by Tiana Cole
Within a few minutes I’d diagnosed the first two patients: they were homeless and had foot problems. One of them was presenting with early signs of diabetes so I sent him to the lab to get his blood sugar tested.
The next woman I saw was a young black woman, trim and fairly healthy-looking.
“Hi, there. I’m Derek Johnson. Can you tell me what’s going on with you?”
I glanced over the paperwork she’d filled out, however sparsely. No address, fake name. I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my forehead.
The woman gave a small groan. “I’m having some strange abdominal pains.”
Tossing the clipboard aside, I took a step towards the girl and pinched her chin in my hand. Her eyes sparkled. She was not homeless.
“You know, your skin is a strange color,” I commented. “Appears to be healthy, really, but it’s got a strange sheen. “ I laid my palm flat on her forehead. “Are you running a fever?”
She pushed my hand away. “I don’t think so, no. I’m just having some stomach pain.”
Her voice and mannerisms struck me as completely out of place for an indigent patient in need of medical care. Really, she was acting flaky.
“Okay, then. Lie down and let me take a look.”
After a small bit of hesitation, she scooted backwards on the exam table and reclined with her arms behind her head. I was momentarily swayed by a flash of attraction. Whatever she was, she was brimming with a striking self-confidence.
“Lift up your shirt, please?”
“What?” Her eyes flashed.
“Do you want me to check your abdomen? The first step is generally to palpate and see if there’s something lodged where there shouldn't be.”
She started to do as I asked; her long fingers toyed with the hem of her dark gray t-shirt. A smooth strip of dark brown skin gleamed beneath it, igniting that tiny flicker that I’d felt a moment before. My hand hovered over her flat abdomen, my fingers twitching. God, why couldn't I just be a damn doctor?
Just as my finger was about to press into her skin, she wiggled away. “Okay, stop. Stop. I can’t do this.”
Strangely enough, I was swamped with relief. She scooted away from my hand and sat up on the table. “I’m sorry, Dr. Johnson. But I haven’t been honest with you.”
I was momentarily bound up in a confusion of relief and anger, which quickly gave way to curiosity. “I kind of thought that, Miss Doe.”
Long eyelashes fanned against her high cheekbones as she cast a glance at the ground. “My name is Denise Willard. I write for the Trib.”
The name struck a chord in my brain, buried beneath the mounds of urgency and research notes. “Wait… did you call me this morning?”
“I did. I want to interview you about your research. Are you trying to cure cancer? Aids? Ebola? Can I at least interview you and ask you about it?”
Involuntarily, my feet stumbled backwards a few steps. “I don’t know. What I do is my own. It’s… it’s not for everyone to read about and dig around in.”
With one lithe movement she pushed herself from the table and threw her hands in the air. “Why? Don’t you think families of cancer victims want to know if you've made any advances? Or those of Aids? Whole countries infected with HIV—don’t you think it’s important to them? Forget the newspaper, forget journalism, what about the victims?”
I’d had this argument with myself, and I always won it. Despite the thousands of families that have lost people to cancer, I held my research close to my chest.
Long seconds passed. Denise Willard stared at me with her disarming hazel eyes and her beautiful face. I stared out the window and thought about her words. Why would they be so convincing now, after I’d been steadily pushing away questions and people for five years?
“Just tell me a bit about what you’re doing, Dr. Johnson. That’s all I ask.”
Getting her out of the small, stuffy exam room was the most important thing. I could decide what to tell her later.
“Okay, fine.” I fished a business card out of my pocket. “Let’s meet here tomorrow when I finish my round of patients. 5:00 pm? 5:30?”
A smile broke out onto her face, and it was a thing of wonder. God, I had to plan my words very carefully around her or I’d tell her anything she wanted to know.
“Great, then. Tomorrow it is. Thank you, Doctor. I’m so grateful to you.” She extended her hand, and I shook it, squeezing her fingers lightly. “I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
She was gone; out the door, leaving behind her a trail of perfume and the rubble of my damaged self-possession.
