by Mary Kennedy
At one point, Olivia bent down to ask Sonia if she would like something to drink and Sonia bellowed, “I sure would, honey. And grab me some more of those shortbread cookies. I have to do a taste test.” She gave a raucous laugh and aimed a broad wink at the audience. “Let’s make sure these are up to snuff,” she said teasingly. “I hope these are Sonia Scott classics.”
Ali flashed me a look and I hoped Sonia would approve of our efforts.
“These are all Sonia’s recipes, right?” Olivia leaned close to me, arching her eyebrows.
“Why, yes, they are,” I blurted out. “All three of them.” The lemon bars and cherry cheesecake tarts were out of Sonia’s Southern Favorites cookbook, and Lucinda had offered to bring some shortbread cookies that were featured in Sonia’s Easy Desserts cookbook.
Sonia was about to start signing bookmarks—Olivia had thoughtfully brought what looked like several hundred—when she frowned and started scratching her arm.
“Darn,” she said irritably. “Do you have cats in here? I can feel my allergies kicking in.”
Ali shot me a startled look. Barney and Scout were safely ensconced upstairs, taking their morning naps on the windowsill. “Not in this part of the shop,” she admitted, “although we do have two cats upstairs.”
“That must be it,” Sonia said, munching on a cookie. I noticed someone had placed a few cookies next to her on a pretty plate decorated with a rooster. The cookies were sand-colored and looked delicious. I decided they must be the shortbread “Sandies” that Lucinda had brought.
“Are you all right, Sonia?” Ali hovered over her.
“I think so; I’m just very sensitive to cats.” I noticed a red flush creeping up her throat and was about to comment when she jumped to her feet. “Olivia, find my inhaler right away,” she rasped. “My chest feels so tight I can hardly breathe. I need to splash some water on my face. Where’s the ladies’ room?” She coughed twice and made a strangled gasp as a deep frown line appeared between her eyes.
I jumped to my feet. “It’s right down the hall, but do you need—” Sonia ignored me and heaved herself toward the hall. She was clutching her throat but gamely held up one finger in a just a minute gesture. She raced down the hall into the ladies’ room and I heard the door slam shut. Olivia and I exchanged a look.
“She’s terribly allergic to cats,” Olivia said, scowling. A touch of annoyance crept into her voice. “I should have said something to you earlier. It never occurred to me that you lived in your shop.”
“We live above the shop,” Ali corrected her. “But I don’t understand what happened to her. I’ve never seen anyone with such a severe cat allergy.” I hadn’t, either, and I’d been alarmed when I saw Sonia’s neck suddenly turn a vivid shade of candy-apple red.
Olivia dug into an oversized tote bag and pulled out an asthma inhaler. “We just need a quick break from the signing. Sonia can take a few puffs on this and she’ll be right as rain.”
She took off down the hallway with a couple of “Team Sonia” staffers racing after her.
There was an excited buzz in the room, and I saw Sara Rutledge half rise out of her seat. We locked gazes for a moment and she shot me a questioning look. When I touched my index finger to my thumb in an okay gesture, she nodded and sat back down.
“What’s up? Is Sonia sick?” Sam Stiles had made her way to the front of the room and stood close to me, her body poised for action. Sam is a detective with the Savannah PD and a member of the Dream Club. Unfortunately, her grueling work schedule makes it difficult for her to attend meetings. In her mid-thirties, with an athletic build and a brisk, no-nonsense style, she’s a commanding presence. I’d seen her slip into the shop a moment earlier and was grateful she was on the scene.
“I’m not sure.” I bent close to whisper in her ear. “Her assistant thinks she’s allergic to Barney and Scout, and she believes it triggered an asthma attack. Olivia—the assistant—is in the ladies’ room with her right now, along with a couple of other staffers. I’m hoping this will all blow over in a few minutes. People are getting restless.”
