Pathogen

by Jessica L. Webb

  “So why the backlog?” Kate asked, knowing he didn’t have an answer. Eric shrugged again.

  Kate considered going through Dr. Doyle, but she didn’t. She told herself it was because Dr. Doyle already had a long enough list of things to deal with. If she was being honest, though, the real reason was she just couldn’t handle her passive-aggressive attitude this late in the day.

  “Let me see what I can find out,” Kate said to Eric, pushing herself away from the desk. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “Will do, Dr. Kate Morrison,” Eric said and laughed.

  Kate shook her head on the way out the door. She knew full well she could have been stuck with someone much worse than Eric MacKay. She descended quickly down to the lower level of the hospital, listening to the echo of her own footsteps on the stairs. She scratched again at her mask, wishing she could pull it off and take a real breath. She followed the signs for the lab, pulling out her hospital ID when asked. As she tucked the plastic tag back into her pocket, sliding it in beside her temporary RCMP ID, Kate had to wonder what this pocketful of temporary identification meant about her life.

  After asking a few people, Kate found a small, glassed-in area where a man in contaminant protective gear stood against a counter, putting small glass vials into an industrial-sized centrifuge. Kate watched as he closed and latched the lid and pushed a series of buttons. The whirring of the machine could be heard through the partition. She tapped at the window, and the startled man turned around. Kate guessed he was in his late twenties with dark hair and three piercings in his eyebrow just visible under his white cap.

  “No one’s supposed to be down here,” he said through the glass, by way of greeting.

  Kate pulled out her ID and held it up. He grudgingly opened the door.

  “I’ve heard about you. You’re the one running the show upstairs.”

  “One of many, right now,” Kate said, unsure how’d she’d gotten this reputation. “How are things in the lab?”

  “Backed up,” he grunted at her, “which is why I’m guessing you’re down here.” Definitely defensive.

  “Is it just you?” Kate asked.

  “Just me.” Kate looked at him for a moment, holding back her next question, waiting to see what he would offer into the silence. “Dr. Doyle said she was looking into either more staff, which is useless because there isn’t enough room, or not running all the tests in-house which is just as useless because once you add in transportation delays, you might as well just wait for me to do it and not deal with the hassle.”

  Kate nodded but didn’t speak.

  “And since she’s doubled the number of samples today, there’s just no way—”

  “Doubled the samples? What do you mean?” Kate interrupted.

  “Dr. Doyle herself sent down twenty-eight samples this afternoon. She didn’t so much say they were priority, but it was pretty clear. And that’s on top of all the ER samples you guys keep sending down.” He gestured back through the door at his tiny space. “So there are all the reasons for the backup. Take your pick.”

  Kate took a breath. “What’s your name?” she finally asked.

  “Ryan. Everyone calls me Trick, though.”

  Kate had a feeling Eric and Trick would get along just fine. “Trick, how long have you been on shift?”

  He seemed surprised by this question. “I got here at seven this morning.”

  “Almost twelve hours, then.”

  Trick shrugged. “I’ve got to catch up somewhere. I figured it might as well be tonight.”

  Kate gave him a long, disbelieving look.

  “Are you going to lecture me now on the occupational hazards of working tired? ’Cause I’ve got them memorized,” he nearly growled.

  Kate laughed and again he seemed surprised, his defensive posture relaxing a little.

  “No, no lecture. But if you’re still here when I leave in a few hours, I’m sending in the cops to haul you out.”

  “Right,” Trick scoffed at her, but she could see the amusement in his eyes.

  “Fine, don’t believe me. You’ll see.”

  “Is there anything else?” Trick asked, obviously wanting to get back to work.

  “No,” Kate said. “Thanks for your time, Trick. It was very nice to meet you.”

  “Sure. See you and the rest of your army in a few hours, then?” he grinned through his mask.

