Rotten to the Core Read online

  Bree hauled herself to her feet. “You’ll hear from them soon enough, if they’ve got this, too. One thing I do know—we need to drink liquids, keep hydrated, flush out whatever’s in us. You got juice downstairs?”

  “I do.” Meg got to her feet. She found she had to cling to the banister on her way downstairs: the dizziness was back and getting worse. The kitchen, when she turned on the light, looked like a battle zone, with dirty dishes and pans everywhere. No wonder her mother had told her not to leave a messy kitchen. It looked surreal, and her stomach lurched at the sight. Bree was rummaging through the refrigerator and pulled out an unopened bottle of cranberry juice. “This should work.”

  As Meg tried to find two clean glasses, Lolly sauntered into the kitchen and leaped onto the countertop by the sink.

  Slowly it occurred to Meg that she should not let the cat eat whatever was left on the plates, but before she could move, Lolly sniffed the remains of the sauce on one plate and backed away, her lips curled. “Bree? Look at the cat. It must be the sauce. But how could it be? I made it myself. I tasted it while I was cooking it, and it was fine.”

  Lolly gave the dirty plates one last look of disgust, then jumped off the counter and fled the room. With great deliberation Meg shut the door behind her and moved hesitantly toward the sink: her legs were shaky, and it looked very far away. She leaned against the counter and grabbed a tissue from the box she kept there, and blew her nose. And wiped her mouth: she seemed to be drooling. An aftereffect of throwing up?

  Then she went very still, clutching the edge of the counter for support. Not food poisoning: that would explain the nausea, but not everything else she was feeling. There was something familiar about all this, something she had read . . . Her mind was working slowly, slowly . . .

  Pesticide poisoning. The thought surfaced in her sluggish brain like a bubble of noxious gas in a swamp. She looked up to see Bree swigging juice, but her color was still an ugly gray. “Bree,” she whispered, “I think it’s pesticide poisoning.”

  Bree’s eyes widened. “What? Can’t be. How?”

  “I don’t know. But it fits: nausea, vomiting, and now I’m drooling and my nose is running. I looked it up online, when Jason died. Those are all symptoms. Oh my God!” Meg stumbled to a chair and sat down heavily, and Bree followed suit. “And there’s worse, a whole lot more symptoms. How are you feeling?”

  Bree coughed. “Not so good. What do we do now?”

  “I think we should go to the hospital.” Although Meg wasn’t sure she was in any shape to drive. “What about the others? We have to call them now!”

  Bree nodded slowly. “Right. Good. I’ll call Michael, and he should have Daphne’s number somewhere. You call Seth. Then we call 911, right? Get help?”

  “Right,” Meg replied absently. What had she done? Poisoned Seth? How could that be? She didn’t have any pesticide, certainly not in her kitchen. Worry about that later. She picked up the phone, dialed Seth’s number. No answer. She dialed again, not trusting her shaky fingers. Still no answer. She wanted to scream, to throw the phone across the room. Instead she sat staring stupidly at it.

  “No answer at Michael’s,” Bree said. “And I don’t have Daphne’s number.”

  Meg shook her head, trying to clear it. Somebody should take charge. No, she should take charge: this was her house, and she was the boss. “Okay, here’s the deal. We need to get to the hospital, and we need to make sure Seth and the others are all right. I’m going to call Art, and let him sort all this out. He lives in town here.”

  Bree blinked owlishly. “Not 911?”

  “No. Art can get here faster, and he can let somebody in Amherst know to look for Michael and Daphne.” Meg didn’t have a clue whether a single ambulance could transport three sick people to whatever hospital was closest, but she thought Art could figure that out. Her brief stab at authority had left her exhausted.

  Meg looked at the phone in her hand and tried to remember how it worked. Push one button, get a dial tone. Art would know what to do. But Art wouldn’t be in the office at three o’clock in the morning. Did she have Art’s home number? No. But it would be in the phone book. Where was the phone book? She stood up and scrabbled through a pile of papers and magazines she had shoved out of the way. Aha, phone book. Skinny little thing, wasn’t it? Not like the Boston phone book, nope. Focus, Meg, focus. What was Art’s last name? Preston, that was it. Meg kept losing her place in the book, but she finally located the “P” pages. Thank God he was listed. Her hand trembling, Meg punched in the numbers.

