The Fever

by Diane Hoh

  Cynthia stamped one foot, momentarily snapping Duffy out of her shocked daze. “He noticed the warning sticker, too.”

  “Warning sticker?”

  “Latham was allergic to penicillin. The hospital uses a little round red sticker on a patient’s chart for dangerous allergies. Kit saw it. I knew he’d put two and two together when Latham’s death made the news.”

  She’s right, Duffy thought in a daze, Kit would have. And he would have gone to Cynthia and asked her questions.

  “What did you do to Mr. Latham?” she repeated in a whisper.

  “I put his chart back in the wrong place. It was Kit’s fault,” Cynthia said sullenly. “He got me all rattled, sneaking up on me like that, and I just dropped the chart into the chart table.”

  “You put the chart back in the wrong spot?” Duffy shook her head, uncomprehending. “But you told me yourself the nurses always check the names on the charts, so how could that hurt Latham?”

  Cynthia’s upper lip curled in a sneer. “They’re supposed to,” she said, her voice hard and unforgiving. “But sometimes when things get really busy, they don’t. I accidentally put Latham’s chart into Mrs. Creole’s slot. She was on penicillin. For an infection. The order’s right there on her chart. The night Latham died, we had a couple of nurses out with the flu so two nurses came up from the city. They weren’t familiar with the patients. One of them gave Mrs. Creole’s penicillin to Latham. It killed him. He was so much better that he wasn’t on any monitoring equipment. By the time someone checked on him, he was already dead.”

  “And…and Kit said it was your fault,” Duffy breathed.

  “But it wasn’t!” Cynthia cried. “The nurse who had Mrs. Creole’s chart must have dropped it into the only empty slot when she brought it back, without checking the room number. That empty slot was Latham’s. So later, she gave him Mrs. Creole’s penicillin, and left the room. She never saw what the penicillin did to him. She got blamed for what happened.”

  Duffy, knowing it well, said, “Kit wanted you to tell someone about the chart mix-up, didn’t he?”

  “He said I had to go to Dr. Crowder, the head of the hospital, and tell the truth. Get that nurse off the hook, was the way he put it.

  “But of course I couldn’t do that,” Cynthia continued matter-of-factly. Her eyes widened. “I mean, how could I? Telling the truth would have ruined everything. I would have been fired for handling the charts, and I never would have got into medical school, not ever.” Her eyelids drooped sadly. “Without medical school, I wouldn’t have a life. I tried to tell your precious Kit that, but he wouldn’t listen. And the hospital’s being sued by Mr. Latham’s survivors. So I’d be blamed for that, too. Everyone here would hate me.”

  Duffy, watching in awe as Cynthia’s expression changed from anger to injured innocence thought, Oh, God, she’s insane. She’s as crazy as everyone in the hospital thinks I am.

  “Cynthia,” Duffy whispered, “where is Kit?” Eyes wide with fear, she glanced around the room. “Is he here? Somewhere?”

  “No. I couldn’t leave him here, Duffy. Why, my goodness, somebody would have found him! I had to get him out of here.” There was great pride in Cynthia’s voice as she announced to a white-faced Duffy, “I put your friend and his car in the old quarry.”

  Chapter 25

  “THE QUARRY?” DUFFY’S VOICE was barely audible. Imagining her friend lying deep in the quarry’s cold, muddy water, she shuddered.

  “Um-hum.” Cynthia’s gaze centered on a spot somewhere above Duffy’s head and took on a dreamy expression. “It was so easy. He really was leaving town, Duffy. Dylan wasn’t lying about that. Kit’s car was all loaded up and he was ready to take off for California. Only he stopped off here first, to tell you good-bye and,” bitterness seeped into her words, “to warn me that if I didn’t promise to go to Dr. Crowder with the truth, he’d go for me, as soon as he’d seen you.” Her gaze returned to Duffy’s face. “He was going to rat on me, Duffy,” she said in a hurt voice. “I couldn’t let that happen, could I?”

  “What…what did you do?” Duffy, her heart bleeding for the loss of Kit, knew there was no way she was going to be allowed out of this room alive. She had to stall, keep Cynthia talking until she could think…think…how could she think when her whole mind was still wrestling with the horrible fact that Kit was dead?

