24 Hours by Greg Iles Read Free Book Online Page B

this.”
    “Please,” Karen said in the most submissive voice she could muster. “We must get this medicine to my daughter. She—My God, I didn’t check her sugar when we got home.” Karen felt herself falling again, as though the floor beneath her feet had vanished. “Abby’s due for her shot in an hour. We’ve got to get this to her. How far away is she?”
    “We can’t go,” Hickey said in a flat voice.
    Karen grabbed the .38 off the table and pointed it at his chest. “Oh, yes, we can. We’re going right now.”
    “I told you about that gun.”
    She cocked the revolver. “If Abby doesn’t get her insulin, she’s going to die. Now you do what I say! ”
    Something flickered in Hickey’s eyes. Amusement. Perhaps surprise. He held up his hands, palms toward Karen. “Take it easy, June. I meant we can’t go yet. Abby’s being transported to a safe place. Maybe we can go later. Tell me about her condition. How critical is it?”
    “How critical? She could die. ”
    “How long before she’s in trouble?”
    Karen did the math in her head. If Abby ate only normal food before falling asleep—if she could sleep at all—she could make it through the night. But Karen had no intention of taking that risk. What if Hickey’s cousin fed her candy bars?
    “Juvenile diabetics are very unstable,” she said. “If Abby eats too much sugar, she could get in trouble very quickly. She’ll get dehydrated. Then comes abdominal pain and vomiting. Then she’ll go into a coma and die. It can happen very fast.”
    Hickey pursed his lips, obviously doing some mental math of his own. Then he reached over the little built-in desk where Karen paid the household bills, hung up the cordless phone, and punched in a new number.
    Karen stepped up to the desk and hit the SPEAKER button on the phone. Hickey looked down, trying to figure out how to switch it off, but before he could, a deep male voice said: “Joey? Has it been thirty minutes?”
    “No. What happened to ‘hello’?”
    “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry.” The man’s voice had an incongruous sound, like the voice of a fifty-year-old child. He’s practically a kid himself, Hickey had said.
    “How does the kid look?”
    “Okay. She’s still sleeping.”
    Karen’s heart thudded. She jerked the gun. “Let me talk to her.”
    Hickey warned her back with a flip of his hand.
    “Who was that, Joey?”
    “Betty Crocker.”
    “Give me the phone!” Karen demanded.
    “Abby can’t talk right now. She’s sedated.”
    Sedated? “You son of a bitch! You—”
    Hickey half rose and slugged Karen in the stomach. The breath left her in an explosive rush, and she dropped to the kitchen floor, the gun clattering uselessly in front of her.
    “Touch the kid’s chest, Huey. She breathing okay?”
    “Kinda shallow. Like a puppy.”
    “Okay, that’s fine. Look, don’t give her any candy bars or anything like that. Okay? Maybe some saltines or something.”
    “She needs fluids,” Karen gasped from the floor. “Plenty of water!”
    “Give her some water. Plenty of water.”
    “Saltines and water,” Huey echoed.
    “I may be coming out to see you tonight.”
    Karen felt a surge of hope.
    “That’d be good,” Huey said. “I wouldn’t be so nervous.”
    “Yeah. Drive slow, okay?”
    “Fifty-five,” Huey said dutifully.
    “Good boy.”
    Hickey hung up and squatted before Karen. “Here’s the deal. Before we do anything, we have to let my partner make contact with your husband. We’ve got to make sure old Will’s on the same page with us before we move. Because those first few minutes are the shocker. Nobody knows that better than you, right? And with this diabetic thing, he might just flip out. I hope not, because if he does, all the insulin in the world won’t save Abby.” Hickey stood. “We’ll take care of your little girl. It’s just going to take a couple of hours. Now, get up off that floor.”
    He offered his hand, but Karen ignored it. She got her