Page 70 of Nora
She was well aware that Angelo could be using Cesare as means to get her out of her room. But unless he was the killer—which was possible—andhe’d figured out who she was—which wasn’t likely—he had no reason to harm her.
“I took him for a walk, and I didn’t see him eat anything, but he’s vomiting all over. He can’t seem to stop.” Angelo’s voice was frantic on the other side of the door. If there really was something wrong with Cesare, she did need to examine him.
She opened the door partway to find Angelo pacing in a small circle. He stopped and spun when she poked her head out.
“Please, you must come,” he said. Nora had always judged women in horror movies who traipsed off in the dark on their own. And she knew if she were in one now, she’d be shouting at herself to not go. But she didn’t know for certain if Angelo was the killer, and if Cesare really was sick…
There was a middle ground. “Let me get dressed and I’ll be right down,” she said.
“He needs younow!” Angelo said.
“I’m not going to do much good if I don’t have my supplies. Give me two minutes and I’ll be right there.” She didn’t wait for him to reply before shutting the door. Quickly, she dropped her robe and grabbed her coat, hat, and scarf. If Cesare was truly ill, they’d need to get him to the clinic, and the night was bitterly cold. She also grabbed her gun, her vet bag, and her phone. Before stepping into the hall, she sent a quick text to Lucian updating him on the situation and promising to let him know if they left for the clinic.
“Thank you,” Angelo said on a hurried exhale when she stepped from the room. “Come.” He didn’t say anymore, and she followed him down the stairs and to his room. Ten feet from his door, she could smell the vomit. Cesare was definitely sick.
Without hesitation, Angelo threw his door open. Nora’s gaze was drawn to the dog, who lay on the floor panting, his tongue hanging out and his eyes closed. He thumped his tail once at Angelo’s greeting but didn’t otherwise move. The acrid-sweet stench of sick wafted from the room, and Nora knew she couldn’t ignore what was happening. It did not escape her attention that it was possible Angelo had given his dog something to make him so ill. She hoped not, but even if he had, it didn’t change the fact that Cesare still needed her care.
“Can you carry him to the clinic?” she asked.
Angelo nodded and strode over to his dog. Cesare tried to raise his head, but when he saw it was his handler, he laid it back down again. With barely a protest from Cesare, Angelo lifted the dog, and the pair hurried in front of Nora toward the door and the path to the clinic.
Following behind, she pulled her phone out. Unsurprisingly, Lucian had texted to tell her not to go alone if she went to the portable. He had a point. Hoping Ingrid hadn’t turned her ringer off, she sent a quick text to the trainer requesting she join them. Once that was done, she responded to Lucian, telling him Cesare was quite ill and that she’d asked Ingrid to join her.
“It’s late to be texting, no?” Angelo said. His question was a reminder that being out in rural Massachusetts with a man who might be a killer—even if she was on army land—wasn’t the best decision she’d ever made. But she’d hedged her bets as best she could; both Ingrid and Lucian knew where she was and who she was with.
“Lucian,” she replied, wanting him to know she’d been in touch with someone else. “He texted just before you arrived to ask if I wanted him to bring anything back for me.”
He looked at her over his shoulder but didn’t slow his pace. The clinic came into view, and she began mentally preparing her diagnoses and treatment plan. Fluids first, then blood work, and then she’d go from there. So focused on making her plan, she almost missed Angelo’s next question. “You two are close?”
Nora thought it an odd time to ask such a question, but she answered. “As we’ve said, we’ve known each other a long time, and I’m a friend of the family. Yes, we’re close.”
When they reached the stairs, she bounded ahead of Angelo and unlocked the door. Pushing it open, she directed him to the exam room to their left as she turned the heat on. By the time she joined him a few seconds later, Cesare was lying on the cold metal table.
“I’m going to start him with some light fluids. After that, I’ll draw some blood and we’ll see if we can figure out what we’re dealing with,” she said. As she spoke, she pulled a bag of saline and a line from one of the cabinets. A few minutes later, Cesare was hooked up. A few minutes after that, she had the blood drawn.
“The equipment is back there,” she said, gesturing with her head to the far end of the building. “Let me get it started and then I’ll be back to check his vitals and we can talk.”
Angelo rested his hand on Cesare’s head and nodded, looking every bit as distraught as Nora would expect. Still, she wasn’t going to trust him. The door to the room with the equipment didn’t have a lock, but she shut it behind her. It took her a few minutes to get the machine going, and she stayed a few more to make sure the sample was running properly. While she waited, she texted Lucian to give him another update and also let him know she hadn’t heard from Ingrid yet.
He didn’t respond right away, and when she walked out of the room, Angelo was standing where she’d left him. Setting her phone down at the end of the table, she reached for her stethoscope. Slipping it on, she listened to Cesare’s heart.
“His heart rate is depressed. Did you see him eat anything on your walk? Or could he have gotten into anything in your room?” Either would surprise her. K9s trained the way Cesare was trained wouldn’t eat just anything.
Angelo shook his head. “I have some medications, but I checked those, and he didn’t get into them.”
Gently lifting Cesare’s lids with her fingers, Nora used an ophthalmoscope to look in his eyes. They both responded too slowly for her comfort. She’d seen these symptoms before with both viruses and bacterial infections, but she’d never seen them come on so quickly. The blood work would show her if either of those was the case. But given the timeline, something he’d ingested, or perhaps a concussion, was the most likely culprit.
“I’m going to take his temperature and then we’ll go from there,” she said. “I don’t want to treat him with anything other than fluids until we know what the issue is, and it will be forty minutes before we have the blood work results. In the meantime, we can put him into the X-ray.”
Just as she started to turn toward the drawer that held the thermometer, her phone buzzed with a text. Six’s name popped up, along with the first line of her text,“Spoke to the home Angelo lived in…”
She grabbed her phone, hoping Angelo hadn’t seen it, and turned her back to him to read the message.“It wasn’t good,”Six’s message continued.“Call me as soon as you get this.”
“I guess I was right about you,” Angelo said. Adrenaline spiked through her body, but she calmly slipped her phone into her pocket. Then, with no way to pull her weapon without alerting Angelo, she pulled a thermometer from the drawer and faced him again.
Only he was no longer on the other side of the table. He was less than six inches away. She took a step back. Finding him in her space had been a surprise, but more to the point, she wanted room to maneuver should she need to. Angelo would be trained in hand-to-hand combat, but so was she.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked, taking another step away.
