The Fever

by Diane Hoh

  Disappointed with the clear logic of that, Duffy sighed. “I still think the maintenance crew should have their own key,” she grumbled.

  Dylan thought for a minute. “They probably did. But stuff gets lost around here every day. I know there’s no shower room key hanging in the basement with the other keys.”

  But maybe there once had been. And maybe someone has swiped it. And maybe that someone still had that key.…

  “I’m not so sure you imagined that attack,” Dylan said slowly, thoughtfully, surprising her. “I know everyone thinks you were hallucinating, but…”

  Duffy’s eyes filled with tears. It was so wonderful to be believed. She reached out a hand. “You mean it?”

  Dylan nodded. “Doesn’t seem like you, that’s all. I know fevers can do weird things, but it would have to be some fever to make Duffy Quinn see things that weren’t happening. And I keep thinking, you were able to get up and walk all the way to the shower room, so how bad could your fever have been then? Doesn’t seem like it could have been bad enough to make you think someone was trying to kill you.”

  “Oh, thanks, Dylan,” Duffy murmured gratefully. “Thanks! It’s so nice to have someone here who doesn’t think I’ve gone off the deep end.”

  She felt hot again, burning up, ablaze. “Could you hand me a glass of water, please? I’m dying of thirst.”

  Dylan reached over and lifted the heavy metal carafe, pouring carefully. As he handed her the squat little glass, the sleeve on his green tunic slipped back half an inch, revealing a nasty, jagged scratch on his left wrist.

  Duffy’s heart stopped. She knew she had made a scratch on her attacker that day in the shower. But Dylan? Dylan?

  Then she almost laughed aloud. She really was losing her mind. Dylan Rourke wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  Still, after taking a long sip of cool water, she couldn’t resist commenting lightly, “That’s a wicked cut. What happened?”

  Looking annoyed, Dylan shook the sleeve back into its proper place. “Nothing. It’s just a scratch.”

  Unable to stop herself, Duffy pressed on. “From what?” Jokingly, she added, “You weren’t trying to end it all, were you, Dylan? I thought I was the loony around here.”

  His expression of annoyance deepened. “If you must know, it happened when I grabbed your wheelchair. Remember? Just as you were about to go into the lake? Slammed my arm against a rock when the chair dragged me.”

  Guilt flooded Duffy. He’d hurt himself saving her and here she’d been thinking…

  Awash in shame, she cried, “Why didn’t you tell me? No one said you’d been hurt! Honestly,” she added in exasperation, “no one tells me anything around here. Did you have a doctor look at that?”

  “No. I told you, it’s just a scratch. And this is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d make a big deal out of it.” Then he grinned and took one of her hands in his. “It’s nice to know you care about me, though. I wasn’t sure. You’re not the easiest person to read.”

  Funny…no one else thought that. Everyone else in the hospital seemed to think they knew exactly what was going on in her head and why.

  “Of course I care, Dylan,” she said and was about to add, “we’re friends,” when Amy appeared in the doorway.

  The expression on her round, pink face told Duffy that Amy had heard her comment about caring for Dylan. She looked stricken. Her eyes were wide and bright with unshed tears, her lower lip quivered, her fists were clenched at her waist.

  Duffy thought unhappily, That is not the picture of a girl who cheerfully agreed to end her relationship with Dylan Rourke.

  She yanked her hand out of Dylan’s grip.

  Without a word, Amy turned on her heel and left.

  Duffy felt as if she’d just ripped the wings off a butterfly. Amy was clearly still in love with Dylan.

  And Dylan was just as clearly interested in Duffy.

  “I need to sleep,” she told him, her voice curt because of her embarrassment for Amy. “Could you leave?”

  It was Dylan’s turn to look surprised. “Shouldn’t we try to figure out who might have gone after you in the shower? Maybe someone upstairs got loose.” He gestured to the fifth floor where the psychiatric ward was. “And if he got loose once, he could again.”

  “I’m too tired to think about that now, Dylan. Besides,” turning over on her side, “what’s the use? No one will listen, anyway.”

