by L E Fraser
After disposing of the bottle, he printed his recipe and checked to ensure he had the ingredients. Reece couldn’t remember the last time he and Sam had enjoyed a quiet night alone. A romantic evening was long overdue—the perfect end to a day fraught with frustration.
Chapter Fourteen
Sam
SAM WAS IN a foul mood. Instead of going straight home from Roger’s house, she’d headed to the gym, thinking that strenuous exercise would clear her head. She hadn’t wanted to ruin a nice evening with Reece by bitching. An hour on the treadmill hadn’t helped, and the rush-hour streetcar ride back to the loft wasn’t improving her ill temper.
The missing pants were the reason her disposition had turned toxic. Roger claimed the dry cleaner forgot to include them with his pickup. No big deal, he’d go back tomorrow. His lackadaisical reaction to a messed-up dry cleaning order was totally at odds with how anal he was about his belongings. There was no way he hadn’t checked every item in his pickup. He always did.
An objective person would suspect that Roger didn’t want a lab to test the pants. There could only be one reason for his reluctance. He’d been in the cellar the day of Graham’s murder. If this were any other case, she’d have marched directly to the dry cleaner and questioned the owner. She hadn’t done that and wasn’t sure why. She feared it could be misplaced loyalty to an old friend.
At the hospital, when she’d mentioned having a private lab test the pants, Roger had stiffened up. And he’d lied about being in the house. Being in the house didn’t mean he was busy committing murder, but Roger was hiding something. No matter how she reasoned with him, he refused to comprehend the investigative importance of those pants. Or, he understood perfectly. He’d destroyed the evidence and blamed the dry cleaner.
Her other issue was how uncomfortable she’d felt alone in the house with him while he pretended to look for the pants. It may have been a subconscious reaction to Reece’s jealousy when they left the office, but Roger had felt like a stranger to her. From the corner of her eye, she’d even caught him ogling her. When she turned to face him, his expression had morphed to placid boredom. For the first time in their lifelong friendship, he struck her as unstable.
And there was the intimacy between him and Brenda. Roger was a gifted psychiatrist, and Sam had to admit that Reece was right. If Roger wanted the catatonic diagnosis to remain unchanged, he could coach Brenda. That would explain why he was spending so much time in the hospital despite his suggestion that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere serious.
Unable to cope with the crowded streetcar a second longer, she got off two stops early, trudged down the sidewalk to her building, and up the three flights of stairs to the loft. Her mood took another nosedive when she entered to find Reece fussing around the kitchen.
“I thought we were doing something simple, like McD’s,” she complained.
“’eef ’ellington,” he mumbled.
“What?”
He murmured something else and swayed into the kitchen island, knocking over a bottle of olive oil. The contents spilled across the marble and dripped down the side of the island to the floor. The kitchen was a disaster. The mess was unusual for Reece, who was typically a clean cook. The disarray pissed her off even more. Reece cooked and she cleaned up. In addition to not being in the mood for a gourmet delight, she didn’t want to spend an hour cleaning the kitchen.
A bottle of Italian Amarone sat on the counter. Empty. Reece had a half glass in his hand. He muttered undecipherable words and wine sloshed out of his glass.
“Did you drink that entire bottle?” She read the label. “Reece, it has over fourteen percent alcohol.”
“Sauce.”
“You’re slurring. You’re pissed.” She put her hands on her hips.
“Not drunk. Have a headache. My stomach hurts.” He rubbed his side.
“Did you take something? Did you mix pain meds with booze? What’s wrong with you?”
“Didn’t. Sauce.”
Annoyance surged over her. “You’re drunk,” she insisted.
A lump of half-cooked pastry was on the cutting board. Blood ran from slits in the top of the dough.
“What,” she said very pointedly, “is that?”
“Beef Wellington.” His forehead wrinkled with the effort it took to form the words.
“Christ sake, Reece!”
“Didn’t turn out,” he said mournfully.
