Laura and Michelle spent only a moment in Mercer’s room. Michelle quietly slipped back the sheet to expose the two-day-old chest incision. She acknowledged with a nod that it looked good. Then, both women left, not wanting to awaken the patient who seemed to be much improved.
Laura had anticipated a light day and arranged to turn over her patients to her backup thoracic surgeon, Dr. Ed Plant, as soon as she finished at the hospital. She should have plenty of time to make it to the airport to meet Kevin’s five thirty flight from Detroit. She hadn’t seen her eighteen-year-old son since early September when he’d left for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and she was on pins and needles to hear in person about his freshman experience. Talking to him on the phone every other day, she felt 99 percent sure he was handling the transition to college life well; still, she longed to hug him and hear all the details. If Kevin’s flight was on time, they’d make the last few innings of Patrick’s baseball game. Laura knew her excitement to see Kevin was more than matched by Patrick’s at having his big brother in the bleachers.
Laura spent another two hours in a conference room connected to the boardroom interviewing candidates for the chief of anesthesia post. She’d volunteered for the task. The right chemistry between the surgery and anesthesia departments could make all the difference in an operating suite. Laura and the retiring chief had been blessed—and three interviews later, she still was worried about finding an anesthesiologist who truly could replace him.
Finally, Laura called Dr. Plant to let him know that she was checking out until Monday morning, turning her patients over to him. On her way out, she rushed by the nursing admin office to wave goodbye to Roxanne.
Kevin arrived on schedule and the two of them headed straight from Tampa International to Jesuit High’s baseball field. Patrick’s team won, but, with his older brother in the stands, he’d struck out twice.
On the way home, Laura relaxed as Patrick pumped his brother for college details—the parties and the sports action and the girlfriend front. Kevin made Ann Arbor sound like nirvana as he regaled them with U. of M. anecdotes. His recount took her breath away, and for a moment she withdrew within herself. Kevin looked and sounded so much like his father, Steve. She’d met her husband when she’d been a naïve freshman at the University of Michigan and he a sophomore journalism major. They were married the next year and before she graduated, they had two sons. Of all her kids, Kevin, with his athletic build, wavy blond hair, and blue eyes, looked the most like his father. Though Kevin most physically resembled his dad, Patrick was the one who missed Steve the most. He’d only been eight when Steve died, but her youngest son still hero worshiped his dad with an intensity that unnerved Laura.
Yes, it had been tough raising five kids on her own for the past seven years, but for now Laura had to get back into the moment and enjoy her sons’ banter.
She dropped Kevin and Patrick at home before turning around to go back to the airport to meet Mike’s flight from South Bend. First, a quick hi to Natalie and Nicole—both of whom seemed annoyed to see her. Once she’d collected Mike, all five would be home with her. And tomorrow, she’d see her sister and brother—in from Europe to join them for a welcome family reunion on Anna Maria Island, an hour’s drive away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27
Victor Worth considered himself a logical man, analytical, methodical. Characteristics that made him proud, but most important to him, he was a fair man. An honest man, a man with righteous motives. Sadly, there were few others who shared his brand of personal integrity. Certainly not Norman Kantor.
In the past Victor would have applied restraint. Yes, Norman had taken Victor’s intellectual property and parlayed it into a position of influence at Keystone Pharma. A position so high up that when his boss, the CEO, won the Nobel Prize, Norman had accompanied him in a private jet to the ceremony in Stockholm. Victor had tried to get Norman to hire him at the company. And what had he done when Norman had refused? Nothing. Nothing but sulk. Did that make him a coward? A loser? But now the stakes were raised. Victor had a son. Norman had refused his son. Victor could actually feel his blood start to simmer. As he paced the confines of Matthew’s isolation room, he felt it heat to a boil. A white-hot, raging fury. An alien phenomenon to him. Nothing passive or restrictive about it. Was this what being a parent was all about?
