Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 145231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Before anything else happens to Arlo.
“It’s not bad luck, so stop saying that,” I tell her again. “You’re not bad luck. You’re the best damn thing that ever happened to me. We just need to find out how the hell he wound up poisoned.”
“I can’t leave him, Patton. I can’t—”
“I know. I’m not asking you to. Let me do it.” I will rip the world apart piece by piece to get to the bottom of this. “I’ll call my mom. She’ll—”
Salem grabs my arm and pushes it away from my pocket.
“No.” Her voice is tight. “Don’t call her.”
Huh? I’m officially going to lose my shit.
“Sweetheart,” I say, freeing myself from her grip. “She needs to know. She can be here with you while I figure out what happened.”
“We were over there for brunch.”
My heart stalls.
“You were?” My eyes narrow. “But so what?”
“I just don’t want your mom worrying about it or thinking she had anything to do with this. That’s impossible.”
“It’s her grandkid, Salem. Even if she doesn’t know it.” Even if Arlo doesn’t know, either. “Please. I need to tell her.”
Salem paces away from me, her shoulders hunched, and I grab my phone. Then she turns, her mouth hard. “So you’re going to call her anyway?”
“I don’t have a choice,” I bite out. “Hell, if anything, that’s where I need to go. What if he got into something at her house?”
“But what? He was with us the whole time!” she hisses.
“I don’t fucking know. A plant, a chemical, something.” I’m no expert on poisons, that’s for sure.
But there must be something.
“He wasn’t anywhere near any plants. He was with us in the room the whole time and he had the same cake we ate!” Her voice is so urgent and she wraps her fingers around my arm as she pleads. “Please don’t. You can’t tell her.”
“Why? Because she doesn’t know Arlo’s mine?” I shake her off. Now isn’t the time and place to argue about that, but I can’t just sit here and wait. “This is bullshit, Salem, and you know it. You need support, and I need answers.”
This is the worst time in my existence to start an argument, but if I stay here, I’m going to go insane. “Listen, I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“Staying with me isn’t nothing.” She takes my hand, her fingers so tight. “Please, Patton. Stay.”
God fucking damn.
If they were with Mom, that means there’s something at the house. Whatever happened wasn’t deliberate, I’m sure, but the sooner we figure it out, the faster we can fix this.
If something nasty jumps out and I can just tell the doctors—
Hell, maybe there’s an antidote or something if I can just find out what caused this.
“I need to go,” I say, “and I need you to understand.”
“I don’t understand. He didn’t go near anything poisonous.”
Clearly, he did if he was poisoned. My jaw tightens as I hold in a hundred stinging emotions I can’t release. Not without making this worse.
She stares at me, her long eyelashes clumped and her mouth quivering. I don’t know what any of this means for our relationship if I walk out right now.
But I can’t stay while my son’s life is on the line and we’re fighting in the dark.
I hate that she doesn’t want me to find out what happened.
“Call me,” I say, turning on my heel.
She doesn’t say anything at all after that, and though I’m glad she’s not trying to stand in my way, it feels like she’s giving up.
The darkest day of my life dims a little more and it’s not even evening yet.
So I just climb back in my vehicle, which is miraculously still where I left it without a ticket on the windshield, and set off for Mom’s.
Mom looks just as shell shocked as I thought she’d be.
“What do you mean, poisoned?”
“I mean poisoned-poisoned, Mom.” I rifle through the cupboards in the kitchen, tossing everything on the counter in frantic handfuls. “He’s in the hospital now.”
“But I don’t understand.” Her hands flutter helplessly and she loosens the scarf around her neck. “What could he have eaten?”
“Don’t know, Mom. But it must’ve happened here.”
Unless it was at her apartment, but a poison this violent would probably be too fast-acting for that. They were here for a while. The ones that hit your system and make you vomit up your lungs generally aren’t slow and creeping.
I hope.
Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m desperate.
“What did he eat?” I ask, pulling out the glass container with the cake inside for a look. “Did you make this?”
“Yes. Just yesterday with Evelyn and Juniper.”
“And you all had a slice?”
“Yes, Patton,” Mom says, her voice wilting. But her eyes are wide and flashing with concern. “I swear, we all had a slice from the very same cake. We all ate it off the same clean plates and as far as I know, the rest of us are fine. We had coffee and little Arlo had orange juice.”