“Of course it didn’t. You’re drunk! Now I’ll have to grab a shower, clean the kitchen, and go get food. You need to eat.” She scowled at him. “And go to bed. So much for our fun night together.”
“I’ll go.” He staggered to the entry and tumbled over while trying to put on his shoes.
“Are you kidding me? You can’t go out in this condition.” She stomped up to the bedroom loft, pulling off her clothes along the way.
In the two years they’d been together, she’d never seen him drunk. Underneath her frustration and anger was fear. She didn’t like being around intoxicated people. Growing up, Lisa’s father had been a mean drunk and it was terrifying. Sam remembered two occasions when her dad had had to restrain Mr. Altieri so Lisa’s family could escape the house. The man has been sober for five years, but the psychological damage he’d perpetrated against his daughter was permanent. Lisa’s three brothers had survived relatively unscathed, but she’d spent years in therapy.
Sam peered down the stairs. Reece was sitting on the floor trying to navigate the daunting task of tying his shoes. His face was sweaty and he was panting, gulping air through his mouth in rapid succession.
Goddamn it! He’s going to hyperventilate.
She grabbed a robe and was halfway downstairs when the door slammed shut.
“Shit!” She raced upstairs and snagged some clothes, scrambling to get her legs into her pants. She pulled a T-shirt over her head as she ran back down the stairs and out the door.
When she reached ground level, Reece was nowhere in sight. Maybe he hadn’t even gone to McDonald’s. The multitude of take-out options in Corktown was high.
Frustrated, she turned in a circle on the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do. Some fresh air would do Reece good. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that a downtown McDonald’s—or any take-out joint for that matter—had to deal with a drunken customer. Maybe the evening would improve after a walk sobered Reece up and he got some food in him.
She went back inside, and, after a quick shower, she attacked the kitchen. It took over an hour to get everything scrubbed and put away to her obsessive-compulsive satisfaction. Still no Reece. Maybe he was angry with her and had hit up a bar instead of going for food. But that was so out of character. It would be more like him to go to the gym to try to sober up.
No response to her text. She called his cell, heard it ringing, and found it on the coffee table.
Another hour passed, and her anger had firmly shifted to worry. A call to the gym confirmed Reece hadn’t been there. She tried Lisa and Jim. They hadn’t heard from him. Regardless of how silly it was to believe Reece would visit Roger, Sam picked up her phone to call. It rang in her hand. Roger.
“Sam—”
She cut him off. “Is Reece with you?”
“Where are you?”
“Home. Have you seen Reece?”
“Go downstairs and find a cab.”
“What? Why?”
“Do it. Now. Stay on the phone with me and get in a cab. Please.”
Her heart thumped in her chest, and the muscles in her stomach clenched in fear. She put the phone on speaker, grabbed her wallet, set the alarm, and ran out to Queen Street. She raced into the middle of the road, waving her arms at an approaching cab. Short of running over her, he had no option but to stop.
The cabby yelled that he was off-duty and ordered her out of his cab.
Roger shouted through the speaker, “I’ll pay you fifty dollars to bring her to Toronto General, emergency entrance. Get here as fast as you can.”
Goosebumps popped out on her arms and blood rushed from her head, leaving her dizzy. The cabby glanced in the rear-view mirror. She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt tears dripping off her chin. In the mirror, the driver’s glare softened. He put the cab in gear and pulled into traffic, cutting off a car trying to turn off Sumach and narrowly avoiding a streetcar. Outside diners at a bistro patio stared at the taxi as horns blared, and a biker careened onto the sidewalk to escape the speeding vehicle.
“Roger, what’s going on?” It had to be Reece.
“EMTs brought Reece in ninety minutes ago. He had my card in his wallet but no phone or emergency contact numbers. They thought he was a psychiatric patient and called me.”
Why would they think he was a patient? Why hadn’t he asked them to call her?
All the saliva in her mouth dried up. Déjà vu. Racing to the hospital to see her father and knowing it was too late. He’d died at the scene. On the side of the road like an animal, with the drunk driver blubbering that it wasn’t his fault.
