"Currently on with 911," someone called back. “They’re en route.”
I crouched down at the edge of the little cleared space, close enough to see, not so close that I'd be in the way.
Which was probably me just being delusional. I’m sure the doctor would have preferred everyone take at least a dozen giant steps back. Or maybe he didn’t care.
At any rate, there was a thin trail of something at the corner of Evelyn's mouth. I'd assumed it was saliva, but the porch lights caught it wrong, or right, and I saw it wasn't clear fluid.
It was pink. Watery, but pink, streaked faintly down toward her jaw.
Blood. Or blood mixed with something.
Yikes. That couldn’t be a sign of anything good.
It wasn’t active bleeding or coughing. Nothing dramatic. Just a thin line that made my stomach drop somewhere around my heels, because I was pretty sure that wasn’t indicative of a stroke or a heart attack. You know, with all my medical expertise. But after four years of co-hosting a true crime podcast you pick up a thing or two.
Out of instinct, I looked around for the straw.
It had rolled a few inches away from Evelyn’s hand, glinting in the light of the exterior garden lights. The silver straw was etched with the same delicate vine pattern as the cup, which was lying on its side a few feet away, ice melting into a dark stain on the flagstone.
The straw wasn't straight.
It should have been. It was a straw with a singular purpose. One job, be a tube. But there was a slight, almost imperceptible kink about a third of the way down, like it had been bent and then not quite bent back. Had it looked like that before?
Maybe. I wasn’t sure. There’d been no reason to study a straw closely. Half of it had been inside the cup anyway. So maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe a family heirloom would have imperfections. Dings and dents.
Yet the tip looked wrong too, though I couldn't have told you why if you held my skunk hostage. Just a little too narrow, maybe, or catching the light strangely, like there was something at the end of it that shouldn't be there.
Taylor's boot had come down near it during the fall. I wondered if he'd stepped on it and that’s why he had fallen. That would also have explained the kink.
I was building a mystery out of a man three mint juleps deep tripping over his own dress shoes.
"Ma'am, I need you to back up," one of the tuxedoed men said to me, not unkindly, and I realized I'd drifted closer than I meant to.
"Sorry." I stood, one foot slipping out of my shoe. Dancing a little on the opposite foot, I crammed the heel back on. "Sorry, I just wanted to know if she is going to be okay."
Nobody answered me, which was an answer in itself.
“Unless you’re family, I need you to back up,” the doctor told me. “And make yourself useful and get these people off the terrace and onto the lawn.”
“Of course.” I could be useful. I was an innkeeper and newly adept at herding humans.
Straightening my shoulders back, I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Evelyn is being well cared for by a doctor and the ambulance is on its way. The doctor has kindly asked that we all exit the terrace and head onto the lawn. If anyone would like to depart the event, please wait until after the emergency vehicle has arrived.”
I did my best arm-swooping motions, gesturing for everyone to move off of the stone. It seemed like if I just got really close to people they instinctively stepped back. No one wanted their personal space invaded by the woman flapping her arms like a bird. Or an overly enthusiastic flight attendant.
The sirens were already coming closer and a few minutes later the ambulance swung into the circular driveway of the mansion. Two EMTs came around the side of the house at a jog, kits swinging, and the doctor rattled off vitals in a clipped, efficient voice. He sounded nothing like the man who'd been eating deviled eggs and complaining about his backhand twenty minutes earlier.
I heard fragments of his report. Unresponsive. Pupils. Respiratory.
And then, low, as if he didn’t want to be overheard, “You might want to have narcan ready. I don't love the presentation, but I'd rather you have it out and not need it."
One of the EMTs, a young guy with a shaved head, looked at him. "You think?—"
"I don't think anything yet. I'm covering bases." His jaw was tight. "Depressed respiration, pinpoint response, that thin discharge. It's not textbook for anything else I can think of standing on a lawn in the dark."
It was at that moment that he glanced over and realized I’d gotten everyone else off of the terrace but myself. I was hovering. Listening. Being what to his eyes probably appeared to be just plain nosy.
“Get on back in the house,” he told me sharply.
