Scarlet Wilson - Locked Down With The Army Doc - Locked Down with the Army Doc / The Brooding Surgeon's Baby Bombshell

“And the second kid?”

“Aaron came in a few hours after Zane with symptoms of shock. One of the other young guys had gone to see why he hadn’t joined them and called 911 when he found him still in bed. The ER physician connected the cases pretty quickly. Neither of them had been vaccinated against Men W, and both had been bunking down at one of the local student residences.”

Jack let out a slow breath. “Darn it. Close contacts?”

She nodded. “Close contacts. We need names and to find the rest of the kids who were in that residence.”

“What else should I be looking for with close contacts?” He realized he was firing questions at her but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to make sure he covered everything.

“The rules are generally people who’ve slept under the same roof, nursery or childcare contacts, and anyone they’ve shared saliva or food with. Dependent on age, they all need a two-day course of rifampicin.”

Jack pulled a face. “Shared saliva with? You mean anyone they’ve kissed? For two teenage boys at a surf school we might have our work cut out. How far back do we need to go?”

“Seven days from first symptoms.”

“Let’s hope the surf school kept good records, then, and let’s hope the boys know who they kissed.”

The lights around them flickered and they both froze. “Please don’t let us lose power,” said Amber quietly. “This could be a disaster.”

Jack sucked in a breath. He could tell the thought of the hurricane was making her nervous. Truth was, it made him slightly nervous too. But he had to believe that the authorities would have plans in place to take care of things. They couldn’t control the weather. They also couldn’t control time, and it was rapidly slipping away from them. “We have two cases. We can contact trace for these two cases and try and get antibiotics to anyone we think could be affected. Hopefully any younger kids will already be immunized.”

Amber pulled a face. “Usually we would spend a few hours discussing this with the local outbreak center and the DPA. The impending hurricane doesn’t help. What if we can’t get to the people that need antibiotics? We can’t ask people to leave their homes as a hurricane is about to hit. And who knows how long it will last?” She shook her head.

“It’s a disaster,” he said simply.

“Just pray it isn’t an epidemic,” she said swiftly. “Then it really would be a disaster.”

* * *

By the time they reached the infectious disease unit again it was in chaos. Bed mattresses had been piled against the windows. The curtains around the beds had been taken down and also stretched across the windows with large Xs taped on the glass. A few of the patients who’d been there earlier had been moved out, but Zane and Aaron were still attached to all their monitors.

There was only one adult walking between both beds. Amber and Jack walked over to meet him. “I’m Amber Berkeley with the Disease Prevention Agency. Are you Zane or Aaron’s parent?”

He shook his head. “Ty Manners from the surf school. They’ve both been with me for the last ten days. I can’t believe they’re both sick.”

He glanced toward the covered windows and put his hands on his hips. It was clear he was stressed. “Everything has just happened at once. I should be down at the surf school making it ready—and sorting out the other kids.”

Jack saw Amber word her question carefully. “Ty, I’m sure you’re worried about all the kids in your care, and the surf school. Do you have any records? Do all the kids that go to the surf school stay in the same place? We really need to trace all the contacts that Zane and Aaron have had for the last seven days. It’s really important we find out if other people have been immunized, and that we get some antibiotics to them if appropriate.”

“It’s definitely meningitis?”

Amber nodded. “It is. Both of their lumbar punctures were positive. And it’s important that we treat things as quickly as possible. We don’t want anyone else to get sick.”

One of the nurses came and stood at Amber’s shoulder with a clipboard in hand. “I’ve contacted both sets of parents. Zane’s mother stays on Oahu. There’s no way she can get here with the imminent hurricane weather but we’re keeping her as up to date as we can. Aaron’s mother and father live just outside Hilo. That’s a two-hour drive to Kailua Kona. State police have told them not to leave their home but I have a horrible feeling they won’t listen.”

Amber walked over to the window and peeled back a tiny corner of the curtain. “Oh, my,” she breathed as she looked outside.

The wind had picked up even more. Enormously tall palm trees were bending in the wind like drinking straws. Public trash cans were rolling down the street like empty soda cans. She watched as an awning at the café opposite was torn away before her eyes by the force of the wind and the red and white material disappeared like a kite being ripped from its string.

It made her heart beat a little faster. She turned to face the nurse. “How soon is the hurricane due to hit?”

The nurse glanced at her watch, then over to a TV screen they had in the corner of the unit. “In about an hour or two. It won’t just be the winds. It will be the rain too. It’s already started but this is nothing. Once it really hits we usually have floods. No one should be out there.”

This was nothing? The rain she’d witnessed as they’d left the hotel had been bad enough. Even with the wipers at maximum their driver had barely been able to see out of the windscreen.

Amber spoke slowly. “But tell that to a parent that thinks their child is at risk.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I wish I’d got a chance to speak to them. Maybe I could have played things down. Given them enough reassurance to wait.”

Jack’s voice was low. “But is that actually true? You suspect that this is an unknown strain of meningitis. The first antibiotics tried don’t seem to hit the mark. Now it’s up to the second. Are these boys really safe?”

Amber blinked back the tears threatening to appear in her eyes. “No,” she said quietly. “Particularly when we don’t know if our treatment is the right one. There’s still a chance they could die—or have lifelong aftereffects.”

She could see Jack’s brain was trying to make sense of this all. His natural instinct as an army doc would be to prioritize. For a second there was a flash of something in his face. Something that made her step back. He looked as if he was trying to suppress his urge to take over. It was only the briefest of glances. But it brought back a surge of old emotions that she constantly felt around her father—as if she wasn’t good enough for this. As if she couldn’t possibly be good enough and someone like Jack, or her father, would have to step in and take over.

Her skin prickled. She hated that. Hated associating someone she’d just met with her father.

It wouldn’t be the first time. She’d often met other doctors—particularly surgeons—who had the same old-fashioned attitudes and opinions. People who wanted to be in charge of everything—including her. These were the people she avoided wherever possible. Was Jack one of them?

Even that tiny flash of recognition in her brain would usually be enough to make her turn in the other direction. But in the circumstances, that was hardly possible.

The nurse interrupted her thoughts. “We’re actually going to try and move these guys. They’ve done that in some of the other wards. Most of the corridors and central areas are full—and we have a lot of equipment we need to take. Someone is preparing a space for us down in the basement.”

Jack’s frown deepened. “Okay. We could help here. We should prioritize. Should we really be taking patient histories for close contacts right now when we might have no hope of reaching any of these people in the next few hours?”