She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t lose someone else without the opportunity to tell him he’d made her life worth living. They were moving in slow motion, although indignant horns blared while the driver sped around cars and pedestrians.
“He’s in critical condition,” Roger said. “Reece collapsed at McDonald’s. One of the girls had CPR training and kept him alive until help arrived. EMTs thought it was a heart attack. ER doctors thought it was alcohol poisoning. How close are you?”
They were pulling up. Roger was pacing outside the ER doors. When he spied the cab, he pocketed his phone and handed the cabby a fifty-dollar bill for a fourteen-dollar fare. Roger dragged her into the ER.
“Where is he?” She looked around frantically. “Where’s Reece?”
“They moved him up to ICU just after I called. Come on.” He took her to the elevators and pushed three people aside to get her in. “He’s still alive,” he said, “but we need to hurry.”
His voice came from a vacuum. Her vision became blurry, like she was looking through a fish-eye lens of a camera.
He’s still alive. But.
“What happened? Was it an accident? How bad it is?” She clutched Roger’s hand and he put his arm around her waist. “I can’t lose him. He can’t die.”
Roger tightened his arm around her. When the elevator doors opened, he slipped the lanyard with his hospital credentials around his neck, held the badge up for the duty nurse to see, and waited for her to buzz open the doors to the Intensive Care Unit.
Critically ill patients occupied beds that crowded the open space. Nurses tended to several, while others lay miserable on starched white sheets. Many were unconscious, and a few had sobbing people surrounding their beds. The room reeked of fear and desperation.
Sam fell against the side of Reece’s bed and gripped the sheet in her fists. He was unconscious, pale as the pillowcase his head rested on. His black hair made the contrast jarring. Tubes ran out of his arms to an intravenous pump, and a clamp on his finger sent his vital signs to a beeping machine. Accordion tubes lay across his chest, and the end of one disappeared down his throat, held in place by a strap around his jaw. A ventilator pumped oxygen into his lungs, making a sucking noise each time it depressed.
Because of the equipment and medical personnel, she couldn’t see a way to get to him. Her need to touch him, to sense the warmth of his living flesh, was overpowering.
“You’re family?” a doctor asked.
Her mind was cloudy, and she could barely understand what he’d asked. Mutely, she held up her left hand. The square diamond engagement ring twinkled in the fluorescent light.
“Does Reece have any allergies to food or medication?” the doctor asked.
She shook her head and stared at Reece’s long eyelashes lying against his pale skin. Wake up, she willed. You can’t leave me here alone.
“Is he on any medication?”
She shook her head again. Please, wake up.
“Any pre-existing medical conditions or past surgeries?”
“No,” she croaked. “What’s wrong with him? Why isn’t he awake?”
“We’ve sedated him.”
“What’s that?” She motioned to the intravenous pump.
“Fomepizole,” the doctor replied calmly, making notes in the chart he held. “If he ingested the poison less than twelve hours ago, he stands a chance.”
“I don’t understand. He ate something toxic?”
He glanced up with his pen poised over the paper in the metal chart. “Ethylene glycol.” His eyes dropped back to the chart and he made another notation.
Sam wanted to snatch the chart from his hand and throw it across the room to force him to focus on her. “What is that?”
“Antifreeze. Fomepizole is the antidote,” the doctor said, closing the chart and hanging it on the bottom of Reece’s bed. He tucked his pen into the pocket of his lab coat. “If it weren’t for Dr. Peterson, we might not have figured it out in time.”
She looked up at Roger.
“A patient once tried to commit suicide by drinking antifreeze,” he explained. “I recognized the symptoms and asked the toxicologist to test for ethylene glycol. It presents as intoxication, accompanied by headache and gastronomic discomfort. Often it’s confused with stroke or aneurysm.”
“It was lucky Dr. Peterson pieced it together,” the ICU doctor said. “Police are outside. They want to speak with you.”
