Deadly Payload (Rim Country Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  “Does that explain the birds falling from the sky all over town?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure.” He disconnected.

  When Cliff stumbled from the bathroom, I helped him slide into bed to wait on the ambulance.

  3

  I hurried to the kitchen in time to see Katy’s mouth gape as she held her phone to her ear. She disconnected her call, then turned toward me, smoothing her hair into a ponytail she secured with one of two elastics she wore on her wrist.

  “Thank God for homeschooling.” She sat next to Neri and hugged her as she continued. “There are lots of sick kids at all the schools.” She pulled Neri’s hair into a ponytail. “They can’t free up an ambulance for an hour. We need to take Travis and Cliff to the hospital ourselves.” She picked up the dog and handed me Hope before turning back to look into Neri’s eyes. “Daddy and Grandpa Cliff are sick, but I don’t want you to be scared.” She glanced at me. “Daddy and I will ride in the back of Grandma’s car with you, and Grandpa Cliff will ride in the front with Grandma.”

  Neri’s eyebrows knit together, but she nodded. “Will they be okay?”

  Katy chewed on her lip. “I think so.”

  I returned Hope to her crate and left the door ajar, so she could get to the doggy door when she needed to. But… would she eat a dead bird? She got sick the last time she brought me the gift of a feathered catch. “I need to take Hope out first.”

  With the leash attached to the halter, I led Hope to the backyard, wove around dead birds, and allowed her to take care of business before returning her to the crate. I emptied her bowl and refilled it with bottled water.

  “We won’t be long, Hope.” I closed and locked the crate’s door. “Please be okay.”

  Hope gave me a lick on the hand, and I stroked her chin. I had no choice but to leave. I stood and turned away, pushing aside the memory of her staying by my side while I languished in a cave for several days.

  “You get Travis, and I’ll get Cliff.” I darted to our suite and crashed the door against the wall, relieved when Cliff jumped. “Cliff, there’s no ambulance available. You need to help me get you to the car. Travis is sick, too.”

  I fretted about how to get my six-foot-tall husband through the house and down the stairs to the Lexus. Carrying him was impossible. He had to walk.

  Helping him sit up in bed, I pulled his feet to the floor and draped his arms around my shoulders. With my hands clasped on his back, I lifted him up. His legs quivered and seemed weak-kneed, but we managed to shuffle down the hall, across the foyer, and through the kitchen. At the stairs to the basement, he leaned against the wall and the banister. I held as much of his weight as possible to help him sink one step at a time. At the bottom, he shifted his weight onto me to wobble to the Lexus in the garage.

  He wilted against the hood while I opened the front passenger door, then I eased him down. He kissed my hair as I belted him in. I caressed his cheek.

  “Rita,” Katy yelled from inside the house. “I can’t get Travis down the steps.”

  I wiped the sweat from my hairline as I bolted back into the house and up the stairs. Travis sat on the first step with his head against the wall. Katy slumped down next to him, and Neri stood behind them chewing her fingernails.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I’m too weak to get down those stairs. I’ll stay here.”

  “No, you won’t. And yes, you can,” I said. “You’re six-one and one-eighty pounds. Katy and I are both a lot smaller than you. You must help us.” I placed my palm on Katy’s chin and forced her to look at me. The forlorn look in her eyes worried me. “Katy, you’re a young, strong woman. I’ve never seen you waiver from an athletic challenge. This is like one of those marathons you run. I need you to pull yourself together. I’m as concerned about my only son as you are, but we have to set aside our fear right now. We must get this done.”

  She nodded, stood, and pulled in a deep breath like I’d seen her do many times at the starting line of a race. She shook her arms at her sides, tilted her head back and to each side, and then rolled her shoulders. “You’re right. We can do this.”

  I nudged her down a step. “Stoop in front of Travis, facing away from him.”

  Katy complied, and I placed Travis’ hands on her shoulders. She reached back to grasp his wrists, lowered herself down a step, and stood with her legs bent and ready to support Travis’ weight.

