I caught her hand, extending her arm to examine it in the kitchen’s overhead light. The flesh near her elbow was angry and inflamed, a scattering of hives spreading across her skin.
“How long has this been here?”
Her furrowed brows told me she was taken aback by the sharp tone in my voice. “It kind of comes and goes in different spots. This time, it’s been there a few hours, I think?”
This time…
A slight sniffle caught my attention—something I might have missed with anyone else, but these days, I was attuned to Tessa’s every emotion.
“Have you been crying?”
“No.” She frowned. “Why do you have such a weird tone? It’s creepy.”
I dropped her arm as my mind raced. “So, you have nasal congestion.”
“I’m not sick if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s just allergies.”
“Yesterday, your skin looked flushed in the morning.”
“It did?”
My eyes darted from left to right. “Flushing. Hives. Nasal congestion consistent with histamine response. Skin. Gastrointestinal. Lungs.”
The pieces were finally, finally clicking into place.
“Blake? Where are you going?”
But I was already jogging to my home office, my heart pounding with possibility.
“I heard a lecture last year,” I called over my shoulder.
Footsteps followed. Tessa, then Ryker and Scarlett, drawn by the commotion. They crowded the doorway, muttering expressions of disbelief at the wall of medical data I’d compiled.
“What in the ever-loving hell?” Ryker whistled. “And I thought my murder boards were intense. This is like if WebMD had a baby withCSI.”
“Her symptoms,” I said, yanking papers from one wall and pinning them to another section with trembling fingers. “At first glance, they seem unrelated, but they’re not.”
“If I didn’t know you, I’d think Ted Bundy and a stalker had a baby,” Ryker observed, trailing a finger over a Post-it that read,HEART! Pulse!
“Please tell me this lands in the top five weirdest things he’s done,” Scarlett asked Tessa.
“Like any chronic illness, it’s put stress on your heart for over a year. No wonder you’ve been having issues.”
The pieces were falling faster now, a medical jigsaw finally taking shape.
“I’ve worked with seasoned homicide detectives,” Ryker said. “They’ve never had a case board like this.”
“But the heart isn’t the primary problem. That’s why the cardiologist hasn’t found any typical cardiac anomalies.”
“Should we be worried about him?” Scarlett stage-whispered to Tessa.
“When he gets like this, you just need to let him finish his thoughts,” Tessa answered.
“This is it.” I turned to face them, my pulse racing. “This has to be it. I saw a conference presentation on this last year. It’s notoriously difficult to diagnose unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.”
“What is it?” Tessa’s voice was barely a whisper.
I met her eyes, seeing all our possible futures reflected there. “One last blood test. Come on.”