  Kate laughed at him as she pushed open the glass doors on her way out. Walking back through the basement maze, Kate cycled through the information Trick had just given her, wondering how she would confirm her suspicions. The sound of a heavy boot tread on the stairs ahead of her startled Kate. Her first thought was that it was Andy, then she changed her mind. Andy always walked so lightly, even in her heavy boots. As she turned the corner, halfway up the stairs, Mona Kellar came into view, an oversized jacket over her T-shirt and jeans.

  “Dr. Morrison, to what do we owe the honour of your presence below ground?” Mona Kellar asked. Her grating purr made Kate shudder.

  “Dr. Kellar.” Kate acknowledged her presence with a quick glance and tried to keep going. The stairwell, however, was too narrow, and Mona Kellar only had to take a small, almost casual step to the side to block Kate’s way. Kate considered shouldering past the woman, but the thought of having to touch her, to slide her body next to Mona Kellar’s made her hesitate. The hesitation cost her. Dr. Mona Kellar now commandeered the stairwell.

  “Where’s your guard dog?” Mona Kellar glared down at Kate, who was standing two stairs below, gripping the railing, her knuckles white with strain.

  “Don’t…” Kate said sharply, then bit her bottom lip, keeping the rest inside.

  “Don’t what, Dr. Morrison? Don’t talk about Ms. Wyles? Don’t ask the questions all of Hidden Valley wants answered? You two have become quite the celebrities in this town.”

  Kate looked back down the stairs, wondering which would take more bravery, to withstand the interrogation or to swallow her pride and retreat. Mona Kellar took one step down, holding Kate’s eyes, then another until they were on the same step. Kate looked up the stairwell this time, sensing escape. Then Dr. Kellar leaned in, brushing up against Kate until she cringed.

  “A word of advice before you scurry away, Dr. Morrison,” Mona Kellar whispered harshly in her ear. “Just because she fucks you doesn’t mean she loves you. Just because you can make her come doesn’t make you a lesbian.”

  Kate moved without thinking, pushing Mona Kellar aside with her shoulder and racing up the stairs, her heart hammering in her chest. She made it to the main floor in seconds, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. The lobby was thankfully quiet by now and Kate took a moment, breathing carefully, letting the adrenaline run through and out of her body, her brain, her muscles. She trembled slightly, feeling a sick twisting in her stomach as Mona Kellar’s words repeated and rebounded in her head. Kate was angry, embarrassed, ashamed, and she clenched the muscles in her abdomen, squeezing those feelings until they became smaller and smaller, until they barely registered.

  Kate heard Andy, the unmistakable tread of her boots down the long hallway. Kate quickly swallowed whatever traces of fear or anger were left, not wanting to deal with a confrontation right now between Andy and Mona Kellar. Because there would be if Andy knew what had just happened in the stairwell. Hidden Valley could not afford to have Andy or Kate distracted by one twisted, sick mind.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Andy said from down the hallway. Even from where she stood, Kate could see Andy was preoccupied, focused somewhere else. Kate gave her a careful smile, trying to not show how desperately happy she was to see her.

  “I was just checking in with the lab tech downstairs,” Kate told her, letting go of the railing and meeting Andy halfway.

  Andy’s eyes flicked to the stairwell, then back to Kate. Kate could see her register a question, a suspicion, some intuition flickered behind her grey eyes. Kate jumped in before she could fully form t
hat thought.

  “How did things go today?” Kate knew Andy and Ferris had been questioning residents, trying to find the source of the outbreak.

  It worked. Andy’s eyes darkened. “Not well.” She didn’t elaborate, but Kate assumed Andy wanted privacy before unloading the frustrations of her day. “How long until you’re done here?” Andy said.

  “An hour or two, but you can go whenever you want. I’ve got the rental car,” Kate reminded her.

  “I’ll wait.”

  Kate didn’t argue and Andy’s eyes flickered again, as if Kate’s lack of fight waved a red flag.

  “Give me an hour, then,” Kate said. She touched the sleeve of Andy’s shirt, running her thumb very lightly over the contoured muscle of her arm. “Let me get this patient settled, and then we’ll go.”

