Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [76]
We stuck around ten minutes after Saro’s group took off. With my tendency to shoot first, I didn’t want to run into them in the parking area.
Anna grilled me the instant we entered the cabin. “What the fuck was that about? What aren’t you telling me about Jason?”
“Calm down.”
“The hell I will. I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know right fucking now.”
“Fine.” I snagged two beers from the fridge. No need to beat around the bush. “What do you know about the prescription drug OxyContin?”
“What does that have to do—?”
“Just answer the question.”
Anna snatched the beer from my hand. “OxyContin is as addicting as meth or cocaine. Some people call it hillbilly heroin.” She looked at me. “Are you saying that Jason was taking it?”
I nodded. “I got a peek at the coroner’s blood-test results, and J-Hawk had extremely high levels of OxyContin in his system.”
“So? That isn’t what killed him.”
“There was also a large amount of OxyContin in his motel room and in his vehicle.”
“How much?”
“A hundred and forty bottles.”
She drank as she paced. “Maybe he’d been stockpiling prescriptions. During your discharge, didn’t the army shrinks try to load you up on medicine to help you ‘adjust’ to civilian life? I remember I had my choice of Ambien or Lunesta to help me sleep. Abilify to fight long-term anxiety. Xanax to fight situational anxiety. If I’d mentioned suffering from chronic pain, they would’ve prescribed the all-purpose OxyContin like candy.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve been out of the service longer than you. At this one VA I visited in California? Looked like the damn stock exchange when the nurses turned their backs. Guys were trading OxyContin for Vicodin. Or Xanax for Adderal. High-dosage pain pills of any kind were big-ticket items. That’s how some vets made their living. They’d go to the doc, get the prescriptions, and sell them for cash. I can name at least a dozen straight-arrow soldiers, like Jason, who craved that combat high. They couldn’t handle normal. The only way to achieve the high was through artificial means. So they made up aches and pains to get that rush.”
I studied her. “Do you miss it? That rush of adrenaline?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Is that why you hired on as a merc? To feed that need?”
“Yes.” Anna gave me the unflinching stare that’d made several Iraqi interpreters start praying.
“Do you think Jason needed that rush?”
“Meaning, do I think he needed a way to escape his shitty life in North Dakota? Yes. So it’s no wonder he loaded up on as many bottles as the doctors would prescribe for him.”
“That’s the thing. There were no pharmacy prescriptions on the bottles. Just the manufacturer’s labels.”
Anna froze. “He stole them?”
“It appears so.”
She began pacing again. “Why would he take that risk? His income as a retired army officer is a helluva lot more than mine as enlisted. I’m sure his job with Titan Oil came with a pile of cash. Did stealing give him that high? Or did he have a death wish?”
I was beginning to wonder that myself. “That’s what I’m asking you, Anna. You said you knew him down to the bone.”
“I do.”
“You mean you did.”
Lightning fast, Anna was in my face. “What about you, Sergeant Major? Do you miss that rush? Knowing you’re at the top of your game? Confident few women in the world can best you at what you do best?”
“I was an excellent sniper. But I never aspired to be an excellent killer.”
She backed off as quickly as she’d invaded my space, but I didn’t relax. Couldn’t. Unhinged Anna scared me.
“Same thing. I’m just doing what the army taught me. Be the best I can be. Putting the killing skills I learned to the test in the real world. You know all that Rah, rah! Go, Army! shit that lured us into enlisting in the first place. Now I’m supposed to pretend that’s not who I am?”
“People change, A-Rod.”
Her cell phone rang, and she looked at the caller ID. Then she smiled haughtily.