“I’m not leaving.” Sam shoved him aside so she could get to the head of the bed and take Reece’s hand in hers. It felt cold.
Roger’s phone pinged and he took it out to glance at the screen. “Lisa and Jim are here,” he told her. “It’ll be a couple of hours before Reece wakes.”
If he wakes. That’s what Roger meant. Sam could see it in his eyes.
She refused to budge, and Roger had to pry her hand away from the bed’s dropped side bar and drag her from the unit.
Two uniformed officers waited outside the ICU. They asked useless questions she couldn’t answer about what Reece had eaten during the day. They asked if he suffered from depression, or had a history of mental illness or suicide attempts. They wanted to know if she kept antifreeze or de-icing products in her home. She couldn’t keep up with their barrage of questions, and when they asked about the state of their relationship, Jim stepped in and shut them down.
Sam managed to find a business card and the words to tell them to contact Bryce Mansfield. Recognizing the homicide staff inspector’s name, they glanced at her card, then at each other, and left.
Lisa bundled Sam in her sweater and took her down to the cafeteria. They sat with hot chocolate and bowls of soup. Neither touched the food. Lisa talked non-stop for three hours. All about the drama in her own life. Maybe she was trying to be supportive by showing her life wasn’t perfect either, but it was annoying and Sam wished her friend would shut the hell up.
When Lisa began the story of how she couldn’t go to university because of her father, Sam couldn’t stand it a second longer.
“I know,” she snapped. “I was there. I went through it all with you. Can we just sit quietly?”
Her friend bristled. “I’m trying to keep your mind off things.”
“Could you grab me a coffee? Caffeine will help.” There was a nice size queue at the counter. The wait would take up at least five minutes, and she’d have the chance to breathe and to settle her raw nerves.
Lisa glowered but stood and smoothed the fabric of her dress. “I’m trying to help. That’s why I came. I had to wake my brother to take Kira so I could be here for you.”
“I appreciate it and coffee would be a big help.”
“Reece is strong.” Lisa laid her hand on Sam’s shoulder. “He’s going to be okay. We’re all going to be okay. You’ll see.”
She returned with the coffee at the same time Roger texted that they’d settled Reece into a private room. Eight hours had passed since his a
dmission. He was awake and wanted to see her.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam
“STOP FUSSING,” REECE said when she tried to stuff another pillow behind his head. “If you add one more, my head will be in my crotch.” He winked at her. “We don’t want to give the nurses ideas on how to speed up my recovery.”
She sat on the chair, but kept his hand grasped in hers. From the moment the doctor had assured her Reece would recover, she hadn’t been able to stop touching him.
Roger had taken Brandy over to his house, and Sam was sleeping in the hospital. Last night, she’d crawled in beside him on the single bed, curled her body around his, and spooned him until a gruff nurse came in and ordered her out of the bed.
Lisa had arrived with a stunning acrylic she’d painted of Uthisca’s main street, the town Reece loved, where he had worked as an OPP inspector. The thoughtful gift impressed Reece, and at the time, Sam had hoped it was a positive step toward friendship. Now, she wasn’t as confident. In less than a week, Lisa’s manner had shifted back to antagonism, and every word out of her mouth held an insulting subtext. It wasn’t just the nasty disposition. Dark circles ringed Lisa’s eyes, she’d lost weight, and Sam couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her smile. It added an extra layer of worry to Sam’s already-crippling burden.
Roger had brought a PlayStation, of all things, and the prospect of taking it home and hooking it up in her living room didn’t appeal to Sam. Talia visited the day before she shipped out to join the Canadian Special Forces in Syria under Operation Impact. Regardless of Talia’s assurance that Canada’s role was primarily advisory, Sam had clung to her old friend, trying to fight the premonition that she’d never see her again. For the first time, she experienced the utter misery Abigail must have faced every time the military deployed Talia to a war zone.
“Someone poisoned me,” Reece said, pulling her from her thoughts. “We need to find out who did it and why. Any idea when I can get out of here?”
