by Sam Carter
“You can say that again. But if you don’t use it, then why do you still have this stuff lying around?”
“Underneath this devastatingly attractive man is a huge nerd. No way I’m getting rid of it. In fact, I’ve just kept adding to it. Good thing, too. You all would be lost without me tonight.” Cole smiled his toothy, cheesy smile. Clara just stared at him, trying to figure out if he was for real. Most people spent their time trying to figure Cole out when they were around him.
Now here they were, after three a.m., and he still could not come up with anything. He ran a few different tests looking for something obvious that was being missed. White blood cells. Red blood cells. Clotting. You name it, he looked. For something. Anything.
Exhausted and frustrated, Cole lay down on the floor and let out an exasperating sigh. He was failing. And he hated to fail. He never failed. As soon as he thought that, he disagreed with himself, because, well, he failed a lot. Mostly because he overthought a situation and stressed himself out to the point of implosion. In fact, he was doing that again right now. It was just like the SAT, but with much larger stakes on the line: the lives of twelve children. They were counting on a washed-up genius who never met his potential and they didn’t even know it. Poor kids.
“What are you doing? Get your butt up.” Clara was standing over Cole staring right down at him. He had never felt more intimidated in his life.
“I’ve got nothing. I don’t know what I should even be looking for.”
“You’re not going to figure it out lying on the ground. This blood is not going to test itself. You hear me?”
Cole took that not as a suggestion but a straight-up command, reminiscent of when his mom said it was time to come inside. He knew if he didn’t sit up soon, she would be counting down from three and then getting the belt ready. Ah, the joys of childhood.
“Yes sir, I mean ma’am,” Cole said as he shot up and headed back over to the blood samples to start again.
“This is the last tube of her blood. Let’s make this count.”
“Thanks. No pressure or anything. Love the support.”
“Come off it, dude. You’re some kind of genius, right? Use that big brain of yours. I’m sure you’ve got tons of weird facts up in there. What are you missing?”
“I am a receptacle of useless information. Maybe some of that will come in handy now.” Cole started pacing the floors. He did his best thinking when he was moving.
“We don’t know what we are looking for, right? Some unidentifiable substance, right?”
“Right,” Clara said. She didn’t want to say too much. She could tell he was starting to get on a roll.
“I think I see our mistake. We need to start with what we do know and work from there. Tell me again what the kids are going through. Every symptom.”
“It’s been all over the place. Almost like everything you could possibly experience. It’s been slightly different for each of them, but not too much. They’ve had some intense headaches, so bad they scream like they’ve been shot. For a while they will be stiff as a board, as if they’re paralyzed. Sometimes it’s the whole body, and other times it will be a specific body part. Then it just vanishes.”
“Good. Good. What else?” Clara could see the wheels in Cole’s head were turning. They might finally be getting somewhere.
“Lots of vomiting. Painful, horrible vomiting. It’s awful.” Clara felt like she was living it all over again. It was difficult to talk about, but she knew she didn’t have a choice.
“There has been one thing that’s been constant for all of them though. They shake a lot. I don’t mean light shaking either. It’s seizure-like. They are out of control, and it’s more intense than anything I’ve ever seen before in a patient. Like a convulsion earthquake.”
Cole stopped pacing and stared at Clara. “What did you just say?”
“I said, it’s like they are having seizures . . .”
“No, the last part. What did you say?”
“Like a convulsion earthquake? Is that what you mean?”
“Yes! That’s it. That’s it! I could kiss you!”
“Take a number, buddy. Now, what are you talking about?” Clara wanted Cole to let her in on what he had discovered, but before he said anything more, he ran out of the room and was rummaging through a closet in the hall.
After a few minutes of trying to get through the mess, Cole pulled out a large red storage bin and quickly ripped off the top. It was filled with items Cole had collected from all over the world. He knew it was in here somewhere. It had to be.
After what seemed like an eternity, he discovered what he was looking for. A metal box and a plain white binder.
“Got it. I’ve got what we need.”
“Great. Are you going to clue me in?” All Clara could see was a box and a binder. They didn’t seem like the keys to anything, let alone something that would save the patients’ lives.
Cole opened the box and carefully pulled out a few clear glass containers filled with some sort of colorless liquid. He set them down and opened the binder and began to read.
“What is that liquid? Come on, Cole. What is going on?” But Cole just stuck his finger up and kept reading. Normally someone doing such a thing to Clara would have ended with their finger being detached from their body, but she needed that hand to stay intact. At least for tonight.
“This is it, this is it! Right here in my notes. Victims may experience headache, nausea, vomiting, collapse, convulsions (especially in children), paralysis, blood clotting, and kidney damage. This is it!”
“What is it? What did you find? And what is that liquid?”
“That? That’s snake venom.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact way, like it was no big deal to have bottles of snake venom lying around.
“Snake venom? You have snake venom?”
“Oh, not just any snake venom. These come from the deadliest snakes all over the world. This one here is from the coastal taipan, my personal favorite. It’s the most dangerous snake in Australia.”
