Heaven Preserve Us (8 page)

"I'm fine. Just a little off, I guess."

I eyed him, wondering what he wasn't telling me. He'd been in
there a long time, I realized, from just after James had taken Maryjake outside until seconds before. His eyes looked red, and his skin
pasty.

Kind of like Philip Heaven had looked that afternoon.

NEITHER MEGHAN NOR I had considered the fact that we'd have
to haul as many jars of preserves into the house as we'd loaded the
car up with earlier. After the food exchange, Barr said he had to go
back and finish up a few things at the cop shop, and we helped
Ruth and Thaddeus take their gleanings out to their car. We made
them promise they'd have a neighbor help them bring the heavy
boxes inside the next morning, and they left with Ruth behind the
wheel of their old Buick. Once we arrived home, Meghan tucked
Erin into bed while I dragged in our own loot and began unpacking the cornucopia of goodies onto the kitchen table.

An hour later, with the pantry filled to the brim, I gave in and
called Barr's cell phone. I couldn't stand the idea of waiting by the
phone for his nightly phone call, all the while afraid that this was
the night he wouldn't call. I'd realized I didn't know exactly where
we stood or whether we were both looking for the same things
from the relationship. It seemed silly in retrospect, but we'd never
actually talked about our expectations.

He didn't answer. I looked at my watch. After ten. I didn't leave
a message.

Five minutes later the phone rang, though, and I rushed to answer it. Meghan and I narrowly missed colliding in the hallway.
Apparently I wasn't the only one expecting a phone call.

The caller ID said it was Barr. "I won't be long," I said, and
snatched the phone off the charger. "Hello?"

It wasn't Barr. It was Sergeant Zahn, his direct supervisor at
work, and he cut right to the chase. "Is this Ms. Reynolds? Detective Ambrose wanted me to tell you he's in the hospital."

"What happened? Is he okay?" My mind went immediately to
the place I tried to keep under wraps, the scary ohmygod place
that had to do with the fact that my boyfriend carried a gun to
work and tangled with the dregs of society on a regular basis. In
that place lived things like bullet wounds and knife fights and
other disasters accompanied by the kind of special effects only
found in bad action flicks. I wasn't a big worrier, and Cadyville
wasn't Los Angeles, but the words "Ambrose" and "hospital" in the
same sentence sent me right there.

"They're running some tests now. He asked me to call you.
Thought you'd want to know he's here." His voice was gruff, but I
tried to ignore that. It was no secret that the good Sergeant wasn't
all that fond of yours truly.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"He was at the station. His stomach was upset, and then he got
light-headed and started having trouble breathing. Asked me to
bring him into the emergency room."

Barr felt bad enough that he asked Zahn to take him to the
emergency room? This was not good. I heard several voices in the background, and one of them was Barr's. He didn't sound happy,
not at all.

Okay. No bullets. And dizziness trumped a knife wound every
single time. But the word "hospital" still scared the bejesus out of
me. Zahn was saying something, but all I could hear was a very loud,
frightened voice in my mind clamoring to know that Barr was okay.

But Zahn couldn't enlighten me any further and made short
work of getting off the phone. I dropped all notion of going to bed,
laced up my boots with shaking hands, and grabbed my coat off the
hall tree, calling out, "Meghan! Where are you? I have to go."

She appeared at the top of the stairs. "What's going on?"

"It's Barr. He's in the hospital."

"Hospital! What happened??"

"It's nothing to do with work. He's sick or something. I don't
know. I have to get over there."

"Of course you do. I'd go with, but-" She gestured toward Erin's room.

"No, no, that's fine."

"I'll keep the phone with me. Call me when you know more.
No matter what time."

"You sure?"

Her nod was emphatic. "Absolutely. Even if he just has a bad
splinter. I want to know."

Her words brought a small smile to my face, because I knew
her concern was as much for me as it was for Barr.

I ran out through a heavy downpour to my pickup. My hands
had stopped shaking, and I jammed the key hard into the ignition
and started the engine with a roar. Rain slashed down, pounding
against the metal skin of the cab as I urged the Toyota through the dark, empty streets of Cadyville to the highway on-ramp. Our little
town only had an emergency clinic. Fifteen minutes later I was in
Everett, where Sergeant Zahn had taken Barr.

Philip had gone to the same hospital. I thought of his gasping
breaths, how he clawed at the desk as if the slick surface might
somehow yield oxygen to his starved lungs. Barr's symptoms mirrored a little too closely those I had witnessed that morning before
Philip collapsed.

And then he'd died. What on earth was going on?

I couldn't seem to concentrate; I got lost downtown, not sure
which street the hospital was on, and once I found it, I couldn't
find the entrance to the parking garage.

"It's okay, he's going to be fine, just relax, it's okay, it's okay, it's
okay," I whispered under my breath, cursing first at the red light
and then at the blue-haired old lady who wouldn't move her huge
lumbering PLYMOUTH out of my way. Deep breath. Okay, better.
Found the entrance.

Parked.

And ran toward the emergency room.

The sliding door hissed open, too slowly, and I pushed through
with my shoulder. The button on my jacket hooked on something,
I don't know what, and my momentum spun me around in an
awkward circle. I came to rest beside the reception desk, and the
woman sitting behind it put her hand out to steady me.

"You okay, honey?"

"Fine. Good. Thanks. Barr Ambrose. Just brought in."