  “I told him I would go see Dr. Crowder, but first I would take him to your room. And that’s what I did.” Cynthia smiled. “But I grabbed an empty syringe when I left the nurses’ station. I knew exactly what to do with it,” she said proudly. “I read a lot of medical books, you know. There’s this spot on the back of the neck—?

  “I don’t want to know!” Duffy screamed. “Don’t tell me!” She began crying again. Kit…she would never see him or talk to him again. How could that be?

  Her left hand involuntarily bumped up against the latch of one of the metal doors. The tables inside the cabinet were designed to slide out. Dylan had said so. Did they slide slowly? Or did they whiz out, like sleds on an icy slope? There was no way of knowing. Could she take a chance? It was so hard to think…so hard to plan.…But she wanted to live. And this wild-eyed, pale-faced maniac in front of her didn’t want her to.

  “Your friend Kit was in such a hurry to see you,” Cynthia continued. “Followed me to your room like a puppy. Right straight to your room. You were dead to the world.” Cynthia giggled. “Excuse the expression. You were sound asleep, and he didn’t want to wake you. He said he wasn’t in any big hurry and he’d just sit on the other bed and wait for you to wake up.” Cynthia sniffed in disdain. “He said he couldn’t leave town without telling you goodbye. Wasn’t that sweet?” Contempt laced her words.

  The thought of Kit sitting on a bed in her room, patiently waiting for her to wake up, Cynthia about to pierce the back of his neck with a needle full of air, made Duffy sick with anguish. If only she could have stopped it somehow, if she could have pushed the call button.

  “But he saw the needle,” Cynthia went on harshly. “It was dark in there, but he could still tell what I was about to do. He was sitting on the other bed, and I came up behind him. He saw me lift the needle in the air and he made these noises…”

  Duffy gagged and closed her eyes.

  “I missed the first time.” There was regret in Cynthia’s voice. “Clumsy me! For a minute there, I thought he was going to get away.” Then she brightened visibly. “But he didn’t. I tripped him,” she said cheerfully, “and he went down on his knees. He sort of whimpered then.” Cynthia mimicked Kit’s deep voice: ‘Please, no, don’t!’ But I got him!” Her voice was triumphant, almost jubilant.

  That joy stirred something in Duffy. Anger began to replace her fear, slowly at first, then more quickly, coursing through her body until it became a rage as red hot as her fever. Cynthia was glad she had killed Kit! And she was about to kill again.

  Duffy screamed. “No! No, no, no!” echoed around the room, and her arms came up and pushed, with all of her might, shoving a surprised Cynthia backward, where she teetered off balance, her mouth open.

  But she didn’t fall. And she didn’t drop the syringe.

  Still, her surprise gave Duffy just enough freedom to dart away, running to the desk to search frantically for a weapon: a letter opener, a pair of scissors, anything…

  There was nothing. A box of paper clips, a lamp, piles of notebooks and leaflets, and a scattered puzzle of pens and pencils…nothing the tiniest bit lethal. But there, in the corner, behind a tall, thick medical book standing on end…a can of bug spray. Maybe…

  Duffy turned to face her captor. Behind her, her hands closed around the can.

  “Relax, Duffy,” Cynthia said calmly, her balance restored. She began to advance slowly, her eyes cold and determined. “You’re going to have a little accident,” she said, “and it won’t be my fault. All I’m going to do is be kind enough to give you a ride home. Isn’t that nice of me? Of course, I won’t be hurt. But you�
��” She shook her head. “You’ll end up in a ditch by the road in a fiery car crash. I’ll tell everyone you grabbed the wheel out of my hands, that you missed Kit so much you committed suicide. They’ll believe me. Everyone thinks you’re nuts, Duffy. And I’ll say that since I’m not crazy like you, I had the good sense to jump out before the car burst into flames.” She raised the needle higher. “And no one will ever be able to tell that you were dead before the car ever went off the road.”

  Her eyes never leaving Cynthia’s face, Duffy moved sideways, back to the wall of steel cabinets. She backed up against them, her hands behind her. This time, she found a latch and opened it. It made no sound.

