I paused my chewing. She never gave up. “I was out shopping so I stopped by for a bite. It was late and I wasn’t going to come home and make him cook me something.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” she said, forking up a bite of potatoes. I tried not to stare pointedly at the chicken on her plate.
“I’m a thoughtful kind of guy,” I said and took another huge bite.
“I wondered if maybe you came by the diner because you knew the man who died right outside,” she said, watching me.
I choked on the food as I swallowed and grabbed up a glass of water that was sitting nearby and took a drink. After several moments, I looked at her. “I don’t—
didn’t
—know the guy who died.”
We both lapsed into silence and I focused completely on eating. Then, because I really wanted to know, I said, “Why do you care so much about this guy anyway? He’s dead.”
When she didn’t answer, I looked up. At the same moment, her fork clattered onto her plate and she looked at me. Her breaths were coming in short gasps.
“Peanuts,” she wheezed. “I’m allergic to peanuts.”
As I stared at her, red welts began to appear on her cheeks and neck. She pushed her chair away from the island and tried to stand, but she stumbled and caught herself on the counter. I reached out to steady her.
“Piper? What’s going on? Are you okay?” I said, trying to sound concerned, realizing it wasn’t hard to do.
She tried to say something, but I couldn’t understand her words. I clutched her arm and turned her to face me and saw that her lips and tongue were swelling rapidly. She made a motion with her arm, toward the front door.
“Ppputthhhh,” she said.
“What?”
She said it again. I grabbed my phone off the counter. “I’m calling 9-1-1.” I knew by the time they got here she’d be dead.
“Nnnoo.” She pointed again toward the front hallway. “Pppuuthhh.”
“You want your purse?” I said, finally understanding.
She nodded rapidly. I released her and ran into the entryway, grabbing her bag. Then I stopped. I didn’t want her to realize I’d known all along about her allergy to peanuts, but I also didn’t want to move so fast I ended up saving her life.
I heard a light thump and forgot my thoughts, rushing back into the room. She’d fallen or sat down on the floor and was leaning against the base of the island. Her face was completely red and her head was lolling to the side. I could hear her struggling for air.
I could see her suffer.
I saw the unfocused panic in her eyes.
I didn’t like this.
I dropped to my knees beside her. “Piper!” I yelled when her head rolled away from me. “Piper!”
I dumped the entire contents of her bag out onto the floor and stuff went flying. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for and figured it was some kind of medicine. I shifted through all the stuff and none of it looked like it would be what she wanted. I grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her swollen face.
“Tell me what you need.” My heart pounded and everything inside me felt frantic. “Tell me!” I demanded.
She couldn’t talk. She was too far gone.
In mere seconds she was probably going to pass out from lack of oxygen.
I shook my head.
No.
Something inside me whispered,
Yes.
I didn’t want her to die.
Yes. Yes you do.
“Piper…,” I said again. “Piper, I’m sorry.”
And then Hobbs was there, pushing me out of the way with strength such a small man shouldn’t possess, and he was stabbing her in the outer thigh with something.
“What the hell are you doing, Hobbs!?!” I demanded.
“I’m helping her,” he replied without looking back at me.
He dropped the tube in his other hand and I grabbed it up to look at it. Epinephrine. “Is this medicine? Is she going to be okay?”
“Call an ambulance,” Hobbs said, finally turning around. His face was sad.
“Hobbs! Is she going to die?” How could that idea fill me with so much dread, yet so much hope?
“No, she’s going to be okay, but she needs a doctor.”
I let out a breath and then started looking for my phone. In all the confusion, I couldn’t remember what happened to it. I found it on the floor in the entryway underneath her coat. I went back to her side, dropping to my knees next to her head.
“I’m calling for help,”
“No,” she rasped. “No ambulance.”
“Piper?” I looked down, surprised she was talking.
“Good stuff,” she said and glanced at the epinephrine tube still in my hand.
“You need a doctor.”
She nodded. “You take me.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” I felt shaky, like the time I’d almost gotten caught robbing the corner convenience store in my old neighborhood and I jumped out the bathroom window and ran for three blocks before stopping.
She grabbed my arm. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me. It was Hobbs. He knew what to do.”
She looked past me at Hobbs and I moved away to begin gathering all the stuff that scattered when I dumped out her bag.
Hobbs moved beside her and leaned down. “Please accept my sincere apologies. I feel awful knowing something I cooked caused such a reaction.”
“I should’ve asked,” Piper began, her voice shaky. “I usually do, I just… I didn’t think of it today.”
