Rachel Lee - Something Deadly

His gaze drifted from Markie back to Kato. Golden wolf eyes were heavy-lidded now, as if to convey that the threat had passed, that it was okay to relax.

Declan flaked off a bit of fish, twirled some pasta with it, and finally ate. “It’s delicious.”

The flavors melded perfectly, each bite a bright taste explosion that very nearly drew an ecstatic moan from him. Markie smiled at his obvious enjoyment and joined in the feast. For a few minutes they ate silently.

“Wow,” Declan said, looking at the empty plate. “Just…wow.”

“Thank you,” Markie said, a wide smile creasing her delicate features. “I’m honored.”

“The pleasure was entirely mine, I assure you.”

Markie put the plates on the floor, allowing Kato to satisfy his palate. But the dog gave them barely a sniff. His golden eyes were still fixed on the window.

Declan stayed to help with the cleanup and was just about to leave when his cell phone chirped a chorus of Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville.”

“Dr. Quinn, it’s Tom Little.”

Declan felt his hand tighten on the tiny phone.

“I’m at the Shippey house. You need to get over here. Now. And bring your friends from Atlanta.”

“On my way.”

“What’s going on?” Markie asked.

He looked into Kato’s eyes before turning to her. The dog seemed to know already. “I think somebody just died.”

Declan called Marshall Wilcox from Markie’s driveway, then climbed on his bike, waved a distracted goodbye to Kato and headed back to the Shippey house. What could have happened? he asked himself. After all, she’d been fine just a couple of hours ago. It didn’t make sense.

He parked his bike across the street and strode over to where Tom Little was interviewing a middle-aged woman and her husband.

“Kathy and Larry Bridges,” Tom said, by way of introduction. “They were bringing her dinner.”

“She’s still inside?”

“Yes.”

Declan nodded. “Okay. They don’t leave. You don’t leave. CDC will be here in a few minutes. We need to lock this scene down. Nobody in or out.”

“What’s happening?” Kathy Bridges asked, fear evident in her eyes.

Declan considered how to answer. He decided on the truth.

“Ma’am, I honestly don’t know. And until I have a better idea, we need to do things right.”

“When can we go home?” Larry asked.

“Soon, I hope. But that’s up to the doctors from Atlanta. They’ll know what to do.”

As if on cue, the CDC van rolled up the street and parked in the Shippeys’ driveway. Declan nodded to Wilcox and summarized what little he knew.

Wilcox turned to the Bridges. “Did you touch her?”

“I…I might have,” Kathy said. “I thought she was asleep at first. I don’t remember.”

“You didn’t,” Larry cut in. “We called to her, remember? She didn’t answer. Then her dog nosed at her hand, and it fell limp beside her chair.”

“That’s right,” Kathy said. “That’s how it was.”

Declan didn’t know if they were telling the truth or simply trying to hide from the reality that they might have touched an infected body. Regardless, Wilcox wasn’t buying it. He reached into the van and pulled out a green squirt bottle.

“Hold out your hands please,” he said.

“What is that?” Larry asked.

“It’s ordinary Lysol. If you don’t have any cuts, and you haven’t put your hands in your mouth or around your eyes, this ought to kill anything on your skin. It’s for your own protection.”

They held out their hands, and he sprayed them liberally, until the liquid foamed as they rubbed their hands together.

“We’d like to admit you overnight,” he said, passing them sterile towels. “For observation.”

And to quarantine them, Declan thought. Lysol would indeed kill any pathogens that were still on their skin. But it wouldn’t do anything for microbes that had already been absorbed. What would? That was the million-dollar question.

While an assistant accompanied the Bridges back to their home and then to the hospital, Declan and Wilcox donned biohazard suits and made their way into the house.

“I was just here,” Declan said as they entered the living room.

“When?” Wilcox asked.

“A couple of hours ago. I stopped by to see how she was doing. She seemed healthy then.”

Wilcox nodded. “We’ll need to quarantine you, too, then. Overnight, at least.”

Declan shook his head. “I already attended Carter Shippey. Without any protection. If I were going to get sick, it would’ve happened already.”

“You might be a vector. Do you want to pass this on to your patients and friends?”

That gave Declan pause. He was willing to take the risk for himself. But what if he were simply immune to whatever bug this was? Still…

“Look,” he said, “Carter had contact with a hundred people, if not more, in the last week of his life. A quarantine, at this point, is an exercise in futility. Anyone who hasn’t been exposed yet will be within a couple of days, regardless. It makes sense to keep an eye on Larry and Kathy Bridges, to see if they go symptomatic. But I have to keep working. The people here expect to see a familiar face when they come in for treatment.”

Wilcox seemed to weigh the point for a moment, then finally nodded. “Okay. But you work for me, at the hospital. No private patients.”

“I can live with that,” Declan said.

“Let’s hope so,” Wilcox replied. “Or we can all die with it.”

Marilyn Shippey was in a dining room chair, already turning flaccid. She seemed to sag lower with every second that they looked at her.

“Damn,” Declan said. “Whatever this is, it works fast.”

“We need to get her out of here and into post,” Wilcox said, using the medical shorthand for postmortem. “And the dog.”

The Shippeys’ dog hadn’t budged from its post beside the woman’s chair, not even when they moved around the body. From time to time, he turned and chewed at his own leg.

“I should get him to the vet,” Declan said.

“No can do,” Wilcox answered. “We can’t lock down the people on this island, but we sure as hell can lock down one dog. There’s no reason to risk putting him in a kennel where he can infect other people’s pets.”

The logic was inescapable but terrifying.

“All right,” Declan said. “Let’s get this done.”

Just before ten the following morning, Declan was summoned to a press conference. The island’s lone TV station had brought a crew to the hospital’s conference room. The station usually broadcast town commission meetings, educational programming for the schools, and a handful of locally hosted arts, crafts and fishing shows. The programs were more often an exercise in vanity for the hosts than a source of information for the viewers. On most days, nobody watched the island station, preferring instead the satellite feed of mainland U.S. programming. Today, everyone would be watching.

Tim Roth hosted a fishing program. No one else from the station had wanted to come near the hospital, so the job had fallen to him. He didn’t look to be relishing his role. Joining him was Steve Chase, president of the territorial senate. Apparently Abel Roth, the governor, didn’t want to flirt with danger, either.

Chase, who held his job by virtue of his membership in one of the island’s elite families, wasn’t looking very healthy this morning. Declan studied the man’s ruddy face and wondered if his blood pressure had broken the bonds of beta blockers to hit the roof somewhere around 180 over 110. He would have to check on that.

And Tim Roth was looking like a man who needed to be in a hospital bed. His face was pale, despite his perpetual tan, and beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead.