by M. S. Parker
She nodded. “Do what you have to do, Doc.”
“I’ll draw the blood,” Dr. Hoskins said. “You two should probably keep your exposure in here to a minimum until you get those hazmat suits, right?”
Cai glanced at me as if he was just realizing that I was still there. “Right. Run all the same tests on her as you did on the others. If there’s anything new you want to run, do it, but also do it to the others. We need as many statistics as possible to compare so we can find the pattern.”
Cai and I stripped off the protective clothing in the anteroom and used a healthy measure of hand sanitizer, hoping the precautions had been enough.
When we were finished, we made our way back to the hallway where Ms. Bairstow and Pansy were waiting. The head of the hospital was pale as she chewed the side of her lip. Pansy just looked bored and annoyed.
“Ms. Bairstow, I’m guessing you heard my discussion with Dr. Hoskins.”
“I did,” she said stiffly.
“What I need you to do is remove anything you were wearing when you went into quarantine, take a shower and use the strongest antibiotic soap you have, then change into something clean. Once we have more answers, we’ll be able to tell you if you can have your things back. Continue to wear the mask. It’s as much for others’ safety as it is your own.” Cai’s voice was clipped, but not cruel. Time was precious in situations like this. “Addison and I will also need to use the showers, then we’ll change into our own protective gear from the plane.”
“Your cases are in the other room,” Ms. Bairstow said. “The ones you were asking about.”
Cai nodded, his mouth tight. “Good. At this point, only the five of us will be allowed in that room, and if it’s at all possible, I’d like you to refrain from going in there at all. The rest of us will have suits to use from here on out.”
“The rest of us?” Pansy spoke up. “I’m not a doctor. Why would I be going in there? And she’s not a doctor either. I don’t even see why she’s here.”
I didn’t need to look at her to know she wasn’t referring to Ms. Bairstow.
Cai ignored her. “I’ll need access to your entire system. We need to figure out what this is, but we also need to know where it came from, or we risk another outbreak that may spread faster.”
“Of course,” Ms. Bairstow said. She was still pale but hadn’t freaked out, so that was a good sign.
Cai turned to me. “I need you to organize the information regarding the patients’ relation to each other, when they were brought in, and what symptoms they displayed at the time of admittance. You also need to find out what new symptoms they might have now, and what they’ve eaten since the time they first started feeling sick.”
I nodded. It sounded like a lot of work, but it was compiling information. I’d always had a knack for statistics.
“Pansy, I need you to come up with a complete timeline. Start a full five days before the first patient was admitted and work up until today. I want to know who was where at what time. Be as specific as possible. Put it all on the big whiteboard in the other room.”
“It’s nearly seven o’clock,” Pansy said. “Should we get settled in our hotel room first? The information isn’t going anywhere.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Cai spoke, “Miss Kemyss, you’ve been brought here to do a job, not to be on a vacation. If you’re not comfortable with the work I’ve given you, you’re welcome to return to Atlanta and hand in your two-week notice.”
Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant,” she mumbled. “I’ll do it.”
“All right,” Cai said. “Let’s get to work.”
Fifteen
Cai
I sighed and pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes until spots danced behind my closed eyelids. I always forgot eye drops. Every time I’d gone on a trip like this, I inevitably ended up with my eyes red and irritated from fatigue and work. And every time, I promised myself I’d remember to add eye drops to my go-bag, and every time, I forgot.
I stretched my arms over my head and listened to my joints pop, my muscles groan. It was Saturday morning, and I’d slept for less than an hour since we arrived Thursday evening. I’d asked for four more team members to come along with a few more specialized pieces of equipment, and they should have been here late yesterday morning. I hadn’t, however, factored in the damn nor’easter that had hit New England, grounding my entire back-up team.
It had been a mistake to bring only Pansy and Addison. I should have factored in the storm and planned accordingly, but my mind hadn’t been functioning at peak performance.
I stood up, wincing as the chair legs screeched against the tile floor. It was too quiet in here. I always had a hard time working when it was quiet. My thoughts had the tendency to scatter if I didn’t have something to distract them.
“Cai, would you like some donuts?” Pansy’s voice echoed in the room, and I scowled.
“Shh.” I gestured toward the cot at the far corner of the room but didn’t look. I’d caught myself staring at Addison at various points over the last few hours, watching her sleep. I definitely didn’t need to be doing that right now.
“Shouldn’t she be waking up sometime soon?” Pansy lowered her voice, and then she threw one of the dirtiest looks I’d ever seen in Addison’s direction. “I mean, this is part of her job, right?”
I hadn’t had nearly the amount of sleep I needed to handle her commentary right now. “She’s only been sleeping for a couple hours. Leave her.”
Pansy rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything else. She held out a plate with one hand and a Styrofoam cup with the other. I took the donut on top without paying attention to what it was. The coffee was so bad it made me want to choke, but it was hot and had caffeine, so I kept drinking it.
“Were you able to find that map I wanted?” I asked.
