Page 33 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
My pumpkin spice latte didn’t really vibe with the smell of disinfectant.
Making a face, I tossed it in the trash as I walked into University Medical Center in the CBD. Ginger St. James had been in a medically induced coma for three days, her body fighting off the angel's trumpet poisoning that had nearly killed her.
Well, what I was assuming was angel’s trumpet poisoning. No one had actually told me that, though I suspected Hollis had tipped off the medical team on what to look for when Ginger had been rushed to the hospital.
I’d been to visit her twice already, feeling guilty that she’d been (allegedly) poisoned in my house. Or if she hadn’t done it to herself, that someone else had poisoned her in my house. At any rate, it was bad juju as Odette would say.
"Any change?" I asked Dr. Martinez, who'd been kind enough to update me even though I wasn't family, and who was in the room looking over Ginger.
"She's stable, but still critical. The good news is her brain activity looks normal. The bad news is we don't know if there will be any long-term effects as a result." She glanced at her chart. "And you said you're not related, correct?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You must be good friends then. She keeps asking for Harper when she briefly regains consciousness."
That gave me chills. "She's asking for me?"
"Mumbling, really. Harper, basement, something about keys. We assumed you were a relative."
That damn basement that didn’t exist was starting to get on my nerves.
“She’s been staying with me,” I said, because I needed some sort of explanation for all of that. I also knew that if Ginger was trying to tell me something important, I needed to hear it. "Can I sit with her for a few minutes?"
"Five minutes. She needs rest."
Ginger looked small and fragile in the hospital bed, surrounded by beeping machines and IV lines. Her usually dramatic makeup was gone, leaving her looking younger and more vulnerable than I'd ever seen her. Her layered necklaces had been replaced by medical monitors.
I pulled up a chair and sat down. "Ginger? It's Harper. You're safe now."
Her eyelids fluttered, but didn't open. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper: "Not... basement..."
If the situation wasn’t so dire, I would have rolled my eyes.
"What's not basement, Ginger?" Was basement a code word for something? Was it an anagram? I couldn’t think of any other words I could form from those letters but I would write them out later and give it a whirl. Once I got another pumpkin spice latte.
"Not basement… hidden." Her breathing became more labored. "She... told me... before..."
"Who told you? Delia?" Or did she mean Francine?
But Ginger had slipped back into unconsciousness.
I waited a few minutes, but Ginger didn’t open her eyes again. I squeezed her hand, silently urging her to get well. It wasn’t like Ginger and I had really clicked but no one deserved this and now I felt connected to her in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
“You can do this, Ginger,” I murmured, releasing her hand so I could leave the room. “Keep fighting.”
An hour later, I was sitting across from Maggie at Café Gumbo, our usual spot for debriefing and caffeine therapy. She'd ordered her standard iced coffee despite the sudden October chill, while I clutched a hot latte like it was a life preserver. Last week had been hot and now it felt like autumn had made her grand entrance.
"Okay," Maggie said, pulling out her ever-present notebook. "Let's do a what-we-know-so-far recap, because honestly, I'm losing track of all the players."
"Good idea. Everything's mixed together and I can't tell what's what anymore."
Maggie flipped to a fresh page. "Victim: Delia DuMont, real name Mary Vallon. Poisoned with angel's trumpet, then drowned in a scalding bathtub."
"Check." I was used to doing this for our podcast, but I had to admit, it felt a little more gruesome having seen it with my own two eyes in my own house.
I’d scrubbed that bathtub three times already and I still felt like the tinge of blood was still lingering. My coffee suddenly felt sloshy in my stomach.
“Why was there blood?” I asked suddenly. “If she was poisoned, why was there blood on the floor and in the bathtub?”
