Page 10 of Graveyard Dog

“She’s having an allergic reaction,” she said as she tore through her purse.

“To what?” he asked.

At last. Her fingers curled around the cylinder. She brought out an EpiPen and knelt in front of Michael, her baby completely limp and covered in hives. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”

Without opening her eyes, Emma nodded, the movement weak and hardly reassuring. But the Neanderthal was right. To what? She’d been eating an apple.

“Do you have peanuts in your pocket?” Izzy asked as she pushed the pen into Emma’s thigh.

Though Emma didn’t react to the needle, her airway relaxed almost instantly, just in time for her to throw up into her mouth. The fluid slipped past her swollen lips and ran down her cheek.

Izzy started to grab her, but Michael turned her over as she cleared her daughter’s mouth and wiped her face. She was like a rag doll.

“I don’t have peanuts. Where’s your car?” he asked, standing with her cradled in his arms and heading toward the door.

Izzy grabbed her keys and purse and followed. “Any kind of energy bar with peanuts in it?”

“No.” He didn’t wait for the elevator. He headed straight for the stairs and rushed down them with surprising agility, given his size.

“Have you been eating peanuts?”

He stopped just outside the building and looked for her parking space. “Is that yours? The Hyundai?”

“Yes, but if you’ve been eating peanuts, you’re only hurting her more.”

“Let me guess,” he said as she unlocked the doors. “She’s allergic to peanuts.” He opened the back door and grabbed Izzy’s arm, shoving her into the back seat.

“Yes, and—”

“No. I haven’t had any.” He looked into Emma’s face. “Her eyes are swelling up.”

Michael handed Emma to her, then pulled out the seat belt and fastened it around both of them. He took the keys out of Izzy’s hand and closed the door.

“We should call an ambulance,” she said when he jumped into the driver’s seat, hurriedly pushing it back so he wasn’t eating the steering wheel, and then started the car.

“Trust me, Killer. I’m much faster.” And he was. He cornered and switched lanes like they were on glass.

Izzy held Emma to her, checking her breathing and making sure her airway was clear, or as clear as possible, but the wheezing had her stomach twisting into Gordian knots.

“Does this happen often?” he asked.

“No. Not like this. I don’t understand. It was just an apple.”

“But she reacted right after taking a couple of bites.”

“I wash every piece of produce before putting it out, just in case. I can’t imagine how this happened.”

He had them in front of the emergency room in four minutes. It would’ve taken an ambulance longer than that just to get to them. He jumped out of the car, took Emma into his arms, andran inside, leaving Izzy to follow once again, her heart swelling almost painfully with gratitude.

“Severe allergic reaction,” he called out to a nurse, placing Emma onto a gurney. “And she has asthma.”

The nurse checked Emma’s pupils and called for a colleague as she wheeled the gurney back to the emergency room. “How long has she been unconscious?”

“About five minutes,” Izzy said, following closely. “Her inhaler is empty. I gave her a shot with an EpiPen. It helped, but then she started vomiting and passed out.” The longer she spoke, the more her voice rose. Panic darkened the edges of her vision.

“What’s her name?”

“Emma. Emma Walsh.”

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