Broken Chain

by Lisa von Biela

  Gretchen steepled her hands together and held them over her mouth as she absorbed Kyle’s news. The move to D.C. had been enough of a hassle that she didn’t want to repeat the process anytime soon—but, she hadn’t exactly enjoyed their brief time there. July in D.C. in a lousy neighborhood was pretty much her vision of hell. Despite how simple Kyle made it sound, though, her head already spun with logistics. Depending how long the assignment lasted, she might have to find a local OB/GYN to monitor her pregnancy, maybe even her delivery. She rubbed her face and took a deep breath. She’d deal with all that in due time. At least they’d be back in their home state for a while.

  “Are you okay with this? I figured you and Lara’d rather be out there with me than sitting here, so I cleared it with Vic.”

  Gretchen turned and gripped Kyle in a tight hug. “Of course we would. It’ll be an adventure, certainly better than hanging around here without you. I’m so proud of you. I just hope there is some underlying cause that can be addressed.”

  “I hope so, too. And if there is, I hope I can find it. It’s a really unusual sort of epidemic to investigate. On one hand, I’m excited to get this as my first assignment, but I’m sure it’s going to be a really tough one.”

  Gretchen nuzzled her face into his shoulder. “We’ll get through it together. We’ve gotten this far through med school, we can get through this and you’re going to do a great job, I know. This assignment will open all kinds of doors for you.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Cindy Morrow couldn’t believe their luck. She and her bestie Sarah Donahue had managed to arrive at the Blue Moon in time to snag a table for two right up next to the stage, where their favorite local rock band, Dangerbus, would be playing shortly. The Blue Moon was a dinky old spot—just a bar, some plain old-school wooden tables and chairs, the stage, and a little space for dancing. Dangerbus was überpopular and the place would likely be standing-room-only pretty soon.

  She glanced at her watch. “Should be on anytime now. This is going to be soooo awesome!”

  Sarah lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, then blew a column of smoke up into the cloud that hung over the entire dimly lit room. “They’re always awesome. Remember when they played the Tavern a couple months back? Great show. I could’ve listened to them all night.” She downed the last of her third margarita and signaled the server for another.

  Cindy hoped Sarah would last the evening. To get the coveted table, they’d arrived a couple of hours early. With not much else to do but drink and fend off unwanted advances, they’d already had a few, as the slight glassiness in Sarah’s eyes attested. She took a cautious sip of her third glass of chardonnay. “I can’t wait to see Ian North play. He’s so freakin’ hot.”

  Sarah laughed the low chuckle of a veteran smoker and smiled. “Yeah, what’s not to like about him? He can sure rock a pair of leather pants, and how he can make his guitar do what it does, well …” She took another drag of her cigarette, licked her lips with exaggerated gusto, and fanned herself with a cocktail napkin.

  Cindy sat back in her hard wooden chair and observed her friend. They’d known each other since high school, and had been hitting the singles scene together all through college and now into their late twenties. Neither of them’d had a relationship with a man last for very long, and sometimes Cindy wondered if that might be significant. Sarah was, after all, drop-dead gorgeous. She had the tall, graceful good looks of Angelina Jolie, but with a healthier bit of meat on her bones. Maybe they should at least have a conversation sometime about … possibilities.

  Two fresh drinks appeared on their table just as a man’s voice blasted out from the PA system.

  “And now, put your hands together for … Dangerbus!”

  A deafening roar erupted as everyone began applauding wildly and hooting. Reddish lights lit the stage, with a single white spotlight trained on the center. The all-male band, every one of them shirtless and clad in tight black leather pants, came out and took their places. Ian North stepped into the spotlight with his guitar and approached the mike. “How’re ya doin’ tonight? Are ya ready to rock?”

  Amid cheers and screams from the audience, Ian positioned his guitar, then swung his arm down and nailed a chord so loud it threatened to split every eardrum in the place. The rest of the band joined in, and the walls struggled to contain the blasting rock music.

