Free Grace Against the Clock (A Manor House Mystery) by Julie Hyzy

of activity at once: The paramedics carried the unused gurney past me out the door and up the stairs as my assistant made her way toward the auditorium. Serena’s young friend remained silent except for a quick chin-lift and a muttered, “Hey, how’s it going?”
    “Serena will be here in a moment,” I said. “She’s upset.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Did she tell you why she needed you to pick her up?”
    “No.”
    I took a deep breath. “The gentleman she was with tonight”—I had a tough time using the word
boyfriend
where Dr. Keay was concerned—“collapsed and died.” I gestured. “In the other room. In front of her.”
    His eyebrows almost rose. “No kidding?”
    “Be nice to Serena, okay? I think she probably needs to go straight home.”
    He made a face. “Whatever.”
    Bennett shook hands with the gastroenterologist I’d been talking with earlier. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, to at least the twentieth person in the past fifteen minutes. “It’s a shame. A terrible loss for us all.”
    “Grace!” From behind me, Frances shouted, an edge to her voice I’d never heard before. I turned to see my assistant gesturing violently from the auditorium doorway. “Come quick.”

Chapter 8
    She grabbed my arm. “It’s Rodriguez. He needs help. Have the paramedics left?”
    “They’re on their way out now,” I said, moving past her.
    “I’ll get them. You know CPR. Get in there and do what you can.”
    With that, Frances was gone, moving faster than I thought she was capable of. I raced past Serena, who had stood up on wobbly legs. She said something as I hurried across the room, but I couldn’t make out what it was. “Go.” I pointed back the way I’d come. “Your friend is here.”
    Up at far end, there were now two men lying on the stage. The one on my left, Keay, was dead. The one on my right, Rodriguez, clutched a bicep, his eyes squeezed shut.
    Flynn crouched by his side. “They’re going for help,” he said, “hang in there.”
    I knelt on Rodriguez’s other side. “What happened?” I asked as I loosened his tie and pulled it away. “You’re okay,” I said softly, pressing my hand against Rodriguez’s damp cheek. He was still breathing, still conscious. “The paramedics haven’t left yet. They’ll be here in a second. You got lucky.”
    Through gritted teeth, he fought to get words out. “Don’t feel lucky right now.”
    I glanced up at the doorway as the paramedics raced back in. One of them was shaking his head as he took up a position next to Rodriguez and Flynn. I backed off, giving them room to work.
    “Thought maybe the dead guy had come back to life or something,” one said to the other.
    His partner made a face. “The first guy is way past help.”
    “I’m not,” Rodriguez said. “Quit talking and get the pain to stop.”
    They’d begun working even as they conversed, taking Rodriguez’s pulse, stripping the detective’s shirt to bare his furry chest, and setting nodes all over the man’s body to send telemetry to the nearest hospital.
    “Good thing they were still close by,” I said to Flynn.
    His attention trained on Rodriguez, the younger detective ran a hand up through his hair. He worked his jaw, but didn’t respond.
    Frances and Bennett had followed the paramedics into the auditorium. I met them halfway across the room. “Is everyone gone?” I asked.
    Bennett stepped sideways to be able to watch the goings-on. “I hope he’ll be all right.”
    “He’s talking. I’m no medical professional, but I assume that’s a good sign.”
    We chatted idly the way people do when they’re forced to stand by, helpless, during a crisis such as this. I was sure none of us would remember later what we talked about. All we could do was watch the paramedics in action, doing what they did best. It could have been ten minutes, it could have been a half hour—I lost track of time—but soon they had him sitting up, and I was relieved to see that the