Pathogen

by Jessica L. Webb

  Andy touched Kate’s hand, a light touch. “I’m sorry,” she said. They both knew that wasn’t the extent of it. Not even close.

  They were interrupted by a knock at the door, Eric coming in followed by a man with grey hair and a full beard. His eyes were kind as he smiled.

  “Dr. Morrison, this is Dr. Fullworth. And this is Sergeant Wyles, our patient.”

  Eric indicated to Kate that he needed to talk to her as Dr. Fullworth began washing his hands in the sink. Kate could feel Andy’s eyes on her back as she left the room.

  “I hear we lost Mr. Beckett,” Eric said when they were just outside the suture room door. “He refused treatment?”

  Kate did nothing but nod. Eric could read the chart if he wanted all the details.

  “I’ve got two more Ward B candidates for you,” Eric continued, taking Kate’s cue. “Brothers. Age thirty-one and thirty-four, rising stars in the Hidden Valley financial community, so very high profile,” Eric added.

  “Great,” Kate mumbled, taking the charts that Eric held out for her.

  “Both had severe asthma as kids, both hospitalized more than once with collapsed lungs. Grew out of the worst of it in their mid-twenties.”

  “Meds?” Kate asked, scanning the charts.

  “This is where it gets interesting. One takes a daily low-dose prednisone because his asthma is still exercise-induced.”

  Kate looked up at Eric. “Both presenting with fluid build-up?”

  “Yes, I just sent them down for x-ray and the samples are already downstairs in the lab.”

  “Good. Perfect,” Kate said, her thoughts on three different floors: the ER, Ward B, the lab. “I want to push the steroids, high dose, right away. There’s a reason Harris Trenholm is still with us and Jim Beckett isn’t. And let’s meet tomorrow morning after the PHEM meeting. You, me, Dr. Salinger, and Dr. Kellar, let’s run a differential and see what we come up with.”

  “Will there be an autopsy on Mr. Beckett?” Eric said.

  “I think that’s pretty much a guarantee.” Kate handed him back the charts.

  Eric left to transfer the patients upstairs, and Kate walked back into the suture room. Andy was lying on her side on the gurney, a sterile drape over her face and Dr. Fullworth bending over the opening, inspecting the skin.

  “Just waiting for the freezing to take effect, and then I’ll get started. A little tricky with these edges, but I should be able to close it up with minimal scarring.”

  Kate wheeled over a stool and sat in front of Andy.

  “Dr. Morrison, am I to understand that you are a lifer over at Van East ER?” Dr. Fullworth asked, his eyes twinkling.

  Kate looked up, surprised at how familiarly he spoke about her hospital. “I don’t know if I qualify for lifer status, but that’s my day job.” It seemed like a strange way to describe the job that, until recently, had been her entire life.

  “Oh, well, anything over five years qualifies as lifer in my books. I know the population you serve, Dr. Morrison.”

  Kate looked at the man carefully, trying to figure out how a plastic surgeon from Hidden Valley had any connection to the grime and crime of downtown Vancouver.

  “Are you Dr. Sean Fullworth, by any chance?” Kate said. “As in founder of the Fullworth Clinic?” Kate referred to the eastside drop-in clinic that provided day-to-day medical services for Vancouver’s poorest and sickest residents.

  “The very same. Though I regret on a daily basis I allowed them to use my name. Too high profile,” Dr. Fullworth said. He picked up a small needle and touched the tip carefully to different spots around Andy’s cut. “Sergeant Wyles, can you feel that at all?”

  “No.”

  “Good, I’ll get started, then.” He picked up the suture materials and very precisely began to pull the jagged edges of skin together. Kate knew she’d been right to call him in. Her own attempt would have definitely left Andy worse off. “Are you wondering why a plastic surgeon opened up a clinic to service the homeless and destitute, by any chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was a trauma surgeon years ago. Decades ago, really. My wife grew tired of the hours, though, tired of being a single parent to three very rambunctious kids in a city she hated. So I pursued a more family-friendly specialty, and we moved to Hidden Valley. But I couldn’t stand leaving it behind. I hated being surrounded by the haves just as much as my wife despised having to live in the city so I could work with the have nots. So we joined forces and opened a clinic.”

