Killer Calories

occurring at the spa only a week or so before, she thought most of the Royal Palm’s residents would have been a bit more vigilant about security than usual... Dion Zeller included.
    “Hello?” she called, pushing the door a few inches wider. “Dion, are you here? It’s Savannah Reid. May I come in?” When she didn’t receive an answer, she stuck her head inside and looked around. At first, everything seemed as it had before—neat, tidy, every miniature in its place.
    Then she saw something that caused a jolt of adrenaline to hit her bloodstream.
    Through the open bedroom door. Legs. Sticking out from behind the bed.
    Instantly, she recognized die heavily muscled thighs, the well-rounded calves, and the electric blue running shorts.
    “Dion!” She flung the door open and ran to him. “Dion’ are you all right?”
    Of course, she knew he wasn’t, but she couldn’t help hoping.
    Her heart sank when he didn’t respond. She entertained a brief, happy fantasy that he was simply lying on the floor, playing with an electric train set—even though she knew better.
    Rounding the end of the bed, she saw he was lying on his back, eyes closed, arms outflung . His face was a sickly white, tinted with blue around his lips. He had vomited profusely.
    “No...” she whispered as she knelt beside him. “Please, no.”
    When she pressed her fingers against the inside of his wrist, she could feel a distinct, if weak, pulse. At least he was alive. Maybe not by much, but after thinking she had discovered a corpse, she was thrilled.
    He was breathing, but his respiration was rapid and shallow. Laying her palm against his cheek, she shuddered to feel how cold and clammy his skin felt.
    “Dion, can you hear me?” she said, glancing over his body, checking for wounds. None were apparent. No blood, no obvious contusions.
    Then she saw the three empty pill bottles on the bed, the broken glass, and the water spilled on the floor beside the nightstand.
    “Oh shit, Dion,” she whispered. “Why did you go and a stupid thing like that?”
    Spotting a telephone on the desk in the corner of the she jumped up, ran to it, and dialed the spa’s office. Thankfully, Bernadette answered immediately.
    “It’s Savannah Reid,” she told her. “ Call Dr. Ross and tell him to get over to Dion’s cottage right away. It’s an emergency.”
    Flustered, Bernadette stammered and stuttered for a moment, then she said, “But Dr. Ross isn’t here. He’s up at the Chesterfield estate. Phoebe called him a while ago and asked him to come up because—”
    “Okay, then call 9-1-1 and tell them to send an ambulance. Say we have an unconscious male in his thirties, probable drug overdose. Respiration weak, heart rate thready . Got that ?“
    “Yeah, but who is it? Is it Dion? Is he—?”
    “Just do it, Bernadette!
    “But—”
    “Damn it! Right now!”
    Slamming down the phone, she looked back at Dion, who seemed to be getting whiter and bluer by the second. “Hurry up,” she whispered. “Please, hurry.”
    If that ambulance doesn’t get here pretty quick, she thought, they might as well send the coroner’s wagon.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

    S avannah sat in the hospital lobby, holding Tammy’s hand and sending silent comfort to Ryan, who sat across the room beside John. The four of them had been anxiously waiting, jumping every time a professional wearing a white smock had exited the emergency-room door.
    A nurse had told them she would bring them a report on Dion’s condition in a few minutes. That had been an hour ago, and still no word.
    Savannah wanted to believe that Granny Reid’s axiom ” No news is good news” was applicable in this case. But Dion had looked horrible by the time they had arrived at the hospital, and she had overheard just enough of the conversation between the att ending physician and nurses to know he was just as bad as he looked.
    Any members of the Royal Palms staff were conspicuously absent. Bernadette had driven to the hospital along with them, but had left soon with some excuse about having to “take care of Lou.” Savannah didn’t even want to think what that meant.
    After three cups of stale, machine coffee and a Snickers bar, Savannah had practically memorized tire burgundy-and-gray tiles on the floor. They matched the burgundy-and-gray tiles on the walls, and the burgundy-and-gray abstract art on the wall.
    “Looks like the decorator was into burgundy and gray ,“ she had remarked twenty