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Chapter22
LANDON
“I need answers, Mr. Sweet. Harper is not one to lick furniture and talk to appliances.”
Well, there’s a sentence he’d never expected to utter.
This day had taken a turn he sure as hell hadn’t expected, and he had to know what he was dealing with.
There was too much at stake, and he doubted that the woman who’d kissed her toaster goodbye was in the appropriate state of mind to be in it to win it.
Schuman Sweet had some explaining to do.
He glanced at the man seated in the passenger seat as they traveled the city streets.
“This is not Harper. She doesn’t commune with can openers. She’s a get-in-your-face and tell-you-where-you-can-shove-it kind of woman.”
Schuman Sweet chuckled. “She’s been like that since she was a little girl.”
He didn’t doubt it, but this wasn’t the time to trade Harper stories. “What’s happened to her? Why is she acting like she’s lost her mind? What is in those lollipops?” he pressed, lowering his voice. He checked the rearview mirror to confirm his wife was still breathing in the back seat. Harper sat stock-still and gazed at her left hand like it was made of bonbons—which she might believe it was.
Still, despite the bizarro behavior, she appeared rather content.
Schuman drummed his fingers on the plastic container that held the penis competition cookies.
Penis competition cookies.
And there was another string of words he’d never imagined putting together.
“Should we head to the hospital?”
“No, she doesn’t need a hospital,” Mr. Sweet answered. “For all intents and purposes, she’s fine. She’s simply in an altered state.”
He checked the mirror again and found Harper trying to touch her tongue to the tip of her nose. “I need more information than that, sir.”
Schuman nodded. The guy appeared pretty damned chill for dropping theyour wife is in an altered statebomb. “Harper ingested an edible candy infused with fungi,” the man continued.
“Fungi?”
“Fungi,” Schuman repeated.
“Mushrooms?”
“Yes,” the baker agreed.
And now, his wife’s behavior made sense. “The lollipops contained mushrooms, and I’m guessing they’re not the kind of fungi mushrooms you pick up at the grocery store and sauté with garlic as a side dish.”
“Correct, Mr. Paige.”
“Harper’s on shrooms?”
The old man cringed. “That’s such a derogatory term. But yes, those weren’t Portobello mushrooms mixed into the lollipops. She’s been exposed to a micro-dose of psilocybin—possibly a bit more than a micro-dose, thanks to how many lollipops she consumed,” he replied, then pointed to the traffic light. “It’s green, Mr. Paige. You should go before people start honking.”
“Call me Landon,” he said, blowing out a tight breath. This was no time to adhere to niceties. His wife was macro-tripping on magic-mushroom lollipops, and they were about to be in front of cameras.
Drivers honking at him were the least of his problems.
He turned his attention to the road and hit the gas.
