Kate stared at the x-rays on the monitor. She’d been staring for twenty minutes. Nothing had changed in that time, but she continued to look as if it could help her predict the next few hours. The silver ring on her finger was almost hot from the friction of being constantly twisted against her skin. Kate leaned back in the chair, her eyes not leaving the monitor. She was sitting at the nurse’s station, almost completely oblivious to the world around her. Serena’s results showed fluid on her lungs, and her high white cell count only indicated she was fighting off something. They wouldn’t know until tomorrow if it was the same infection as Roberta Sedlak. This thought made Kate twist the ring around her finger harder. She wanted to be able to do something now, not wait until tomorrow.
“Hey.”
Kate swiveled in her chair to see Andy leaning against the desk.
“Hey, yourself. You were quiet in the meeting this morning.”
“Not much to say.”
“Nothing from your meeting with the journalist this morning?”
Andy looked around briefly, then turned back to Kate. “Not much. We met with Sealy and his boss from the paper. Other than the ‘unfortunately phrased tweet’—his boss’s words, not mine—we still don’t have anything. No link to any virus, no threat to the community.”
“And no real reason to be here.”
Andy shook her head. “We’re going to follow up on a few more leads this afternoon, but I’m going to set up a call with Finns and Heath tomorrow. So, yeah, it looks like we’ll wrap this thing up.”
Kate stole a look at the monitor again, at the films from her patient. Her patient. She struggled briefly with the responsibility, the possession. Then she looked back to Andy.
“Serena will be in good hands,” Andy said quietly, knowingly.
“I know she will.”
They were interrupted by Lucy arriving back at the nursing station. Andy straightened. “I’ll let you get back to it. Want a coffee?” she said to Kate.
“Sure, please.”
“Lucy? Can I get you anything?”
Lucy blushed faintly but simply shook her head.
With a quick smile, Andy headed back down the hallway. Kate forced herself not to watch. She went directly back to Serena’s chest film. In an instant, she heard Dr. Kellar describing how the doctors couldn’t have known about the fluid build-up unless they’d had hourly films. Kate looked around her slowly, the fancy equipment, the shiny electronics. She looked up at Lucy, who was inputting orders into a chart.
“Lucy, I’m going to have Serena go down for two more films, spaced one to two hours apart. Could you call down to x-ray and see if that’s possible?”
“Sure, Dr. Morrison, I can do that.”
Kate twisted her sister’s ring around her finger, captivated again by the images on the monitor. She almost didn’t hear Lucy addressing her.
“She’s all kinds of intimidating.”
Kate swiveled in her chair to look at the red-haired nurse. “Who? Sergeant Wyles?”
“Don’t you think she’s intimidating?”
Kate smiled and half turned back to the monitor. “Not once you get to know her,” she murmured.
Lucy didn’t pursue it and Kate let it drop. Moments later, the phone rang. “It’s Dr. Doyle,” Lucy said, “she wants you in the ER immediately.”
Kate ran down the stairs into the ER. A nurse directed her towards a curtained area where a young male doctor with sandy-blond hair was fitting a mask over a man’s face. The patient seemed to be in his early twenties, his hair and eyes dark, his skin extremely pale, especially considering the energy he was expending simply to draw a breath. He was wearing cargo pants that were dirty at the knees, a serious-looking pair of hiking boots, and a thermal shirt. Kate looked around the curtain to see two others in similar gear, sitting in plastic chairs, looking tired and stressed.
Dr. Doyle quickly introduced Kate to Dr. Eric MacKay, then began reeling off information about the patient.
“Keith Grange, age nineteen, complained of flu symptoms for the last few weeks but decided to go camping with his friends anyway. He reported trouble breathing this morning which progressed rapidly. His friends barely got him down from the campsite.”
Kate flipped through the chart as she listened to Dr. Doyle. She watched the patient’s chest heave with strain.
“Films?”
“Portable is on its way.”
Kate took the stethoscope from around her neck and held it up halfway, waiting for approval from the ER doctor before asking the patient to lean forwards. She didn’t have to search. The moment she pressed her stethoscope against his back, Kate could easily hear the ominous sounds of fluid infiltrates. She glanced up at Dr. MacKay, who nodded knowingly.
