Chapter 33

I still didn’t understand Julia’s motive as I raced to the door. At the moment, it didn’t matter. A single question careened through my head. Where was she now?

As I grabbed hold of the handle, the answer hit me like a bag of Felix’s flour to the head. Julia had been right there at the bread shop counter when Nina asked me if Mae would be able to come to the engagement party. Julia had heard me say that she was still unresponsive, but that the doctor thought she’d wake up. And that it was only a matter of time.

I’d wasted precious time by going to the Sheriff’s Department. I turned back to Deputy Hall. “Tell them to meet me at the hospital!” I yelled, and without another word, I sprinted back to my car, threw myself in, and tore off.

The hospital was on the same side of town as the Sheriff’s Department. I was a mere 6.8 miles away, but those miles stretched on and on. Finally, after what felt like an eternity—I could have made bread dough and let it rise—I finally made it to the visitor parking lot of Mercy General. My long walks on the beach with Agatha didn’t make me a runner. I was good and winded by the time I got to the automatic doors. Inside. To the elevator. Pushing the UP button. Again. And again.

Finally, the elevator arrived at the first floor. I leapt inside and impatiently pressed the button for the fourth floor, where Mae was peacefully sleeping off the poison in her body.

The lift made a stop on the second floor, but it had been a phantom rider. No one was there to get on. Someone had probably pressed UP when they’d meant to press DOWN. I held in the aggravated scream climbing my throat.

I nervously tapped my hands against my outer thighs as I waited for the door to close. As the elevator kicked into motion. As it stopped at floor four. As the doors slid open.

Finally.

I careened into the hallway. Kristin stood at the nurse’s desk. “Ivy—” she started, but I couldn’t take the time to stop and talk with her. If my instincts were right, there was no time to waste. I made a hard right, nearly crashing into the wall, making the turn as though I were a race car taking a curve on two wheels. A nurse glared at me. I slowed to a speed walk, breaking into a run again once she was out of sight. Left at the end of the hall. I kept going, passing patient rooms until I got to Mae’s. The door was closed.

“Ivy!” Kristin called, lumbering from somewhere behind me.

I ignored her. Turned the handle, pushed it open—

There she was.

Julia stood with her back to the bed. My body wanted to freeze. To stutter in disbelief, because I’d been right.

Somehow, my legs took me forward in a rush.

Julia had turned her head when the door to the room opened. She had frozen. Caught in the act. The moment’s hesitation was enough. I leapt, plowing right into her back. The small glass vial she’d been holding flew from her hand. It landed on the linoleum floor, shattering, a small amount of liquid spilling out.

“Get off me!” Julia screamed. Her limbs flailed, one hand flopping against her face, but I held tight, dragging her to the ground, far away from Mae.

“Oh my—!” I heard Kristin’s shrill voice in the doorway.

“Get help!” I yelled.

I heard her voice in the deep recesses of my mind. “Help! Someone help!”

I had a few seconds to grill Julia. I seized them. “Why, Julia? Why did you kill Josh? Did you date him?” I asked, thinking that explanation didn’t make sense because she’d clearly shut him down.

She barked out a vicious laugh. A cackle, really. The adorable woman I’d known from the bread shop was all but gone. In her place was this vengeful creature. “He didn’t even recognize me. My own br—” She shook away the word that had been on her lips. “I thought if he only . . . then maybe . . . maybe . . . But he didn’t. He took everything from me, and he didn’t even recognize me.”

“Recognize you from where?” I asked, but even as the question formed, an answer configured itself right alongside it. Josh had looked at Julia strangely. I’d thought his ego had been bruised because of her rebuffing him, but what if it was more than that? What if he knew her but couldn’t place her. He’d left his family twenty-five years prior. That was a long time. When she’d talked to him at the bread shop that morning, his demeanor had changed briefly. Had he experienced some flare of recognition?

The guy at the Prentiss’s old house had tried to summon up the name of Josh’s father. James? Jules? Jack? James? Jules? Jack? James? Jules—

“Jules,” I muttered aloud. “Jules. Jules . . . Jul . . . ia.” I dragged in a shocked breath. “Julia!”

