Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

to quit,” Rawlings said. “I couldn’t be a cop if I didn’t pass the physical.”
    Willis used his palm to wipe his forehead, which was glistening with perspiration. “Did you go cold turkey?” His voice came out as a rasp and he seemed surprised by the sound of it. Swallowing, he tried to speak again, but nothing came out.
    “Willis?” Olivia put a hand under the young man’s elbow. Haviland began to whine. He shifted anxiously, sniffed, and whined again. Something was wrong.
    “Can’t . . . breathe . . .” Willis whispered hoarsely before teetering over.
    Rawlings lurched forward to catch the sous-chef, but he was caught off balance by the suddenness of the younger man’s fall. He slowed Willis’s descent, but ended up on the ground too.
    “Willis!” Olivia shouted, sinking to her knees and pushing the multihued turban off his head. Willis’s black hair was slick with sweat, and when Olivia touched her fingers to his cheek, she flinched. “He’s burning up,” she said to Rawlings, who had Willis’s wrist in his hand and was checking his pulse. Haviland sniffed the air and whined again.
    Rawlings dropped his ear to Willis’s mouth. “He’s breathing. Fast and shallow.” And then he had his cell phone out and was calling for help.
    Olivia scanned their surroundings, hoping someone had noticed Willis fall and was rushing off to find an EMT. With two significant events occurring in the forest, Olivia expected a park ranger, physician, or paramedic to show up within seconds.
    “Stay with us, Willis,” she pleaded softly. “Help is on the way.”
    Moaning unintelligibly, Willis turned his head and vomited into the grass. Olivia recoiled from the acidic odor, a knot of helplessness forming in her gut. While she was averting her face, she saw Talley emerge from a small tent behind the stage. She took one glance at the sight of her brother and sprinted to his side.
    “What happened?” she cried, bending over him.
    “He just collapsed,” Olivia said. “Does he have a medical condition?”
    Talley shook her head. “No! Nothing! I have asthma, but Willis is healthy as a bear! Did you call anyone?”
    “EMTs are on the way,” Rawlings said.
    “He’s so hot! What’s wrong with him?” Talley’s eyes filled with tears and she put her lips against her brother’s forehead. “Willis! It’s me, Talley. Can you hear me?”
    Willis curled the fingers of his right hand upward and Talley grabbed on to them. “We’ve got to get him help!” she shouted, wiping the vomit from her brother’s chin and neck with the red bandana she’d been using to hold back her hair. “Where’s the freaking ambulance?”
    “They’re coming. It won’t be long now,” Rawlings promised and Olivia was thankful to have him there. He sounded so calm and reassuring while she sat uselessly by Willis’s side, unable to utter a word of comfort.
    Willis, who’d kept his eyes closed since he fell, now opened them and looked around. The whites showed, reminding Olivia of the desperate gaze of a frightened and confused animal. Garbled sounds came from his throat and Talley leaned closer to him, frantic to understand.
    “His arm feels weird,” she mumbled, touching the exposed flesh near his wrist.
    Olivia mirrored Talley’s movement and was disturbed to find that the muscles in Willis’s forearm were rigid, as if he were struggling to lift a heavy object. Hesitating, she wrapped her palm over his bicep. It was also hard and taut.
    “Rawlings,” she whispered. She’d never seen anything like this before and she was frightened. Sensing her fear, Haviland nudged her with his head, whining so quietly that he was barely heard.
    The chief’s eyes flicked toward Talley before meeting Olivia’s, as if willing her to stay composed for the girl’s sake. But Olivia had no bedside manner. She needed to act, to do something to stop from feeling like the world was spinning too fast.
    “We need to get him out of the sun,” she told Rawlings. To Talley, she said, “Let’s carry him into the tent. Keep talking to him while we move him. Keep him in the here and now.” When Talley responded with silence and a glassy look, Olivia gently squeezed her shoulder. “Tell him a story. Anything. Just talk to him.”
    Talley nodded, bent close to her brother’s ear, and began to speak. “In the beginning, the Great Spirit gave the birds and the animals the knowledge and the power to talk to men.”
    Rawlings grabbed