She clucked primarily around the men, encouraging them to eat, until finally Quinlan dropped his fork, sat back in his chair, and groaned. “Martha, any more and God will strike me down for gluttony. Just look at David—his shirt buttons are about to pop off. Even Thomas, who’s skinny, would fill out in no time here with you. Since I’m polite, I won’t refer to how much the women poked down their gullets.”
Sally threw the rest of her garlic bread at him. She turned to a beaming Martha. “You said apple crisp, Martha?”
“Oh, yes, Sally, with lots of French Vanilla ice cream from the World’s Greatest Ice Cream Shop.”
They had coffee with amaretto, a treat from Thelma—who was eating in her room since Quinlan had worn her out earlier with all her talk, or so she claimed according to Martha. Actually, Thelma had to sleep off all that eggplant parmigiana she’d eaten.
After Martha returned to the kitchen, Sally told Thomas Shredder, Corey Harper, and David Mountebank, who had easily been persuaded to return for dinner and another conference, about the cemetery.
Quinlan said, “I called Dillon. Knowing how fast he is, I’ll probably hear back from him tonight. If it’s something weird, I’ll wake all of you up.”
“I don’t know if anyone will be able to wake me up,” David said, as he sipped at his coffee. “Forget the coffee as a stimulant. This is the best Amaretto I’ve ever tasted. I’m already feeling like I want to put on my jammies. I hope my girls don’t try to climb up my body when I get home. With luck, Jane will already have them in bed.”
Sally didn’t say anything. She hated Amaretto, always had. She’d taken one drink, then discreetly poured her coffee into Quinlan’s cup while Corey Harper was telling a story about a guy in training school at Quantico who’d arrested some visiting brass by mistake after a bank robbery in Hogan’s Alley, the fake USA town set up at Quantico for training. The biggest of the brass had thought it a great exercise until one of the trainees had clapped handcuffs on him and hauled him off.
Quinlan promised he would call if Dillon found out anything urgent. But he couldn’t imagine waking up even if the phone rang off the wall.
“I think you’re tipsy,” he told Sally as he held her up with one arm and unlocked the tower room door with the other.
“I’m tipsy?”
“I think Ms. Lilly would get a kick out of seeing you now.”
“Next time I see her, I’ll have to tell her that even though I was tipsy I had your pants off you in record time.”
She was laughing so hard that when she jumped on him, he wrapped his arms around her back and brought her down to the bed, on top of him. He was kissing her, his breath warm with the tart taste of Amaretto.
“For a small favor I won’t tell Martha what you did. You know, pouring your Amaretto in my coffee cup. Now, what’s this about getting my pants off?”
She tried to give him a sultry look. He nearly doubled over laughing. Then she touched him and he groaned, his laughter choking in his throat. His eyes closed, his neck muscles convulsed.
“Jesus,” he said. He began kissing her, his tongue in her mouth, and she loved the feel of him, the taste of him. His hands were on her bottom, strong hands kneading her, pressing her against him. He was hard as the bars on her windows at Beadermeyer’s sanitarium. Oh, God, why had she thought that?
She felt a shiver of cold. No, that was just a horrible memory that belonged in the past. It couldn’t touch her now. She kissed him again. His mouth was slack. He wasn’t so hard now against her belly. He wasn’t rubbing his palms over her buttocks.
She lifted herself on her elbows and stared down at him, preparing to see him wink at her, preparing to have him toss her over onto her back.
“James?”
He smiled vaguely at her, not moving, not winking, nothing. “I’m tired, Sally,” he said, his words soft and slurred. “Aren’t you?”
“Just a bit,” she said, leaned down, and kissed him again. Suddenly he closed his eyes, and his head fell to the side.
“James? James!”
Something was wrong. He wasn’t teasing her. Something was very wrong. She pressed her fingers to the pulse in his throat. Slow, steady. She flattened her palm over his heart. The beat was solid and slow. She lifted his eyelids and called his name again. She slapped his face.
No response.
He was unconscious. The damned coffee had been drugged. She’d had just a single sip of it, thank God, and that’s why she was still conscious. There was no other explanation. She tried to pull herself off Quinlan, and she did manage it, but her arms and legs felt soft and wobbly. Just one drink of that amaretto was doing this to her?