  He stood up then, laying one hand on the top of her head. “I think your temperature’s up. And you’re right, you need your rest. But I’m going to think about this, Duffy. If the people in this hospital aren’t safe, someone needs to know that. So stay right here in this bed, where you’ll be safe, okay? And take your medicine.”

  She didn’t tell him she’d decided not to swallow one more capsule. He’d argue with her, maybe even tell one of the doctors or nurses. He might not believe her digoxin theory.

  When Dylan had gone, she waited for Jane, who had promised to return. Hadn’t that been hours ago?

  But it was Amy who appeared in the doorway, carrying Duffy’s lunch tray.

  They were awkward with each other. Each knew the other was embarrassed because of the earlier painful moment, and so both avoided mentioning it. Their speech was stiff and stilted.

  “Here,” Amy said, “I brought you a newspaper. There’s an article on the track meet in there. I know you and Kit always went to all the meets. I thought you might be interested.”

  Kit had been a runner in high school, so Duffy had become interested. And then, after attending several meets, she’d found that she really enjoyed it. After Kit graduated, they sometimes went to meets together.

  Kit…how she missed him!

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Amy. I…” She would not mention Dylan. That would be like twisting a knife in Amy’s back. “I think I’ll sleep now. I’m really tired.”

  Unsmiling, Amy moved forward to place the palm of one hand on Duffy’s forehead. “You’re really hot. Are you taking your pills?”

  Duffy knew why everyone was asking her that. The hospital rumor mill had picked up on her suspicions about the capsules. They all figured she’d made up her own mind about the pills and wasn’t taking them.

  But they couldn’t prove it.

  “Yes,” she said, “I am taking my pills.” Which wasn’t a lie…yet.

  “See you later,” Amy said curtly, obviously not forgiving Duffy for letting Dylan sit on her bed and hold her hand. “Take it easy.” She turned on her heel and left, her back as stiff as a board.

  And something caught Duffy’s eye.

  Amy usually wore white stockings to work. She said they made her feel “more professional,” more “like a real nurse.” But today, she was wearing sheer beige on her legs. And underneath the pale, nearly transparent fabric, Duffy could see, on the back of Amy’s leg, an ugly dark red mark, etched across the flesh like a streak of lightning.

  “Amy,” Duffy called impulsively, “what happened to the back of your leg?”

  Amy turned slightly. “What? Oh, that…cut myself shaving. Gross, right? Bled all over the place. See you.” And she disappeared out the door and into the hall.

  I’ve cut my legs shaving thousands of times, Duffy told herself, but I don’t remember ever bleeding “all over the place.” And I certainly never made a nasty cut like that. What was Amy shaving with, a power saw?

  Or…had someone else made that cut? Someone desperate, armed with a small pink razor, in the darkness of a puddled shower stall?

  What was the matter with her? She really was paranoid. If, she thought with disgust, it was my little pink razor that carved that gash in Amy’s leg, she wouldn’t have been so casual when I asked her about it. And she wouldn’t have worn see-through stockings to work today. Or she would have covered the cut with a bandage so I couldn’t see it.

  Unless…unless Amy was so sure of herself, so sure no one believed Duffy’s theory about someone being after her, that she felt she had a
bsolutely nothing to hide.

  Maybe she even wanted Duffy to know it was her. Maybe she was doing a little knife-twisting herself, knowing that a weak, sick person whose sanity was in question would be helpless to stop her.

  And Duffy realized with a terrible feeling of dread that of all the people she knew Amy Severn was the only one with a motive to hurt her. Amy was still in love with Dylan. And Dylan was clearly interested in Duffy.

  The police always looked for a motive.

  Duffy had just found one.

  Chapter 16

  QUESTIONS ABOUT AMY HAD to be put on hold as Duffy’s parents arrived for a quick visit.

  “I wish we could come more often,” her mother said apologetically. “I worry about you every minute. But it’s tax time, honey, and you know what that’s like.” Duffy’s parents were accountants, and she did know what tax time was like. She had picked a lousy time to get sick.

