The Fever (9 page)

**Wait one sec," the young nurse said, and disappeared. As promised, she was back immediately, a round metal ring of keys in her hand. "See, Duffy?"

she said, holding up the ring. 'This is the only extra key we have to that shower room. And it's right here, on the ring where it belongs. And the ring was hanging behind the nurses' station, right where it's supposed to be. So . . ."

"So, nothing!" Duffy snapped, swiping at her tears with the back of her hand. "Someone must have taken it, used it, and then put it back. Let me see it."

"I would have seen someone taking it," the nurse said defensively. But she handed Duffy the ring.

"Which key is it?"

The nurse pointed.

"Dr. Morgan, Dr. Morgan, to ICU, stat!" a voice barked over the PA system.

The doctor patted Duffy's hair awkwardly, handed the older nurse Duffy's chart, told the patient to "Relax and take it easy," gave the nurse medication orders for Duffy, and left.

Ignoring his departure because it was clear he wouldn't have believed her, Duffy continued to study the key. It hung on a leather thong. "Look," she said, pointing, "there's a smear on the strap. It's probably blood. I slashed at the person who attacked me and I know I hurt him because there was blood in the water. See?" Pointing, she held up the key ring.

Smith and the younger nurse examined it, while Amy hung back, an expression of revulsion on her face.

"Oh, Duffy, I don't think that stain is new," the nurse exclaimed. "I'm sure I remember seeing it

before. I thinks it's paint, from when they painted behind the nurses' station."

Duffy could see then that it was hopeless. The nurees, scolding her for taking a shower alone against orders, clearly thought that she had been hallucinating. Amy was looking at her with cow-eyed s>Tnpathy, and Smith was chewing thoughtfully on his lower Up.

Not a single one of them beheved the attack had actually taken place.

K no one believed her . . . who would help her? She knew now that someone, for some crazy reason, was angry with her, wanted to hurt her, kill her. As insane as that sounded, she knew it was true.

Duffy was startled by a sudden pinprick in her upper left arm.

"Doctor ordered a sedative for you," the older nurse said. "It'll calm you down. My, you really let your imagination get the best of you, didn't you? That's not wise, Dorothy. Not in your condition.*'

Duffy flopped angrily over on her side and burrowed beneath the blanket, before anyone could see her helpless, frightened tears.

Chapter 12

Duffy was floating somewhere in that blissful haven between sleep and reality when she heard her father's voice.

"Look, if my daughter says she was attacked in the shower, then that's what happened." He sounded angry and very, very far away. But he had to be out in the hall. "She doesn't tell lies."

Sure, I do. Daddy, Duffy thought woozily. I lied that time I didn't get home until three in the morning and you were waiting up. My date didn't have a flat tire. I just didn't want to leave the party. Sorry, Daddy.

"Nobody said anything about lying, Mr. Quinn," Dr. Morgan's voice replied, also from a distance. Both voices sounded as if they were coming from behind a giant wall of cotton. "Your daughter had a bad fall, that's our theory, and the bump on the head, combined with her illness, caused her to hallucinate. It's not all that unusual."

A third voice joined them . . . the gray-haired nurse. "We did have Security check the shower

room, of course. There was no sign of forced entry."

She tried to sit up in bed and call her father, but she toppled sideways immediately. She was floating in a sea of clouds. It was not an unpleasant sensation.

*We want to see her," her mother's voice said.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Morgan answered from his faraway place, "but Fd rather you didn't. I gave her a sedative. Let her sleep. She's had a rough time of it. Since tomorrow is a holiday, we've added morning visiting hours. You can see Duffy then."

What? No visiting hours tonight? Well, that certainly wasn't fair. Not the least bit. It wasn't her fault she'd had a rough time of it. Why were they punishing her by stealing her visiting hours?

And then her head fell back on the pillow, her eyes shut, and she disappeared into a thick, drugged sleep.

When she awoke sometime later, her room was still shrouded in darkness broken only by the faint glow of the small night-light by her door. She hated the darkness. She would never feel safe in the dark again.

Her head pounded, her stomach rode a carousel. But she was no longer lost in that drug-induced twilight zone.

