Hooked Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  About the Author

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  After being kidnapped, Dr. Jessica Benson suffers from a case of post traumatic stress disorder that can’t be good for her drug habit. But how can she get the help she needs without risking her medical license? And why does she keep thinking about the sexy detective assigned to her case? Confirmed bachelorette Detective Mac Calabrese can’t help the attraction she feels for her star witness, but she’s professional enough to fight the attraction. Teaching Jess self-defense draws them closer, but can the clean-cut Mac handle Jess’s past history of drug abuse? And will the homicidal drug dealer Derek Knight put an end to their love before it even begins?

  Hooked

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Hooked

  © 2016 By Jaime Maddox. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-690-6

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: September 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  Agnes

  Bouncing

  The Common Thread

  Deadly Medicine

  Hooked

  Acknowledgments

  Hooked is not based on a true story, but it is many people’s reality. Nearly forty Americans die from prescription opiate overdoses every day, and the majority of addicts became hooked after receiving legitimate prescriptions from their doctors. Although the main character in this book, Dr. Jessica Benson, is able to overcome her addiction, the majority will struggle with this disease throughout their lifetimes. Many will die.

  As a young doctor, I had nothing but harsh words for the addicts who came into the ER “seeking drugs.” I thought them responsible for the lives they created, and had no sympathy or desire to help them. And as she often does, God whacked me over the head to teach me a lesson. My great-niece was born addicted. Her mom, my sister’s only daughter, is one of the kindest, sweetest, most wonderful young women I know—and unbeknownst to anyone, was an addict. After surviving the trials of high school and college, she became addicted to pills at the age of thirty. It’s crazy, but the reality of this terrible disease. It is an epidemic, and the only way people like my niece—and yours (or perhaps it’s your sister, or your cousin, or your coworker)—will survive is with all of our help. We must be involved and vigilant, and keep pointing them in the right direction. When they fall, we have to pick them up and push them back in the right direction. Hopefully, eventually, they’ll be okay.

  Many thanks in the creation of this book go to the people who helped make it more authentic. Lackawanna County Assistant DA Gene Riccardo helped with the legal issues, and PA State Police Officer Rebecca Warner helped create the character she named Mac. My friend Cyd helped me through the rehab scenes, and I am grateful to her for sharing so much of her personal journey with me. My original alpha reader Margaret and two rookies, Chris and Michelle, found the flaws in my first draft and made the final story better. Finally, my niece Lisa shared much of her personal struggle with addiction to help make this a more authentic story.

  Thank you to all of the staff at Bold Strokes Books for bringing this book from a manuscript to a finished product—Shelly Thrasher, Sandy Lowe, Rad, Cindy Cresap, Sheri, and the others who do such a fine job on my behalf. I appreciate it.

  This has been somewhat of a crazy year for me and my family. We bought a new house, sold the old one, moved—and a week later I had emergency back surgery. I’d like to say I leaned on them, but truthfully, Carolyn, Jamison, and Max carried me. They fed me and watered me, encouraged me and entertained me. One of them, who shall remain nameless, even gave me a pedicure. That is true love, and I am truly in love right back. Thank you, guys. You’re the best.

  To Margaret—the smartest woman I know—with thanks for reading me, encouraging me,and teaching me big words.

  Chapter One

  Medicare Benefits

  Derek Knight folded the wheelchair, hoisted it into the cargo area, closed the door, and walked purposefully to the front of the van. His dark-blue uniform was pressed; the red-and-white Pocono Area Transport Ambulance patch on his pocket matched the logo painted on the van’s door. His black boots were polished and reflected the bright sun. He didn’t need a jacket on this warm summer morning. Opening the driver’s door, he glanced to the passenger seat, where the EMT, Pete, was reading a magazine.

  “Let’s get moving,” Pete said. “We have a busy day.”

  “Everyone buckled up?” he asked cheerfully, but none of his passengers replied, a detail he ignored. “Okay, we’re on our way, then.”

  Derek eased the van out of the drive and through the parking lot of the nursing home, then along a series of streets in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, until he reached the highway. Traffic on Interstate 81 was light, and it was a quick drive to the doctor’s office five miles away. When he pulled in, Derek wasn’t surprised to see the number of cars crowding the lot. It was always that way. He parked in front of the double glass doors, flipped on his flashers, and hopped out.

  “What a racket the doc has going here, huh, Derek?” Pete asked as they opened the chairs and positioned them next to the van’s door.

