Lucky sucked air between his teeth and gave a slight shrug. “Truth is, we would do a panel of blood tests to look for known drugs, known chemical substances. If it’s artificial, we’ll find it. If it’s a naturally occurring substance, then it’s a matter of looking at premortem behavior and the clues the body gives us.”
“Such as?” Terry put in.
“Things like vomiting, confusion, dilated pupils, swollen tongue, rash, paralysis, a lot of things.”
I tried to stop my mind from drawing images of people with dilated pupils and swollen tongues and focus instead on what that list of symptoms would show. “And David, did he have any of those signs?”
Lucky launched into an explanation of the way in which medical treatment for an unknown cause of seizures or paralysis—such as those that David suffered—can sometimes interact with poison in such a way that new and misleading symptoms arise. His mini-lecture included no small number of medical terms and sciency words and he realized soon enough that the technical talk was going over my head.
He shrugged. “Fact is, if it’s a natural poison, we won’t be able to identify it with any certainty. It’s pure guess work.”
I held back a huff of frustration. “But the rash and the pupils and the tongue,” I said. “Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
Lucky sighed for both of us. “That combination, with no heart failure? Could be morphine, could be atropine—”
“Atropine?” I said, my tone conveying my lack of familiarity with that term.
“Belladonna,” Terry said.
Lucky nodded. “Correct. Belladonna. Grows as common and easy as hemlock.”
“Hemlock,” I muttered. Vague memories of my one and only college philosophy class wandered across my awareness.
“Yes, but from a medical standpoint, forget about finding proof of that one.” Lucky unfolded his arms, rested his hands on the edge of the desk, and slouched his weight into his arms. “Hemlock doesn’t leave a trace.”
“But.” I put a hand to my head as if that would help hold in all the information Lucky was providing. “How will you know what poison was used against David Rayburn?”
He shook his head. “If he was poisoned and if the poison was naturally occurring,” Lucky said, “I won’t.”
* * *
The idea that a poison could come straight out of the garden wasn’t news. I’d come across any number of warnings about common vegetation as soon as I’d adopted Friday, and the list had only grown after Fifi joined the household. What I couldn’t get out of my head was the little angel statue in Rozelle’s garden and the proliferation of plantings surrounding it. I had dismissed what growth I saw as nothing more than decorative ground cover, but had I been right?
Snug in the passenger seat of Tony’s car, I squinted at the tiny images of poisonous plants I had used my smart phone to find. At that size, the only difference the pictures showed were in the flowers and leaves. But I was snug in the car in part because of the warmth being spread by the heater. Flowering season had long since ended and even the leaves on plants had died back or shriveled in the cold. Any one of those deadly plants could have been in Rozelle’s garden. For that matter, they could very well be in mine.
I huffed and dropped my head back until it bonked against the head rest.
“Did I miss a turn?” Tony asked, hand already reaching toward the console-mounted GPS.
“You’re fine,” I assured him. “This is just one of those moments I wish I had a great big computer monitor in my life.”
He made a little snort and grinned. “A nice-sized laptop won’t be enough?”
“No, it’s got to be huge or it’s useless.” I dropped the smart phone into the open purse at my feet.
“Are you thinking waiting-room huge or family-room huge?”
“I’m thinking home-theater enormous,” I said, then laughed and put a hand to my forehead as I leaned my arm against the window ledge.
“Okay.” He did a slow nod. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The voice of the GPS broke into the conversation to advise us our destination would be on our left in one thousand feet.
I couldn’t guess at whether he was kidding along with me or was actually filing away the preference for sometime in the future. Worse, I didn’t know how to ask, or if I even should.
I tipped a chin toward the direction we were headed. “The parking lot is on the side, just before the shop.”
“Got it,” he said.
After a moment I said, “Thanks. I appreciate you driving me all the way out here.”
His smile then was brief. “It’s no trouble,” he said. And though he didn’t continue, the word hung in the air, silent and yet louder than the GPS voice counting down our destination.
“But . . .” I prompted.
He shook his head. “There’s no but.”
“There’s a but,” I said. “It’s no trouble but . . .”
“No but, babe.”
“Yes but, handsome.”
He sighed and switched on the car’s blinker. “It’s no trouble and I’m happy to do it. How’s that?”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
It wasn’t until he had the car parked and the engine off that he turned to me and said, “No trouble, happy to do it, happy to do anything you ask me.” He leaned in and kissed me, and I had to let the matter go. There was a valid chance he hadn’t meant but at all, and my imagining it was more a result of being in a frame of mind where I had begun to wonder if sweet old Rozelle, my grandfather’s secret girlfriend, was growing poison in her garden.
Or more to the point, if not Rozelle—and my gut told me it wasn’t—then who?
I waited for Tony to come around and open my door for me then we walked hand in hand the length of the short parking lot and around to the front door of the stained glass shop. As I had become accustomed to do when I was with him, I held back a bit when we neared the door, allowing him to reach it first. But instead of dropping my hand to open the door and wave me inside, he gripped my fingers even tighter and tugged me close. The kiss that followed was no simple matter, no quick touch of the lips to reassure each other we were happy together. This was serious business. This went straight from my head to my toes, with a long, lingering stop in my heart. When he pulled back, the chill of his absence was instant.
