Page 141 of It Happened on a Sunday
“How soon will we know—” I start.
Before the paramedic can answer, Sloane gasps for breath, her entire body coming off the ground with the force of it.
Chapter 61
Sly
The next twenty minutes are a nightmare.
The paramedics take off with Sloane, with Marco riding along for security while Marquis, Pauline, and I follow. We lose them on the freeway, but Marco texts to make sure we know he’s waiting for us at the ambulance bay doors. When Marquis pulls around to drop us off, I see the ER entrance is packed with paparazzi.
Not for the first time since I started dating Sloane, I wonder just how many reporters Austin actually has. They sure seem to come out of the woodwork the second she’s around.
I spot Marco as soon as we pull into the alcove. Hospital security is out in full force, keeping reporters away from the area. They head toward us, motioning for Marquis to roll down his tinted window.
“You can’t be here—” the guard starts. But as soon as she looks inside and sees us, she backs off.
“Go ahead,” she tells Marquis. Then she looks over at Pauline and me. “I hope Sloane’s okay. I’ve always thought she was amazing.”
“More amazing than you know,” Pauline tells her, and I have to bite back a sob.
And then we’re driving into the ambulance bay, toward Marco. One glimpse of his face and I know something’s wrong. Terror skates down my spine as I throw open the door before Marquis has even come to a complete stop.
“How is she?” I demand as he shepherds us inside and away from prying eyes—or at least as away as we can be in a publichospital.
Marco shoves a shaky hand through his hair. “She crashed in the rig, man. The doctors are working on her right now, but—”
“What do you mean she crashed?” Pauline asks from several feet away. I glance at her and realize that, for the first time tonight, she actually looks her age. Her cheeks are gaunt, her eyes hollow, and she’s stooped forward like the events of the last hour are a physical weight on her shoulders.
“The Narcan reversed the effect of whatever was in her system—”
“Sloane doesn’t do drugs!” Pauline snaps. “We all know that.”
“Of course we do. But Narcan wouldn’t have worked if there wasn’tsomethingin her system,” Marco says gently. “I’ve already got G trying to get all the tapes from the venue. We were there, but we could have missed something.”
“Missed something?” I ask as his words sink in and the world as I know it shifts on its axis. “Or missedsomeone? You think her stalker was at the party tonight? You think they did this?”
“I don’t know,” he answers with a shake of his head. “But I do know Sloane was only out of my sight for five minutes tonight, when she went to the bathroom. And yeah, that’s the logical place for her to have taken something, but I’m with Pauline. In the ten years I’ve worked for Sloane, including during and right after Jarrod, she’s never used drugs. I don’t accept that she suddenly decided to pop a handful of little pink pills at your team party. It makes no sense.”
“Wait a minute,” I say as his words strike a familiar chord inside me. I’m not sure what it is yet or why it hits me as important, but it does. “How do you know they were pink pills?”
“Oh, I don’t.” He waves me off. “I’m assuming oxycodone because that’s the easiest way to administer a large dose quickly—and they come in all kinds of colors. White, blue, green. But pink is the twenty-milligram dose, which is one of the mostpopular. Either that or she was slipped a roofie or something else dusted with fentanyl. I’m just trying to puzzle things out, but I don’t think we’ll know for sure until the blood tests come back.”
I don’t want to puzzle things out, and I don’t want to wait for the blood tests. I want a doctor to walk up to me right now and tell me that Sloane is okay. And then I want to ask her what happened. Barring that, I want someone back at the party venue to find a smoking gun in the video so I can beat whoever is responsible for this to a bloody pulp.
“When are we going to hear something?” I ask as I start to pace. Considering we’re currently hiding out in a very tight little hallway, the movement doesn’t do much to relieve my anxiety. Then again, I don’t think there’s anything in the world that will. At least not until I see Sloane awake and smiling up at me again.
Marco shrugs. “I guess when the doctors are done working on her.”
It’s not exactly what I would call a comforting response when each second is ticking by like a countdown to something I don’t want to name.
Finally, after I’ve watched the large black-and-white clock directly across from me for exactly twenty-seven minutes and twelve seconds, a doctor walks into our little hidey-hole.
One look at her grim face tells me there’s no comfort to be had. Not now and maybe not ever.
“How is she?” Marco asks before I can figure out how to make my mouth work.
“She’s holding her own. The Narcan reversed whatever was in her system—we’ll have labs back soon to confirm. But the CT scan showed a small bleed near her brain, which is what caused her to lose consciousness.”
