Alex turned off her cell phone and went over to close the blinds and draw the curtains. The sun would rise in another hour, and if she didn't block out the light it would give her another migraine. She turned down the room thermostat to sixty degrees Fahrenheit, trudged back to the bed, and flopped down. Cold temperatures always made her sleep like a baby; maybe dropping the AC would help.
Maybe going and talking to Don down the hall would, too. Yet try as she might, Alex couldn't see repeating her story to anyone else, particularly a shrink, who could instantly commit her to a mental-health facility. There were laws that allowed for involuntary commitment. Crazy people needed protecting, too. Is that what I've become? A danger to myself?
Grace's voice, warm with concern. When was the last time you ate something?
Alex sat up and looked at her reflection in the mirror across the room. She had lost more weight, but she was sure she had eaten something now and then. The last full meal she'd eaten had been so awful she could remember every bite: bland macaroni and cheese, soggy broccoli, a square of spice cake, a carton of skim milk. She'd forced down half of it, that last day she spent in the hospital.
Her reflection stared back at her. That was a week ago. I haven't eaten anything for a week?
Horseshit, her medical sense shouted inside her head. If you hadn't eaten in a week, you wouldn't be capable of doing much more than crawl around the floor. You just weren't paying attention.
Despite the arctic temperature of the room, Alex slept fitfully that day, tossing and turning until she gave up and watched game shows, marveling at how excited the contestants became over lousy furniture and cars they probably couldn't afford to insure. Each time she thought about eating, her stomach shriveled to a tight, churning knot. She really couldn't remember eating a single thing since leaving the hospital, and it was starting to worry her.
More worries cropped up during her second call to Grace late that afternoon.
"Dr. Whelton faxed back the consult," her office manager said. "He says to redo all the counts, and if they're the same, to overnight samples over to the CDC."
"Why?"
"Let me read from the sheet." There was a rustle of papers. "Okay, here's what he wrote: 'Counts don't make sense. Not ADDS, leukemia, or septicemia, but it has characteristics similar to all three. Need a bone marrow to narrow the field. Also need the actual slides, not shots of them. Shots show four times normal saturation of mutant phagocytes and two distinct, unclassified bacterial cells. Send samples and I'll personally run the next test batches. Alex, this is major grant material. Call me ASAP, Jerry.'"
So Cyprien had infected her with whatever blood disease he carried. Why hadn't anyone picked up on it when they had run all those tests on her in ICU? "Fax him back a thanks, but no on the retests, and don't copy the report to the CDC."
Grace took in a sharp breath. "You sure about that, boss? What if this patient infects someone else?"
"She won't be doing that. She's dead." Or she soon would be. Pulling out of a deeper well of self-pity, Alex added, "I'm doing research on leukemia patients. If this is a new strain, it's my baby, not theirs or Jerry's."
"Okay." Grace didn't sound too convinced. "Listen, this is probably not the best time to ask, but I've had a job offer. My cousin Kyung, the podiatrist, remember? His office manager got pregnant and is going on maternity leave. And with all our patients referred out, it's not like you really need me…"
"I understand." Alex closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. Cyprien had infected her with some godawful disease, and now she was losing the only person she could depend on. But however fast she was spiraling down, she needn't take Grace with her. "I'm gonna miss you."
"You ever need me back, all you have to do is call. You know that, Alex." Grace sighed. "You sure you don't want to talk to Don? Just, you know, to shoot the breeze?"
"I'll be okay. Good luck with the new job."
"Same to you." The office manager chuckled. "Hey, if you discover a new disease, don't name it after me."
What had Cyprien dumped into her bloodstream? Keller's Blood Rot. Alexandra's Dementia. Acute Postabduction Syndrome. Or is it Infectious Vampirism? "I won't, I promise."
Chapter Ten
John had never been to Rome, but he was given little chance to play first-time tourist. A young Italian priest holding a placard printed with John's name stood by the customs gate, and led him outside to an old SAAB parked behind the long line of taxis. The priest loaded John's single case into the trunk before climbing in behind the wheel.
"We go, see Brethren," the priest told him, gesturing toward the outskirts of the city.
John nodded and sat on the passenger's side, and clipped on his seat belt. Italians had a reputation surpassed only by the French for reckless driving, and he really would have preferred to rent his own car. Hightower had overruled him and told him he would never find the order's house on his own.
