"They're out," I said.
"Good job, Mireya. Units are about six minutes out. Stay with him."
That's when Glynis came around the corner of the clubhouse, running.
She had lost the straw hat somewhere. Her short silver hair was flattened on one side and her linen shirt was untucked, and she was running in sandals across hot gravel, which is a thing nobody does in Cholla Springs in July unless something is very wrong. She must have heard me yelling. She must have seen the swimmers running. She came through the maintenance gate and saw Everett sitting on the asphalt with his shirt open and his face the color of wet cement, and she made a sound I'd never heard from her, not a word, just a kind of crack.
"Everett. Everett, oh my God, what happened, what happened?"
She dropped to her knees beside him. The asphalt had to be a hundred and fifty degrees. She didn't seem to notice.
"He inhaled chlorine gas," I said. "Something mixed in the pump house. Fire and EMS are on the way. Keep him sitting up. Don't let him lie down."
"He doesn't—he knows how to—" She had both her hands on his face. "Honey, look at me. Look at me. What did you do? What did you pour?"
Everett coughed, and coughed, and got out two words between coughs. "Like... always."
"Mireya," said Keturah's voice from the phone on my knee, calm and slightly tinny, "who's with you now?"
"His wife," I said. "Glynis Hollister. She's the HOA president." I was watching Everett's lips. They were dusky, not blue yet, but heading there. "Keturah, tell the fire crew I think it's a mixed-chemical reaction, chlorine and an acid, most likely. About half an hour ago I watched a supply truck deliver jugs of pool chemicals to this building. Some of them had handwritten labels. I recorded the whole delivery on this phone. The hazmat team is going to want to see it so they know what's in there."