  “Wha?” a sleepy, angry voice answered after five rings.

  “Art. Is this Art?”

  “Yeah, you got me. Who’s this?”

  “Meg Corey. I think I’ve been poisoned.”

  “What?” The voice on the other end was suddenly more alert. “Why?”

  “I had people over for dinner. I’m sick. Bree’s here, and she’s sick. And the others aren’t answering. Art, listen, I think this is more than just food poisoning. I think this is whatever killed Jason.”

  “Call 911,” he said grimly. “I’ll be over in five.”

  “Art, wait—Seth’s not picking up his phone. You should get over there.”

  Art sighed. “Shit. If I have to worry about all of you, it’ll be faster if I just collect you all and take you to the hospital myself. Who are the others?”

  “Michael Fisher and Daphne Lydon. They live in Amherst somewhere. Bree has Michael’s address and number? Bree?”

  It took a couple of moments for Bree to focus on her, and then she reeled off Michael’s information and Meg repeated it to Art. “But neither of us knows where Daphne lives. Michael might, if you find him, but he’s not answering.”

  “Got it. I’ll call it in to Amherst—they’ll send someone over. You stay put—I’ll swing by your place first, and then we can go to Seth’s. Five minutes.”

  “Hurry.” Art hung up, and Meg was left gazing at the phone in her hand. It took her a moment to realize that Bree hadn’t heard the whole conversation. She looked up to find Bree retching into the sink.

  When Bree was finished, she turned to Meg. “What?”

  “He’s going to come by here, and then we’re going to Seth’s. I guess we don’t have time to get dressed, huh?” Meg squashed a bubble of hysteria. Now the police chief was visiting, and she still hadn’t washed her dishes, and worse, she was wearing a ratty pair of flannel pajamas. But maybe the plates were evidence now. Maybe that was a good thing she hadn’t washed them. So there, Mom! She looked at the pile of papers she had dislodged when she was hunting for the phone book. On top of the pile was the printout she had made about the pesticide, the one that had killed Jason. She tried to focus on the words swimming on the page. Those typed in capitals she could make out most easily: HEADACHE, DIZZINESS, WEAKNESS, INCOORDINATION, MUSCLE TWITCHING, TREMOR, NAUSEA, ABDOMINAL CRAMPS, DIARRHEA, SWEATING. She had all of those. Great. Knowing what was wrong didn’t make it any easier to handle, she thought, as she fought another wave of nausea. She wondered how long these symptoms would go on—and what would happen if they got worse.

  Before she could read any further, there was a pounding on her back door. Art, thank God. She made her wobbly way over to the door and fumbled with the dead bolt. It took her three tries to make her hands work well enough to get it open, and by the time she had succeeded she was exhausted from the effort.

  Art stepped into the room, wearing civvies: jeans and a flannel shirt, which nearly matched Meg’s pajamas. He took one look at the scene in the kitchen—Meg wavering on her feet, Bree sitting huddled at the table—and took charge. “Okay, we’re getting out of here! Meg, get coats. Can you handle that?”

  Meg nodded. “Oh, here.” She thrust the printout at him. “You’d better take this along. Might save time at the hospital.”

  “Whatever.” He folded it roughly and shoved it in his shirt pocket. “Now move!”

  Meg laboriously disentangled her coat from the
rack by the door, and one for Bree, who was wearing only an oversize T-shirt. “Bree, we’re going now. Put on these boots.”

  Bree looked dully at her, then at the boots Meg shoved across the kitchen floor at her. “Right. Boots.”

  Meg pulled on another pair. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate on anything, hold anything, do anything at all. Let Art take care of it. That’s his job. Art was holding Bree up by one arm. “Okay, car, now. Let’s go.” He grabbed one of Meg’s arms and hustled them out of the kitchen, into the night. Meg had already been shaking, but the cold air made it worse. Art pushed Bree into the backseat, and Meg took the front.

  She lay back against the headrest. “Seth’s house.”