A doctor had once diagnosed Victor with a paranoid personality disorder. Not that he was psycho or anything, but he tended to be suspicious, worry too much about finding the hidden meaning in things people said, feeling like he always had to watch his back, be prepared for all threats. Maybe the doctor was right, but now the time had come when his paranoid personality was about to pay off.
Neither Norman, nor anybody else, knew that Victor had carried on their staphylococcal research after their program was shut down by the government’s brilliant plan to scale back programs with bioterrorism potential. Norman would be impressed if he knew how far the deadly staphylococcal research had progressed in Victor’s hands, in his basement lab. Research that was unauthorized and clandestine.
The NIH had terminated the staph research program right after Norman had left. But Victor had been prepared for just such a sequence of events. He’d had the foresight to develop his just-in-case scenario, the scenario he then continued toiling over in secret, and that now was about to climax as a deadly reality.
Even with little or no sleep for his second night on the sofa in the ICU visitor’s waiting room, Victor awoke with clarity of vision. He had made his decision and he had to move fast. Wearing the same clothes since he’d left home in Bethesda, he kissed his sleeping son on the forehead, ignoring isolation precautions, and headed for the airport to catch the six a.m. flight out of Tampa. He would arrive at Washington National Airport just before ten o’clock.
He’d spent most of the sleepless night refining a checklist. All the steps he’d have to take to get his strain of staph cultures into a suitable broth media for transport. Plus, he’d have to be extra careful to leave no trace. If something went wrong, there must be no evidence pointing to him.
At home an hour after his plane touched down, Victor didn’t stop to eat. He had to finish securely packing the staph in time for the three p.m. flight back to Tampa. Downstairs in his clandestine lab, he donned protective garments, fully covering himself in a jumpsuit, mask, booties, and cap, lest an errant staphylococci organism land on him. Amazing how simple it had been, he thought, to set up a bacteriology lab in his basement at home in Bethesda. Not a hightech operation, just simply culturing the bugs in growth media, combining nature’s own genetics, and perfecting his selection techniques to amplify the virulence of this gram-positive cocci. Using his new strains, he could then test them against all known antibiotics and he’d hypothesize new molecular entities to treat the resistance he was creating. He was very close to defining a strain resistant even to ticokellin and its analogs.
Why had he done this? What had been his endgame? Simply this: once he was ready, he’d figure a way to leverage his discovery of this new, resistant staph. Because of his particular research background, the pharmaceutical industry would tap him to discover the cure for his own engineered monster bacteria. He was already really close. A little more research and he’d have figured out the lifesaving antibiotic structure. Followed by the flight to Sweden for his own Nobel Prize.
But now Victor couldn’t wait for this perfect scenario. He needed to punish Norman for depriving his son—a son whom Victor for thirty-two lonely years hadn’t even known existed. And payback would happen on Thanksgiving Day. How ironic was that?
Did anyone at Victor’s prestigious NIH employer so much as suspect he’d continued his staph research after he’d been transferred into mycology—without even the courtesy of consulting him in advance? Hardly. No one ever had inquired or even commented on the brilliance of his past NIH work on staph. No appreciation whatsoever. They’d given him no choice but to continue h
is cutting-edge research illicitly, literally underground.
Victor went about preparing his deadly samples, packing them securely in transport media, readying the portable incubator that fit securely in his carry-on, labeling his samples as various flavors of yogurt in the unlikely event that he was stopped by security. As he worked, he reflected on how drastically he had changed since finding out about Matthew. He would do anything for Matthew. Anything.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27
Natalie waited by the phone. She didn’t know whether to be angry or scared. Trey hadn’t called for two days in a row. On days when she couldn’t sneak away to meet him, he always phoned between four and six. Before her mom got home. Natalie thought about her mom, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. Naturally, any mother of a seventeen-year-old would not approve of her daughter having sex. And her mom didn’t know that she’d been seeing Trey Standish ever since school started, three months ago.
