an infected body. Regardless, Wilcox wasn’t buying it. He reached into the van and pulled out a green squirt bottle.
“Hold out your hands please,” he said.
“What is that?” Larry asked.
“It’s ordinary Lysol. If you don’t have any cuts, and you haven’t put your hands in your mouth or around your eyes, this ought to kill anything on your skin. It’s for your own protection.”
They held out their hands, and he sprayed them liberally, until the liquid foamed as they rubbed their hands together.
“We’d like to admit you overnight,” he said, passing them sterile towels. “For observation.”
And to quarantine them, Declan thought. Lysol would indeed kill any pathogens that were still on their skin. But it wouldn’t do anything for microbes that had already been absorbed. What would? That was the million-dollar question.
While an assistant accompanied the Bridges back to their home and then to the hospital, Declan and Wilcox donned biohazard suits and made their way into the house.
“I was just here,” Declan said as they entered the living room.
“When?” Wilcox asked.
“A couple of hours ago. I stopped by to see how she was doing. She seemed healthy then.”
Wilcox nodded. “We’ll need to quarantine you, too, then. Overnight, at least.”
Declan shook his head. “I already attended Carter Shippey. Without any protection. If I were going to get sick, it would’ve happened already.”
“You might be a vector. Do you want to pass this on to your patients and friends?”
That gave Declan pause. He was willing to take the risk for himself. But what if he were simply immune to whatever bug this was? Still…
“Look,” he said, “Carter had contact with a hundred people, if not more, in the last week of his life. A quarantine, at this point, is an exercise in futility. Anyone who hasn’t been exposed yet will be within a couple of days, regardless. It makes sense to keep an eye on Larry and Kathy Bridges, to see if they go symptomatic. But I have to keep working. The people here expect to see a familiar face when they come in for treatment.”
Wilcox seemed to weigh the point for a moment, then finally nodded. “Okay. But you work for me, at the hospital. No private patients.”
“I can live with that,” Declan said.
“Let’s hope so,” Wilcox replied. “Or we can all die with it.”
Marilyn Shippey was in a dining room chair, already turning flaccid. She seemed to sag lower with every second that they looked at her.
“Damn,” Declan said. “Whatever this is, it works fast.”
“We need to get her out of here and into post,” Wilcox said, using the medical shorthand for postmortem. “And the dog.”
The Shippeys’ dog hadn’t budged from its post beside the woman’s chair, not even when they moved around the body. From time to time, he turned and chewed at his own leg.
“I should get him to the vet,” Declan said.
“No can do,” Wilcox answered. “We can’t lock down the people on this island, but we sure as hell can lock down one dog. There’s no reason to risk putting him in a kennel where he can infect other people’s pets.”
The logic was inescapable but terrifying.
“All right,” Declan said. “Let’s get this done.”
Just before ten the following morning, Declan was summoned to a press conference. The island’s lone TV station had brought a crew to the hospital’s conference room. The station usually broadcast town commission meetings, educational programming for the schools, and a handful of locally hosted arts, crafts and fishing shows. The programs were more often an exercise in vanity for the hosts than a source of information for the viewers. On most days, nobody watched the island station, preferring instead the satellite feed of mainland U.S. programming. Today, everyone would be watching.
Tim Roth hosted a fishing program. No one else from the station had wanted to come near the hospital, so the job had fallen to him. He didn’t look to be relishing his role. Joining him was Steve Chase, president of the territorial senate. Apparently Abel Roth, the governor, didn’t want to flirt with danger, either.
Chase, who held his job by virtue of his membership in one of the island’s elite families, wasn’t looking very healthy this morning. Declan studied the man’s ruddy face and wondered if his blood pressure had broken the bonds of beta blockers to hit the roof somewhere around 180 over 110. He would have to check on that.
And Tim Roth was looking like a man who needed to be in a hospital bed. His face was pale, despite his perpetual tan, and beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead.
He wore a white cotton shirt and shorts, the island’s interpretation of daytime formal, and kept fussing at his neck as if his open-throated shirt collar was too tight.
“Okay,” he said, turning to the camera. “In case anyone on the island hasn’t heard by now, Santz Martina was placed under quarantine yesterday before noon. If anyone doesn’t know what that means, it means that nobody gets on or off this island. If anyone tries to leave, the Coast Guard is going to stop them. So don’t even head for your boats, friends.”
Declan waited, saying nothing, knowing the best strategy was to see how things unfolded before jumping in.
“This decision,” Tim continued, “was made by one of our local doctors, Declan Quinn. As most of you know, Dr. Quinn is also the Territorial Medical Examiner and head of Emergency Preparedness, Medical Section. Apparently, the Centers for Disease Control, represented here by Dr. Joseph Gardner, agree with Dr. Quinn’s decision.”
“Yes,” Joe Gardner said. “At this point in time, we do. We can’t afford to take chances.”
Joe was a young hotshot—thirty, maybe—who’d made a point of letting Declan know he’d graduated from medical school at nineteen and specialized in rare communicable diseases of the Biohazard Level Four variety. The awful, terrible bugs, like hemorrhagic fever. Ebola. Marburg. The stuff of nightmares.
“But,” said Tim, stabbing his finger at Joe, “do you know it’s a disease?”
Joe took a moment to reply. “No,” he said finally, “we don’t. We don’t know what it is. But we have two people dead, and the symptoms don’t fit with any chemical exposure I’ve ever heard of. That leaves disease.”
“Is it contagious?”
Joe seemed to bite back anger at being challenged by a layman. “At this time we have no idea.”
“But if it is contagious, does it make sense to keep us all here so we might get exposed to it?”
Declan intervened, sensing that Joe’s patience was wearing out. “Tim, let me explain, please.”
Tim nodded, making an impatient gesture with his hand. “An explanation would be very much appreciated, I can tell you. You should have at least approached the Senate before you did this.”
“There was no time to waste. I’m sorry, Tim, but I had to act immediately. Now, if I can explain…” He cocked a brow, and Tim nodded.
“Very well. We don’t know what killed Carter or Marilyn Shippey. I can say with absolute confidence, and I’m sure Dr. Gardner will agree, that whatever killed them is something we’ve never seen before. Never.”
Joe Gardner nodded. “That’s a fact.”
“That’s comforting,” Tim said sourly.
“I know it isn’t,” Declan agreed. “Frankly, it terrified the hell out of me, too, when I started