Lee Child - First Thrills

Just one bite and within hours came the cramps, then the nausea and delirium, and then death by kidney failure. Not even a bite was required: the destroying angel could easily kill as an emulsified blend in Kombucha mushroom tea.

The empty plastic shot glass is still in my black jacket pocket. I need to dispose of that.

Honey, the soup is ready.

I can picture Mary inventing her quirky phrases… a cleric who kills… a monk who murders. Now I have one, too.

An angel that assassinates.

Doesn’t have the same alliteration, but I know she’ll love it. Funny how angel mushrooms look just like meadows, just like buttons.

I could never tell those damn things apart.

RIP GERBER’Sfirst thriller, Pharma (Random House), was a bestseller in Germany in 2007. His second thriller featuring the Food and Drug Administration will be released by Random House in October 2010. Rip received his biochemical degree from the University of Virginia and his master’s from Harvard Business School. Rip lives in San Francisco, California, and does make a run to the market when asked. Over forty varieties of mushrooms and one hundred cooking terms are mentioned in his story. Happy Hunting!

M adelineKramer slammed on the brakes inches from the Lexus bumper in front of her.

“Calm down, Maty,” she scolded herself and watched the Lexus driver give her the finger from out his window. She balled up her fist, disappointed that she wasn’t able to return the gesture. She could have avoided rush hour traffic if she hadn’t stopped by the office. Her first day of vacation was wasted, and for what? Gilstadt wouldn’t even look at her marketing proposal the entire time she was gone. And now she’d never make it to the cabin before dark.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. Why did she let the job take so much out of her? The lines under her eyes were becoming permanent. She raked her fingers through her hair, trying to remember the last time she had it trimmed. Were lines beginning to form at the corners of her mouth? How did she ever let herself get to this point?

A honking horn made her jump. She sat up and grasped the steering wheel in attention.

God, how she hated rush-hour traffic.

They were stopped again with no promise of movement. She glanced at her copy of the marketing proposal sitting in the seat beside her. Forty-two pages of research, staring up at her, mocking her. This was the hard copy, the stats and Arbitron ratings. What she left with Gilstadt included a five-minute video presentation. Six long days’ worth of research and preparation, and Gilstadt had barely glanced at it, simply nodding for her to add it to one of the stacks on his desk. By the end of the day all her hard work would probably be buried under another stack.

Story of her life. Or at least, that’s how it had been lately. Nothing seemed to be going right. One of the reasons she needed this vacation before she simply went mad.

Her cell phone blasted her back to reality. God, her nerves were shot. She let the phone ring three more times. Why hadn’t she shut the damn thing off? Finally she ripped it from its holder.

“Madeline Kramer.”

“Maty, hi, I’m glad I caught you.”

Her entire body stiffened on impulse. “William, is everything okay? Where are you?”

“Everything’s fine. Relax. I’m at home.”

“I thought you left for Kansas City early this morning? Your conference.”

“My presentation’s not until later this week. Where are you? You’re not at the cabin or you wouldn’t have a cell phone connection.”

“I stopped at the office.”

“Jesus, Maty. It’s your first day off. Are you still at the office?”

She clenched her fist around the steering wheel and tried to ignore the sudden tightness in the back of her neck.

“I’m almost at the cabin,” she lied. “If fact, I may lose you soon. What is it that you need?”

“Need?”

“You called me,” she reminded him. He was already distracted. She could hear something in the background. It sounded like a train whistle. Their home was nowhere close to train tracks. “You were glad you caught me,” she tried again.

Why did he do this to her? He was checking up on her, again. She had come to resent his constant worry, his psychoanalysis, his treating her like one of his patients. Did he think he could try to talk her out of this one last time with more concerns that it might not be safe for her being out there all alone? No, she wasn’t a camper. This wasn’t about camping. This was about going someplace to be completely away from everything and yes, everyone. Besides, she had listened to him enough to bring along her father’s old Colt revolver. William didn’t even know she had kept it from the estate sale. He hated guns. Hated the very idea of them being in the house.

“I just wanted to tell you I love you,” he said.

Maty closed her eyes. Took a deep breath and moved the phone so he couldn’t hear her releasing a long sigh. He did worry about her. He loved her. That was it. That was all. Her nerves were wound so tight she couldn’t even see what she was doing to her marriage.

“I’m sorry, William. I love you, too.”

“There might be thunderstorms tonight. I just wanted to tell you that. Oh, and Maty, remember not to mix your meds with too much wine. Okay? I don’t mean to be a nag but I saw that you packed several bottles.”

Her face flushed. Embarrassment. A bit of anger. Calm. She needed to stay calm. He was concerned about her. That’s all. Don’t shove everyone out of your life, she told herself.

“Maty?”

“I’ll remember.”

“Promise?”

More and more of their conversations sounded like doctor and patient. No, that wasn’t true. They sounded like parent and child.

“I promise, William.”

“Good girl. Now you go out to your cabin retreat and get some rest. Relax, take it easy. I’ll see you in three days.”

Now if that didn’t sound like a prescription. And patronizing.

Stop it!

She needed to stop sabotaging everything with her paranoia and her negative attitude. “You get what you sow.” That’s what her mother always said. “If you think good thoughts good things will come to you.” The power of positive thinking. What a bunch of crap. Maty Kramer knew that everything she had gotten in life was because she had fought for it, not because she focused on positive thinking. Okay, so she hadn’t been much of a fighter lately. Deep down the instinct must still exist, didn’t it?

She found a hole in the traffic and gunned the engine. Traffic was moving again. She could relax, and yet a familiar throbbing began at the base of her neck and tightened the tension in her shoulders. It would take more than some peace and quiet to get rid of all this.

She took her exit off the interstate and drove onto the two-lane highway that would take her far away from the city. She needed this vacation. She glanced at the marketing proposal. The shoulder pain eased its way down into her chest, following its regular path.

“God,” she thought out loud, “I’m only thirty-five. A thirty-five-year-old woman shouldn’t be having chest pains.”

She pressed the button, rolling the window down and grabbed a handful of pages. She stretched her arm out the window and listened to the pages flapping in the wind, slapping each other and licking her wrist. She held her breath and told herself to let go. Just let go. Suddenly, she jerked her arm back into the car, holding the papers tightly in her lap.