I pulled out my phone and texted the number that would reach Logan; his name wasn't programmed in, just the number.
If the cells are stable, move them to the incubator.
Chapter 3
Denise
When I returned to the office I was flying high. Not only had I met the good doctor, I’d convinced him through my skillful playing of the emotional trump card to allow me to see him in his personal office. I had many hours of research to do before our interview.
At the office, Skip was thrilled that I’d nailed an interview with Dr. Johnson. “Tell me everything, kid,” he said, his eyes wide with anticipation. Quickly, I sketched out our meeting for my greedy editor.
“I think he’s hiding something for sure. When I pressed him he got really evasive; it took all of my skills to break him. I’m still not sure that he’ll tell me anything.”
Skip leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together. “Hmm… what’s he like? What does your gut tell you about him?”
I recalled my first impressions of Derek Johnson. “He doesn't seem very exciting, to be honest. There’s not a lot there. He’s focused and intelligent but doesn't strike me as sinister. But you know, he could be faking it. Some of the most famous sociopaths in history have been charmers, you know.”
“A sociopath? I love it!” Skip chortled, a little too gleeful for my taste. “Where are you meeting him?”
With a flick of my wrist the business card skittered across Skip’s desk. He tapped the address into the online map and grinned. “Doll… do you know where his office is?”
“I assumed at some office park or hospital.”
“Yeah, but the same hospital, same floor, same office, where the midnight deliveries are arriving. Same place, Denise. Johnson’s probably got all kinds of illegal crap stored up there. You’ve got to poke around, sweetheart. Use all of the skills God gave you.” Skip’s eagle eyes raked over me from my head to my feet. “All of them, you hear?”
I had twenty-four hours ahead of me during which to prepare a list of hard-hitting questions and find a way inside that lab. When I returned to my office I texted Lucky:
You free for some recon work?
Can I dress in black and use my high-focus lens?
I'll dress in black and use the lens. I need you to go into the building.
***
Lucky and I met a few blocks from the hospital that night. It was past ten o’clock and the hospital was mostly shut down. At the very least, the regular office personnel were gone and the building was mostly quiet. From the street we stared up at the top floor of the building.
“I think I need to get across the alley, there.” I pointed to a fire escape that looked like it directly faced Derek’s office. Lucky and I didn't have blueprints, so we had to guess.
“Well, I’m going to casually walk up there and take a look around. Watch for my signal.”
Lucky disappeared into the hospital while I took a casual walk around the block. It was difficult to be too terribly casual since it was Chicago at night and a lone woman always had to be on her guard. I was dressed to escape notice, though; baggy clothes in dark colors and a ragged baseball cap would hopefully hide the parts of me that I didn't want seen that night.
I gave the kid about ten minutes and circled the building again. From the sidewalk, eight floors up, I caught sight of his skinny
, slumped form ambling down the hallway. He stopped in front of the window that faced me and gave me a nod in the direction of the alley.
With quick feet I crossed the avenue to the alley and clambered up the fire escape. “I’m like a CIA master,” I muttered to myself as I anchored my legs through the iron grates of the platform. The chance of Lucky getting into Derek’s lab at this time of night was slim, but maybe he could at direct my high-focus lens on which window to watch.
My phone buzzed with Lucky’s update:
Good doctor’s office is locked, but the light’s on inside.
Electronic lock or old-fashioned key?
Numbered keypad.
Well, dammit, doctor. How could I break into your lab with a numbered keypad?
I texted Lucky back:
On the fire escape with your close-focus lens. Which windows am I looking for?
I counted twelve windows on the side of the building that faced me. Derek’s lab made up some amount of them, but I didn't know which ones. All were lit in various stages, but some were shaded.
Lucky responded:
Count six windows from the south, and his office should take up the next three. Four office suites make three windows each.
