Chicago

Dr. Claire Antonelli hated that she had let Vera Schroder down. The woman’s face had become a mirror image of her husband’s, an expressionless zombie, void of emotion. But for Vera it was shock, not pain, that caused the conversion.

She escorted Vera from the surgery waiting room to a suite on the same floor that was reserved for families. She wanted Vera to rest until they could tell her more, though Claire didn’t have a clue as to what she could tell her. They had stabilized Markus for now, but after what Claire had just seen, she didn’t expect him to make it through the night. And the worst of it was that they were no closer to finding out what was wrong with him.

Claire stopped herself long enough to call her son. She asked what he had planned for his Saturday night. He could have said anything at that moment and it wouldn’t have mattered. She simply wanted to hear his voice, know that he was okay, remind herself how very lucky she was.

He asked if he could go over to a friend’s and watch college football. They were ordering footlongs from Chicago Dog. No beer, he promised. An empty promise, but she knew she didn’t have to worry about him. They agreed on a time he’d be home. He wanted to know when she’d be home. How did her day go? Did she want him to get an extra footlong for her?

Yes, very lucky, indeed.

Then Claire joined Dr. Miles back in his small office down the hall from the surgery suites. He was sitting quietly behind his desk, his hands folded together. He didn’t say anything when Claire first entered. There was just a nod. She took the chair on the other side of the desk and they sat for what seemed a long time to Claire.

He leaned back and his chair groaned. He scratched at his five o’clock shadow then folded his arms over his chest. Still, he didn’t say anything.

Claire glanced at her wristwatch and Miles noticed. Everything she thought of to say seemed too obvious or unnecessary. It had been several hours since they’d closed up Markus Schroder’s abdomen and sent a piece of his tissue downstairs to the lab. All that was left now was to wait.

The phone on Dr. Miles’s desk rang and both doctors jumped. Miles’s bear paw grabbed it immediately.

“This is Dr. Miles.”

Claire watched, looking for any clues in Miles’s eyes. They darted from the door to her face and down to his desk as he listened. They wouldn’t stay still long enough for her to detect calm or panic or confusion. His shoulders hunched forward and the lines in his forehead deepened.

“What kind of confirmation?” he asked and this time his eyes stayed on Claire’s. The man she had always counted on for strength suddenly looked afraid.

He listened for several more minutes then said, “Okay,” and hung up the phone.

“They need to send a sample to the CDC for confirmation,” he told Claire.

“Is it MRSA?” she asked.

Staph infections were not uncommon in health-care facilities. But MRSA (pronounced “merca”) was the worst of the bunch. It was highly resistant to antibiotics. Recently a case had been found in a Virginia school. An entire district had to be closed while administrators and health-care workers scrubbed down facilities.

“It’s worse,” Miles told her.

“What do you mean? Worse than MRSA?”

“They believe it’s a virus.”

Claire stared at him, waiting for more of an explanation. If they were sending it to the CDC they must be thinking it was highly infectious.

“This isn’t something we’ve seen before,” Miles said.

“Hemorrhaging, purplish blotches, fever—” Claire stopped. “Plague? Smallpox?”

“I don’t think we should speculate.” He stood up, his way of putting an end to the discussion. “Besides, we don’t have time for that. They told me to shut down this floor and the surgery center.”

“A quarantine?”

He nodded. “Nobody leaves.”