  “Can’t I please go home?” she begged. “I’ll get better faster there, I promise.” They hadn’t mentioned the shower attack, so she knew the staff had convinced them that it hadn’t really taken place. They’d never bring it up, thinking it would upset her further.

  “Oh, Duffy, please don’t start that again,” her mother pleaded. “You’re much better off here. I just told you how busy we are. At least here, there’s someone watching you every minute.”

  Well, not really. Where had all the nurses and doctors been the night she’d heard those sounds in her room?

  “But I don’t feel safe,” she protested. “This isn’t a safe place to be…”

  Her parents exchanged worried glances.

  She read the gaze. They, too, were concerned that the fever was affecting her mental health.

  It was hopeless. She spent the rest of their brief visit in sullen silence and tried not to feel guilty when they left looking uneasy and unhappy. They should have listened to her.…

  When they had gone, her thoughts returned to Amy. She had thought of Amy as a nice, sweet person, and she was, most of the time. But Amy had a temper, Duffy knew that now.

  How angry could Amy get?

  And had she really cut herself shaving her legs?

  Or was she so angry about Dylan’s interest in Duffy that she was determined to obliterate the competition?

  To escape the questions that had no answers, Duffy picked up the newspaper and began skimming through the track meet article on the sports page. The words had no meaning for her. The fact that Twelvetrees High School’s varsity track team would be advancing to the state finals failed to touch her. It seemed unimportant. If Kit were still on the relay team, maybe she’d feel something, in spite of her nerves being strung as tightly as violin strings. But he wasn’t.

  Where was he?

  Would he be in California by now? Why hadn’t he called to tell her he’d arrived safely and to give her his new address and telephone number? She was glad he’d finally dumped his cranky uncle and whining aunt and that terrible, deadly shoe store. But had he put his best friend, Duffy Quinn, behind along with the rest of Twelvetrees, Maine? Off with the old, on with the new?

  No. Kit wouldn’t do that.

  What would he say to her now, if she told him everything that had happened, and the things she suspected? Would he laugh it off? Tell her, as everyone else had, that she had an overactive imagination or was suffering from fever delirium?

  No. He wouldn’t do that, either. One of the reasons Kit hadn’t been the most popular boy in school was the way he took everything so seriously. Always reading, always learning, taking in new information. He believed that life was not a laughing matter. No wonder, considering the household he lived in.

  He would have taken her story seriously. And then he would have tried to help her figure out what to do.

  If only she could talk to him now.…

  Duffy began leafing listlessly through the rest of the newspaper. A name jumped out at her from one of the middle pages, startling her.

  Latham. Victor Latham, she read.

  Latham? Where had she heard that name before?

  The man who had died before she arrived, “Old Man Latham,” someone had called him. Her interest piqued, Duffy read the brief article.

  A scholarship fund in the name of Victor Latham, a longtime resident of Twelvetrees and a member of the Community Hospital’s Board of Trustees, has been established at the hospital for future medical students. Latham, 64, died recently after a brief illness. According to his daughter and sole survivor, Claire Bristol, Mr. Latham’s primary interest in life was medicine. He felt it was important to keep young people interested in careers in the health field. And he was fond of the young people who worked at the hospital while he was ill. The scholarship is being established to return their kindness to him.

  Duffy couldn’t help wondering which of the “young people” at the hospital had been kind to Victor Latham. Amy? Cynthia? Smith? Maybe even Dylan. Had Latham given any of them money in return for their kindnesses before he died? Was that where Smith, an orderly, had found the money to buy that fancy sports car he drove?

  Anyway, that night…the night she’d heard the clanging of the curtain rings, the slap-slap of rubber soles, the clatter of the gurney wheels…that hadn’t been the night Victor Latham died. So none of the sounds she’d heard had had anything to do with him.

  And his death had nothing to do with her.

  She let the newspaper fall into her blanketed lap.

  Victor Latham must have felt very safe here, in the hospital he’d given so much to.

  But he had died here.

