Dream a Little Scream Read Online Free PDF Page A

her hands into the pile of lipsticks, gum wrappers, receipts, tissues, bookmarks, and business cards strewn across the table. Little scraps of paper feathered in the air. I remembered that Sonia had a habit of scribbling notes to herself and dropping them into her purse.
    â€œWhere is the EpiPen?” Olivia’s voice spiraled upward; it sounded like she was bordering on hysteria. She made a pitiful note in her throat, almost a groan of pain. “It has to be here, but where, where?”
    â€œDoesn’t anyone have a backup pen?” I asked gently, riffling through the debris from Sonia’s purse. I knew people often carried two pens in case one of them malfunctioned.
    â€œI have an extra one, but mine’s missing, too!” Now her voice was glazed with panic, and I knew she was seconds away from losing control. She dumped the contents of her tote bag on the floor. “How could they both be missing? That’s impossible,” she screamed. She was on her hands and knees, palms outstretched, sifting through the items from her bag. I noticed she was much neater than Sonia, and she carried a wallet, a small makeup kit, a pen and pad of paper, a BlackBerry, and a package of tissues. No sign of the missing pen.
    â€œIt could be a false alarm,” I said, trying to calm her. “The cats are both upstairs—”
    â€œDon’t you understand anything? It’s not the cats; it’s something else. Something much worse.” She stood up, let out a deep sigh, and blinked rapidly a few times, as if she was fighting back tears. “I knew this would happen,” she said darkly. “I just knew it.” With that, she bolted out of the room, heading back to her boss.
    I opened my mouth to speak but knew it would be pointless. What had she suspected would happen? And what did she mean by “something worse”? My gaze traveled to the buffet table. Was it the food? What could Sonia have possibly eaten that caused her to collapse? An unpleasant tingling sensation coursed through my body and a knot of cold fear crept up the back of my neck.
    â€œPlease stay calm, everyone,” I said as people started shouting questions. “Help is on the way. Right now we need to take our seats and clear a path for the paramedics. I’m sure this is a false alarm.”
But Olivia insisted that Sonia wasn’t breathing. Could that be true?
My voice quavered with emotion and I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath. “As soon as they check her out, we’ll be able to continue the book signing. Sit back and relax, everyone.” I put on my “game face,” as Ali calls it, and spoke with a lot more conviction than I actually felt.

3
    The next few minutes passed in a blur. The paramedics burst through the shop doors, pushing a gurney piled high with resuscitation equipment. I noticed one of the paramedics looked to be barely out of her teens, a thin, wiry redhead with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She took the lead down the hallway, hoisting a defibrillator off the stretcher as her partner, a middle-aged male with a considerable paunch, hurried inside the ladies’ room.
    I peeked inside and my breath caught in my throat. There was Sonia, lying very still, on her back, in the middle of the bathroom floor. Both paramedics were now kneeling beside her, working quickly, their expressions intent. They spoke softly to each other as they passed equipment back and forth.
    Sonia looked exactly as Olivia had described—like someone who’d collapsed without warning—and I spotted a small bruise on her forehead. She’d probably hit her head on the porcelain sink when she fell. I had the sudden fearthat the resuscitation efforts were all in vain. Sonia looked lifeless, her features slack, her limbs splayed at odd angles like a doll’s. I noticed she had a scratch on her neck, probably also from her fall.
    Sam Stiles ushered all of us back to the