He glanced at the detective. “I don’t think you’re waiting with me because you’re concerned about Cynthia Morgan.”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing she’s okay,” Stryker told him. “But I’m here because I need to ask you some questions.”
Jonathan rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if he could erase the weariness that filled him. “It feels like it should be some time next week,” he said. “Instead of just early Sunday.” He drew in a deep breath and figured there was no point in ignoring the obvious. “You want to know if there was some reason David could have wanted to get to me through her. Did he hurt Cynthia because it would bother me.”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” the detective admitted. “Your brother obviously wanted to screw you any way he could. The doctor said they didn’t know what was wrong with her. They’ve ruled out appendicitis. Once the tests come back we’ll have a clearer picture, but until then I can’t rule out the suspicion that David was involved.”
Jonathan looked at Stryker and shook his head. “Not possible. I just met her tonight.” He told the other man about literally running into Cynthia at the ball. How he’d planned to leave, then had surprised himself asking her to dance.
Without wanting to, he found himself caught up in the past, in the pleasure of her in his arms. How she’d looked and felt as they moved together. The sweet scent of her skin and the way she’d tasted when he’d kissed her.
“David couldn’t have known about her because I didn’t,” he concluded.
Stryker loosened his shirt collar, then jerked his head at the purse lying next to him. “There’s nothing in there to give us a clue, either. I’ve notified her family. They’re on their way here. Maybe they’ll know something. Although her mother said Cynthia is perfectly healthy. Never had a medical condition.”
Jonathan didn’t want her to die. Not that he wished anyone dead, but his desire for Cynthia to live was strong and growing. He willed strength to her, as if he could send the power through the corridors of the hospital and help her hang on until the doctors got it all figured out.
The detective pulled out his notebook. “Start from the beginning and tell me again what happened.”
“I was speaking with my brother,” Jonathan began patiently, prepared to go through the sequence of events as many times as it took. “We’d just finished and I knew that if I was going to die that night I didn’t want it to be at that ridiculous party. So I started to leave. When I turned I ran into-”
“Mr. Steele?”
He looked up and saw a young nurse standing in the doorway of the waiting area. Jonathan was on his feet in a heartbeat. “What? Do you have news?”
She nodded. “Dr. Howell asked me to tell you that the preliminary toxicology reports suggest that Ms. Morgan was poisoned. He wanted to let you and the detective know.”
The news shouldn’t have stunned Jonathan. After all he and Stryker had been talking about David being involved. But David couldn’t have known about Cynthia. “Poisoned?” he repeated blankly.
She nodded. “He said that it would be helpful if you could figure out how and then find the poison.” She gave him a quick, impersonal smile and turned to leave.
“Wait,” he called. “How is she?”
“I don’t know. The same, I think.” And then she was gone.
Jonathan sank back into his chair. He looked at Stryker. “Poison? Does that make sense to you?”
“Depends on how it was delivered. Did she eat anything at the party?”
“I don’t know,” Jonathan admitted. He frowned in concentration. “When I first met her she was carrying a glass of wine. White, I think. She spilled it, so I doubt she drank much. If she ate before or after I was with her, then I wouldn’t have seen what it was. While we were together, she didn’t eat or drink anything.”
Stryker tapped a pen on his notebook. His tweed jacket looked rumpled and blond stubble darkened his jawline. He rubbed his tired eyes. “We haven’t had any complaints about other people getting sick. So it probably wasn’t in the food. And if she ingested the poison before the party, we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of figuring out what it was.”
Jonathan listened as the other man spoke, but a part of his brain focused on something else. A whisper of a memory that he couldn’t make focus. Something just out of reach that seemed important and yet-
“The coffee,” he announced, cutting Stryker off in midsentence. “She brought me coffee.”
“What?”
He turned toward the detective. “At the hotel. Remember? You went to check on something and she was waiting in the hall. She wanted to see how I was. She was holding a cup of coffee and told me that a waiter had brought it for me. But I hadn’t ordered any.” He frowned, trying to remember the exact sequence of how things had occurred. “I didn’t want any because I hadn’t ordered coffee. Then Cynthia ended up drinking it instead.”
Stryker was on his cell phone in an instant. He spoke to a police officer still at the scene.
“We’ll see if we can get hold of that cup,” he said when he was finished.
“Is that how David planned to kill me?” Jonathan asked. “Poison?”
Stryker shook his head. “Your brother wouldn’t have been that specific. I’m guessing the killer saw an opportunity and took it. We’ll interview the staff. Someone had to have seen a new guy working tonight. We’ll find him and get him to tell us what kind of poison he used.”
He sounded confident, but Jonathan wasn’t so sure. Besides, even if they found the killer, would it be in time to save Cynthia?
“I need to get back to the hotel,” Stryker said as he came to his feet. “You’ve got my number. Call me when you know more about Ms. Morgan’s condition.”
Jonathan hated the thought of being left behind. “There has to be something I can do to help.” He couldn’t just sit around and wait. He always acted in a crisis. It was one of his strong suits.
“We’ll handle it, Jonathan,” Stryker said. “I promise I’ll be in touch.”
And then he was gone, walking out of the waiting area and down the corridor. Jonathan watched him go. The tall man passed by a young mother with three children. The harried woman stopped at the nurses’ station across from the waiting area.
She was petite, maybe five-one or-two, with short blond hair. Something about her was vaguely familiar, yet Jonathan was sure he’d never met her before. He glanced briefly at the gangly preteen girl standing on one side of the woman, then at the twin boys clinging to her other arm. Then he shrugged and settled back in his seat. He didn’t like waiting around, but it looked like he didn’t have a choice.
“Mr. Steele?”
He looked up and saw the woman and her children had entered the waiting room. He rose to his feet, not sure how she knew him. “I’m Jonathan Steele.”
The woman trembled slightly. Tears filled her blue eyes and her face was pale. “I, ah, they said at the desk that you brought her in. Cynthia. That you were with her.” The woman paused and swallowed. Her visible effort to maintain control made him uncomfortable. “They didn’t tell me anything when they called. Just that she’d collapsed and was being brought here. They wanted to know about existing medical conditions, but I told them she’d always been fine. A healthy girl, and, oh Lord, I can’t lose her, too.”
“It’s okay, Momma,” the preteen girl said and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. “She’ll be fine. You’ll see.” But she was crying as she spoke and the two boys clung tighter as tears spilled down the woman’s face.
Jonathan resisted the need to bolt. He wasn’t comfortable in the face of this much emotion or suffering. “Look, maybe I should call a nurse or something,” he said awkwardly, already backing from the room.
