Over the Edge (4 page)

Lauren chattered. Now and then I interjected a comment. But my mind couldn't seem to stay focused. I drove hunched toward the wheel, hyper-aware that I needed to listen and drive at the same time. Such a hard task. And I had to breathe. That was so
tiring
—

"Where are you going?" My daughter's sudden question stabbed my attention.

"Huh?"

"Where are we going?" Lauren pointed left. "Home's that way."

I blinked. I was driving up El Camino . . . Oh. I should have turned left at that last stoplight. Was that correct? For a pulsing moment I couldn't remember.

I tried to laugh. It came out flat. "Guess I just wasn't paying attention." I could feel Lauren's hazel eyes on me, assessing.

How to get back in the right direction? Panic rocked me. I had no idea. I didn't know what I was doing. Heat flicked along my nerves. I took the next right turn onto a smaller road and pulled over to the side.

"Mom, what's wrong with you?" Lauren's voice tinged with fear. Nine-year-old girls were so dependent on their mothers. I leaned back in my seat and took a deep breath.

"Sorry, honey. I'm feeling a little sick. I think it's the flu. Just let me rest for a minute."

I drew in two more long breaths, then plastered a smile on my face. "Okay. Let's turn around." I pulled a U-turn and waited at the stoplight to go left on El Camino. My thoughts had cleared. I knew the way home.

"Sheesh, Mom. You should go home and lie down."

"I thought maybe we'd bake some cookies."

"I don't think so. You're likely to put in a cup of salt instead of sugar."

That was my little comic, but today the words hit too close to home. "I was late coming to school. I wanted to make it up to you."

"Like I said, I didn't care. You don't have to worry so much about me."

I nodded. The complexities of young girls. One minute needy, the next determined to be independent. "Okay."

I managed to get home without another wrong turn.
It's the flu, it's the flu,
chanted through my head. That's all this was. A day or two and I'd be over it. As for the phone call—merely some crackpot.

But how did he know I was sick?

Coincidence. Nothing more.

Lauren bounded into the house, lugging her backpack. She'd head to the refrigerator for something to eat, then settle at the table to do her homework. Those were the rules. No TV and no phone until the homework was done.

I dragged myself into the house, fixated on preparing the roast. Then I'd lie down for awhile. Lauren was already spooning strawberry yogurt into her mouth as she headed toward the kitchen table.

Not until I was taking vegetables out of the refrigerator did the thought hit me:
cell phone.
The man's incoming ID had read
private caller.
Was there any way to trace that number?

I laid the vegetables on the counter and reached for chopping board and knife. From behind me came the sound of Lauren's chair sliding over the hardwood floor. "You have much homework?" I cut into the first potato.

"I always have too much homework."

How Lauren managed to make
A
s and
B
s, I didn't know. The girl's attitude toward school work was laissez-faire at best. She always hurried through assignments, which is why I checked her work every day before releasing her to play.

I cut into the second potato. My hands hurt to hold the knife. And my thoughts swung this way and that. I'd just been thinking something important. What was it?

Tracing the call.

Wait. Why should I need to trace that number? It had been a prank. I'd probably never hear from that man again.

But he'd said my name. He'd mentioned
Lauren's
name. Fresh fear spiraled through me. Not Lauren's name, no. My brain had been fuzzy. Maybe I'd heard wrong. I would never let anyone hurt my daughter.

I'd never seen a tick on my body. Hadn't Brock and I just talked about that yesterday?

The realization flushed me with relief. I dropped the knife with a clatter.

"You okay, Mom?"

I stared at the blue-gray granite. Its swirls reminded me of my own brain waves at the moment. Random. Unpredictable.

"Yes. I just . . . dropped something."

I picked up the knife and resumed cutting. My thoughts wove and dipped as I prepared the vegetables by rote and placed them in a large pan with the meat. The man's hate-filled tone still pulsed within me. I couldn't deny the existence of evil, nor how close it ran with selfishness. I'd grown up with both. But the caller's words were just too off the wall.

