Doctored Death

by P. D. Workman

  “I will call Champlain House and advise them that the dog is to be isolated from patients. And whoever is caring for her should be extra careful about contact. Wear gloves and mask, frequent hand-washing, keep feces away from anyone else and don’t dispose of them in the general garbages.”

  “Okay. I’ll forward this email to you in case there is anything else in it that is important. It doesn’t look like they did any PCR, so I should probably get them to send samples over to Dr. Savage so his lab can map them. See if they are the same variant.”

  “Definitely. He’s going to want to run his own tests and factor it into their investigation tracking the virus.”

  “Can I ask a really ignorant question?”

  “Fire away,” Dr. Wiltshire invited, a smile in his voice.

  “Exactly how does a virus escape a lab? I mean... how shoddy do their isolation protocols have to be if they are accidentally letting it out into the wild?”

  “It happens. Each time, if we can identify how it got out, we can add to our knowledge of how to properly keep them isolated even when doing testing. But take a look at history—there have been several cases where plague has escaped labs to contaminate and sometimes kill unsuspecting people.”

  “Plague? Really?”

  “Don’t quote me, but I believe there have been three accidental releases since the seventies. Labs worldwide are still running tests on the plague virus to unlock its secrets, whether it is to develop new defenses against virulent plagues, bioterrorism research, whatever. And unfortunately... it would seem that even the most careful lab can make mistakes. None of them are bulletproof. Sometimes it is wastewater, sometimes a ventilation shaft that wasn’t properly sealed from the rest of the building. Suddenly you’ve got someone in the same building dropping from the plague, probably after infecting members of their own family. There have been some fatalities and some recoveries. It isn’t something we ever want to see in the wild again.”

  “But something like HHV-4 is so endemic to the population... so many people already have it in their systems... how could we track it and control one variant? You can’t isolate everybody positive for HHV-4. That is half the population in North America. And we don’t have a test for just this variant, so it would just be... trying to sequence every positive HHV-4 result... it would be impossible.”

  “If there is an outbreak, scientists will have to come up with a rapid test for it and treat it pretty quickly.”

  51

  Kenzie double-checked the address that she had been given and looked at the doors of the buildings, trying to sort out which she was looking for. Ellie, the nurse who had taken Lola in, told her that it wasn’t an apartment building, but there were living quarters over several businesses. The numbers on the buildings were difficult to make out from the street, so she pulled into the parking lot and found an empty stall. She walked along, checking all the numbers. It was a few buildings down from where she had thought it would be.

  She opened one of the glass doors and was able to walk up the stairs, but the door at the top of the stairs was locked. Kenzie rattled the doorknob, knocked, and tried the phone number that Ellie had given her. No luck. Kenzie went back down the stairs and tried a couple of the ground-floor businesses, asking if they knew any of those who lived in the building, or if there were a building manager around.

  Receptionists flashed smiles but shook their heads. No, can’t help you, would there be anything else?

  Eventually, she had to give up. She would keep trying to call. Sooner or later, Lola’s former owner had to answer.

  Kenzie was sitting in her car looking at the GPS map and trying to decide whether to run over to Champlain House to have a face-to-face chat with Nurse Ellie and look at the unit with new eyes, or whether it was just too late in the day and she should get something to eat and tackle the matter again the next day when she was fresh.

  Though she was worried about the virus spreading, they didn’t yet have confirmation that it was even the same virus as Lola had. Dr. Wiltshire had called the nursing home to isolate Lola, so there wouldn’t be any more opportunities for infection on their end.

  Her stomach was growling loudly just thinking about the possibility of getting food, so she broke down and admitted to herself that she wasn’t going to be any good getting anything else done on the case. She needed to go home, eat, and spend some time with her boyfriend. She didn’t like to leave Zachary isolated for too long. He could go out and do things with other people at any time, of course, but he tried to be there for supper. And when he was depressed, he didn’t want to leave the house or reach out to others, even if it would help him feel better about himself.

  Kenzie picked up her phone and tapped Zachary’s avatar. Of course, he would tell her he didn’t care what kind of cuisine she bought, but she wanted to ask him anyway. Show him that respect. Show him she cared about his opinion, even if it were just on something unimportant.

  “Kenzie?” Zachary sounded out of breath; his voice unusually intense.

  “Hi. Are you okay? Did you have to run for the phone?”

  “There’s someone here.”

  “What? Who is there?”

  A client? Someone he was entertaining? One of his siblings? And why was he out of breath and sounding so strange?

  “I don’t know who it is. Someone has been parked in front of the house for... at least half an hour now. I don’t know who it is. An older man. Dark car. Lexus.”

  “Someone is parked in front of the house? One of the neighbors?”

  “No. I don’t know who it is. He’s been sitting out there. He’s in his car. Waiting.”

  “You think he has the house under surveillance?”

  “Yes.”

  Who would be watching her? Kenzie had lived a pretty quiet life since she had gone back to school. She hadn’t gone out with anyone but Zachary in the last year. So it wasn’t an ex-boyfriend. She hadn’t exactly been out painting the town red every night when she was younger, but she had been out a lot more, interested in a lot of different men without being able to commit to one. She could understand if someone held that against her. But that had been a long time ago.

