Chapter 22

Heather wantedme to come to her parents' house for Thanksgiving, but I begged off because Kovak offered to pay me double to work on Black Friday. I need money even more badly now that I've got a girlfriend. She always offers to pay, but I hate letting her do that.

Yes, I'm still working at the clinic. Patrice told me that the school is investigating the clinic but hasn't come up with anything yet. That's comforting, I suppose. Maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe the whole operation is on the up-and-up.

Yeah, right.

The clinic is especially busy—a lot of people coming in and out. A lot of patients who have a "cough that won't go away." I try not to think about it. If Patrice said they're investigating, it's out of my hands.

It's close to midnight when we finish up with the last patient of the evening. Dr. Kovak is in very good spirits, which makes sense because we pulled in a fortune in cash tonight. He unlocks the desk drawer that contains all of the money, and he grins as he flips through the thick wad. He peels off a bunch of bills and thrusts them in my direction. "Thanks for your help tonight, Abe."

He might not be thanking me if he knew that I reported him to my school. But I'm no dummy, so I take the money.

Just as I'm stuffing the bills into my wallet, there is a loud banging on the door to the clinic. A hoarse voice on the other side of the door yells, "You in there, Kovak? Let me in!"

"Shit," Kovak mutters under his breath.

I look at him, confused. "Should we let him in?"

"We definitely should not."

The banging continues, growing louder by the second. Whoever is behind the door is not going away. "Let me in! You can't cut me off that way!"

Quietly, Novak lifts up a potted plant in the corner of the room, revealing a key hidden beneath. He brings the key back to the desk and unlocks the bottom drawer. He pulls out the gun nestled within and lays it down on the table.

My heart is ratcheting in my chest. "You don't need a gun. I'm here."

"Trust me," he says. "You won't be able to handle him on your own."

Just as he says the words, the lock on the door splinters as it bursts open. The man standing before us is almost as big as I am, reeking ofsweat, with his pupils so large that his eyes look black. His face is bright red, nearly purple.

And there's a knife clutched in his right hand.

Kovak is right. I can't take this guy on my own, not with a knife in his hand. But when Kovak raises the gun and points it at him, I am desperate to keep this from happening.

"You need to walk away, Hooper," Kovak says.

But the man isn't stopping. He barrels forward, his teeth bared. It's clear that Kovak doesn't want to shoot him, though, and that hesitation costs him. In a split second, the man, Hooper—unclear if that's his first or last name—has crossed the room and twisted the gun out of Kovak's hand. The gun falls to the floor as Hooper presses the blade of the knife against Kovak's throat.

"I want everything you've got," he snarls. "All the money and all the drugs." He looks up at me with his black pupils. "Get it right now, or he dies."

"The kid doesn't know where all that stuff is," Kovak manages. "I can get it for you if you let me go."

"Stop stalling!" the man snaps at him. "I want it now!"

Hooper presses the knife into Kovak's neck, slicing through his skin so that a drop of blood trickles down his throat. This guy is not listening to reason. He is going to murder my boss right here and right now.

Unless I do something to stop him.

The gun that fell out of Kovak's hand is still on the floor. Hooper is too high to even register that it's there. I have to be quick because if he figures out what I'm doing, he will kill Kovak. But if I don't grab that gun, he might kill us both.

I do it fast. I scrape the gun up off the floor and wrap my fingers around it, pointing the muzzle in Hooper's direction. All I meant to do was threaten him so he'd let go of Kovak, but the second he sees the gun in my hand, he loses his shit. He pushes Kovak to the floor and turns his attention to me.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he growls at me. "You don't even know how to use that thing!"

Well, he's right about that. I've never shot a gun before. But it seems pretty self-explanatory.

Either way, I'm about to find out. Because this man is coming at me. And he is not stopping.

I pull the trigger on the gun. The shot that rings out is startlingly loud, and the kickback is strong enough that I almost feel like I've been shot. But the effect is instant. Hooper stops moving, his body goes limp, and he drops to the floor like a ragdoll.

I've never shot anyone before, but I was right—it wasn't hard. On my very first try, I nailed Hooper right in the chest. He's now lying on the floor, his eyes open but his body very still, and there is a pool of blood rapidly growing beneath him.

Oh Christ.

"He… he's dead," I choke out.

"No shit," Kovak breathes.

I thought I was in trouble before, when I was simply working at a clinic where I suspected drugs were being sold. But now, things are much, much worse. I have murdered a man. I shot him, and now he's dead at my feet.

I'm finished.

My legs give out beneath me, and I fall to my knees, burying my face in my hands. What the hell am I going to do? I am royally screwed. There is no coming back from this. My life is over.

"Kaufman," Kovak snaps at me. "No time for prayers. Get back on your feet."

I manage to raise my eyes from my hands to look up at him. Unlike me, Kovak doesn't look the slightest bit shaken by the dead man on the floor of the clinic. He has squared his jaw, and he's ready to get to business.

He's acting like this has happened to him before.

"Abe," he says in a voice that is gentler than before but still firm. "You need to pull yourself together—now. If somebody discovers a dead body in this clinic, we are both in a world of trouble."

He's right.

"But…" I shake my head. "What do we do?"

"First of all," he says, "get off the floor."

Obediently, I scramble to my feet. There's blood all over my scrub pants and my hands. There's blood everywhere.

"Good," Kovak says. "Now we need to get rid of the body."

"What?"

"Look," he says impatiently, "this guy was a lowlife—nothing but trouble. That's why I cut him off. Nobody will ever miss him. And the ones who do will be glad he's gone. But if the police find him here, both of us are screwed. So we need to get him out of here. We need to make sure nothing connects us to his murder."

I stumble backward, my bloodstained hands in the air. "I'm not helping you get rid of a dead body."

"Fine. Do you want to call the police and spend the next ten to fifteen years in jail?"

"It was self-defense! He was coming at me!"

Kovak smirks. "And what do you think is going to happen when they dig deeper and find out what goes on at this clinic?"

"I… that has nothing to do with me."

"Yeah? Well, good luck trying to prove that with the court-appointed attorney."

He's right. I look so guilty right now. I'm the one who shot the guy, and I was working at a clinic that sells drugs to students. Not just that, but I told Patrice about it, so it's obvious that I knew what was going on. There is no way I will get out of this with my reputation unscathed.

I can kiss being a doctor goodbye. I can kiss Heather goodbye.

"I can't do this without you," Kovak says quietly. "I can't even lift him without your help."

That much is clear. This guy would be hard for me to handle on my own, and Kovak is a lot smaller than I am. It's going to take two of us to get rid of him.

Am I actually considering this? Am I contemplating disposing of a dead body?

"What…" I swallow a lump in my throat. "What do we do with him?"

A slow smile spreads across Kovak's face. "Don't worry. I've handled situations like this before. I know just the place."