“I feel her, Henry.” Archie had to look away as he said it, but he still needed to say it aloud, and Henry was the only person he could tell. “I think she’s here. I think she was on the island last night.”

Archie had stopped petting Ginger with his foot and she flopped back over and sat staring at him, waiting for an invitation up on the couch.

“Now you’re sounding like a nut job,” Henry said. He held the brass pillbox up between two fingers. “You just happened to have this pillbox with you when you found the hair? You were just carrying it around in your pocket in case you needed an evidence container?” The blood vessels on Henry’s cheekbones and around his nose brightened. “How many did you take?”

“Two,” Archie said. “Maybe more.”

“Maybe more?”

“I don’t remember,” Archie said truthfully. “Some were missing, but I don’t remember taking them. I haven’t had anything since this morning. It’s out of my system.”

Henry stood up quickly. Archie thought it was out of frustration, until he saw Henry digging for the phone in his pocket and realized that he must have gotten a call. Henry answered it and then listened, his eyes on Archie.

“No, I’m standing next to him right now,” Henry said into the phone. “I’ll tell him.”

Archie’s mind was still on Gretchen, and his stomach tightened, anticipating news of another sighting. “What’s going on?”

“A dead body just washed up not far from Jack Reynolds’s place.”

There it was. The surge of adrenaline that always came with a report of a murder. Archie sat up. His mind felt clear and sharp. He sat forward. “Leo’s Russian?”

“You said the Russian was a man, right?” Henry said.

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s definitely not him.”

“A woman,” Archie said.

“So says the LOPD,” Henry said.

Archie looked down at his damp T-shirt and sweatpants. He couldn’t go to a crime scene looking like this. “Give me a few minutes,” he said.

“Maybe you should sit this one out,” Henry suggested. “Go in for that tox screen. Get your head checked.”

His head, Archie wondered, or his mind?

“It’s a concussion,” Archie said. “I’ve been through worse.”

No one could argue with that.

“Where’s the rest of the Vicodin?” Henry asked.

Archie only hesitated for a second. “Medicine cabinet,” Archie said. “In the Prilosec container.”

Henry turned and headed for the bathroom. “I’m flushing them,” he grumbled. “Happy fucking birthday.”

“Okay.” Archie stood and headed for the bedroom to change, Ginger at his heels. As he walked he put his hands in the pockets of his sweats, his fingers grazing the bottle of Oxycodone. Henry hadn’t asked about those.

Chapter 26

CHAPTER

26