The most profound sense of relief dulled the worst of the panic. Able to breathe again, the dizziness fading fast, he lifted his head and met navy blue eyes brimming with concern. “Where is she? What’s wrong with her? When can I see her? Why are the cops here?”
Jessie Kay rubbed his back, saying, “Let me tackle this a question at a time, all right? They’ve admitted Harlow to intensive care. I’m sorry, but she isn’t even close to stable. Dr. Lowe said...he said she’s slipped into a coma.” Tears streaked down her cheeks. “You can’t see her. Not yet. None of us can.”
A coma. Harlow was in a coma. In intensive care.
But Jessie Kay wasn’t done. “You know eyedrops? What people use to make the red fade from their eyes? Well, the active ingredient is tetra something...something chloride. I’m can’t remember the technical mumbo jumbo, I’m sorry, but whatever it is, it’s great for the eyes but apparently ingesting it causes blood vessels to shrink and blood pressure to drop.”
“Are you telling me Harlow drank eyedrops?” His tone was hard and harsh, cutting and loud, but he didn’t attempt to moderate it, and he didn’t apologize.
“Not willingly, I’m sure. Someone must have put the drops in her drink. The doctor said vomiting would have occured within minutes of ingestion, and since she threw up on the Ferris wheel, it would have happened right before you guys got on.”
“No. Impossible.” Before the Ferris wheel, she’d finished off her sweet tea—sweet tea he’d also ingested when he helped Brook Lynn set up her booth. Harlow had nursed that damn cup for hours, savoring every sip, and she hadn’t got sick. Neither had he.
Besides, who would do something like that?
“They’ve run tests,” Jessie Kay said, treading gently. “Plus, her symptoms fit. Vomiting occurs within minutes, and sometimes even seizures and a coma.”
Seizures. Coma. There was that word again. Sometimes people fell into comas and never woke up.
His heart shriveled in his chest. “The symptoms fit other things.”
“Yes, but they were able to question Harlow before she sank into...well, she mentioned her tea tasted funny. Tea doesn’t go bad unless mold is starting to set up, so they ran tests for certain kinds of poison.”
“You’re Beck Ockley?”
In a daze, he glanced up at the newcomer. The detective. “Yes,” he responded, his voice hollow.
“I’m Detective June, and I’d like to chat with you.”
She proceeded to ask him personal questions about his life, and about Harlow and her past, and about their relationship. He answered everything, leaving nothing out. Who cared about privacy at a time like this? Nothing mattered but saving Harlow’s life. Nothing mattered but finding the one who’d poisoned her—and making him pay.
“Can you think of anyone who would want to do her harm?” the detective asked now.
He shook his head absently. “Everyone seemed to have gotten over their anger. They smiled and waved at her.”
“Not everyone,” Jase said. “Not Tawny Ferguson and Charlene Burns.”
The detective focused on him. So did Beck. The guy had done his rock-solid best to fly under the radar since being released from prison. As an ex-con with a history of violence, he was likely to be the first suspect in a case like this—Beck and West surely close seconds. The fact that he was speaking up meant more than Beck could articulate.
“That’s right,” West said. “Both Tawny and Charlene hate Harlow. I was with Beck and Harlow when the two women approached. Soon after, a man named Scott Cameron drew our attention elsewhere. After that, I escorted Tawny and Charlene away, but it wasn’t long before they broke away from me to follow Beck and Harlow to the Ferris wheel, giggling about something. I’m sorry. I never thought—”
Detective June wrote something in her notepad and said, “They may not have intended this to happen. A lot of people have heard that putting eyedrops in someone’s drink causes diarrhea, nothing more, but they are dead wrong. I’ll speak with Strawberry Valley’s police chief, and I’m sure he’ll question Miss Ferguson, Miss Burns and Mr. Cameron. If you think of anything else he needs to know—”
“I’m not Harlow’s sister,” Jessie Kay burst out, as if she couldn’t hold back the words any longer. “I just said I was to find out what was wrong with her. And I went twenty miles over the speed limit to get here. Don’t arrest me.”
Frowing, Detective June handed everyone a card. “Dr. Lowe, please call me when Miss Glass wakes up.”
After the detective left, the doctor adjusted the lapels of his lab coat. “You’re all welcome to stay in here if you’d like, but visiting hours are currently over. They’ll begin again tomorrow at eight, and at that time, we’ll let you see Miss Glass, one at a time.” He strode from the room.
Just like that? Beck was supposed to stay away from the love of his life for an entire night? A woman who lay in a coma, hooked to machines? She could die before the sun rose. He could lose her. After everything, he could lose her, and it would have nothing to do with his past, or his issues, or not being enough for her.
Death didn’t care about Beck’s future happiness, or Harlow’s young age and sweet heart. The bastard took without prejudice and left the survivors to deal.
I can’t deal.
Until Harlow, he’d had only half a life. He’d had friends and work and lots of sex, but no love. No real purpose. He’d hated change, and perhaps that was one of the reasons he’d resisted Harlow so fervently, and yet, where would he be without this change? Without her?