I paused and glanced over at her. She was watching me and I quickly looked away.
She’d been too busy trying to figure out what my connection was to the man who died. Her distraction had almost been my success.
I should’ve been disappointed that my plan didn’t work.
I wasn’t.
“Suspicious -
Arousing or apt to arouse suspicion; questionable. Tending to suspect; distrustful.”
Piper
I felt as if someone wound a coarse length of rope around me and then yanked, cinching up my skin, squeezing my organs, and then tying it into a knot. Everything inside me was shaking; everything inside me still felt seized by panic.
I hadn’t felt this way in so long. Even still, this was a feeling I could go a hundred years without ever experiencing again and I would still be able to remember it; I would still fear it.
I was usually so careful about what I ate.
I let my guard down. I didn’t think. I was so busy trying to figure out the puzzle that Dexter Allen Roth was that it nearly cost me my life. If the butler hadn’t been there, I might be dead. And there would be no one to blame but myself.
Dexter hadn’t known what to do. If I closed my eyes I could still see the panic on his face and that alone was very telling because his panic was able to get through mine—and mine had been crippling. So I couldn’t blame him for not immediately taking action.
“You still with me over there?”
I turned my head and looked across the seat at Dexter. He was focused on the road, but then his eyes flicked to me and back. I cleared my throat. My tongue still felt thick and heavy in my mouth.
“Yeah. It’s up here on the left.” I directed him.
A moment later we were pulling into the clinic’s parking lot and I let out a sigh of relief. I knew I was going to be okay. I had known that the very second the adrenaline in that EpiPen coursed through my body, loosening my lungs to allow room for air.
Dexter slid into a spot and cut the engine. Before I could do anything, he opened my door and reached in to help me out. He wrapped his arm around my waist and accepted most of my weight as we made our way to the clinic doors. I hoped they weren’t busy. The last thing they needed was having to tend to one of their own.
When the front doors opened, Gladys looked up from the desk. Her eyes widened and she stood. The chair she sat in rolled away behind her.
“Ohmygoodness,” she said so quickly all her words ran together. Then she was yelling for Dr. Cooper and rushed toward us. “Piper, honey, what happened to you?”
“She had a reaction.” Dexter tried to explain.
Gladys shot him a look. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Dex,” he said.
My lips pulled up. Of course he called himself Dex.
“Anaphylactic shock,” I told her, drawing her attention away from him. “I used the EpiPen.”
They ushered me back to exam room one and then Gladys pinned Dex with a stare. “Out.”
He glanced at me and I nodded. “I’ll be in the waiting room,” he said, then disappeared through the door.
“Who is that boy? What happened to you?”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t his fault. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating.”
She bustled around the room, taking my blood pressure and my pulse and asking me questions. Dr. Cooper let himself in the room halfway through and stood silently watching. When Gladys was done he took over and I had to sit through his poking too.
When he was done, he made a few notes in his chart and then looked at me. “Your blood pressure is a little low. Are you having difficulty breathing?”
I shook my head. “No. But my chest feels tight.”
He nodded. “It probably will for a day or so. You’re going to be sore tomorrow. Normally I would want to keep you here or send you over to the ER, but since you know what you’re doing…” He gave me a mischievous look. “You have been going to class and paying attention, haven’t you?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Okay, then. I’d say you’re fine to go home. But if you feel any worse or experience any new symptoms or swelling, call me immediately. You have my number.”
When he was gone, Gladys looked at me. “I’m going to get you a bottle of Benadryl to take home. Take some later. It’ll help with those hives.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t come in tomorrow afternoon. Stay home and rest!”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” I said, my throat finally loosening some.
“Don’t you sass me. You’re going to thank me tomorrow.” She went to the door. “And when I come back, I wanna know about that boy in the waiting room.”
She left and I was blissfully alone. The silence was nice after all the chaos. My body was still wound tight and I felt lightly anxious. My stomach was upset and underneath it all, I was bone tired. I didn’t like being the patient. I didn’t like feeling helpless.
There was a soft knock at the door and then Dex stuck his head inside. “Can I come in?”
I nodded and he let himself in, closing the door silently behind him. “Everything okay?”
“I’m still a little shaky, but I’ll be okay. I’m sorry about all the drama.”
“I should be the one apologizing. I invited you for dinner, then fed you something that landed you here.” He looked down at the floor as he spoke.
“I’m allergic to peanuts. It’s a pretty severe allergy. The chicken was probably fried in peanut oil.” I explained. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t blame me?” he asked, almost like he was surprised.