LITMIR.BIZ

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in.”

      The door swung open and he stood to greet her, gesturing for her to take the seat across from him. “Sorry it’s so crowded,” he said as she maneuvered into the small space. The room was a narrow rectangle, carved out from the slightly larger staff break room. Grant’s desk sat at the far end, opposite the door. Bookshelves lined the walls, crammed full of texts on every conceivable medical subject. It was a testament to the preinternet days when a base physician needed access to information on a wide variety of conditions. As Grant had already learned, there was no telling what might walk through the door.

      Avery glanced around, taking it all in as she moved forward. Her eyes landed on the cot shoved to one side of the room, topped with a tangle of sheets. She quickly looked away again, and Grant felt a sudden stab of embarrassment. Why hadn’t he thought to make the bed? She probably thought he’d turned into a slob.

      “It’s cozy,” she said, the corner of her mouth lifting in a half smile as she sat. Grant did the same and promptly forgot how to breathe when she leaned forward to pull something out of the bag she’d set at her feet. The V of her scrub top gaped open, giving him an unobstructed view of her lovely attributes. His face heated and he turned his head, looking for something—anything—else to focus on while he willed his body’s response to go away. Of all the inconvenient times to be reminded of her as a woman... Dozens of memories rushed in, overwhelming him with visions of them together. His hands on her. Her hands on him. Her mouth—He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat, then eyed the bottle of water on his desk. Would it be too obvious if he dumped the contents into his lap?

      “Everything okay over there?”

      Grant glanced back to find Avery watching him, a curious expression on her face. Damn. He was going to have to be more careful about controlling his reactions around her. Thanks to their shared past, she could tell when something was bothering him.

      “I’m good,” he said. “Just had a little tickle in my throat.” He unscrewed the cap on the water bottle and took a healthy swig to lend more credence to the lie.

      She nodded, apparently accepting his answer.

      “How have you been?” Grant asked. He knew she’d probably rather talk about the outbreak, but he wasn’t going to be able to focus until he knew more about her life and what she’d been up to in the last decade.

      “Just fine, thanks.” She kept her head down, flipping through the notebook in her lap.

      “That’s good.” He paused, but when she didn’t speak again he forged ahead. “I guess you live in Atlanta?” That was the location of the CDC’s headquarters, so it stood to reason she’d live there.

      “Yes.” She continued to flip pages, the rustle of paper the only sound in the room.

      “Ah, apartment or house?” he asked, needing to fill the awkward silence.

      Avery apparently found her place in the notebook and looked up. “Apartment. Look, Grant. I appreciate the chitchat, but let’s just get down to business, shall we?”

      “Sure,” he said, nodding in agreement. “I’m just glad to see you’re okay.”

      She smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m great. You look fine, too. And now that we’ve established that, I think we’ll both be better off if we focus on the outbreak.”

      She was right, of course. And really, he should be relieved that she didn’t want to spend time going over their past. But part of him was disappointed—how was he going to apologize if she didn’t want to talk about the elephant in the room?

      “What can you tell me about this outbreak?”

      “It started two weeks ago,” he replied automatically, shoving aside his personal concerns. There would be time enough to chat later, once he’d hopefully figured out how to broach the subject. “The first two patients presented on the same day, a few hours apart.”

      “Can you tell me about their symptoms?”

      “Low-grade fever, congestion, mild cough. Typical upper respiratory stuff. It’s the kind of thing that cycles through here on a regular basis, so I gave them the usual treatment and sent them on their way.”

      “And then what happened?” Her pen flew across the paper as he talked, taking notes on everything he said.

      “The rest of the patients presented in the same way over the next two days. I put out a notice, reminding everyone to focus on hand-washing, cover coughs and sneezes, that kind of thing. But I didn’t realize anything was wrong until the third day.”

      Avery pulled another piece of paper from her bag and consulted it. “That’s when Patient Zero came back?” she asked, referring to the first patient.

      “Yes,” Grant confirmed. “And he looked like death warmed over.”

      One of Avery’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that your official clinical opinion, Doctor?” There was the slightest hint of amusement in her voice—not enough for a stranger to register, but Grant picked up on it. He gave her a little smile of acknowledgment and was gratified to see her own mouth curve up slightly in response.

      “Indeed,” he replied solemnly. “Fever of one hundred and five degrees, productive cough, bloody mucus. Not to mention, his eyes were bloodshot—he’d ruptured the capillaries from coughing so hard.”

      Avery grimaced. “Poor guy.”

      “Yeah.” Grant shook his head, remembering that sick feeling in his gut he’d gotten when the man had stumbled back in. “And to top it off, he said his pain was an eight on a scale of one to ten.”

      “What did you do?”

      “Started him on a febrifuge and pain meds. His chest sounded crackly, so I ordered a chest X-ray. Came back almost entirely whited out.”

      Avery’s eyebrows lifted. “There was that much fluid in his lungs?”

      “Oh, yeah. I’ll get you the medical records for all the patients so you can see the results for yourself. But essentially he was drowning in what I later learned was blood.”

      It was a sight he’d never forget, a scene from a horror movie burned into his brain, made all the more terrifying because it had really happened. The man’s cough had grown steadily worse, and two hours after his admission, he’d begun to gag. They’d rushed to clear his airway only to find a rising swell of blood trying to escape. As he suffocated before their eyes, the team had flipped him onto his side. A torrent of blood had gushed out in a wet splatter on the floor, and a hot, metallic stench had filled the air.

      Grant swallowed, clearing the memory of the smell from his tongue. “He died a few hours later,” he said softly. It always rankled to lose a patient, but it was doubly hard here. There was a finite number of people on the base, and Grant had made it a point to introduce himself to everyone. Even though he hadn’t known the man well, he did remember exchanging pleasantries with him whenever their paths had crossed.

      Avery was silent for a moment. “It sounds like a very difficult case,” she said, a note of sympathy in her voice.

      Grant nodded. She understood. Even though Avery didn’t practice medicine anymore, she was still a doctor and would have lost patients in med school. There were some cases that stuck with you, and Grant knew the death of the four men in this outbreak would haunt him for years to come.

      “After he died, I tracked down the other patients who had presented with the same initial symptoms. I hoped this was just a one-off, but unfortunately, three others progressed too rapidly for us to save. I wanted to send the other six to South America for treatment, but my request was denied.” He shoved a hand through his hair and tried to keep the bitterness from his tone. “As soon as people heard what this thing does, they refused to take them. Didn’t want to risk it spreading.”

      If he looked at the situation dispassionately, Grant understood the decision.

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