooked.”

I saw his head shake. “I’m almost positive that if they were showing bad enough symptoms, I would have noticed.”

“What about, like, low-grade symptoms?”

“Mood fluctuations, trouble sleeping, constipation. There’s a handful, but I can’t think of anyone who fits that bill.”

“Well, the first two, I can.”

“Hm?”

“Reno for both, even if he tries to hide the sleeping issues, and Elliot for sleep as well.”

His eyes went wide, catching the light from the moon. “You don’t think?—”

“No,” I said hastily. “I can’t be sure, but I want to say I would have noticed if it was them.”

“Yeah,” Reed said with a sigh that almost sounded disappointed. I didn’t blame him; if we’d known who the buyers were, we might have had a chance for me to pull them aside and talk to them quietly. Maybe I wouldn’t get more information from them than Mona had, but that was still better than nothing. “Wait, Dom.”

“Dom?”

“He’s had symptoms, though I can’t say anything about the mood fluctuations. He never complained about that. But most of them? Yeah, I’ve seen them a handful of times with him.”

I remembered he’d injured himself months ago carrying more than he should have. “His back.”

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