It had been a very strange and confusing afternoon thus far for Ben Kinkirk. For starters, this had been one of those weeks when he had chosen to occupy his dilapidated but inexpensive Glenoak apartment. It always felt strange and off-putting staying in Glenoak. People acted so much differently here than the way they did in Buffalo. However, he had felt forced to come here, because his Mom had gone on a four-day pills-and-booze binge back in Buffalo. Rather, it had lasted for four days by the time he left; but Ben had no idea how many days it would have lasted by now. Actually, it would have been nine days by now, since he had left on Monday. But on a Saturday afternoon during which Simon Camden lay passed out on a rooftop, even a small number such as nine was simply too much for Ben to calculate.
In any case, staying in Glenoak always made him feel somewhat off his usual game. It wasn't his first home, and although his brother was dating a Camden and living above her family's garage, Ben didn't really feel a direct connection with the Camdens or their hometown. Thus it didn't feel like there was a good reason for him to be here. After all, Mary Camden had dumped him unceremoniously when he had proposed to her in front of the airport bathrooms earlier that year. How humiliating. Not to mention, she wasn't even staying in town anymore, having fled to Florida with a man twice her age. However, it was better to feel like a dateless, purposeless, out-of-place loser in a strange town than to be around Ma Kinkirk and her Buffalo boozing. Hell, it would be better to wrestle a polar bear in the middle of an Arctic blizzard than to be around that.
Nonetheless, Ben did his best to ignore his dysphoria as he helped to position the ladder for his buddy, Rusty, to climb up and rescue Simon. Nor did he pay any attention to another call that came over a nearby EMT's radio, this time asking for an ambulance to be sent to the Glenoak Acres Ranch and Paddock. Female, early twenties, fell off a horse and was knocked unconscious with a possible concussion. The EMT who possessed the radio notified home base that she was unavailable to answer the call, as she was about to treat a teen who had been found unconscious atop a roof. Ben, who was simply too focused on securing the ladder for Rusty to climb, barely registered this entire radio conversation.
After Rusty had successfully carried Simon back down the ladder, the EMT moved in to treat him. "Well, he's breathing. He's got a pulse. Looks like he's got a dislocated shoulder."
"Ew," Ben cringed as the EMT snapped the shoulder back into its socket.
"We'll probably have to stabilize this arm. Other than that I don't see any major contusions or lacerations. I'm not sure why he's unconscious, really."
Ben absent-mindedly offered, "My brother, the police officer who was here earlier, suspects that he might have been drugged."
Without a pause, the EMT asked, "Did he say what kind of drug?"
"No."
"Okay. Let's load him into the ambulance and get him to the hospital for an x-ray to make sure he doesn't have any broken bones. While we're rolling I'll draw some blood and test it right away. The sooner we know what's affecting him, the sooner we can treat him properly."
"Right." Ben then informed Rusty that he was going to ride with Simon to the hospital, and he helped the EMT load Simon onto a gurney and into the ambulance.
Noticing that the EMT was a shapely, attractive female about his age, Ben turned on the charm. "Name's Ben Kinkirk," he said with a toothy smile.
"Ben, we'll exchange pleasantries later. Right now I want you to grab me a syringe and a test kit from that cabinet over there."
"Gotcha." As Ben moved toward the cabinet, the ambulance driver lurched the vehicle ahead, causing Ben to fall gracelessly to the floor. "I'm okay!" he shouted as he frantically jerked himself back into a standing position.
"Great, now get me that syringe already!" the EMT barked.
Ben hurried to the cabinet, finding a syringe and passing it to her. He watched with fascination as she opened the sterile package, tapped all the air from the syringe, found a vein on Simon's arm, and drew some of his blood. He also noticed and admired the extra care she took not to let the syringe budge while the vehicle was moving, even during the bumpy stretches. "You have very steady hands," he commented as suavely as possible.
"It comes with experience. Now why haven't you brought me one of those test kits yet?" she snapped.
"Sorry." Ben scrambled back to the cabinet. "What am I looking for, exactly?"
"One of those round packages on the second shelf from the bottom. Come on, we don't have all day!"
"Alright, alright! Here," Ben handed her a test kit.
She unwrapped the packaging around the kit and injected the blood into a tube. Then she spun the tube around a few times inside the kit and said, "In a minute, this thing will tell us what he's floating on." She turned it around and showed Ben, "If a line appears here, it's speed. Here, it's grass. This one means cocaine, this one downers and barbiturates, and this last one detects random hallucinogens. One line will appear for each intoxicant present, and the more a substance is present, the darker the line will be."
"Wow. Pretty sophisticated test for such a cheap-looking kit," Ben mused.
"Yes it is. Alright, I think we're starting to get some results here. Wait a minute. What the…" the EMT trailed off, looking at the test kit with bewilderment. "This can't be right!"
"What is it?" Ben asked.
The EMT spun the kit around to show Ben the results, and he immediately saw the reason for her disbelief: all five lines had appeared distinctly.
It was a very strange and confusing afternoon indeed, and becoming more so by the minute.
***
The strangeness didn't stop there. While Ben and the EMT were wheeling Simon into the hospital for treatment, he saw Lucy Camden being wheeled off another ambulance. Vaguely, Ben remembered the transmission he had ignored over the EMT's radio earlier: "Glenoak Acres Ranch and Paddock. Female, early twenties, fell off a horse and was knocked unconscious with a possible concussion."
