Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1) (33 page)

"You're awake and talking," she exclaimed, as if the two actions together were unheard of. "Doctor Troost," she called over her shoulder. "Miss Scott's alert."

A lean, balding doctor joined the nurse by her bed and studied her through his spectacles. "How are you feeling?" he asked with a faint Dutch accent.

Maddy queried her body. "Fine," she decided. "My ankle hurts a little."

"It's a sprain, nothing serious. We were more concerned with your paralysis and stabilizing your vitals." He flicked a glanced at the heart monitor. Took a penlight from his pocket and shone it in her eyes. "Make a fist for me?" he requested.

Maddy did as he requested, using the hand that wasn't attached to the IV tube. "What happened to me?" she asked. "Where's Sam?"

The doctor looked up. "Your boyfriend's in the waiting room. Only family are permitted in the ER. After we transfer you to a regular room, he may join you." His grave, puzzled expression kept her from drawing a full breath as she waited for him to answer her first question. "It appears that you were poisoned, Miss Scott," he added, not mincing his words.

"Poisoned?" Maddy's thoughts went straight to the glass of wine her uncle had insisted she drink. Her instincts had been right.

"By a plant that grows in the Amazon—
cojungali.
When consumed, chemicals in
cojungali
block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, required by your nerve cells if you're to control the actions of your muscles. You're extremely fortunate that I am familiar with this poison from time I spent with the Amazon Conservation Team."

Interest licked through her—she would love to ask him more about his experience.

"And even luckier for you, I also know the antidote, an enzyme that destroys the protein blocking the neurotransmitter. In a North American hospital, your symptoms would have been treated, but the poison would have continued to attack your nervous system, eventually killing you."

The enormity of the doctor's words tore through Maddy's consciousness like the shockwaves of an earthquake. "I'd be dead right now," she reiterated, thinking of how both Sam and her father would have reacted to her unexpected death. It was never more apparent that her mother's spirit had saved her again, connecting her with the one doctor who recognized her symptoms and suspected the true cause. Tears of profound gratitude rushed into Maddy's eyes.

"I'm required by law to inform the police," Dr. Troost added, sobering her instantly.

She huffed out a bitter laugh. "The FBI's already investigating the man who most likely did this," she admitted. In the next few minutes, she sketched for the doctor an embarrassing account of her family drama.

A phone conversation with her father the day before had informed her and Sam that Paul Van Slyke had disappeared from Paraguay by the time Lyle Scott showed up at his mansion in Mariscal Estigarribia. Interpol had pounced on him when he'd arrived at customs in Switzerland, but without corroborating proof of any wrongdoing, no confession on Paul's part, and Elliot Koch nowhere to be found, the FBI had instructed Interpol to let him go. By the time Maddy finished her explanation, Dr. Troost's eyebrows had risen to where his hairline ought to have been.

"I see," he said faintly. "You will still have to explain all this to the police when they come visit you."

Whatever,
Maddy thought. "Can I see Sam?" she pleaded.

"As soon as you are moved to a private room. I'll clear you for transfer shortly," he promised. Picking up a clipboard from the end of her bed, he checked his way through it, paused and looked up. "Is there any chance you could be pregnant, Miss Scott?"

The question caught Maddy off guard. The memory of making love with Sam those first two times brought a flood of heat to her cheeks. They'd both been too enraptured with each other, too caught up in the moment to think about safe sex. Ever since then, Sam had been scrupulous about using a condom. "I don't... think so," she slowly replied.

Keen blue eyes probed her uncertain expression. "Your HCG levels are normal," he informed her, "which suggests that you're not, but perhaps it's too soon to tell. Should you find yourself pregnant, I would advise you to abort," he added gently. "There's no telling how the neurotoxin might have affected an embryo."

Maddy swallowed against a dry throat. "I'm sure I'm not," she told him quickly. Sorrow swamped her at the thought of having to abort a baby conceived in love.

"Very well. It was remarkable to meet you," Dr. Troost added, extending a handshake. "I have this strange feeling it was meant to be."