  Kate continued to watch him work, trying to imagine the shift from being a trauma surgeon in downtown Vancouver to a plastic surgeon in Hidden Valley. How did those two things even exist in the same space? Didn’t those two identities compete and battle on a daily basis? And how could he possibly allow someone else, even his wife, to dictate the direction of his life?

  “It seems impossible to you, doesn’t it?” Dr. Fullworth asked kindly, looking up at Kate. “That level of compromise seems un-​imaginable.”

  “I guess it does.”

  “When you two have been married for thirty years, we’ll talk then. The world looks very different from this end, let me tell you,” he said, laughter in his eyes.

  Kate didn’t bother being surprised by his knowledge of her relationship with Andy. It was all over Hidden Valley by now. “So, compromise is the secret to your success?” Kate said, focusing on his careful stitches, Andy’s wound now almost closed. Andy remained perfectly still under the sterile drape, just the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed evenly.

  “It works for us. I try to bridge the gap here in Hidden Valley between the two polarities of this region. I feel strongly about community, a coming together of people from a variety of backgrounds. My wife and I host an annual fall fair every Labour Day weekend. But it’s a public event, no flashy show ring or prize money. There’s riding and roping and a plowing match and a bale-throwing contest.”

  “Hidden Valley meets Calgary Stampede?”

  Dr. Fullworth laughed. “Yes, I suppose you could say that. It’s a good community event.”

  Kate saw Andy move. Her hand, which had been curled in a loose fist, opened as she spread her fingers against the white sheet. It was a small gesture, but a very deliberate one. Kate immediately thought back over the conversation, wondering what Andy was reacting to. The clinic, marriage, compromise, community, a coming together of people…

  “Dr. Fullworth, how many people attend your fall fair?” Kate asked as she abruptly shifted gears, prompted by Andy’s typically astute mind.

  “We had our highest attendance this year with over a thousand.” He looked up at Kate. “Are you looking for an invite for next year?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Kate said, distracted. “Was Tessa James at this year’s fair?”

  “Yes. She and the eldest Cardiff girl organized the craft table for the little ones.”

  “How about Chase Noonan and Keith Grange?” Kate continued, meeting Dr. Fullworth’s eyes as he looked up from his last stitch.

  “Chase Noonan I can confirm, I’m afraid I don’t know Keith Grange,” he said slowly.

  “Mary Johnston?”

  “I believe she was there with her grandkids.”

  “Roberta Sedlak…do you know Roberta Sedlak?” Kate asked, her stomach flipping.

  “Yes, of course. But I don’t recall seeing her that day. Is this about the virus, Dr. Morrison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think my farm might have been the point of origin?” he asked directly, his voice calm but with an undercurrent of strain.

  “Possibly.”

  Instead of asking another question as Kate anticipated, Dr. Fullworth inspected his stitches. Then he took a pre-medicated swab from the metal tray, smeared an antibacterial cream across the wound, and covered it with a bandage, taping it carefully in place. He then pulled the sterile covering off Andy’s head and shoulders. As she sat up, she locked her grey eyes on Kate for a moment bef
ore looking to Dr. Fullworth.

  “What do you need from me?” Dr. Fullworth asked.

  “Full access to your property in the morning. I’d like to get some samples and send them in first thing tomorrow,” Andy said.

  “Of course,” said Dr. Fullworth. “Is my family in any sort of danger?”

  “No, not as far as we know,” Kate said.

  Dr. Fullworth looked down at his hands. “Still, this might be a good time to take my wife to visit her relatives in Montreal, don’t you think?” He tried for a smile, coming just short of being convincing. He then sighed. “I’d hate to think we had anything to do with the spread of this thing.”

  “We don’t know anything yet,” Andy said. “We’ll have results in a few days, but if you go away, just leave us a number where you can be reached.”

