Page 127 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
Eff.
I turned to his father.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong with him, sir?” I asked.
His father ran his hands through his short brown hair. “Scottie. His name is Scottie. And I don’t know what’s wrong. He was supposed to be in school. It’s a Friday. Why wasn’t he in school? I just don’t know what he was doing at home. He left for school this morning and I was meeting my wife in Bozeman. I was driving over to pick her up at the airport. But I forgot my wallet so I had to turn around. I came home and saw his car in the garage. Then I found him passed out on the living room couch.”
Pausing to dig in the front pocket of his khaki corduroy pants, he pulled out a handful of red and yellow pills.
“Here,” he said, handing them to me. “These were on the coffee table. One of them was open and there was powder everywhere.”
I took the pills and set them on a tray at the same time Everett came rushing into the room.
“You paged?” he asked.
“Yes. This is Mr. . . .”
“Pierce. Scott Pierce.”
“Mr. Pierce. He found his son passed out at home not long ago. These pills were next to him,” I told Everett.
Everett started asking Mr. Pierce a series of questions after ordering me to get an IV started in Scottie’s arm.
“Are you going to pump his stomach?” Mr. Pierce asked Everett.
“No, I don’t think we’ll need to. Those look like oxycodone pills. If he took them or was inhaling their contents, then we can get rid of the opioids in his body by using an antidote. Do you have any idea how much he’s taken?” Everett asked.
“I don’t know. Why is he taking pills? He’s a good kid. Why is he doing drugs?” he asked the room.
“Mr. Pierce, I’m sorry to ask. But did you find a note with these pills? Any indication this was an attempted suicide?” Everett asked.
“What?! No. Scottie wouldn’t do that. Never. He’s a good kid.”
I had a feeling that Mr. Pierce didn’t know as much about Scottie as he liked to think. After all, not three months a
go, he’d been vandalizing other people’s homes, including mine, with no regard to the homeowners’ feelings or the consequences of his actions.
“Okay. We’ll get the antidote started. It will take a while to work through Scottie’s system. Would you like us to call anyone for you?” Everett asked.
“Ah . . . no. I’ll step out and call my wife,” he said and left the room.
“Gigi, let’s give him the max dose of the antidote,” Everett ordered. “If he doesn’t wake up in an hour, give me a call. I’ll swing by before then if I can but I’ve got a couple other patients upstairs to see to. It might take me a while to finish up with them. Just call if anything comes up.”
I worked for the next fifteen minutes to get Scottie situated with the IV drip and to admit him into the hospital’s system. His father hadn’t returned to his room yet. He was pacing back and forth in the waiting room with his phone attached to his ear.
Where had Scottie gotten the pills? Had he gotten them from his parents’ medicine cabinet? Or were these from the same dealer that Jess was looking for?
Unless he confessed to buying them illegally and agreed to discuss it with the police, I didn’t think there was anything Jess could do. And this kid didn’t seem like the type to confess to anything. He hadn’t confessed to vandalizing the country houses on Halloween, why would he confess to participating in illegal drug trafficking? But maybe an overdose and a trip to the emergency room would scare some sense into him, or at least some sense into his parents.
Scottie groaned when I came into his room.
“Scottie? Can you hear me?” I asked.
He slowly shook his head and opened his eyes, groaning again.
I stayed by his side for a few minutes until he finally started to come to.
“Where am I?” he asked groggily.