Trey was everything in a boy that Natalie never thought she’d have. Even her sister, Nicole, who’d always landed any boy she wanted, drooled over Trey. If her mom saw him—and someday she would, since Natalie planned to marry Trey—she would complain that his hair was too long. The only feature about Trey that anyone could criticize. He had the blackest of eyes and the cutest curly eyelashes. She was five foot five, and Trey was six feet tall. Her long blonde hair contrasted with his coal-black hair. And when they were seen together, how could people not say, “Wow, that’s a beautiful couple.”
She and Trey had only one problem, and neither knew how to handle it. In time they figured that it would go away, but for now they kept their relationship secret from both her mom and his parents. Natalie felt powerless to interfere with her mother’s business. Her mom was a rather well-known doctor, the chief of surgery at the city’s main hospital. And her specialty was lung surgery, had been as long as Natalie could remember.
The issue and why it was causing a problem with Trey: Mom was going to be an expert witness in a trial against Trey’s father’s business, a factory that used beryllium to make parts that are used in lots of other industries, the space industry for instance and in x-ray machines. Natalie and Trey had spent hours in the library trying to understand how the factory used beryllium and why people accused the factory of disregarding health hazards to the workers there, but the issues were confusing. Natalie’s honors chemistry course didn’t help much—and Trey was majoring in business at nearby University of Tampa. An only child, he was expected to take over running the family business, but he joked that he didn’t have a scientific gene in his body.
Natalie heard the front door open and she checked her watch: 7:55 p.m.
“So give me a hand.” Nicole juggled two bags of groceries. With Mike and Kevin coming home from college, they needed to load up the cupboards and fridge.
“He hasn’t called,” Natalie said, accepting a bag of groceries in each arm.
“I don’t know what to say,” said Nicole. “You didn’t have a fight or anything? Maybe he took something you said the wrong way?”
“No, Nicole, I told you about Monday night. It was perfect—everything.”
“Let’s get the rest of the stuff out of the car. Patrick’s game will be over, and Mom expects us to put everything away. You know how she gets when Mike and Kevin come home, like they’re crown princes and we’re the hired help.”
Nicole had always had a chip on her shoulders when it came to their two older brothers. But Natalie’s take on Mom was that if she had any favorites it would be them. They argued about it a lot. Natalie always taking Laura’s side. Nicole always dredging up how they—Natalie and Nicole—had been their father’s favorites. They’d been ten years old when their dad died, and Natalie’s memory of him was diametrically opposed to Nicole’s. Regardless, their dad was dead, so what did it matter whose memory was accurate?
They had just arranged the cold stuff in the fridge when Laura arrived with Kevin and Patrick. Patrick went right upstairs to change out of his baseball uniform, and Kevin ran straight for Natalie and Nicole to grab them in a big bear hug. Kevin was not one to hold back on enthusiasm, emotion, opinion, or anything else. He had one of those loud voices that boomed and at just one year older than Natalie and Nicole, he’d always been their buddy. People called them “the triplets” because with wavy blond hair, Kevin looked so much like his sisters.
“Everything unpacked, girls?” Laura set down Kevin’s book bag by the steps. “I’ve got to get going—back to the airport to get Mike. Kevin, you’ll be okay?”
“You’re leaving me with these two?” Kevin grinned. “Could be trouble.” Reaching into his duffel, he pulled out two sweatshirts emblazoned with the University of Michigan’s big M. “One maize; one blue. I want you wearing these when Mike gets here with his Notre Dame shit.”
Nicole grabbed the yellow one, getting first pick, as usual.
Laura gave Kevin a fast hug, ignored Natalie and Nicole, and left for the airport.
Natalie had to make her move. “Nicole, I’m going over to his dorm. I have to check. I’ll be back before Mom gets home, but if I’m not, you know what to tell her.”
“Studying for a test at Collette’s just won’t fly,” Nicole said. “You sure you want to do this?”
Natalie knew what Nicole was thinking. What if she found Trey with another girl? What if Trey had dumped her? What if he’d left for his parents’ house without even calling her? He’d promised he’d see her one more time before going home for the holiday weekend. What if something had happened to him?
