Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Not from the blood sample I took, but from the drugs we were testing that she’d been taking.”
He straightened. “What about them?”
“Well, the main base was the sedative that was written on the front of the pill bottle,” she told him. “But they were also laced with something.”
“What?” he asked.
“Have you ever heard of scopolamine?”
Scopolamine? Otherwise known as Devil’s Breath. “Fuck, you’re kidding. Those pills were laced with Devil’s Breath?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Those motherfuckers,” he snarled.
“Yeah, I don’t know how long she’s been on them, but it explains why she’s malnourished. She would have had very little appetite. Given in higher doses, scopolamine can cause amnesia and make someone highly suggestible.”
“I’ve got Paddy looking into the doctor. He must have known, right?”
Michaela nodded. “Unless someone switched the pills without his knowledge. Which is possible. Do you know who would have done that? Who would want her compliant and zombielike?”
“My guess is her bitch of a mother.” He’d need to have a chat with her mother and the doctor. Maybe Rick too.
Although part of him thought that asshole was too fucking dumb to do something like this.
The question was, why? Why would her mother do this to her? To keep her compliant? It seemed extreme.
“It also explains why she’s so ill,” Michaela said. “She’s doing a lot better, but it could take her a few days to feel more like herself, and then she’ll need to build up her strength. I can admit her to a hospital if you can’t look after her that long.”
He shot Michaela a quelling look. “I’ll take care of her. No one else.”
The older woman smiled. “That’s what I thought you would say. I’ll stay another day to help, then, once she’s doing better I can take out the IV.”
The other woman left while he walked into the bedroom to stare down at Lily for a long moment.
What the hell had been going on in that house? And how long would she have survived? It seemed that no one had taken care of her.
He settled in to watch her.
Yes, there were important things he needed to do. Top of his list was finding out more about the doctor who wrote the prescription. And dealing with her mother.
But, above all, his priority was Lily.
It was always going to be Lily.
11
Lily felt like death warmed up.
And she desperately had to pee.
Opening her eyes, she glanced around. Urgh, the light felt like it was stabbing her eyeballs.
Her head was thumping so badly that it made her want to vomit. Or maybe that was the taste in her mouth.
Like garbage and rat pee.
Not that she knew what either of those things tasted like. But she imagined it was close to the taste in her mouth.
Had she been drinking? But she wasn’t supposed to drink on her medication. And she’d never been much of a drinker anyway.
If this was what she’d feel like after drinking, then she wasn’t likely to become one either. Clem seemed to be fond of a creamy liqueur drink. She was always going on about it. But Lily had never tried it. Too many empty calories Mother would say. And that she couldn’t afford to ingest anything extra despite the fact that she kept losing weight.
“Lily? Lily? Are you okay?”
Oh, great. Just to add to her personal hell, Harvey was going to see her like this. He always looked like a gorgeous, sexy god, and she was a total train wreck with rat-pee breath.
“Rat-pee breath? What do you mean by rat-pee breath?”
Oh my God, he’d learned how to read minds? When had that happened?
Harvey let out a small chuckle. She loved when he laughed. It wasn’t fake, like most of the people that she knew. It was a real laugh. Like, he was actually happy.
She wondered what that felt like.
“Happiness?” he asked. “Are you saying you don’t remember what happiness feels like, Lily?”
Damn it, she had to stop thinking. He was getting into her brain. That was a really annoying talent to have.
“Baby, I can’t read your brain. You’re saying everything out loud. Why don’t you remember what happiness feels like, Lily?”
“Because I don’t remember the last time I was ever happy. Have I ever been happy?”
“I’ll make sure you are from now on, mo bhreáthracht,” he told her.
“What does that mean?”
“My beauty.”
She wasn’t beautiful. Maybe after Selena, Mother’s maid, had done her hair and makeup she was passable, but definitely not beautiful.
She didn’t take after her mother. She took after her father’s side. And as her mother liked to tell her, there were no beauties in that family.
“You are beautiful, and we’re going to erase everything your mother ever told you, every single lie.”
Lily shook her head, and then she groaned as that movement sent pain vibrating through her brain. He had to stop reading her mind.
“I don’t think my head has ever hurt so bad,” she whimpered.