She nodded. Apparently staccato verbiage was par for the course
in these situations. Which made sense. I couldn't be the only one
who came in all a-dither looking for someone they loved.

Wait a minute. Love?

Did I just think that?

Uh oh.

Okay, maybe I'd thought around the idea a little. But not, you
know, "I Love Barr."

Too soon. Too big. Too scary. Too ...

"He's been admitted," the woman said, peering at her computer monitor. "Room 513."

"Can I go up and see him?"

"The elevators are right over there."

"Thanks" I turned and marched to the elevator. Forced myself to
push the button. I hated hospitals. I'd spent too many long hours in
them, helpless as they tried to save my husband from the cancer
gnawing through his body. When the ding sounded and the doors
slid open, I strode onto the elevator like I was going into battle.

Not that I was, of course. Right? Dizziness, nausea. But still
conscious. Not like Philip. Not like Mike. Surely something minor.
I mean this was Barr. Mr. Tough Guy. Who happened to drink
Earl Grey tea, but still. Upright Town Detective. All Around Good
Guy. Mr. Call-Me-Every-Night-Just-To-Hear-My-Voice.

And he was sick. Seconds ago I'd been so scared and worried
that I'd used the word "love," for the first time, if only to myself.

Inside the elevator, I pivoted. The woman behind the desk
watched me with curiosity as the doors slid shut, cutting off her
view and enclosing me in the tiny box. My control wavered then.
The fear I'd so neatly dispatched returned with a roar. I didn't
even know what else I felt, but I sure felt a lot of whatever it was.
Especially around my solar plexis. And my throat. And the muscles along my jaw.

The elevator stopped, and I got off. Signs directed me to Barr's
room. As I walked by the nurses' station the two RNs gave me a
cursory glance, but must have decided I knew what I was doing.

Boy, I wished I did.

Room 513. The door was partly open.

What I saw inside made me want to cry.

There were two beds in the room. The one by the window was
empty. In the bed by the door, the man I'd come to think of as
strength itself lay stretched out, filling the bed from top to bottom
with his long lanky frame. But that thing, that quiet strong presence, was absent. Even in sleep he had it, but lying there with his
eyes closed, his long slender fingers limp on the hospital sheet, he
looked abandoned and weak.

I'd watched the vitality fade like a receding light from my husband at the end, sat with him night and day in the hospice for
those last two weeks, every second seeing him withdraw further
and further from life. From me. Leaving me.

Stop it, Sophie Mae. Just stop it. That was then. That was Mike.
This is Barr. And he's going to be fine.

I took a deep, whooping breath, and curled the edges of my lips
into a smile. Barr opened his eyes.

Walking over, I put my hand on his cheek, and kissed him on
the forehead. I could hear the subtle whoosh of the machines all
around him, noted the tubes snaking into his nose, the IV dripping clear liquid into his arm. He looked up at me with a weak,
but sardonic, grin.

"What?" I said.

He shook his head a fraction. "I'm glad you're here."

"Me, too. What happened?"

"Don't know."

"What do the doctors say?"

"Don't know."

"You don't know what they say?"

"No. They don't know what's wrong with me."

My anxiety ratcheted up another degree. I pulled a chair up to
the edge of the bed and took hold of Barr's hand. "Sergeant Zahn
said you were dizzy?"

He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. "Wasn't feeling
too hot at Heaven House tonight. Got worse."

A nurse walked in. "We should get some of the tests back
within the hour," she said, but I put my finger to my lips and nodded toward Barr, whose eyes were still shut. As I stroked his arm
some of the strain flowed out of his face and he slept.

"Visiting hours are long over," the nurse said in a low voice.

"I'm his girlfriend," I whispered. "I'd like to stay for a while."

"It really is best for him if you leave and come back in the
morning."

Philip had been ill in the morning and dead in the afternoon.

"But-" I raised my voice, and Barr stirred in bed.

"Please"

Frowning, I stood up. "How can you not know what's wrong
with him?" I whispered.

She hesitated, then gestured for me to follow her out to the hallway. At the nurses' station she turned, her eyes moving over my face
as if she were trying to read something there. Finally she spoke.

"Most of the tests they're running right now are to exclude
other diagnoses. If those come up negative, we think your man in
there had contact with botulism toxin."

Botulism?

I knitted my fingers together. "That's serious, right? It could kill
him."

"It can be very, very serious. But, if that's what it is, he seems to
have had relatively minor exposure, and the antitoxin is already on
its way from the CDC."

Stunned, I stammered out, "There was another man brought in
this morning." I looked at my watch. "Yesterday morning, I guess.
And then he died in the afternoon. Philip Heaven. He had many of
the same symptoms. Was that botulism, too?"

Her eyebrows arched. "I don't know. But I'll certainly look into
it. What was his name again?"

I repeated it, and she wrote it down. Then she smiled at me. "If
you're worried Mr. Ambrose is going to die overnight, you can stop.
If it's botulism poisoning, he'll make a full recovery eventually."

"And if it's not?"

She looked earnestly into my eyes. "Then you'll deal with that
when we know more. But for tonight he needs his rest, and it looks
like you do, too. If you stay, I'll have to insist you remain in the
waiting room anyway. Go home. He won't even know you're gone."

No woman wants to hear those last words, but she was probably right. What else could I do but leave?

I wasn't proud of the tiny flicker of relief I felt as I exited the
hospital into the fresh night air.