The entire fourth floor was shrouded in silence. There were no quiet, rubber-soled footsteps out in the hall, no clattering of gumey wheels, no hushed conversation between nurses and orderlies, no clanking of metal rings on curtain slides. The hospital was as still and silent as . . . death.

H

Death . . . she had come so close, so close, in that shower stall. Duffy pulled the sheet up around her neck, clutching its hem with her fists. No one believed her. They all thought she was crazy or delirious. But it had happened. She remembered every single horrible second of it and as the memories returned, her heart began pounding.

Why would someone want to kill her?

Why had she been sent racing down that steep hill toward the lake? Why had she been attacked in the shower stall? And the elevator... had the out-of-order sign really been switched accidentally? Or had it been done on purpose, by someone who knew she was planning to go downstairs to the gift shop?

She couldn't remember who knew she had planned to leave her room to go downstairs. How many people had she told? Hadn't she announced it, loud and clear? And anyone she'd told could have told half a dozen other people. There were no secrets in this place. The whole hospital probably knew she planned to go for a walk, knew she was headed for the showers.

Duffy's head pounded, and her skin, dry and parched, burned with fever.

I really am sick, she silently told the cracked ceiling.

But am I sick enough to imagine a vicious attack?

Was the nurse right? Could being this sick make a person imagine all kinds of horrible things?

No . . . she was positive someone was trying to kill her. She couldn't have imagined the terrible scene in the shower.

Or . . . could she?

And no one had believed her. They were all so sure her life hadn't really been in danger. How could they all be wrong? How could she be the only person who was right?

Smith's dark head appeared in her doorway. "Just checking," he said as he moved toward her bed. "I see you're awake. Feeling better?"

Smith planned to be a doctor. Someone had said he read a lot of medical books. Maybe he could answer the question that was racing around in her mind. She would rather ask Dylan, but Dylan wasn't around.

"Smith," she began as he stood over her, looking down, "could a really high fever make a person imagine the kind of thing that happened to me today? I mean, it seemed so real. The light going out, the door to the shower stall opening, being pushed to the floor, the knee in my back ... I know I have bruises to prove it. I can feel them."

Without waiting for an invitation, Smith sat, carefully, on the edge of her bed. "Let's look at it logically," he said. "Made anyone mad enough to want to wipe you off the planet?"

"No, of course not! I mean, I know I'm not the world's best patient ..."

Smith laughed. "Boy, is that an understatement! But I've seen worse patients and as far as I know, no one ever attacked any of them in the shower. So . . . unless you can come up with a logical reason why someone would want to get rid of you, I guess

the answer to your question is yes, a high fever can make you think all kinds of things."

That wasn't the answer Duffy wanted. "But my bruises ..." she protested.

Smith shrugged. "Doc Morgan's probably right. You must have fallen. Knocking up against ceramic tile could turn anyone's skin black and blue."

He didn't believe the attack had really happened.

Kit would have. Kit would have believed her. And then he would have helped her figure out why it had happened.

But Kdt wasn't there.

"Look," Smith offered, *if it'll make you feel better, I'll camp outside your door tonight. I'm off tomorrow so I can sleep late. I'll park a chair there and read, okay?"

No, not okay. Because he didn't believe her. He was just humoring her, as if she were a psychiatric patient up on the fifth floor. "Don't do me any favors," she said haughtily, turning her back on him. "Since you're so sure it's just my fevered little mind attacking me, I don't see why you'd think I need protection. Just go away, please. Leave me and my feeble brain in peace, okay?"

"C'mon, Duffy," he said in exasperation, "you dskedl I just told you what I thought."

"Go away," she repeated stubbornly.

With a heavy sigh of resignation, he turned and left the room.

Duffy was overcome with nausea, attacking her

in huge waves. She fought it successfully and when it had passed, she thought about what Smith and the others had said. She wished she could believe their theory, and accept it. Wouldn't that make her feel better, if the whole horrible thing had been unreal?

Well, if they were right, there was no reason why she couldn't try to relax and get some sleep. That would make morning come faster and another miserable night in this awful place would be behind her.