  Dr. Fullworth pulled a card and a pen out of his inside pocket, scratched some numbers in the back with sharp strokes. He handed it to Andy. “My personal cell phone, I’m never without it.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Fullworth. For your cooperation and for stitching me up,” Andy said to him.

  “You are most welcome.” He stopped and looked between them. “Best of luck to you both. I truly hope you can put this community back together again.”

  He left them then, Kate sitting so still on the stool that her legs were vaguely numb, Andy on the gurney, the spatter of blood on her white shirt now brown. Andy shifted, pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and dialed.

  “Hey, where are you?” Andy said into the phone, her voice clipped. “Good. We’ll be right there.” She stabbed the Disconnect button and stood quickly.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Meeting room, to see Jack,” Andy said, holding the door for Kate.

  They made their way down the quiet hallway and into the half-lit boardroom where Jack sat surrounded by two laptops, a portable printer, and the remains of what looked like lunch and dinner. Kate had almost forgotten how absorbed he could get when he was working. Kate checked her watch—almost ten p.m. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate. She could barely remember the beginning of the day.

  “The fair wasn’t overlooked, Wylie,” Jack was saying. “It just didn’t have enough data to support it as a site of interest.”

  “How could it not? Most of Hidden Valley was there,” Andy said, frustrated at his answer. Kate knew she only let her frustration show around her and Jack. If it was anyone else, she would have hid it entirely.

  Jack hit a few keys on his laptop, then pointed at the screen to back up his answer.

  “Tessa James, Mary Johnston, and Chase Noonan were at the Fullworth fall fair. Keith Grange has yet to be linked and Roberta Sedlak was definitively not there.”

  “According to who? Where is this definitive information from?” Andy barked out, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

  Jack hit a few more keys. “Ferris questioned her husband over the phone about a week ago.”

  “Do we know where she was?”

  “We don’t have that information,” Jack said, apologetically.

  “Well, we need it,” Andy said to no one. She was sitting rigidly in her chair, eyes trained on nothing. “Who is our best contact for finding out where Keith Grange was that day?”

  Jack scrolled quickly. “Ferris questioned his two roommates, one of whom was at the fair and one working at another location.”

  Kate could see her formulating a plan, mapping out the best strategy to take this on.

  “Okay, I’ll put Ferris and Dr. Din on obtaining samples from the Fullworth farm first thing in the morning. Slater and I will find out definitively where both Keith Grange and Roberta Sedlak were that day,” Andy said, the authority in her voice absolute. She zeroed in on Kate, sitting across the table. “Maybe you should be there, too. You get information out of people faster than I can. Can you clear your morning?”

  “I’ll do rounds on my patients early. If everyone is stable and Dr. MacKay is managing things in the ER, then I’ll come with you and Constable Slater.”

  “Good. Did you ever hear back from Dr. Levesque?”

  “Yes. They’ve got one team working on the original presentation of the virus and another on the mutated, airborne presentation. The team looking at the original virus is very close to finding out how it spreads and how long until onset of symptoms, possibly even tomorrow. That information is still a few days away for the new strain.”

  “Excellent. If we can confirm either the point of origin or the onset of symptoms…”

  “We can backtrack,” Kate finished for her.

  Andy flicked her eyes back to Jack on his two laptops. “Jack, can you pull up all the data from last week? I want to look at it again.”

  Leaving them to talk data, Kate went upstairs to meet her two new charges, Jackson and Trent Ross. They were nearly identical, both medium build with neatly parted, glossy black hair. They were both polite and attentive as Kate explained the treatment course and the concerns about their history of asthma. Even with this cautionary news, they both flashed perfect white smiles through their oxygen masks.

  When the night shift came on at eleven, Lucy dragged Kate back downstairs, depositing her at the door of the meeting room where Andy and Jack were both silently and independently working on their laptops. Andy looked up first, checked her watch, then powered down her laptop without saying anything. She jerked her chin at Jack, who did the same.

  “I guess the Three Musketeers needed to sleep sometimes, didn’t they?” Jack asked no one in particular.

  “Kate, give Jack your keys. I’ll drive you home.”