  Andy smiled and let her go. With Andy’s eyes on her back, Kate started to feel the weight of all the things she wasn’t thinking about, all the things she had pushed aside and pushed away. She hurried up the last few stairs, hoping to outrun it all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kate sat in the passenger seat of the Yukon, pulling her sleeves down over her hands to keep them warm. A cold front had settled over the mountains while they slept, reminding them of the winter to come. Kate stifled a yawn, taking a sip of her Judy blend coffee and catching Andy’s eye. They smiled at each other but didn’t say anything. Having stayed up late last night talking, they didn’t feel the need to fill the morning air with random chatter.

  Last night had been hard for Kate. She knew it was wrong to keep things from Andy. Not just the latest incident with Mona Kellar, but the growing sense of unease, the questions she had about herself, the all-too-familiar feeling of being lost. But right now, in the face of the growing bioterrorism threat in Hidden Valley, answering or even acknowledging those questions seemed indulgent. So Kate had kept Andy talking. Curled up in her pyjamas and Andy’s sweatshirt on the bed, she’d watched Andy pace the room, the frustration of inaction evident in each step she took across the small space.

  While Kate had been managing patients the day before, Jack, working through the data he’d been given over the last two days, had given Andy and Constable Ferris the most highly probable infection site as the James Ranch. It linked Tessa James, of course, as well as Chase Noonan and Keith Grange, who had both worked there. Mary Johnston had taken her granddaughter there for riding lessons. But it did not include Roberta Sedlak, who they were having a hard time definitively linking to any of the other patients.

  The James Ranch was the best guess, so Andy, Constable Ferris, and Dr. Salinger had gathered their protective gear and headed out. But Richard James had refused to even allow them on the property, threatening them through the intercom attached to the front gate. Apparently he assumed this was all a set-up by Michael Cardiff to discredit him in the community. Constable Ferris had attempted to be persuasive, holding back a severely pissed-off Andy. Richard James told them to come back with a warrant before he’d let them on his property.

  Andy wasn’t ready to give up that easily. She and Ferris knew that without a more firmly established link between all the initial incidences of the HV1A virus, getting a warrant would be difficult. Going to Superintendent Heath was a possibility, but Andy knew that would be more trouble than it was worth. It would only confirm Richard James’s paranoia. So Andy wanted to bring in Kate, thinking her neutral medical stance and her visibility in the community would bring him around.

  “Why were you down in the lab yesterday?” Andy said as they drove to the James Ranch. “I never got around to asking you last night.”

  “Dr. Doyle submitted twenty-eight samples to the lab yesterday on top of what the ER was sending down. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing most of Valley General’s hospital board and their families jumped the queue for getting tested.”

  “Christ. And here I was thinking Dr. Doyle was starting to stand up to them, when really she was just being underhanded.”

  Kate took a sip of her coffee. It was nice to have Andy on her side, to share in the frustration.

  “Some team leader,” Andy grumbled, turning onto a neatly paved side road as the sun began to peek its way through the clouds. “What do you want to do?”

  “Confront her,” Kate said decisively. “Privately, of course. Make sure she knows how backed up the lab is getting without doubling the samples for no reason other than to make her life easier.”

  Andy nodded approvingly. “Let me know if I can help.”

  Kate smiled. “How about another vacation at the end of this? I bet you could find us another cabin in the mountains somewhere,” she said, teasing.

  Instead of returning the smile, Andy gave her a long, searching look, and Kate’s hand trembled lightly. What had she just given away? “I take it you’re not anxious to return to Van East?” Andy said, pulling down the visor to block the sun that had erupted from behind the clouds.

  Kate blinked, utterly unprepared for this conversation. She sipped her coffee, wondering what her chances were at avoiding this. Pretty slim, she thought, as Andy pulled onto the shoulder of the road, a tall black fence separating the road from neat green paddocks.

  “I was making a joke, Andy,” Kate said sharply, wondering if Andy would back off if she got annoyed.

