by Lara Lacombe
“I did.” Her voice was quiet, but her words were clear. Grant held them in his mind, imagining them as two precious gems that were almost too beautiful to look at. A surge of emotion threatened to choke him, and he had to clear his throat several times before he felt like he could speak.
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” He turned to face her, smiling despite the tears welling in his eyes. “Because I love you, too.”
*
Avery sank into the worn chair in the hospital break room, grateful for the chance to sit down. The trek over from her dorm room had taken more energy than she liked to admit, and she wanted a moment to recharge before she went in search of Grant. If he saw how tired she was, he’d insist that she go back to her room and rest.
“Although,” she murmured to herself, “it’s his fault I’m tired in the first place.”
Last night had been...magical. That was such a clichéd description, but in this case it really fit. Being with Grant again had made her feel truly alive for the first time in years. His touch had rescued her from the emotional purgatory she’d inhabited for the last decade. The sex they shared had transcended the mere physical—they had made love, joining not only their bodies, but their hearts and souls, as well.
Even now, hours later, just the thought of last night made Avery’s skin tingle with the memory of Grant’s touch. The look on his face as he’d entered her was fixed in her mind, and her heart swelled as she recalled the yearning, hope and love in his expression. His tenderness had unlocked the last gates protecting her heart, and she had confessed her love for him without a second thought.
In hindsight, she probably could have timed it better. Those three little words carried a lot of weight, and while she had absolutely meant them, she didn’t blame Grant for wondering if her declaration had merely been a cry of passion.
Fortunately, he had believed her assurances. And his answering response had filled her with a deep and abiding sense of peace that lingered even now.
He loved her. She loved him. It was that simple.
And that profound.
She hugged the words to herself, feeling torn between her desire to broadcast the news to the world and wanting to keep it a secret celebration between the two of them. She would tell Olivia and Mallory, of course. They were her best friends and had helped her so much in the aftermath of her breakup with Grant. But she liked the idea of keeping the wider world at arm’s length for now. What she and Grant had still felt too new, too fragile, and she didn’t want to deal with the scrutiny of outsiders before they’d had a chance to nurture their relationship.
“Penny for your thoughts?” His voice was low and intimate in her ear, his breath hot on her cheek. Avery smiled and leaned back into the solid wall of his chest as Grant slid his arms around her.
“Only a penny?” she teased. “I think they’re worth more than that. Especially because they’re of a scandalous nature.”
“Oh, my,” Grant said, affecting a breathless tone. “Then I really want to hear them.”
He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and rounded the table, taking the seat across from her. “Seriously, though, how are you feeling today?”
“Never better,” she replied. And it was the truth. Even though she felt like she could sleep for a month, her spirits were high. In fact, the only dark cloud on her mood was the still-unfinished investigation and her incipient departure...
“You look a little tired,” Grant said, not unkindly.
“And whose fault is that?” she fired back.
His cheeks flushed, but the grin he sported was pure masculine satisfaction. “We had to make up for those lost years, didn’t we?”
“I’d say we got a good start.” Avery leaned forward and lowered her voice, just in case one of the nurses was walking by. “But don’t think I’m done with you yet.”
A flash of arousal warmed Grant’s eyes, and butterflies of anticipation took flight in Avery’s belly. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I feel the same way.”
The look on his face made Avery flush, and she was half tempted to suggest they go back to her room and continue getting reacquainted. But the files on the table taunted her, and she could no longer ignore her duty. Her illness had hampered her efforts on the investigation, and since she was leaving tomorrow, she needed to focus all of her efforts on doing what she could while she was still here.
Grant sensed the shift in her mood and nodded at the files. “Back to the grindstone?”
Avery sighed, trying not to feel discouraged. “Yeah. The clock is ticking, and I can’t just walk away without giving it one more try.”
“Understandable.” Grant watched her spread out the papers. “Do you remember the conversation in my office? Before you collapsed?”
“Yes. What about it?”
He shrugged. “You said you thought something was off about this outbreak. What did you mean by that?”
Avery frowned, trying to find the words to properly describe what amounted to a gut feeling. “There’s just something about the way these cases have popped up,” she began, choosing her words carefully. She was a scientist, and as such she relied on data and evidence, not amorphous sensations. But there was something different about this job, and she wasn’t going to be able to rest until she figured out what made it so unique.
“What do you mean?” Grant asked. His expression was open and curious, and Avery felt her muscles relax. He was a good sounding board; he wouldn’t judge her for listening to that nagging voice in her head that insisted she pay attention.
“I don’t have any proof—” she began, but Grant waved her concern away.
“I’m not your boss,” he said. “You don’t have to submit a list of supporting references for everything you say to me.”
She smiled, appreciating his support. “Well,” she said, “preliminary results suggest this virus is related to influenza, perhaps even a strain we’ve never seen before. Those viruses tend to be very contagious and spread rapidly through a vulnerable population. But that’s not what happened here—the outbreaks were very contained, very focused.”