  He’d been thinking the same thing as he scanned the parking lot. Dr. Ball owned the nursing home where all of these patients lived. Instead of visiting them there, every month he transported each and every resident, in the ambulance vans he owned, to his medical office. Not only could he charge for their medical care, but for the ambulance transfer as well. Good old Medicare. The doctor made a fortune but paid Derek a pittance. Derek had a hard time controlling the anger he felt toward lazy people like Pete or crooks like the doctor. He would have quit, except the fringe benefits of the job were too valuable. Much too valuable.

  He helped a young man with some sort of brain disease out of the van and into the chair, then pushed him toward the doctor’s front door. The man probably could have walked, but the chair helped Derek control him. With six of them to manage, he couldn’t go chas
ing through the parking lot if the guy decided to wander off. It also gave him a seat. The doctor’s waiting room was as full as his parking area. As he queued to sign in, Derek looked around. All familiar faces. That was good. New faces were good, too. There was always an opportunity for him, either way.

  After he completed his task, he left the man in the chair and retreated to the parking lot, where Pete had the remainder of their charges lined up and ready to go. He helped push the other chairs, and when all six patients were inside, he went back to the van. He parked it far from the front door, turned off the engine, and began his vigil.

  The strip mall that housed the doctor’s office was hopping this morning, and Derek had to stay focused to keep up with the action. Cars and people moved in every direction. In addition to Dr. Ball’s family practice on the corner, a lab, an ENT surgeon, a physical therapist, a group of orthopedic surgeons, a psychologist, and a dermatologist were located here. Strategically positioned in the middle of the other storefronts was a pharmacy. In the front of the parking lot, near the road, a diner drew a large crowd for breakfast.

  The door to the orthopedic office opened, and Derek watched as an older man closed it behind him and turned, walking slowly down the promenade to the next door. He disappeared into the pharmacy. Derek watched the building closely, his vigilance rewarded. Fifteen minutes later, the man reappeared and began his slow journey toward the parking lot.

  Derek hopped out of the van and closed the door behind him. At a brisk pace, he met the man just as he reached a beat-up older car that probably hadn’t earned the inspection sticker on the windshield. “Hey, man. How’s it goin’?”

  “I don’t got nothin’ for you. I need ’em. My back’s a mess.”

  Derek smiled, relaxed his posture, and turned on the charm. “Oh, hey, that’s okay, man. I understand. I’m not trying to take your pills from you. I only wanna buy the extra ones, ya know? If ya have extras, I’ll take ’em. You make a little cash, I get some pills. Everybody wins. But if not, no biggie.”

  The man nodded, then sighed. “How much for twenty?”

  “Ten migs?”

  The man nodded and they negotiated a price, and then he clumsily crawled into his car and opened a large pill bottle. Derek waited patiently as the man counted out twenty tablets of oxycodone and poured them from his hand into a plastic bag Derek provided. When he handed them through the window, Derek thanked him and transferred the payment into the man’s palm.

  Looking around to ascertain the exchange had gone unnoticed, Derek slipped the bag into his pants pocket. He walked back to his van, satisfied. When he was once again seated behind the wheel, he procured two of the tablets from the bag and swallowed them with a gulp of water and began the same vigil again.

  A familiar face emerged from Dr. Ball’s office, and Derek watched as she made the trek to the pharmacy. A few minutes later, she emerged and he met her at her car. Like the other, it was beyond repair. “Listen,” she said by way of greeting. “We need to renegotiate our price.”

  Derek stood taller, looking down at the diminutive form before him. Her hair was unkempt and her clothing worn, and she looked tired. He wasn’t sure of her age, but he was certain she was younger than she looked. Life wasn’t easy for her, but Derek was there to make it better—if she was willing to play the game. If not, someone else would.

  “Jenny, Jenny. What does that mean? Haven’t I always given you a fair price?”

  She smiled, revealing wide gaps and rotting teeth. The sight nearly made him gag. He promised himself that he’d take all the pills at once if he ever got that bad.

  “I guess it depends on your definition of fair. My kid told me the price of oxys went up, only I didn’t get no raise.”

  Derek surveyed her, buying time, nodding. Then he surveyed the parking lot, still contemplating his response. Her intel was correct; the price of pills had gone up. It was a simple case of supply and demand. The government had set new rules for narcotic prescriptions—they could no longer be phoned or faxed to the pharmacy, and couldn’t be refilled. That meant every single patient had to see their physician every month to get their meds, and with a sketchy population of people with unreliable cars, appointments were often missed. The doctors had changed their habits as well. All of the publicity about overdoses had cast a fog of fear over them, and they were prescribing fewer pills, referring more patients for injections, and trying treatment plans that minimized the narcotic component.