She was just drifting off when she heard voices again, outside in the hall directly beyond her door, which stood slightly ajar.

"I don't know, doctor. I haven't seen it."

Duffy recognized the voice. The young ponytailed nurse.

"I was just going off duty, doctor, but if you want me to look for it, of course I'll be happy to."

Then a deeper voice, unfamiliar. "You do that. I don't care if it takes all night, I want that bottle found. In the meantime, if any of the patients start complaining about nausea or dizziness or happen to mention visual problems, for instance that the lights look funny, pay attention. It could mean we've found our missing digoxin." The voice deepened, became harsher. "You'd better hope and pray that medication wasn't given to the wrong patient, because I'm holding you accountable."

Duffy, listening intently, heard the threat of tears in the young nurse's voice as she replied shak-

ily, **Yes, doctor, 111 start looking right this minute, ril let you know when I find it."

There was no answer, only the sound of muffled, angry footsteps striding away.

Duffy lay unmoving in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. Nausea? Dizziness? Lights looking funny?

Those were her symptoms.

Chapter 13

DuSy huddled under the blankets, a paralyzed lump. Digoxin? That wasn't the name of her antibiotic. She had asked. Hers was "something-myocin." But the unseen doctor had just described, perfectly, the way she was feeling. He had said a medication was missing . . . that it wasn't where it was supposed to be.

That was scary.

Duffy chewed on her lower lip. Even if that medicine was missing, how could that have anything to do with her? Nobody had given her anything new or strange. Just the capsules.

The capsules... could someone have mixed them up with the missing medication? Given her the wrong kind of pills? Did the missing digoxin come in the same kind of pill as her something-myocin?

Anyone could make a mistake. Even in a hospital. After all, she already knew they'd lost the medication in the first place.

But . . . what if. . . what if it wasn't a mistake? If given to the wrong patient, could those missing

pills kill someone? Cynthia had said the reason they had to be so careful with the charts was that any mix-up could lead to the wrong medication being dispensed. And she had said that the wrong medication could sometimes result in . . . death.

If someone really were trying to kill her, wouldn't that be the perfect way? Would anyone even question her death?

No, they probably wouldn't. They'd blame it on her fever.

Her mouth set grimly, Duffy grabbed the call button and pressed on it, not releasing her hold until she heard soft footsteps approaching her door.

Amy Severn, looking anxious, came into the room. "What's wrong, Duffy?"

"What are you still doing here?" Duffy asked with surprise as the Junior Volunteer hurried to her bedside. "It must be after midnight."

"It is. Two of the nurses have the flu and none of the volunteers wanted to help out tonight. So I said I would." Amy sighed heavily. "Cynthia and Smith and Dylan all work nights sometimes. I don't know how they do it. I'm beat! We've had two emergencies already, and old Mrs. Creole is giving us fits. That woman is the worst patient on this earth. She makes you look like a saint!" Another sigh. "At least I can sleep in tomorrow."

Ignoring that, Duffy asked, "Amy, have you heard anything about any missing medication? I overheard one of the doctors talking ..."

"Oh, Duffy, the patients aren't supposed to know anything about that. As if we didn't have enough

problems tonight, Dr. Brooks has everyone scrambling, hunting for a missing bottle of digoxin. He*s really upset that we can't find it."

**What's it for? The digoxin."

"Heart."

'What does it look like? Not the bottle, the medicine."

"Capsules. I think the bottle they're looking for was part of the inventory in Mr. Latham's room, and now they can't find it."

**Who's Mr. Latham?"

"A patient. He died. Duffy, is this why you called me in here? We're awfully busy."

Amy turned to leave, but Duffy stopped her. **Wait, Amy! I'm not just asking out of nosiness. I heard the doctor talking about the side effects of that medication. And I have all of them."

Skepticism showed on Amy's face.

"I do," Duffy insisted. "Really. They started right after the nurse gave me the first capsules, when they took my IV out. My stomach's upset, I'm dizzy . . . and I heard him say something about the lights looking strange. Well, when I look at the lights, I see weird little halos. They were never there before."