  It didn’t make sense that it was anything to do with work. It wasn’t like she was investigating live people. She helped out with the forensics when she could, but it wasn’t like she was the one putting people behind bars.

  Her mind flashed back to Micah. They came to my house. They assaulted me. They kidnapped me. The true horror of Micah’s words hadn’t really sunk in before.

  They had gone to her house.

  And now someone had come to Kenzie’s.

  A chill ran down her spine, raising goosebumps on her neck and arms.

  “I don’t know who it is,” Kenzie told Zachary. “Are you sure he is watching the house? He’s not there for the neighbors... or a delivery man or something like that?”

  “If he was a delivery man, he wouldn’t still be sitting there half an hour later.”

  “But if it was someone who was surveilling the house, he wouldn’t be so obvious, would he? I mean, just sitting out there in his car? People are bound to notice.”

  “People are blind to their surroundings,” Zachary dismissed. He’d been on enough surveillance jobs to know the truth of that situation. On TV, people noticed someone sitting in a car on the street for ten minutes. But in real life? There wasn’t much reason for people to watch the street and pay attention to whether vehicles were occupied. “He doesn’t exactly blend in, but I haven’t noticed anyone else paying him any attention. People out walking their dogs or coming and going to their houses... they just walk on by.”

  “Well... does he have a camera or anything? Is he filming? What would he want from me? I don’t exactly live an interesting life.”

  “Do you want me to go out there and ask him who he is?”

  “No, don’t do that.” Kenzie was immediately protective of Zachary. He didn’t carry a gun. He wasn’t one of those macho h
ard-boiled detectives like on TV. He was a small man without a weapon and she’d seen him hurt before. She didn’t want him walking into a dangerous situation. Especially if it were because of her.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t because of her. Perhaps it was something to do with Zachary’s private investigation business. Surely there must be people who were not happy with him for proving that they were stepping out on their spouses, committing insurance fraud, or stealing from their employers. There might even be friends or lovers of the men he had put in prison out to get revenge.

  Or the human trafficking ring he had managed to rescue a couple of teenagers from. They might have thought that the kids were dead, as they were supposed to, or they might have somehow figured out it was a con. Luke could have decided to go back to them and spilled the beans.

  “It could be dangerous to go out there and confront him,” Kenzie told him firmly. “I don’t want you to do that. If you think it’s someone who shouldn’t be there, why don’t you call the police, have them check it out?”

  “I don’t want to do that if it’s someone who has a legitimate reason to be there.”

  “Well, you’re the private detective. You figure it out. But don’t go out there and expose yourself to someone who could be dangerous.”

  “Nothing is going to happen,” Zachary said, chuckling slightly at her naïveté. “Don’t confuse what you see on TV with real life. Everyone isn’t walking around with guns, trying to get the jump on everyone else.”

  “You’re the one who brought up guns. And since you don’t have one, I don’t want you walking into someone who might. If he’s just sitting in his car, he’s not doing any harm. Just watch and see what happens.”

  He breathed in her ear for a few seconds, considering. Still out of breath because his anxiety was pumping up his heart rate.

  “Are you coming home?”

  “Yes. I won’t be long. I was just trying to decide what to pick up on the way home.”

  “You could come straight home. There’s stuff in the freezer.”

  Kenzie mentally reviewed what was in the freezer. Mostly burritos and stuff she didn’t really want for supper. She weighed her own cravings against the fact that Zachary was obviously anxious and wanted her to be home as soon as she could be. He might not be having a meltdown yet, but she didn’t want to send him into a full-blown anxiety attack because she was taking longer to get home than he thought she should and he thought something had happened to her.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll heat up something in the freezer. You’ll hang in there until I get home? Don’t do anything stupid like running out there to confront this guy?”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You’re not going to change your mind?” She knew how impulsive he was. And something might occur to him that seemed like a good reason to go charging out there by himself. She wanted him to promise he would stay inside.

  “You’ll drive straight into the garage, right?” Zachary checked, more worried about Kenzie than about himself. “Don’t open the garage door until you’re right in front of it, and then shut it right away, so no one can slip in. Then come in through the house, so you’re not exposed.”

  “Okay. I will. I’m coming from across town, so it’s going to be a few minutes longer than you expect. Okay? Don’t panic when I’m not home right away. I’m not at the ME’s Office.”

  “All right.” Another quick, anxious breath. “See you soon.”

  52

  Kenzie knew that it probably wasn’t the best idea, but she approached from the direction that would require her to drive the street in front of the house to catch a glimpse of the stranger surveilling her house.

  Even though she had told Zachary that the watcher might be dangerous, it was hard to make herself believe that. There had to be a good reason for someone to be sitting in front of her house. And the chances that he would have a gun? Zero to none. Kenzie had rarely met anyone but police who carried guns. That she knew of.

