Chapter 42 Tanner
Tanner
Tanner felt like crap. His stomach, scoured and empty, twisted and clenched like a wrung-out dish towel, but it was a slight improvement on the previous eighteen hours.
“I’m fine. I just want to get out of here now.” He tried a winning smile, felt it come far less smoothly than usual, and the doctor’s raised eyebrow showed her lack of conviction. Beneath the sheets, his right knee jiggled.
He was getting sick of these four walls already.
His mom and Henry had visited at lunchtime while Avery got some rest, worry written large across their faces.
Mats and Arlo had arrived shortly after.
But it was Avery he wanted. Avery he needed.
And Tanner hadn’t drawn a proper breath until she’d returned and he could make sure she was OK. Now he wanted to take her home.
“You’ve been extremely lucky, Mr. Stone. You’re fortunate you had a medic on hand who recognized the symptoms of poisoning and called for help.”
At his bedside, Avery gripped his fingers tighter.
“Give me half an hour to write up the paperwork and you’re good to go.” The doctor glanced toward the doorway. “I’ll send your friends through if you’re feeling up to it.”
When she left the room, Avery slumped on the edge of the bed, her cheek pressed to his biceps. The hot slide of a tear trickled over Tanner’s skin and it wrecked him.
“Hey, you heard her. I’m fine. We were lucky.”
“I was so scared,” she whispered.
Bel peered around the door, Drew and Gemma following her into the room. She draped herself gently around Avery’s neck.
“You OK, babe?” she asked.
Avery nodded and Tanner watched her throat bobble as she swallowed. She looked thoroughly shaken.
Dropping onto a small two-seater couch by the window, Drew crossed his feet at the ankle. “We thought you might need a ride home.”
“Thanks, man. We’re just waiting for the release.” Tanner wasn’t only grateful for the offer. “And thanks for the swift diagnosis. I owe you.”
“All part of the job.” Drew passed it off with a tight smile, far more serious than usual.
Bel’s gaze took in the surroundings. “This is pretty swish but it’s still a hospital. Let’s get you out of here as soon as we can.”
With just over a week until he’d be back for his shoulder surgery, Tanner had no desire to draw out the stay.
“I brought you this.” Gemma handed him a huge, folded card with “Get Well Soon” emblazoned on the front, bedazzled with foil lettering, plastic gems, and glitter pen.
She shrugged under everyone’s scrutiny and scrubbed at puffy eyes.
“When you teach five- and six-year-olds, there’s always a lot of crafting stuff lying around. ”
“You look as rough as I do,” said Tanner, and maybe it was a bit blunt, but she really did.
Gemma sniffed. “I’ve run out of eye drops.”
“Didn’t manage to get any yesterday?” Avery asked.
“I . . . No—” Gemma ducked her chin and searched her pockets for a Kleenex. “They were all out.”
“How’s Leo doing?” Tanner said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and stuffing his feet into his shoes.
“Bounced back, the little shit,” Bel answered. “He thinks you’re just making a big deal of it.”
She was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Chief Martinez in the doorway. Gemma squeaked as he strode with lean grace into the room, nodding a general hello to everyone gathered inside.
“Thought I’d catch you before you left,” he said.
“Your blood and urine tests have come back and the toxin was identified as tetrahydrozoline.” On the couch, Drew pulled himself upright.
“We found it in the hot sauce, not the food. That’s why only three of you were sick.
” Eyeing Tanner with sympathy, the chief’s eyebrows formed solid ridges above charcoal-dark eyes. “You had it worst.”
“Because the fucking stuff flooded my plate,” he growled.
“Avery and Leo were a little more fortunate.” Martinez grunted. “And I’m using that term in the loosest of senses. It was also a good thing the bottle was almost full—it made the contents more diluted.”
“But it’s my sauce, not Tanner’s. That means someone we know got to it either in my house or in his.
” Avery’s thoughts were turning slot-machine fast. Tanner could see it on her face as she picked up on the same thing that had screamed at him the moment the chief mentioned the hot sauce.