  Art peeled out of the driveway. “Yes, we’re going to Seth’s house.”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “I do.” He drove fast on the empty roads, one turn, two, then pulled up in front of a small colonial. It looked as though every light in the house had been turned on: every window glowed brightly. “Well, at least he’s awake.”

  Art was out of the car almost before it stopped moving, leaving the engine running. He went to the back door and pounded on it. “Seth, you in there? Seth?”

  Nothing. Alarmed, Meg struggled out of the car and shuffled her way to the door. Art was still pounding. Finally, there was an answering bellow from inside. “What the hell you want?”

  Seth lurched into view and glared at Art through the glass panel of the door, but he didn’t open it. Art said, “Let us in, Seth. We’ve got a problem.”

  “No. I don’t want you here. Leave me alone, will you?”

  Seth seemed to be acting very oddly, Meg thought dimly. He looked angry. Why would he be angry? She pushed past Art. “Seth, can we come in, please?”

  Seth struggled to focus on her. “What do you want? Why can’t you leave me alone?” He turned away and disappeared into the house, out of sight.

  Meg tugged on Art’s arm. “Break in.”

  Art turned to her. “He says he doesn’t want help.”

  “Art, this pesticide can make you act weird. Do you think he’s acting normally?”

  Art shook his head. “All right. But if you’re wrong, you can pay for the broken window.” He pulled his coat sleeve taut, smashed the glass pane nearest the door handle with his elbow, then reached in and turned the dead bolt. “Meg, you wait here. I’ll talk to him.”

  Meg had no desire to argue with him. She wasn’t sure how much longer her legs would hold her up. She leaned against the doorjamb, listening as Art made his way through the house, calling Seth’s name. Fine way to see the house for the first time, she thought irreverently. She’d never been invited, and now she was breaking in. Seth would not be happy about that.

  Seth was apparently well beyond unhappy, if the angry shouts coming from the other end of the house were any indication. Without thinking, Meg pushed off the doorframe and lurched from room to room, following the voices. She finally found the two men facing off in a room at the far corner, glaring at each other.

  Art was pleading, “Seth, you’re sick. You’ve been poisoned. You’ve got to come with us, to the hospital.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Seth rubbed his sleeve across his dripping nose. “Dammit, go away! Just leave me alone.”

  “Seth,” Meg broke in, “you’ve got to come. This thing could kill you.” She stumbled her way toward him, laid a hand on his chest, trying to make him look at her. He shoved her away roughly, and she fell against Art, who caught her.

  Reason wasn’t working. But as Meg watched, Seth’s chest began to heave, and he struggled for breath. He tried to yell something, but he lacked the air to get out more than a few jumbled words. Then he crumpled to his knees on the floor, panting heavily.

  Meg grabbed Art’s sleeve. “Oh, God, Art—respiratory failure’s the worst problem with this stuff. We’ve got to get him to the hospital, fast.”

  “I hear you.” Art grabbed one of Seth’s arms. Seth put up a weak struggle, then finally slumped against Art. “Can you give me a hand?”

  Meg wasn’t sure she would be much help in her current state, but she had to try. Somehow they managed to drag Seth out the back door to the car. Art dumped him unceremoniously in the front seat. Meg climbed in the back. Bree looked at her vaguely and curled up in the corner.

  Art drove fast, but Meg quickly lost track of time. The motion of the car set off another round of nausea, and she rolled down the window and leaned out in time to avoid vomiting in the car, not that there was much left in her stomach. Dimly she heard Bree doing the same on the opposite side. The chill air washed through the car and aggravated her trembling. She reached up to wipe the saliva off her face and stopped briefly, fascinated by the shaking of her hand. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this lousy.

  Hospital. Lights. People hurrying. Gurney. She didn’t resist, because she couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t work, and she couldn’t stop shaking. There was something important . . . but what? Finally she remembered. “Art, on the paper?” He turned his head to look at her. “The one I gave you. There’s an antidote. Tell them.”

  “Right.” He disappeared. So did everything else.