As I slid the roast into my oven, the phone rang.

I jumped.

Lauren thrust her chair back from the table. "I'll get it."

"No!" I banged the oven door shut and whirled around.

My daughter looked at me, round-eyed. "Okay, Mom. You don't have to yell." Pouty-faced, she returned to the table.

The man's words drilled my memory:
"That's for another conversation."
I eyed the phone. It rang again.

I crossed the kitchen as fast as my weak legs would take me. I told myself it was just one of Lauren's friends. Maybe one of my own. Or some pesky 800 number salesman. Heart pounding, I bent down to peer at the ID on the receiver.

Private caller.

Chapter 4

ONE HAND GRIPPING THE COUNTER, I STARED AT THE RECEIVER. The phone rang a third time.

Lauren heaved a sigh. "Mom, answer it!"

My hand seemed to float as it reached for the receiver. I faced away from Lauren. For a long second I couldn't find any words to speak.

"Hello?"

"So we meet again." The man's voice ran rough and vibrating.

Turning, I glanced at Lauren. "Just a minute," I whispered into the phone. I made my way out of the kitchen, through the hall and into the front bathroom. Shut the door. I sank onto the closed toilet seat. "Who
are
you? What do you want?"

"How are you feeling?"

"
What
do you want from me?"

"Actually I know how you're feeling. I've seen it up close and personal. Too personal."

"You told me I have Lyme. That you made me have it."

"You do, and I did."

"That's crazy."

"Let me tell you
crazy,
Janessa. Crazy is doctors and researchers denying that a disease exists when patients are suffering right in front of their noses. Crazy is people's lives being reduced to moving from bed to couch, or even dying, because those doctors love their medical reputations and grant money more than they care about others' pain."

I bent over and pressed a hand to my forehead. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. You know what your husband does. His specialty."

Of course I knew. Brock was a researcher and professor at the prestigious Stanford School of Medicine. He'd spent years studying tick-borne diseases, particularly Lyme.

"You know the committee your husband chairs? The one whose members will be publishing their irrefutable findings"—the words were sneered—"to the entire medical community this coming fall?"

The committee. Brock was its chairperson and most outspoken member. He'd personally appointed most of the other doctors. But what—

"Jan
es
sa!"

I started. "I-I'm here."

"You know what those findings are going to say?"

I didn't respond.

"What they've always said—lies. That chronic Lyme doesn't exist as an active infection. That a mere four weeks of antibiotics at most kills every spirochete. All those suffering patients out there claiming they've had the disease for years—long after antibiotic treatment—and the doctors who deign to listen to them, are wrong. Either that or just plain crazy in the head."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"You live with the main culprit."

"But . . . the committee's findings are based on scientific studies. They are what they are."

The man laughed deep in his throat. The chilling sound sent a fissure up my spine. "But they're not, you see. Your husband and his cohorts find what they want to find. They enter their research with their minds already made up. They quash dissenting opinions."

"Why would they do that?"

"Tell me something, Mrs. McNeil. What would happen to your husband's scholarly reputation if his life's research was proven
wrong?
"

My mouth opened but no answer came.

"And doesn't he hold patents having to do with Lyme? Maybe he'll come up with a new vaccine some day. That could make him millions of dollars."

"He's—"

"Do you know that selling a Lyme vaccine depends on a narrow definition of the disease?"

"I . . . no." What was he talking about—narrow definition? My head swam.

"And hasn't your dear husband testified on behalf of insurance companies at numerous trials? Trials in which other doctors have been sued for
over-treating
patients who
claim
to have Lyme? I believe he's been paid for his hard work on the stand, correct?"

My breath came in shallow pants. My limbs hurt, my neck ached, and my elbow throbbed from bending to hold the phone. My wavering brain could barely follow this conversation. Why was I even bothering to listen to this?

"Still with me, Janessa?"

I swallowed. "Yes."

