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  “They’re working on him right now.”

  “What caused it?”

  “We’re not sure yet. Dr. Teeter is in the room trying to intubate him. It’s been kind of touch-and-go. The doctor said he might have to do a cricothyroidotomy. Do you know if Preston could be allergic to anything besides penicillin?”

  “That’s all I know about,” Graham said. “He didn’t list anything else on his papers with check-in, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Has he been placed on any new medications recently?”

  “No. In fact, his medications have been titrated down, since he’s getting so much better.”

  “Have you or any of the other staff noted any signs of reaction prior to today?”

  “None, Dr. Vaughn. I’ve always felt that people who react to one drug might develop the same reaction to other drugs, so I pay more attention to physical signs.”

  “Sheila, I know better than to ask, but I have to. Could there have been a medical error?” Sheila was a good nurse, and Clark had excellent staff.

  “We’ve already checked that,” she assured him. “Preston was getting ready to go home, and I gave him his medications myself. I triple-checked everything, as I always do.”

  “I’ll try to contact his sister by cell phone,” Graham said. “Meanwhile, I’m on my way there.” He hesitated, reluctant to share his darkest suspicions with Sheila, but the sooner a search was made, the more likely they were to find a culprit, if there was one.

  “Sheila, one last question. Have you had any new personnel working in your unit in the past couple of days?”

  “No. Our nurses have all been here for at least a year, and you know they’re the only ones who are authorized to dispense medications.”

  “Thank you. I know this might sound strange to you, but I must request that Pharmacy take an inventory of the penicillin.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, and I’m sorry. This may be a matter for the police.” The moment he disconnected, he dialed Willow’s cell phone. No answer. He was torn. He needed to get to the hospital to check on Preston. But he couldn’t help worrying about what Sandi was up to. He could only pray that Willow and Sandi truly were in a public place at Big Cedar.

  He also needed to find out from Willow if Preston had any other allergies. Where was she?

  A scream ricocheted through the apartment as Willow stumbled to her feet. She didn’t realize, until she caught her image in the mirror, that she was the one screaming.

  She staggered backward as the edges of the room blackened around her and stars flashed in that blackness. Her stomach protested violently. She thought she would vomit.

  She leaned over, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth, pressing the side of her cheek against the tiled wall. Even with her eyes closed, she couldn’t get the imprint of Sandi’s bloodied face out of her sight.

  As an ICU nurse, Willow had often seen the worst of human suffering and death, but this was different. Here, she had no buffer of doctor orders and machines and backup staff.

  And Sandi was dead.

  Willow dug her cell phone from her pocket and, with fingers numb with shock, she dialed a number she had memorized two weeks ago. Detective Trina Rush.

  When the detective herself answered, Willow sagged with relief. “This is Willow Traynor. I just found Sandi Jameson dead in her apartment.” Her words spilled from her in a spiral of panic. “Somebody needs to get here quickly. She’s been bashed in the face!” She heard the trembling in her voice.

  “Where are you now, Willow?” The voice sounded efficient and calm.

  “I’m here with her in the bathroom. Please send help. Please!”

  “It’s on its way, and I’ll be there shortly. Meanwhile, is anyone else there with you?”

  “N-no.” But even as Willow replied, the question took on a more sinister meaning. She caught her breath and glanced around the shadowed room. Had the killer left?

  “Willow,” Trina Rush said calmly over the line, “I need you to leave the building while you’re on the telephone with me. Don’t hang up.”

  Resisting the urge to cower in a corner, Willow turned away from the grisly sight of Sandi and glanced once more through the shadows as she retreated from the room.

  Taking care not to touch anything, she was halfway down the hallway when she saw a figure standing between the kitchen and the great room. It was the form of a man. He didn’t move.

  Willow stopped in her tracks, suddenly paralyzed with terror. She gripped the cell phone in her hands as if it would protect her. But she was on her own. The person at the other end of the line was just too far away.

  Oh, Lord, help me! Is this the killer? Am I going to die just like Sandi did?

  “Willow?” It was the detective’s voice. “What’s happening right now?”

  Willow remained frozen, unable to speak.

  Graham called Larry and gave him a brief overview of the situation.

  “You don’t lose a lot of time, do you, boss?” Larry said. “You’ll have the whole staff mad at you, accusing them of medical error.”

  “Preston was nearly killed in a fire in which his place was singled out and torched,” Graham said. “In my opinion this is a murder attempt until proven otherwise. And quit calling me boss. How long before you reach Big Cedar?”

  “They’re doing roadwork up ahead, but I know a back road. Shouldn’t be more than another fifteen minutes. Relax, boss. I’ll find her if she’s there.”

  Graham hung up, muttered a quick apology to Ginger, who was just stepping out of an exam room, and left her juggling four difficult cases by herself.

  Ginger was a lifesaver.

  The man took a couple of steps toward Willow, then stopped. Willow briefly considered running into the children’s bedroom and climbing out the window to escape, but then the man spoke.

  “Hello? Sandi, that you?”

