Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Author:Chelsea Cain
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Horror, Contemporary, Suspense, Adult, Thriller
ISBN: 9780330462211
Publisher: Pan Publishing
Published: 2006-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

She snapped off the digital recorder. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“It’s off the hall.”

She stood up and walked down the hall to the bathroom. It was as unremarkable as the rest of the apartment. A fiberglass tub and shower combo with a sliding frosted-glass door. A cheap sink with plastic faucet knobs set in a pressboard cabinet. Two gray towels of an unimpressive thread count hanging limply on oak towel racks. Two more sat freshly laundered and folded on the back of the toilet. The bathroom was clean, but not too clean, not fastidious. She stood at the sink, staring at her reflection. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She was close to the biggest story of her career. So why did she feel so crappy? And what was she thinking with the pigtails? She pulled them out, combed her hair with her fingers, and tied her hair back at her neck. The light in the bathroom made her flesh look like raw chicken. She wondered how Archie Sheridan faced himself in that mirror each morning, sallow, every wrinkle shadowed. No wonder he was a head case. She dug into her pocket, retrieved some lip gloss, and slathered it on liberally. Did he want to be forced back on medical leave? Is that was this was all about?

She flushed the toilet and used the cover of the noise to open the door of the medicine cabinet. Shaving cream. Razors. Toothpaste and toothbrush. Deodorant. And two shelves of amber plastic pill bottles. She spun them around by their white lids to read the prescription information. Vicodin. Colace. Percocet. Zantac. Ambien. Xanax. Prozac. Large bottles. Small bottles. Nothing that would interfere with his ability to do his job, Fergus had said. Right. There were enough pills in that cabinet to medicate an elephant. All made out to Archie Sheridan. Fuck. If he needed all this stuff to function, he was worse off than she thought. And a better actor.

She memorized the names, carefully turned the bottles back to their original orientation, closed the cabinet, and walked back into the living room.

Archie didn’t even look up at her. “If I’d wanted you to not see the pills, I would have hidden them.”

Susan searched for what to say. What pills? But, for some reason, she didn’t feel like lying. “You’re on a lot of medication.”

His eyes followed her into the room, but he remained still as a corpse. “I’m unwell.”

Susan had the sudden unnerving sensation that everything she’d found out so far about Archie Sheridan was exactly what he wanted her to know. Every interview. Every lead. To what end? Maybe he was just tired of lying. Maybe he just wanted everyone to know all his secrets, so he didn’t have to work so hard at keeping them hidden. Subterfuge could be exhausting.

She stowed her digital recorder and notebook in her purse and dug out a pack of cigarettes. “I’m fucking my married boss,” she said to Archie.

Archie paused, mouth slightly agape. “I’m not sure I needed to know that.

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