  Thankfully, Dr. Ball hadn’t grown a conscience. His office was still a pill factory. If Jenny didn’t want to do business with Derek, someone else would. “Listen, Jenny. You don’t take any risk. You walk out of that pharmacy and hand me a bottle, and I give you cash. I’m the one who’s exposed trying to sell these. I’m the one going to jail if I’m caught.”

  “Yeah, and you’re the one makin’ all the money.”

  Holding up his hands to defend himself from her verbal assault, Derek nodded. “Hey, it’s up to you. You can sell them to me or sell them to someone else. No big deal.”

  “So no raise?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do it.”

  “Well, fuck you!” she screamed.

  He turned and walked away slowly, giving her the opportunity to change her mind. He heard the car door slam before she sped away in the other direction.

  “Fuck!” he said, not caring who heard him. Sure, he could deal with someone else, but Jenny had been one of his first business associates. She’d been a steady supplier since the beginning. What if his other customers began demanding raises? Some, like the first guy, were just regular folks trying to make a few bucks and were oblivious to the price their prescription medication brought on the street. Others, though, were much more savvy and might come at him with the same demands she had. If that happened, his business was in trouble. He bought pills off these people, hundreds of them a day, then passed them on to someone else. He was a middleman, and his margin was small, his profits totally dependent on volume. If his supply diminished, he’d be out of business. But if his margin went down, he’d be in just as much trouble. “Fuck, fuck fuck. What the fuck do I do now?”

  He reached through the van’s window and pulled out a bottle of water, leaned against the door, and sipped it as he watched the strip mall. The dermatology office was hopping, but he didn’t care. Those doctors never prescribed anything good. The orthopedics office was busy, too, and that was very fertile ground. Nothing was as fruitful as Dr. Ball’s office, though, and he felt more cheerful as he watched another patient leave his office and head to the pharmacy.

  “Whacha got for me?” he asked a few minutes later when he met her at her car.

  She pulled a box from the pharmacy bag, a small white box that easily fit in the palm of her hand. “How about thirty?” she asked and, without waiting for a response from him, began counting the foil packets within the box.

  “Thirty’s good.” Buprenorphine wasn’t his best seller, but his buyer was always happy to have some on hand. It was a powerful narcotic used to treat addiction, helpful because it was long acting and didn’t get people high. Most addicts wanted the high but couldn’t afford the cost. Narcotics lasted only a few hours, forcing them to dose frequently, at great expense. When addicts decided to clean up or ran out of money, they’d use buprenorphine to prevent withdrawal symptoms. A special license was required for doctors to prescribe it, and not many people had one. Dr. Ball did, though. Bup patients were a significant part of Dr. Ball’s practice.

  When she finished counting, the woman handed Derek a stack of foil packets and stashed the remainder in her purse. “Some for you, and some for me,” she said sweetly.

  He handed her some money and walked away, and she drove off. Thankfully, Dr. Ball always seemed to prescribe enough to satisfy both of their needs.

  Glancing at his watch, Derek decided to check on the patients in Dr. Ball’s office. They’d been there an hour, and that left only another two hours to collect these six,
return them to the nursing home, and reload the van. He wasn’t worried, though. The doctor knew his schedule and always had the patients out on time. Time was very big money when you owned the ambulance company.

  He walked by, looking through the plate-glass window. Pete was sitting with his back against the wall, watching television. Four of the nursing-home patients remained in the lobby. Had they already been seen and discharged, or were they still waiting for the doctor? Impossible to tell. He knew without a doubt, though, that by twelve o’clock, when he was due for his lunch break, they’d be back at the nursing home. Dr. Ball wouldn’t let him down.

  “Hey.”

  Startled, Derek turned to find a young man standing in front of the office. It was one of his regular customers, holding a pharmacy bag in his hands. How had he missed him coming out of Dr. Ball’s office? Worse, what if he’d been a cop?

  His heart pounding, he fought to keep his voice even. “You sellin’?” he asked.

  The man smiled and nodded toward the parking lot. Derek followed, using a slower pace and a different route to his car. By the time he arrived, the man had the bag torn open and the bottles in his hand. “Vics, ninety. Xanax, ninety. Ibuprofen, ninety.”

  Derek reached into the side pocket of his cargo pants and retrieved three baggies. “I’ll take them all. But don’t you need any for your pain?”

  He sniggered. “Man, I don’t have pain. A few years ago I heard about this doctor. He’ll give anybody anything they want. So I started comin’ to him, and I sell what he gives me. Pays the rent, you know?”

  Derek handed him several bills and wondered what sort of house the guy could find for such a cheap rent. He didn’t ask.