by Tanya Stowe
The detective made some more notes. “Maybe they weren’t there to protect the house. Maybe they were hiding what would destroy it.”
After Gonzales left, Erin eyed the tray on the table next to her. “Have you eaten?”
“No. They brought it while I was asleep, and you got here right after I woke up.”
“Don’t let me keep you from your lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat.” She smiled. “Even though it’s hospital food.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Cold hospital food.”
“The covers help keep the food warm. This one’s on crooked, though. Did you already check it out?”
“I haven’t touched it.”
But maybe he’d take a few bites, just to make her happy. He removed the cover and looked at the grilled cheese sandwich. It was cut in half on a diagonal, the pieces angled with a disposable bowl in the space, likely holding soup.
He took a bite of the sandwich. Whatever warmth it had held when it was delivered was long gone. At least it was something that didn’t taste bad cold. He finished one of the triangular-shaped halves.
Maybe the soup had held its heat better. He peeled off the plastic lid and tore open the silverware packet. Alcee rose, sniffing the air. When he put the spoon into the soup, she released a sharp bark.
Erin ran a hand down the dog’s back. “What’s wrong, girl?”
“Maybe she’s hungry.” He moved the chunks around with his spoon. “Looks like vegetable beef. I’ll give her some of the meat if it’s okay with you.”
Erin frowned. “She’s not hungry. I fed her right before coming up here.” Her eyebrows were drawn together, and her face registered equal parts confusion and concern.
“Hey, I don’t mind. If not for her, I’d probably still be buried in rubble, soaking wet and half-starved. Instead, I’m lying here in a nice dry hospital gown, enjoying a cold cheese sandwich and a lukewarm bowl of soup.”
He scooped up a spoonful and brought it toward his mouth. Alcee erupted in a frenzy of barking.
“Wait.” Erin’s hand shot out and gripped his arm.
“What?”
“Don’t eat that.” Her eyes were wide with panic. “Something’s wrong with it.”
He lowered the spoon. “Are you telling me your dog sniffs out trapped people and tainted food?”
“It’s possible. She started training as a guide dog, then was changed to detection. She was too energetic for both of those careers and finally landed with search and rescue. Whatever she alerts to, I trust her one hundred percent.”
“Do you really think somebody poisoned my food?” No offense to her dog, but the idea was too far-fetched to take seriously.
“I don’t know. But Alcee thinks something’s wrong, and she doesn’t act like this without good reason.”
He put the spoon back into the bowl and lowered his hand to his lap. A sense of uneasiness settled in his stomach, that hollow-gut feeling that came when something bad was lurking right around the corner. “But I don’t have any enemies.”
“Someone just brought down a building with you inside.”
“That wasn’t aimed at me.”
“Look, Alcee is smart. Shortly after I got her, she alerted me to a gas leak. She feels something is wrong with your soup, so we’re taking it seriously.”
She pressed the call button for the nurse and snagged a pair of latex gloves from a box on the wall. After putting them on, she snapped the plastic lid back onto the soup container.
A nurse entered the room and approached the bed. “Can I get you something?”
“Yes.” It was Erin who answered. “We need two sterile, sealable plastic bags.”
The young woman raised her eyebrows but didn’t question the unusual request. Erin’s commanding tone discouraged any argument. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded and left the room.
Erin scanned their surroundings.
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything that might reveal your identity.”
Cody did his own search. A dry-erase board hung on the opposite wall, his doctors’ and nurses’ names written on it. But as far as he could tell, his patient chart wasn’t in the room. That information probably came in and out on the tablets carried by the medical personnel.
Erin eased back into her chair. “What about your wallet and phone?”
“Everything’s in a plastic bag in that bottom drawer, along with the clothes I was wearing when they brought me in.”
Erin pulled her phone from her purse. “We’re getting Detective Gonzales back out since I’m not on tonight.” She tilted her head toward the soup. “This is going in for prints and the soup for a toxicology workup. And you’re having around-the-clock police protection until you get out of here.”
He lifted his brows. For someone who’d waltzed back into his life just that day, she was being awfully bossy. But he didn’t have the gumption to argue. The events of the past twenty-four hours had him pretty shaken up. “And if the report comes back clean?”
“Then we were extra cautious for nothing. I’ll choose safe over sorry any day.”
She placed the call, then put her phone away. “I don’t know what’s going on, who set those charges or why.”
Her gaze locked on his with an intensity that wouldn’t let him look away. “But I do know this. If that soup is found to be tainted in any way, for you, this threat just got personal.”
Copyright © 2021 by Carol J. Post
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ISBN-13: 9781488072208
Vanished in the Mountains
Copyright © 2021 by Tanya Stowe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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