  Consumed by the blaring beat, Cindy tapped her feet and jiggled in her chair as Dangerbus gave its audience what they’d come for. She knew her ears would ring for days after this, but she didn’t care about that right now. She gulped some more of her wine and glanced over at her friend. Sarah leaned forward, elbows on the table, alternating puffs on her cigarette with sips of her drink. Cindy loved how she looked so focused on the music, and probably on Ian as well.

  Sarah suddenly sat straight up and turned to Cindy with an alarmed look on her face. “Did you see that?” she mouthed.

  “What?”

  “Ian. Something weird just happened.” She shouted to be heard above the music.

  Cindy glanced back up at the stage. Something did look slightly off with Ian. He’d stepped back toward the rear of the stage and stood with his guitar hanging at his side. In the relative gloom outside the spotlight, he appeared to have a confused look on his face.

  “I don’t know. Something’s not right. Why isn’t he playing?”

  Sarah shook her head and leaned close to Cindy to be better heard. “It’s like the rest of the band didn’t notice or doesn’t care. He has a major solo in this song. Maybe he’s going to do it different this time.”

  As Cindy watched, Ian staggered back into the spotlight. He held the guitar by its neck with one hand, and raised his other hand to rub his eyes. When he moved his hand away from his face, his eyes widened as if he’d just realized where he was. For just a moment, he looked frightened, glancing around the room, then at the rest of the band. The other band members finally noticed his behavior and came to a discordant halt.

  In the sudden silence, Ian opened his mouth wide and let out a scream that seemed to come from the darkest depths imaginable. Then he took hold of the guitar neck in both hands, swung it around, and smashed it to pieces on the keyboardist’s head. The keyboardist crumpled to the floor beneath his instrument and the rest of the band fled backstage. Ian then grabbed the metal mike stand and yanked at it until he broke it free of its power cable.

  Cindy glanced at Sarah, who sat openmouthed and frozen in place. “What the fuck?” Then she glanced back at the stage and regretted their choice of table.

  Mike stand held aloft, Ian nimbly leaped down from the stage and before either Cindy or Sarah could react, he swung the stand at them like a baseball bat.

  The last thing Cindy would ever see was the glint of light on the silver of the stand, right before it smashed into her temple and shattered her skull.

  CHAPTER 9

  Kyle pushed the spiral notebook to one side of his work desk, then flexed the day’s tension from his shoulders. He glanced around the makeshift field office he’d set up in their extended-stay room. A laptop, a small printer/scanner, and a nice high-speed Internet connection. The setup was comfortable and efficient. His only concern was that it might be hard to concentrate when Lara was awake and playing, but he’d likely spend most of his time in the field anyway. He could do the desk work when she was in bed if he had to.

  The two-bedroom suite was much nicer than their D.C. apartment, and the area—though not untouched by violence—would at least be somewhat safer for Gretchen and Lara. The location was perfect for his work, too. Gaylord was the county seat, so he’d have convenient access to county offices, like that of the public health director, Sherry Nelson. It was only about sixty miles to the capitol, so he would easily be able to arrange meetings with the state epidemiologist, Dr. Fred McKinsey. And of course, it was only minutes from St. Joe.

  Gretchen came over and gave him a gentle hug from behind. “How’s it going?” He reached back and gave he
r hand a squeeze.

  “So far, so good. I’ve figured out the key contacts I need to make, where the hospitals and clinics are located, and I’ve sketched out my first steps.”

  “That didn’t take long. We’ve only been here a couple days.”

  “Can’t afford for it to take long. I expect this to be tough to chase down, so I need to get busy right out of the gate.” He swiveled his chair to face her. “So what do you think of the place?”

  She swept a blonde curl out of her eye. “It’s nice. Well-equipped and comfortable. Of course I’m going to have to scope out the town pretty soon. Right now, I only know where the grocery store is.” She smiled. “I’m glad we got the second rental car. Gaylord is small for a county seat, but it’s not like everything’s walking distance.”

