Read Online Heaven Preserve Us by Cricket McRae - Free Book Online Page A

me a patented Meghan
Bly hug.
    That was all it took. I turned into a gooey, messy excuse for a
woman, a puddle of angst and insecurity and fear. She led me back
to the couch and made me sit. She brought me tea, strong and hot
and heavily sugared. I spluttered and leaked tears and told her
about Barr and the botulism and how Philip might have died
from it and how Barr being in the hospital made me think about
Mike. She took my half-drunk cup of tea away and brought me a
glass of single malt Scotch.
    Bless her heart.
    I downed the Talisker. And she gave me some more.
    And then she put me to bed.
    Exhausted and a little tipsy, I drifted off to sleep surprisingly
quickly. And I slept like a baby until nearly three a.m.
    That's when I awoke and lay in bed, thinking. Someone had
threatened Philip Heaven. He knew who it was. He hadn't taken
them seriously at first, but when he'd whispered in my ear while
we waited for the paramedics, he'd believed that was why he fell so
terribly ill. And then he'd died.
    Barr's symptom's matched his very closely.
    Had someone intentionally given Philip botulism toxin? After
an hour I managed to work myself into a real tizzy, wondering
whether Barr had become worse during the night.
    At six-thirty Erin found me sitting at the kitchen table with a
big mug of coffee, on the phone quizzing the nurse I finally managed to track down on the fifth floor of the hospital. He wasn't
any better, but he wasn't any worse, either. He was asleep. She also told me that the test for the presence of botulism toxin had come
back positive and that Barr had already received the antitoxin. She
didn't have any information about Philip, but she had passed on
my suspicions to her superiors, and they had alerted the medical
examiner.
     
    I thanked her and hung up, wondering in a macabre way whether
performing an autopsy on someone who had died from botulism
would be dangerous. I suspected it might be, but I realized that,
other than a vague notion that botulism could be found in poorly
home-canned food, I knew very little about it. As I stared at the
wood grain on a kitchen cabinet, I didn't even notice Erin had put
together her own breakfast until she sat down across from me. Cereal and milk. And a bowl of peaches.
    Home canned peaches.
    "Don't eat those!"
    She stopped with the liquid dripping from the spoon into her
cereal bowl. Her mouth was half open and her eyes wide.
    "What's wrong?" Meghan came in, and though her words were
innocuous, I sensed she meant, "What's wrong now?"
    I winced. "Botulism. It's confirmed. That's why Barr's sick. But
somebody over there was on the ball, and he's going to be all
right."
    Meghan eyed the bowl of peaches.
    "Am I gonna die?" Erin asked.
    "Of course not," her mother said. "We've been eating out of
that jar for a couple of days. They're fine." To prove her point she
grabbed the spoon out of her daughter's hand and took a big bite
of peach. "They're fine," she repeated after swallowing, and gave
me a significant look.
     
    I forced a smile on my face. "Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction."
    "You want some?"
    "Urn, sure. But not right this instant. Maybe later." I had no
doubt Meghan was right about the fruit, but I couldn't bring myself to eat any of it. "I'm going downstairs to look up botulism on
the computer. Maybe I can get some idea of where it came from"
    "Okay. But don't scare yourself. Bug, are you going to study for
the bee this morning before school?"
    Erin nodded and began shoving soggy cornflakes in her mouth
at a record pace. She swallowed and stood up. "Can we leave at
six-forty-five?"
    Meghan smiled. "Sure. I'll be ready when you are."
    The phone rang, and Meghan's eyes grew round. Phone calls
before seven a.m. generally didn't bode well. She went to answer,
and I sat with my eyes closed and my fingers pressed against my
lips, afraid to move and selfishly praying the call had nothing to
do with Barr.
    But Meghan returned almost