Jill Elizabeth - Season of Danger

“You’ve had a lot of orders like this?”

He nodded.

“But these patients had their flu shots.”

He raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise. “That’s weird. We’ve always got our rogue viruses, of course, but this year’s inoculations seemed to be hittin’ the bull’s-eye.”

She thanked him and drove to the mission as the tension knotted multiple times in her stomach.

Sean held an emesis basin for a man in his fifties who’d never answered to any name but Stud. Three more people had walked into the clinic after Sean traded kitchen duties for clinic duties at Megan’s request, and all of them looked miserable.

Megan had drawn blood, given eight shots so far for nausea and handed out multiple little envelopes of pills to help with the stomach cramps. She told Sean she wanted to do a blood draw on Stud as soon as she could get to him; he had a chronic alcohol history, and that could make him prone to electrolyte imbalances. She’d managed to collect some stool samples on the others and remarked three times in the past five minutes that she hoped Tess arrived soon.

And Tess did, looking harassed and pale, carrying in two large bags imprinted with the local pharmacy logo. Soon after she arrived, an RN who volunteered at the clinic two Saturdays a month walked in the door, pulling off her coat and wrapping her stethoscope around her neck.

“Feeling better, Stud?” Sean asked his patient softly.

The man nodded and used the paper towel Sean handed him. “Need to clean up.”

“Go get a toothbrush and toothpaste in one of the bathrooms down the hall and then go into the men’s dorm. Lie down and rest until the doctor can get to you for your blood test.”

Stud shook his head. “Got a job helping a man fix a fence a couple of miles out of town. I need the money.”

“At least rest until we have a better idea about what you’ve got. If it’s infectious, nobody’s going to thank you for showing up. Give me a telephone number, and I’ll call to let him know you didn’t bug out on him, but you need to be here for Dr. Bradley to check you out.”

“Got no number. How would I call? Really, I’m feeling better.”

“You have the man’s name? If the doc can get a diagnosis from your blood, you could be helping out a lot of sick people.”

Stud gave in, and Sean hunted down the phone number of Stud’s temporary employer and left the message. When he hung up, he caught sight of Tess, her large, beautiful eyes as haunted as they’d been yesterday when he’d found her in the corridor. The smudges beneath her lower eyelids seemed to have deepened overnight, and she’d lost the typical glow in her complexion.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, stepping over to him.

“Good. Did you sleep last night?”

“Off and on. I had a nasty wake-up call.”

“Tess, I can’t believe this is food poisoning.” He was just glad he had a strong stomach. He’d never signed up for clinic duty, and for a few moments, he’d thought he might have to hunt down his own emesis basin.

“Me neither, unless they all ate something elsewhere. Or unless it wasn’t the food itself that poisoned them.”

As soon as she spoke the words, she closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, long strands of her black hair falling over her forehead.

“So, what you’re saying,” he said softly enough that the others couldn’t hear, “is that you aren’t ruling out poisoning of some kind.”

Her shoulders slumped, and she nodded. “That’s what I’m saying.”

He stood up and took her arm, led her from the clinic proper for a moment. “You’re trembling.”

She put a hand over his. Hers was icy. “I’m sorry. Leftover post-traumatic stress disorder, I know. Also, I can’t get past Carlotta’s death two weeks ago.”

“That was ruled a natural death.”

“Easy for the authorities to do that when she’s homeless with no family.”

“You’re obsessing over it.”

“So sue me.”

“What you’re really anxious about is that Tanner’s killer is still out there,” Sean said, guessing at the direction of her thoughts.

Tess raised her hand from his and pulled her fingers through her hair. “I know it’s not all about me. But those notes, Sean, I can’t stop thinking about them, reading them, trying to figure out who might have sent them to me and what kind of person that might have been.”

“Vindictive.”

“Of course, but how vindictive?”

“You think enough to poison homeless people?”

“I’m thinking all kinds of things right now.”

“And you’re driving yourself crazy in the process.”

“I’m not crazy,” she snapped.

“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”

“Whoever wrote those notes threatened to hurt me or those I loved.”

“I know. I still have copies, and I’ve reread them a few times myself.” The paper and print had both been impossible to trace because they were so common. Sean knew how frustrated Tess had been when the police gave up searching for Tanner’s killer. Some of the officers had even suggested that Tess was imagining the attack, despite the solid evidence of tire rubber on the asphalt. As one officer had pointed out, that could have been done at any time.

“Something about the wording leads me to believe the writer was female,” Sean said.

Tess slowly raised her gaze to his. “You really are still on the case.”

Sean didn’t mention that her ex-cop brother was, as well. “Someone did die, Tess. Nothing’s happened since. Whoever wanted to get revenge on you got it with Tanner’s death.”

“So you’re saying I’m being unreasonable to think that same someone might try again.”

“I’m saying you need to stop torturing yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“With guilt. You’ve been overwhelmed with it all these months.”

“He was crossing the street to see me when he was hit. I’m going to feel some guilt about that, Sean. It’s a human emotion.”

“You weren’t the driver.”

She rubbed her neck and turned away. “It wouldn’t be hard for someone to track me down with my last name matching the name of this mission, and someone did try to break down my door last night. You heard the noise yourself.”

Sean had known she’d been more shaken up by that intruder than she would admit to him. He’d thought she was doing better, and he had told Gerard to keep watch on the house last night.

Not only did Gerard have thoroughly vetted help on his small ranch, but he had a state-of-the-art alarm system and two protective Dobermans who lived indoors, adored Tess and would never let a stranger close to her. Romper, the male, would barely even let Sean close when he drove out to the house for a visit, though both dogs were affectionate with him, as well.

He put an arm around her and walked her farther from the clinic entrance and into the larger rooms toward the back. “There’s no reason to think a simple outbreak of food poisoning could have anything to do with Tanner’s death. It wouldn’t match the M.O. Poison would be a whole new profile.”

“Not necessarily. Didn’t you once tell me that sometimes a killer simply uses whatever’s at hand?”

Sean paused. “You know what we’ve discussed about Tanner’s reputation before,” he said quietly.

She gave him a querulous look.

“He was a rising country music star,” Sean said. “He had the bad-boy persona. You told me yourself that before the two of you became an item, he left a trail of broken hearts. That’s why you kept your engagement quiet. He also got into a few fistfights at some late-night establishments.”

“Staged. I told him not to do that, but he wanted that kind of publicity.”