Sunday
Ginny climbed back from the shadowlands of fear. She could tell it was deep night. Something about the silence in the hall outside her door. She pushed herself up and looked around the room. Jim climbed to his feet and came towards her.
“Hello,” he said.
She leaned back against the pillows and looked at him. “Have you slept yet?”
He shook his head. “Why are you awake?”
She started to push her hair back from her face, then realized it was the dressing over her left ear that was irritating her. “I was dreaming.”
“Tell me about it?”
She looked at him. In the half-light he looked younger, the wisps of curls reminding her of a cherub. Ginny shook her head. She had seen him, in her dream, lying in his coffin, his features slack and lifeless, his eyes milky, his skin as pale as her own.
“It doesn’t matter. Tell me what’s going on.”
He sighed. “We’re still waiting.”
“Jim, please? No one will tell me anything.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then seemed to make up his mind. “What do you want to know?”
She steeled her nerves. “Viral load, yours and mine.”
“Neither the rabies nor the norovirus can be isolated from serum so the concept of viral load doesn’t apply.”
Ginny frowned. “What should I have asked, then?”
He rubbed his face with both hands and Ginny saw he still wore the nitrile gloves. “That wasn’t very helpful, was it?” he said.
“No.”
“I’m sorry. Let me try again.”
Ginny could feel a knot form in the pit of her stomach. In her experience, medical people took refuge in facts when the news was bad.
He took a deep breath. “The researchers added a radioactive tracer to this virus, so they could follow its progress in the lab animals. It shows on the gamma camera, which means all we need is a scan to see where it is, and whether or not it’s spreading.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. She’d had two scans done already. He didn’t have to be prompted to continue.
“You’re clean. There is no trace of virus in your system. We’ve had the first responders come in, too, just to be safe. They’re clean, too.”
“And you?”
He shrugged. “Positive for viral infection in my left hand. The good news is that it’s a very small area, not getting bigger, and not moving toward the central nervous system, which is what rabies normally does. It looks like the drugs are working.”
“How long until you’re out of the woods?”
“Until I’m sure I’m not going to die?”
She nodded, her throat tight. “How long?”
“There are a lot of unknowns. Assuming we beat this, I’ll be the first to survive. There may be neurological deficits, unforeseen complications. Dr. Armstrong is planning to follow me for the rest of my life.”
He was opening, then closing his left hand, as if to reassure himself it was still functioning.
“The rabies vaccine works the way they all do, stimulating my body to create antibodies. It’s possible my immune system will clear the virus completely. It’s also possible the virus will hide in the nerves, just like chickenpox, ready to break out again later.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know the answer. The treatments we’re using were developed for existing viruses, not this.”
“Jim Mackenzie!”
She saw his quick smile at her exasperated tone of voice.
“Two, maybe three days.”
“Three days? I have to wait three more days?”
Ginny was surprised to hear the tone of her own voice. She was concerned, of course. Who wouldn’t be? And he was in this predicament because of knowing her, of helping her. If they had never been introduced, he’d be safe. But there had been a note of anguish in her cry. He had heard it, too. He looked up quickly.
“Ginny, listen to me. Healthy individuals exposed to the rabies virus and vaccinated before they develop symptoms have a one hundred percent chance of not contracting rabies. Even though this is not standard rabies, those are good odds.”
She nodded. Yes, they were.
“Dr. Armstrong and the CDC recommend, and I concur, that we do more testing than usual and I plan to stay on the antivirals as long as there is even a trace of the virus showing in the scans. If I get three scans twenty-four hours apart with zero virus in them we’ll be cautiously optimistic.”
She swallowed. “Okay. You have a plan.”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “My turn to ask a question,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
“How’s your mother holding up?”
Ginny shook her head. “She’s locked out of her house until the hazmat team can clean up the spill. She was up here until Dr. Armstrong sent her home. I expect she’ll be back early. She can’t help worrying.”
“Does she have someone taking care of her?”
“She’s staying with Himself.” Ginny bit her lower lip. “Have you told him, yet?”
Jim nodded. “I called as soon as the first scan came back. He needed to know.” He laughed. “He has a very touching faith in my ability as a physician.”
Ginny lifted a wry eyebrow. “Here’s your chance to prove yourself.”
“Yes.”
Their eyes met. Ginny had been avoiding asking what she still needed to know. She swallowed hard. “Hal?”
She saw Jim’s lips pressed firmly together, then separated by force. “He’s dying, Ginny.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, remembering the feel of Hal’s arms around her. “Today?”
“Perhaps tomorrow. We’ve slowed the virus down a lot.”
She closed her eyes. It was impossibly hard to admit to herself that he had already killed twice before he had taken her in his arms for the first time and looked down into her eyes with his own, those heart-stoppingly beautiful brown eyes that belonged to a murderer.
“Ginny?”
She opened her eyes and found Jim much closer. He looked unhappy.
“You’re sure it was Hal who tampered with my skate?” Hal, laying a trap for her, catching her in it, visiting her in the hospital to make sure she could not continue to threaten him.
Jim nodded. “We’ll have to wait for the police report, but I’m sure.”
Her eyes wandered away from his, her heart aching, her mind trying to understand. Hal, proposing to her with the virus in his pocket. Why had he brought it with him? Suppose she had touched it accidentally? Had he intended to use it on her?
“He didn’t really love me.”
“He was using you.”
Ginny could feel a chasm opening in her breast. She had always prided herself on being a good judge of character. How could she have been so wrong? She dropped her head into her hands and tried not to cry. Crying made her head hurt, and brought on coughing fits. She knew. She’d already done some crying.
“Ginny, look at me.” Jim sat down on the side of the bed, facing her.
“I’m so sorry Hal put you through this, but believe me when I say he is an aberration. Most men aren’t cunning and calculating and coldblooded with women. Just stupid. Like me.”
Ginny found herself almost smiling. “You came to rescue me.”
He nodded. “I was afraid for you.”
With good reason, as it turned out. “Thank you.”
He smiled at her. “You’re welcome.”
Ginny’s smile faded, the horror of the situation flooding back. She shivered. “How am I supposed to live with this?”
“One day at a time.” He laid his still gloved right hand on the coverlet, touching her knee through the fabric.
“You have to remember, he might still be killing people if it hadn’t been for you. It was your research that exposed him. You caught a murderer.”
Ginny lifted her eyes from his hand. “With your help.”
He nodded. “We caught him together.”
“He wouldn’t have tried to kill you if—”
Jim cut her off. “Oh, yes, he would. I fully intended to take you away from him and he knew it. We were always going to end up with pistols at dawn.”
Ginny put both of her hands on her stomach, to control the sudden nausea. Was this what it felt like to be fought over?
Jim’s voice broke through the fog. She looked up to find him frowning, hard.
“That came out wrong.” He swallowed. “Ginny, listen to me. You are not spoils of war. I still want to get to know you and I’m going to ask you to let me, later, when you feel better. But I know you’re not a possession to be fought over. You’re a woman; capable, knowledgeable, sufficient, all by yourself. I know you don’t need a man, to live.”
Ginny met his eyes. It was not possible to imagine being with a man, any man, not at the moment. But he was wrong. If she was going to survive this, she needed for this man to live.
“You should sleep,” she said. So his body could heal.
“You, too.”
So her heart could as well.
* * *