Crackles of rage coursed through the nerves in Tanner’s fingers and he clenched them tight.
Martinez ran a hand over the scruff on his jawline and the sliver of a fine scar moved beneath his fingers. “Yes. It was someone close to you.”
“What is tetrahydro-doodah anyway?” asked Bel. “And where can you get it?”
Drew opened his mouth to answer, a fierce expression on his face that Tanner hadn’t seen there before, but the chief beat him to it.
“It’s not actually that difficult,” he said, his mouth set in a hard line, “because it’s commonly found in over-the-counter eye drops.”
“I didn’t mean it!” Wild-eyed and white as a sheet, Gemma wrung her hands as the words burst from her lips. “It was stupid and I didn’t think it through. I just did it . . . and then it was too late to undo it!”
Tanner surged to his feet.
“Gem—?” The name was a broken question on Avery’s lips. “I don’t understand . . .”
“I didn’t know it would make you that sick, I swear.” Gemma shredded the Kleenex in her fist. “Google said—”
“Oh, yeah, it was definitely the fault of the search engine,” snapped Bel, her tiny fists clenched as tight as her teeth. “What the fuck, Gem?!”
Letting the drama play out without intervention, Roman Martinez folded his arms across his chest, every inch of him alert as he made a subtle shift to block the door.
“Why would you do this?” Avery said, her freckles standing out in stark relief on her cheekbones, and Tanner instinctively reached for her hand.
“I was . . . jealous.” Backing up against the window, Gemma clutched at the sill behind her back, her reddened eyes spilling with tears. “I watched Tanner at the Bach Bash and he was gone for you before we got to the second day. It was that easy. And you didn’t even want a relationship!”
“I—” Avery gripped Tanner’s fingers so tightly that her nails bit into his skin, her face gray with the same shock he felt in his battered and tender gut.
“All I wanted was Leo. I’ve wanted him for such a long time.” Gemma’s whisper held a desperate edge. “We have things in common. We’re both teachers. We enjoy walking. We like music and dogs. And it still isn’t enough.”
“Can you not hear how screwed up that is?” Bel’s eyes flashed, melanite dark. “You put Tanner in the hospital because Leo doesn’t mind a hike and is a sucker for a spaniel. That’s not the foundation for a relationship, Gemma. It’s not even the bare bones of a Tinder profile!”
“You three are all so tight, so close together.” Gemma sagged, her shoulders heaving as she wept. “I’ve always been the one tagging along behind, making out I don’t mind being the afterthought.”
“It’s not like that.” Avery’s protest was baffled.
“You’ve read it all wrong.” Bel backed her up.
With a slow shake of her head, Gemma pushed a stray curl off her damp cheek. “When it wasn’t the Avery and Leo Show, it was you two, thick as thieves and completely exclusive.”
“That’s just not true,” Bel said, frustration in the pinched clamp of her mouth.
Martinez intervened, authority coiling around him like wisps of smoke. “And the doll? Will we find you sent that too?” The chief’s voice was encased in ice.
Tanner swore. Fuck, he’d forgotten about the hooker doll!
Everyone’s gaze swung back to Gemma, like a joyless parody of a tennis match.
“No! That wasn’t me—I swear! I only . . .” She trailed off into sobs.
“You only tried to poison us.” Avery’s completion of the sentence was hollow and Tanner tugged her against his chest in a fruitless attempt to take some of her pain. “Did you send the photographs?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed.
“What photographs?” He and Martinez spoke at the same time.
Gemma wrung her hands together. “I don’t know anything about photographs!”
That makes two of us. Tanner ground his teeth.
“I’ll email them to you,” Avery told the chief, exhaustion coating her words. “I got them last night, when I was sick.”
Martinez gave her a nod and stepped forward to take hold of Gemma’s arm. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me to the station.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” It was almost impossible to make out the words as Gemma buried her face in her hands, rivers of snot running from her nose.
And the chief guided her firmly out of the door, leaving a devastated silence behind them in the hospital room.