Annie was too angry to risk an answer. Without a word, she rose and walked away. And when the train arrived, she chose a seat next to a portly gentleman who smelled of garlic and cigars, so Delia could not sit beside her.
Chapter Five
The ancient Chinese sailors who used ginger to prevent seasickness were right. Ginger’s antinausea action relieves motion sickness and dizziness (vertigo) better than the standard drug treatment, Dramamine, according to one study published in the British medical journal Lancet . . . In addition to motion sickness, the researchers recommended ginger capsules, ginger tea, or ginger ale for the morning sickness of pregnancy. Some doctors now recommend it for nausea associated with chemotherapy.
The Healing Herbs,
Michael Castleman
I didn’t sleep very well that night. In my dreams, I was back in that dark storeroom, the scent of lavender heavy around me. I was searching for something—what it was, I had no idea—pawing futilely through mountains of boxes and bins and piles of newspaper. I tossed and turned until Winchester abandoned the foot of the bed and McQuaid shook me awake to tell me that I was having a bad dream. When I finally woke a little after six, a haunting fragment of the Scottish melody I’d heard in the storeroom was running through my head. And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me down and die. As I dressed (my usual shop outfit: jeans, sneakers, and a green Thyme and Seasons T-shirt), I found myself humming it.
Downstairs, I fixed a quick breakfast for McQuaid, Caitie, and the animals. I was on my way out the door, heading for the shop, when I got an anxious telephone call from Connie Page, Sheila’s longtime assistant at the Pecan Springs Police Department.
“China, I just got off the phone with Sheila. She planned to come in early today, but she called to say she’ll be late. She’s been throwing up all night, and she didn’t sound good at all. I’m worried about her. Blackie’s out of town on a case, and I can’t leave the office—we’ve had a couple of crises already, and there’s another one brewing. We can certainly use her here, but if she’s sick, I hope she won’t push herself. Can you stop at her house and see what the situation is?”
Of course I could. And if Sheila had been throwing up, I knew what she needed. I went back in the house and took the last two bottles of my homebrewed ginger ale out of the fridge. Ginger is the best thing for nausea, but the ginger ale you find in grocery stores is either artificially flavored or doesn’t contain enough ginger to get the job done. On the other hand, pregnant women need to be careful when they use ginger, since researchers say that in high doses (2000 or more milligrams a day), it can cause uterine cramping and even miscarriage. I also filled a baggie with dried peppermint from the canister I keep in the kitchen for making tea. There’s more than one way to treat a case of nausea.
Twenty minutes later, I was parking behind Sheila’s black-and-white cop car in the drive at her house on Hickory Street. I went around the back, opened the gate, and saw Rambo, Sheila’s fearsome-looking Rottweiler, sitting on the porch step. Rambo works the day shift in the PSPD’s K-9 Unit (nights, too, when there’s an emergency), so Sheila’s being late to work meant that the Rottie wouldn’t be punching in on time, either.
Rambo scrambled to his feet as I came up the steps, gave an eager welcoming woof, and escorted me to the kitchen door, even pushing a little. Rambo looks like a vicious junkyard dog, and when the occasion demands, he can act like one, too. With bad guys, he is all teeth and threatening snarls, but with friends, he’s a sweetie with exquisite manners. And like all Rotties, he has a very strong sense of responsibility, especially for Sheila’s welfare. Now, he stood beside me, pressing against my knee and whining, his stub of a tail wagging so hard that it wagged his whole rear end. Rambo has been clocked at twenty-five miles an hour and he can clamber up and over a six-foot-high chain-link fence. But while he has many talents, he can’t open a latched door. Obviously, he was asking me to do that for him. I felt a prickle of apprehension.
I knocked several times but didn’t get any answer, and the prickle became an urgent concern. Sheila’s squad car was in the drive, so she was still here. Rambo was outside, so she had gotten up to let him out. She had talked to Connie, as well. So where was she?
I knocked again and gave a loud yoo-hoo, then turned the knob and pushed at the door. It wasn’t locked. “Let’s go in, Big Guy,” I said.
But Rambo didn’t need my permission. He had already shoved past me through the open door, dashed across the kitchen, and was pounding up the stairs.
I found Sheila on the bathroom floor, Rambo frantically licking her face. Half-dressed and barefoot, she was just beginning to come around, and was dazed and only semi-coherent. Normally, she is downright beautiful, tall and willowy, with blond hair that she wears twisted up in a bun, blue eyes, a fetching nose, and full lips. This morning, her hair was down and disheveled, her face was ashen, her eyes barely focusing, her pulse fast and slight. There was a deep cut over her ear and she was bleeding badly. From what I could manage to get out of her, I guessed that she hadn’t been able to keep any meals down the day before and hadn’t kept herself hydrated. She had fainted, fallen, and whacked her head on