Grant’s eyebrows drew together as he considered her words. “True,” he said slowly. “But I thought there were some cases of a new avian influenza virus that didn’t show a lot of person-to-person spread.”
“You’re correct.” Her respect for him went up another notch. It was unusual for an emergency room physician to be so well versed on the ins and outs of flu appearances over the years. It seemed Grant had been paying attention...
“That virus came out of China, and scared us all to death.” Avery shuddered at the memory—it had been a few tense months for the public health community as they raced to determine what was going on with the virus and if it presented a pandemic threat. Fortunately, it hadn’t spread and humanity had dodged a bullet. Would they be so lucky next time?
“Even though that virus wasn’t terribly contagious from person to person, we still understood how it was spreading. People had direct contact with infected poultry. That’s not the case here.”
“So you’re still wondering about the source?” Grant asked.
“In a way. The only thing the victims of this disease seem to have in common is a person.”
“Paul Coleson,” Grant supplied.
Avery nodded and drew in a breath. This was where her thoughts departed from the facts and veered off into conjecture. “Exactly. And for a person to be the common element... It almost suggests...” She trailed off, not wanting to give voice to the possibility.
“You think he might be deliberately spreading the virus?” Grant’s voice was low, but Avery glanced around to make sure no one had overheard. Fortunately, they were still alone and there were no sounds from the hallway.
She nodded. “I hate to even suggest it, but I keep coming back to the idea that someone is responsible. It fits the pattern of transmission we’ve seen—all the victims recall sharing drinks with Paul right before falling ill. Since th
ey all work such disparate jobs, it’s unlikely there is another common source. And we tested the bar itself—nothing.”
Grant was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. A knot of anxiety formed in Avery’s stomach. The idea that someone—Paul, in particular—was deliberately spreading the disease was a very serious charge. It required evidence, the kind she didn’t have. Which was exactly why she was reluctant to discuss her feelings. She knew Grant wouldn’t judge her on a professional level for voicing these concerns, but it still made her uncomfortable to accuse a man of doing something so heinous based on nothing more than a hunch.
“Let’s say you’re right.” His tone was neutral, careful, as if he, too, wanted to give the man the benefit of the doubt. “Where would he get the virus? It’s not the kind of thing you can pick up at the base store.”
“I don’t know,” Avery admitted. “That’s why I haven’t said anything before.”
They were both silent a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Avery let her mind wander, trying to make the connection between Paul and the virus. Where had it come from? Infectious agents weren’t conjured out of thin air—there had to be a source. But where?
The germ of an idea formed and she had a sudden feeling of déjà vu. She shook her head, and Grant saw the gesture. “What?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. It’s probably nothing.”
He lifted one eyebrow and stared at her. “At this stage, I don’t think we can afford to dismiss any ideas.”
“It’s just...” She focused, trying to pull up a mental image of the news article she had read a few years ago. “I remember reading a story about a research group who worked with ice core samples. They were trying to determine what kinds of microbial life were present millions of years ago, or something like that.”
“And?” Grant urged. He leaned forward, placing his forearms on the table.
“They found a prehistoric virus in one of their samples, something previously unknown to science. It infected algae, so it wasn’t a threat to humans or animals. But I remember thinking it was a cool discovery.” She caught sight of Grant’s face and paused. “What is it?”
He swallowed, looking like a man who had been forced to eat a rotten egg. “Ice core samples, you said?”
“Yes.” His reaction was making her nervous and she put a hand over her stomach to quell the unpleasant tingles. “What’s wrong?”
“Paul’s group studies climate change.” He swallowed again and clasped his hands together on the table. “Using ice core samples.”
A chill skittered down her spine and the fine hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Do you think—”
Grant nodded grimly. “I do. Where else could it have come from?”
Avery rubbed her forehead with a grimace. “I’m going to need caffeine to really process this.”
Grant jumped out of his chair. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
Avery remained seated, feeling a little gobsmacked. How could someone deliberately infect others with a pathogen? Where did that kind of hatred come from? And what made Paul even think to do this in the first place?
A growing sense of horror dawned on her as she followed that thought to its logical conclusion. It took a lot of effort to isolate a new virus from ice samples and to amplify it so there was enough to carry out infections. This wasn’t an accidental discovery gone off the rails—it was premeditated and methodical. If their suspicions were correct and Paul was responsible for these outbreaks, he had known exactly what he was doing.
But was he working alone? Or were his efforts just the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger plan?
Her thoughts were interrupted when Grant slid a cup of coffee in front of her. He rounded the table and sat again, his mouth drawn in a tight frown.
“I just can’t believe it,” he said softly, almost to himself.
“I think you have to,” Avery said, just as softly. “But there’s something else we need to consider.”
Grant’s shoulders stiffened, as if he was bracing himself to take a hit. “What’s that?”