“Apparently, the only place that has the specific map you’re looking for is the library, and it doesn’t open until ten.” Pansy sat down on a chair and smoothed down her skirt. “Which means I’m free to help you here.”
Wonderful.
I put down my half-eaten donut and walked over to the big whiteboard that hung on the wall above the cot. I told myself that I was only interested in the information there, not the woman asleep under it, and for once, I listened.
The timeline started with four men who lived on the outskirts of town heading out for a weekend hunting trip. One of the men owned a cabin where the men spent Friday through Monday. According to the paperwork, one of the men noticed the first ulcer on Sunday night. By Monday morning, all four of them had at least two ulcers. They arrived at the hospital six hours later.
Pansy had put the main events on the board, but Addison had written notes in as we’d discovered more information, giving me a fuller picture of the movements of each of the patients for the past week. While the second wave of patients were related to some of the first, the four original patients weren’t related to each other. And of the six children, only one was connected to the other patients.
“What am I missing?” I muttered as I paced the length of the room, reading each event from the timeline over, and over again. “Hunting. Home. Sick. Hospital.”
I took a step back, as if it would change my perspective enough to show me whatever it was I should’ve been seeing.
“What did I miss?” Addison sat up, combing her fingers through her hair and blinking the sleep from her eyes.
“Nothing,” I answered her question. “You’ve missed nothing but my absolute failure to do my fucking job.” I sighed, running both of my hands through my hair. “Sorry about that. I’m just frustrated.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Pansy said, gripping my arm. “After all, you’re doing all this work on your own. I wish I could help more.”
I shook off her hand and kept talking to Addison. “I’m still waiting for results from the lab. The tests I’m running won’t be done for a while, wh
ich means there’s nothing more I can do there. If I could just figure out the source…”
I scratched at the stubble on my cheeks and refrained from cursing again.
Addison yawned as she stood. “Coffee?”
“There’s a vending machine down the hall,” Pansy said. “Take your time.”
“You can finish mine,” I said, holding out the half-empty cup. “It’s awful, but it’ll help wake you up.”
She drained it with one long swallow, made a face, then shook her head. “Yeah, that woke me up.” She tossed the cup into the closest trash can and then moved over to stand next to me. “Do you think there’s something you’re not seeing, or something you’re missing from the actual timeline?”
“There’s nothing missing,” Pansy snapped. “I know how to take notes.”
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong,” Addison said calmly. “We both took histories, and we could’ve asked all the right questions, but that didn’t mean we got the answers we needed.”
“Because the answers might not have been there,” I added.
“That,” Addison said, “and the fact that people lie. Maybe not everyone or all the time, but they do.”
It hit me like a brick. And it’d been right in front of my face this whole time. “Damn kids.”
“What?” Addison threw me a funny look.
I walked a foot or so further down the timeline and pointed to a space marking a couple hours before the kids were brought in to the hospital.
“Went for a bike ride.”
Addison nodded. “Yes. That’s what the kids all said.”
“Exactly how did they say it? You said you remember everything. Give me word for word what they said.”
“All right.” She thought for a moment and then began to recite, “Wally asked me after school if I wanted to go for a bike ride with him and a couple friends. We met at Wally’s house and rode down to the dollar store where we bought some candy. Then we rode out to the river and threw rocks into it for about an hour. Then we went home.”
“Which one of the kids said that?”
Addison frowned, as if she’d just realized something. “All of them. Except for a couple filler words like ‘uh’ and ‘like,’ they all said the exact same thing.”
“That doesn’t happen,” I said, pressing my fingers to my temples. “Not naturally.”
Her entire body sagged. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
I put my hand on her shoulder before I thought better of it. I waited a couple seconds before dropping it, hoping she’d think it was just me being tired. “You can’t blame yourself. You’re new to this. Sometimes, taking a history is a lot like conducting an interrogation, or questioning a witness on the stand. You’d think people would always tell the truth when their life was on the line, but that’s not the case.”
“I’ll go talk to Wally again. My gut says he’s the leader of the group.” Addison turned to go.
I reached out and caught her hand, giving myself a little jolt before I released her. I’d meant to grab her arm, I told myself. Grabbing her hand had been an accident.
“I’ll go.”
“Let me.” Addison didn’t look at me as she flexed her hand. “I think I can convince him that he’s not going to be in any trouble.”
“What makes you think that’s why he lied?” Pansy asked, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Some kids just like to lie.”
“Maybe,” Addison said, “but most kids lie when they’re scared. Usually when they think they’ll be punished.”
“I agree,” I said. “Go talk to him.”
After she left, Pansy came back over to my side. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to let an intern do that?”
I ignored her, tired of her constant second-guessing everything to do with Addison. When we got back to Atlanta, I’d deal with it. For right now, I had people to save.
I stared at Addison. “They did what?”
“They broke into what they thought was Wally’s dad’s hunting cabin, but what turned out to be the attached shed where Wally’s dad and his friends cleaned the animals they’d killed.” She wrinkled her nose. “When Wally realized where he was, he and two of the older kids decided to scare the younger ones with some of the bits and pieces the men had left behind.”
