One Final Breath

by Lynn H. Blackburn

  Gabe didn’t give her a pat answer or common platitudes, and she appreciated that. After a few moments he asked, “What about the girl upstairs and the connection to Jillian? Have you had any luck finding out more about her?”

  “No. Not yet.” She stared out the window looking out over a lovely view of the next building’s roof.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t go to the pediatric floor and hunt her down.”

  She knew Gabe was teasing. And it wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about it. But even when he’d been sound asleep, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave the room. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  A soft knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Leigh’s head came through the door first. “Mind if we come in?”

  “Like we could stop you,” Gabe said.

  Leigh burst through the door and went straight to Gabe. “Gabe! You’re awake. And in a chair. Fabulous. Don’t get up,” she said in mock seriousness.

  “If you insist.”

  Leigh was followed by Sabrina, then Ryan, and Adam brought up the rear carrying a cooler. “We heard they were starving you, bro,” Ryan said as he and Adam opened the cooler and handed out boxes. “Leigh felt it was important to uphold tradition, so we made a run to the Pancake Hut.”

  “Grits and scrambled eggs for you,” Leigh said as she handed Gabe a box. She handed the next one to Anissa. “If you tell me you aren’t hungry, I will force these pancakes down your throat. Eat. That is an order.”

  “Look out, Leigh,” Gabe said. “Your mother hen is showing.”

  Everyone laughed. Even Leigh. After they did a bit of rearranging, the large corner room was big enough for the six of them to sit. Once everyone was settled, all eyes fell on Anissa.

  She pulled in a deep breath. “Let’s pray.” It took her a few seconds before she could find the first word. As she tried to quiet her heart before God, Gabe’s hand slid into her left hand. Then Leigh grabbed her right. She glanced up and realized they’d all joined hands and a peace settled over her. “Father, you know our hearts. You know our fears and our desires and our failings. You know our weaknesses and our weariness. Your Word says that your strength is made perfect in our weakness. That when our flesh fails, you will never fail. So we ask that you will give us the strength to trust in your faithfulness to us. Give us the hope that you are working all things for the good and for your glory. Thank you for loving us. For the food and friendship we share. May we glorify you in all things. We love you, Jesus. You’re the best. Amen.”

  Five murmured “amens” were followed by the sound of takeout boxes opening and plastic utensils being pulled from their wrappings.

  Gabe squeezed her hand—one quick pump before he released her.

  “Thank you for this, Leigh,” he said. “But I need to go on record that I think we should set up a system of some kind. Like one stab wound equals three dozen cookies. Two stab wounds—”

  “Two?” Sabrina laughed. “How about if you ask Leigh to bake you cookies without requiring any perforations to get them?”

  “Well, your way might be easier,” Gabe said.

  “Yeah. I should think.” Sabrina took a bite of her eggs. “It’s not like Leigh needs an excuse anyway.”

  “True,” Leigh said.

  They enjoyed the food, chatting and laughing until everyone had finished. When Anissa reached for Gabe’s empty plate to throw it in the trash, he grabbed her arm. “Don’t you think you should tell the others?”

  She had been wondering if she should. But now?

  She’d given Leigh and Sabrina permission to tell Ryan and Adam her whole story, so she knew they were up to speed on that. But she hated to be a Debbie Downer and suck the life out of the party.

  But Ryan needed to know as he investigated the shooting.

  Before she could start, Leigh brought the festivities to a screeching halt. “I have something I need to share with y’all,” she said. “Not like we don’t have enough craziness to deal with, but we have a serious public health issue in Carrington.”

  Sabrina, Ryan, and Adam all nodded, so they must have already known what Leigh was talking about. Anissa looked at Gabe and he raised his shoulders and shook his head. So he was as confused as she was. Anissa turned to Leigh. “What have we missed?”

  “Funny you should ask, because I’m curious about that myself.” Leigh wagged her eyebrows at the two of them. “But that will have to wait, because what I have to say will affect all of us starting, well, now. The news will break tonight. We’ve had twenty kids from Camp Blackstone in the ED this weekend. We’ve finally gotten tests back and they are positive for cryptosporidium.”

