Notorious Nineteen

clapped my hand over my mouth. “Pull over! I’m going to be sick. I’m going to be sick! ”
    “You’re going to have to be sick in the car. I’m not stopping.”
    I had lots of junk in my car. Fast food bags and cookie boxes. Ranger had nothing. Ranger’s car was pristine. Ranger had nothing to contain the last remnants of meatball that were about to leave my stomach. So I did what any woman would do in an emergency. I threw up in my evening purse, all over Ranger’s gun.
    “Good catch,” Ranger said. And he put his foot to the floor.
    They were off-loading Kinsey when Ranger pulled into the ER drive-through. Amanda and her father were standing to the side. Ranger helped me out of the car, I put my hand on the rear quarter panel to steady myself and retched. Nothing left in my stomach to come up.
    Ranger eased me into a wheelchair and corralled Amanda’s father.
    “I think Kinsey and Stephanie might have been poisoned,” Ranger said. “Have the medical people work on that assumption. I’m going back to the casino to see if I can find the source.”
    Ranger kissed me on the forehead. “Don’t let them remove your appendix.”
    My stomach was sore but not cramping, and I was weak but no longer nauseous. I went through the routine of talking to nurses, an intern, and finally a resident. I had my blood pressure checked, and a blood test taken. I accepted an icky drink to settle my stomach, but I refused more invasive tests.I was feeling better as time went on. Amanda came to check on me at regular intervals and to report on Kinsey.
    An ER’s waiting room isn’t wonderful at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of anything. In the short time I was there I watched a gunshot victim roll through, a guy get wheeled in with a broken leg and a bloody foot wrapped in a T-shirt, and a very old woman complaining of chest pains being brought in by an equally old man. I was overjoyed when Ranger finally walked through the door.
    “You’re looking better,” he said, standing in front of me.
    “I’m feeling better.”
    “And Kinsey?”
    “He seems to be okay, but they’re keeping him overnight as a precaution. What did you find?”
    “I spoke to the waiter who served you and Kinsey. The plated meals come up from the kitchen on large three-tier rolling carts. Special diet and allergy plates are marked with a name and a seat number. Kinsey and I had plates with an allergy marker.”
    “How did they get an allergy marker?”
    “No one knew. I’m guessing someone slipped in and put something in the food, probably the mashed potatoes, and stuck the marker on the plate.”
    “And no one noticed?”
    “I was in the kitchen. It’s massive and chaotic. Anyone could walk into that kitchen in a chef coat or a waiter’s uniform and have total access to the food, and unless they wereseven feet tall and wearing a red clown nose no one would remember them. The food from your plate had already been discarded, but I requested to have someone inspect the kitchen for possible contamination.”
    “I’d really like to go home.”
    “Are you sure you’re okay?”
    “They gave me some stuff to drink and took a blood test. And they told me I was good to go, but to call if I had further problems.”
    He pulled me to my feet, wrapped an arm around me, and walked me to the Porsche. I sunk into the passenger seat and closed my eyes for a moment, happy to be going home, relieved that the poisoning episode hadn’t been worse. Ranger got behind the wheel and drove us back to the Expressway. Traffic was light, and the interior of the car was dark and would have felt intimate if I didn’t smell ever so slightly of upchucked meatballs.
    “I realize I’m getting paid,” I said, “and I don’t want to seem unappreciative, but this was a sucky date.”
    Ranger glanced over at me. “We’ve had better. I’m sorry this happened to you. I didn’t expect poisoning. I just wanted another set of eyes in the room.”
    “Have you been in contact with the rest of your unit?”
    “There were seven of us. One was killed in the line of duty. Two are out of country. The other two are on the West Coast. Everyone claims not to have told anyone the code. And so far, Kinsey and I are the only ones receiving the messages.”
    “Someone’s fibbing.”
    “The envelopes were postmarked in Philadelphia and Camden. I ran the four remaining men through the search system and no one has relatives or business ties in the