  32

  Meg peeled her eyes open and looked around her, trying to piece together where she was. What had happened the night before? Her jumbled memories didn’t make much sense. She was in a hospital room—that much was clear. Sunlight coming through windows, so it had to be morning. Or afternoon—she wasn’t about to guess. Bree was in the room, draped over the stiff-looking plastic chair, wearing a set of mismatched scrubs two sizes too big for her, leafing through a dog-eared magazine. That was good news. “You look perky. What time is it?” Meg managed to croak.

  Bree dropped the magazine and pulled the chair closer. “Good, you’re awake. I was beginning to worry. It’s about eight, so you’ve been out of it for maybe four hours. The jerks around here wouldn’t tell me anything about how you were doing because I’m not related to you, or something like that. They didn’t want me to wait in here either, but I just ignored them until they found something else to do. Once they got you stabilized they weren’t so worried. How’re you feeling?”

  Meg tested various body parts. Nothing hurt, although her stomach muscles were sore—all that retching, no doubt. But it took tremendous effort to move anything: she felt as though she had been beaten with baseball bats. “Check with me in an hour or so, when the rest of me wakes up. Maybe you can tell me what happened when we got here? I kind of blacked out.”

  Bree settled back in the unyielding chair. “Sure, what I remember. We barfed our way into the place, and then they found a couple of doctors who were willing to take a look at us. Since I was the only one still conscious, I had to explain what had happened, about the pesticide and all. And nobody wanted to believe me. Thank goodness that cop buddy of yours was there. He threw his weight around and they had to listen, and then he gave them that paper you handed him. I swear, if they’d had to figure things out for themselves they’d still be scratching their heads and giving us aspirin and ginger ale. So they all argued some more, and then they had to call some bigwig somewhere else to see if they could do what they were supposed to, and then they had to hunt around and see where they’d put the antidote stuff. But they finally got it together. Seems to be working—I feel okay.”

  Bree obviously felt a lot better than Meg did. It must be nice to be so young and resilient—Meg felt about ninety at the moment. “Did anybody say anything about afteref fects?”

  “Nah. They think we got the antidote fast enough.”

  Meg wasn’t sure she was ready to ask the next question, but she had to know. “Seth?”

  Bree’s expression darkened. “Man, he was acting wild! I figure he got more than we did ’cause he ate a lot, and it seems to affect different people in different ways. He was having trouble breathing, so they clamped some kind of mask on him and took him somewhere else. Like I said, they wou
ldn’t tell me anything. But the chief said to call him when you were awake, because he has lots of questions and he’s going to have to call that detective.”

  “I’ll bet he does. Did someone track down Michael and Daphne?”

  Bree nodded. “Michael, yes. He said he was already feeling really bad by the time he got back to Amherst, so after he dropped Daphne off at her place, he took himself straight to the free clinic, and they sent him to the hospital because they didn’t know what the heck to do with him. He was pissed, because he really doesn’t have much money. And I ragged on the chief to keep looking until they tracked him down, or else they wouldn’t have known what to give him. But he got off easy, apparently.”

  Meg hoisted herself up and propped the flimsy pillow behind her. “How do you know all this?”

  “Like I said, I just kept pushing. And Michael called me on my cell when he could and gave me his side.”

  “You brought your cell? Wait—they let you use it here, in the hospital?”

  “Grabbed my bag on the way out the door. And yours. Hospitals always worry about all that ID and insurance crap, so I figured we’d need them. And I forgot the phone was on until Michael called.”

  Meg’s estimation of Bree went up a notch. Even sick, she’d kept her head. “And Daphne?”

  Bree looked concerned. “Nobody’s seen her. Michael says he took her home, but she wasn’t there when the cops checked. They broke in the door and all, just to be sure. No sign of her.”

  “Oh no.” Meg tried to find a more comfortable position. “Where on earth could she have gone in the middle of the night? She doesn’t have a car. Did the police check the clinics and the hospitals? Student health? They have to find her before it’s too late for the antidote.”

  Bree nodded, her eyes grave. Meg wrestled with a mixture of guilt and frustration: just because she didn’t particularly like Daphne didn’t mean that she wished her harm—but why had she managed to disappear just when the police went looking for her? And Meg didn’t want to think about what it would mean if Daphne died after eating Meg’s food . . .