The Fever (10 page)

"Duffy ..." Amy's voice was weary. "There's no way your medication could have been mixed up with that digoxin."

"But you're not sure that it didn't get mixed up, are you?" Duffy pressed relentlessly. "And if it did, you don't know what it would do, do you?"

Amy shook her head. "No ... I haven't read as

much about medications as Cynthia and Dylan and Smith. You should ask one of them."

"I want you to have my medicine checked out. Make sure they're not giving me that missing heart stujff by mistake, okay? You can do that, can't you?" Duffy knew how neurotic she sounded, how paranoid. She couldn't help it. Amy had to realize how important this was.

The weariness in Amy's voice was replaced by annoyance. That surprised Duffy. She didn't know Amy ever got annoyed. "Dufiy, really, I wish you'd quit worrying. The nurses are very careful with medications. They don't screw up on something that important."

Duffy pounced. "They lost a whole bottle of medication, didn't they?"

Amy shrugged. "People lose things all the time. The bottle will turn up. It's not as if some nurse made a mistake and gave the digoxin to the wrong patient. It's just misplaced, that's all."

Duffy's voice rose as she fought panic. Amy had to listen to her. "You don't know the wrong patient isn't getting that missing medicine. I'm telling you I have all the symptoms the doctor was describing, and I want you to check my medication to make sure I'm not being given that digoxin stuff by mistake." Out of desperation, her voice hardened. "You wouldn't want my parents suing this hospital because you didn't do your duty, would you? The hospital board wouldn't like that at all. They'd blame you."

Amy's face crumpled in dismay and then, for the

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first time since Duffy had known her, she lost her temper. "You're being hateful, Duffy Quinn!" she whispered in a hushed, angry voice. "People are just so sick and tired of you making such a fuss all the time. Why can't you be like other patients and sleep? You'd get better faster. Then you could go home and we'd all be happy!"

Amy's voice rose as Duffy, her mouth open, stared in astonishment. "I am sick and tired of being nice to you when you don't care a thing about how Fm feeling! I don't know what Dylan sees in you, why he would dump me for you — " Her voice broke and, near tears, she turned on her heel and rushed out of the room.

Duffy's nausea returned, turning her stomach into a seesaw. Feeling sick and abandoned, she buried her head in her pillow, moaning.

If Amy — quiet, gentle Amy, who always listened and who always seemed interested — didn't believe her, no one would. No one.

She was alone.

Did Amy really think Dylan had "dumped" her for Duffy?

Oh, God, I am so sick, she cried silently, self-pity overcoming her and wiping out thoughts of Dylan and Amy. She was nauseated and headachey and dizzy. Terror suddenly struck Duffy like a sledgehammer . . . could she be dying? Was this what dying felt like? Was she right about someone deliberately giving her the digoxin, and now it was killing her?

If the digoxin had been in the capsules all along,

ever since Duffy started taking them, she'd had more than a dose or two.

How much of that stuff would it take to kill someone?

She wasn't taking any more of them. If no one would listen to her and have the medicine checked out, she wasn't going to let another capsule pass her lips. She didn't care how mad the nurses got. Let them kick her out of the hospital if they wanted to. It would probably be the best thing that could happen to her.

Duffy lay awake all night, fighting nausea and fever, huddled deep in her covers.

Several times, panic overtook her and her hands flew to the call button. Then, remembering with bitter disappointment Amy's disbelief, she let the call button drop into the sheet folds. What was the use?

They all thought she was hysterical... or crazy ... or delirious ... or all three.

It was hopeless.

She had to find a way to prove the digoxin was in her capsules. First thing in the morning . . .

But morning seemed very far away.

Chapter 14

Frightened by how sick she was feeling, Duffy appealed to her doctor the following morning.

She knew there was no point in sharing her suspicions with him. He wouldn't believe that someone had switched her antibiotic with the missing digoxin any more than Amy had. She would have to try a different tack.

"I think the new pills are making me sick," she said as he glanced at her chart. "I feel sicker than I did when I came in here. Maybe Vm allergic to them. You'd better give me something else."

Dr. Morgan tugged at his earring and frowned. "That's just the drug fighting your infection," he said brusquely. "There's a war being fought in your system and I guarantee the medication is winning. We're pretty sure you've got the flu. The blood tests rule out anything more serious. You'll feel like new in a day or two. Just hang in there, okay?"

And without waiting for an answer fi:x)m Duffy as to whether or not she was willing to "hang in there," he left.

"Those pills are making me sick!" she cried after him, but it was hopeless. He wasn't listening.

No one was listening. Where Duffy Quinn's fears were concerned, the whole world had gone stone-deaf.

The ceiling light blinked down at her coldly, its strange little halo reminding her that there was something very wrong with her "system" and it wasn't a war being waged by an antibiotic. There was no antibiotic in her system. She was convinced there was only digoxin.