“It’s no problem,” he repeated. “I’m happy to do whatever you need me to because I love you. There.” He nodded and reached for the door. “Now we can go inside.”
Wow. And there I was worrying about what belladonna leaves looked like. Clearly I was focused in the wrong direction.
I essentially stumbled through the door and into the stained glass shop. Lost in my internal search for “I love you, too,” I jumped in surprise at the blong of the electronic door chime. A gust of cool air followed behind me and quickly dissipated in the warmth of the shop.
“Look at this place,” Tony said. “This is amazing.”
I turned to find his gaze on the assortment of stained glass panels hung from the ceiling. Dragonflies on lily pads, hummingbirds and trumpet vines, roses, irises, Celtic knots, and striking geometric designs gave an indication of the variety of design to be found in glass. My gaze lingered on a vertical panel depicting a peacock, its tail feathers folded and flowing like drapes of jeweled silk. It was pieces like that, with blues and greens, teals and aquas, whose beauty helped me stick with the learning process when I first began to work with glass. The idea that someday I might be able to create something so breathtaking was enough to keep me enthused through my days of lopsided butterflies and uneven tulip petals, not to mention the unexpected challenge of cutting and soldering straight lines.
When Tony returned his attention to me, all I could do was smile. “Now you know how I got hooked,” I said.
He shook his head, chin low
ered beneath a slow smile. “I never would have decided learning to make it myself was a solution,” he said. “That’s your gift.”
“Oh, please,” I said, shuffling toward the front corner of the shop, where narrow, vertical wooden cubbies filled with sheets of colored glass lined the walls. “It’s not a gift. Grandy would call it Irish stubbornness and I think he’s right.”
Tony ambled the length of one of the light tables, paralleling my own progress. “Don’t sell yourself short, Georgia,” he said. “You have a unique bent for finding it in yourself to do things other people would, well, leave to someone else.”
I laughed a little, finally finding my balance after his proclamation. Something about being surrounded by glass helped me return to my emotional center. “Also an Irish thing,” I said. “Better to do it myself than hire someone. That’s how I ended up mowing the lawn every weekend.”
“You mowed the lawn because you wouldn’t agree to letting me do it.” He rested his elbows on the wood frame of the light table and leaned in. “And you wouldn’t let me do it because that would have meant I’d end up spending time with your grandfather. You weren’t ready for that.”
Fingers resting on a sheet of glass I had yet to pull from its cubby, I froze. “That’s not—”
“It is true, even if you didn’t realize it. And I’m sorry . . .” He paused, took a breath. “Sorry that I forced the issue and insisted on dinner with the family.”
I slid a few sheets of glass free then spun and set them on the table. Across the lit tabletop, I met Tony’s focused gaze. “Don’t be ridiculous. You—”
“Georgia,” he said, “I forced it, and I most likely shouldn’t have but I’ve been getting the impression if I wait for you, I’m going to be waiting a long time.”
It was a good thing I had already put the glass down. “What—what do you mean?”
The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “You’re understandably reluctant to have me spend time with your family. And you’re downright gun-shy when it comes to talking about anything that’s taking place more than a week in the future.”
Something warm, heavy, and sluggish stirred deep in my gut. Something familiar yet forgotten and unwelcome. Something like fear. Fear of heartbreak and emptiness. Tony had me pegged. Gun-shy indeed.
I kept my eyes on my task while I separated the sheets of glass, placing them one by one on the light table. Each pane was clear, though not all were translucent. Subtle designs had been incorporated into each, from the gentle wave in the aptly named water glass to the cross-hatched randomness of a crackle pattern. I lifted a square of double glue chip from the stack and set it to the side.
Willing the anxiety to remain in check, I risked facing him. “Look, Tony, I’m sorry I—”
“This is my apology, not yours. As usual,” he said with a slight smile. “And I don’t want you feeling guilty or thinking there’s something you’ve done wrong. I don’t expect you to jump into our relationship without some sort of trepidation, okay?”
I did a little more slow nodding, trying to wrap my mind around what he was trying to tell me so quickly following a declaration of love. A huff marked my surrender. “Okay, I don’t understand,” I said.
When I tried to look away, he angled his head to maintain eye contact. “I don’t want you to think that because I told you I love you that you have to say it back. Or that I’m going to start talking moving in together and buying expensive kitchen knives. I’m okay with waiting for you to feel ready to . . . move . . . forward.”
He kept quiet while I took it all in, while the sensor over the door chimed again and a heavyset gray-haired man wandered into the shop. “What if I make you wait a really long time?” I asked, only half kidding. “What if I never get to the point where—”
Tony lay his hand over mine. The rough skin of his palm, rather than scraping or chafing, seemed to fit like a tongue and groove above my own hand. “You’ll get there. I only hope it’s with me.”