  “Ugh.” Sabrina groaned.

  “So, I’m guessing that’s bad?” Gabe asked.

  “Very. That lovely stomach bug everyone’s been getting? Not your standard stomach bug. Highly contagious and can take weeks to recover from.”

  “We were out at the camp a couple of weeks ago doing a diving demo,” Adam said.

  “Yes, and then we got sick a week later and it was probably crypto.” Ryan pointed his fork at Anissa. “You should be glad you had to be in court that day or you would’ve been in the same boat as the rest of us.”

  “The state’s environmental folks have been out taking samples and trying to find the source of contamination. They think it’s something specific to the camp, but they’re also testing Lake Porter and the municipal water. Crypto is highly resistant to chlorine, so the standard disinfection methods they have at the camp aren’t enough.” Leigh threw up her hands in frustration. “These kids are so sick. And if the environmental folks can’t find it and contain it, they’ll have to shut down the camp. They’ve already stopped water activities and are boiling all the water.”

  “Poor kids.” Anissa couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. Who wanted to be away at summer camp and not be able to go swimming?

  “Yeah, and we need to pray there’s no contamination in the lake. The water treatment plant has the right kind of setup to remove it before it enters the drinking supply, but they have been asked to double-check to be sure every system is working correctly. But if they find it in Lake Porter, it would be a tourism disaster. They could have to close the lake to swimming and skiing.”

  Anissa tried to imagine Lake Porter closed for business. It wasn’t just inconvenient. It was potentially life-altering. Carrington and Carrington businesses and Carrington jobs all relied on Lake Porter. Without it . . . Anissa didn’t even want to think about the consequences.

  “We’re still waiting on test results for some of the kids, but all the tests that have come back so far have been crypto. No deaths yet, thank goodness. For most people, crypto presents as a bad stomach bug or food poisoning. It’s unpleasant”—Ryan, Adam, and Sabrina all confirmed that with vigorous nods—“but not life-threatening. The problem comes when it gets into a water supply and affects our immunocompromised populations. The very young, the very old, anyone who is currently on chemotherapy, is HIV-positive, or has had an organ transplant and is taking antirejection medications. All are at risk. It can and will kill people.”

  Leigh took a deep breath and kept going. “We have three patients in the hospital now with confirmed crypto who fall under those categories. An elderly grandma, a thirty-three-year-old man with testicular cancer, and a sixteen-year-old girl who had a kidney transplant a few years ago and was at Camp Blackstone for the summer. When all three tested positive for crypto, doctors tried to determine if they had anything in common. All of them had been at the camp. The young girl had been there as a camper. The young man with cancer is an IT specialist. He had been at the camp to fix a computer issue. And the grandma had been there to visit her grandson, who had a stomach bug, which was probably crypto.”

  “When did they come in?” Gabe asked.

  “Last week. I saw the young girl when she came in through the ED. Precious thing. Her mom is in China or something and still hasn’t made it back to the States. She seems to be o
n her way to a full recovery. She got out of the PICU a day or two ago and is on the regular pediatric floor now. The grandma and the young man are both in ICU. Now that we know it’s crypto, the number of kids we are seeing in the ED from the camp who are dehydrated makes a lot more sense. We didn’t need to admit any of them, but it’s clearly getting worse over there, not better.”

  Anissa’s thoughts were on the girl from camp with parents in China. She’d been that girl. She was that girl. If anything happened to her, it would easily take her family days to get to her.

  Ryan pointed at her. “By the way, you can’t go home either.”

  His remark yanked her thoughts back to the here and now. “Why not?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Crime scene. I haven’t released it yet.”

  “Well, you can just get on with releasing it. I live there, Ryan Parker. And in case you’ve forgotten, I happen to be a homicide investigator and there’s nothing in my house that can be considered evidence besides some bloodstained furniture.”