“Paul might not be working alone.”
“You think someone else on-base is helping him?” Grant sounded miserable about the possibility, and she couldn’t blame him. He’d spent a lot of time with these people and probably thought he knew them fairly well. To have not one, but two or more, bad apples in the barrel was a disappointment to say the least, and if Avery were in his shoes, she’d be forced to question her instincts when it came to judging people and their intentions.
“I don’t know if anyone else here is involved,” she said, reaching across the table to touch his hand. “But I think we need to look hard at Paul’s contacts. It’s possible he’s working in collusion with someone off-base, someone who is setting things up in the US or maybe another country. Why stop at infecting a contained population here when there’s a big, wide world full of potential victims?”
Grant nodded, biting his bottom lip thoughtfully. “You think this is merely a test run so they can see how the virus behaves.”
Avery nodded. The idea made a sick kind of sense, much as she hated to admit it. Find a new virus, throw it into the human population to see how it behaves. If it doesn’t cause illness, keep looking. If it starts killing people, all the better.
“It’s the perfect candidate for a new biological weapon,” she mused aloud. “The virus has been frozen for millennia. No one alive has any kind of protective immunity to it, so everyone on earth would be vulnerable to infection. It would spread like wildfire through the population.”
“Except it hasn’t,” Grant pointed out. “We haven’t seen any person-to-person transmission here.”
She nodded. “That’s the only flaw with this virus, isn’t it? I think that’s why there were two outbreaks—he started the second one after the first round of patients failed to infect anyone else.”
Grant closed his eyes and shook his head. “How did I miss that?”
“You were a little busy trying to keep people alive,” Avery said smartly. “Don’t you dare go blaming yourself for this. You had nothing to do with it—you saved the lives of most of the people he infected. That’s not a small thing. Try to focus on that instead of the might-have-beens and what-ifs.”
He smiled at her, and her heart kicked hard in her chest. “You always had an answer for everything.”
“You should listen,” she said with a wink. She picked up the coffee mug and took a large gulp, then immediately spat the coffee out with a muffled curse.
Grant’s eyes went wide. “Is everything okay?”
Avery dabbed at her chin and blinked away tears. “The coffee is hot.” Her tongue felt like she had used a flaming sword to scrape it raw, and her cheeks ached from the assault.
“Ah, yes.” Grant’s tone suggested he was mentally sizing her up for a straitjacket. “Coffee generally is.”
“The last time Jesse gave me a cup of coffee, he said it was cold because the machine is on the fritz.”
Grant frowned. “I don’t think so. It’s been working fine for as long as I’ve been here.”
“Why would he give me lukewarm coffee?” Avery mused. Then the pin dropped, and everything fell into place. “Oh,” she said dumbly, seeing things clearly for the first time.
“Oh, what?” Grant echoed, one eyebrow lifted in curiosity.
“I know how I got sick.”
Chapter 14
“Grant, slow down! We need to talk about this.”
“No,” he said flatly. The time for talking was over. Action was the only option now.
“Grant,” Avery said, a note of warning in her voice. She huffed after him, her breathing labored as she tried to match his pace. He slowed, immediately feeling guilty. She should be in bed recovering, not exerting herself by chasing after him.
Besides, he didn’t want her to see what happened next.
The realization that someone had deliberately infecte
d people with a pathogen was bad enough. But to know that they had targeted Avery, too? That made it even worse. They had already lost ten years of their lives, and to come so close to losing her forever after they had started to patch things up? It was a sin he simply wasn’t willing to forgive.
The urge to do violence leached from his bones and thrummed in his muscles. Never before had he felt such an intense need to inflict harm and cause someone pain. It was a heady, almost intoxicating sensation that threatened to completely override his self-control.
It was a good thing he hadn’t found Jesse. After Avery realized he must have slipped the virus into her coffee, Grant had leaped into action. His first instinct had been to hunt him down and beat the man to within an inch of his life. But a quick search of the hospital had proved disappointing, and so Grant had taken aim at the next man on his list: Paul Coleson.
Avery slid to a stop next to him and grabbed his arm, wobbling a bit on a slick patch of ice. It had started snowing soon after they’d stepped outside, and the initial fat, fluffy flakes were now morphing into small, cold pellets of slushy ice. It was the kind of weather that drove even hardened researchers indoors, and Grant wanted Avery to go back to her dorm and burrow under the covers until he returned. She had no business being out in this cold, especially in her condition.
He put his arm around her shoulders and pivoted on his heel. “Come with me,” he said, steering them toward the living quarters.
“I don’t think so.” She dug in her heels and slipped out from under his support. He turned to find her standing with her hands on her hips, a mulish expression on her face.
“Avery—” he began, but she cut him off.
“No. I’m not going to let you stash me in my room while you go off half-cocked and confront Paul and Jesse. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Of course not. But—”
“If you want to talk to them, you’re going to have to take me with you.”