“Keith, can you talk?”
Keith shook his head, but even this slight movement caused him to bark out a long, expressed cough. She picked up his hand and held it in her own.
“Okay, I’m going to ask you some questions. If the answer is yes, squeeze my hand. If it’s no, don’t do anything, okay?”
Keith nodded slowly.
“Have you been sick for more than a week?”
Squeeze.
“Have you been sick for more than three weeks?”
Squeeze. This put him in the same cluster as the others. Kate filed this away.
“Have you ever had asthma?”
Nothing.
Kate held the man’s hand, felt it trembling in her own. Her mind buzzed with the autopsy report, the picture of Serena’s films, the sound of the crackles in this man’s lungs, the image of Roberta Sedlak’s open, infected lung tissue.
“Have you ever had issues with breathing or with your lungs before?”
Keith squeezed then pulled his hand away, took hold of the bottom of his shirt. The movement triggered a spasm and Keith started to cough. It was a long, rolling, painful cough with Keith doubled over in the bed, his dark hair now plastered to his face with sweat. When the cough finally abated, a fine, pink spray covered the white sheet of the hospital bed. Kate adjusted the mask on Keith’s face, forcing herself to push away the image of Serena, bent over and coughing just one floor above them. Not this bad. Not this bad yet. As Kate formulated her thoughts, she saw Andy and Ferris arrive in the ER.
“I want him on a CPAP machine with high-flow oxygen along with a cardiac monitor. I want to see how his heart is handling all this. Diuretics, preferably bumetanide, by I.V. and broad-spectrum antibiotics, just in case. Let’s get some blood work, full panel, and include an extra marked for Public Health.” If the ER doctor had any issues taking orders from an outsider, he didn’t show it. “Did I miss anything?” Kate directed the question at both doctors.
“No. I’ll go check on x-ray,” Dr. Doyle answered for them both.
Kate turned to Andy and Ferris. “Constable Ferris, is this guy a local?”
“I don’t recognize him.”
“Could you talk to his friends? Find out how long his symptoms have lasted, where he’s from, where he’s been, and any medical history you can get on him.”
Ferris’s expression was serious as he backed out of the curtained area.
“Anything I can do?” Andy asked, staying out of the way. Kate looked at her without really seeing her, then turned back to Keith, who was leaning back with his eyes closed, his breath fogging the mask every time he exhaled.
“Just give me a minute,” Kate said, more to herself than Andy. She pulled up Keith’s grey thermal shirt, wondering at his movement a few minutes before. What had he been trying to tell her? She inspected his rib cage and his chest and was just about to pull his shirt back down, defeated, when she saw it. The small divot was very faint, just catching the overhead light and creating a shadow where the skin should have been smooth.
“Lung biopsy.” It was a long shot. Kate didn’t know very many reasons someone so young would have had a lung biopsy. But when she’d asked about trouble with his lungs, she was sure Keith had been trying to show her something.
Kate suddenly turned to Andy. “I need to speak to Serena’s parents. And we need those results from Public Health. Now.”
While she waited for Natalie and Michael Cardiff, Kate leaned against the desk and compared the chest films from Roberta Sedlak, Serena Cardiff, and Keith Grange. She knew it was a bad idea. She would likely be pulled off this case tomorrow, the care of Serena and Keith in the capable hands of Valley General Hospital. Still, she scanned each one until she’d memorized every pocket of fluid and air and every dense wash of tissue and bone. Cardiff’s gruff voice pulled her from her near hypnotic trance.
“Dr. Morrison, you wanted to see us.”
She looked up to see Serena’s parents standing uncomfortably in the doorway of the ER. Kate forced herself to smile, to give an indication of reassurance after hastily calling them down from their daughter’s room.
“How’s Serena doing?” she asked.
“Sleeping right now,” Natalie said, her free hand clenched tightly by her side.
“Maybe you should tell us how our daughter is doing. I understand you’ve ordered continuous chest x-rays?” Cardiff said in the same gruff voice, bordering on rude.