  Willow released her breath in a whoosh of air—breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Carl? No, I’m not Sandi. It’s me, Willow Traynor.”

  Detective Rush’s voice came like bullets from the phone. “Willow, get out of there now! Get out of that apartment. I don’t care who you think that is, he could be dangerous. He could be the killer!”

  But escape was impossible. The man was blocking her way.

  “Willow?” Carl said, stepping toward her. “What was all that ruckus? Either somebody was screaming like a banshee a minute ago, or my hearing aid’s messing up again. Where’s Sandi?”

  “Stop right there, Carl. Don’t come any farther. We’ve…we’ve both got to get out of this apartment now. We could be in danger.”

  The man stopped. “Danger? What are you talking about? What’s going on here?”

  “Willow?” Trina Rush said over the phone. “I told you to get away.”

  “I can’t right now,” Willow told the detective, keeping her attention on the man in front of her. “Please, Carl, somebody attacked and killed Sandi. I just found her in the bathroom, and whoever it was might still be here.”

  The man started, eyes bugging out behind his trifocals, lips parting like a landed fish. “What? She’s dead?”

  “I’ve already called the police, and I have Detective Trina Rush on the phone right now.” She held up her cell phone to show him.

  Carl glanced dazedly at the phone, then back at Willow. “Somebody really killed her?”

  “That much is obvious, and I don’t know if the killer’s still here or not. She’s still warm. She hasn’t been dead long.” Willow glanced over her shoulder into the shadows, and those shadows posed much more threat to her than did Carl.

  “But are you sure she’s dead?” Carl moved as if to push past Willow.

  She blocked the way. “I’m positive. She’s beyond our help, and the detective has ordered us out of the apartment immediately.” The hand that held the cell phone began to tremble violently, and her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

  “You
okay?” the man asked.

  “Please, let’s get outside. I just need some fresh air.”

  Still dazed, Carl took her by the arm and gently led her outside. “You do seem a little wobbly. Let’s go sit you down in the gazebo. You say the police are on their way?”

  “They’ll be here any time.” She raised the phone to her face. “Detective Rush, can you tell me how long before help is here?”

  “Five to eight minutes.” The reply came swiftly. “I’ll be there soon after. Willow, are you out of the apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Stay away from shadows, and since you insist on talking to Carl, and it seems he isn’t a threat, then stay with him until someone comes.”

  “I don’t plan to let him out of my sight.”

  “Can you tell me what you were doing in Sandi’s apartment this morning?” the detective asked. There was no inflection of disapproval or of accusation. She just sounded curious.

  Willow explained about Sandi’s telephone call earlier. “She wanted me to meet her at the Bent Hook Marina at Big Cedar. I waited there for thirty minutes and she never showed up. I didn’t want to let it go, because she sounded frightened, and worse, she sounded like she might have taken drugs.”

  “What made you think that?” the detective asked.

  “Wasn’t acting like herself. She was highly agitated, talking nonstop, showing strong signs of paranoia.”

  “You’re sure it was Sandi?”

  “Of course. I’ve spent some time with her. I know her voice.”

  “But you thought you were talking to Carl the night the girls were taken.”

  “I had only spoken to him in passing once or twice. That was different.”

  “Okay, what about Sandi? What was she agitated about? Did she say?”

  “She suggested that her apartment might be bugged, which was why she said she wanted to meet me somewhere else. She didn’t want to meet at the hospital, because she was afraid someone might see her, though she never said who that someone might be. Except it was a male.”

  “No name, no description?” Trina asked. “No hint about where she knew him from, or what, specifically, he might do to her?”

  “Not that I remember. She wasn’t completely rational. She told me that she had only accused me of taking the girls because she wanted it to be me. Crazy stuff.” Willow grew aware that Carl had fallen into step beside her and was obviously listening to every word she said. But then, who wouldn’t?

  “Did she say why she wanted it to be you?” Detective Rush asked.

  “She seemed to feel it was a better alternative than who had really taken them. She said that he—whoever he was—had taken them as a warning to her that he could do it, and that he didn’t want her talking to me.”

  “Did she say why he didn’t want her talking to you?”

  “No, but I get the impression it was because she knew who had started the fires. Do you remember the man the girls mentioned the other night—the one the girls said their mother was shouting at the night before they were abducted?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “That could be the person Sandi was afraid of.”

  “She said that?”

  “No, she didn’t actually say it.”

  There was a brief silence, then the detective said softly, “Willow, I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer yes or no. Is Carl still there with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still feel he could have been the one who called you at Sandi’s the night the girls disappeared?”

  Willow hesitated. “Not anymore.”

  “But you can’t be sure, either way.”

  “No.”

  “Then be very watchful until the police get there.”

  Willow felt the skin tighten at the back of her neck. “I will.”

  “Are you still…”

  At that moment the cell phone broke connection. Willow checked it. Her battery wasn’t dead, but it was low, and she often had trouble with connections from this location when her battery wasn’t fully charged.

