“No, I’m fine. I…I…I was talking to Jack. You know, he’s a little confused right now.”
“Oh, I see. Is there anything I can do?”
“You know, I’d like to be alone for a while, to tell you the truth. Pull myself together a little before I go get the kids. A nurse is watching them for me.”
“I understand.” Dr. Mansfield squinted at her. “Are you sure there’s nothing else. Are you all right about Felicia Rodriguez.?”
Lauren straightened up in her chair. A flush of anger pushed back the nervousness she felt. “To tell you the truth, I’m not all right with it. She’s dead. And I still think there ought to have been an investigation. Luckily, the CDC will still have her samples so we can run more tests.”
Dr. Mansfield nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. You made a lot of sense earlier. We should have done more. After you left my office I talked to the medical examiner. I found out he took two post mortem blood samples. I’ve had them sent to the CDC along with a request for additional screening on the first batch.”
Lauren felt the tension drain from her shoulders. It was exactly what she wanted to hear. She suddenly felt foolish for letting her imagination run away with her. She didn’t even know where the train of thought had been leading but if Dr. Mansfield was willing to pursue additional tests then her suspicions of some kind of malicious cover-up were blown out the window.
“That’s great. That makes me feel much better.”
“I figured you would. Now why don’t you get out of here? Leave me a number where you’re staying and I’ll call you if anything interesting comes back.”
Lauren nodded and scribbled a number on a piece of paper. “It’s a friend of mine from Hopkins. We’ll be down there for a week or so.” She handed the phone number to Dr. Mansfield. “Jack’s going to meet us down there,” she added, not sure why she felt a need to explain.
Dr. Mansfield folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Good. I’ll call you if anything happens. Try to get some rest and take care of your family.”
Lauren hadn’t intended to ask the question, but as Dr. Mansfield turned to leave she decided she had nothing to lose. “Do you know of anyone doing any drug trials up here?”
Dr. Mansfield turned, a little too quickly Lauren thought. “What a strange question. Why do you ask?”
“One of the nurses asked me about it.”
“Drug trials in our little area? I don’t think so. Which nurse?”
“Excuse me?”
“Which nurse asked you?”
Lauren didn’t like the hard edge back in his voice. The same impulse that made her lie about a nurse asking her the question made her self-conscious of how she played off her answer now. “You know, I don’t remember. They kind of all blend in.” She wanted to look away because his eyes were boring into hers, but she knew how it would look. Didn’t liars always look away? So she met his stare. The seconds creaked by, punctuated only by the internal clock of the blood surging through her system.
“Right, well, like I said, I don’t think so. But I’d want to know if there was something like that going on. You know, we’re supposed to be informed if someone is doing a trial in case there are side effects. Let me know if you hear anything about it.”
“Will do.”
“Right then. I’ll see you, later.” He paused like he wanted to say something more, but then turned and left the room.
“Thanks. See you later.”
Lauren slumped back into her chair. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She wondered if she had been infected with Jack’s paranoia. There was a logical explanation for everything Dr. Mansfield had done and said. Even his response to the drug trials was appropriate. He was right, as head of the hospital he ought to know if there were medical studies being performed in the area.
Still, in her mind, something was out of place. What Felicia’s sister had said on the phone rattled around in her head. Someone had offered them money. A drug trial was the first thing that had come to her mind. Even at Hopkins, it was well known that poor people and college kids were the only ones who responded to the open calls for clinical trials of new drugs.
But now she thought of another possibility. What if someone had offered them money after Felicia died? What if it was someone trying to cover-up a mistake?
“Jesus, Lauren. Why don’t you just accuse the man of murder?” she said to the reflection in her computer monitor. She knew she was stressed out, knew she wasn’t thinking clearly. Less than a day earlier she had thought Jack was losing it for exactly the same kind of paranoid ideas. Still, no matter how crazy it sounded, she couldn’t let it go.
She opened her file on the CDC and leafed through the papers until she found what she was looking for. She turned on her computer and waited impatiently for it to boot up. While Microsoft icons appeared on the screen, she walked over to her door and locked it. Just a precaution, she thought to herself, same as the email she was sending her friend at the CDC to double-check Felicia’s results. Probably nothing would come of it, but precautions never hurt. And maybe it would let her rest a little easier.
FORTY-ONE
The bleeding started around lunchtime. Gertie Howell was the one who noticed it first. Chewing on the carrot that she limited herself to in an attempt to meet the standards set by the fashion magazines stacked next to her bed at home, she suddenly wrinkled her nose at her friend.
“Gross. What d’ya do? Pick a scab or something?”
Cathy Moran heard the words but their meaning was slow to register. She’d been like that all day. She was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her second period teacher had given her a break and allowed her to slump back in her chair and doze off while the rest of the class broke into project groups. She felt a little better when she woke up, but the feeling was temporary. Now her eyelids hung heavy and her body ached to lie down.
“Cathy? Did you hear me?” Gertie leaned forward and whispered, “Hey, you’re boob’s bleeding. Come on, it’s kinda disgusting, all right?” Gertie’s tone ensured that Cathy understood: Even if she didn’t care that a splotch of blood was spreading across her white sweater, it was embarrassing her friend.
Cathy’s head sunk down and her eyes lolled in her head until they came to rest looking down at her sweater. Gertie was right. There was a circle of blood about the size of a quarter just above her left breast. Suddenly, the lunch table tipped precariously and she had to slap her hand on the table to keep from sliding off onto the floor.
Gertie, whose side of the table hadn’t moved at all, glanced around to make sure no one else was watching. “Hey, you all right? You’re acting like a freak.”
Cathy pushed herself up from the table, the cafeteria swiveling around her on an unseen axis. She grabbed her books and held them tight in front of her.
“I’m fine…fine. Just need to go to the rest room.”
“Maybe I should go with you,” Gertie said without making any movement to put the words into action.
“No,” Cathy said. “I’m fine. I’ll…I’ll just see you later.”
Cathy walked unsteadily across the cafeteria, the hum of a hundred teenage conversations pelting her head like pressure waves. She wanted to put her hands to her ears to block the sound but she didn’t dare move the books that covered her chest. She lowered her head and shuffled out the door as fast as she could.
She walked past the bathroom nearest the cafeteria. Too busy. Dragging her shoulder along the lockers to keep her balance, she made her way to the P.E. locker room. At lunch it would be deserted. She didn’t want anyone else around.
By the time she made her way to the locker room, her arms were stiff from clinging so tightly to her books. In front of a mirror she forced her arms down inch by inch, afraid of what she would find.