Trigger Effect

“Ambulance.” She forced out the word between gasps. “Call…ambulance.”

Chapter 3

The E.R. doctor jotted a note on a clipboard, set it aside, then gave Paige a scrutinizing look. “You’re still pale. But your breathing is good and your heartbeat’s back to normal.”

“I feel fine now.” Fully dressed again and sitting upright with her legs dangling off the gurney, she sent the young intern a hopeful look. “You’re releasing me, right?”

Without comment, he hooked a finger under her chin and nudged her head from side to side. “No swelling in your face now, except around the bruise on your right cheek.” His forehead furrowed. “The nurse said you got mugged?”

“I’ve had a lousy day.”

“Sounds like it.” He released her chin. “It would have been lousier if you’d swallowed that bite of banana.”

A low whisper of suspicion sounded in the back of her brain. “I still can’t believe I had a reaction to a banana. I’ve eaten them all my life with no problem.” She shoved a hand through her hair. “The way I had to fight to breathe, the hives, the headache, the dizziness. Everything felt like the reaction I have to peanuts.”

“A person can develop a sudden allergy to a food they’ve never had a problem eating. That might be what happened.”

Having a vague memory of her own allergist telling her the same thing, Paige studied the intern. His wiry brown hair needed serious combing. His eyes were bloodshot. The cast of his skin was a little too close a match to his pale green hospital scrubs. Looks aside, the guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

“This type of allergic reaction can encompass more than food,” he added. “Like sex.”

“What?”

“When you have intercourse, does your partner wear a condom?”

Paige blinked. “Excuse me?”

Mouth twitching, he held up a hand. “Sorry, I tend to get ahead of myself. A person who’s allergic to bananas has a tendency to have an allergy to latex. That’s because bananas and latex have some of the same proteins. If you’ve experienced any discomfort while engaging in sex with a partner wearing a latex condom, that could explain why.”

“Oh. No discomfort.” No way was she going to admit that the last time she’d had sex was three years ago. With the husband she booted out of her life shortly thereafter.

“What about avocados and chestnuts? They have some of the same proteins as bananas.”

“I was in California last week teaching a workshop. I ate a salad with avocados for lunch one day. Zero reaction.”

“Well, you’ll want to discuss all this with your allergist.”

“He’s in Dallas where I live. Is there a way you can test me now to see if a banana caused the reaction?”

“No, we dosed you with steroids and antihistamines. Allergy testing can’t be done until you’ve been off antihistamines for a while.”

“How long is ‘a while’?”

“Approximately two weeks.”

Rubbing her thumb over her numb scar, Paige thought about Edwin Isaac. If he was behind the theft of her briefcase, he was now in possession of her doctor’s memo that outlined the severity of her allergy to peanuts.

With his medical training, Isaac would readily realize her allergy could prove fatal. A sense of unease pressed in around her as if the E.R.’s disinfectant-scented air had suddenly become more dense.

She might be experiencing a cop’s innate paranoia, but she didn’t intend to wait to find out if she’d nearly wound up in the morgue because of a sudden allergic reaction or something nefarious. She couldn’t be tested, but the fruit could. And until the results were back, the fruit bowl in her suite had to be treated as evidence. Which meant she needed to turn it over to a cop.

Let’s just say I have this thing about escaped serial killers showing up in my city.

She remembered what Nate McCall had said and gave herself another mental kick for letting her personal baggage get the best of her that morning. Putting herself on the wrong side of McCall didn’t exactly open the door to asking him to submit the fruit bowl to OCPD’s lab. Still, he was the type of cop who cared about what happened on his turf. And he had quite possibly saved her life tonight.

For the first time since she’d arrived at the E.R., the memory of what had happened after she’d crawled back to the phone came crashing back. Fighting to get enough air into her lungs to stay conscious, all she could manage was to gasp that she needed an ambulance. He must have had another phone available, because she remembered hearing him alert police dispatch to send an ambulance and a patrol unit to the Waterford. He’d also instructed the dispatcher to call the hotel and send their own security people to her suite. That’s who’d reached her first, Paige remembered now. Two armed security guards had bypassed the lock with a passkey and used some sort of tool to release the U-shaped swing bar that prevented the door from fully opening.