  I grabbed his belt loops. “Travis, I’ll pull up, and you need to do all you can to stand. Lift with me.” I pulled for all I was worth.

  Travis hoisted himself, and I wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “Daddy.”

  I looked behind me to see my granddaughter’s anguished face. She needed to feel useful.

  “Neri, Daddy will be okay,” I said. “Can you please go get Daddy and Grandpa Cliff each a plastic bowl from under the island, in case they get sick again? Then we need you to open the doors for us.”

  She scrambled to the kitchen, and I heard her rifle through containers under the island. By the time Katy and I had lowered Travis three steps, I felt Neri’s warmth behind me.

  “Make sure I don’t fall, okay?” I looked back to see her nod.

  Neri placed her free palm on my lower back. At the bottom of the stairs, she opened the door to the garage, waited for us to go through, opened the back passenger side door, and slid across to her car seat. “Hold my hand, Daddy.” She let the bowls fall to the floor.

  “Thank you, sweetie.” Travis grasped Neri’s hand as we eased him down.

  Neri fastened her dad’s seatbelt then handed him one of the two bowls. “Don’t be scared, Daddy.”

  Travis touched Neri’s leg, accepted the bowl, and let his head drop back.

  I didn’t like the paleness of his face, or the sweat that plastered down his blond hair. I resisted the urge to cry as I sprinted around the car and paused before sliding in behind the steering wheel.

  A flash of red caught my attention, my rolling knee walker from when I sprained my ankle a few weeks back. Folded and leaning against the wall, it launched the idea we might need it to transport Cliff or Travis if the hospital staff were as busy as the town’s ambulances. I picked up the walker and stuffed it in the trunk before slamming the lid and jumping into the driver’s seat.

  Katy leaned forward to hand me the bowl Neri had secured for Cliff. I hoped neither he nor Travis would need them as I leaned across the console to check on Cliff. I touched his shoulder and waited for a response. He seemed to be asleep with his forehead against the window, but he gave my hand a wobbly squeeze without opening his eyes.

  “It’ll be okay.” His voice sounded weak and raspy, but it gave me even more strength and determination. I wanted to believe I could find help in time for the two men I loved most.

  The door and gate remained open from when I parked earlier.

  I fought against the threat of tears while backing out and driving down the driveway into the cul-de-sac. Pressing the buttons to close the garage door and security gate gave me something to focus on other than my frayed emotions. I shifted into Drive and at last noticed the aroma of sewage and the sounds of sirens in the air.

  “Why aren’t we sick, Mommy?”

  I watched Katy in the rearview mirror. The question seemed to stir her characteristic fortitude. Brushing Neri’s cheek with the side of her index finger, she offered a tight smile before nudging her daughter’s head to her chest. “We’ll find out, sweetie.” She looked at me in the mirror.

  I thought back to the encounter with Mary at the park. No water, Mary had yelled as she ran away from the car and mumbled something else. That sparked the memory of this morning’s breakfast.

  While Hope had lapped water from her bowl in the corner of the kitchen, Cliff and Travis sat at the dining room table sipping coffee. Katy and I prepared oatmeal and berries. I had given the last of the berries I bought at the farmer’s market to Cliff and Travis. Katy, Neri, and I ate frozen berries and didn
’t drink coffee.

  I tried to recall how we prepared breakfast and remembered glimpsing Katy in my peripheral vision. She had hesitated while filling the oatmeal pot with tap water. With a wrinkled nose, she sniffed the water, and poured it out before slipping a bottle of water from her backpack. I let her think I didn’t see.

  Now, here we were rushing Cliff and Travis to the hospital.

  “The three of us have been drinking bottled water,” I said. “Cliff and Travis drank coffee made with the tap water. I’m sure Cliff’s had more coffee at his office, and Travis probably drank more during his lawyer’s conference at the hotel.”

  How did Mary know to warn us about the water? Or was it another of her delirious rants? I needed to find her after I got Cliff and Travis stabilized.

  4

  I drove back roads through neighborhoods rather than risk getting stuck in traffic on the highway. Many other people had the same idea.