  “I’m not sure I’d want you walking everywhere anyway. This isn’t D.C., but I wouldn’t be here if there weren’t problems. Plus, I’ll be driving around a lot. One car would’ve left you two stranded in the room all the time. Can’t have that.”

  “No, we can’t. Lara would go nuts sitting around here, even if I didn’t. Hey, are you about done for the day? Do you want dinner now?”

  “Yeah, I’d like to make it an early evening, so I can hit the ground running tomorrow.”

  Gretchen put the last of the morning’s dishes into the dishwasher and shut its door. She gazed out the kitchen window at the landscaped courtyard one story below. Though the place was remarkably homey for a hotel, she still felt displaced. No doubt it had to do with their rushed move to D.C., then coming here, also seemingly overnight. All that combined with the erratic hormones of early pregnancy. She shrugged. No wonder.

  “Hey Lara, let’s go to the other room now.” She bent down and picked up the child, who’d been happily busying herself with Baa-Baa in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  “Cartoons, Mommy?” She grinned. “Woot!”

  Not for the first time, Gretchen was thankful Lara was such an easy child to care for. Even when she’d turned two, she’d had none of the little monster persona that can inhabit kids of that age. She glanced at Kyle’s work area as she passed by it with Lara balanced on her hip. He’d taken his laptop with him, as well as one of the notebooks. Even so, it still looked like a miniature nerve center with the books, bulletin board, and whiteboard he’d set up. Organization was that man’s middle name.

  She sat Lara on the couch beside her and turned on the TV, looking for cartoons. She found something suitable after a few channel clicks and Lara sat back with her sheep, mesmerized.

  Gretchen leaned her elbow on the arm of the couch and tried to think of something interesting to occupy her time in the coming days or weeks—but without knowing how long they’d be there, it was pretty much impossible to come up with any really involved ideas. No point in spending time looking for a job or trying to make friends when their stay was only temporary. And if she did, she’d have to find a sitter for Lara. She sighed. Maybe she could spend some time catching up with her friends on Facebook, and catching up on all the unread books on her Kindle while Lara napped.

  Kyle called this the “hunting and gathering” stage of his investigation. He mostly spent his time talking to people, including doctors, hospital personnel, plus the state and local epidemiological experts. He wanted to gather all available information so he could then sit and study it, looking for patterns and possible pathological mechanisms. Depending what he found, he’d then design some study to confirm or refute his theory.

  So for now, he was typically out all day, and when he arrived home, he still had to organize his findings and email his team. Despite living in the same space, Gretchen and Lara didn’t get to spend much time with him these days. She shrugged and put her feet up on the coffee table. All in all, it was still better than if they’d stayed back in D.C. Violence in D.C. was getting so bad, she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to leave that crappy little apartment at all.

  She felt much safer here.

  CHAPTER 10

  An unpleasant feeling of déjà vu swept over Daphne Mercer as her sole lunchtime customer slapped his menu down on the lace-covered table, shot her a baleful glare, and folded his arms across his chest. Judging from his jeans and work shirt, he was one of the local ranchers, out to get some lunch on a work day.

  She steeled herself for the encounter, plastered a smile on her face, and went over to his table.

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  He pointed at the menu as if its very existence insulted him. “What kind of a joke is this?”

  Daphne could feel her smile stiffen. “What do you mean, sir?”

  “This isn’t real food. Fake soy meat and flimsy vegetables. I want a steak. That’s real food. Got a lot of fence posts to plant this afternoon, and I need a solid lunch.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have eggs. I could make you an omelet.”

  He looked her square in the eye. “You mean to tell me, you open a café in the middle of Sibley County—farm country—and you don’t serve any sort of meat?”

