Dr. Jerry expressed some surprise to find his truck parked behind the building, but Callie admired his ability to adapt to novel situations. She helped him strap the seatbelt around the cat carrier, then around himself. Neither one of them said anything as he turned on the engine. She put her hand to his face. And then she reached down and kissed his scruffy cheek before letting him leave. His truck rolled slowly down the alley. The left-side blinker started flashing.
“Fuck,” Callie muttered, waving for his attention. She saw him wave back. The left blinker went off. The right blinker turned on.
Once he disappeared around the corner, she went back inside the building. She double checked the door to make sure the lock had engaged. Fucking junkies would hit the clinic the moment they let their guard down.
The 20-ml syringes were kept in the kennel. They were rarely used. Holding one in her hand, all that Callie could think was that it was much bigger than she’d thought. She took it back with her to the breakroom. She uncapped the needle. She drew out the dose of pentobarbital from the vial. The plunger was almost all of the way out. When she put the cap back, the syringe from end to end was probably as big as a paperback novel.
Callie tucked the loaded syringe in her jacket pocket. It fit snugly into the corners.
She put her hand in her other pocket. Her fingers brushed up against the knife.
Cracked wooden handle. Bent blade. Callie had used it to cut Andrew’s hot dog into pieces because, otherwise, he would try to shove the whole thing in his mouth and start to choke.
Where was Andrew now?
Sidney’s car was parked outside like a welcome sign at a rest stop. Callie had stolen his favorite knife. She had ensured his wife wouldn’t be able to pee straight for the next six weeks. She had found his VCR and his video tape behind the rack in the electronics closet. She had gouged his white leather couches and scraped long, angry lines into his pristine walls.
What was he waiting for?
Callie felt a heaviness in her eyelids. It was almost midnight. She was exhausted from today and tomorrow wasn’t going to get any easier. Somehow, telling Dr. Jerry the truth had made her body accept the hard fact that her wicked ways were finally catching up with her. Everything hurt. Everything felt wrong.
She looked at her dope kit. She could shoot up now, try to chase the high again, but she had a feeling that Andrew would show up the moment she started to nod. The giant syringe in her pocket wasn’t meant for the medical examiner to find. It was meant to put down Andrew so that Maddy would be safe and Leigh could get on with her life.
The idea wasn’t even a plan but, regardless, it was as foolish as it was dangerous. Dr. Jerry was right. Callie was too small and Andrew was too large and there was no way she would surprise him again because, this time, he would be expecting her to go batshit crazy.
She could’ve spent the next few minutes or hours trying to figure out a better way, a sneakier way, but Callie had never been known to look too far ahead, and the pins and rods in her neck made it impossible for her to look back. All she had on her side was a determination for this to be over. It might not turn out well in the end, but at least it would be the end.
Friday
19
The clock was just passing midnight by the time Leigh found herself squinting through the burglar bars lining the front windows of Dr. Jerry’s darkened waiting room. She’d assumed that the old man was dead, but Reggie’s surveillance photos of Callie had proved otherwise. The clinic’s Facebook page showed recent photos of animals they’d treated. Leigh had recognized Callie’s handiwork in the names. Cleocatra. Mewssolini. Meowma Cass. Binx, which was apparently the real name of Fucking Bitch, or Fitch for short.
Leave it to Callie to remember the cat from Hocus Pocus, a movie they had watched so many times that even Phil started quoting some of the lines. Leigh would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so frantic to locate her sister. The fact that Leigh hadn’t talked to Callie in two days was usually a relief. Now, only the worst-case scenarios were running through her mind—an altercation with Andrew, a bad dose of dope, a phone call from the emergency room, a cop at the door.
Walter asked, “Are you sure she’s here?”
“That was Dr. Jerry we passed down the road. She has to be here.” Leigh tapped on the glass with her fingers. She was worried about the silver BMW convertible taking up two spaces in front of the building. They were not only in the ’hood, they were in Fulton County. The tag on the car was from DeKalb, which was where Andrew lived.
“Sweetheart, it ’s late.” Walter pressed his hand to the small of her back. “We’re meeting with the lawyer in seven hours. We might not be able to find Callie before then.”