  “I know. But that doesn’t answer my question,” Andy said, not backing off even a little. Kate hadn’t really expected her to. “I know you’re struggling, Kate. I know Winnipeg was hard.” Andy’s voice was soft and Kate swallowed convulsively. Winnipeg had been hard, but not in the way Andy thought. The last time she’d landed in that city, it had been about finding her lost sister. This time, it was not her sister who was lost. “Kate…” Andy waited until Kate looked up. “I know you’re avoiding something.”

  Kate had to look away again, away from those grey eyes that saw to the very centre of her, past any hastily shut doors, past every sad attempt at distraction. Andy could see, she always had. What does she see that I can’t? Another convulsive swallow. The question was close, too close.

  “You don’t have to talk to me, you know.” Andy was still trying, her voice carrying that sweet, understanding softness that had always tugged at Kate’s heart. “Just know that you can. And that you don’t have to waste any more energy trying to hide from me.”

  From me, Andy. I’m hiding from me.

  Those were the words Kate knew she should say out loud. She didn’t. Instead, she took three slow breaths, counting the spires of the long black fence framed in the side window until those words in her head disappeared. As if the thought had never existed in the first place. Finally she looked at Andy, who waited patiently, quietly, like they had all the time in the world to work this out.

  “Thanks,” was all Kate said into the silence.

  Andy looked at her for a long time and Kate, her defenses terrifyingly low, let her. She didn’t know what Andy saw, but whatever it was, it was enough.

  “Are you ready for this?” Andy said, indicating the large, black gate in front of them.

  More than ready. Anxious to get at something she had some hope of solving.

  “Yes. Maybe you should let me do most of the talking?” Kate asked, giving a tentative smile. Andy returned it, put the truck in gear, and eased forwards into the driveway. She then lowered the window, pushed a button on the intercom, and waited until a subdued voice at the other end answered.

  “James residence.”

  “This is Sergeant Wyles with the RCMP. Could you let Mr. James know that Dr. Morrison is with me and would like to speak with him.”

  “One moment.”

  The speaker clicked off, and Kate and Andy waited in silence. A moment later Richard James spoke through the intercom. He was angry.

  “Sergeant Wyles, I thought I made myself clear yesterday—”

  Kate leaned across Andy, raising her voice to be heard through the speaker.

  “Mr. James? This is Dr. Kate Morrison, I’m one of the doctors
working with the team at Hidden Valley General regarding the community virus. The one linked to your daughter’s recent illness.”

  A brief pause. “Dr. Morrison, are you here to discuss my daughter? Is something wrong?”

  Kate could hear the anxiety in his voice, remembered Dr. Doyle describing how overprotective he was of his only child.

  “Tessa’s fine, Mr. James,” Kate reassured him. She was unwilling to play on a worried father’s fears to get them in the door.

  “Then I fail to see—”

  “It’s the rest of Hidden Valley I’m worried about,” Kate interrupted.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If you would please meet with us, Mr. James. Give us twenty minutes of your time.”

  Another pause. “All right.”

  The intercom buzzed, and the huge black gates swung slowly, mechanically on their oversized hinges. Andy followed the long, winding driveway, edged in an assortment of evergreens, the house coming into view as she took the last turn. Even on this cold, grey day, the house set back against the trees was absolutely stunning. Kate’s first thought was of the bow of a ship, its most prominent peak coming out from the house at an angle, giving the impression of movement, of moving forwards. The house was a perfect assortment of wood and glass, the expanse of the roof betraying its monstrous size.

  “Nice,” Andy noted neutrally. “A little on the small side maybe.”

  Kate smiled. “Any advice before we go in?”

  “This is your show, Dr. Morrison. I’m just along for the ride.”

  “All right, then. Just try not to glower too much, okay?”

  Andy scowled playfully, then pushed the driver’s side door open. As Kate got out too, her heart suddenly lurched in her chest and she froze. I love her. God, I love her. Kate knew she had to get this under control. She couldn’t let Andy keep worrying about her, not on top of everything else. Another thought occurred to her, and Kate felt sick at its implications. What if Andy grew tired of always carrying the weight of Kate’s worries? What if…