Free The Boyfriend Deal by Charity West

just in case there are still traces.” Mrs. Ryan reclaimed her chair. “I don’t understand how she could have been poisoned. I’m very careful about the things I purchase for her snacks.”
    “I think I know what happened, Mrs. Ryan,” Robert said. “I overheard a girl at school today talking about leaving Hadley a gift basket on the porch. She’s Tyler’s ex-girlfriend and the one who put yogurt in Hadley’s locker.”
    Mrs. Ryan’s eyes went wide. “You think she hates my daughter enough to kill her? The doctors said if I hadn’t been so quick to react I would have lost her today.”
    I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me much longer. I snagged a chair and pulled it over beside the bed, then took Hadley’s hand in mine. She was cool to the touch and I wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I squeezed her fingers and lifted her hand, placing a kiss on the back of it.
    “I’m here, Hadley. Can you open your eyes for me?” I asked.
    She didn’t move.
    “The doctor said she might not wake for a few hours,” Mrs. Ryan said. “It was a fast-acting poison. Within a few hours, she’d have been dead.”
    I looked over my shoulder at Robert. “Call the police and tell them you have information for them. I want Alicia arrested.”
    He nodded and pulled out his phone, stepping into the hall. Mrs. Ryan looked shaken, and I wanted to offer her comfort, but I wasn’t sure how. All that mattered was getting Hadley well enough to go home. And if she was staying in the hospital overnight, then I would too, even if Mrs. Ryan kicked me out to the waiting room. Football be damned. I didn’t care anymore about the scouts coming to Friday’s game. If Hadley wasn’t there, I didn’t care if I played or not. There would be other opportunities, but there was only one Hadley.
    “Mrs. Ryan, I’d like to stay with Hadley, if that’s okay with you.”
    “You can stay as long as you’d like. As much as I’d love to be here until she goes home, my husband has already told me to go home for the night and he’d come sit with Hadley for a while.”
    “He’s a police officer, right?”
    She nodded.
    “And he knows Hadley was poisoned?”
    “Well, I told him she’d ingested Hemlock, but we had no idea how she’d gotten any.”
    “Mrs. Ryan, I know you don’t want to leave Hadley, but you should probably look for that gift basket and the items it contained. There may still be traces of Hemlock that would prove Alicia poisoned her.”
    She stood slowly. “If you promise not to leave her for a minute, I’ll call my husband and ask him to meet me at the house. We’ll do a thorough search for it. If we find something, he can call the crime lab and have everything processed as evidence.”
    “I swear I won’t leave this room.”
    Mrs. Ryan picked up her purse, paused by the bed long enough to kiss Hadley’s cheek, and then she quietly left the room. Robert came back in and claimed the seat Mrs. Ryan had just vacated.
    “Why didn’t you tell me Hadley’s dad was a cop?”
    “I didn’t think about it. Mrs. Ryan was about to call him. They’re going to search their home for the gift basket and see if anything in it contains Hemlock. But even if there isn’t any evidence, I’m convinced Alicia was behind this. Where the hell else would Hadley have gotten Hemlock?”
    “Maybe you should be asking where Alicia got it.”
    “Probably from her aunt. She runs one of those spiritualist shops and has all kinds of herbs and stuff in there. If anyone knows how to get Hemlock and hide it in food, it would be her Aunt Esther.”
    Robert leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. “So Hadley is going to be okay?”
    “As long as they got it all out of her system. I guess they’ve given her something to counteract it, like antivenin when someone is bitten by a snake. I wish she’d open her eyes though. I’d feel so much better if she’d talk to me.”
    “Want me to stay with you a while? I can call my