A.W. Hartoin - Mercy Watts 04 - Drop Dead Red by A.W. Hartoin Page B

dad’s doing. I just passed along his name.”
    “The nursing thing will help,” said Ameche. “You know your way around diseases and stuff.”  
    “I do, but I can’t say I’m any expert on meningitis.”  
    Donatella dropped her brother’s hand and took mine. It was cold and sticky with fresh tears. “What you don’t know, Dr. Lydia will tell you. Will you do it? I need a medical professional. Your dad gave me his price. I’ll gladly pay it to you.”  
    Dad’s price. Yes!
    “You have to understand that I don’t have a license,” I said.  
    “That doesn’t matter to me. I just want this settled before the children realize something’s happened. They still don’t know about their father and the rest of the family. I want this to go away before they’re told.  
    “I’ll see what I can do.” I got out my phone and opened my note-taking app. “Okay. Tell me everything that happened that day.”  
    Donatella straightened up and blew her nose. “Right. Everything. I’m afraid it’s not very exciting.”  
    She was right about that. It was a pretty typical day for a regular family. Rob left the day before Donatella and the kids to hang out with his brothers, so they were alone on Friday. They all got up at six. Donatella took Abrielle and Colton to school and she went to work at the French Quarter elementary school my mom attended. Donatella picked the kids up early from school and drove to Tulane, where her oldest son was a freshmen. They picked up his gift for his grandparents, a drawing of them on their wedding day. Christopher couldn’t come, because he had a huge test in calculus and his grade wasn’t great.  
    “You have an eighteen-year-old kid?”  
    Donatella looked like death on a bad day, but still not old enough to have a kid that old.  
    She gave me a wan smile. “I got pregnant my freshman year of college.”  
    “Was Rob Christopher’s father?” I asked.  
    “No. We met later.” She flushed and then said, “Why are you frowning? Christopher was an accident, but he’s a great kid.”  
    “I don’t doubt it. I’m thinking that the Berrys can use it against you.”  
    “What?” asked Dr. Lydia. “So what if she had an out-of-wedlock child?”  
    “The one child who wasn’t poisoned isn’t Rob’s kid. Their lawyers can twist it. Donatella didn’t care about Rob’s kids. She wanted to get rid of all the Berrys. That kind of thing.”  
    “But Christopher really had a test,” said Donatella.  
    “Please tell me he’s here,” I said.  
    “Christopher? Of course. He flew in on Saturday.”  
    “Good. It would’ve looked bad if he didn’t. What happened after you saw Christopher?”  
    Donatella continued her story, sounding stronger by the moment. They flew out of New Orleans after getting on standby for an earlier flight. The kids weren’t feeling good when they boarded, but Donatella just thought it was carsickness. That wasn’t unusual. Colton was the first to feel ill. It started with a terrible headache and quickly progressed to projectile vomiting. Then Abrielle started with the headache. They landed at St. Louis in the nick of time. The pilot called ahead and there was an ambulance on the tarmac. Rob met them at the hospital. The anniversary dinner was at eight. Once they were stabilized, Rob couldn’t do anything and decided to go tell the family what had happened in person. Rob was killed at restaurant, but Donatella didn’t know anything about it. She didn’t want to know. The play-by-play was too much for her.  
    “This sounds like an incredibly short incubation period,” I said to Dr. Lydia.  
    “It came on very fast.”  
    “A large amount of the bacteria would have to have been ingested then.”  
    She nodded. “Definitely direct contact, but this is a new strain and we don’t know how they got it.”
    “Has to be food,” I said.  
    “I believe so.” Dr. Lydia became pensive and avoided my eyes while Donatella ran