Saturday
In the ambulance, Jim sat on the second stretcher watching the EMT work on Ginny. She was responding to his requests, her vital signs were within acceptable limits, and she was complaining about her left ankle hurting. All very good signs.
He wanted to touch her, to hold her hand, but he didn’t dare. He had no idea whether he could transmit the virus to her if he did. Better if the only possible exposure was the flying droplets. If her skin had been intact, then she could wash the virus down the drain with impunity. Always assuming it hadn’t landed in her eye or mouth. He hoped his body had shielded her from that. He’d been between her and Hal, and Hal had been aiming at him.
Jim rubbed sweaty palms (encased in nitrile gloves) on the paper gown. He wished he’d taken the time to study that information Chip Galloway had sent. He would have to find a computer and download it again to find out what the CDC recommended. In the meantime, viruses worked fast and this one faster than usual. He couldn’t wait. He would have to use his best guess and hope he was right. He called the hospital pharmacist, giving specific orders and asking them to prioritize the request.
When they got to the hospital, the staff was ready for them. Ginny was taken straight to the Neuro ICU. Jim and the two EMTs were required to place their clothes in biohazard bags, then shower and wash thoroughly (including their hair) using a viricidal soap. The two EMTs were then inoculated and released, with instructions to report back if they noticed anything unusual. The same thing would happen to Detective Tran and the officer who had been with her.
Jim was admitted and started on the same post-exposure prophylactic rabies vaccinations and human rabies immune globulin he had ordered for everyone else, to which, after reading what the CDC had sent, he added a cocktail of antivirals.
He’d been right. He’d seen this virus before, in a report on gene splicing that had crossed his desk back in medical school.
Jim’s expert knowledge of viruses cut both ways. He knew, understood thoroughly, what the medications could and could not do for him. He knew they had never been tried on this engineered virus. He also knew the risks the medications themselves posed Whatever happened, Dr. Armstrong was going to get a hell of a journal article out of it.
Jim prowled his assigned room, scratching irritably at the cardiac sensors attached to his chest. He did not want to be here. He wanted to be up in the Neuro ICU. Was there any reason why he shouldn’t visit Ginny? As long as he didn’t touch her, he couldn’t think of any. The virus had a rabies base (supplying the neurotoxicity) and rabies required only standard precautions. The norovirus (the rapid turnover part of the design) usually required contact precautions, but it had been deactivated.
He could not give the virus to her by breathing on her, or coughing and sneezing in her direction (which was a possibility with his hair still wet). All four of the known victims had been treated in healthcare facilities with lots of droplet splatter and no one had contracted the disease from them. It should be safe, if he didn’t touch her.
He left a message with the charge nurse telling her where to find him and made his way up to the unit. He got some curious looks from the staff and at least one whispered comment as he walked down the hall and into Ginny’s room. It didn’t surprise him. The whole hospital probably knew what was going on by now.
He pushed the door open and slipped in, pausing just inside, looking around and trying to see everything at once. She lay in the bed, her eyes closed, breathing easily. Oxygen via nasal cannula. No ventilator. Good. The monitor above her head showed normal vital signs and EKG rhythm. Good. Her left foot was wrapped and elevated, an ice pack in place, but Jim could see from where he stood that the toes were pink. Good.
The door opened behind him and Jim stepped aside to let Dr. Armstrong into the room. He looked at Jim, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“They told me I would find you here.”
Jim nodded, then looked over at the bed. “How is she?”
“She should do well enough. The fall rattled her brain a bit. We’ll keep a close eye on her for another day or so, then reevaluate.”
Jim nodded. “I was meaning to ask you about the cracked ribs. She had some fluid in her lungs yesterday.”
Dr. Armstrong nodded. “Yes. We’re going to have to address that.” He turned and looked at Jim. “How about you? How are you doing?”
Jim shrugged. “I’m waiting to either die or live. It’s a very odd feeling.”
“I can only imagine.” He gave Jim a hard look. “Are you going to let the nurses keep an eye on you for me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Armstrong lifted one eyebrow, then let it fall. “The medications need to stay on schedule. I’d like good documentation for all the obvious reasons. And you may not notice subtle changes which one of them could pick up on.”
Jim sighed, running his gloved hand through his hair. “Can they do it here?”
“Yes. As long as they can find you.”
Jim nodded. “I’ll cooperate.” He laughed. “This may be my only chance to go down in the history books.”
