If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [147]
Logic reasoned that the person who had killed Vanessa knew her. The only person fitting the bill was Trevor Marsh, her childhood sweetheart and new husband.
Unless …
What if someone else at the lodge also knew Vanessa? Trevor said that Vanessa’s ex-husband had been an asshole. What if he was lurking around?
She shivered. Don’t be such a conspiracy nut! Where would he hide while it was a gazillion degrees below zero and a blizzard raged outside? And poisoning or faking a suicide attempt was hardly the standard method of a jealous or vengeful ex-husband.
A chill ran over her skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. At first she thought it was only her, but she noticed that Angie pulled her bathrobe tighter around her neck. Trevor’s snores halted momentarily, before the annoying noise returned.
Lucy grabbed a book without looking at the title and said good night to Angie. She entered the foyer and saw a wet spot on the hardwood floor, right inside the main door.
She stared. She’d watched Grace Delarosa dry the floor after Patrick and the others came back from securing Vanessa’s body. Grace and Steve had gone to their house via the door in the kitchen, which was closest to their cottage.
Someone had gone in and out. Or out, then back in.
Who? And why?
Lucy ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. She knocked on Patrick’s door. There was no answer.
Her heart pounded in her chest. She had the extra key to Patrick’s room and used it to unlock his door.
“Patrick?” she called into the dark.
He moaned from his bed.
She turned on the lights. He was lying in his bed, the covers kicked off, his bare chest bathed in sweat. His face was flushed. She rushed to his side and felt his head. He was warm.
“Patrick, what happened? What’s wrong?”
“Hey, sis.”
His words were slurred. He grinned.
“Patrick, what is wrong? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine. Really, I can drive. Nope, well, Carina is the designated driver again.”
She frowned. Carina was their sister. She and Patrick were thirteen months apart in age and had been very close growing up. The last time either she or Patrick had seen Carina was at Christmas, two months ago.
Thirty minutes ago she’d woken him up and he’d sounded fine. Groggy, but normal. Now he was hallucinating.
She looked around the room. Thirty minutes … there were lots of drugs that had a thirty-minute or less reaction time. Maybe after Lucy had woken him up, Patrick had drunk something.
She saw nothing on his nightstand. In his bathroom there was a water bottle, half full.
She ran back to Patrick. “Did you drink the water in the bathroom?” She picked up his arm and let it go. It flopped back to the bed. He tried to raise it, but couldn’t.
Patrick looked at her. “I’m so glad you’re here. But why did you do it?”
“What?”
“If you’d just told me, I would have fixed everything.”
Lucy didn’t know if he thought she was someone else, or what he was thinking, but his comments and physical symptoms told her he’d been slipped a sedative that suppressed his central nervous system. A date rape drug, like Rohypnol or ketamine, or a Mickey Finn—but why on earth would Patrick be drugged? Had someone tried to incapacitate him to prevent his investigation of Vanessa’s murder?
That meant Patrick had already learned something that the killer feared would expose him.
Lucy and he had been together the entire time. Except when Patrick had gone out to stow Vanessa’s body, and when she’d gone up to bed he’d been talking to Steve in the office.
“Patrick, please.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
Then he moaned and Lucy knew what was next.
She turned him to his side and he vomited.
SIX
Lucy could not trust anyone.
She’d stayed awake most of the night watching over Patrick. After he vomited, she cleaned up and helped him stagger across the hall to her bedroom. She gave him water from the tap, not the bottle left in her bathroom. He was still hallucinating,