  The nurse came in then, armed with the little fluted cup, and briskly handed Duffy the two capsules.

  Duffy took them without a word, obediently dipped them into her mouth, tucked them into the flesh of her cheek and prayed silently that the capsules wouldn’t dissolve too quickly. She sipped the water handed her by the nurse and slid down beneath the covers, feeling a pressing need for an afternoon nap.

  It worked. The nurse turned quietly and left…slap-slap, slap-slap. The heavy wooden door closed after her.

  Duffy sat up and spat the soggy but still intact capsules into the palm of her hand. She wrapped them in a paper napkin and hid the folded napkin under her pillow. She’d have to make sure no one came near it to fluff it or change the pillowcase.

  Without the pills, maybe she’d start feeling better.

  She was disappointed to find that although dumping the pills gave her some slight feeling of control, she was still unable to relax. Where was Jane, anyway? What was keeping her?

  Amy, as bright and cheerful as if the scene between Duffy and Dylan of the day before had never taken place, arrived before Jane. She came breezing into the room, every hair in place, a blue ribbon imprisoning her curls. She was smiling.

  Duffy couldn’t tell if the smile was real or phony.

  “Have you heard?” Amy asked. “Did anyone tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Kit called last night. I just heard.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  Amy poured a glass of water for Duffy. “Kit called. To talk to you.”

  Duffy took the water gratefully. She forgot her suspicions about the cut on Amy’s leg. She forgot her hatred for the ugly hospital room and her fear for her own safety. Kit had called?

  But before she drank, she said slowly, “But I never talked to Kit last night. The phone didn’t ring once. I was awake…I would have heard it.”

  Amy leaned against the nightstand. “They wouldn’t put the call through. He forgot the time change between here and California. It was only eight o’clock there, but it was eleven here. The switchboard doesn’t put calls through to patients that late at night.”

  Duffy leaned back against the pillows, weak with disappointment. “Darn! I really wanted to talk to him. He must have read my mind.” She smiled slightly. “He could do that, you know. Sometimes. He used to finish my sentences for me. Drove me crazy.” She sipped
the water slowly, struggling with the bitter news that Kit had actually called, had wanted to talk with her, and hadn’t been able to.

  “Who took the call?” she asked Amy. Maybe Kit had left a message for her.

  Amy shrugged and began straightening the litter of tissues, hair supplies, get-well cards, and candy boxes that cluttered the nightstand. “Switchboard operator, I guess. One of the nurses told me about it. I thought it would cheer you up, but you don’t look very cheerful. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Yes,” Duffy said quickly, “yes, you should have. I’m glad you told me.” If Kit called again, she didn’t want people afraid to tell her. At least now she knew he was okay and had made it to California in one piece. But she was so disappointed at missing his call.

  “Thanks, Amy. I hope the operator reminded him of the time change so he won’t make the same mistake again.”

  “I’m sure she did. Maybe he’ll call back today.” Amy paused and then added, “Dylan knows, Duffy.”

  Duffy lifted her head. “Knows what?”

  “He knows that Kit called here. Everyone knows that some guy from California called you at eleven o’clock last night. I saw Dylan in the hall a few minutes ago and he didn’t look happy. He’s jealous of Kit, you know. Always has been, even when he was dating…me. We argued about it a couple of times.”

  Before yesterday afternoon, when Amy got so angry with her, Duffy would have had trouble imagining Amy arguing with anyone. But not now.

  “I’m sorry,” Duffy murmured. “Really, Amy, I am.”

  “I know.” Amy’s voice was as soft and sweet as it had always been. “It’s okay, Duffy. Not your fault. Look, can I get you anything before I get to work? I might not have time to stop in later. We’re pretty busy. More flu cases.”

  There was something. “Amy, do you remember Victor Latham?”

  Amy began fussing with Duffy’s blankets. “We’re not supposed to talk about him, Duffy. Everyone feels bad that he died. We all liked him. And he was getting better. And then…” She shrugged.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. But he was old, and he had a bad heart. So…”