Page 99 of For Your Own Good
She turned back to him, her eyes hopeful. “The New Year? Promise me we’ll try in the New Year.”
“I promise.”
She held him to that. As the holidays approached, she started talking about going off birth control.
The vasectomy had become necessary. It was also a last resort, after he’d realized he couldn’t slip birth control pills into Allison’s coffee without her or her doctor figuring it out. He’d had to get the vasectomy. No other option.
When he told her he couldn’t have kids, she believed it wasn’t his fault. For a few months, everything went back to the way it should be.
Until some inept office clerk sent that bill to his house.
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WITHIN MINUTES OFFallon’s waking up the next morning, a nurse comes into her room. It isn’t Tammy. This nurse is much older and not nearly as cheerful. Her grey hair is shaved almost to the scalp, and her uniform is creased hard enough to break.
“You should be nice and rested by now,” the nurse says. “It’s nearly ten o’clock.”
Fallon scrambles to reach the water on the nightstand. “Did I miss checkout?”
The nurse glowers at her.
Fallon clears her throat.
“The doctor will be in to see you before you can be released,” the nurse says. She refills the water and walks out.
As soon as she’s gone, Fallon turns on the TV.
Game show. Talk show. Sitcom. She flips through the channels,wondering why no one is talking about the news at this hour. The national channels are too busy talking about politics.
The doctor interrupts her channel surfing. He’s a young man with a nice smile and big eyes.
“How are you feeling?” he says.
“Much better. My throat isn’t as sore.”
“Good to hear.” He checks her chart and listens to her heartbeat.
“So do they know yet?” Fallon asks. “If it was really poison?”
The smile disappears as he shakes his head no. “I have no information about that.”
“Do you know who died? I was told someone died.”
“I do not know.” The doctor signs the bottom of her chart. “I’m going to go ahead and release you, but if you have any issues or if you start feeling light-headed again, come straight to the emergency room.”
He walks out. Fallon starts to get up but realizes the IV is still in her arm. With a sigh, she presses the button for the nurse.
Once she’s disconnected, disentangled, and dressed, she walks out of the room, preparing herself for the next step: Before she can leave the hospital, she has to meet with the billing department.
Instead, she is met by two people standing by the door to her room. Both wear jackets emblazoned with the FBI logo.
TEDDY IS STILLin his hospital bed, still waiting for Allison, when the FBI agents show up. Not a surprise. A mass poisoning like this one is going to bring in the FBI. Maybe even the DEA. One or two poisonings is one thing, but seven people at once—with one dead? Time for the feds to take over.
A man and a woman, both wearing FBI jackets. They seem professional enough, which Teddy can appreciate. Nothing worse than an unprofessional law enforcement officer.
The bald man is Agent Roland, which is so generic, it almost seemslike an alias. The first thing he wants to know is everything Teddy ate yesterday.
“Well, I had coffee at home. One cup, black,” Teddy says. “At Belmont, I made another cup of coffee before first period—”