The spy stuff was a complicated business. The windows Lucky pointed out where not shaded. I did as Lucky asked, brought the lens to my eyes, and zoomed.
Its effect was instant and perfect. I could see directly into what I hoped was Derek’s lab. Slowly I rotated the lens so that the view was clear, and hinged slightly to the left and right. Derek was nowhere to be seen; I did see varied lab equipment, including a long metal table lit from the bottom. Everything was chrome and glass and clean with few labels.
A person walked across my view; not Derek. It was a young kid, Lucky’s age, dressed in a white lab coat. He had a tray in his hands, but he moved too quickly for me to see what he was carrying. Whatever it was, I was certain it was important. I sat as still as possible and waited for the assistant to cross my view again. While I was waiting I scanned the very few drawers and doors that were actually labeled—there were about two dozen, all dated over the past handful of years with the word ‘samples’ written beneath the date.
Samples of what?
A white lab coat flashed in front of my lens again, an empty tray swinging at his hip. What was on his tray? Where did he put it?
My phone buzzed. Lucky again:
Security guard following me. I’m coming back down. Meet you out front.
***
When Lucky and I reunited on the street I told him, “That wasn't nearly adventurous enough for me.”
He snorted and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Should I arrange for some goons to tail you next time? Do you think your creepy doctor has some hired thugs?”
Together we walked towards the El station, our work finished for the night. “I’m about to find out.”
What I did find out, later that night when I should have been sleeping, was that Dr. Derek Johnson had lots of money. Lots. Enough to buy things on the black market if he needed them for whatever experiment he was working on. When I dug a little bit deeper I found that his parents, both doctors, both dead, were involved in some radical political groups—just a step below the kind that used suicide bombers, really. The kind that didn't mind sacrificing a few lives for the so-called greater good.
Out of the millions of shady things he could be doing in that lab, I wondered if Skip’s idea about lab-engineered viruses wasn't too far off. Could Derek Johnson have inherited his family’s radical political views to the point that he’d create biological warfare in his own private lab?
Even more reason for me to get into that lab when I saw him the next day.
Derek
For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night. I mean, I went to sleep in the middle of the night, but I woke up after only sleeping a few hours. Rubbing my hand over my head I sat up, anticipating the regular burst of pain across my upper back.
Ah, yes. Going to sleep in the lab again. Pathetic as always.
After meeting the journalist, however, I had to be sure that the samples were safely stowed away, hopefully blissfully mutating, before she came poking around the next day. I rose from the lab stool and ambled into the front office, the one the public saw. It was scrubbed white, boring, absent of a trace of identifying detail. In truth, it looked barely used.
In truth, it was barely used.
The door between the office and the lab stayed closed and locked all the time. Nobody entered the lab except for Logan and me. I even had a special dispensation from the Chief of Medicine that banned the janitors from entering my lair.
A long couch, soft and boring tan, beckoned from the office. Last I’d checked, the cells were still full and robust. None had ruptured yet in the testing process. I could sleep.
After locking the door to the lab behind me, I stretched out on the plush fabric and passed back into slumber. Somewhere, hovering between wake and sleep, Marie paid me a visit, ethereal, white, and very dead. She was visiting my dreams, reminding me.
“I know,” I mumbled before I passed into REM, hopefully until the sun rose.
Chapter 4
Denise
There’s what to wear on a date, and then there’s what to wear when trying to fluster a tight-lipped doctor who was obviously attracted to you and didn't know how to handle himself. Skip had already called me twice, dispensing advice on what to wear as if we were best gal pals. The last time I’d told him not to call me again; I wouldn't answer if he did. This was my job and mine alone.
Was it undercover work? I wondered this as I flipped through dresses, dismissing some as too revealing (couldn't appear as if I was trying too hard) and some as too matronly (I had assets and planned to use them). If I was constructing a resume I would certainly term this job as undercover. I was going as myself, surely, but my motives were hidden. That had to count for something.
