Chapter 41

He didn’t want to remember that night anymore. The thought made a bitter acidic taste rise to the back of his throat and caused his stomach to roil. But a couple of images were seared into his brain, unwelcome and hideous, and he would never be relieved of them. The first was Jameson letting one of the guys wrap a belt around his upper arm and then inject him with liquid crystal meth. All the guys watched the process, stroking themselves.

It took only instants before Jameson was jerking and convulsing on the floor, eyes rolled back in his head and back arched in agony.

“Shit. You gave him too much, asswipe,” one of the partiers said with a shocking lack of compassion.

Arliss fled. He stopped in the office on his way out, rousing a sleeping night manager, and watched while the guy called 911, dictating that he tell them there was a drug overdose in room 207.

When the manager asked him his name, Arliss beat a hasty retreat into a cold, traffic-clogged winter night.