“What’s the deal?” Kevin asked, devouring a Twinkie.
“Tell him, Nicole,” Natalie said, grabbing the Impala keys off the hook. The twins and Kevin had no secrets. Still the Three Musketeers. “But not in front of Patrick.”
Natalie arrived at Trey’s dorm at eight thirty. The darkened campus seemed empty, most students on their way home for the holidays. She’d be off with her family starting tomorrow morning, so Trey planned to wait until Thanksgiving morning before hopping on his new purple Kawasaki for the sixty-mile trip to his home in Sarasota. But Trey had not called. Not yesterday. Not today.
He lived in a quad on campus. A central area in the middle, a bedroom on each side shared by two. Trey’s roommate was from Taiwan, so he wouldn’t be going home for Thanksgiving.
Natalie parked the car, no problem with parallel parking tonight. Shivering, she pulled her new blue sweatshirt over her head, then hesitated for an instant to say a quick Hail Mary. Something had to be wrong. She loved Trey so much—what would she do if he’d left her for another girl?
Smoothing her hair and straightening her miniskirt, she approached the kid doing security. They recognized each other. His eyes flashed something like alarm and he started to get out of his chair. Wow. Did everyone but her know that she’d been dumped?
She could turn and run, but she struggled to say, “Trey Standish?”
“I know who you are, Natalie. But don’t you know—?”
“Know what?” Natalie asked, beginning to shake, her heart slamming in her chest.
“Are you okay?” the kid asked. “Do you want to sit down?” He got up, moved his chair toward her, never taking his eyes off of her.
“What?” Did he have a new girlfriend? Had something happened at school, like he’d cheated or something? Was he hurt? He was always messing around with pickup sports. “Did something happen?”
“Sit down, Natalie. I know you and Trey had a thing going. Please, sit.”
She did, her knees shaking so badly she had to steady them, pressing down hard with her elbows.
“There was an accident. Monday night. He was riding his motorcycle—”
“Is Trey hurt?” Natalie jumped up. “I have to go to him.”
“He’s in critical condition. A concussion, multiple fractures. No visitors, I heard. His roommate couldn’t even get in, family members only. Geez, I hate to be the one to tell you. Y
ou and Trey had something special—”
Tears streamed from Natalie’s eyes. Monday night. For two days she’d been getting more and more pissed because he hadn’t called her. A concussion? Meaning he was still unconscious? She had to know. She had to see him. “What hospital?” she asked.
“Tampa City. Like I said, he’s in the ICU, so—”
“My mother is the chief of surgery there. They have to let me in.”
Before the security kid could answer, Natalie had jumped up and bolted for her car.
By the time she reached the hospital, visiting hours were over. She knew the ICU was on the seventh floor, but she didn’t know the hospital layout well enough to find some back elevator. She had to pass directly by the information desk.
“Miss, may I help you?”
“No, I’m okay.” she said.
“You can’t go beyond the lobby,” the older woman in a mint-green smock said.
“I … I need to see a patient,” Natalie said. “I just found out—”
“Name?”
Should she tell the truth? How to get out of this trap?
“Trey Standish.” Should she have she said she was looking for her mother on the surgical floor. If the nurses up there knew that she was Laura Nelson’s daughter, they’d let her up for sure.
“Miss, Mr. Standish is in the ICU.”
“I know that,” Natalie said, biting her lip to keep from crying. “That’s where I’m heading.”
“Are you a relative?”
Should she say she was Trey’s sister? No, the hospital would have a list of family members. Before Trey, Natalie had prided herself on never telling a lie. Nicole could lie nonstop, but not Natalie.
“A friend,” she said.
“Sorry, miss. No nonfamily visitors. It’s highlighted on the chart. They’re very strict up there. Have to be. Maybe tomorrow, contact a family member. All I can tell you right now is that Mr. Standish’s condition is critical.”
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