Kate closed the windows that showed the other two patient’s films, then opened Serena’s last two chest x-rays. She swiveled the monitor so the parents could see.
“I ordered two more repeats to her original x-ray, it’s true. I may have overreacted.” She pointed to the first set of films. “Here’s the fluid that’s trapped in her lungs, most likely from an influenza-related pneumonia.” She pointed to the next set. “Two hours later, and we see no change. If x-ray is clear in another two hours, I’ll send her down again just to be sure.”
Kate saw Natalie’s shoulders sag, her whole body folding in on itself, as if she had lost the fight to keep it together. Her husband didn’t seem to notice. His posture and stony expression remained unchanged.
“You called us down here just to show us the results?” he asked.
“That and I wanted to ask you about any history of respiratory issues or anything related to the chest or lungs that Serena may have experienced.”
Natalie had just opened her mouth to speak when her husband cut her off.
“I don’t understand, Dr. Morrison. You’ve had access to Serena’s complete medical file for three days now. Shouldn’t you be able to get that information from there without calling us down here?”
Kate took a breath and looked him straight in the eye before answering.
“I have your daughter’s medical chart memorized, including her birth weight of six pounds, eight ounces and hospitalization at the age of nine for appendicitis. I can repeat it verbatim if you like, but that would be a waste of everyone’s time.” Kate held the man’s gaze, counted slowly to three to give him a chance to respond before she continued. “The chart shows only injuries and illness for which Serena sought medical attention. I want parent information, the kind of things only you know about your daughter. Specifically about her breathing or her lungs. Anything.”
Natalie looked up at her husband, pleading, thinking. Kate could see that she held something clenched in her fist.
“The fall she took in the spring, Michael.”
“That was her ribs, and she was fine.”
“Tell me about it,” Kate said immediately.
“It was back in March,” Natalie said. “Serena’s horse refused a jump, and she went over the horse’s head and landed on the poles. She got right back on. She told her instructor she was fine. It wasn’t until about two weeks later that I happened to see a bit of yellow bruised skin. Serena refused to see a doctor about it.”
Kate made a mental picture of the event, the bruised skin, the pressure on the ribs folding against the delicate tissue of the lungs.
“Left side or right side?” Kate asked, pulling up Serena’s x-rays.
“Right side,” both parents answered.
Kate moved the image around on the screen, searching silently for a long time.
“There.” Kate pointed at the films. “A very small, healed crack. Your daughter is tough. That must have hurt to ride with.” Her voice was even but her thoughts spiked with anxiety. Was the lung bruised by that cracked rib? If the tissue was compromised…
“What does this mean?” Cardiff said, peering at the image as if he didn’t quite believe what Kate was telling him.
As Kate figured out what she was going to say, she saw Andy come back into the ER, indicating she needed to talk to Kate.
“It could be a complication to her recovery,” Kate said finally, knowing it wasn’t enough.
“Does this have anything to do with the autopsy results? We are expecting to hear something.”
“Not all the information is in from the autopsy, and I imagine the hospital and Public Health will make the decision as to if and when to release that information to the public. Serena’s blood samples are being analyzed and we are closely monitoring her condition.”
She waited for another verbal attack, felt it building as his chest seemed to swell. Then his cell phone rang, and he glared at Kate before pulling it out and storming back through the double doors of the ER. Natalie gave Kate an apologetic smile and followed her husband.
Kate rubbed the heels of her palms into her eyes. It had already been a really, really long day. As Andy joined her at the desk, Kate wanted nothing more than to lean in against her and have Andy massage the back of her neck with one hand. Not possible, she knew, so she settled for simply looking at her, for gaining some semblance of strength and energy from her grey eyes.
“Apparently, Dr. Salinger has samples from everyone except Chase Noonan, but Ferris has gone down to the farm where he works to see if he can bring him in.”
“Good. Hopefully, we can get all of them in this afternoon. Do you know what happened with the samples heading to the NML?”
“I can answer that, Dr. Morrison,” Dr. Doyle said as she put down a stack of files on the desk beside Andy. Kate noticed she was still impeccably dressed and made up, as if she’d just stepped out her front door in the morning. In comparison, Kate felt rumpled and sweaty, and she unconsciously reached up to tuck a frizzy curl behind her ear.
“Roberta Sedlak’s sample went out about an hour after our meeting this morning. Dr. Salinger is taking it himself to Vancouver and having it shipped from there. I phoned the NML to let them know what we’re sending. I talked to a Dr. Levesque, who said the soonest we can have a result is three days.”
Three days, thought Kate. Where would she be in three days? Back in Vancouver? Back in her own ER?
As if reading her mind, Dr. Doyle spoke directly to Andy.
“It looks as if we didn’t need your assistance after all, Sergeant Wyles.”
Andy didn’t say anything. After a brief, awkward silence, Dr. Doyle picked up her files and walked away. Andy rolled her eyes, which was so uncharacteristic, so un-Andy, that Kate laughed.
“Ah, politics,” Kate said.
“Don’t discount it so quickly. It’s a huge factor out here.”
“Yeah, well, it’s your factor, Sergeant Wyles. Unless it’s coughing and having trouble breathing, it’s got nothing to do with me,” Kate said, leaning back in her chair and stretching.
Andy turned to see someone approaching the desk. She gave Kate a quick look, which Kate didn’t have time to interpret. “Wanna bet?” Andy said under her breath. She stood straighter and pulled her face back to professional neutrality.
The man who stopped at the desk in front of Kate was young with bright, determined eyes and a closely cropped beard. He wore a clean button-up shirt and stylish jeans, and had a much-abused messenger bag slung over one shoulder.
“Sergeant Wyles, good to see you again.” His voice held neither friendliness nor contempt. When Andy simply dipped her head in acknowledgement, he turned to Kate.
“Are you Dr. Kate Morrison?”
“Yes,” Kate said. She suspected she knew who this was but played along anyway. “How can I help you?”
“Are you, Dr. Morrison, currently consulting with the RCMP on several suspected case of influenza in the Hidden Valley area?”
“Again, how can I help you?”
The man waited, his expression expectant, as if his silence would induce Kate to speak again. Kate said nothing. This man clearly didn’t know she’d been schooled by Sgt. Andy Wyles in the art of silence.
“I’m Paul Sealy with the Squamish Herald, and I’m looking into the story of a viral strain of influenza.”
Kate caught herself just as she was about to correct the journalist. Andy would never give away information, even just to correct a medically erroneous statement. The name confirmed for Kate that she should keep her mouth shut.
“Any statements will come through the hospital PR team, as I’m sure you are already aware.”
“And Public Health is involved also? I understand you are liaising with Dr. Salinger. We’ve interviewed him before,” Paul said.
“Public Health also has a public relations team, and any media inquiries need to go through them,” Kate said again, more firmly this time.
Paul’s smile slipped just a little. He seemed truly disappointed this hadn’t worked.
“You’re pushing this a little, don’t you think?” Andy asked mildly.
Now he looked defiant. “I’m doing my job, Sergeant Wyles. Unless you think you’ve found a link between my contempt of a system that props up the already adequately resourced with a few cases of the flu, there’s no reason for me to stop asking questions.”
“Your boss seemed a little concerned with the way you asking more questions looked to everyone else, that’s all,” Andy said, her voice seemingly unconcerned but her eyes direct.
“I can deal with my boss, thanks.”
“I believe there’s nothing else to say, then,” Andy said passively.
The reporter looked back and forth between them, then nodded his farewell and quickly left.
Andy leaned back against the desk, her eyebrows raised at Kate. “You were saying, Dr. Morrison?”
“Shut up, Sergeant Wyles.”
*
The phone rang loudly in the dark hotel room, pulling both Kate and Andy from a dead sleep. Kate sat up in bed and turned on the light as Andy reached for her cell phone on the bedside table, next to her gun. But it was the hotel phone, ringing shrilly next to Kate. She picked up the receiver, wakefulness winning the battle against sleepiness with every heartbeat.
“Hello?” She checked the clock—4:51 a.m.
“Dr. Morrison, it’s Dr. Doyle. I’m sorry to wake you.”
“Don’t worry about it. What is it?” Kate’s heart lurched at the thought of her two patients, the x-rays she had memorized lighting up her brain. She started getting out of bed, mentally at the hospital, ready to deal with this emergency.
“It’s Keith Grange. We lost him twenty minutes ago.”
Kate’s heart sank, the image of his chest x-ray results instantly replaced by a pair of scared brown eyes, a pale face, the shaky squeeze of his hand. She sat back down on the bed and closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them again.
“His lungs?” Kate asked.
“Yes, same as Roberta Sedlak. They just couldn’t keep ahead of the infection or the fluid, even knowing this time what to watch for. It happened so fast.”
“I’m sure they did everything they could,” Kate said robotically. She barely felt as Andy laid a warm hand against her back. It was a light touch, non-intrusive, meant to comfort. “Did Constable Ferris ever find his family?”
“Yes, they were on vacation in Banff. Apparently they’re in transit.”
Kate rubbed at her eyes while she processed two streams of information and questions. “Autopsy?”
“I’d like to check in with the family first, if we can. I know we can go ahead without their permission, but let’s give it a day.”
Kate appreciated this modicum of compassion from the stiff, almost cold woman. “Are you at the hospital right now?”
“No, I just got the call at home. Why?”
Kate ignored the defensive note in her tone. “I wanted to know how Serena Cardiff was doing.”
“I already checked. No change in her status.”
Kate gave a small prayer of thanks.
“Okay, thanks for the call, Dr. Doyle. I guess we’ll see you in a few hours.”
Kate hung up the phone, staring blankly at the bedside table until she felt Andy’s fingers move slightly against her back. A gentle reminder that she was there, if Kate needed her.
“Keith Grange died,” Kate said to Andy. “Similar presentation to Roberta Sedlak.” The rest she figured Andy had heard or pieced together. Andy said nothing, just continued to run her fingers over Kate’s arm. Kate finally twisted her head around to look up at Andy.
“We need those results back.”
“Hopefully, we’ll find out in a couple of hours.”
Kate shook her head. “But what it is. This doesn’t make sense.”
She let her head fall back against Andy and stared up at the ceiling. None of this made sense. Influenza, viral loads, infections, contagion, pulmonary edema, pneumonia. Acute onset. The words repeated and rebounded in Kate’s head until she felt she’d go crazy with it.
“What do you need?” Andy asked gently.
“I need you to take me to the hospital.”
*
Kate held Sharon Grange’s hands and let the woman sob. They were sitting in Dr. Doyle’s office, Kate with Sharon and Doug Grange on one side of the table, Dr. Doyle fidgeting uncomfortably on the other. Kate reached out for the box of tissues on Dr. Doyle’s desk and handed a few to Sharon Grange, who took them without looking up. As Kate studied Doug Grange’s face, reading the signs of shock and disbelief and sadness, she wondered how many times she’d watched this scene play out. No ER physician liked this part of the job. It was dark and terrible and tugged relentlessly at the soul.
Some doctors felt a measure of peace with the words and actions of comfort they gave to the families during such an emotional time, but Kate had been on the other side and knew there was very little to remember or absorb beyond the understanding that your loved one was gone. Nothing could cover the sensation of being ripped open. So Kate didn’t try. She held a hand, offered tissue, and stayed silent.
Doug Grange was the first to speak, clearing his throat loudly in the silence twice before he could force enough air past his vocal cords to produce sound.
“What now?” He directed his question at Dr. Doyle. She clearly seemed like the woman in charge, a woman who had answers, someone who could direct the course of their grief.
“We’d like to do an autopsy,” Dr. Doyle said in her kind but matter-of-fact voice. Kate cursed her silently.
“We’d like to understand why Keith succumbed so quickly to his illness,” Kate explained gently. “All we know right now is that a virus attacked his lungs, causing an infection that we couldn’t control.” Kate squeezed Keith’s mother’s hand before asking her next question. “I know this is a hard time to answer questions, but had Keith had a lung biopsy, by any chance?”
Sharon nodded, lifting her puffy red eyes to Kate’s. “When he was sixteen. A bad bout of pneumonia that just seemed to hang on. Doctors thought it was something else. Sicadosis, I think.”
