Ian and I followed her down the hall, and she opened the door. It was a nice enough apartment, well, probably a condo like Ian’s, but there was clothing and dirty dishes strewn everywhere.

Ian scanned the place, and concern filled his eyes. “What happened here?”

“Nothing,” she barked and tried to close the door on us, but Ian was having none of that. He pushed through the door, and I gave him some space before following.

He acted like this was all new, which meant he might not even know she was using. If she were my patient, I couldn’t tell Ian, but neither she nor her insurance were paying for my services. I didn’t want him to explode at her, though, so I watched him.

After wandering around to the various rooms, securing the apartment, Ian planted himself on the sofa. His eyes were sharp and he was about to snap, but not at her. He looked at her as if she was someone who needed protecting.

Ian could never hurt his sister. I would have to tell him; he could get her help.

“Just go, Ian,” she said. “Thanks for coming to get me. I’m just gonna take a shower and crash for the night, nothing exciting going on here. Thank you and good-bye.” She looked almost pissed.

I stepped forward. “Sophia, you and I both know he isn’t going anywhere until you’re cleaned up and he’s calmed down. Let’s go take a look at those scrapes.”

I took her hand and guided her to the solitary hallway, which had to lead to the bathroom. When Ian got up to follow, I said, “I’ve got this, Ian. You just relax. This is a girl thing.”

“Does Ian know?” I asked once the bathroom door had closed behind us.

Sophia folded her arms and turned away from me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” was her snotty little response. She was trying to push me away by being cold. I’d seen it before; she was desperate to be left alone to feed her addiction.

Not on my watch.

“Oh, right,” I said. I opened her medicine cabinet and started rummaging through the bottles of pills.

“Stop it.” She reached for a bottle of antihistamine and I swatted her hand away, taking the same bottle off the shelf myself and opening it.

“Are your allergies acting up? You want some of this?” I asked, tipping the bottle’s contents into my hand. No pills, just a small clear vial. It was almost empty, save for a tiny trace of powder. She reached for it, and I pulled it behind my back.

“Sophia, does Ian know you’re using?”

She took a deep breath as if to fight off tears. “No, please don’t tell him. He’ll tell our parents. I hardly ever use, and…I can stop. I’ll stop. I promise.” Her eyes were wide, but not because she was scared. It was because of how high she was.

I lifted the toilet seat and opened the vial, tapping the last pinch of cocaine into the toilet. Her hands went for the vial as I did so.

This was bad, and so heart wrenching. I felt my fist balling up. I’d known so many addicts when I was a kid. Several of my foster parents were. I always tried to be nice and encouraging to them in the hopes that they would stop. It wasn’t until nursing school that I learned addicts wouldn’t get help until they were ready. Sometimes that meant tough love. So as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t baby her.

“Clean yourself up,” I said, then let myself out of the bathroom.

Her faint sobs followed me down the hall, begging me to turn back and tell her it would all be okay. God, I wanted to. But I went back to meet Ian in the living room. Addicts needed tough love.

When I got there, he was still seated on the sofa, his head in his hands. I wasn’t sure what he was doing until I saw what was laid out in front of him on the coffee table. A CD case with a dusting of white powder.

I didn’t have to tell him his little sister was snorting coke. The evidence was right in front of him.

Twenty-Three

Ian

How the hell did I not know?

The signs were all there. MacKenzie told me they weren’t always easy to spot, but still, I should have seen them. Sophia was my little sister. I have known her all my life.

I thought back to the few times I’d seen Sophia in the past month. The way her leg had started bobbing up and down nervously, the irritability. She had been secretive, and had asked for more money. She was manipulative, even more so than usual. Only I hadn’t noticed because I was so wrapped up in my own career, so focused on my stupid injury. So now, here I was on her sofa, waiting for her to come down from her high so we could talk.

MacKenzie had spent several hours going through Sophia’s place. She picked up clothing, washed the dishes, did a load of laundry, and even mopped the floor. That, and everything else from the day had worn her out.

Now she lay next to me, her head in my lap, dozing quietly. I ran my fingers through her hair, so thankful she’d come with me. If she hadn’t been here, I’d have lost my shit. MacKenzie took control of the situation in a way I never could have. I was so hell-bent on finding the guy who mugged Sophia so that I could exact revenge, I couldn’t even see that there was something way more fucked-up going on. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been here.

Hell, I guess I do. I would have ignored the signs and run off half-cocked to find whoever did this to Sophia. I still wanted to figure out who the hell had put her on to that shit. And I would be finding out once she was clean; I had to wait until she came down. No matter how much I wanted to punch whoever did this shit to her, I had to fucking calm down.