Farley might do well in a private clinic, but such things take time to arrange. Of course, he’s been hospitalized on several occasions in the past….” Again his voice trailed away.
“Didn’t do any good?” she suggested.
“Well, you do understand about physician-patient confidentiality, Ms. Ballanger?”
“Yes, professional ethics and all. Like attorney-client, priest-confessor or P.I.-employer. Since his father’s green-lighted me to find him, I need to know what I’m dealing with before I retrieve him.”
The doctor sighed. “Farley has been delusional since childhood. Approaching his majority, he’s shown no improvement. In fact, he’s become worse.”
“You mean the Spacie thing? How long’s he been a Space Quest fan?” she asked.
“For as long as I’ve been treating him. Nearly…eight years. All he’s ever wanted to discuss during our sessions is that show and its characters. It’s his reality and the real world has ceased to exist for him…if it ever did.”
“His father said he tripped on drugs.”
Reicht nodded. “Cocaine, heroin, even methamphetamines.”
“What—no Drano? I used to be a paramedic and we never like handling guys high on meth. Any idea who his dealer is?”
“Farley has made some…less than appropriate friends recently. I suspect one in particular.”
“Elvis Scruggs?”
The giant caterpillar of an eyebrow crinkled when Reicht frowned. “Yes. When one is young, disturbed and wealthy, one can be victimized.”
“Do you think Scruggs kidnapped him?”
The doctor shook his head. “Probably not. The boy would go along with any harebrained scheme Scruggs proposed, I’m certain. Farley’s highly suggestible, particularly when he’s high on illegal drugs.”
“Suggestible to cleaning out one of his daddy’s bank accounts?”
“If someone like this Elvis Scruggs urged him to do it, yes. You understand why you must bring him home. I’ll see that he goes back on proper medication and provide supervision. In fact—” he began rooting around on his desk, pulling out a sheaf of papers with a grunt of satisfaction “—I have the forms here for Homeside. It’s a fine facility. I’m on the staff,” he added as if that guaranteed it.
“Will his father agree to commit him?” she asked.
“Of course. We’ve been discussing it for several weeks. Oh, we don’t call it ‘commitment’ any longer. The term is too…pejorative. Homeside is just as the name implies—a home away from home for troubled individuals.”
That might explain why the kid took off. It sounded to Sam as if his father’s house and the loony bin would hold about equal appeal. Still, the poor kid couldn’t be allowed to run around the country dressed like a sci-fi movie extra high on meth, with an ex-con chauffeuring him while he fleeced him.
Unlike Winchester after her interview, Reicht didn’t dismiss her. She would’ve preferred that he had when he launched into a panegyric on Homeside and how happy poor Farley would be once he was tucked safely in the marvelous facility. When he got warmed up, the doc really loved to hear the sound of his own voice. Finally, she glanced down at her watch.
“Sorry, Dr. Reicht, but I have another appointment shortly. Gotta run.”
“You will make Farley your first priority, I trust?” he asked intently.
“You bet I will. I’ll call if I need any more info. Thanks.”
As she rode down on the elevator, Sam considered the weirdness of the day—a pair of psychos tried to kill her, a snotty pencil pusher managed to snub her while enticing her with a hefty fee, the shrink played on her sympathy for a poor crazy kid. Did the thugs in the Olds have any connection to Farley’s case? Doubtful, but Sam never assumed anything.
And something niggled at her about the shrink, too. He put on a nice-guy veneer, the complete opposite of Roman Numeral, as she’d dubbed Winchester. Still Reicht was a cipher. Of course, he was a psychiatrist and that might explain the creepy feeling he gave her. Some of them were as loosely packed as their patients. She made a mental note to have Matt check out Homeside while she was searching for Farley.
The last thing Sam Ballanger ever intended to do was to deliver a client into a worse situation than the one she snatched him from.
“Yeah, that’s right, a 1980 Jaguar XJ6.” Sam ticked off the license plate number to an old friend at Metro-Dade Police Headquarters. “Bright maroon. Oughta stand out like a black tux in a room full of brown shoes.”
As she tapped a pencil against the edge of a front tooth, waiting impatiently for the cop to check the computer records, Matt watched his wife. Sam arched her back against the wreck of a swivel chair she insisted on keeping when she moved in. In spite of her small one-hundred-ten-pound body, the springs creaked precariously when she tipped it sharply backward. Her bare feet were propped up on the cluttered desk in her office and she was wearing a ratty old pink chenille bathrobe that he teasingly called her “Linus blanket.”
He eyed the ugly bruise on her shin and the scrapes on her cheekbone, worried but knowing there was no way short of putting her in one of those custom straitjackets she used on retrievals that he could keep her safe. They argued about her dangerous job almost as much as they did about his aunt’s money. Correction. She argued about the money. He argued about her safety.
Matt glided into the room and began massaging her shoulders while she leaned forward and jotted down information. What was a guy supposed to do with a bullheaded female like Sam? She wouldn’t even take his name—unless he agreed to “really let me in the family by accepting Aunt Claudia’s offer.” She’d signed Sam Ballanger on their marriage certificate. The woman had the instincts of a first-rate blackmailer—or a criminal defense attorney.
Sam hung up the phone and laid her head against his flat abdomen. The man even had a sexy navel. “Mmm, that feels good,” she murmured as he bent over her for an upside-down kiss. “Even better.” She held his head in her hands and returned the kiss for a moment before spinning her chair around and considering the notes she’d scribbled on the page.
“Any leads on your lost boy?” he asked, then couldn’t resist adding, “Or on those two goons who tried to play crash-test dummy with you?”
“Strike out on the Olds, but I figured it would be. Bogus plates. I asked Pat to keep checking. Doubt he’ll turn up much on them, but he just might on Elvis Scruggs. I did come up with where Farley and Elvis are heading. A vintage Jag stands out almost as much as a flying saucer.”
“And a guy named Elvis doesn’t?”
“Depends on what part of the country you’re in. Nobody remembers him but thanks to my hacker pal, Ethan Frobisher, we have a trace on cash flow to back up the runaways’ destination. Seems Farley’s been using several of Daddy’s credit cards. Hotels, meals, ATM withdrawals in Tallahassee, Nashville and Louisville. The last was in some hick burg in southern Illinois. Then I used that info you so kindly dug up for me on the Net.”
She tossed him
