Part 20 (1/2)
Meredith glared at both of us. He did that a lot, too. ”Why don't you just admit you tried to poison me?”
”Me?” I hoped I looked as surprised by the accusation as I felt. ”I was sleeping. What's been happening?”
”Someone tried to poison me! That stuff was in the bottle of whiskey I brought up to bed with me. I d.a.m.ned near barfed my guts up. I could have been killed!”
”It's an emetic. I think all it can do is make you vomit,” Adam said with such calmness I couldn't help giving him a little smile. He acknowledged it with a brief nod.
”You take enough of anything, and it'll kill you,” Meredith said darkly, his face flushed. ”Someone here tried to kill me, dammit! I demand you do something!”
”What would you suggest?” Adam asked, pocketing the ipecac.
”You're the police! Do your job! Figure out who tried to kill me, and turn 'em over to the real cops!”
”I don't deny that someone somewhere may want to poison you, but why would you imagine one of us would want to do so now?” I asked, waving my hands around at everyone gathered in the hallway. Savannah, strangely silent, stood with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Antony stood next to her, wearing a minuscule pair of fishnet briefs, while Jules was clad in scarlet silk pajamas that made my mouth water. Amanita peeped out every now and again from her slightly opened door. ”We're trapped here for another four hours or so. It doesn't make sense that anyone would be so stupid as to attack you now.”
Meredith's mouth opened and shut a couple of times while he tried to work up an answer. Finally, he sputtered, ”I know what I know, and I know that someone tried to poison me!”
Some peacekeeping urge drove me to try to point out the ill reasoning of that statement. ”You were fine when you went upstairs, right?”
Grudgingly, he admitted that was so.
”Have you been drinking the last few hours, or did you go to sleep?”
”Not that it's any of your d.a.m.ned business, but I dozed on and off a bit. I woke up a few minutes ago, puking all over myself.”
”Ew!” Pixie said softly.
”Which means that the whiskey couldn't have been poisoned while it was downstairs,” I said, yawning. ”I think you'll find everyone was asleep for the last couple of hours. I was upstairs, in a room with Pixie all night.”
”I slept on the chair! We weren't in bed together!” she said quickly, brows pulled tight in her perpetual scowl.
”My father roomed with Jules and Tony, right?”
The three of them nodded. Dad, who had the most innocent expression on his face, trailed apports.
”Oh yes, he was with us,” Tony said. ”He slept on the divan in our room.
We wanted him to take our bed, but he wouldn't hear of it.”
”No reason to put anyone out,” Dad said quickly with a weak smile. I turned a look on him that had the smile melting away to nothing.
”I was alone,” Savannah said slowly. ”But I was sleeping. All this has been so trying...” Her hands fluttered for a moment, then dropped.
”After you puke your guts up because someone has attempted to poison you, then we'll talk about what so trying is,” her husband replied before narrowing his eyes at Adam. ”And just where were you?”
”Sleeping.” Adam's face gave nothing away.
”Sleeping where? Isn't that your room she came out of?” Meredith asked, pointing at Savannah.
”Yes.”
Meredith swaggered over to Adam, or swaggered as best someone who'd just spent a session praying to the porcelain G.o.d could. ”So just where were you?”
A click had us all turning to look at Amanita's door. Speculation was rife in everyone's eyes as we looked back at Adam.
His color was high, as if he was blus.h.i.+ng. ”My whereabouts aren't a concern, since I didn't put ipecac in your drink. In fact, I'm inclined to believe no one did...No one but you, that is.”
”Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! If I wanted to kill myself, I'd sure as h.e.l.l have a nicer way of doing it than poisoning!”
”I agree. Which makes it clear to me that this so-called poisoning was really an attempt at gaining pity. No doubt you thought to avert suspicion on yourself by making it seem like the murderer was attacking you.”
”And I say you all did this together! You've set me up as a scapegoat, and now you're trying to get rid of me before the police prove just how trumped up and ridiculous the evidence is against me! Well, no more! I'm not going to eat or drink anything else in this madhouse until the police come to rescue me!”
Meredith shoved Adam aside, stomped through the bathroom to the door adjoining his room, and slammed it without a backward glance at us.
I pinned my father back with a look. ”I'd like to have a word with you, Dad.”
”No time now,” he said, whisking past me toward the main stairs. ”I promised Jules I'd make my world-famous bacon omelet. Must get started.”
I grabbed his arm before he could get out of reach, spinning him around and pus.h.i.+ng him toward the smaller flight of stairs, leading upward. ”I would like a word.”
”Karma! I am your father! There is no need for you to manhandle me in this fas.h.i.+on!”
”Oh, I think there's every need,” I said, pus.h.i.+ng him into my room. To my surprise, Pixie, Adam, and Savannah followed us.
”Oooh, pretty,” Savannah said, picking up something from the floor. She held out her hand. A couple of my dad's apports lay on it next to two s.h.i.+ny black stones. ”Is it hemat.i.te?”
”No. Those are from Pixie. Er...Misericordia.” I raised both eyebrows at my father. I knew the signs, knew he wouldn't be able to stand my unwavering stare for long.
My room was small to begin with, and now, filled with people, the s.p.a.ce in which he could move was nonexistent. He tried to pace, tried to avoid my persistent stare, but it was no good, and he knew it. With a small cry, he finally collapsed onto the bed, his hands covering his eyes. ”All right! You win! Now let me get out of here before I go crazy!”
”Not until you answer a couple of questions.” I glanced at Adam. He looked confused for a moment; then his eyes widened with comprehension.
”Why did you try to poison Meredith?”
”What makes you think I'm the one who ...” Dad took one look at me and slumped into a miserable blob of polter. ”I wasn't trying to poison him. I just wanted to make him a little sick. You can't kill someone with ipecac. If I had wanted to kill him, I certainly would have used something else.”
There was that. The way Meredith had been slugging back the whiskey, it would have been laughably easy for Dad to slip something a little less benign into his gla.s.s while he was napping.
”He has a point, d.a.m.n him,” Adam said to me.
I nodded. ”All right, I'm willing to absolve you from attempted murder, but that doesn't excuse you for poisoning Meredith's drink with ipecac.”
”He deserved it,” Dad answered with a sullen look on his face.
”He deserves a lot more, but that's not the issue.” I remembered too late that Savannah was in the room and, while apparently on the outs with her husband, probably didn't appreciate the plain speaking going on. ”I'm sorry to have to say that in front of you, Savannah.”
She shrugged. ”I see now that it's true. The scales have fallen from my eyes with regards to Meredith. He's not the man I married. He's...changed. And I don't like it.”
”That seems to happen a lot to people,” I said, thinking of the way Spider had changed the last few years. ”Still, it was wrong of me to say that so abruptly, and wrong for my father to get his jollies at your husband's expense.”