“Where are you going to be?”Chad asked.
Romeo glanced over his shoulder towards the stairs.“On the landing.”
“I’ll keep the door open so you can listen.”Chad stepped across the bedroom to his drawers.He tugged on a fresh t-shirt.“I couldn’t do much about the coffee dripping down the wall.Really, Romeo?”
Romeo smirked.“The table was in the way.”
“You didn’t have to flip it.”
“I did.”He stopped Chad before he left the bedroom.“You’re amazing, you know that?”
Chad avoided his gaze.
“Chad...”
“Later,” Chad whispered.“We’ll talk later.”
He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Romeo’s lips, then he went downstairs just as Josh’s car tore up the dirt track.
****
Chad had managed tokeep Josh out of the living room.The smell of coffee flowed up the stairs, and Romeo knew they were at the kitchen table, both cradling a cup.
Mercutio appeared at the top of the stairs, wagging his tail excitedly as he looked at Romeo.Romeo encouraged him closer, patting him on the head.
Chad had explained away his croaky voice by claiming he was coming down with a cold.Josh was too apologetic to question it.
From what Romeo had heard from the top of the stairs, Josh, with Dave’s help, had discovered two more suicides with private autopsies that had revealed the substances Zolpidem and LSD in the hair of the deceased.
One in Preston.
One in Leicester
They were both recorded as unexplained traces.
Both victims suffered from depression, and they were both on medication.
Their suicides seemed almost expected.
No one looked closely enough to see who linked them.
The person they’d trusted to help them at their most vulnerable.
Chad had been right.Keeley was clever.
“How...”Josh hesitated.“How did she get that stuff into you?”
Romeo couldn’t see them in the kitchen, but he was sure Josh was taking notes.His voice, his questions, they weren’t from a concerned friend in that moment, they were from a detective taking a statement.
“The coffee,” Chad answered.“It could only be the coffee.For months I didn’t have any, I always turned her down, and then...”
“Then what?”
“Thomas burst into our session.He was distressed, but I just saw him as a threat.A threat to myself.A threat to Keeley.I froze up.I couldn’t move.Keeley had to talk me through it afterwards, calm me down.That’s when she made me a coffee.That’s when I drank it.I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not,” Romeo mumbled beneath his breath.
“You’re not.”Josh said and he sounded pissed.“You’re not stupid, Chad.You should be able to have a cup of coffee without suspecting it’s been tampered with.She was supposed to help you.She came well recommended,” he groaned.“Sorry, I’m getting off track.Tell me what happened the first time you drank the coffee.”