"I know it was," Maddy said with certainty.

"Good luck finding your uncle," he added. "Here is my card," he added, slipping her a business card from the pocket of his white coat. "You may share it with law enforcement personnel should they require a statement or copies of your medical files. I'd be happy to testify on your behalf."

Maddy glanced down noting his email address. "Thank you, doctor. Perhaps I could ask you more about your experience with the Amazon Conservation Team? I'm a conservationist myself, working with the Global Environmental Fund."

"Are you, now?" he exclaimed, becoming less stiff and more relaxed by the moment.

They chatted for several more minutes until an orderly appeared to wheel her out of the ER and down a hall into an elevator. Maddy caught a glimpse of Sam behind a wall of glass. "Oh, there's my... boyfriend," she said, the words sounding strange to her ears. She pointed him out to the orderly. "Please get him for me."

"It's against hospital regulations, lady," said the orderly kindly. "The doctor will tell him in a moment where to find you."

* * *

"Sam!"

Sam lifted his face out of his hands, wondering if he was hearing voices. He'd been lost in thought, praying every prayer he could remember from his childhood and reliving the gut-wrenching helplessness he'd experienced from the moment he'd seen Maddy being dragged by her horse.

The guide and a representative from the horse-riding tour had helped him transfer Maddy's limp body into a four-wheel drive vehicle. They'd raced to the only hospital on the island, seven miles away. Every second of that ride, Sam had clung to Maddy's hand and begged her to hang on.

A vision of Lyle Scott bursting into the ER's waiting room brought him back to the present. The billionaire looked even more careworn and rumpled than the last time Sam had seen him in the Marriott lobby in Asunción. The tail of his light-weight cotton shirt was untucked. His fair skin had been burned by the sun; his hair was windblown. Sam pushed to his feet to greet him.

"Where is she?" Maddy's father demanded, not bothering to shake Sam's hand or embrace him as he had in the past. "Where's Maddy?"

Sam glanced at his watch, though the sky's pink hue outside the windows had already informed him how much time had passed. "She's still in the ER. I brought her in about five hours ago," he conveyed, too worried to feign optimism for her father's sake. "They won't let me see her."

"Well, that's about to change," Scott growled, turning toward the check-in desk.

Just then, a gaunt doctor with intelligent blue eyes that shone behind his spectacles approached them. "I'm Dr. Troost," he said with a hint of an accent. "You're both here for Madison Scott?" He looked them each in the eye.

"Yes," said her father before Sam could speak. "How is she?"

"Recovered," said the doctor simply. "At first I thought her a victim of sarin poisoning, but the symptoms were slightly different. I'd seen something similar in my work in the Amazon."

Sam's incredulity rose as he heard the doctor say that she'd been poisoned by a plant unique to South America. Luckily, the antidote to the poison was a simple enzyme, one that reversed the effects immediately. Relief turned Sam's bones to liquid, making it hard for him to stay standing.

"She will need to be monitored another twenty-four hours, but she appears fully recovered," the doctor added into their stunned silence.

"Poison," Lyle finally repeated, clearly as shocked and dumbfounded as Sam was.

"She said something about her uncle forcing her to drink some wine?" One of the doctor's eyebrows rose over the other.

Lyle looked at Sam, his eyes wide with remorse. "She mentioned the possibility back in Asunción, remember? None of us took her seriously."

"Because she said she didn't drink any," Sam recalled. "Apparently, she did. Why didn't we see any signs of this earlier?" he asked the doctor.

Troost grimaced. "The poison has a delayed response," he explained. "It takes a day or two to affect the nervous system. If she consumed very little, it would have taken even longer. Still, without the antidote, her heart may eventually have stopped beating. She is lucky to be alive."

"My God," Lyle Scott exclaimed, putting his hands to his pale face.

"She's in room 213. You may visit her now." The doctor gestured to the elevator.

"Thank you." Lyle spared a second to pump the doctor's hand before charging toward the elevator. Sam followed on his heels, his knees still distinctly squishy.

Her heart may eventually have stopped beating.

