Page 45 of Brittle Heart

“Hey,” I say gruffly, tossing my backpack behind my desk and plopping down in my chair.

“Hey yourself,” she says, in her super cute voice, giving me a smile. “Here, have some tea. I brought a big thermos today,” she announces, placing a mug in front of me. The mug readsBeau-tea-ful.I give her a look. She snickers and takes a sip from her cup, showing me what’s written on hers—Filled withpositivi-tea.

“Dio,” I mutter, looking up at the ceiling.

“Don’t be like that, Carolina. We have something fun to do today!” she says.

“And what would that be?” I ask, taking a sip of the tea.

It’s pretty good, some kind of green tea. And as the warm liquid heats me from the inside, a bit of my tension releases.

“Today, we have to evaluate whether a suspect was high, mostly on heroin. But it’s going to be a bit challenging because they got the blood samples pretty late, and you know how quickly heroin breaks down in the body.”

My gaze shifts from the cup in my hand to Sophia’s face. Heroin was the drug they accused my parents of using when they had the accident. I place the mug back on the desk and stand.

“Someone’s eager,” Sophia says with a smile.

“Can you walk me through the process step by step?” I ask.

She furrows her brow at me. “You should already know this. It’s not like it’s advanced toxicology.”

“I do know, but I’m curious about how you and the NYPD handle these things,” I explain.

“All right, fine,” she says, sounding suspicious. “Heroin rapidly breaks down in the body into different byproducts, including morphine and 6-acetylmorphine.” She raises an eyebrow at me.

I nod. “I know.”

“Well, I fucking hope so. While morphine can be detected in the blood after heroin use, its presence alone doesn’t conclusively prove heroin use because morphine can also be found in the blood due to the medicinal use of morphine-based drugs. However, the presence of 6-AM is a very strong indicator of recent heroin use, as it’s a specific metabolite of heroin. We typically detect heroin and its metabolites in a blood sample using gas chromatography, mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.”

I nod again. That’s exactly how I would have approached it. “All right, shall we get started?”

“Sure,” she says, buttoning up her coat and grabbing her gloves.

We ran the tests, confirming the presence of 6-acetylmorphine, which suggests the person was under the influence.

“So now you just tell the officers on the case that he used heroin?” I ask.

“No, I inform them that we found indications of substance influence, but there could be other reasons for the result, so they would need to investigate other drugs he may have used, among other things,” she explains, looking at me and tilting her head. “Why are you asking, Carolina? I know you’re eager to learn, but this all seems like pretty basic knowledge, and I find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t know that. Is there a particular reason this case has caught your interest?”

Am I that transparent, or is she just perceptive?

“There’s a personal reason,” I admit, shifting my gaze to the computer screen where we reviewed the results.

“And are you going to share it with me?” she asks.

I can’t bring myself to look at her but say, “It’s about my parents.”

“Are they being accused of using or dealing heroin? If you’re confident they’re innocent, I can look up their file and reexamine the tests if they’re recent enough,” she offers.

I finally meet her eyes. “You would do that?”

She lets out a huff. “Of course, I would. When were they arrested?” she asks, already sitting behind her computer.

“No, I’m sorry. I was just surprised that you would do that for me,” I admit, my voice quieter now. “They died in a car crash five years ago, and the police told me they were driving under the influence.”

She looks at me with sympathetic eyes. “But you don’t believe it.”

“They didn’t even drink. I don’t believe they were using, but everyone involved just told me that kids don’t always see the whole picture.”

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