  Ryan’s only visible reaction to her outburst was a smirk. “Were you planning to go home tonight, Investigator Bell?”

  “I . . .” She couldn’t finish the thought. The truth was that Gabe was off pain meds and stable and had a police officer at his door. She didn’t, technically, need to be here.

  But she didn’t want to leave. And she didn’t want to think that through right now either.

  Leigh shoved her shoulder against Ryan’s. “Be nice.” She turned to Anissa. “Investigator Parker”—she said the name with so much sass the others laughed—“allowed me access to your crime scene of a home today and I brought you a change of clothes and toiletries and everything. You’ll have what you need regardless of whether you stay here or come back to our place.”

  “Thanks.” She could feel Gabe’s eyes on her and refused to look in his direction.

  What was she going to do?

  Gabe loved this crazy group, but right now he wanted them all to leave. “Anissa, why don’t you fill them in on the Paisley Wilson situation.” The sooner she did, the sooner he could make them get out of his room.

  Anissa recounted the story, again.

  “So someone sent it to her specifically?” Sabrina asked when Anissa finished.

  “Yes.”

  “All digital files?” Sabrina pressed.

  “Some newspaper clippings, some digital. Why?”

  “Can you get her to give you the originals, not the copies?” Sabrina answered with a question, which wasn’t really an answer, but Gabe had a hunch he knew where she was going with this line of inquiry.

  Anissa must have understood as well because she answered with a question of her own. “Do you think you might be able to figure out where the information came from?”

  “Possibly.” From anyone other than Sabrina, that answer wouldn’t have been encouraging. But coming from Sabrina, possibly was like saying yes. Though Sabrina didn’t like to say yes until her confidence level was at 110 percent.

  “I don’t know if she’ll give it to me or not,” Anissa said, “but I don’t mind asking. She said they were moving Brooke to the regular pediatric floor today, so she should be easy enough to find tomorrow.”

  Sabrina had a look on her face that Gabe recognized. She was on the hunt. When she got the scent of something she could track down, it was beautiful to behold.

  “What are you thinking, Bri?” Adam asked.

  She gave a little shrug. “Sometimes people leave things behind. Fingerprints. DNA. Digital fingerprints are good too. I might be able to figure out the source if I have the original materials.”

  “Might?” Gabe couldn’t help but scoff. “You’ll probably have their entire life story for us by breakfast.”

  Sabrina flushed and leaned against Adam. Everyone else laughed. Even Anissa.

  Ryan was the one who got serious first. He gave Gabe a long look. Gabe wasn’t quite sure what Ryan was trying to communicate, but he paid close attention as Ryan spoke. “In light of this information, I do think Anissa should stay here tonight.”

  Ah. Ryan must have been trying to get a feel for whether Gabe wanted Anissa around. Gabe almost said yes, but he caught himself. This was Anissa’s decision to make. Not his. Although if she stayed tonight, they might have to have that conversation he’d been putting off.

  “Agreed,” Anissa said. “As long as I can get a shower and a change of clothes, and as long as you get Forensics out of my house.”

  “Deal.” Ryan stuck out his hand and she shook it.

  The party broke up as everyone, except for Gabe, stood. They tossed trash, scooted chairs back to their original positions, and gathered purses and phones.

  “Anissa,” Leigh said. “If you want to come with me, I can get you into the staff locker room for a shower. I’ve got your bag down in the ED.”

  “Oh, um . . .” Anissa had a deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “I’ll stay with him,” Ryan said.

  She visibly relaxed with Ryan’s offer. “Okay.” Anissa followed the crew out.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Ryan turned to him. “So?”

  “So what? You just gonna stand there while I attempt to get out of this chair?”

  “No. I’m going to stand here until you tell me when you figured out how you feel about Anissa.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ryan crossed his arms. “I don’t see what your problem is. What the hesitation is. She’s a catch. And you somehow have managed to crack that impervious shell she lives in. She even laughs at your jokes now.”