  “Wasn’t it nice of Kit to decide to leave town?” Cynthia went on, as if they were two friends having a casual chat. “There was his car, all loaded up.…After I killed him, I wheeled him down here in the gurney and then later, when everyone was gone, I wheeled him out to his car and drove out to the quarry.” She sighed happily. “They’ll never find him or his car. The water’s too deep.” After a minute, she murmured, “Sank like a stone. Took me forty-five minutes to hike back to town. Boy, was I beat!”

  Duffy, her hands hidden behind her jeaned hips, held the bug spray can in one hand. With the other, she lifted the latch on a metal door. The door opened easily. It made no sound. She tugged gently. The door moved forward an imperceptible fraction of an inch.

  “You’re crazy,” she told Cynthia, her voice shaking. If she kept talking, she hoped Cynthia would continue to watch her face instead of wondering what her hands were doing behind her back. “You’re sick. You need help. Why don’t you let me go now?” she begged, fastening her eyes on Cynthia’s. “We’ll go up and talk to Dr. Crowder. He’ll see that you get the help you need.”

  If she was going to get the door open all the way, she had to move forward several inches. But Cynthia was in the way.

  Cynthia’s cheeks reddened with rage. “I’m not going to see anyone!” she shouted. “I don’t need help! You’re the one who needs help!” And she raised the hypodermic needle high in the air, poised just above Duffy’s head.

  It was now or never. Duffy’s hand holding the bug spray can whipped out from behind her, her index finger on the spray button. Her arm flew up, her finger pressed down.

  Cynthia screamed as the foul-smelling mist hit her eyes. Her hands, one still gripping the needle, instinctively flew to her face.

  The needle’s wickedly sharp point missed her left eye by a fraction of an inch, penetrating with full force the top of the cheekbone. This time Cynthia’s scream was one of agony. A thin stream of blood slid down her cheek as the needle protruded from her face like a dagger.

  Duffy gagged again, but she knew there was no time to waste in sympathy for Cynthia. Cynthia, her anger fueled by new fury, wouldn’t give up now. This moment, with Cynthia temporarily blinded, was the only moment Duffy had.

  With her empty hand, she threw open the door of the cabinet and, jumping out of the way, grabbed the edge of the slab inside the cabinet and jerked.

  The slab flew out, slamming into a moaning Cynthia, her hands still covering her eyes. It kicked her in the stomach at waist-level, lifting her off her feet with a startled “Uuh!” She flew up and then forward, landing with a scream, facedown, on the slab. She screamed again and then went limp as she lost consciousness.

  The weight of her body hitting the slab sent it whizzing back into the depths of the cabinet.

  Her eyes glazed with shock, Duffy reached out automatically and gently closed the door. Then her legs gave and she sank to the cold white floor, covering her eyes with her hands.

  Chapter 26

  WHEN DUFFY AWAKENED IN her hospital bed the following morning, four pair of eyes regarded her with concern. Smith and Amy stood on one side of her bed, Dylan and Jane on the other. The sight of the little group jolted her out of sleep.

  Then she remembered. She remembered all of it: the pillow over her face, the desperate struggle for air, the body thumping to the floor, the cold, dark journey to the basement, Cynthia’s arrival at the morgue and…Kit…Kit! Kit was…

  Uttering an agonized moan, Duffy buried her face in her hands.

  Her friends moved closer. Amy hurriedly poured Duffy a glass of water, Smith took up a position as close to Duffy as he could get, while Dylan and Jane fixed worried eyes on the patient.

  Smith was the first to speak. He looked tired, his dark eyes shadowed by bluish circles. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said.

  Duffy lifted her head. “You know? You know about Kit? How did you find out?”

  “You told us. It was hard for you to say it, but you did.”

  Duffy’s gray eyes widened in fear. She reached out in sudden panic and clutched at Smith’s sweater sleeve. “Cynthia?” she asked.

  “It’s okay, Duffy,” Jane hastened to reassure her. “They took her away. She’s gone. You don’t have to worry about her.”

  Duffy exhaled in relief.

  “Your doctor was in,” Smith told her. “They’re going to do some tests this afternoon to make sure the digoxin didn’t do any permanent damage. He’s pretty sure it didn’t. He feels really awful about not believing you, Duffy. The whole staff does.”

