Chapter 26
November 14, 2014
After Inez picked up Olivia for the night, Caleb brought Jocelyn to Roxborough Memorial Hospital. It was only a few blocks away from her house. They didn’t have a large trauma bay like Einstein, but they were well-equipped to deal with her emergency. Lucky for her, she’d been one of only three people waiting to be seen when she arrived, and they got her registered and hooked up to an IV pretty quickly. It had gotten crowded since then. She could tell by the number of voices she heard in the hallway and the sound of people walking rapidly back and forth past her room. And by how long it was taking Caleb to find a blanket.
She was in a room with two gurneys and a curtain separating them. Evidently, they’d filled the other gurney, because the curtain had been pulled since the last time she’d woken. The man on the other side moaned and heaved. He sounded like she had only a short time ago.
Initially, she had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep as the IV pumped sweet relief into her veins. Her body had been too exhausted to stay awake a moment longer. Now she drifted in and out, basking in the drowsy calm that had fallen over her since the anti-nausea medication began to take effect. She was grateful to be free from the spasms, abdominal cramps, vomiting, and dry heaves. The profuse sweating had finally stopped, but now she was freezing, even though she’d flat out refused to change into a gown. She had a hard enough time with hospitals after last year’s attack. She’d shoot someone before she put a damn gown on again.
Now, her eyes struggled to stay open. Finally, she felt the blessed heavy warmth of a blanket. She opened her eyes to see Caleb leaning over her, tucking the edges of the blanket under her body. She smiled. “You don’t have to mummify me,” she said.
He kissed her forehead. “It will keep the heat in.”
He worked his way down to her feet while she studied his profile. The strong jaw covered in stubble, his straight, narrow nose, thick brown hair. She was definitely feeling better if she was envisioning him naked.
“Where’s your tiara?” she asked. “That was a good look for you.”
He laughed. “Funny thing about that. When you’re not a little girl or an actual princess, people don’t take you too seriously wearing those things.”
Jocelyn smirked. “Inez let you wear it to the hospital, did she?”
He scrunched his face up. “Pretty much, yeah.”
Laughter made her abs ache, but she couldn’t help it.
“That’s all right. I’ll get her back,” Caleb said from the foot of the gurney. “You know, you could at least take your shoes off.”
“No,” Jocelyn said firmly. “No gowns and no taking off my shoes.”
He laughed and worked his way up the other side of the gurney, tucking, tucking, tucking. She did feel warmer. He took up position near her head, gently stroking her hair away from her face and staring down at her with a tenderness that nearly brought tears to her eyes. She thought about his confession to Olivia.
“You look better,” he said.
From the other side of the curtain, another moan sounded. Jocelyn glanced in that direction. “I’m better than that guy,” she said.
“Yeah,” Caleb said and hesitated. “About that—”
Before he could finish, as if on cue, the curtain pulled back. Kevin stood in the middle of the room and beyond him, on the gurney opposite hers, lay Trent Razmus.
He lay on his side, wearing a gown and gripping the metal rail of the gurney, an IV drip dangling from his left hand. His brown skin had taken on a grayish hue. He made a half-hearted attempt to point at Jocelyn. “You,” he said.
Behind him, in a chair, Knox snored, his chin on his chest, one hand resting on top of his portable O2 tank.
Kevin grimaced, looking from Jocelyn to Trent and back. “Just look at you two.”
“What the fuck?” Jocelyn blurted.
Trent closed his eyes, taking measured breaths through his nose. Caleb motioned to him. “He came in after you. You were sleeping. He got sick just like you. About an hour after you.”
Trent didn’t open his eyes but hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward Knox. “I was checking on Knox like you asked. He’s alive by the way. Drunk, I think, but alive.”
“Do I want to know which one of you drove?” Kevin asked.
“No.” Trent opened one eye and looked at Kevin. “No, you do not.”
Jocelyn had barely been able to stand up, let alone drive. She couldn’t blame Trent for allowing Knox to take the wheel. Desperate times. But she was grateful they’d both made it there in one piece without harming anyone else.
“I’m going to need a new car though. The inside of mine is covered in vomit.”
Jocelyn thought about the way she’d sprayed the ladies’ room at the restaurant. “Oh shit,” she said.
“Anyway,” Kevin cut in. “Caleb thought it was suspicious that both of you got violently ill at the same time.”
“It obviously wasn’t dinner,” Caleb added. “Olivia and I are fine.”
“I called the restaurant,” Kevin said. “No other patrons got sick.”
Trent opened both eyes a slit, regarding the three of them. “Knox wasn’t sick either.”
“So,” Kevin said. “Where’d you guys eat lunch?”
“We didn’t have lunch together,” Trent said.
Jocelyn sat up straight, her body like a spring. “That no good piece of shit,” she said. She tried to free her legs so she could get up until she realized she wasn’t yet fit to go anywhere. She was dizzy, dehydrated, and she smelled of vomit. “Son of a bitch,” she added. Her head dropped back onto the pillow. “It was Rigo. He poisoned us.”
Kevin raised a skeptical brow. “You guys had lunch with the Rigos?”
“Just coffee,” Trent said, his voice still weak.
“It was the mugs,” Jocelyn said. “He did something to our coffee mugs.” She told them about the argument the Rigos had had in the kitchen. “He was so insistent on using the old mugs.”
“Those were some beat-looking cups,” Trent said. “I thought mine was going to disintegrate in my hand.”
“You really think Rigo poisoned you?” Caleb asked.
Jocelyn scowled and gestured toward Trent. “You really think he didn’t?”
Caleb shrugged. “That’s pretty ballsy.”
“We’ll get blood tests,” Kevin said. “I’ll fill out a report. No sense in getting the mugs though. If he’s got half a brain, I’m sure he cleaned them out by now. Depending on what the blood tests turn up, we’ll go from there.”
Rage fought its way up from Jocelyn’s core. She clenched both fists. She hadn’t felt this kind of anger since before her attack and that had been nearly twenty years’ worth of anger. “I’m going to kill him,” she said.
Trent laughed wearily. “I know you didn’t say that in a room full of cops.”
“Fuck off,” she shot back. “That motherfucker is going down. I’ll strangle him with my own damn hands.”
“Rush,” Kevin cautioned.
“Don’t,” she snapped.
The three men stared at her, none of them willing to provoke her any further. Then a raspy voice came from the other side of the room. “I’ll kill him—I’ll be dead anyway by the time my trial comes,” Knox said. “But I’d like to get a confession out of him first.”