  “Everyone laughs at my jokes.”

  “Not everyone has put their life on hold while you’ve been in here. Not everyone has refused to leave your side.”

  “I got stabbed. She thinks it was meant for her. She’s grateful. That’s it.”

  “I was buying it until that last bit,” Ryan said. “I’m sure she’s grateful. But Anissa’s pragmatic. If she were thinking clearly, she’d have been in the office today. Which she wasn’t.”

  “She was working from here.”

  “Yeah. And it was fine. But it wasn’t like her. And I want to know why.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Ryan fixed a withering glare on Gabe. “You happen to be one of my best friends. I think you and Anissa could be a great couple and I’d love to see you happy. But I also think you could explode and the fallout would hurt a lot of people whom we both love.”

  Gabe leaned back against the chair. “I’m trying to figure out how to get out of it without it blowing up. I’m going to talk to her tonight.”

  “Why would you try to get out of it?”

  “I’m not marriage material.”

  “You’ve said that before. But why do you think that? You have a real job. You’re a responsible person. You love the Lord. If you aren’t marriage material, then who is? So your childhood was a mess. That doesn’t mean your adulthood is. You need to get over that. It’s an excuse. Not a reason.”

  “Anissa deserves better.”

  “Is that what she thinks or what you think?”

  “It’s what I know. She misses her family. She misses Yap. She’s only staying here because of Carly’s case. When it’s solved—”

  “Whoa. Hold up.” Ryan put one hand in the air like he was stopping traffic. “She may have stayed because of Carly’s case, but that’s not why she’s here now. She has a lot of other reasons to be here. And you’re one of them.”

  “She can barely tolerate me.”

  A soft knock on the door ended their conversation. A custodian entered and asked if he could clean the room. Ryan and Gabe watched TV while he swept, emptied the trash, and spent a few minutes in the small restroom. When he left, a nurse came in to check vitals. She’d been gone only a minute when an aide stopped in to see if he had a dinner tray that needed to be removed.

  When she left, Gabe couldn’t stop himself from grumbling. “I don’t know how anyone ge
ts better in a hospital. People are constantly coming in and out. Drives me crazy.” There was yet another tap on the door. “See what I mean?”

  Ryan went to the door and cracked it open. He turned back to Gabe. “I don’t think you’ll mind this intrusion.”

  Anissa entered, followed by Leigh. “We brought you a Coke,” Anissa said as she put the can on the bedside tray. “This way we won’t have to sweet-talk the nurse when you decide you need one at midnight.”

  She turned to put her bag down and Ryan mouthed, “Can’t tolerate you?”

  “Shut it,” Gabe said under his breath.

  Leigh came straight to Gabe’s chair. “Let’s help Gabe get settled before we go.”

  By settled, Leigh meant ready for bed. She was in full nurse mode, and he’d brushed his teeth, put on fresh shorts, and been tucked back into bed before he knew it.

  Ryan and Anissa had stayed back in the corner while Leigh did her thing. Probably wise on their part. He could hear them murmuring, but he couldn’t catch any of their conversation.

  “You ready to go, babe?” Ryan said to Leigh. “I’ll walk you down.”

  “If you need anything tonight, text me. I’ll be downstairs. I’m not officially on the schedule until eleven tonight, but my guess is they’ll need me earlier,” Leigh said as she gave Gabe a gentle hug on his uninjured side, then turned to Anissa. “If he gets obnoxious, let me know. You can come hang out with me.”

  “Thank you.” Anissa returned Leigh’s hug.

  Ryan and Leigh walked to the door.

  “Now that he’s awake, I may have to take you up on it.” Anissa’s stage whisper carried to him with no trouble.

  “Hey! I heard that.” Gabe tried to toss a pillow at her as the door closed behind them, but the motion sent pain radiating through his chest and the pillow barely made it to the side of the bed.

  “Watch it, Chavez. I’ll get Lois in here if you won’t take it easy.”

  “You don’t scare me, Bell. You’d better sleep with one eye open.”