  “It was your fever that fooled everyone,” Amy added quietly. “Nobody could be sure that you weren’t delirious.” She waved her hands helplessly. “We’re all really sorry we didn’t believe you. And,” in a hushed voice laden with shame, “I’m sorry I lost my temper. You must hate me.”

  “No.” Duffy shook her head. “It was all Cynthia’s fault.” Her eyes filled with fresh tears. “She killed Kit…” she stopped, unable to continue.

  “They found him early this morning,” Smith told her, his voice gentle as he took her hands in his and held them tightly.

  Duffy sobbed. A sad, sympathetic silence fell over the group.

  She wiped her eyes with a corner of the sheet and asked, “Who found me?”

  “We did,” Jane and Dylan said in unison. “And Smith. It was his idea to try the morgue.”

  “Dylan called me,” Jane explained. She smiled at him before returning her attention to Duffy. “He asked me about the lab test Dean had done on the pills.”

  Duffy fixed her eyes on Dylan. So he had taken her seriously, after all. But too late. He probably had meant well when he brought the nurse to her in the hall. But she would never feel the same about him again, and she could tell by the look in his eyes that he understood that.

  Jane didn’t need to know about that part of it. The way she was looking up at him, her eyes so full of admiration, she’d never blame Dylan, anyway.

  “I told Dylan,” Jane went on, “that it had all been a gag, but he wouldn’t drop it. So finally I told him what Dean had found out and Dylan screamed, ‘Duffy was right!’ and hung up. That’s when I knew it hadn’t been a joke, after all. And I knew you were in trouble, Duffy.” Her violet eyes reflected hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth? I could have helped.”

  “Then you would have been a target, too.” Duffy forced a weak smile.

  Jane’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Oh, Duffy,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  And Smith smiled and said, “I wouldn’t mind having you in my corner, Quinn.”

  Duffy turned to Jane. “You came to the hospital last night?”

  Jane nodded. “I really was feeling crummy…bad headache. But when Dylan hung up like that, I knew something was wrong. So I threw on some clothes and raced over here. When I got to the fourth floor, I found Dylan and Smith and Amy hunting all over for you.”

  “We could tell you’d been in a battle with someone,” Dylan said. “Your room was a mess. So we started searching. It was Smith’s idea to try the basement.”

  “We found you on the floor, crying for your friend,” Smith told Duffy. “You were really out of it, and at first, you couldn’t tell us what happened.”

  “But you finally did,” Amy said. “It was
all very disjointed and it took us a while, but we finally figured out that Cynthia was behind one of the doors.” Her face was very white. With gratitude in her voice, she added, “It was Smith who found her, and he wouldn’t let Jane and me see.”

  “She tried to kill me,” Duffy said. “Like she…like she killed Kit.” Kit…she would never see him again, never talk to him, could never visit him in California.

  “When I told you what Cynthia had done,” she asked slowly, thoughtfully, “why did you believe me? You could have thought I was the one who did the attacking, that I finally flipped out totally and went after her with the hypodermic needle. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because we know you’d never do that,” Jane said quickly. “And anyway, I knew about the digoxin. And we all knew Cynthia had access to your medication.”

  “We called the police,” Dylan added, “and they sent divers out to the quarry.” He hesitated, and his voice was low and reluctant as he added, “They found Kit right away. He was still in his car.”

  Duffy gasped in pain. She began crying again, quietly, unaware of the tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “I can’t believe he’s dead,” she whispered. “What am I going to do without him?”

  There was a sad, awkward silence, and then Dylan and Jane said, in one voice, “We’ll be here, Duffy.” And Amy added in her soft, sweet voice, “Me, too.”

  And Smith gripped Duffy’s hands more tightly in his own and fixed his dark eyes on hers and said solemnly, “I can’t take your friend’s place. I didn’t even know him. I wish I had. But maybe, after a while, I can make a place of my own.”

  Duffy was too tired to answer. But maybe, after a while, he could…

  Smith stood up. “This girl needs rest,” he said sternly. “I want this room emptied pronto.”

  Nodding obediently, Dylan and Jane and Amy turned to leave. Smith leaned down close to Duffy and said, “It’s okay now. You can sleep. You can start putting all of this nasty business behind you and close your eyes. It’s over. It’s really over.”