  My heart sagged as I joined a row of cars nearing the hospital. An emergency van blared past, following three others to the ambulance entrance.

  Vehicles clogged the drop-off lane, stopping long enough for passengers to get out and help elderly people, children, and young adults through the automatic glass doors and into the building.

  I eyed a single parking slot in the far southeast corner of the lot.

  “Katy, it will take forever to reach the door. Please go inside to find two wheelchairs. One, if that’s all you can find. I’ll park there.” I pointed to the empty spot.

  “Mommy, I want to go with you!” Neri moved toward the door when Katy slid out.

  “I need you to stay with Daddy.” Katy slammed the door, took a second to stretch her leg muscles, and sprinted toward the emergency entrance with the long strides of an experienced runner.

  I sped to the lone parking slot before anyone else got it. Once settled, I nudged both Cliff and Travis.

  “We’re here, guys. Time to wake up.” I hoped Neri couldn’t detect my distress.

  Cliff sat up straight, but Travis remained slumped against the door.

  “Neri, help me wake your daddy, okay?” I tried to remain calm.

  She poked Travis’ shoulder. “Daddy, wake up.” She stood and leaned across my seat. “Grandma, why isn’t he waking up?”

  “Keep at it until he does, sweetie. Keep talking to him.”

  Her voice faded as my breathing quickened. Was I too late for my son? I wanted to scream but refused to let loose the panic mounting inside me. No one would benefit if I lost control of myself. I dug through my purse, found my prescription bottle, and threw back another anxiety pill.

  “I’m awake.” Travis was groggy but alive.

  Katy opened his door and poked in her head, breathing hard. “Look who I found.”

  My friend, green-clad Paramedic Taylor Finnegan, grabbed Katy’s shoulders and moved her away from the opening. “Excuse me, please.” She poked in her strawberry-blond head, her mouth and nose protected by a white strip of disposable fabric. She pressed her glove-encased right hand against Travis’ neck.

  “I understand why you need gloves, but why the mask?” I asked.

  “We’re not sure what’s going on.” Taylor didn’t miss a beat as she changed the subject. “I recognized Katy as I left for another call.” She opened Cliff’s door and touched his neck. “I can take Cliff and Travis in the ambulance entrance, but they won’t see a doctor for a while. They’re stacking gurneys two-deep against the walls. Aaron and I have permission to at least start intravenous fluids.”

  She backed up and guided her husky, bearded partner Aaron to help Travis first. “He’s the most unstable,” she said. She turned to me. “We’ll be back for Cliff. There’s a shortage of everything.”

  “Would it help if we got him inside ourselves?” I asked.

  “How would you do that? He’s barely conscious.”

  “I have a rolling knee walker in the trunk.”

  Taylor shrugged. “Try it.”

  She moved to help Aaron with Travis. Aaron clasped his hands at my son’s chest and tilted Travis’ head to his shoulder.

  “You get the legs,” he instructed Taylor.

  The two of them strapped Travis onto the gurney and rushed toward the ambulances backed up at their entrance.

  “Daddy!” Neri ran two steps with them, but Katy caught her arm.

  “They’re taking care of Daddy, sweetie.” Katy sounded more like her take-charge self. “Please help us get Grandpa Cliff inside. We all must stay calm.”

  I dashed to the trunk to pull out and unfold the walker. With it positioned beside Cliff’s open door, I placed my hand on Cliff’s cheek to get his attention. “Honey, your legs are too long to sit on this walker. You need to kneel on it. You remember it, don’t you, from when I sprained my ankle?”

  He nodded and offered a weak, half-smile.

  “Katy, Neri, and I will help you get on, then hold you upright while we wheel you inside the ER. Taylor will get you right in, but she had to take Travis first.”

  Sweat rolled down Cliff’s cheek and beaded on his forehead and upper lip. He was pale, but not as bad as Travis. He winced and tried to swing his leg to the pavement. His foot hit the lip of the floorboard. I lifted his thighs, pulled him sideways, and put his feet on the asphalt. Katy and I each took an arm to guide him onto the walker.

