Chapter 137

Annabelle took the call informing her of her new assignment. Her first step should be to talk to Joe Connelly.

“Annabelle, line three,” Wayne called across the newsroom.

She snatched up the receiver. “Annabelle Murphy.”

“Annabelle, it’s me.”

“Oh, hi, Mike. What’s up?”

He could tell by her clipped tone that she was under pressure there.

“I hate to bother you with this, honey. But Thomas has this weird scab on his hand.”

“What does it look like?” she asked as the hairs on her arms raised.

“It’s black, like coal.”

Sweet Jesus. She couldn’t get out of the building!

Annabelle ached to fly out the door and rush downtown. She wanted to meet them at the hospital emergency room, talk to the doctors, hold her son’s hand. If something happened to Thomas, she would never, ever forgive herself. Tears welled in her eyes.

Yet she knew, instinctively, that she had to stay calm. Her panic wouldn’t help her little boy. What would help was clear thinking. She tried to remember the research she’d done for the Lee piece. The coal-like scab signaled cutaneous anthrax, the less deadly form. Please, dear God, please, the much more treatable form.

If the treatment came in time.