I had to remind myself that Derek wasn't taking me to dinner. We were meeting in his office like an actual interview. Shaking the cobwebs from my head, I pulled out a basic gray suit with a skirt, and at the last minute I decided to spice it up with a silky, coral-colored shell. If I managed to overheat myself I could take my jacket off. Legs… check. Arms… check. Derek was a man. He’d be flustered, hopefully enough to open up the labs and let me take a look.
Because it was on the warm side and I was working, I opted for a taxi instead of the train and decided to expense it just to draw Skip’s ire. He would want me to arrive fresh and pretty rather than wilted, I was sure. In the lobby of the hospital I flashed my press badge to the reception desk and sauntered onto the elevator like I knew exactly where I was going. And I did—the 8th floor.
The 8th floor was dead silent. Lucky had told me as much, but I could see when the elevator doors opened that there was no buzz of activity here.
Derek
I made it back to my office about thirty minutes before Denise Willard showed up. Five minutes was long enough to do a quick check of my lab—the samples were still intact—and lock the connecting door before settling in my office. One minute later I had affected the look of a busy and important doctor. A stack of mostly empty file folders sat on my desk along with a few medical journals.
After that, I opened my computer and did a thorough job of checking up on Denise Willard. Google gave me lots to go on. She was indeed a journalist for the Chicago Tribune; her name brought up a long record of local government stories. And not only stories; Denise was apparently responsible for the arrest of about a dozen corrupt government officials. A bloodhound in the truest sense of the word. Why was she interested in me? I was obviously a little bit on the obtuse side, but I couldn't fathom why a journalist from the Trib—one who specifically went after government corruption—would have even noticed me, much less formed some sort of interest in my work.
What was Denise Willard up to?
Just past 5:30, she knocked on my door.
> “Come in.”
Denise entered my office, again bringing with her a peculiarly appealing scent and the absolute ability to knock my self-possession. She was dressed very professionally and wore a serious expression, as if she was ready to get down to business. A gray canvas messenger bag hung from her shoulder, and she held a plain notebook in her hand. Just like a real journalist from the movies, I noted.
“Dr. Johnson, hello.”
She extended her hand again and I shook it. “Call me Derek, Mrs. Willard.”
Her hazel eyes sparkled as she tossed me a small smile. “Okay, then. Call me Denise. And I’m a Miss.”
Our handshake was still intact. With a sigh I dropped her hand. “Have a seat, please.”
An empty chair sat opposite my desk, and she took it. Her gray skirt rode up her thigh just enough; I forced my eyes away. After a minute of her arranging her things—she had to set her messenger bag down, take out her phone and her pen, and open her steno notebook—it appeared that we were ready.
I spread my hands. “So, Miss Willard. How can I help you?”
Denise shrugged. She was wearing a coral-colored shirt under her gray suit jacket, and the color set off her skin tone beautifully. “My paper reports so much on negativity, Derek. We do a lot of crime. A lot of crime. Not just rapes and murders, either—we have tons of white collar crime here in Chicago. And politics, God! Don’t get me started on politics. So much trash to sift through to find something worth writing. I guess what I’m saying is, I’d love to do a story on something thoughtful. Good. Worthwhile. Something that, after seeing it, our readers will feel some hope in this world. I suspect that you’re doing something in your lab that’s good and useful. Something on a humanitarian level. I want you to let me talk about it.”
Per my Google research, I was fairly certain that Denise thought the exact opposite of me and my work.
Gesturing to the stacks of research journals on my desk I told her, “Well, I don’t have much of interest to share with you. I see patients in my office down on the 4th floor twice a week. Twice a week I work at the low-income clinic where I saw you yesterday. In my off time I work at my lab. I’m…” I paused, and I immediately knew I shouldn't have. “I‘m researching several different diseases right now. TB is one—it’s made huge strides in Africa and we can’t figure out why. Even the vaccination seems to have a poor impact. The bacterium is obviously different over there and we’re trying to pinpoint that.”