Page 124 of I’ll Be Watching You

So far, so good.

He barely slept, but knowing they had evidence that might help his dad prove his innocence, and that Margo had come away from a firefight unscathed, gave him some peace. He and Nico were eating breakfast when Nate called him.

“I talked to Jim Novak,” Nate said. “He’s going through withdrawal, but is in pretty good shape, all things considered.”

“Learn anything?”

“He has a standing appointment every year for his arm—he has a prosthetic left arm. That’s how Liz remembered him, because your dad had fitted him for the prosthetic piece. She told him on Monday that there was something wrong with his file, and that she would put in a request to Medical Records to research it. She was concerned about potential allergies because of a note in the record, but there was no allergy listed and Novak didn’t remember being allergic to anything.”

“Which would explain why she followed up that afternoon,” Jack guessed.

“Yep,” Nate said. “As far as the drug trial, his memory is fuzzy. The doctor says it might come back. But what he distinctly remembers is how when he was on the drug, he had intense nightmares, to the point where he was terrified of going to sleep. He told Dr. Klein about it, and thinks the doctor told the woman who he had to see every week during the trial, but that’s fuzzy. He remembered the woman telling him to continue the drug, that the nightmares would pass, but Dr. Klein told him not to take it. He stopped, but the nightmares didn’t, and he started drinking more. If he was drunk, they didn’t come back.”

“That’s awful.”

“He still gets them,” Nate said. “The doctor here is going to work with him to find tools other than drugs and alcohol to combat the terror. Get these bastards, Jack. Novak is a war hero and doesn’t deserve to suffer like this.”

Jack thought back to what Christina Aberdeen’s sister and friend told him and Margo about her ups and downs after she started on the trial. Maybe she had nightmares too. Or maybe the drug affected her differently. But she was dead, and no one could ask her.

“Are you going back to Tess’s?” Jack asked.

“In a bit. I was going to hang here for a while, unless you need me.”

“Cal and Margo are on their way back from Flagstaff, so go ahead and stay. If you learn anything else, call.”

“Roger that,” Nate said, and the line went dead.

“Did you hear any of that?” Jack asked his brother.

Nico frowned. “Night terrors? I looked at the chemical compound of the Phase 4 drug, and there’s nothing in there that should cause that. They must have significantly changed the drug between the first phase and the last. I wonder if there are any records of it left.”

Jack’s phone rang again; it was an unknown Phoenix number.

“Angelhart,” he answered.

“Jack Angelhart?” a female voice said.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“Detective Jane Childs from Paradise Valley Police Department.”

Paradise Valley had a tiny jurisdiction nestled in between Phoenix and Scottsdale. Many of Jack’s cases when he was with Phoenix PD overlapped with the PV jurisdiction, but he didn’t recognize the name.

“How can I help you?”

“We got a bulletin in our morning briefing from Phoenix PD to be on the lookout for a man named Carter. We found him.”

“And you’re calling me?”

“Well, no, I called my boss, he gave me your name and number. Carter’s in critical condition at the trauma center, probably won’t make it. I’m at his house now, and my boss said to call you and see if you can come down for a consult. We found some interesting things here.”

Twenty minutes later, Jane Childs—a newly minted detective, Jack quickly learned—escorted Jack around the sleek modern mansion built into the southern side of a mountain on one of the priciest streets in Paradise Valley. There was blood in the family room which had one of the best views of downtown Phoenix he had ever seen other than from the top of Camelback Mountain.

“You know the federal agent who shot the guy? Rafferty?” Childs asked.

“I do.”

“Carter was wearing a vest. One bullet pierced his gut right below it. The other his hip. Surprised he survived driving back from Flagstaff, that he didn’t pass out on the way. He did some triage on himself, but still, he lost a lot of blood.”