“Don’t worry, folks. Everything’s fine.” Ali practically had to shout to be heard above the noise. “Sonia will be right back and you’ll all have autographed bookmarks. In the meantime, eat up. We have plenty of goodies over there!” She gave a wide, reassuring smile and people started edging back to the dessert buffet on the heart pine table. A couple of minutes passed and I glanced at my watch. I was just about to go check on Sonia when Olivia darted out of the ladies’ room, her face pale, her eyes wide with panic.
“Call nine-one-one,” she shouted. “Hurry up! Something’s terribly wrong with Sonia. She’s collapsed. I don’t think she’s breathing, and I can’t find her EpiPen.” She went white and I could feel the tension rolling off her. I reached for my phone but Sam Stiles beat me to it.
“We need an ambulance, stat!” Sam yelled into her cell as she pushed past me. Sara Rutledge jumped to her feet, tossing her shoulder bag on her chair. I knew Sara had CPR training, and she darted after Sam. By now everyone in the audience knew something was amiss.
Olivia was visibly shaken. “I thought you brought her the asthma inhaler—” I began. My voice was wobbly, and I clasped my hands together to keep them from shaking.
“The inhaler isn’t working.” She turned Sonia’s green Coach bag upside down on the table. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead and her voice had taken on a shrill, desperate note. “She needs her EpiPen. That’s the only thing that’s going to save her now.”
An EpiPen? If Sonia needed epinephrine, it must mean that she was going into anaphylactic shock.
“Do you want me to help you look?” I offered. I felt helpless just standing there.
“No, I’ll find it. I know she has it with her. I saw it earlier today.” Olivia shoved her hands into the pile of lipsticks, gum wrappers, receipts, tissues, bookmarks, and business cards strewn across the table. Little scraps of paper feathered in the air. I remembered that Sonia had a habit of scribbling notes to herself and dropping them into her purse.
“Where is the EpiPen?” Olivia’s voice spiraled upward; it sounded like she was bordering on hysteria. She made a pitiful note in her throat, almost a groan of pain. “It has to be here, but where, where?”
“Doesn’t anyone have a backup pen?” I asked gently, riffling through the debris from Sonia’s purse. I knew people often carried two pens in case one of them malfunctioned.
“I have an extra one, but mine’s missing, too!” Now her voice was glazed with panic, and I knew she was seconds away from losing control. She dumped the contents of her tote bag on the floor. “How could they both be missing? That’s impossible,” she screamed. She was on her hands and knees, palms outstretched, sifting through the items from her bag. I noticed she was much neater than Sonia, and she carried a wallet, a small makeup kit, a pen and pad of paper, a BlackBerry, and a package of tissues. No sign of the missing pen.
“It could be a false alarm,” I said, trying to calm her. “The cats are both upstairs—”
“Don’t you understand anything? It’s not the cats; it’s something else. Something much worse.” She stood up, let out a deep sigh, and blinked rapidly a few times, as if she was fighting back tears. “I knew this would happen,” she said darkly. “I just knew it.” With that, she bolted out of the room, heading back to her boss.
I opened my mouth to speak but knew it would be pointless. What had she suspected would happen? And what did she mean by “something worse”? My gaze traveled to the buffet table. Was it the food? What could Sonia have possibly eaten that caused her to collapse? An unpleasant tingling sensation coursed through my body and a knot of cold fear crept up the back of my neck.
“Please stay calm, everyone,” I said as people started shouting questions. “Help is on the way. Right now we need to take our seats and clear a path for the par
amedics. I’m sure this is a false alarm.” But Olivia insisted that Sonia wasn’t breathing. Could that be true? My voice quavered with emotion and I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath. “As soon as they check her out, we’ll be able to continue the book signing. Sit back and relax, everyone.” I put on my “game face,” as Ali calls it, and spoke with a lot more conviction than I actually felt.
3
The next few minutes passed in a blur. The paramedics burst through the shop doors, pushing a gurney piled high with resuscitation equipment. I noticed one of the paramedics looked to be barely out of her teens, a thin, wiry redhead with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She took the lead down the hallway, hoisting a defibrillator off the stretcher as her partner, a middle-aged male with a considerable paunch, hurried inside the ladies’ room.