Something about the beach bum from the Prentiss’s Bungalow Oasis home circled in my head. He’d said, The guy left them penniless. We’d been talking about Josh Prentiss’s father—or at least I had. But what if the guy who’d sold the house out from under his mother and siblings . . . the man who’d left them penniless . . . what if that had actually been Josh? His father ran off with his assistant, sure, but what if Josh ran off, too, taking with him whatever money his mother had left? What if his propensity for financial crimes had started way back then, with his own family?

And what if he’d left a sister behind to deal with it all on her own?

Seconds later, people spilled into the room, like ants swarming around a discarded piece of birthday cake at a park.

A nurse was at the bed checking on Mae. Kristin rounded the bed. “Is she all right? Please tell me she’s all right.”

“She is,” the nurse said. “Her vitals are strong.”

“Step aside,” a male voice said. Instant relief coursed through me. Deputy Hall was as good as her word. She’d called York and relayed my message to meet me here. And he’d come. He’d actually come.

I heard the thud of heavy footfalls. I saw a pair of black boots first. I craned my neck to follow the legs all the way up to Captain York’s wonderful face. I’d never been so glad to see him. And I might never again. “Ms. Culpepper, you can get off of her now.”

“I need a little help,” I said. I was lying on top of Julia, who was immobile. Her body was twisted, contorted so her hands pressed up against her face. Her gloved hands. Her damp, gloved hands.

I swung my gaze to the broken vial and the liquid on the floor. “Oh my God.” I scrambled back. Felt a sturdy arm lift me the rest of the way off.

With my weight off of her, Julia was able to flop onto her back. She scooted back, horror clear on her face. “Help me!”

Everyone stared at her, but no one moved. “Help you with what?” York asked, a grim look on his face.

“It’s in my mouth!” she shrieked, her voice a hundred times louder and more panicked than Kristin’s had been. Her gloved hand had been pressed against her face, I realized. Her nostrils flared as panic set in. “I need a doctor!”

I glanced over my shoulder at York, thinking he might take over, but he rocked back on his heels, his arms folded, his lips pushed out.

“What’s happening here?” Another man’s voice. The man himself, wearing a white doctor’s coat, stethoscope around his neck, worked his way through the gathering crowd.

“What’s happening here, Julia?” I asked in drippy saccharine voice. “You better tell the doctor what was in that vial. What you got in your mouth.” I could have said: You brewed poison juice from Angel’s Trumpet and had it in that vial. You were going to finish the job.

But there was no way I was uttering those words. This would be her confession.

Julia’s eyes grew dark. Her pupils dilating. One of the symptoms of the poison. She remained stubbornly silent.

“Think the extreme thirst will come next? Or the disorientation?”

I caught York smirk from the corner of my eye. The doctor, though, was not amused. “What the devil is going on?” he repeated.

Carter Beats the Devil.

Not this time, I thought. “Maybe it’ll be the hallucinations or—” I pressed my palm against my chest dramatically. “I hope you don’t slip straight into a coma like Mae—”

“You bit—”

“Tsk, tsk,” I interrupted.

She started to lift her arm, but it dropped back down to her side. Her eyes flared with panic.

“That’ll be the paralysis,” I said.

“Enough!” the doctor bellowed. He spun around to one of the nurses. “Clear these people out of here.”

Julia sat slumped against the wall, her legs outstretched in front of her. She looked like a rag doll ready to fall on its side. The doctor started toward her, crouching and reaching for her wrist.

“Be careful there, doc,” York said.

The doctor shot a questioning look. Julia and I had been in a game of chicken. I blinked first. “It’s pois—” I started, but she drew in another strained breath and spoke in a hoarse voice. “Angel’s Trumpet. It . . . is . . . A-A-Angel’s . . . Trumpet.”

The doctor started. He drew gloves from his pocket as he began barking orders. York stood back to let the man work, but he cleared his throat and said with no ifs, ands, or buts, “Doc, I’m going to need to talk to her once she’s stable.”