Doctored Death

by P. D. Workman

  So it was a waiting game. Wait for the lab to process all the samples and then get back to them about whether they were positive for the virus as well. Sit through the weekend wondering whether more people would end up dead because of the length of time the testing process would take.

  Kenzie felt like a zombie throughout supper, her brain in a completely different place from her body. She tried to talk with Zachary as if everything were normal. She couldn’t tell him that they might have an outbreak of a genetically engineered virus. She had been told not to tell anyone about it, and telling him wouldn’t do her any good anyway. It would just mean that he was worrying about it as well as she was. And Zachary could take worry to a whole new level.

  Kenzie made spaghetti and then pushed it around on her plate, not feeling up to eating. If that was how Zachary felt every day, she could certainly sympathize with him. Especially with being told every day by her and by his doctors that he had to eat more. Looking at the food that she should have enjoyed just made her feel slightly sick. And how could anyone enjoy spaghetti if they were already feeling nauseated?

  Zachary looked up from his own plate, which was still just as full as hers. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Well, maybe feeling a little under the weather. But okay, really. Not contagious.” She grimaced about letting the word “contagious” slip. Thanks, Freud. She needed to be more careful.

  “You don’t have to eat if you’re not feeling well,” Zachary pointed out. Unlike him. He did have to eat whether he felt sick or not. She had the option of waiting until she felt better.

  But she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be able to shake the knot of dread in her stomach until they had the results of the tests. And until she was sure that they had everything under control. And how long was that going to be? A few days? Weeks? What if the virus was more widespread than they had feared? There was nothing to say that there weren’t other people dying of the virus, in other facilities, in other jurisdictions. Just because their lab had picked up the RNA signature on the virus, that didn’t mean that all labs would.

  Why had Dr. Savage sequenced the RNA? Had he known that there was something to be found? Was it strange enough to find HHV-4 in the brain that they wanted to find out more about it and why it was there? Or had he seen other cases already that he wasn’t telling them about? Maybe he hadn’t been surprised by the results at all. Maybe they had just been watching for more cases in the wild. Maybe he was gradually gathering the data that he would need to present his findings to the authorities and make a case for them to take action and lock down the nursing home—and wherever else the virus had shown up.

  “Kenz? Do you want to lie down? I can clean up here. Take care of that for you.” Zachary nodded to her plate.

  “Sorry... I’m only half here. I’m not very good company today.”

  “It’s okay. Understandable if you aren’t well. Why don’t you go have a nap? You might still be overtired from when you had to get up early the other day. It can take a while to recover from a lost night’s sleep.”

  “I’d rather put something on TV and distract myself from—” Kenzie barely caught herself in time, “—from my stomach. If I have something else to focus on...”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

  He stood up and reached his hand toward her. It wasn’t like she needed help up. But she accepted it anyway. Zachary put his arm around her and kissed her cheek lightly. He escorted her out to the living room and turned on the TV. He picked up one of the throw blankets that they mostly used during the winter and draped it over her, fussing like a mother hen. “What do you want to watch?”

  “Here, give it to me.” Kenzie held her hand out for the remote control. Zachary hesitated, then put it into her hand.

  She was certainly capable of paging through the menus and finding something to watch. She didn’t know what she wanted to watch, but she would find something. Zachary watched her for a moment, then moved out of the way and went back to the kitchen to clean up.

  “You still have to eat,” Kenzie reminded him.

  Zachary stopped and looked at Kenzie through the doorway, his face disappointed. Kenzie shook her head firmly.

  “Don’t forget who you’re talking to. You don’t get out of eating just because I’m not up to it.”

  He leaned against the doorframe, rolling his eyes.

  “You pretend that you don’t like me making you eat, but I think you really enjoy it,” Kenzie said. He liked to be mothered. After losing his own mother so young and then losing Bridget, who he thought would be there for him forever, why wouldn’t he want that? Someone to take care of him. Kenzie didn’t exactly see herself as a nurturer, but she had been a good big sister and mini-mother to Amanda, and she did care about Zachary and wanted to help him.

  “What if I eat later?” Zachary negotiated.

  “When?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked at the clock on the microwave behind him. “Maybe... in a couple of hours.”

  Kenzie couldn’t see any good reason to make him eat at a specific time. Other than the possibility of getting more calories in him before the day was over. “On one condition. You have a granola bar or other snack now, and then have your spaghetti—or another meal, but not just a snack—in a couple of hours.”

  Zachary considered this for a moment, then nodded. He went into the kitchen and rattled and banged dishes until everything was cleared away and the dirty dishes were in the dishwasher. He joined her in the living room with a granola bar, which he brandished dramatically to make sure she knew he was keeping his end of the bargain.

  “Don’t get crumbs on the couch.”

  He pulled his computer table over. His laptop was put away, so the table was clear, and he ate over it carefully, brushing all the crumbs carefully into his hand when he was done. He was clean and tidy when he was paying attention. But she had seen how he could get when he was distracted or severely depressed.

