Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [125]
Ed returned with a stack of towels. They folded one and placed it over the top part of Lightfoot’s face, shielding his eyes, D.D. took a second towel and, with effort, managed to pry Lightfoot’s fingers from Karen’s wrist and wrest his hand onto a rolled towel.
“Talk to me, Andrew,” Karen demanded loudly. “Stay with us. Where do you feel the pain?”
“Legs … arms … back … body … muscles, hurt, hurt, hurt.” His body thrashed against the floor. “Too loud. Too bright. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop….”
“The light hurts you?” Karen prodded.
“Burns … my eyes.”
“And noise?” D.D. spoke up.
“Ahhhhahhh,” he moaned, bringing up one hand to block his ears.
The doors burst open. Two medics bustled into the area, led by the security guard. They took one look at Lightfoot’s convulsing form and sprinted over to him.
“Condition?” the first man asked Karen.
“Started three minutes ago. Convulsions, light sensitivity, noise sensitivity,” Karen reported. “But conscious. Aware of his condition.”
“Pulse?”
“Two ten.”
The medic arched a brow. D.D. didn’t blame him. With that pulse rate, Lightfoot should be racing up Mount Everest.
“History of seizures?” the medic asked, trying to check vitals.
“Unknown,” Karen answered, just as Lightfoot said, “No. Not seizures. Spasms. Muscle … spasms …”
The medic glanced at Lightfoot’s towel-draped face, then back at Karen. She shrugged.
“The dark …” Lightfoot groaned. “I’m filled with the dark. So, so cold … it burns….”
“Hallucinating,” the medic muttered. He straightened, nodded to his partner. They grabbed a backboard and looked ready to get to work.
“Wait a minute,” D.D. called out. A case she’d read once. Lightfoot’s uncanny consciousness, even during what appeared to be a grand mal seizure. She strode over to Lightfoot’s table and sniffed his bottle of iced tea. Nothing. She touched her fingertip to the top edge, where a drop of moisture rested. She brought it cautiously to her mouth and, with a bolstering grimace, stuck out her tongue. It tasted …
Teaish. Grassy. Lemony. Then, beneath it all, a slightly bitter aftertaste.
“You need to get this tested immediately,” she informed the medic. “But I’m guessing strychnine.”
“Rat poison?” Greg spoke up from the hallway.
“In his drink?” Karen echoed, frowning. The staff looked at one another, then down at Lightfoot’s churning body.
“Symptoms fit.” She looked at the medic. “Hypersensitivity, muscle spasms, initial consciousness …”
“Yeah.” The medic nodded. “Now that you mention it … Well, we gotta motor, then, ’cause next on that list is respiratory failure. Come on, buddy. Hang in there with us. If you’re ever going to get poisoned, a hospital is the place to do it.”
With help from the MCs, they got Lightfoot’s body onto the gurney. Then they raced out of the unit for the elevator banks.
The elevator arrived with a ding. The doors opened, and Alex strode out, bearing a steaming tower of boxed pizzas. He looked at the medics, Lightfoot’s strapped-down body, and the shell-shocked staff, all staring at him.
“What happened to the healer?” he asked.
“That,” D.D. replied, “is an excellent question.”
Karen and her crew might be crack medics, but there was still a reason they paid D.D. the big bucks.
“Where did Lightfoot get the tea?” she demanded, the second the medics disappeared into the elevator.
“I don’t know. I think … I assume he brought it with him.” Karen looked at her staff. They milled about the half-lit common area, kicking at towels, staring at hastily rearranged furniture. Several were rubbing their arms, as if fighting a chill.
“Sure there’s no iced tea in the kitchenette?”
“No. We don’t stock it here.”
“Downstairs cafeteria?”
Karen shook her head uncertainly. Danielle piped up, “Andrew’s tea, the Koala brand, is one of those all-natural, all-organic, keep-the-planet-green products. I don’t think you can buy it around here.”
“Thank heavens for small favors,