“Because I’m freaking out! Neil went to the hospital last night because he tried to kill himself, and now, he’s in a fucking mental hospital or something… I don’t know what they call it—”
“Sophie, slow down! This is why I told you to stick to grass. Jesus Christ!” She sighed heavily. “Any chance of getting an air lift out there?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I emphatically nodded along with the words. “Absolutely. But, no! You have a show tonight.”
“I do, but I can…” she began reluctantly. Torn between her work and her family. I could so relate to that conflict.
“No, never mind. I know who to call.” I dragged my hair back, raking my hands through it. “I’ll be okay, I’m just freaking out over this. But I have a plan, now.”
“Okay…” she replied uncertainly. “Flush the cocaine down the toilet, okay? The last thing you need is to aid your stress-induced heart attack along.”
“Right. Thank you. I’ll check back in with you tomorrow, okay?” I didn’t want to promise tonight, because after this, I was going to sleep forever.
I hung up and looked up a contact so seldom used, I worried that she wouldn’t be there.
“How can I help you, Sophie?”
These days, Valerie didn’t sound as exasperated every single time she spoke to me. That might have been because she feared my dislike of her would keep her from her grandchild. Which made me feel icky, but I would take it.
“Neil did it again,” I blurted.
“Excuse me?”
“Overdosed. Neil overdosed, again.” Those words brought me back down, a little. My face was still numb, though. “This time, it was on purpose.”
“My god,” she breathed on the other end of the line.
“It’s bad. It’s really, really bad, and…” How did I phrase this without sounding like I was asking for an impossible favor? “I think he has drugs stashed around the house. Actually, I know he does. I found some coke in the bookcase—”
“I can tell,” she said dryly.
I ignored her and intentionally fought to lower my speed. “You’re the only person I know of who knows he has this…tendency and won’t flip out about all this. You’re the only calm person I know, right now. And I need someone to help me look around the house.”
“Is he home now?” she asked, her concern spiking.
“No, he’s going to a mental health place upstate. But he’s going on an involuntary hold, so I don’t know when he’ll come back. I just want to get this done.”
“I’m at work, Sophie–” She halted with a sigh. “All right. Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can. You don’t think he’ll have put anything where Olivia could get it?”
“No, I don’t think that’s a concern. At all.” I put emphasis on the last words.
“All right. I’ll be there before supper time.”
“Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”
After I hung up, I fished the book off the shelf again and found the little packets. I took them to the guest bathroom, ran water in the sink, and not only shook the contents down the drain, but rinsed the bags out before throwing them in the trash.
While I did it, I tried to remember all the drugs Neil had confessed to having used over the years. I hoped I wouldn’t find heroin, and I doubted I would find meth—it wasn’t exactly a big trend among Long Island billionaires—there was every chance I would find pills or booze or more coke.
If I found any weed, I was keeping it.
My earlier idea of inspecting every book on the shelf seemed a lot less daunting now. I took each one out and flipped through the pages. I checked under dust covers and shook series out of boxed sets. When I was done, I neatly stacked them with the others, until the room became a little Stonehenge of hardbacks.
He was going to put every one of them back when he got home.
After the study, I went through our bedroom. I screwed off the base of his bedside lamp like we were in a prison movie. I lifted every watch from their glass-enclosed shel
ves and checked all of his shoes. Because I was feeling particularly angry, I forced my whole hand into the damn things, not caring if I stretched the leather.