During all that time, McCall had stayed on the phone, assuring her help was on the way. His voice had been a calm, soothing lifeline holding her steady, pushing back the ragged black edges of panic.

“I’ll write you a prescription for a refill of your epi-pen,” the doctor said, drawing Paige back.

“Does that mean you’re releasing me?”

“Yes.” He pulled a pad from a pocket. “If you were going to have further symptoms, they would have shown up by now.”

Relieved, she pressed her fingertips against her eyelids. It wasn’t just the fatiguing aftereffects of the allergic reaction that fueled her impatience to get out of the E.R. The cloying, antiseptic air, spotless white enamel walls and squeak of rubber soles against the tiled floor flashed her back three years to an almost identical E.R. in Dallas. The current pitching in her stomach was due to a desperate need to escape the sterile surroundings and all the memories.

She eased off the gurney and slid her shoes on. When she retrieved her suede purse, she saw it had an overstuffed look. Opening it, she instantly realized why. After the EMTs arrived at her suite, she’d asked one of the security guards to shove the belongings she’d dumped out back into her purse so she could take it with her. The guard apparently crammed everything off the floor into her purse, including the workshop assignments.

“Everything okay?” the doctor asked.

“Yes.” She turned to face him. “I need to call a cab. Where can I find a phone book?”

“The nurses’ station.” He handed her the prescription. “If the cop made it back by now you won’t need a cab.”

“What cop?”

“I didn’t catch his name, but he said he was on the phone with you when you had the reaction. He was very insistent on finding out what had happened to you.”

“Oh.” McCall was looking less like the jerk she’d pegged him to be. She was starting to feel guilt. “You said he had to leave?”

“He had to interview a witness in a homicide. I told him you were going to be fine, but it would be a while before I knew if I’d have to keep you overnight for observation. He said he would try to make it back.”

“Thanks,” Paige said, then slipped through the opening in the privacy curtain that circled the gurney.

She passed a waiting room and glanced inside. The majority of the plastic chairs lining the room were occupied. McCall was nowhere in sight.

Not a surprise, she thought. She understood why he came by after she’d been admitted—he’d listened to her fighting to stay alive. When she worked patrol in Dallas, she’d spent her share of time trying to calm and soothe victims of crime and people injured in accidents. Despite the wall cops put around their emotions, a personal bond often formed during those adrenaline-pumping moments. When that happened, she’d always made a point to stop by the hospital to check on a victim. Still, there wasn’t any real reason for McCall to make a return visit to the E.R., especially when he was working a homicide.

And since he hadn’t shown up again, her only hope of contacting him about the fruit bowl tonight was to leave a message for him with police dispatch. She would make the call when she got back to her hotel. And she intended to find out exactly who from the manager’s office had sent the fruit bowl, and the name of the person who’d delivered it to her suite.

At the nurses’ station, Paige got the phone number for a cab company. Half an hour later, she pushed through Waterford Hotel’s revolving door and stepped into the lobby’s gilded silence. Her low flats tapped against the gleaming marble floor as she made a beeline for the reception counter. She identified herself to a twentysomething male clerk dressed in a red blazer with a white carnation in the buttonhole of its lapel.

Upon hearing her name, he looked duly concerned. “Are you okay, Ms. Carmichael? I was on duty when you got sick.”

“I’m fine now, thanks.” She checked the brass name tag on his blazer. “Robert, I’d like to send a note of appreciation to the person who arranged to have the fruit bowl sent to me from the hotel’s manager. Can you tell me who that is?”

“Of course.” He entered data on a keyboard, then frowned. “We show you received a fruit bowl, but it was delivered here from an outside vendor, and left at the bell captain’s stand.”