"Your husband is the same as the rest of his cronies on that committee. He has a reputation to keep, not to mention the money at stake. Of course their 'findings' support what they've always claimed."

This was too much. This man was accusing the man I loved of being some kind of shyster. Brock's reputation was stellar. He was known across the country for his work in medicine. "You're saying my husband is nothing but a fake?"

"I'm saying he sees what he wants to see. And meanwhile, Janessa, people are
dying.
Brock McNeil has blood on his hands."

"You're insane."

"Really?" Anger trembled in the man's voice. "Perhaps you don't understand how powerful that committee is. Its written report will be touted to all doctors across the country. Physicians everywhere will be told—again—that chronic Lyme exists only in the imagination of self-proclaimed patients and their doctors." The man's tirade grew louder, more virulent. "Those doctors who treat such patients with long-term antibiotics can be brought before their medical boards, have their licenses pulled. All other docs will be afraid to treat Lyme at all, or will only treat it for the mere number of days that the report recommends. And those doctors will continue to be told Lyme probably doesn't even exist in their area. Patients, very sick patients, will come to them and get no help. They'll go undiagnosed for years. Every day they'll feel like you're feeling right now. Only over time they'll get far worse. They'll lose their friends, life as they knew it. And no one will listen to them. And doctors like your husband will tell them it's all in their head!"

I sagged to my left until my shoulder rested against the wall. I so needed to lie down. This man was crazy, yet his diatribe simmered through me. There were people who felt like I did right now—and worse—for
years?
How could they live like that? How could they cope? After a few more days of this . . . whatever it was I expected to be back to normal. I couldn't imagine feeling like this for months. My body already felt like half its strength had wasted away.

"Please." I took a deep breath. My lungs couldn't get enough oxygen. "What do you want?"

"I want you to change your husband's mind."

I blinked.

"I infected you months ago. The spirochetes have had time to multiply and burrow deep into your body tissue. So now I want you to show him how real chronic Lyme is. Shouldn't be too hard once he sees it raging in his beloved wife's body. The problem with doctors like your husband is they're sheltered in their laboratories. They need to get down in the trenches with patients, see what the disease is like up close and personal. You're Exhibit A, Janessa."

He'd done this to
me
because of my husband's research?

"You must convince your husband to relook at his experiments, find his false presumptions." Passion throbbed in the man's words. "I want a very public announcement from Dr. Brock McNeil, stating he is utterly convinced chronic Lyme does exist as an active infection. That the medical community and insurance companies must change their narrow-minded, backward ways of dealing with the disease."

Sure, no problem.
I would have laughed had I possessed the energy. No one convinced Brock of anything. Not at work, not at home. Brock McNeil was always right.

"Janessa, do you hear me?"

"I . . . yes."

"You will do this."

"What if I can't?"

"Of course you can. Your husband will want you well. He loves you, doesn't he?"

Did
he anymore? I thought of all the late-night meetings in the past few months. Brock's growing coldness.

"How do I get well?" I whispered.

"Once you're finally diagnosed? Which will take some time, since your husband will fight you on that, too. With long-term, high dosage antibiotic treatment. The very treatment doctors like your husband sneer at, and insurance companies love refusing to pay for."

What did he mean—once I was "finally" diagnosed? "How long will it take to get better?"

"Depends on when you start treatment. Months. A year, maybe more. And you'll get a lot worse before you get better."

A year?
And
worse?

"You see, Janessa"—he spoke as if savoring every word—"you have no easy case."

"What?"

"The ticks that bit you carried spirochetes that cause Lyme—
and
three coinfections."

I raised myself upright, my tone hardening. "You're nothing but a liar. None of this is true. I have the flu. I'll get better soon."

"Your kitchen counters are granite, aren't they, Janessa? Sort of a bluish gray. At least that's the best I could make them out in the dark."

I went absolutely still.

"Your daughter, Lauren, sleeps with the door open. Her bedroom is the second on the left at the top of the stairs. Lovely canopied bed. Large stuffed lion in the corner. Very cute."