  “Well, no, I—”

  “That’s a real slap in the face to us producers, I’ll tell ya that.” He glanced around and shook his head. “Should’ve known with all this frilly stuff, you must be from the Cities. Carrie knew what to serve in this town, God rest her soul.” He stood to leave. “Good luck to you.” Then he stomped out and slammed the door.

  Stunned by his abrupt exit, Daphne stood next to the deserted table, glanced around her beautiful little café, then burst into tears. New businesses took time to establish. She understood that. But she’d hoped for a better reception than this. At first she’d thought it just was one of those things, where a small town doesn’t readily embrace someone new—especially someone from the Cities. And that was probably part of it.

  But mostly, the menu itself seemed to be the object of scorn. People would come in for breakfast and look at her funny when they asked for bacon and she explained she’d opened the café to cater to a healthier diet. She offered eggs and milk-based items, but that was as far into the animal protein spectrum as she intended to go.

  It was even worse at lunch. At least at breakfast, they’d frown and order eggs. But at lunch they often wanted a pork chop, a little steak, or those chicken finger things. Nothing else on her menu remotely satisfied them, and they usually just thanked her and walked out. This guy wasn’t the first one to complain, but he seemed downright hostile.

  At least most of them were fairly polite about it, but polite didn’t help her bottom line. Daphne shook her head and wiped away tears with the back of her hand. The town was full of animal-eaters. Hardly seemed worth it to keep the place open for lunch. One thing was for sure: she was not going to be offering real meat items. Not on her menu. Not ever. Even if she had to change towns.

  Today, she didn’t even feel like standing there, hoping a customer would walk through the door—and stay to actually order something. She’d felt really tired and run-down lately, despite her healthy diet and lifestyle. It wasn’t like her, and she hoped it was just the stress from watching her dream of running a small-town café begin to circle the drain.

  With an exhausted groan, she dried her eyes with some paper napkins and went back into the kitchen to shut down the grill and all the other appliances. Then she went to the front door, flipped the sign to CLOSED, locked up, and headed down the block to her little apartment.

  She opened the door and stepped inside, panting a little and feeling as winded as if she’d walked several miles, though she exercised regularly and it had only been a block. A Midwest-flat block at that. She set down her purse and knelt on the floor as Agnes, her cat and faithful friend of sixteen years, strolled over and flopped down onto her back. At least Agnes was always happy to see her. She scratched behind the cat’s ears for a few minutes, trying not to notice the gray mask that betrayed her age, then stood and went into the bathroom.

  Midafternoon sunlight streamed through the little bathroom
window, revealing an alarming sight. No thirty-year-old’s face should look like that, especially one who chose her foods so carefully and took such good care of herself with exercise and yoga. Lines more apropos of a sixty-year-old seemed to have bloomed overnight. Daphne touched her skin. So rough, like it was dead or dying.

  She released her long, straight, dark hair from the ponytail she kept it in while working in the café and ran her fingers through it. Was it more brittle, or was it her imagination? She looked closer in the mirror, and noticed a few gray hairs in front that she hadn’t seen before.

  Trembling, she pulled down her lower eyelids and scrutinized the tissue there. Pale, as if she were anemic, even though she was very careful to supplement her diet with iron and B vitamins.

  She flexed her hands. Over the past few weeks, she’d noticed stiffness in her joints, as well as vague, random pains in her muscles. She’d chalked it up to all the scrubbing and physical labor needed to renovate the café. But the symptoms had lasted longer than they should have, considering when she’d completed that work. Cooking—what little she’d been called upon to do—and running a cash register should not cause these sorts of symptoms.

  Turning away from the disturbing image in the mirror, she hurried to the living room, grabbed her laptop from the coffee table and turned it on. A search showed only a few doctors in the area. She expanded the search to include the Twin Cities. She’d be more likely to find somebody good closer to the Cities.

  Something felt wrong, and she didn’t want to fool around with some country quack trying to figure out what it might be. It’d be worth the drive back to the Cities to get the problem resolved quickly.