Rome was big and crowded and noisy. There were flowers everywhere, bold scarlet roses, glassy yellow tulips, and stately lavender hyacinth. On the way through the city, they passed more stray cats, restaurants, motorbikes, and rusted-out Fiats than John had ever seen in his life. He thought the Fiats and motorbikes were understandable, given that the city had been built centuries before cars had been invented. Most of the streets were more like cramped alleys, however, with widths better suited to pedestrians, horses, and the occasional cart.
"My name Tolomeo," the priest, a friendly young man with handsome dark features, said. He drove through snarled traffic with the usual European manic disregard for safety. "You no speaka Italian, eh?"
"No, Father Tolomeo, I'm sorry I don't."
"Is okay. You hungry?" The priest slowed down after screeching around the Piazza Navona and parked illegally in front of a small cafe. "Zuppa, you like, eh?"
John looked at the three famous fountains and nodded. Tolomeo jumped out and returned a few minutes later with two Styrofoam containers. In the one he handed John was a steaming, fragrant jumble of bright vegetables in reddish broth.
"Minestrone, you drink, like?" The younger man lifted his container and drank the soup from it directly.
John took a sip and scalded his tongue. "Thank you, ah, grazie."
White teeth flashed as Tolomeo started the car. "Prego, prego." With a twist of the wheel he roared back into traffic.
The hot soup was delicious, once John could taste again, but he concentrated more on not spilling it than drinking it. He wished he had more knowledge of Italian, so he could speak to the young priest, but he had been so upset over his last meeting with Alexandra that he hadn't even thought of obtaining a phrase book.
Tolomeo didn't seem to mind. In between gulps of his own soup, the priest zipped through a grid of narrow, cramped streets, muttering what were probably mild obscenities in his native language now and then under his breath, but otherwise leaving John alone to his thoughts.
Thoughts that had grown more dismal by the hour. He had tried to call Alexandra twice before leaving the States, with no luck. She wanted nothing to do with him, and he would have to accept that. If he could only banish the guilt he felt over their last meeting.
You're hurting me, Father.
He hadn't meant to grab her. It had been a reflexive action, nothing more. No, I was angry, and some part of me wanted to hurt her. Had he left bruises? Some of the foster parents they had stayed with before the Kellers had adopted them had done that.
She'd had a bruise on her cheek that day they had stood on the curb by the HRS office building, looking into the big Lincoln Town Car where Audra and Robert Keller sat waiting for them to get in. Alex had clung to him, almost plastering herself against his side, her small hands twisting in the dirty T-shirt hanging from his skinny torso.
Johnny, I'm scared. She looks strong.
John had been grimly prepared as always to do whatever it took to protect his sister. But Audra had been as gentle as she was kind and generous, and Alexandra had been safe with the Kellers. Before he had left for the seminary, John had made sure of that. And when they had been killed, he had used the insurance settlement to put her in one of the best private schools in the country, and later to pay for medical school.
Alexandra had never thanked him. Not once. After the funeral, she had reverted to the little girl at the HRS office, crying and clutching at him. She had begged him to stay. Even screamed filthy obscenities at him when he had pushed her into the taxi taking her to the school.
Alex's small, knotted fists pounding on the window. Goddamn you, Johnny, don't you fucking leave me like this!
John knew he should have stayed and explained why she would be better off without him. But to Alexandra, there were no logical explanations. She wanted her brother, and there was no arguing with her.
His short-term visa did not allow him the luxury of staying and comforting his devastated sister. He had been released from the prison in Rio only for compassion reasons, only long enough to attend the funeral and settle his family affairs. If he had not returned voluntarily, the American government would have happily extradited him.
John had never wanted Alexandra to know about the charges levied against him in Brazil, or how much time he had spent sitting in that stinking pit of a cell. To this day, she believed he had gone back to minister to the poor, not sit in prison while the archdiocese attorneys dealt with the tangle of lies spun by one disgruntled, vengeful menina do doce.
The whole thing had been an ill-timed, messy affair. International attention on the few pedophiles among the Catholic priesthood inflamed the Brazilian government, which subsequently put any suspected sex offender under a microscope. It had taken eight long months for the church to wheedle the government into releasing John. He was escorted from the prison to the airport, and put on a plane. He had not even known where he was heading until the plane landed in Los Angeles, and he was met at the airport by yet another attorney.