“I hope not.” Dr. Armstrong pulled on a pair of gloves, had Jim sit down in the empty chair and put him through reflex and muscle strength testing, then gait, then coordination, then memory and cognition. “No deficits I can see,” he said at last. “Let’s keep it that way.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jim said. He glanced over at the bed and found Ginny looking at him, a smile on her lips.
“That was very entertaining,” she said.
“Your turn,” Dr. Armstrong said.
When he was finished, he pulled out the computer access point and charted on the pair of them, then spoke to the nurses. During all this time Jim stood and looked at Ginny, not speaking, just waiting.
“Let me know if there are any changes in either of them,” he heard Armstrong say, and heard the nurse respond; then Dr. Armstrong took his leave and the two of them were alone.
* * *
“What was that about?” Ginny asked.
“I’ve been exposed.” He outlined what had happened while she lay unconscious at the bottom of the stair.
“Hal had the virus in his pocket?”
“Yes.”
Jim watched as Ginny struggled to make sense of what she was hearing.
“How did he get it?”
“He took it from the GeneTech lab after the first death.”
He watched her eyes get wider. “He was there.”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Alex told me.”
Jim was glad to have a trustworthy source corroborating his story.
“If he’s the one who took it, that means he’s the—”
“Yes.”
Her face, already pale, went dead white and Jim wondered if she was going to be sick.
Her hands came up, first one, then the other, and settled on her chest.
“He had the virus in his pocket when he came to see me?”
“Apparently so.”
Jim didn’t think she could get any whiter, but she did.
She took a shuddering breath, her eyes focusing on him.
“You said you’d been exposed.”
Jim nodded.
“He threw it at you?”
“He threw it to me and I caught it.” Jim spread his gloved hands. “I have scrapes and punctures on my hands and arms, from the holly bushes and from smashing the window to get to the door lock. I have to assume the virus got into the cuts.”
“Oh, Jim! This is my fault. I shouldn’t have involved you.”
He shook his head at her. “This is Hal’s fault. When he saw what he’d done to himself, he tried to make sure I would die, too.”
Jim watched as a tear welled up and spilled down her cheek, followed by another, then a whole stream of tears. He took a step toward her. “Ginny! Please don’t cry. It’s going to be all right. I promise.”
She was shivering, reaching for a tissue, having trouble finding it, and making him ache to hold her, to brush the tears away. He picked up one of the blankets, being careful to touch it only through the gloves, and brought it over, tucked it around her, then stepped back. He was shaking, too.
“We know what we’re dealing with this time,” he said. “I’ve been talking to the CDC and we have a plan. That virus is not going to be allowed to flourish unchecked. We’re going to fight it and I have to believe we’ll win.”
“It’s still my fault. If I hadn’t let Hal in, you wouldn’t have had to break the glass.”
Jim took a ragged breath. “Why did you?”
Her face twisted. “I wanted to believe it wasn’t true, to give him a chance to explain.” She swallowed. “He came to propose.”
Jim felt his mouth go dry. “What did you tell him?”
“I hadn’t answered him when you got there. I didn’t know what to say.”
Jim’s stomach did a flip-flop and he wondered if it was the drugs kicking in.
“How did you come to fall down the staircase?”
“I was trying to get past him, to answer the doorbell. He saw your car and he didn’t want me to let you in.”
Jim nodded. He could understand that.
“So what happened?”
“I’m not sure. He had my arm and I think I tried to pull free. Then I lost my balance and grabbed for him, but it was too late.” She put her hands on her cheeks and closed her eyes.
“He had that virus in his pocket when he proposed to me.”
Jim felt his heart constrict. “Ginny?”
She was crying again and brought her hands up to cover her face.
“Ginny! Please, please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry. Dear God, I’m so sorry!”
Jim grabbed one of his hands in the other and held on tightly. If she kept this up, he was going to have to leave. To stand here and watch her weep was more than he could bear.
She suddenly pulled her hands away from her face, her eyes blazing. “And God damn you, Jim Mackenzie!” She looked at him in fury.
“What?” Jim was so startled he took a step back.
“You promised me you’d duck!”
It took Jim a minute to remember the dueling pistols. When he did, he started laughing. Just a little at first, then harder, then hard enough to force him to sit down, tears rolling down his face and a stitch in his side. When he could see again, he looked over and found her smiling, crookedly, but still smiling.
He swallowed his heart, then took a deep breath and smiled back.
“It’s going to be all right, Ginny. Wait and see.”
* * *