Page 53 of Save Me
“What happened?” he asked, then jerked up. “Emma?”
“She’s fine,” his father added. “So far she and your mother don’t appear to have been affected. Nor anyone else in the place.”
“Amber?” he asked, lying back down on the hospital bed, feeling queasy.
When his question was met with silence, he glanced over at his father, who was looking at him strangely.
“We think he poisoned us to snag her,” his father said.
“What?” He jerked up and, before his father could stop him, he stood up and started rushing out of the small room.
His father rushed after him as Brock willed the sickness and spinning away.
He had to grab hold of the nurse’s desk to not hit the floor.
“They’re out looking for her,” his father said. “We’ll get her.”
“Where’s Emma?” he asked.
“She’s with your mother.” His father looked a little pale as he grabbed his stomach. “Damn it,” he said before racing towards a trash can and throwing up.
Two nurses rushed over and took his arms to steady him.
“I’m okay,” his father said as several police officers rushed through the emergency doors.
“Where are we at?” he demanded from them.
They looked past him to his father, who waved his hand. “Brock is in charge until I’m over this.”
Brock turned back to the officers and asked again, “Where are we at?”
The older female officer stepped forward and nodded. “Sir, Officer Alice Brigs,” she said quickly. “We’ve discovered the body of Mike Rowlett in the alley behind Oscar’s. It appears Rowlett was out on a smoke break, waiting for your table’s orders to come up, when he was jumped. He was hit over the head with something sharp, most likely a tire iron from the looks of it. Killed him in one blow. He was stripped clean. We suspect whoever poisoned your table took his place and delivered your meals.”
“How did he get Amber out of the restaurant?” he asked Brigs.
“It appears he snuck her out the door at the end of the hallway. The woman’s restroom is closest to that back door. If she was as incapacitated as the two of you were”—she motioned to him and his father, who was being shoved back onto a gurney and carted away again while he was vomiting into a bucket— “she probably couldn’t put up much of a fight.”
Just then their radio’s squawked, and Officer Brigs leaned closer to listen.
“We’ve got her, sir,” she said. “She’s on with a dispatcher claiming she’s incapacitated her perp and doesn’t know where she is. The dispatcher has requested we do a ground search with our sirens and lights on. She thinks she might still be in the Lower Keys.”
“How long…” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty-five minutes,” he answered himself, “since she left to go to the bathroom.” He raced towards the door. “I’m with you Brigs,” he said as he exited the building.
“Yes, sir,” Brigs said, rushing beside him.
“Twenty-five minutes. Five at most to load her up and head out,” he said as he thought out loud. He turned to the officer. “Ask the dispatcher to ask her what’s around her.”
He climbed in the passenger seat as Brigs started the patrol car and asked the question.
“Fields and grass,” Brigs responded after getting the answer.
“She could be on one of the Sugarloaf Keys or Cudjoe. Get all your patrols out there and drive along any rural areas with lights and sirens blaring. Just in case, send patrols to Summerland and Ramrod. I doubt he got that far.”
They had just made it to Shark Key Bridge when a female officer got on the radio.
“10-65 in custody, possible 10-54.” He felt his body tense. 10-54. Possible dead body. “County road 939, mile marker…” There was a pause. “Three.”
He turned to Brigs. “Get me there in two minutes.” He grabbed the radio.