A clattering sound out in the hallway preceded Smith's curly head appearing in the doorway.

Something about the sound made Duffy tilt her head and listen carefully. It was probably just one of hundreds of ordinary hospital noises, but . . .

"How's it going?" Smith inquired, leaning against the doorframe. "You recovered from the heebie-jeebies?"

"Go away," she said rudely. "I don't want to talk to people who think I'm crazy."

"Hey," he said, moving into the room, "I never said that. You're sick, that's all. You'd be surprised by some of the stories we hear from patients on heavy doses of medication. I know you think what happened was real, but — "

"It was real," Duffy said, but her voice lacked conviction. She had tried during the night, throughout the long, sleepless hours, to think of a reason why someone would want to harm her, and she'd failed.

That was the biggest stumbling block to believing

and accepting that someone was deliberately trying to hurt, even kill her. Didn't the police always look for a motive? Wasn't that the most important thing? The "why" of a crime? And there wasn't any "why" here.

So, unless there was a crazed psychotic killer in the hospital, one of those weirdos who didn't need a reason to commit murder, there shouldn't be anyone after her.

Maybe Smith and all the others were right. Maybe it was the fever.

She would try not to think about it. No point in making herself even crazier when no one was willing to listen. They'd whisk her off to a padded room if she wasn't careful.

But she was still going to find a way to check what was really in her capsules. She didn't know how yet, but —

"What was that noise out in the hall?" she asked Smith. "That rattling sound. What was it?"

"Oh, that. A gumey. One of its wheels is loose. Dylan was supposed to fix it, but..."

"A gumey? One of those rolling tables?"

Smith nodded. "Yeah. Taking it downstairs. To the morgue. Why?" He said **morgue" as easily as he might have said **mall."

Duffy shuddered. The morgue. Where they kept the patients who had... died. Had someone planned to send her there yesterday?

*Why?" Smith repeated. "Why do you want to know what the noise was?"

She shook her head. "Oh, it's just ..." Her voice drifted off. She was positive that the sound was identical to the last noise she'd heard that night.

Why would someone be moving a gumey out of her room? Why had it been there in the first place?

"It's just that I heard that sound the other night," she said thoughtfully. "In my room, I think ..."

His reaction was the same as Dylan's had been when Duffy recognized the soft slap-slap of rubber-soled shoes. "Yeah? Well, the hospital is full of them, Duffy. It would be weird if you hadn't heard that noise before."

*Tes, but. . ."Oh, what was the use? Trying to explain was a waste of time. "Forget it."

Had she learned anything new? Anything helpful?

The gumeys were used sometimes to take patients who had died down to the basement morgue.

Did that mean anything?

**What are you thinking about?" Smith asked, his eyes on her face.

"Nothing." Why had that gumey been in her room? If two people had been fooling around, as Jane suggested, they wouldn't have needed a gur-ney. They had the bed.

Could the rickety old gumey have been outside in the hall and not in her room at all?

Maybe. Sound carried better late at night when the hospital was quiet. Maybe the gumey had been out in the hall, passing by her room.

But it sounded closer than that. . .

// she*d heard it at all. How could she be sure?

She couldn't.

"YouVe got that look on your face," Smith said, snapping her back to attention. "You're thinking weird things again, I can tell."

"Did ... did anybody die a couple of nights ago? The night everyone tells me was just a bad dream?"

Smith sighed and shook his head. "No, Duffy, no one died. We had a couple of emergencies, just like we always do at night, but everyone pulled through just fine. If you did hear a gumey, it was probably bringing a post-op patient back up from surgery. Or maybe someone was just being moved to another floor."

No one had died that night.

Then she remembered something Amy had said, about someone dying recently. The man with the missing digoxin . . .

'What about Mr. Latham? Amy said he'd died. When was that?"

Smith tilted his head, thinking. "Old Man Latham? Pillar of the community, member of the hospital board . . . I'm not sure exactly when he died. Couple of days ago, I guess. Just before you got here. I wasn't on duty that night. Everyone was freaked out the next day, though. The old guy had donated mega-bucks to the hospital. Had a bad ticker, I heard."

Latham had died before Duffy was admitted. So his death couldn't possibly have anything to do with what was happening to her. Not that she had really thought it did. She hadn't even known the man.

After admonishing her to "get some sleep, you look awful, Duffy," Smith left.

When he had disappeared through the open door, a depressed Duffy rolled over on her side and stared out the window. As she turned, the sheets coiled around her legs, imprisoning her. Panicking momentarily, she began kicking out, desperate to be free of the scratchy cocoon.

**What on earth..." Cynthia cried as she entered the room and found Duffy wrestling with her bedding. "Duffy, what are you doingT Then she added more quietly to Jane, who was directly behind her, "Oh, Lord, she's lost it! I knew this was coming!" and ran over to grab Duffy's wrists.