“Why? What? Why?” Clara was at a loss for words. A rare experience for her.
“We don’t have time for me to explain. Let’s just say I went through a phase that led me to travel and study the world’s deadliest animals.”
“Who hasn’t gone through that phase at least once in their life?”
“But it has led us here, hasn’t it? That thing I just read you? Those are symptoms of someone who has been bitten by a coastal taipan. You named most of those.”
Clara had named most of those. “There is no way. This makes no sense at all.”
“I know. But this has got to be it. The part that set me off was the convulsions. It happens especially with children. And it’s the one constant among all of them, right?”
“You’re right. Holy cow. You’re right.” Clara couldn’t believe it. “What do we do next?”
“There is a test I can run. It’s super nerdy and technical so I won’t bore you with it. But, luckily, I’ve got the tools for it and I’ve done it before. Give me a few minutes.”
Cole took the bottle of snake venom he had earlier pointed out and went to work. Pulling out trays and plates and anything else he could find. He was like a man possessed. He was in his element, and he loved it.
Once he had it all ready to go, Clara’s phone rang. She didn’t want to take it. She wanted to watch Cole figure this out. But when she saw it was the hospital, she decided it was probably important.
“Clara speaking.”
“Clara? It’s Lucy.”
“Why are you whispering? I can barely hear you.”
“I can’t talk any louder. Something is going on here. Are you with Dr. Allred? I’ve been trying to call him all night.” Clara had never heard Lucy sound scared before. All Clara could think was that children had taken a turn for the worse.
“I’m not actually. What’s going on? Has something happened to the patients?”
“No, it’s not that. I
t’s Rex.”
“The lab tech? What is going on with Rex?”
Lucy quietly and quickly explained the whole thing. About the lab tests. About how she asked him about it. What he said. And then what he did. How he ended his life, right in front of her. It was all Lucy could do to hold back the tears.
“Something is going on. I don’t know what, but the way it’s all being handled . . . Something’s not right.”
Clara could hear yelling in the background. It sounded like Dr. James. She was trying to make out what he was saying, but before it got clear enough for her to hear him, there was silence and Lucy was gone.
She didn’t know what to make of this whole situation. Nothing made sense. Why would Rex change the results? What was all for his wife? What was going on that was so horrible he chose to kill himself?
“Confirmed,” Cole said from behind Clara. “They’ve been injected with coastal taipan snake venom. It’s genius, in a twisted way. These snakes don’t live here, so no one would even think to look for this. Plus, they were injected with just a little bit. It’s been diluted or something. That’s why it hasn’t killed them yet.”
“Killed them yet? When will it kill them?” Clara said as tears began to well up in her eyes. She just couldn’t hold them back anymore.
“Are you all right? Who was that on the phone?”
“It was the hospital looking for Harlan. Something has happened there. I’ll explain later. First, let’s focus. When will it kill them?”
“It all depends on when they were injected. Any ideas?”
Clara thought for a second and then remembered what Harlan had discovered. “They all had lab work prior to their appointments. Either the day before or that morning. It must have been then.”
“All right. Then, and this is a pretty rough guess, but I think it’s close. The average time it normally takes to kill someone who has been bitten is about three hours. From what I can tell, the venom was diluted to about five percent of its strength. Whoever did this wanted to maximize the suffering. Sick.”
“Cole. When will it kill them?”
“Right. Sorry. Well, based on all those factors, they . . .” Cole hesitated for a moment, not wanting to believe what he was about to say. “They have less than ten hours.”
Chapter 39
Harlan’s head began to spin faster than ever. If he weren’t already sitting down, he would have passed out. Josie was dead? Murdered? Right in her office? But how could that happen? It didn’t add up.
But then he got it. They thought he killed her. No, Stumpy was convinced that Harlan had done it. And this, this horrible crime, is what the voice wanted Harlan to blame on Cole. Cole could have easily done it, actually. Cole was his best friend, and he had always been overly protective of him. There had been more than one time when Cole had beaten up someone who had crossed Harlan the wrong way.
In fact, and the voice would know this, Cole had been in jail a few years back from beating someone to the edge of death after a simple disagreement in a bar. Some guy wanted to cut in front to get a round. When Harlan told him to wait in line, the guy shoved Harlan hard in the back. This set Cole off, and it took three men to pull him off his bloody, almost lifeless victim. That would be in Cole’s record. His killing someone who wronged Harlan was believable. The voice knew what he was doing.
Once again, just as it had earlier, two roads diverged. Last time he took the wrong road. It seemed right at the time—he needed to save his kids. This time it should be clear which way was right, but it wasn’t. Both roads were right there, but he couldn’t move toward either of them. The trap was closing on him, and it kept getting tighter. He was stuck with nowhere to go.
“Well, that got your smug face’s attention, didn’t it? Your boss was found murdered not long after you two fought publicly. You’re a smart man. Tell me how that looks?”
“It looks thin and ridiculous. If you are going to base this investigation solely off who argued with Josie yesterday, then you’re probably going to have to question half the medical staff. No one liked her, and you’d know that if you were doing your job.”
