House and Jess are now focused on what made her and her sister sick the morning after their kidnapping. Could the cause help them find out where they were held, and tell them who or what was behind it?

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Chapter 92.

Jess made some eggs for herself and filled her own breakfast plate before turning to me. "Is that what you think it is? That we were exposed to something that made us sick? But that will give us another clue as to where we were being held!" She took her own breakfast with a thoughtful look on her face. "Bleach wouldn't do this, would it?"

"Not unless you drank it. No, I think it was something else, maybe something the bleach masked."

She ate her eggs slowly. I could almost see the gears turning in her head. "I certainly didn't smell anything else, but..."

"But what?" I crunched my toast while I waited for her to remember.

"Greg, you know we're both allergic to peanuts." It was one of the first things I learned about her. She had to avoid not only the nuts but food cooked in peanut oil.

I shook my head. "If it was an allergy, you would have reacted to it immediately rather than more than twelve hours later."

"I can't think of anything else."

"Maybe Nina can." As I sipped my coffee, I thought about what tests I could do to find out what was affecting them.

"Well, let's finish up and go see what we can do for her, at least." She ate the last of her food and took the plate to the dishwasher, returning to drink her coffee.

"You seem to be over whatever it was," I said.

"Oh, I'm feeling much better!" She put her cup down and stood. "I'm going to get dressed."

Forty-five minutes later we were in the car on our way to Nina's. She'd found an apartment not too far from where I lived for so long before Jess and I bought the condo. It was a new, upscale building but not as expensive as some of the ones in downtown Princeton. We parked in the visitors' lot and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Wilson answered my knock.

"Why aren't you at the hospital?" I walked past him into the living room. Nina hadn't finished furnishing it yet, but there was a cushy beige sofa and two mahogany end tables holding matching lamps. Nina was ensconced in a recliner with a blanket over her and a cup in her hand.

"I could ask you the same thing." Wilson closed the door and walked over to Nina.

"How are you doing now?" Jess brushed a hair off her sisters pale face. Nina looked worse than Jess had earlier in the morning.

"A little better. But you look just fine. I thought you said you weren't feeling well, too."

"It passed. Greg thinks we were both exposed to something while we were being held yesterday, something that made us sick."

"I wonder how Julio is." Wilson looked at me.

"I would guess he's not doing well either." But Julio wasn't my concern, at least not yet.

Nina's forehead furrowed. "The only thing we're both allergic to is peanuts."

"It wasn't peanuts."

"So what was it?" The furrows deepened.

"Ah, now that's where you come in. Jess says she smelled bleach. Did you smell it? Or anything else?"

"That's what that was! Yes. Bleach." Her nose scrunched. "I don't think there was anything else, but that was so strong, who could tell?"

"What about when you were in the car?" We'd been concentrating on the place they'd been held, but they could have been exposed elsewhere. "Or maybe Julio gave you something to eat while you were talking to him earlier?""

Each of the sisters shook her head. Nina sighed. "All we had at the restaurant was coffee. Very good coffee, in fact."

"And in the car? Did you smell anything?" Wilson took her hand.

"No. But the gag did taste a little funny, didn't it, Jess?"

"Now that you mention it..." Jess licked her lips. "It tasted a little like bleach, too, but not quite."

Maybe we were finally getting somewhere. "Did they use the same kind of fabric on your eyes as your mouth?"

Jess shrugged. "As far as I could tell. Honestly, it wasn't the most important thing on my mind."

"But your eyes didn't burn." Wilson was thinking the same things I was, that the kidnappers had used the cleaning rags from the site where they were held as gags and blindfolds. Maybe they tried to rinse them out first but there'd been enough residue to make the women sick.

"Could it have been a mixture of bleach and some kind of soap or detergent?" We had to pinpoint all of the smells.

"I guess so."

"Hmm. I remember I kept thinking it tasted like a laundromat smells, but that was mostly the bleach."

I smiled. "The smell was much stronger at the site, right?"

"Oh, yeah. One of the guys had really bad body odor, but you couldn't smell him at all once we got there."

"You know, the bleach alone could have caused some stomach upset, especially if there was any on the gags they put in your mouths." Wilson said.

"There was something else. I just can't think what it was."

"Was it sweet? Bitter?" I needed to jog her memory. "Did it make you feel dizzy at all?"

Her eyes seemed to concentrate on a spot on the wall behind me for a while.

"More sweet than anything. Almost like..." She shook her head and looked into my eyes. "I know it'll come to me when I least expect it."

"Meanwhile, we should do blood tests on you both." Wilson looked at me for confirmation.

I nodded. "Urine, too. There may be some residue or metabolites of whatever it was."

"Will we have to go to the hospital?" Nina pulled her blanket tighter around herself.

"I think we can manage here. I'll get my bag from my car." Wilson headed for the door.

We watched him go. "Once we get your samples, Wilson or I will take them into the lab for analysis. We should know soon, and then we can treat you if we have to."

Nina nodded. She still looked pale.

"Why is it taking longer for my sister to recover than I did?" Jess took the cup Nina had been drinking from. "Nina, can I get you anything?"

She smiled at Jess. "Maybe some more tea. There are bags in the cupboard over the sink."

Jess left her sister's side and went to the kitchen. I followed her.

She filled a teapot with water and put it on the stove. "Did you want some tea, too?"

"Have you ever known me to drink tea when I wasn't sick?"

She smirked. "I doubt there's any beer." She opened the refrigerator, looked inside and shook her head.

"I didn't come in here to get a drink."

She turned to me with narrowed eyes.

"I wanted to warn you. Nina should have recovered by now, unless she got a bigger dose than you did of whatever caused your distress. And if she did, there could be a permanent effect."

"What do you mean? Do you know what we were exposed to?"

"I'm beginning to have some ideas. The blood and urine tests will confirm. But quite a few substances, if ingested, can cause damage to the organs."

Her hand went to her mouth. "But we didn't eat or drink anything."

"Whatever was on the gags could have been absorbed by your lips or tongue. The critical thing is the amount."

Jess nodded as her frown deepened. "Is it alright to give Nina some tea?"

"Alkaloids and caffeine can't hurt at this point."

The teakettle whistled and she poured the boiling water over a teabag in a white ceramic coffee mug. "I don't think you should tell Nina this until you have your lab results."

I nodded, then followed her back to the living room.

Wilson had returned and was taking a sample of Nina's blood. When he was done, Jess handed her sister the cup of tea, then held out her own arm. He took some blood and handed her a sample cup. "Go pee."

"Hey, watch what you say to my girlfriend!"

Wilson and Jess chuckled, and she headed for the bathroom.

"Do you think you can give me a sample, too?" Wilson asked Nina, resting his hand on hers.

She nodded. "I think I'm about to give you something else, though." Her face was green and her forehead clammy. Wilson helped her stand as she headed for the bathroom but the door was closed. She bolted for the kitchen sink. Wilson was able to sample some of what she produced. By the time she stopped heaving, Jess was out of the bathroom and House had a wet washcloth to wipe Nina's face. He helped her back to the recliner.

Wilson rested a hand on her shoulder. "Rest a minute or two and then we'll get your urine sample."

Jess told Wilson, "Stay here with Nina. Greg and I will take the samples in to the lab."

"Let us know what you find, and whether there's something I should do for Nina."

Jess and I exchanged a glance. I nodded. "We'll call as soon as we get the results. And be prepared to bring Nina to the hospital."