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“Oxycontin, or anything like it.”
“Heroin if he can’t get it?” Annie asked.
Painkillers eventually became a difficult habit for a lot of people to sustain. What might have started as a legitimate prescription for a necessary drug quickly became an addiction. But prescriptions ran out, and addicts turned to other sources. Demand kept the street price high—$30 to $50 a pill, depending on strength and brand name. Those who couldn’t afford the cost of pills from dealers often turned to heroin for a more affordable high. But heroin was now often cut with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid fifty to a hundred times more potent than morphine. Overdoses were depressingly common.
The mother shook her head. “He doesn’t do needles. It’s practically a phobia. He would never inject anything. He might try something else, but he wouldn’t shoot up.”
Annie said nothing, mentally ticking off the long, depressing list of the many other things an addict might try.
“I know what you’re thinking,” B’Lynn Fontenot said softly. “I’ve thought it, too. I’m not unrealistic, Detective. I know what addicts do. I know the promises they make and break. I am well aware he could be lying dead somewhere.
“Ten years we’ve been struggling with this—Robbie’s addiction. There’s nothing I don’t know about dealing with an addict. My son has disappointed me and disappointed himself again and again. And I know exactly how pathetic I’m gonna sound when I say this, but he wastrulydoing better this time. He was tryingsohard. We were trying hard together, and I’m not gonna give up on him now, no matter where he is or why he’s there. But I need help.Pleasehelp me.”
Ten years.Robbie Fontenot had been seventeen, just a boy, whenaddiction had taken hold of his life. And here was his mother, a decade later, still fighting for him, begging for help.
Annie had started the day wanting the distraction of someone else’s problems. B’Lynn Fontenot had a boatload of them.Careful what you wish for, Annie, she thought. This situation wasn’t liable to have a happy ending.
“I’ll help you, Mrs. Fontenot,” she said simply, though she had a feeling there wouldn’t be anything simple about it.
B’Lynn Fontenot blinked back tears. “Thank you.”
“Do you have a key to his place?” Annie asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She nodded, pushing to her feet. “Let’s go.”
4
“How didit start?” thedetective asked, glancing over at her from the driver’s seat as they waited for an opening in traffic to pull out of the law enforcement center. “Your son’s addiction. How’d it start?”
B’Lynn took a deep breath and sighed, wondering how many times she’d told this story over the years. Too many.
Once was too many.
“Robbie played football in high school. He blew out his left knee during a practice at the beginning of his senior year. He had to have reconstructive surgery.”
She left out the details of an injury so devastating, they had feared for a time he might lose his lower leg. She left out the part of the story about how talented her son had been, how he had been courted by college scouts. He’d had a bright, exciting future, such big dreams, so much to look forward to, and in a single moment all that opportunity was gone. The college scouts disappeared. Fans and fair-weather friends faded from his life. His classmates kept moving forward at the breakneck pace of senior year and all the activities that entailed, while Robbie’s life stopped hard, then creptforward, defined by grueling hours of physical therapy and time spent with tutors as he struggled to catch up academically. He lost who he had been. Depression had descended on him like a dark cloud and swallowed him whole.
“He got hooked on the painkillers,” the detective prompted as they drove toward downtown. It was a statement, not a question. She clearly knew the gist of the story. The way things were in the world, she had doubtless heard many different versions of the same basic tale.
“His doctor prescribed Oxycontin post-op. I didn’t like the idea, but my husband said not to worry. It wouldn’t be for long. Just to get him past the worst of it. But that’s not how it worked out.”
“What does your husband do?”
B’Lynn felt her lips turn in that too-familiar ironic smile. “He’s a doctor. Was. Was my husband,” she hastened to clarify. “He’s still a doctor.”
The detective cut another glance in her direction, looking at her wedding ring, B’Lynn thought, wondering why she still wore it, no doubt. That was a long story of her own bitterness and stubbornness, and her vindictive and pointless desire to aggravate and embarrass Robert. Detective Broussard didn’t need to hear about that.
“You remarried?” she asked.
“No.”
“Have you spoken to your ex about your son being missing?”
“I texted him. He hasn’t heard from Robbie. They don’t speak. They haven’t had a relationship for a long time. Robert can’t accept having a failure for a son. It reflects badly on him.”
That was unfair, to a certain extent, but B’Lynn didn’t care. Her anger toward her ex was one of the few indulgences she allowed herself these days. Blaming Robert made her feel less bad about herself, briefly distracting her from her own failures as a parent.