  Kate gave her a tired smile, handing Jack the keys to the rental car. “Don’t I wish,” she said.

  The drive was quiet, each lost in her own thoughts. As soon as they got to the room, Andy immediately pulled out her laptop again and set it up on the desk. Kate sighed but didn’t say anything. She was too tired, and she wouldn’t win the argument anyway. As Kate brushed her teeth, barely looking at herself in the mirror, she saw Andy through the half open door taking off her bloody shirt and carefully pulling on her basketball hoodie. Kate thought about their earlier conversation, how they both carried scars, how they worried more about the other’s than their own. Finally, Kate pulled back the covers and crawled into bed, Andy giving her a sweet, slightly distracted kiss. Kate closed her eyes and tried to put her thoughts on pause, focusing on her breathing instead of her brain. It worked as she was pulled quickly and deeply into sleep.

  *

  Angler stood leaning against a wall, an invisible spotlight above his head illuminating his grossly puffy face and his thin blond hair, everything around him darkened in shadow. He stared at her, his smirking eyes locked on Kate, telling her unequivocally that he knew something she didn’t. He began to laugh, a simple heave of his chest at first, and then it built until he was roaring, his pink mouth opened wide, his eyes now streaming with the tears of laughter. He pointed at her, ridiculing her because she still didn’t know. But then she did. All of sudden she knew why he was laughing. Andy was dead. Angler had killed her. Andy was dead.

  Kate woke with the scream of her dream choked in her throat. Every thought was centred on the constricting panic in her chest that wouldn’t allow her to breathe in or out. She sat up, clutching her abdomen, having no idea where she was. Andy was at her side in a heartbeat, gently touching Kate’s face. But Kate couldn’t see her, could just feel the fear as it locked her down.

  “Kate, it’s a nightmare. It’s just a nightmare. You’re fine, no one is going to hurt you, you’re fine,” Andy repeated the words, smoothing Kate’s hair back from her face.

  “No…” Kate said, the first glimmer of reality intruding on the dark nightmare. It barely helped, only made her shake, made her question what was real. “He’s alive. He was there…”

  “Angler’s dead, Kate. You saw him die,” Andy said firmly, knowing instantly who Kate was talking about. “He can’t hurt you. No one is going to h
urt you.”

  “Not me,” Kate said fiercely, remembering why Angler was laughing. “It was you…he’s alive, he killed you.” Kate was just awake enough to know she wasn’t making sense, but afraid enough that she couldn’t be sure.

  Andy held Kate’s face between her hands, pressure along her jaw, fingers on her cheekbones. Kate focused on Andy’s serious grey eyes, on the words coming out of her mouth. “I’m right here. I’ll always be right here. Tell me what you saw the night Angler died.”

  Kate recalled the details. Even through the haze of a drug overdose, she remembered. “Two bullets. One shattered his left orbital floor and went into his brain. The other bisected his aortic valve and he bled out instantly.”

  “Which means…” Andy prompted, still not letting her go.

  “He couldn’t have survived that,” Kate said, feeling her own heart rate slow as she said it. She took a breath, the oxygen easing the tight panic in her chest. “He couldn’t have survived either one of those shots.”

  “Right, which means he’s gone. You and I are here, and Angler is gone. It was a nightmare, love. We’re fine.” Andy kissed her forehead, and Kate started to cry. The awful fear still clung to her, an unwanted shadow.

  “I’m sorry, Andy.” Kate leaned into her.

  “You don’t have to apologize for a nightmare, Kate.”

  Kate looked up to meet Andy’s worried gaze. She felt vulnerable. She felt a massive weight, huge, unnameable, threatening to crush her. It contained every fear and every thought she had ever pushed away. Somehow in the pushing, each thought had gained incredible mass.

  “I’m sorry for lying to you,” Kate whispered. She had to say it quietly. Any louder, and the weight would come crashing down.

  Andy touched her face gently and the familiar feel of her fingertips calmed Kate almost instantly. Kate touched the bandage above Andy’s eye, convincing herself this was the extent of her injuries. She was here. She was very much alive.

  “I’ll come to bed,” Andy said.