David phoned the ICU and got Dr. Pilsner on the line. David apologized for disturbing him but felt obliged to let him know the oral antibiotic wasn't helping.

"Let's up it," Dr. Pilsner said in a tired voice. "And I think we'd better use a mucolytic agent and a bronchodilator with her respiratory therapy."

"Any change with Caroline?" David asked.

"No change," Dr. Pilsner answered.

Angela didn't get home until almost seven o'clock. After she checked on Nikki, who was doing better after a respiratory therapy session with David, she went to take a shower. David followed her into the bathroom.

"Caroline is no better," David said as Angela stepped into the shower.

"I feel great compassion for the Helmsfords," Angela said. "They must be heartsick. I hope to heaven that Nikki doesn't come down with whatever Caroline got."

"I've got another patient-Sandra Hascher-who is scaring me the same way the others did."

Angela poked her head out of the shower. "What was her admitting diagnosis?"

"Abscessed tooth," David said. "It had responded nicely to antibiotics. Then this afternoon she suddenly had a mental status change."

"Disoriented?"

"Mostly just apathetic and vague," David said. "I know it doesn't sound like much, but to me it was dramatic."

"Meningitis?" Angela asked.

"That was the only thing I thought of," David said. "She hasn't had any headache or spiking fever. But I did a lumbar puncture just to be sure, and it was normal."

"What about a brain abscess?" Angela asked.

"Again, she's had little fever," David said. "But maybe I'll do an MRI tomorrow if she's not better. The problem is, she's reminding me of the other patients who died."

"I suppose you don't want to ask for any consults."

"Not unless I want to have her transferred to someone else," David said. "I might even get into trouble ordering the MRI."

"It's a lousy way to practice medicine," Angela said.

David didn't answer.

"The trip to Burlington went smoothly," Angela said.

"I'm glad," David replied without interest.

"The only trouble I had was when I got back. Wadley's being unreasonable. He even threatened to terminate me."

"No!" David said. He was aghast. "That would be a disaster."

"Don't worry," Angela said. "He's just blowing off steam. There's no way he could terminate me so soon after I complained about his sexual harassment. For that reason alone I'm glad I went to Cantor. The conversation officially established my complaint."

"That's not a lot of reassurance," David said. "I'd never even thought of the possibility of your being fired."

Later, when dinner was served, Nikki reported she wasn't hungry. Angela made her come to the table anyway, saying she could eat what she wanted. But during the dinner, Angela urged Nikki to eat more. David told Angela not to force her. Soon David and Angela exchanged words over the issue, causing Nikki to flee the table in tears.

David and Angela fumed, each blaming the other. For a while they didn't talk, preferring to turn on the TV and watch the news in silence. When it was time for Nikki to go to bed, Angela told David that she would see to Nikki's respiratory therapy while he cleaned up the kitchen.

David hardly had time to carry the soiled dishes into the kitchen when Angela returned.

"Nikki asked me a question I didn't know how to answer," Angela said. "She asked me if Caroline was coming home soon."

"What did you say?" David asked.

"I said I didn't know," Angela admitted. "With Nikki feeling as poorly as she is, I hate to tell her."

"Don't look at me," David said. "I don't want to tell her either. Let's wait until this bout of congestion is over."

"All right," Angela said. "I'll see what I can do." She left the kitchen and returned upstairs.

Around nine David called the hospital. He spoke at length with the head nurse who kept insisting that Sandra's condition had not changed, at least not dramatically. She did admit, however, that she'd not eaten her dinner.

After David had hung up the phone, Angela appeared from the kitchen.

"Would you like to look at the papers we got from Burlington today?" she asked.

"I'm not interested," David said.

"Thanks," Angela said. "You know this is important to me."

"I'm too preoccupied to worry about that stuff," David said.

"I have the time and energy to listen to your problems," Angela said. "You could at least extend the same courtesy to me."

"I hardly think the two issues are comparable," David said.

"How can you say that? You know how upset I am about this whole Hodges thing."

"I don't want to encourage you," David said. "I think I've been very clear about that."

"Oh, you're clear all right. What's important to you is important; what's important to me isn't."

"With everything else that's going on, I find it amazing that you are still fixated on Hodges. I think you have your priorities mixed up. While you're chasing off to Burlington, I'm here bringing antibiotics to our daughter while her friend is dying in the hospital."

"I can't believe you're saying this," Angela sputtered.

"And on top of it, you make light of Wadley threatening to fire you," David said. "All because it was so important to go to Burlington. I can tell you this: if you get fired it will be an unmitigated economic disaster. And that doesn't even account for the jeopardy you're putting us all in by pursuing this investigation."

"You think you are so rational," Angela yelled. "Well, you're fooling yourself. You think that problems are solved by denying them. I think you have your priorities mixed up by not supporting me when I need it most. And as for Nikki, maybe she wouldn't be sick if you hadn't allowed her to visit Caroline before we knew what the poor girl had."

"That's not fair," David yelled back. Then he restrained himself. He did think of himself as rational, and he prided himself on not losing his temper.

The problem was, the more controlled David became, the more emotional Angela got, and the more emotional Angela became, the more controlled David got. By eleven o'clock they were both exhausted and overwrought. By mutual agreement David slept in the guest room.

21

At first David had no idea where he was when he opened his eyes in the dark. Fumbling with the unfamiliar bedside lamp, he finally managed to turn it on. He looked around in a daze at the unfamiliar furniture. It took him almost a minute to realize he was in the guest room. As soon as he did, the previous night's unpleasantness came back in a flash.

David picked up his wristwatch. It was quarter to five in the morning. He lay back on the pillow and shuddered through a wave of nausea. On the heels of the nausea came cramps followed by a bout of diarrhea.

Feeling horrid, David limped from the guest bath to the master bath in search of some over-the-counter diarrhea medication. When he finally found a bottle, he took a healthy dose. Then he searched for a thermometer and stuck it in his mouth.

While waiting for an accurate reading to register, David searched for aspirin. As he was doing so, he realized that he had to keep swallowing, just as some of his now dead patients had.

David stared at his reflection in the mirror as a new fear made itself known to him. What if he had caught the mysterious illness that had been killing his patients? My God, he thought, they had the same symptoms I'm manifesting now. With trembling fingers he took out the thermometer. It read one hundred degrees. He stuck out his tongue and examined it in the mirror. It was as pale as his face.

"Calm down!" he ordered himself harshly. He took two aspirins and washed them down with a glass of water. Almost immediately he got another cramp and had to hold onto the countertop until it had passed.