I peeked inside and my breath caught in my throat. There was Sonia, lying very still, on her back, in the middle of the bathroom floor. Both paramedics were now kneeling beside her, working quickly, their expressions intent. They spoke softly to each other as they passed equipment back and forth.
Sonia looked exactly as Olivia had described—like someone who’d collapsed without warning—and I spotted a small bruise on her forehead. She’d probably hit her head on the porcelain sink when she fell. I had the sudden fear that the resuscitation efforts were all in vain. Sonia looked lifeless, her features slack, her limbs splayed at odd angles like a doll’s. I noticed she had a scratch on her neck, probably also from her fall.
Sam Stiles ushered all of us back to the center of the shop.
“Let’s give the EMTs some space to do their job,” she said quietly. “Keep everyone out of the hallway. I’m going back in there to see if I can help.”
I felt queasy and took a seat at the signing table, looking out over the audience. I didn’t think the fans realized the seriousness of the situation and I heard a woman in the front row tell her friend that Sonia had “fainted.”
I knew better, and I was sure I’d caught the words “anaphylactic shock” drifting down the hallway. The EMTs must have been in phone contact with the hospital, and they were giving clipped updates on Sonia’s condition. “Edema, impossible to intubate,” someone said curtly, and I sucked in a breath. If they were talking about intubating her, then Sonia really wasn’t breathing and Olivia’s analysis of the situation was correct.
After what seemed like an eternity, the EMTs emerged from the hallway. The younger of the two was talking into a mic pinned to her uniform. “ETA ten minutes,” she said brusquely. Sonia was lying perfectly still on the gurney, with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. Her eyes were closed and her face was a mottled red. A soft groan went up from the audience as the paramedics hurried out to the ambulance. Olivia, along with the rest of Sonia’s entourage, looked shell-shocked.
“How bad is it?” I whispered to Sam, who appeared next to me.
“Very bad,” she said, shaking her head. “No detectable pulse, the airway’s blocked, and epinephrine didn’t seem to help.”
“But the oxygen mask—?”
“Just standard protocol.” She shook her head. “It’s probably not going to be enough to turn things around.” I remembered Sam had once told me that paramedics often slap an oxygen mask on a patient even if there isn’t any medical reason to do so. They want to give the appearance that the person is still alive and that they are making every effort to resuscitate them as they whisk them off to the hospital.
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” I said, surveying the crowd. This was going to be devastating news for her fans.
“They’ll have her in the ER in a few minutes, but I think she’s already gone. She probably could have been pronounced dead at the scene.”
“This is horrible,” Ali muttered.
I was silent, watching Sam, who was scanning the room, her eyes narrowed, her body tense. Her arms dangled at her sides, but I noticed she was closing and unclosing her hands as her gaze swept the audience. She was on high alert today, but what—or who—was she looking for?
Then I spotted Etta Mae Beasley in the front row, hugging her autographed copy of Sonia’s cookbook to her chest. There was an odd look on her face, an expression I couldn’t quite place. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she looked almost triumphant.
Etta Mae’s lips were twitching in a ghost of a smile, and her expression was gloating. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Why would she be happy that Sonia was seriously ill? Etta Mae had made it clear that she wasn’t a fan of Sonia’s, but did her feelings go beyond mere dislike? There was something chilling about her expression, and my stomach clenched.
I tried to remember what had happened when Etta Mae had walked up to the table and received her autographed book from Sonia. Had the two women argued or exchanged words? I’d been distracted, pouring lemonade for the guests. I made a mental note to ask Olivia if anything unusual had occurred.
Etta Mae must have felt me watching her, because we locked eyes for a brief moment, and then she quickly arranged her face into a bland expression. I turned and noticed Edward Giles staring fixedly as the paramedics wheeled Sonia away. His expression was thoughtful, without a touch of emotion or a hint of surprise.