  She could call Trina Rush back and probably get through, but she decided to reserve as much power as she could in case of another emergency.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Graham rushed down the wide corridor toward Preston’s room. He had raced halfway across town to the hospital, thanking God for green signal lights and moderate traffic as he prayed for Preston to be okay. After all the poor guy had been through, to die from an allergic reaction…

  What was he allergic to? Graham couldn’t believe any of the nurses on that floor would have given Preston the one thing that could kill him. His penicillin allergy was well-known, marked plainly on his chart. Even the greenest nurse would recognize the warning sign.

  By the time Graham reached Preston’s room, Preston had been intubated. His head looked like a gorged pumpkin and his lips looked as if they would split. He was not yet out of danger.

  “Dr. Vaughn?”

  Graham turned to find Sheila Jackson coming toward him. She looked agitated. “I can’t believe this. Pharmacy did the inventory check you requested. They can’t account for a 2.4 million-unit vial of penicillin G IV.”

  “So someone did give Preston an injection of penicillin?”

  She shook her head, her dark hair feathering around her face with the movement. “I never gave him penicillin. I never would! I’m well aware of his allergy to it. I’m the one who cautions the others about checking for drug allergies.”

  Graham saw the IV port in Preston’s arm, which would remain there until he was discharged. “I didn’t ask if you did, Sheila. I asked if someone did. Have you seen anyone in this room who shouldn’t be?”

  She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I didn’t see anything suspicious, but I wasn’t looking. We don’t monitor visitors. We can’t possibly do that.”

  “I know. I’m not accusing you.” Who would have the audacity—and the hatred—to slip into Preston’s room when he was sleeping and inject a deadly poison into his IV port?

  Or was Graham jumping to conclusions? Was he just being morbid today? Even in the best of hospitals, accidents did happen.

  “I’m sorry, Sheila. I’m going to have to call the police about this, and Preston will need constant observation, even after he’s out of danger. There was already one attempt on his life. This may be the second.”

  Willow remained awkward in Carl’s presence as she sat beside him in the gazebo, waiting for the police to arrive.

  “I’m surprised no one else came running when they heard my screams,” she said, glancing back toward Sandi’s apartment.

  “Doubt anybody heard you. Only reason I did was because I was outside tending the roses. You know the Jasumbacks play their music so loud down there they can’t even hear their phone ringing or someone pounding on the door half the time. Mary Ruth’s deaf as a post without her hearing aid.”

  Willow shivered and hugged herself. “The lodge is well built. Besides, most of the neighbors are accustomed to hearing Brittany and Lucy scream and laugh when they play outside.”

  “Believe me, I didn’t have any trouble telling the difference between those little girls and you. Besides, I don’t hear them a lot, since I’m on the lower level.”

  “I know we never talked about the night the girls disappeared, but I was so sure I was talking to you.”

  “I may be getting a little forgetful now and then, but that’s something I’d have remembered. I didn’t even see Mary Ruth that day.”

  “That was what she said.”

  “Guess you know there’ll be folks moving out over this,” Carl said. “Place like Branson, there oughtn’t be this much danger involved in just living.”

  “Will you leave?”

  “Good question. Guess that depends on what else happens around here. Minneapolis seems tame in comparison.”

  “And Kansas City?”

  For a moment he was silen
t. In the far distance Willow thought she could hear the first cry of a siren.

  “How did you know I lived in Kansas City?” His voice was suddenly hushed, barely above a whisper.

  “I did a background check on all the renters for Graham.”

  A flush crept slowly up his neck. “You checked my background?”

  “I checked everyone’s background. Relax, Carl, you’re not under suspicion.”

  His eyes narrowed and grew hard. “What else did you turn up while you were digging for dirt on me?”

  A second siren made a counterpoint melody to the first, echoing through the trees that bordered the lane. No other neighbors had ventured out yet to see what the noise was all about. Willow suddenly wished someone would. She didn’t know what to say.

  The first vehicle to round the last curve in the lane was a police cruiser, followed by another, and then an ambulance.

  Willow and Carl rose from the gazebo bench, and Carl took her arm. She froze.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked, his normal, gentlemanly demeanor back in place.

  She nodded, then walked with him across the driveway to meet the first police officer who stepped from his car.

  “I’m Willow Traynor, and I’m the one who called Detective Rush.” She turned and gestured. “I found Sandi’s body in apartment One A, the master bathroom.”

  “Okay, ma’am. Detective Rush is on her way. Would you please wait for her here?” He opened the back door of the cruiser. “If you wish you can sit in the car.”

  Willow looked at the seat, and at the protective barrier between the front and back that literally rendered this seat a jail cell on wheels.

  “Are you detaining me for some reason?”

  “No, Detective Rush only wants to ask you some questions.” The officer glanced over his shoulder toward the apartment from which Willow had escaped. The other officers were entering, and he obviously didn’t want to miss the excitement.

  “I was with Willow in Sandi’s apartment,” Carl said. “I came running when I heard her scream. Guess the detective wants to ask me some questions, too?”

  “No, sir. For now, I was only told to speak with Mrs. Traynor.”