  He brushed his hands off into the kitchen sink, ran water over his fingers for a few seconds, and dried them on a dishtowel. He returned to sit with Kenzie on the couch, cuddling up close to her and trailing his fingers through her hair as they watched the movie.

  47

  Although Kenzie had the whole weekend off, they didn’t visit Lorne and Pat again. They wouldn’t normally make the trip again so soon unless there was something to be concerned about. When Zachary had been investigating the disappearance of Pat’s friend. When he’d been there to meet his siblings or Pat’s family. Or even if Pat needed some help painting the house or Lorne with cataloging photos on the computer. They were family. Zachary tried to keep in close touch with him, so he tried to at least call most weeks. Lorne was almost a pro at video calls now.

  “How are things with you and Kenzie?” Kenzie could hear Lorne’s cheerful voice over the speaker even though she was in her home office on the computer.

  “We’re pretty good,” Zachary told him. “Kenzie’s fighting some kind of stomach bug, but other than that, we’re fine.”

  “There are some things going around right now,” Lorne agreed. “Of course, they never declare it an epidemic until it’s practically over, but everybody else knows what’s going on.”

  Which was exactly what Kenzie was worried would happen with the novel HHV-4 virus. No matter how much effort they put into tracking infections, the authorities wouldn’t consider it a threat until far too late. Either when it was already on the decline, or when it had put too many people into the hospital and morgue to deny it any longer.

  “I might be fighting something too,” she heard Lorne say a few minutes later, distracting her from her mail. “I’ve been so exhausted lately. Just want to sleep all day. And it isn’t like I’ve been doing a lot of extra. If this is what getting old feels like, I think I’m going to opt out!”

  “I don’t think that’s actually an option,” Zachary said, chuckling. “If you’re tired, then make sure you get enough sleep. That’s what you
r body needs.”

  “Like you do?”

  “Do what I say, not what I do. I try to sleep. It isn’t by choice that I don’t.”

  “I know,” Lorne agreed warmly. “You have plenty of challenges. But you’ll get through it.”

  “I’m not actually going to get over it, though. Ever.” Zachary’s voice was low. Confiding. Kenzie stopped typing and listened intently. Maybe it wasn’t right for her to be listening in on Zachary’s conversation without his inviting her. But he could have put on earphones or gone somewhere private to talk. Or asked Kenzie to shut her bedroom door.

  “Zach, I don’t think you realize how far you’ve come over the years,” Lorne responded. “You’re not the ten-year-old boy who came to us all of those years ago. You’ve grown up and become a successful business owner. You’re in a committed relationship. You’ve been reunited with three of your siblings. Those are things that... back when you were a teenager, you would have told me were impossible. Things that you would never be able to achieve.”

  “But I’m still... broken,” Zachary protested. “You remember how much trouble I had sleeping when I lived with you. I had to have meds to even get a few hours of sleep. And I still have those issues now. And I will for the rest of my life!” At the end of his words, there was a blankness that Kenzie mentally filled in, hearing what he didn’t say. However long that is.

  She moved to get up. To go talk to Zachary and reassure him that things would get better. Maybe not one hundred percent. Maybe he would never act or feel like everyone around him. But the cyclical depression he was experiencing now would recede after Christmas. Of course he knew that. He’d been through it many times before.

  “You’re depressed,” Lorne acknowledged. “And you do need to make sure you get enough sleep. Are you taking a sleep aid? At this time of year, you need to be especially careful to get enough sleep.”

  “I don’t like to take them,” Zachary said stubbornly.

  “I know that. But sometimes they are necessary. For your mental health. For your physical health. Have you talked to your doctor?”

  “I already know what he would say. That it’s okay to take them occasionally.” Lorne started to reply, but Zachary spoke over him. “But I know it wouldn’t be occasionally. It would be every night. Because I know I can only get a few hours of sleep without them. The more I take them, the more I would rely on them and not on my own abilities.”

  “Okay.” Lorne’s voice was calm and reassuring, even though Zachary’s had risen in both volume and tone. “So what do you want to do? How are you feeling right now—and don’t just tell me ‘fine.’”

  “I’m f—” Zachary cut himself off, swearing under his breath. She could hear him take a few deep breaths, and when he spoke again, his voice was flat and even. Shutting off his emotions. Pulling away from himself and his feelings. “I know it’s that time of year and the depression is setting in. I go through this every year. It’s only temporary. I know that in my head. But I don’t believe it. And my body is telling me this will never end.”

  “Does Kenzie know how you’re feeling?”

  “Of course.” Zachary’s words were clipped. “She sees me every day.”

  “Have you talked to her about it?”

  “Sort of. Sometimes.”

  “Are you suicidal? Do you need to go to the hospital?” Lorne had learned to ask, not to hint around. Not to use careful euphemisms, but just to put it out in the open. If someone were having appendicitis or a stroke, they wouldn’t be expected to speak of it in veiled terms. Zachary’s mental health had to be treated the same way. Matter-of-factly. Not as if it were a dirty secret that had to be hidden away.