The gray-haired man wandered in our direction, and I straightened and slipped my hand out from beneath Tony’s. “Why, um, why are we having this conversation now?” I asked. I backed away from the table. I needed to find a large sheet of plain, clear glass, but didn’t want to take my eyes off Tony. He looked so earnest, and not a little bit adorable. “Wouldn’t dinner be a better time to discuss these things? You know, when it’s just us.”
That earned me a sour smirk from the gray-haired man, but I’d been confronted by worse threats.
“Because at dinner,” Tony began, “I’m going to ask you if you’ve given any thought to the idea of me staying in Wenwood and I thought I ought to prepare you for that ahead of time.”
My fingers closed on the corner of a sheet of glass, and I learned the hard way that a chip had fallen from the pane and left a sharp edge in its place.
I pulled a hissing breath between my teeth and snatched my hand away from the glass. “Nuts,” I said. Then I opened my palm to inspect its potential damage—a foolish move knowing what I already knew about glass and my propensity for cutting myself on the smallest shard. Sure enough, a streak of bright red blood had begun to spread along the pad beneath my pointer finger. A matching streak was forming on the side of my thumb at the knuckle. Just my luck.
Tony rushed around the table. He grabbed my hand and pulled my arm up over my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked, fighting for control of my arm.
“Keep it elevated,” he said. He released my arm then patted down his pockets, presumably searching for a tourniquet.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just a couple of cuts.” I tried to lower my arm, but Tony took hold of my elbow and forced my appendage aloft.
“I see injuries like this on the site all the time,” he said.
“You see injuries from saws and power tools. This is just some jagged glass. Eleanor keeps Band-Aids up by the register.”
He produced a rumpled paper napkin with a donut shop logo from his coat pocket and pressed it into my hand. “Put some pressure on it,” he said.
He kept his hand firm against mine, wrapped his fingers around mine to keep the pressure. I couldn’t stop the smile. Yes, I had a couple of cuts on my hand that were going to be painful for a couple of days based mostly on their locations, but certainly they were not life threatening. Yet there was Tony, leaping into action and taking care of me.
Embarrassing tears burned at the corners of my eyes. It had been a long time since I’d felt like there was someone else looking out for my well-being. You know, someone who wasn’t eighty years old and biologically related to me. And the simple fact was, it felt nice. More, it felt right. And that was enough for the moment.
“You know what?” I said.
His eyes cut to mine and creased with worry. “Are you starting to feel light-headed?”
I smiled. “No. The opposite. I think, um.” I paused for a breath of courage. “I think it would be good if you stayed.”
Wisely, he said nothing, only kept his gaze on mine and let the slight rise of his brows ask the question.
“Yes.” I nodded. “I’m sure. No guarantees I’ll even like you in three weeks,” I teased. “But I think it’s worth finding out, don’t you?”
14
The moment I popped the metal spring latch on the pet carrier, I knew I’d made a mistake. A big one. Previously stretched along the back of the living room couch like a well-worn rubber band, Friday rolled to her feet and catapulted off the couch with the speed of a cheetah presented with easy prey. Her little paws must have touched the ground as she ran but I never saw the evidence. She was across the room and up the stairs before I even swung open the door of the carrier.
“Nuts,” I muttered, and let my chin fall to my chest in momentary defeat. It had been a late one the night before, and having to crawl out of bed even thirty minutes earlier than
my usual waking time had felt brutal. I should have been pouring a bracing cup of coffee-to-go. Instead, I was going to have to catch the cat.
With a dramatic sigh that no one was awake to hear, I followed Friday’s path through the room and up the steps. As I reached the landing, the sound of her scary sharp claws digging at a wooden door gave away her position.
“Not that bright, are you?” I asked. She was clawing to be let into my room, the room currently occupied by Mom and Ben, as if either one of them were going to let her in.
I bent at the waist, dropped my hands low, and started toward her. My plan was to scoop her up and wrestle her into the carrier. Her plan went better. She ran straight for me, her speed exceeding my reflexes. When my hands came together, all I had hold of was the end of a fluffy white tail. Before my mind processed the fact that I had, in fact, stopped her—though I was bent over with my hair in my eyes and my hands between my calves—she let out a yowl fit to peel the paper off the walls. Afraid of holding on and somehow dislocating her tail, not knowing if that was even possible, I released my grip and she was off again, down the stairs and out of sight.
I breathed out a curse then swiftly slapped my hand over my mouth. Yes, I was an adult. But my mother was on the other side of a closed door and probably asleep. The habits of a lifetime were hard to break.
As I straightened and mentally prepared to continue my pursuit of the cat, the telltale clack-scratch of Fifi pawing at the door sent new frustration through me. Catching the cat wouldn’t be any easier with the dog in the mix, but I had woken her and she would have to go outside.
Thinking to avoid Fifi waking Grandy early with her demands for release, I moved to the opposite end of the hall, hand outstretched to open the door.
Before I reached it, the door swung open and Grandy stood in its frame. He tightened the belt of his classic navy blue bathrobe while Fifi bolted from her confines and came at me, body in full waggle.
I bent to rub her velvet-soft head but kept my gaze on Grandy. “Sorry,” I stage-whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
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