  She saw the car that Zachary had referred to immediately and took a look at the driver as she drove past. She did what she had promised and went straight into the garage and shut the door. She went into the house, where Zachary hesitated between running to meet her and keeping an eye on the car through the front window.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” she told him. “Everything is fine.”

  “He’s still out there. Did you see him?”

  “I saw him. It’s okay. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I should have called the police. I shouldn’t have waited until you got home. What if he—” Zachary broke off, looking out the window, his anxiety rising. “He’s getting out of the car!”

  “Calm down. Nothing bad is going to happen. I know who it is.”

  “You know?” Zachary had been walking back over to the window to get a better look at the stranger, and froze where he was. “You know him?”

  Kenzie nodded. “I do. And you don’t need to worry. It isn’t anyone who wants to hurt me. Or you.”

  “You know who it is. Someone from work?”

  “No.”

  Kenzie walked to the front door and flipped on the switch for the outside light, as dusk was beginning to fall. She tapped in the burglar alarm code for the front door and opened it as the man walked up the sidewalk. Kenzie reached out and gave him a hug, which was returned. It felt good to be held, to be in his arms again. Even though neither of them was demonstrative, she had missed that.

  She turned back toward Zachary, jerked her head for him to join her. “Zachary, this is my dad.”

  Zachary looked stunned. He looked at Kenzie as if he wasn’t sure if she were telling the truth. She had not invited him over to her mother’s house or to any family events. She had preferred to keep her parents and Zachary separate and not to have to deal with both of those worlds at the same time. It wasn’t because she was ashamed of Zachary—or ashamed of her parents, for that matter. She just didn’t want to mix those two worlds and have to deal with them both simultaneously.

  But, as she should have expected would happen sooner or later, her father had broken down that wall all by himself. As far as Walter Kirsch was concerned, there were no walls. Only doors to be opened, one way or another. He would knock, phone, pound on the door, ring the doorbell, find a key, or pick the lock, but one way or another, he would get through every locked door that was placed in front of him.

  “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Zachary Goldman. Zachary, Walter Kirsch.”

  Kenzie sighed, realizing she couldn’t just leave her father standing on the doorstep, so she stepped to the side to let him in. Walter had been at the house once or twice before. Not very often, and always, as he had this time, just showing up when he decided he needed to see Kenzie about something. She hadn’t invited him into her sanctum.

  Once they were all in the living room, Walter held his hand out toward Zachary, extending it in greeting. Zachary took it hesitantly.

  “Nice to meet you, Zachary,” Walter greeted pleasantly. Then silence hung in the air when he should have said, “Kenzie has told me a lot about you.”

  Because, of course, Kenzie had told him as little as possible. Her personal life was none of his business.

  “You too, sir,” Zachary responded. Again the awkward pause, because Kenzie hadn’t told him much about her father either.

  The two men continued to shake hands for another second or two, and Kenzie hoped that her father wasn’t squeezing the life out of Zachary’s hand in a show of male dominance. Eventually, the two dropped the grip and shifted away from each other slightly.

  “Dad.” Kenzie wasn’t going to wait for him to work his way through the entire spiel this time. “What’s up? Why are you here?”

  Walter took his time, sitting down on the couch and pinching the sharp crease in his pants. Kenzie didn’t want to sit down with him and be forced to exchange pleasantries. She stayed on her feet. She needed to make supper. And to figure out how to get Walter out of there as qu
ickly as possible.

  “I can’t just stop in to see my little girl?” Walter asked, smiling at her.

  “Zachary said you’ve been sitting in front of the house for an hour. You’re making him think you’re a stalker. What’s going on?”

  Walter chuckled. He looked Zachary over, evaluating him. Kenzie didn’t like the smirk on his face, the suggestion that he was somehow more superior because he had made Zachary worry. That he was superior because Zachary was clearly smaller and more fragile than he was. She hated him looking down on her partner that way.

  “No need to worry,” Walter assured them. “I just wanted a chance to talk to Kenzie. I was in the area, so I thought I would stop by. I didn’t want to bother you at work. So I thought I would hang out here while I did a little work in the car and catch you after work.”

  “A lot of nights, I don’t get home until late. You could have been out there for hours.”

  “Oh, I would have called you if it looked like you weren’t going to get back in good time. I had plenty I could do while I was waiting.”

  Of course he did. He was always schmoozing with someone, pressing his agenda and trying to negotiate for whatever bill he happened to be lobbying for at that particular time. All he needed was his phone and his golden tongue.

  “So what did you want?”

  “Do I have to want something to come and see my own daughter? It used to be that people were happy to see their parents, to take a little time out of their day to visit.”

  “You could have called me. No need to make this trip.”

  “I could have. But I wanted to see you face to face. It’s important to see your children every now and then.”

  Except now, he only had one child, and Kenzie couldn’t help blaming him partially for Amanda’s loss. Of course, nothing would have saved Amanda. They might have been able to get a few more months for her. But not years. However lucky they had been in keeping her alive, she wouldn’t still be alive now. Not with another kidney. Not with five new kidneys. She had just been too fragile.