Page 19 of Vicious
“Mase, wait,” Ellison called after him andfollowed.
I lunged toward the kitchen to see if Randolph was all right. A bubbling, steaming pan on the stove had slopped some of its contents onto the floor, and Randolph stumbled away fromit.
“You okay?” Iasked.
He waved vaguely on his way to the dining room even though there were towels in the second drawer next to the microwave. Did he have any idea of what was happening around him? He must’ve been sloshed out of hismind.
I grabbed a towel from the drawer and wiped the mess up. When I straightened, something floated on top of the garlic-butter concoction in the pan like thick grains of salt wedged together in a circle, gradually sinking into the bubbles surrounding it. I took the ladle on the stove, scooped whatever it was out into a smaller bowl, then blew on it until I could stick my fingers in without burning myself to see what itwas.
A loud bang sounded from the stasis pantry, like metal onmetal.
“Randolph!” I shouted, but he’d gone into the dining room, not thepantry.
I walked with the bowl toward the back of the kitchen where a sliver of the eerie blue stasis light slanted onto the floor. I toed the door open farther, and it swung inward silently. Inside were rows of shelves lined with carefully arranged food. But nothing to explain the noise. Only a little, open pill bottle on the edge of the nearestshelf.
I blinked at the empty room, a tremble in my hand splashing some of the butter up the sides of the bowl. I rubbed my fingertips together. Not just butter, but something jagged and coarse. Almost like pills crushed in ahurry.
And added to the food all of us were about toeat.
6
Itookthe pill bottle from the shelf, my heart pulsing wildly. Small, circular pills filled about a third of the container. How many had been put in our food? Enough to make us sick or enough to killus?
Randolph shoved open the double doors into the kitchen behind me, and I jerked back. He leveled me with a watery gaze as he slurred, “Ishur hope you plan on settin’ thetable.”
“Randolph…” Had he been the one to spike the food with pills? Was rough-around-the-edges Randolph capable of attempted murder? He’d been standing in front of the pan when I’d walked in. I dragged in breath after breath while I studied his ruddy features for any sign that he knew what I was about to say. “Someone put ground up pills in ourfood.”
He blinked and some of the alcoholic haze vanished from his eyes. “What?”
I thrust the bowl of buttered pill fragments at him with sticky fingertips and shook the bottle of pills. “Who put it there,Randolph?”
Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he turned his gaze toward the bowl. “What? You can’t think I didthis.”
“Did you? I saw you walk away from thepan.”
“I would never. You have to know I would never do that.” He shook his head so hard his jowls shook, and he raked a hand through his bushy hair. “You can’t tell the captain you think I did this. You can’t. I need this job too much. I can’t be firedagain.”
“Okay. Calm down.” I guided him to the small table in the middle of the kitchen, and he sat, breathing hard. I didn’t really think he could do something like that, but people were notorious for darksurprises.
But if not him, then who? Ellison? She’d been the only other person in the kitchen when Mase had given me my Christmas present in the dining room. But it didn’t make any sense that my sister, who’d gone all the way to deep space to collect more of the parasite she thought would save me, would try to kill me and the rest of thecrew.
Randolph stared at me, heartbreak etched into the deep lines on his forehead. “You can’t tell the captain. He could fire me anyway for negligence. I’m in charge of what happens in this kitchen, and if someone was trying to sabotage...” He scrubbed a hand down his face, a sick green color creeping over hisskin.
“All right,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “I’ll have to tell him something, though, because lunch is in about twenty minutes and we don’t have a butter garlic sauce for our baked veggies. Unless you’re ready to helpme?”
“Yes. Of course.” He stood and crossed toward the stasis pantry, his troubled gaze aimed at his shoes. “I think maybe… I think maybe I should let you cook from now on. I’ll prep since… You said you saw me walk away from thepan?”
Inodded.
“I was in my room next door. I’ve been…well, I’ve been drinking, so if I wasn’t there, then…I blacked out. And if I’m blacking out and doingthat?” He shook his head while tears tracked down his cheeks. “I have no business being headchef.”
My throat tightened. I leaped up and wrapped my arms around his burly frame. Would someone who was guilty appear so realistically wrecked? Possibly, but my doubts about Randolph faded the harder he squeezed meback.
“Whatever you need,” Isaid.
He stepped away and swiped the wetness from his cheeks. “There’s pre-sliced bread in the pantry. There’s not much I can do to muck thatup.”
I poured the remaining butter garlic sauce down the sink and scrubbed both the bowl and the pan until I could see my reflection. When Randolph came back, I donned a hairnet and we worked in silence, our doubts and fears likely mirroring each other’s. I really didn’t think Randolph was capable of attempted murder, but that didn’t change what had happened. Was it mind control? But he didn’t have a Mind-I, unless he’d tripped and fallen on one on Orin, and it had embedded into the back of his head. A lot stranger things had happened lately. Unless he was lying about not havingone.
