Rose beamed at me. “Well, now we have a plan,” she said.
On the drive back to the store, Rose and Elvis discussed cat treats. It seemed that she felt she should make some for him since she was going to make dog biscuits for Casey.
Second Chance is in a red brick building that was built in the late eighteen hundreds. We’re located on Mill Street where it curves and begins to climb uphill, about a twenty-minute walk from the harbor and easily reached from the highway—the best of both worlds for tourists. Gram holds the mortgage on the building and I’m working to pay her back as quickly as I can.
As we turned into the parking lot at the shop, Nick pulled in behind us. He got out of his truck and walked over to the SUV as we got out. He shot me a quick smile and focused his attention on Rose, putting both his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked.
He was tall, over six feet, with Charlotte’s eyes and smile. He was wearing a blue golf shirt and what I thought of as his work pants, ones that seemed to me to have at least a dozen pockets.
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling up at him. She turned her head and pushed her hair to one side so he could check out where she’d been hit on the head, and then she held out her arm and let him check the bandage the nurse had put on in the hospital. “I can take that off tomorrow,” she told him.
“Make sure you keep it dry for a couple more days.”
Rose nodded. “I will. Sarah wrapped my arm in a couple of plastic bags before I got in the tub last night.”
Nick glanced at me. “Very resourceful,” he said. He turned back to Rose. “Any headaches, blurred or double vision? Are you nauseous? Have you eaten?”
Rose held up a hand and ticked off her fingers. “No, no, no, no and yes.” She kept a completely straight face, so while I knew she was humoring him just a little, I didn’t think he did.
Nick looked at me again. “Show me the place on her neck,” he said.
Rose turned around and bent her head forward, and I showed him the tiny red mark. It seemed to me it had already faded a bit more. Nick pulled out his cell phone and peered at Rose’s neck through the phone’s camera lens.
“Is that some kind of magnifying glass?” I asked, leaning over for a closer look.
He nodded. “Fifteen times magnification.”
“You get all the cool toys in your job,” I teased.
Nick straightened up. “Actually, this came from Liam.”
“Liam my brother?” I said.
“Only Liam I know. Yeah.”
Rose straightened up and turned back around. “So what do you think?” she asked.
“It’s possible that spot is an injection site,” he hedged, pretty much as I’d expected.
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
“What do you remember?” Nick asked.
“Not a lot,” she said. “Pain on the side of my head and my neck. The next thing I knew I woke up to a very nice dog nudging me with his nose.” She looked at me. “Would you be able to drive me over after supper to take some biscuits to Casey?”
I nodded. “Sure.” I looked at Nick. “So?”
He frowned. “It’s possible Rose was drugged, but the only way to know for sure is a blood test.” He looked at Rose. “You can go to the hospital and have it done. I can call them.”
“Could you do it?” she asked. “I mean, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble? I got poked a lot last night. I feel a bit like a pincushion.” She gave him a guileless look that I probably would have fallen for myself if it wasn’t for the fact that she’d used the same look on me about a dozen times before I got wise to it.
Nick hesitated.
Rose leaned over and patted his hand. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t.” He smiled down at her. “I can do it. I’ll get my bag and be right there.”
“You are a darling man,” she said. She gestured at his cell phone. “Is that the magnifying thingie?” She took the phone from Nick’s hand before he realized what was happening. “Oh, Alfred would love one of these. May I show it to him?”
Nick looked a bit uncertain, eyes darting from the phone to Rose to me. “Umm, all right.”
“Thank you, dear,” she said with a smile. “I’ll see you inside.” She got her tote bag from the front seat. Elvis jumped down and the two of them headed for the back door of the shop.
Nick opened the passenger door of the truck and from the backseat grabbed a black nylon backpack that I knew held all his medical supplies. He was trying to stifle a grin and not really succeeding.
“I know what you did,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, but the grin got loose and I knew for sure I was right. He was playing Rose just as much as she had been playing him. Sometimes seeing Nick and Rose interact was like watching Tweety Bird and Sylvester the Cat.
“I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night,” I retorted.
“Okay,” he said, the grin turning a little sheepish. “I know how Rose is when it comes to doctors and hospitals. I figured if I suggested me taking her blood right off the bat she’d say no, but if the hospital was the first choice I’d look a lot better.”
“Very sneaky,” I said as we started for the door. And that might have worked if Rose hadn’t been manipulating the situation to achieve the same end, although I had no idea what her reasons were.
He raised an eyebrow. “I prefer to think of it as resourceful.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him he wasn’t quite as resourceful as he thought.
“So what will this blood test do?” I asked.
“Based on what Rose just told me, I suspect that she could have been dosed with methohexital.”
“Which is?”
“A rapid-acting barbiturate. Dentists use it quite a bit. Rose could have been unconscious in seconds and awake again in as fast as five minutes. It can’t be detected in the bloodstream after twenty-four hours, which is why I want to get a blood sample now.”
“But they did blood tests last night,” I said.
Nick nodded. “Those would have just been routine tests, most likely just a CBC—that’s a complete blood count—and a creatine kinase test which they do to help rule out a heart attack. They wouldn’t have had any reason to test for methohexital.”
We stepped inside. Rose was talking to Mac. Elvis was on the workbench washing his face and ignoring both of them. There was no sign of Mr. P. Rose handed Nick his phone without comment.
“Why don’t we use my office?” I said.
Nick smiled. “Good idea.”
“Nick’s going to take a blood sample from Rose,” I said to Mac by way of explanation.
“I heard,” he said. “I can hold down the fort.”
“Thanks,” I said.
There were no customers in the shop proper, which was a good thing because the moment Avery caught sight of Rose she bolted across the room and threw herself into Rose’s arms. Her face was pale and unshed tears glistened in her eyes.
Rose gave me a baffled look and folded the teen into a hug. “My dear, what on earth is wrong?” she asked.
Avery pulled back, her eyes scanning Rose’s face. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “It’s my fault you got hurt.”
“Nonsense,” Rose said, brushing a strand of hair behind Avery’s ear. “First of all, I’m fine, as you can see. And second, what happened to me is the fault of the person who whacked me over the head. Why would you think that has anything to do with you?”
“I took your phone.” She pulled the cell from her pocket and held it out.
Rose smiled at her. “Child, that phone couldn’t have saved me, but a lovely dog did. His name is Casey. Would you like to meet him?”
Avery sniffed, swiped at her nose with the sleeve of her plaid cotton shirt and nodded.
“Splendid.” She reached into her bag and handed Avery a tissue.