  “No.” There were several long seconds of silence. “Not yet.”

  “Okay. You make sure that you tell someone if you start having suicidal thoughts.”

  “I have thoughts,” Zachary clarified. “But no plan.”

  “Talk to Kenzie. She can help you to be safe. And talk to your therapist about it. What about your meds?”

  “I don’t want to do a med review. I can’t switch meds right now. I wouldn’t be covered properly by... then.”

  By Christmas. He could barely even stand to say the word.

  “Right. Talk to both of them. Make sure they know exactly what you’re thinking and feeling. And if it changes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you know that you can come here any time. Any time, Zachary. If you need to be with someone and Kenzie is at work. If you just need to vent or go for a walk together. Or binge on ice cream. Come. You’re family. We’re there for you.”

  Zachary cleared his throat a few times. Kenzie stayed where she was, knowing that she couldn’t go out there now and interrupt, telling him that she had heard the entire conversation and putting her two bits in. Lorne had said what needed to be said, and Zachary needed to know there were other people in his support network. Plenty of people were willing to step in and help if he just gave the word.

  He sniffled. Kenzie listened for Lorne’s voice, hoping that Zachary hadn’t disconnected the call when it got too emotional for him.

  “Thanks,” Zachary said eventually, his voice shaky. “Thank you. For everything.”

  “Of course. And I mean it. Those aren’t just words.”

  “I know.”

  There were a few minutes of quiet while Zachary pulled himself together again. “How’s Pat?”

  “I told you we’re both good. Pat is already into Christmas preparations. Decorations and baking to put in the freezer and all kinds of plans.”

  “Are you having his family over again this year?”

  “I think they want us to go there. But it won’t be until Christmas Day, probably in the evening. You’ll be starting to feel better then.”

  Zachary didn’t say anything.

  “You know you will,” Lorne said. “It’s the same every year. You know that once you get past Christmas Eve, you’ll start to feel better.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then just trust me. I’ve seen it before. Even the worst years, you’ve been better after the anniversary.”

  “Okay.”

  “Come by any time. Including Christmas Eve. And if you are up to visits on Christmas Day, you can go with us to see Pat’s family. They’d love to see you again.”

  “I don’t know if I made that great an impression the first time.”

  “You solved a case. How is that not impressive?”

  “But I bombed out on dinner. I was rude.”

  “They understood you were working on something important. Gretta and Suzanne ask after you all the time. They didn’t have any hard feelings toward you.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Kenzie knew that both Pat and Lorne had repeated this several times in the months since Zachary had met Pat’s mother and sister for the first time. His anxious brain wouldn’t accept their reassurances that it was just fine. But hopefully, with enough repetition, he would eventually stop worrying about it.

  And move on to something else.

  Kenzie grimaced and went back to her computer work.

  48

  The weekend seemed interminably long. Kenzie didn’t tell Zachary that she was anxious rather than physically sick, so he continued his ministrations. Promising to get whatever food she decided her stomach could handle. Making sure she slept in and didn’t stay up too late at night. Just generally cosseting her and treating her like an invalid for the rest of the weekend.

  Kenzie thought of Bridget and what it would be like to have a cancer diagnosis and Zachary hovering over her every day, sure she was going to break. While she could never approve of how Bridget had kicked Zachary out of her life when she got sick, she could understand not wanting him to smother her.

  It was a relief to get back to the office. She did her usual Monday-morning sweep of all the rooms and surfaces in their suite. Making sure that everything was properly logged and recorded.

  What she real
ly wanted to do was to check the office email for any reports from the virology lab on the additional testing for HHV-4. But she promised herself that she wouldn’t look at the report until she reached the point in her schedule that she usually checked the email. During her time at the Medical Examiner’s Office, she had learned that if email was the first thing she looked at in the morning, her day was far less productive. She ended up taking much longer processing it, and it was likely to take all morning instead of Kenzie being able to zip through it in half an hour or an hour. She would reward herself for dealing with the weekend full of anxiety and not breaking down and telling Zachary what was going on by checking to see if the results were in.

  Eventually, she sat down at her desk and opened her email. “Come on,” she coaxed. “Be there. If this testing was so important, you should have stayed there all weekend to do the processing and sequencing. Show me what you found.”

  Dr. Wiltshire arrived at the office at his usual time. Kenzie guessed that, he didn’t want to jinx the results by being too impatient to get them either. Though she knew it was magical thinking, her brain was convinced that if she just did things the way she did every workday, they would find the rest results in email as hoped for.

  Dr. Wiltshire looked at Kenzie, an awkward approach that said he was as afraid to ask for the test results as she had been to look for them.

  “They came in,” she told him quickly, reaching out with the printed copy of the report.

  Dr. Wiltshire didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. He took the stapled report from her. “Did you look?”

  Kenzie nodded. “I couldn’t really not look when I was printing them... I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Summarize.”

  “Five more cases, including Mr. Sexton.”