"Oh no. I don't believe this. Kevin's going to be devastated!"
"Who's Kevin?" the EMT asked.
"My brother, the cop you met earlier. That's his girlfriend on that stretcher over there. And, strangely enough, she's also this kid's sister," he said as he pointed at Simon.
The EMT looked at him in disbelief. "You're kidding."
Ben shook his head. "I wish I were."
After a moment of thought, the EMT said, "Hey, wait a minute. She took a spill off a horse, right? Do you think she might have 'gone riding' on happy pills with her brother before she went horseback riding?"
Ben guffawed. "Absolutely not. You don't know these people. They're extremely clean-living. There's no way..."
The EMT cut him off, "Believe me, Ben, I've seen the supposedly impossible happen before. I'd almost be willing to bet you money that if we tested her blood, we'd find the same substances as we found in this boy's blood."
"Yeah, well, we probably won't have a chance. Looks like the hospital staff are ready to take over."
Ben and the EMT wheeled Simon into an empty emergency room while their counterparts wheeled Lucy into the one across the hall. Nurses and doctors rushed in to work on the patients, and the EMT made sure to describe the condition in which she had found Simon. She also mentioned to the staff working on Lucy that they should drug test her.
Then she stepped out into the hall, where Ben stood feeling lost and useless. "So, what do we do now?" he shrugged.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going back to my job."
Ben watched helplessly as the EMT started to walk back down the hall toward the ambulance. Desperately, he yelled after her, "Wait! Could we maybe have dinner sometime or something?"
The EMT looked back at him somewhat pityingly. "Ben, you're cute and everything, but you're not my type. Sorry." She turned and jogged back to her ambulance, and Ben just watched her in confusion. What was up with these Glenoak women? Why weren't they interested in him? It was all very perplexing.
***
Ben sat down in the hospital waiting room wondering if any of the other Camdens would show up, and if so, in what condition? After a few minutes, Ruthie and the twins arrived with a strange-looking man in a cowboy hat. The man appeared to be very agitated with Ruthie, as he was waving his hands and practically shouting at her while he entered the waiting room.
"I told you, she signed a contract that released me from all liability. You may be too young to understand this, but a contract is legally binding. That means there's no way I can be held responsible for her accident."
"Oh, I understand the contract," Ruthie said. "But if you didn't feel responsible, then why did you drive my brothers and me to the hospital?"
"I told you, I was just trying to be nice. They said you were too young to ride in the ambulance, so I volunteered to drive you over here. But now I'm sorry I did, you little nuisance."
"I still think you did it because you feel guilty."
The red-faced man turned to Ben and explained in frustration, "That's it. I've had enough. I don't care who you are and whether you know these three or not. I'm leaving them with you. I can't take another minute of this one." He pointed to Ruthie.
"It's okay," Ben answered. "I know them."
The man shook his head and said, "Then I feel sorry for you," before exiting the room.
"Who was that?" Ben asked Ruthie.
"Oh, that's the guy who owns the ranch where I keep my horse. He's usually a lot nicer than that, but I think he's feeling pretty guilty about the way Lucy got hurt."
"How exactly did Lucy get hurt?" Ben asked.
"Lucy fall down go boom," Sam offered.
"She fell off a horsey," David continued. "The horsey was running fast when she fall down."
"Fall down go boom," Sam repeated.
"We were all out riding horses, she fell, and she hit her head on a rock when she landed," Ruthie finished.
Ben winced. "Ouch. I think I better call my brother and let him know. You two stay right here."
"There's three of us," Ruthie chided him, wearing an annoyed smirk of disbelief.
Ben counted again. One-two-three. "Oh. Right. The three of you stay here while I call Kevin. I'll only be a minute."
***
Not able to remember the Glenoak Police Department number off the top of his head, Ben had to look it up in the phone book. Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out how to find it there, so he had to ask a passing nurse to find it for him. She seemed a bit irritated, but she helped him nonetheless.
Finally, he got through to the GPD and asked for Kevin. "What's up, bro?" asked the voice on the other end.
"Dude, I have some bad news. We brought Simon into the hospital and, well, we were surprised to find an ambulance bringing Lucy in at the same time."
"What?"
"Yeah. Apparently she took Ruthie and the twins out to ride horses, and there was an accident. She fell and hit her head. I'm not sure how bad it is."
Kevin cursed over the phone. "I don't have time for this right now. The crime lab is really close to a breakthrough on these baking pans."
"Um, okay," Ben muttered, wondering why Kevin was so darn concerned about those stupid pans at a time like this. "Oh, by the way, that drug test we ran on Simon? Came back positive for, like, everything."
"I knew it!" Kevin shouted. "Listen, Ben, I think I know what's going on here, and I have to run and do something very important before I can get to the hospital to be with Lucy. Could you do me a huge favor and just hang in there with her until I get there?"
Ben smiled. It had been a strange and perplexing day to be certain, but at least now he finally had a clear purpose in Glenoak that he was fully capable of fulfilling. Just hanging around was definitely one of his fortes. "Sure, bro. Anything for you."