Closed Starter | Jessica Whitly
Acting as Jessica Whitly’s security detail had not been on Archie’s to-do list. But when an old friend from the early days of the task force, Gil Arroyo, asked him to do it as a favor, Archie couldn’t refuse. So he found himself stationed inside the massive house, terrified to move in case he broke something that cost more than his car. Opulence was not something he was comfortable with, and when he was uncomfortable, what he wanted, was pills.
Everyone knew Archie had gone to rehab for prescription painkillers. What they didn’t know, was that it hadn’t stuck. What they didn’t know was that he had his old brass pillbox in his pocket right now, with thirteen Vicodin nestled inside it. He had the pills. All he needed was a place to take them without being noticed. And in a house this big, that couldn’t be hard.
He wandered the halls for a few minutes, until he found a bathroom as big as his living room. He slipped inside, but didn’t bother to close the door. He would only be a moment, and he hadn’t seen anyone in the halls nearby. He took out the pillbox and put three pills in his mouth. He turned on the faucet and sipped water from his cupped hands to wash down the pills. Then he straightened up, pillbox in hand, turned toward the doorway --
-- and saw Jessica Whitly standing in the hallway, right in front of him.
“Mrs. Whitly,” he blurted out. “I just -- they’re -- um -- Aspirin. Headache.” He cringed. What a dumb thing to say. If he had just said nothing, she might have thought nothing of it. He shoved the pillbox into his pocket, as if that would make her forget she had seen it. Nobody kept Aspirin in a fancy brass pillbox. “Sorry, I just -- needed some water.” He could hear how obvious every lie sounded as it came out of his mouth, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “I’d better get back to my post now,” he added. Maybe he could get out of her line of sight and they’d both pretend this never happened.
