The Slip Toby Kept Hidden

My palm flew to my mouth. In the stillness of the den, I could hear my own breath catch. Brenda was drugging him. Maybe she wanted him dead; maybe she only meant to leave him helpless.

Then I reached the next part of Dr. Aris’s message, and the danger widened until it seemed to fill the room.

The doctor advised Mark to find a lawyer without delay. Earlier that afternoon, Paul Vance had called Eastside Clinic and pretended to be Mark’s corporate safety officer.

He had demanded the toxicology report, claiming it was needed for a required workplace safety audit. The clinic had refused to hand over anything because patient records were protected.

But Paul had not given up. Dr. Aris reported that he intended to order an unexpected blood draw for the whole company on Friday morning, at Mark’s job site.

Friday.

The room tilted around me. Pieces that had seemed separate crashed together, forming something colder and more deliberate than an affair.

Paul wasn’t merely Brenda’s lover. He and Brenda were conspiring against my father.

Paul kept Dad on punishing, isolated sixty-hour shifts. Brenda, meanwhile, had been hiding strong sedatives in his food.

Together, they were weakening his coordination and contaminating his blood without his knowledge.

On Friday, Paul meant to catch Dad with an unannounced company-wide blood draw at the pipeline site.

The result could show the Schedule IV drug in Dad’s system.

Under the rules of his union job, operating heavy equipment while impaired could cost him his position for good. He stood to lose more than a paycheck.

His pension, severance, and health coverage could disappear too. He might even face accusations of criminal negligence. His life could be wrecked in a single morning.

Brenda could tell everyone Dad was an addict. She could take the house, while he was left with nothing and she went off with Paul.

And the pregnancy?

I glanced at the abortion confirmation folded in my pocket.

Friday, October 18.

Their baby wasn’t part of some plan to start a new life together. The pregnancy had come from their affair and become one more problem to hide.

They were arranging to end it at Westside Surgical Center on Friday afternoon, just as Dad would be removed from the pipeline site.

Every part of it had been timed. They were arranging the destruction of my father’s life as if they were following a schedule.

Brenda hadn’t forced Toby down onto the floor over forty dollars. She had frightened him because she believed the receipt he’d discovered concerned Dad’s toxicology test.

She was scared that Dad already knew he had been drugged.

I kept staring at the computer, unable to breathe around the enormity of what I’d uncovered.

If I waited until that evening to show Dad the abortion papers, I might be too late. The plan was already in motion. Paul would make his move Friday morning.

I had to interfere. I couldn’t sit at home and wait for Dad to return exhausted, drugged, and in trouble.

I needed to reach the pipeline site. I needed to warn him before Paul got to him.

I bent toward the computer to shut off the monitor. At that instant, the front door clicked open, and its hinges groaned.

“I forgot my wallet!” Brenda called from the entry. Her quick, sharp steps crossed the hardwood toward the den.

I shoved the desk drawer closed and hit the little X on the screen. The insurance portal disappeared just before her footsteps reached the doorway.

I twisted around in the leather chair, my heart pounding so hard I thought she might hear it.

Brenda appeared with the keys to her spotless white SUV swinging from her manicured hand. Her gaze flicked to the dark screen, then settled on me.

The suspicion in her face returned, cold and watchful.

“What are you doing on your father’s computer?” she asked. Her voice had gone low.

“I was trying to print my history syllabus,” I said evenly. I got up and put my hands in my pockets, keeping my expression calm.

“The printer’s out of ink again, so I’ll use the library’s.”

She stayed where she was, filling the doorway. Her blue eyes searched my face for any hint that I knew more than I should.

I gave her nothing—just the blank, bored look she expected from a teenager.

“My wallet was on the kitchen island,” she said, slow and careful. “Did you touch it?”

“No. I’ve been in here since you left.”

For several long seconds, she studied me. At last, her mouth formed a stiff, false smile. “Good. Have a nice day at school.”

She moved aside. I passed her, and the sweetness of her vanilla perfume made my stomach turn.

I waited until the front door shut and her SUV started. Then I ran.

I snatched the car keys from the ceramic bowl, left my backpack behind, and raced to my old Honda Civic.

Gravel scattered behind me as I pulled out, turned toward the highway, and headed north for the county line. I had to reach Mark before Paul could spring the surprise drug test.