“I am calm. What’s wrong?”

“In light of new information Mullins just passed on, Eleanor is our prime murder suspect. How much of the soup did you eat?”

Her sharp intake of breath sliced through him like a knife.

Then nothing but silence from her end.

Blood pounding in his ears, he swerved around a car that didn’t pull over fast enough. “Grace!”

“Yes. I-I’m here.” Panic etched her choppy reply. “Nate . . . based on what I found in my Google search, there’s . . . there’s no antidote for yew poisoning.”

He bit back a word he hadn’t uttered since his Green Beret days, and then only in the thick of life-threatening situations.

Like this one.

While there was no armed enemy taking aim at Grace, cardiac arrest was just as lethal a threat if what she’d shared moments ago from her research was true.

“How much did you eat and when did you eat it?”

“Maybe half. I started eating it about thirty minutes ago.”

His brain clicked into high gear. “The quantity and timing have to be in our favor. I’m going to get paramedics dispatched and contact poison control. My ETA at your place is twelve minutes.”

“I’ll google emergency procedures.” Her voice was shaking. “But I-I’m feeling sicker by the minute, Nate.” The swish of movement came over the line.

“Hang in. We’ll lick this.” He managed to infuse his voice with far more confidence than he felt.

“I have to—” Her response was cut off by violent retching.

He gritted his teeth.

This was bad.

Really bad.

“Grace, I’m hanging up and calling for help.”

No response.

He forced himself to press the end button and dial 911.

But as he relayed the information to the dispatcher in a clipped, no-nonsense tone honed from years under pressure in life-and-death situations, his heart was shattering.

He couldn’t lose Grace. New as their acquaintance was, deep inside he already knew they were meant to be together.

So as he spoke with 911, contacted poison control, and mashed the gas pedal to the floor, he prayed.

Because at this point, nothing short of a miracle could snatch her from the jaws of death.

It was done.

Eleanor took a sip of her second scotch, set the tumbler on the dresser, and wiggled her finger, letting the facets of the diamonds and emeralds in her cocktail ring catch the sunlight streaming through the crack in the blinds.

Grace would be gone within hours, along with all of the problems she’d created.

It was a shame it had come to this, but the woman was too stubborn for her own good.

After fingering one of the designer cocktail dresses draped on the bed beside her suitcase, Eleanor crossed to the box she’d removed from the safe. Touched each bracelet, necklace, earring—all mementos of her fabulous trips these past few years.

Not to visit her cousin in rural Maine, as everyone thought, but to traipse through the glittering cities of Europe in style. First class all the way, treated like a person who mattered at every high-end hotel, restaurant, and shop she visited.