“Sarcoidosis,” Kate said quietly.
“Yes, that. But he was fine. He’s been so healthy—” Her voice cut off as she choked on the words.
“A post-mortem examination might give us some answers,” Kate said gently.
Sharon Grange reached out to her husband, and they locked eyes. Kate looked away, the nakedness of their pain too much to witness.
“Okay,” said Doug Grange, gripping his wife’s hand. “But soon. I’d like to take our boy home.”
“We’ll arrange transport for later this afternoon,” Dr. Doyle assured them.
Once they were passed into the care of an understanding nurse, Kate sat across from Dr. Doyle, feeling drained. It was barely past ten, but Kate had already spent hours searching uselessly through files, staring at x-rays and blood panels.
As Kate stood to leave, the phone on Dr. Doyle’s desk rang. Just as she reached the door, however, Dr. Doyle called out for her to wait. Kate looked out through the window into the hallways where she could see Andy writing in her notepad, cell phone pressed between her ear and shoulder.
Dr. Doyle hung up the phone. “Dr. Kellar is waiting for you in the morgue.”
“Now?” Kate asked.
“She’d like to begin immediately.”
Kate blinked.
“Dr. Salinger will be in this afternoon with the lab results, so you and Dr. Kellar can update the team then.”
Kate said nothing more, just stepped into the hallway. She gave a one word reply to the questioning glance from Andy. “Morgue.”
Kate could swear she saw Andy flinch.
“Now?” Andy asked, unknowingly echoing Kate’s disbelief from a few moments before.
“Now,” Kate said and started walking towards the stairwell. She wished she had time for another coffee, though she was already on her third.
“I can’t go with you.”
Kate stopped and turned.
“Ferris and I have a conference call with Finns and Superintendent Heath in an hour. I could try to stop by after…”
Kate waved the offer away with her hand, feeling a tension headache starting behind her left eye. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” She kept walking towards the stairs.
“Kate.”
Kate stopped, her hand on the railing, already exhausted at just the thought of four plus hours in the morgue with Mona Kellar. “It’s fine, Andy. Maybe she’ll be better without you there.”
Andy snorted. “Not likely.”
Kate gave a small smile, all she had at that moment. “I can handle it.”
Andy took a step closer and traced a circle across Kate’s arm with her finger. It was the first time Andy had ever touched her scar on purpose, and Kate felt a shiver run up her spine.
“I know,” Andy said. “I just wish you didn’t have to.”
“I know,” Kate repeated softly. “I should go, she’s waiting. See you at the meeting?”
Andy nodded, her grey eyes worried. Kate focused on the stairs in front of her, on the task at hand, not wanting the worry or stress to show on her face. When she faced the dead man’s doctor on her own in just a few minutes, she wanted to be a completely blank slate.
By the time Kate made it down to the morgue, showed her ID, and hastily pulled on her gown and booties, Keith Grange’s body was already out on the table and Dr. Kellar was vibrating with anger. Olivia stood very still, barely looking up when Kate entered the room.
“In future, Dr. Morrison, if we ever have the pleasure of working together again, I expect you to come immediately when called.” Kate tried to ignore the insinuation in the sly grin that followed. “I imagine Ms. Wyles’s rules are similar to my own.”
Kate looked down at her gloved hands, adjusting them over the fitted sleeves of the gown. “My apologies for being late, Dr. Kellar.”
Dr. Kellar switched the overhead microphone on with such force that it swung crazily over their heads for a few minutes before finally settling. Kate felt every muscle in her back, shoulder, and neck tense, waiting for the next insult, the next personal attack.
Hour one went by with no other abuse being hurled across the table, Dr. Kellar taking photos and giving a detailed description of the body. Hour two, as Kate leaned in over Keith Grange’s cold, pale body to look into the chest cavity at his infected lungs, Dr. Kellar merely glared and hovered possessively. Hour three, Kate’s stomach started to growl with hunger and the acid of too much coffee. Dr. Kellar continued her examination, the oral report given in a trance-like monotone which made the whole setting seem vaguely unreal. Hour four, as Dr. Kellar began her final analysis of the dead, taking what was undoubtedly painstaking measures to return each piece of the body with delicate precision, Kate could only begin to dream she would leave this autopsy unscathed.