“That’s disgusting,” Pansy said.
That, I agreed with.
“Does this mean it’s a disease spread through the animals? Their blood and viscera?” Addison asked.
I lifted a shoulder, thinking through all the possibilities. “I’m not sure.”
“No,” she said, “it can’t be only through contact with the animals or their carcasses. It wouldn’t explain Nurse Diaz. How would she have come into contact with any of that?”
Dammit.
“You’re right. It doesn’t give us the exact source. But it does give us a starting point.” I looked over at Pansy. “I need you to go to the cabin and take samples.”
She made a face. “Wait until the other agents get here.”
“We can’t. We’ve got two men on ventilators, and a couple others who’ll probably be on them before the night’s out. I’ll go.”
“You can’t.” Addison popped to her feet. “I don’t have nearly enough experience to work on a cure myself, but I can take samples.”
I cursed the damn storm, willing it to abate so the rest of the team could get here.
The thought of her being out there alone, in a place that could be teeming with whatever infection had more than a dozen people in quarantine…it bothered me on a level I didn’t like.
“Pansy will go with you,” I said and gave the woman a hard look, daring her to complain again. “Even though she currently doesn’t act like it, she’s been in the field enough that she can help you. Both of you, suit up.”
Sixteen
Addison
I didn’t like this. In fact, I hated it.
I was in a full hazmat suit with a hood and gloves and an air filtration system, standing in the middle of a shed that reeked of blood and shit…and that had nothing to do with why I hated my life at this moment.
No, that honor went entirely to the woman sulking next to me.
“Don’t get any ideas.” Pansy broke the silence after nearly fifteen minutes of following me as I took samples.
“I think Cai appreciates any input he receives about the case,” I said, pretending to misunderstand what she meant. I hoped she’d take the out, because this wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have.
“You know very well that’s not what I’m talking about.”
It appeared we were going to go there. I sighed. “Pansy, we’re doing something really important here. Can this wait until we’re back home?”
“No, it most certainly can’t.”
I was going to kill Cai for insisting Pansy come with me.
“And it’s Dr. Hunter, not Cai,” she said stiffly. “You shouldn’t attempt to make yourself more familiar with him than is appropriate.”
“You call him Cai,” I pointed out as I leaned down to take a swab of a streak of blood. I slipped the swab into a collection tube before dropping it into a plastic bag and straightened.
“Because he and I have been friends for years,” she said. “Besides, my relationship with Cai isn’t any of your business.”
I turned so I could look at her. “You’re right, it isn’t. The same as my relationship with him isn’t any of yours. If he has a problem with me, he can tell me himself.”
“You don’t have a relationship with him,” she hissed, stepping closer, her gloved hands clenching. “And you never will. He’s just too polite to say it.”
I glared at her for a moment before turning away. I spotted a piece of bloodied fur and used my tweezers to pick it up and deposit it in another bag. “I’m here to work, Miss Kemyss. My interest in Dr. Hunter is purely professional. He’s a brilliant doctor who works in a field similar to mine. I’ve admired his work for years.”
Unfortunately, even that didn’t shut her up.
“I see the way you look at him, you know. You think he’s attractive.”
I threw a look over my shoulder before swabbing some mud. “I’m not blind. Of course, I think he’s attractive. That doesn’t mean I’m going after him or want anything other than an opportunity to see how his mind works.”
Pansy snorted a laugh. “I’m sure that’s what you want.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “You don’t know me. Please don’t pretend you do. I’m here to do a job, not to get between you and him.”
“Like you could,” she muttered under her breath.
This place was filthy. Dirt and layers of dried blood on the floor. The table had newer blood caked on top of old. Bits of guts and fur stuck to the top. A knife was stuck in one corner, the blade dulled with blood.
“You need to request a transfer,” she said.
Enough.
I turned around to face her. “No, Miss Kemyss. I am not requesting a transfer. I will continue to work for Dr. Hunter until my internship is done or he wants me to transfer to another doctor. Whatever issues you have with him, you need to work out on your own, because they aren’t my concern. The only thing I’m concerned about is getting the samples that Cai needs to figure out what’s wrong with those people, and how to fix them. I’ll continue to do whatever he asks of me because he’s my supervisor.” I let silence hang for a moment before asking, “Are we done?”
“Yes,” she said mulishly.
“Good.”
I turned back around, completing my pass by stopping next to a pile of…well, of a lot of stuff I either couldn’t, or didn’t want to, recognize. I took a sample, then stepped over it to reach the door.
I jerked to a stop, stumbling back a step. My brain spun, trying to figure out what had snagged my suit. My foot came down on a piece of what looked like rabbit hide, and I slipped. My hands flew out, trying to find anything to stop myself from falling. I managed to grab onto the doorknob, preventing myself from going to my knees. The bag hanging over my arm swung back and forth, hitting my hip. Thankfully, I didn’t have any liquid samples inside.