Shock seeped into his bloodstream, forcing him to lean against the elevator wall as he went suddenly lightheaded. Over the ringing in his ears, he could hear Lyle Scott's ragged breathing. The man was having as hard a time digesting the news as he was. He regarded him sidelong. "I'm sorry," he started to say.

"This should never have happened," Lyle said at the same time.

While Sam knew none of this was his fault, and while Lyle's comment hadn't been directed at him, guilt burned a hole in his gut. He felt as though he'd let her father down.

Room 213 stood across from the elevator. Lyle gave a swift knock before pushing his way inside. Sam followed more slowly.

"Daddy!"

He hung back, giving father and daughter time to reunite—
again
. This was starting to be a trend.

Maddy looked none the worse for wear, though she now wore a hospital gown in lieu of the bikini that had driven him wild for what it didn't reveal. Under the gown, she had to be wearing a heart monitor because he could see her heartbeat blipping on a device mounted to a shelf behind her. Her tangled hair was still probably full of sand. Christ, he'd never get over the shock of seeing her being dragged by her horse, as limp as a ragdoll.

She clung to her father, patting him consolingly on the back as he clung to her, white-knuckled, clearly fighting to keep his composure. "It's okay, Daddy. I'm okay," she crooned.

Catching Sam's eye as he lingered near the door, she sent him a smile that warmed him clear to his toes and compelled him to shuffle closer. "Sam, I'm so sorry," she apologized, taking the blame for what had happened. "It must have been the wine at Uncle Paul's. I only had a sip or two at most."

"That son of a bitch," Lyle railed, pulling his haggard face from Maddy's shoulder standing at his full height. Sam could see him trembling suppressed rage. "I swear to God I'm going to make him pay for this!"

"Can't we get him on attempted murder now?" Maddy asked. "It's obvious he tried to kill me."

Lyle shrugged and shook his head. "Only how do we prove it was the wine? You could have ingested poison by eating something here that was tainted." He glanced in Sam's direction causing Sam's gut to tighten reflexively.

"What evidence do we have so far?" Maddy asked.

Lyle Scott visibly reined himself in. "No, no. We're not going to talk about this now." He patted her hand. His gaze swung to the heart monitor pulsing quietly and steadily. "You've just been through hell, honey. The doctor said your heart could have stopped."

"It's been beating funny for days now," she admitted, glancing guiltily at Sam, whose jaw muscles jumped as he clenched his teeth. "I didn't want to alarm anyone, but I started having symptoms the night Ricardo pulled me out of Uncle Paul's house." She looked back at her father. "Why don't you have a seat and we'll discuss what you've found."

Lyle heaved a sigh then went to collapse into the arm chair. Sam sat on the end of Maddy's bed, unable to tear his gaze from her beloved face, still reeling at the thought of her heart stopping. He laid a hand on her knee, which was covered with a blanket. Every inch of her body was now branded in his memory. He knew every freckle, every small scar, every pleasure point.

"Elliot Koch's body was found just this morning," Lyle Scott announced, wresting Sam's attention back to him. "It was lying in an alley behind that bar in town,
La Cantina
. No evidence of foul play. The coroner thinks he had a heart attack."

"That's terrible," Maddy murmured.

"Especially since the FBI was counting on him to inform against Paul, and now he can't," her father added grimly. "According to witnesses, he'd been hanging around town, cursing Paul for giving him the sack."

"Why would Uncle Paul fire him now?" Maddy mused.

Lyle turned his gaze on Sam. "When you retrieved Maddy from Paul's home that night, he must have guessed our suspicions. Maybe he realized that you recognized his bodyguard from the night he tried to shoot me."

Sam thought back and nodded. "That's distinctly possible. He caught me staring at Elliot when he met with my task unit to discuss the explosion. But I can't believe Elliot actually died of a heart attack. That doesn't sound right." The wrestler had been too active, too young to succumb to a heart attack. Another alternative occurred to him and, in light of what had just happened to Maddy, it made perfect sense. "What if he was poisoned, the same way Maddy was?"