Mission: Impossible to Deny (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 7), Jacki Delecki [polar express read aloud .TXT] 📗

After fake promises to not let as much time lapse before the next meeting, she and Reeves went outside where she could take a deep breath. The air in the office had been stifling, or maybe it was the mathematics snooze fest, or maybe it was the fact that she kept waiting for cockroaches to crawl out of one of the containers.

Reeves leaned on her as they walked side by side down the sidewalk.

“Knock it off. No need to keep playing the devoted boyfriend. You’re lucky I don’t kick your butt for saying that BS about wanting little Reeveses.”

Reeves weaved against her, almost knocking her off her feet.

She grabbed his arm to support him. His face was pale, and his pupils dilated.

“The scotch just hit me.” His words were garbled.

His eyes rolled backward before he passed out and fell against her. She struggled but couldn’t hold him upright. She lowered him onto the sidewalk and removed his shoulder bag for comfort, and then his entire body twitched in uncoordinated spasms. His eyes were open but unaware. Frothy white foam formed around his mouth. My God, he was having a seizure.

“Help me. Call 911!” Darcy shouted out to a young woman with a backpack texting. The student stopped walking and immediately dialed her phone.

Darcy checked his pulse. It was racing. She didn’t know if Reeves had a seizure disorder or he had been poisoned. Either way, he needed immediate medical attention. Now. She knelt next to him and lifted his head onto her lap to prevent him from injuring himself on the cement. She knew enough not to put anything in his mouth or try to restrain him, but that was it for the emergency care. “Stay with me, Reeves. I’m going to get you to the hospital.”

Darcy sorted through the possible ways Reeves could have ingested poison. He hadn’t been in contact with anyone except the chief of police and the professor to have absorbed the poison through his skin. And they both ate the same breakfast on the flight. It had to be in the scotch. That was the only difference in their experiences and intake.

“The ambulance is less than five minutes away.” The student stood over them. “What can I do to help?”

Reeves’s muscles suddenly tightened, throwing his head hard against her lap. His breathing changed to rapid and shallow, his eyes vacant. Terror filled her lungs, making it hard to take in air as she helplessly watched him suffer through another seizure. There was nothing she could do to stop the seizures. She hated feeling that way. She texted Nick Jenkins to ask about Reeves’s medical conditions. With their deep investigation into him, she never saw any medical problems.

Her entire being tightened, adrenaline shooting through her with a need to act. He would not die on her watch. Time slowed as she waited in agony for the seizure to stop, knowing not to interfere unless he stopped breathing.

“University Hospital is less than a mile away. They’ll be here soon.” The concerned student, like Darcy, was powerless to intervene.

She silently prayed when she heard the sirens. Please, God, let him live. She couldn’t lose him when she just discovered how wonderful he was.

Two medics rushed toward her, pushing a gurney. The taller one asked questions as they lifted an unconscious Reeves onto the stretcher. Darcy’s ignorance of Reeves’s medical history was abominable. She passed Jenkins’s contact info. They’d be able to sort it out.

Darcy’s knees buckled when she stood. Now that the seizure had stopped, he lay still on the gurney, which was as frightening as the spasms. The energetic man lifeless was more terrifying than any firefight in Afghanistan. His calm state might be a good sign that the seizures had stopped. But if he had been poisoned, he could be going into heart failure as Tex had.

Both medics worked in harmony in the small space. The shorter attendant put an oxygen mask on Reeves as the taller man hooked him up to monitors and attached a blood pressure cuff.

“Is he going into heart failure?”

The taller one jerked his head up from shining a light into Reeves’s pupils. “He’s stable.”

“Where are you taking him? I want to follow you to the hospital.”

“To University Hospital.”

She flashed her badge. “There is a chance that he has been poisoned. You need to run blood tests immediately. And keep your guard up.”

And with a nod from the man who seemed to be in charge, he closed the doors.

Darcy’s heart constricted in fear and pain from the separation from Reeves.

She ran the fifty yards to the SUV. Jumping into the vehicle, she threw the car into reverse. Never losing sight of the ambulance, she sped down the campus street. She reached for her phone in her purse and hit speed dial for her team.

“Hewitt is down. He had a seizure after our meeting with Wainwright. Not sure if it is poison or if he has a seizure disorder. I’m headed to the hospital. Notify the director and Nick Jenkins. Tell Jenkins to meet me at the Stanford Hospital and to get someone to Wainwright’s office. I’m following the ambulance now.”

Had Wainwright poisoned Reeves? She had watched the professor pour the scotch from the container into the glasses. He didn’t have an opportunity to poison Reeves’s drink. The only conclusion was that both men had been poisoned. She had no clear motive for an attack on the professor except from his link to Reeves and the other men.

She sped up as she raced through the intersection to avoid being stuck at a red light. She didn’t see the SUV coming at her until it was too late. He slammed into her, hitting her with such velocity that her car spun in the opposite direction as her head ricocheted off the airbag and then slammed into the headrest from the impact.

She fought the blackness sneaking into her periphery. Her last thought was that she had failed to protect Reeves.

Chapter Eleven

Darcy squinted, trying to