a long moment, considering the outlandish suggestion. Camille wasn’t exactly her closest friend...but why would she want to harm her? Just because Camille and Jonathan had once dated was no reason for Camille to—
Mary’s troubling thoughts were interrupted by a pounding at the front door, immediately followed by a long blare of the doorbell.
“Must be the ambulance,” Trace said. “I’ll let them in.”
* * *
FOR MARY, the next two hours passed in a blur of white uniforms, bright lights and unpleasant medical procedures.
The paramedics took her vital signs and had a brief, whispered conversation with Trace. One of the technicians approached the bed and with a reassuring murmur, inserted an IV needle into the tender flesh on the top of her hand. Acting quickly yet gently, the two men lifted her onto a gurney. Within minutes, Mary was staring up at the vaulted, gilded ceiling of the hotel lobby as they wheeled her through.
Catching the eye of the day manager, Mary watched him recover from his shock and grab a telephone. No doubt he was calling Jonathan who would be chagrined at his fiancée being a public spectacle in one of his hotels. Get over it, Jonathan, Mary thought, dropping a hand over her eyes to shield them from the bright sunlight as the paramedics pushed the gurney out through the glass double doors. She had more to worry about right now than Jonathan’s injured dignity.
Could it really be true that someone had tried to kill her? Now that her queasiness had finally subsided, the idea seemed impossible. Ludicrous. Yet deep in the darkest recesses of her heart, Mary knew her first reaction had been right.
It was too much of a coincidence that only moments after eating a few pieces of chocolate, her stomach had turned inside out. Mary had never had a nervous stomach and there was no reason to assume that this violent attack of nausea had been suddenly brought on by “nerves.”
Even Dr. Keller, the young resident in the emergency room, was openly skeptical. Nonetheless, he sighed deeply and ordered a full battery of tests.
Fortunately, Mary’s earlier bouts of vomiting saved her from the indignity of having her stomach pumped. Several more doctors came into the curtained cubicle and probed and poked every conceivable inch of her body. A lab technician entered with a metal basket filled with medieval instruments of torture, then departed after obtaining a healthy sampling of Mary’s blood.
Finally, the room was quiet and she was alone.
Mary fidgeted on the narrow examining table, wishing they’d given her a better-fitting gown or a sheet. Every tiny movement exposed some portion of her anatomy.
She looked around the sterile cubbyhole and felt unaccountably lonely. Suddenly, she realized that she’d lost track of Trace in the flurry of medical activity. He’d probably been banished to the waiting room. She was surprised how much she missed his warm comfort. His calm, reassuring voice.
Then, the curtain surrounding the bed moved and Trace was beside her, as if he’d felt her need. He reached down and took her hand.
“How’s it going, kiddo?”
Mary shrugged. “I’ve been better.” Now that her stomach was relatively calm, she didn’t feel sick. Or even frightened. She felt embarrassed. Foolish at having made such a fuss.
Lying here, under the bright glare of the emergency-room lights, her fears of poisoned candy seemed...melodramatic. Who could possibly want to harm her, anyway? No one.
Jonathan was right. In all probability, it was Mark Lester who had been following her around like a sulking teenager. And no doubt, it was Mark who’d slipped the note under her door. But try to kill her? No, she couldn’t believe that. Her imagination had simply got the best of her.
All she wanted now was to get into her clothes and slink out of the hospital with as little fanfare as possible. Clothes! With a groan, Mary remembered that she’d stripped down to her underwear after being taken ill. What was she going to wear home?
Again, as if in direct response to her thoughts, Trace dropped a brown paper bag on the foot of the narrow bed. “Just in case the doc decides not to keep you overnight, I brought you some stuff to wear home.”
Mary ignored his eerie mind-reading ability and rummaged gratefully through the bag. If Trace hadn’t kept his wits about him enough to gather her a pair of slacks and T-shirt, she’d be leaving the hospital in her bathrobe.
That provoked another disconcerting thought. What if the media got wind of her trip to the emergency room and plastered a photo of her on the cover of every supermarket tabloid? “REGENT’S FIANCéE CLAIMS SHE’S BEING STALKED BY CRAZED POISONER!”
Mary shuddered as she imagined Jonathan’s reaction to such sensational press. The best thing to do was get out of here before anyone discovered she’d been hospitalized.
Looking up at Trace, she couldn’t contain the surge of anxiety in her voice. Her words fell over one another in her haste to get them out. “Can we leave now? I—I didn’t mean to make such a fuss. I mean, I’m sure that I overreacted,” she rationalized, feeling a little guilty for her gluttony. Eating chocolate for breakfast would make anybody sick.
Trace shook his head. “I don’t know that you did overreact.”
A sudden chill crept through Mary’s body. What was he saying? What did he know that she didn’t? Whatever it was, Mary wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to hear it. In a self-protective gesture, she wrapped her arms around her chest. The crinkling of the paper gown was the only sound in the small cubicle.
Finally finding her voice, she asked, “Why do you say that?”
Still holding her hand, Trace ran the edge of his thumb over her trembling fingers. “I checked with the front desk before I came to the hospital. They don’t know who that candy was from. It suddenly ‘appeared’ on the counter early this morning. Mrs. Castnor saw the box sitting there when she stopped at the desk to see if you were in. She offered to bring it up. Since the clerk knew her, he didn’t think there could be any harm.”
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