“Like I said before, your story doesn’t exactly match up with what we heard happened. You say she initiated it, but those who saw it go down say you approached her and started yelling, calling her all sorts of names. Then, like the big man you are, you grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let go.”
This made no sense at all. Who was telling the cops these lies? He didn’t know if he should defend himself or just let the detective keep going. The look on Rodriguez’s face told him to not say a word.
“Well, that caught you by surprise, too. You didn’t think we would do our research and find out what truly happened, did you? Lies will always catch up to you, Harlan. And this one got you busted.”
Harlan couldn’t help himself. “Busted? What are we in middle school? You busted me? Because someone, who may be some imaginary friend of yours for all I know, says I got mad first? Excellent work, Detective. You’ve busted me. Take me away.” Harlan mimed putting his hands in front of him.
Stumpy looked livid now, like this fat, lump of a head would explode. Harlan could almost see steam coming out of his ears.
“Listen, you arrogant prick. In the last twenty-four hours, two people who had conversations with you ended up murdered not too long after. How about you put two and two together for me?”
“It’s four. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
Stumpy lunged toward Harlan, but just before he could get a hand on him, Rodriguez grabbed hold of her partner and restrained him. Harlan wasn’t expecting that at all. Not that she didn’t look tough, but Harlan wasn’t sure anyone could stop a rhino going full speed with their bare hands. Miraculously, he just witnessed it.
While she was holding onto Stumpy, she looked right at Harlan and mouthed something so that only Harlan could see. He couldn’t make it out at first, and Rodriguez looked frustrated. They didn’t have much time before her partner broke free. But she mouthed it one more time and this time he got it.
“She’s not dead.”
Chapter 40
“That’s enough, Mancuso.” Rodriguez was still restraining her partner. He didn’t appear to be close to calming down. “You’re not helping this situation at all. Why don’t you take yourself and the other two outside? Cool down. I’ll take care of this moron myself.”
Mancuso—the perfect Law and Order cop name—looked a little taken aback by Rodriguez’s request. Maybe because it wasn’t really a request. It was more of a command. He didn’t seem like the type that took orders from women all that well. Harlan wondered if he was going to have to jump in and restrain his new best friend next.
Then Stumpy stopped scowling, smiled, and winked at his partner. Harlan had never felt so confused, uncomfortable, and scared before. Those were emotions he had felt a lot the last few days, but not all together. He didn’t like it.
“All right. I got ya. I’ll go ‘calm down’ while you do your thing,” Stumpy said, even using finger quotation marks. This guy was a pro. He winked again, and then gestured to the other cops to follow him out. Magnum, P.I. was smiling, too, as he walked out. What were they playing at?
Harlan wasn’t sure what to expect next now that he was alone with this gorgeous detective. Under normal circumstances, whatever normal meant anymore, he wouldn’t mind being alone with her. But tonight, when he was being accused of the murder of someone who apparently wasn’t even dead? He’d pass. Not that he had a choice, but he would like to.
As soon as she was sure the other cops were outside, Rodriguez turned to Harlan. “Tell me what you know. And hurry. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Me? Tell you what I know? About what exactly? About how in the last twelve hours you and your partner have accused me of two murders. And then in a five minute period I was told that Josie Silver was murdered in her office, by me of course, then found out she is actually not dead! How about you tell me what is going on
?”
“Keep your voice down. Let’s not give my partner any reason to come back in here. I can’t help you if he does.”
Harlan just stared at her, trying to figure out what she was about. Could he trust her? Or was this just a part of their routine? Is this how they got him to confess?
For Harlan, reading people was never easy, especially with so much on the line, but there was something about the look on her face that made him believe she could be trusted. She looked scared, worried, and confused. She looked how he felt. She was on his side.
“Look, Harlan, today has been confusing for me too. I get it. One second Mancuso is telling me and all these other cops that this Dr. Silver is dead and then the next second he is pulling me into another room to let me know she is alive and well. He won’t tell me why he’s lied about it, but I’ve got to trust him and follow his lead. It makes no sense. Now you’ve got to calm down and work with me, Harlan. I am on your side.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just, these last couple of days, and then this. I don’t know what to make of anything anymore.”
“What else has been going on the last day, Harlan? I need you to clear up a few things for me, and then maybe this will make some sense.”
“My patients, everyone’s patients actually, are dying. I don’t know why. And then John Samson dies, and Twitter makes me a suspect. And . . .” He had already made the decision to trust her, but he still hesitated. He sure hoped he was right about her. “Now I get phone calls from some random voice. Threatening me, my family, everything . . .”
Before Harlan could say anymore, Rodriguez cut him off. “Random phone calls from some voice?” Harlan couldn’t tell if she believed him. She was giving no sign at all whether she thought he was crazy or just insane. “How long have they been coming in?”
“The first call was a message to my cell phone right before I met you guys today.”
“Then why didn’t you say something about it at that time?” She was glaring at him in a way that made him want to run for the hills.
“He threatened to make my son suffer the same way my patients were if I told you. What choice did I have?”