“It’s the clear one, in the vial.”
“That’s the one that can kill you?”
“It is.” Though it was the clear one in the vial, like most poisons, I had built up an immunity to it over time. The only poison I’m unable to handle is Tetrodotoxin, or TTX. Of course, I would never tell Rachel that, nor would I carry TTX in my kit. I love Rachel, but I couldn’t trust her not to kill me.
“You must really trust me to tell me about your Kryptonite,” she said.
“Of course. How can a relationship thrive without trust?”
After a few minutes we were able to make out the lights and wrought iron balcony of The Seaside Bed and Breakfast. The balcony’s ironwork was famous, unique, and more than a hundred and fifty years old. It had been handcrafted in Boston and shipped to St. Alban’s Beach by rail. The architect who designed it was murdered in the alley behind the local bar the very night the installation had been completed. Local legend had it that the original owner of the Seaside had the architect killed so he wouldn’t be able to replicate the design elsewhere.
I said, “After we shower I thought I’d take the rental car to the hospital to check on the kid.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Just to recap,” I said. “We’ll go inside, strip down, make sure we’ve gotten rid of all the ants, take a hot shower, make wild, passionate love, then drive to the hospital.”
“Whoa, cowboy,” she said.
“Whoa?”
“On the sex part.”
“Why?”
“You owe me an explanation. And an apology.”
“For what?”
“You said a relationship can’t flourish without trust.”
“I said that?”
“You did.”
“Then I stand by it.”
“Prove it.”
“Okay. How?”
“That comment you made about the Grady Twins.”
“What about it?”
“I don’t care how creepy they were. If you’ve had a threesome, I have a right to know the details.”
I laughed.
“Laugh now, pay later,” she said. “I’m not kidding, Kevin.”
“Heeeere’s Johnny!”
“Excuse me?”
“You know the movie, The Shining?” I said. “Jack Nicholson?”
“Uh huh.”
“Remember the kid on the tricycle?”
She thought a minute.
“The one in the hotel that’s riding up and down the hallways?”
“Right, the caretaker’s son.”
“Yeah, I remember. So what?”
“So he’s riding down the hall a hundred miles an hour and he suddenly sees the two girls and nearly shits his pants, remember?”
“Oh, God, yes!”
“The Grady Twins,” I said.
Chapter 5
THE NORTHEAST FLORIDA Medical Center is located on Fifth Street, St. Alban’s Beach. We were standing outside the kid’s room, talking to the attending physician, Dr. Carstairs.
“How is he?” Rachel said.
“Too soon to tell, but he’s on a ventilator, so he’s got a chance. Thanks to you folks and the luck of St. Alban’s.”
“A doctor who believes in luck?” I said.
“We’ve lost very few patients since I’ve been here. I’d call that lucky, wouldn’t you?”
“Some might be inclined to give you the credit.”
“They’d be kind to do so. But there’s something more at work here.”
“Such as?”
“The patients here have the best attitudes I’ve ever seen. They eat more, sleep better, complain less, and most important, they believe they’re going to improve.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it lucky,” I said. “Miracle might be a better word.”
“Then let’s put it this way,” he said. “If you’re going to get sick or injured anywhere in the country, this appears the best place to be. And not because of me.”
Dr. Carstairs was short and squat, late forties. His head was completely bald in the middle, and he’d grown his fringe hair long enough to form a short pony tail in back.
“Incongruous,” Rachel whispered, trying out a word I’d taught her months ago, when she first started cheating on her husband.
“Compensatory displacement,” I whispered back.
She arched an eyebrow and I wanted to take her right there. She caught my look and smiled, then turned back to face the doctor. While she looked at him I studied her profile, and—okay, I know it’s corny, but time seemed to freeze. Rachel nodded her head, responding to something the doctor had said, and I realized I’d been focusing on her sexuality so intently, I’d missed it. Rachel somehow managed to keep her focus on the doctor despite my sexuality. What willpower she must have!
“Sensitization?” Rachel said.
“That means he had to have been stung by fire ants at least once in the past, probably as a child. The first stinging event often fails to cause an allergic reaction. But the second can be deadly.”
“Who is he?” I said. “Any guess how long he’d been lying there?”
“There was no identification, and none of the nurses know him, so he’s probably not local. We were sort of hoping you might know who he is.”
“No clue,” I said.
Something tugged at my brain, making me wonder what kind of kid comes to town and walks around with no wallet, no cell phone, no money in his pockets—but has the sharpest knife I’d ever seen. I could always take it down to the P.D., and have the locals lift his prints. If he had a police record, I’d be doing them a favor. On the other hand, I didn’t want to buddy up to the local police if I didn’t have to. A little town like this, they probably have plenty of time on their hands. If some over-achiever gets a bug up his butt and begins checking too deeply into my background he might find some inconsistencies.
Dr. Carstairs said, “As to how long he’d been lying on the ant hill, I’d have to say not very, because anaphylaxis occurs rapidly, within seconds to a minute. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say two, three minutes, tops.”
Rachel said, “That poor kid must have been walking up from the beach when he got stung.”
I said, “I think you’re right. He was probably walking up from the beach and saw the car full of jerks heading in his direction, got scared, and ducked down for cover. Then the ants got him.”
“Poor kid,” she said. “Alone and scared.”
“Yeah,” I said.
But with a hell of a dangerous knife.
Chapter 6
NEXT MORNING I checked Rachel’s pulse, kissed her on the cheek, and climbed out of bed. I left her a note to say I’d be back in time for the eight-thirty breakfast, then I put on some shorts and running shoes and hit the road.
With a four-thousand-year-old history rich with ancient Indians, marauding pirates, seafaring captains, railroads, shrimpers, saloons and sharks, St. Alban’s, Florida, is a visitor’s paradise.
I headed north on A1A and turned left on Coastal, followed Coastal all the way to the tiny airport that served Amelia Island, turned left again on Farthing, and wound up back on A1A, a couple miles south of the Seaside. Six minutes later I passed the area where we had our run-in with the homeboys and then the place where we saved the kid. I sprinted a half mile, then slowed to a cooling jog and stopped a few yards shy of the Seaside’s front gate. The owner, Beth Daniels, was pulling weeds from the stone path that led to the front door.
“Enjoy your run?” she said, greeting me with a smile.
“Very much so.”
Beth was fortyish, recently widowed, disarmingly attractive. She and her husband were said to have had legendary personalities, but she’d been in a deep funk these past months, consumed by the effort required to keep her husband’s bed and breakfast dream alive. Charles had gone to Atlanta on business, suffered a heart attack, died within minutes, leaving Beth deeply in debt. Within weeks of his untimely death, she’d lost her cook, her waitress, and her caretaker. She had only one staff member left, a part-time cleaning lady.