"Leave me alone!" Duffy shouted, her face scarlet. "Fm just tangled, that's all." She yanked the last bit of sheet away from her bare legs. Glaring up at the blue-uniformed Cynthia, she asked caustically, "Did you really think I was losing it? Did my doctor warn you to watch out for weird behavior in room 417?"

When Cynthia's cheeks reddened, Duffy knew she'd hit a nerve. The doctor had warned them all to keep an eye on her.

"I brought you some magazines," Jane said cheerfully, in an effort to ease the awkwardness of the moment. "I hope you haven't read them." She was wearing lime-green pedal pushers and a hot-pink short-sleeved T-shirt with the slogan, GO

AHEAD MAKE MY DAY GIVE ME A CHOCOLATE CHIP

COOKIE slapped across it in blazing scarlet.

"Don't tell me, let me guess," Duffy said bitterly.

"You brought me the American Journal of Psychiatric Medicine and the latest copy of Guide to Mental Health Fcunlities^ right?"

A bewildered expression crossed Jane*s face. 'What? What are you talking about?" She plopped herself down at the foot of Duffy's bed.

"They all think I'm crazy here," Duffy said heatedly. Then she filled Jane in on the shower incident, leaving nothing out, ending with, "It happened, Jane. But no one believes me. They all think I was hallucinating."

She didn't add that there were moments when she agreed with them. Right now, talking about it, reliving it, she was convinced that every second of it had been real.

"Oh, Duffy, that's the worst thing I've ever heard!" Jane declared, her eyes wide with horror. "Didn't anyone call the police?" She swallowed a sob. "You could have been killedV

"No one called anyone. I told you, they all think I made it up."

"You wouldn't do that." Staunch loyalty filled Jane's voice. 'Why would you lie about something so horrible?"

"No one claims she's lying," Cynthia said. "It's just that everyone on the hospital staff knows what fevers can do, that's all. People see and hear all kinds of weird things when their temperature is sky-high."

Jane looked doubtful. Duffy could see that she didn't know what to believe. How could she blame

Jane for that? She didn't know what to believe herself.

'The shower room door was locked," Cynthia pointed out. "Duffy said so herself. And the extra key was at the nurses' station. So how could anyone have gotten into the room?"

Duffy thought about explaining her key theory and decided against it. Jane looked very upset and confused. What good would it do to keep harping on the same old thing when she couldn't prove anything?

"Never mind," she said despondently, "forget I said anything."

Discouraged, depressed, and exhausted from lack of sleep, Duffy was such poor company that Jane and Cynthia stayed only a few minutes. Jane, worry clouding her features, promised to come back later, which gave DufEy an idea, and Cynthia said she would stop in later before she left the hospital.

As they reached the hall, DufEy heard Jane say, "Cyn, Duffy doesn't invent things. I can't believe no one is taking her seriously." Then their voices faded and Duffy couldn't hear Cynthia's answer. She was sure it was a calm, sensible one.

But that didn't matter right now. Duffy had thought of a way she could learn something about what was in her capsules.

If Jane was willing to help.

Chapter 15

When Dylan stopped in to see how she was, Duffy fought off her nausea long enough to ask a question that had been tugging at her mind.

'Wouldn't the maintenance crew," she asked as he sat down on her bed, "have a key to the shower room? Besides the ones hanging at the nurses* station, I mean. If a pipe burst or the drain backed up and flooded the place, they'd have to get into that room in a hurry, wouldn't they?"

"Well, if no one was in there, the door wouldn't be locked. They wouldn't need a key to get in."

"Yes, but what if someone was in there when something broke?" she persisted. "And couldn't get to the door to open it. Like . . . like a heart patient who had an attack if ... if the lights went out. They'd need a key then, wouldn't they?"

"Not really. They'd use the key at the nurses' station. It's hanging in plain sight."

Disappointed with the clear logic of that, Duffy

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sighed. "I still think the maintenance crew should have their own key," she grumbled.

Dylan thought for a minute. "They probably did. But stuff gets lost around here every day. I know there's no shower room key hanging in the basement with the other keys."

But maybe there once had been. And maybe someone has swiped it. And maybe that someone still had that key. . . .

"I'm not so sure you imagined that attack," Dylan said slowly, thoughtfully, surprising her. "I know everyone thinks you were hallucinating, but. . ."

Duffy's eyes filled with tears. It was so wonderful to be believed. She reached out a hand. *Tou mean it?"

Dylan nodded. "Doesn't seem like you, that's all. I know fevers can do weird things, but it would have to be some fever to make Duffy Quinn see things that weren't happening. And I keep thinking, you were able to get up and walk all the way to the shower room, so how bad could your fever have been then? Doesn't seem like it could have been bad enough to make you think someone was trying to kill you."