Dr. Kellar turned off the microphone, stepped back from the table, and began the process of de-gloving and de-gowning. She indicated with a sharp gesture that Olivia should take over, which the young nurse did silently. Kate stood in the exact position she’d maintained for the past four and a half hours, gloved hands by her sides, staring at Keith Grange’s reassembled body.
“Dr. Morrison, I’d like a word before we present our findings to the rest of the team.”
How can such a simple request leave me so cold? Kate wondered as she met Olivia’s sympathetic glance before beginning to remove her own gown and gloves.
Kate followed Dr. Kellar out of the morgue, down two short hallways, then finally into a nondescript, plain office area. Dr. Kellar closed the door, and Kate felt suddenly very trapped. Trapped by the closed door, by Kellar’s intense stare, by Finns’s voice in her head telling her she had to be here. Trapped.
Dr. Kellar opened two folders, pulled out pictures, and arranged them on the table. Despite her rising anxiety, Kate was curious and she began pulling the pictures together, automatically drawing comparisons, finding more similarities than differences.
“Tell me what you see, Dr. Morrison.”
Kate didn’t look up, the purr in Dr. Kellar’s voice warning enough that she needed to be cautious.
“I see two sets of lungs, both of which show signs of pulmonary edema and infection.” She pointed to Roberta Sedlak’s picture first. “I can see where the infection started on this one for sure, but I would guess Keith Grange’s point of infection was here, the site of his lung biopsy from three years ago.”
Dr. Kellar didn’t acknowledge what Kate had said, just folded her hands and stared at Kate across the table. Kate continued to study the pictures until Dr. Kellar swept them away and shoved them back into the folder, forcing Kate to look up at her.
“What do you know about pulmonary edema?” Dr. Kellar said.
Kate didn’t have time to wonder how this woman changed moods so quickly, so mercurially. “At its most basic level, it’s simply fluid accumulated in the lungs.”
“I am not your college-flunky, brain-bashed lover, Dr. Morrison. I expect a complete medical answer when I ask a question.”
Kate took her hands off the table and clasped them in her lap, not wanting to betray the fact that she was shaking with anger.
“Pulmonary edema is usually a result of cardiogenic factors, clearly not an issue in this case since the heart does not seem to be affected.” Kate waited, knowing somehow that Dr. Kellar would love that Kate had to wait for confirmation before continuing. She did confirm, with a nod, her wild orange hair falling across her forehead. Kate continued. “Next most likely cause is some kind of airway obstruction, aspiration, inhalation of toxic fumes, certain types of medication or, what I believe is the case here, severe infection.”
Dr. Kellar drummed her thick fingers on the table, saying nothing for a moment, probing Kate with her bright, too-interested eyes. Kate couldn’t help squirming under the gaze, unable to stand up to it as she normally would, afraid she would prompt an attack.
“You’re too smart for her, clearly. Though I can understand how she would be a safe foray into the lesbian experience. I wonder at your compatibility, however. You are curious, information-seeking, whereas I imagine Ms. Wyles is wild and somewhat aggressive in bed—”
Kate cut her off, unable to keep the sharp anger out of her voice. “Are we done with the autopsy results?”
“In the meeting this afternoon,” Dr. Kellar said, smiling, “and any future meetings which involve non-medical staff, I expect you to give the layman’s explanation for my results.”
Kate merely nodded, then stood and walked to the door. Dr. Kellar caught Kate’s wrist with her hand, her fingers warm and moist against Kate’s skin.
“She should have been mine, Dr. Morrison. At least once.”
Anger flashed in Kate’s eyes, at Kellar’s presumption, at the way her words and her tone laid possession to what belonged to Kate. With a control Kate didn’t know she had, she pulled her hand out of Mona Kellar’s grasp.
“In future I expect you won’t touch me again, and that you will keep all conversation about medical findings.”
And Kate walked out of the room, desperately seeking a calm that was getting harder and harder to find.