  “Neri, can you help Grandpa Cliff put his knees on the seat?” I asked.

  Katy and I each grabbed a handlebar and wrapped the other arm around Cliff’s back. Neri helped him slump down but stay upright. He leaned against me as we wheeled him through the parking lot and onto the sidewalk where it dipped to ground level. Taylor and Aaron met us at the door and transferred Cliff to a gurney.

  Taylor shoved a clipboard toward me. “Fill out these forms to give me permission to treat him.” She handed another clipboard to Katy, then directed our attention to a handwritten note with a box beside it. It read, I give Taylor Finnegan permission to administer natural remedies if antibiotics fail to stabilize the patient.

  Katy and I looked up at her.

  “Hurry,” she said.

  I checked the box and signed. Katy did likewise.

  Through the blur of tears I worked to suppress, I handed my clipboard to Taylor.

  “Until we figure out what’s going on, none of you should go inside.” She handed me three face masks. The look in her eyes sliced into me. “I’ll call you when I know more.” She turned toward the entrance.

  “Taylor.” I pulled the door open before it latched. “It’s the water. Chief of Police Ronald Williams told me someone sabotaged the water treatment plant.”

  “Yes,” she said. “What we don’t know is why the meds aren’t working.”

  5

  My feet wouldn’t move. Katy, Neri, and I stared at the ambulance entrance doors for at least a minute after Taylor and Aaron wheeled Cliff inside.

  “Katy, you’re a certified herbalist like Taylor,” I said. “What kinds of natural remedies might she be talking about?”

  “Depends on the pathogen,” Katy said, still staring at the door. “I don’t understand why the meds wouldn’t work.”

  The only thing I could think about was green. Why was everything in this hospital green? Even the scrubs worn by staff and paramedics were green. What was going to happen to my son and husband inside this green building that Taylor didn’t want me to enter for my own safety?

  Neri’s voice cut into my obsession with green. “Meds are medicine, right Mommy?”

  “Right, sweetie,” Katy said, squeezing Neri’s hand.

  “Why aren’t they working?” Tears slid down Neri’s cheek.

  “Good question.” Katy bit her lower lip.

  “Will Daddy die?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The backing-up beep of an ambulance startled us away from the door. Katy picked up Neri and cradled her head while running toward my car. I placed my right knee on the walker seat and rolled past them on t
he asphalt, stopping at the back of the Lexus.

  I pressed the button to unlock the passenger doors and popped the trunk. Katy and Neri embraced on the backseat while I folded the walker and glanced back at the green hospital building.

  Green. Why was everything green? I told myself to focus on something else.

  I stared at the growing line of cars waiting to get to the emergency entrance. A man in the middle of the line got out of his car and opened the back. He carried a boy about Neri’s age as he sprinted to the glass doors. Other people followed his lead, abandoning their cars to carry loved ones inside.

  My knees gave out. I sat on the bumper and focused on stuffing the walker into the trunk. A three-fourths-empty case of bottled water caught my attention. I stood straight, slammed the door, and jumped in behind the steering wheel.

  “We have to go buy more water.” I started the car and worked to control my shaking hands as I backed out, avoided looking at the green building to the left, and weaved around the line of cars toward the intersection to the highway.

  The light at my side of the intersection was green, but cars blocked it. They also blocked the left lane turning from the highway toward the hospital. A pickup bailed from the line on the highway and turned into my lane to get past the cars ahead of it. I avoided the vehicle by taking a sharp right into a neighborhood of manufactured homes.

  On the side street, an Animal Control truck was parked in my lane, with two workers in white Hazmat suits using shovels to scoop dead birds into a yellow receptacle. The words Hazardous Material emblazed the sides of the container.

  I navigated around it, stopped beside one of the workers, and rolled down my window. The worker approached.

  “Do you know what killed the birds?” I asked.

  His mask muffled his one-word reply. “No.” He resumed his work, and I drove on.

  I worried I would waste time getting into the store to buy water only to find they had none. “Katy, do you have bottled water in your car?”

  “Yes, we bought a case before leaving Phoenix yesterday.”