Odd. Unless he had such a sanguine temperament that nothing rattled him? Most of the audience members seemed shaken up by the event, and a few women were crying softly into tissues and dabbing their eyes.
“What happens next?” Ali asked, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. Her usual poise had vanished and she looked ready to burst into tears herself. I shot her a sympathetic look when Sam stepped in and took charge of the situation.
“We have to send the crowd on their way,” Sam said quickly. “Let’s dispatch them quickly and don’t let anyone touch the food.” She gestured to the long table with half-eaten desserts and piles of plastic plates. “Keep everything exactly as it is. We may need to bag it.”
“You’re going to take the food?” Ali asked incredulously. “Do you mean as evidence?”
“Possibly. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“What exactly do you expect to find?” Sara nudged my shoulder a little as she squeezed between us. Sara’s a good friend, but she’s first and foremost a reporter, and I wondered if she hoped for an exclusive on what might be a newsworthy—if tragic—event. If this was foul play it would certainly put her byline on the map if she could file a story direct from the scene. I almost expected her to whip out her pocket tape recorder to capture Sam’s remarks.
“Nothing yet.” Sam’s voice was clipped. “Nothing at all. So let’s not make problems where none exist, okay?”
“Of course not. I would never do that!” Sara looked first at me, then at Ali, for validation, her voice ringing with indignation.
“Sam doesn’t mean anything by it,” I said, leading Sara away from the head table. “She’s a detective; it’s her job to be suspicious, remember?” Olivia was sniffling and gathering up the bookmarks and the contents of Sonia’s purse. The other crew members, a couple of cameramen, a sound guy, and a lighting tech packed up their equipment, whispering to each other. Two women staffers touched Olivia on the arm and then grabbed their purses and headed out the door.
“We’re finished here, right?” The lighting tech picked up the last of the klieg lights and nodded at Olivia.
“Absolutely,” she snapped. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she scooped up some index cards and dropped them into the bag. I knew she would have to face a tough situation at the hospital. The next half hour might prove to be the most difficult of her life. Would she like some company or would she consider it an intrusion? Olivia was so self-contained, it was hard to predict.
“Ali and I could come with you, if you like,” I ventured. “In fact, we could drive you, if you don’t feel up to it.”
“No, I’d rather go alone. You’ve done enough.” Her voice was as dark and fl
at as the ocean on a cloudy day.
“I’ll call you from the hospital,” Sara said to me in a low voice as Olivia scurried out of the shop. A beat passed between us. “Either way.”
• • •
“Most of the Dream Club members are here, so we might as well hold an impromptu meeting,” Persia Walker suggested a few minutes later. We’d just ushered out the last guest and put a CLOSED sign on the shop door. Sam Stiles had left for the station house to make a report and we’d left the remaining food untouched, as she’d ordered.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, let’s not hang around here, let’s go upstairs,” Dorien said. She shivered and rubbed her upper arms. “This place is giving me the creeps. For all I know, we’re standing right in the middle of a crime scene.”
“A crime scene? Nonsense,” Sybil Powers cut in. “Sonia had some sort of major allergic reaction, and it was certainly nobody’s fault. None of us could have predicted this would happen. All we did was offer her a warm welcome.”
She turned to our new members, Etta Mae Beasley and Edward Giles. “You’re going to join us for the meeting, right?” The two new members were hanging back uncertainly, and I had the distinct feeling they weren’t the least bit eager to go upstairs to our apartment. Did they really think we had deliberately harmed Sonia? Or was it just a natural desire to escape the unpleasantness of the past half hour?
“I think I should be going—” Edward began, but Dorien grabbed him firmly by the arm. “That’s silly,” Dorien said, lifting her jaw a little. “You’re new to the group, and we have a lot to process here. Whatever happens with Sonia, we all know that something significant took place here today. We need to use our collective energy to learn more about the situation.” Her voice was as brittle as glass, her face tense. Dorien’s abrasive personality was never far from the surface.
“Collective energy?” Edward’s eyebrows shot up. He looked like he wasn’t sure what he’d gotten himself into.