"Oh, thanks, Dylan," Duffy murmured gratefully. "Thanks! It's so nice to have someone here who doesn't think I've gone off the deep end."

She felt hot again, burning up, ablaze. "Could you hand me a glass of water, please? I'm dying of thirst."

Dylan reached over and lifted the heavy metal carafe, pouring carefully. As he handed her the squat little glass, the sleeve on his green tunic slipped back half an inch, revealing a nasty, jagged scratch on his left wrist.

Duffy's heart stopped. She knew she had made a scratch on her attacker that day in the shower. But Dylan? Dylan?

Then she almost laughed aloud. She really was losing her mind. Dylan Rourke wouldn't hurt a fly.

Still, after taking a long sip of cool water, she couldn't resist commenting hghtly, "That's a wicked cut. What happened?"

Looking annoyed, Dylan shook the sleeve back into its proper place. "Nothing. It's just a scratch."

Unable to stop herself, Duffy pressed on. "From what?" Jokingly, she added, "You weren't trying to end it all, were you, Dylan? I thought I was the loony around here."

His expression of annoyance deepened. "If you must know, it happened when I grabbed your wheelchair. Remember? Just as you were about to go into the lake? Slanmied my arm against a rock when the chair dragged me."

Guilt flooded Duffy. He'd hurt himself saving her and here she'd been thinking . . .

Awash in shame, she cried, "Why didn't you tell me? No one said you'd been hurt! Honestly," she added in exasperation, "no one tells me anything around here. Did you have a doctor look at that?"

"No. I told you, it's just a scratch. And this is

exactly why I didn't tell you. I knew you'd make a big deal out of it." Then he grinned and took one of her hands in his. "It's nice to know you care about me, though. I wasn't sure. You're not the easiest person to read."

Funny ... no one else thought that. Everyone else in the hospital seemed to think they knew exactly what was going on in her head and why.

"Of course I care, Dylan," she said and was about to add, "we're friends," when Amy appeared in the doorway.

The expression on her round, pink face told Duffy that Amy had heard her comment about caring for Dylan. She looked stricken. Her eyes were wide and bright with unshed tears, her lower lip quivered, her fists were clenched at her waist.

Duffy thought unhappily, That is not the picture of a girl who cheerfully agreed to end her relationship with Dylan Rourke.

She yanked her hand out of Dylan's grip.

Without a word. Amy turned on her heel and left.

Duffy felt as if she'd just ripped the wings off a butterfly. Amy was clearly still in love with Dylan.

And Dylan was just as clearly interested in Duffy.

"I need to sleep," she told him, her voice curt because of her embarrassment for Amy. "Could you leave?"

It was Dylan's turn to look surprised. "Shouldn't we try to figure out who might have gone after you

in the shower? Maybe someone upstairs got loose." He gestured to the fifth floor where the psychiatric ward was. "And if he got loose once, he could again."

"Fm too tired to think about that now, Dylan. Besides," turning over on her side, **what*s the use? No one will listen, anyway."

He stood up then, laying one hand on the top of her head. "I think your temperature's up. And you*re right, you need your rest. But Fm going to think about this, Duffy. If the people in this hospital aren't safe, someone needs to know that. So stay right here in this bed, where you'll be safe, okay? And take your medicine."

She didn't tell him she'd decided not to swallow one more capsule. He'd argue with her, maybe even tell one of the doctors or nurses. He might not believe her digoxin theory.

When Dylan had gone, she waited for Jane, who had promised to return. Hadn't that been hours ago?

But it was Amy who appeared in the doorway, carrying Duffy's lunch tray.

They were awkward with each other. Each knew the other was embarrassed because of the earlier painful moment, and so both avoided mentioning it. Their speech was stiff and stilted.

"Here," Amy said, "I brought you a newspaper. There's an article on the track meet in there. I know you and Kit always went to all the meets. I thought you might be interested."

Kit had been a runner in high school, so Duffy

had become interested. And then, after attending several meets, she'd found that she really enjoyed it. After Kit graduated, they sometimes went to meets together.

Kit . . . how she missed him!

"Thanks. Thanks a lot. Amy. I ..." She would not mention Dylan. That would be like twisting a knife in Amy's back. "I think Til sleep now. Fm really tired."

Unsmiling, Amy moved forward to place the palm of one hand on Duffy's forehead. "You're really hot. Are you taking your pills?"

Duffy knew why everyone was asking her that. The hospital rumor mill had picked up on her suspicions about the capsules. They all figured she'd made up her own mind about the pills and wasn't taking them.

But they couldn't prove it.

"Yes," she said, "I am taking my pills." Which wasn't a lie . . . yet.

"See you later," Amy said curtly, obviously not forgiving Duffy for letting Dylan sit on her bed and hold her hand. "Take it easy." She turned on her heel and left, her back as stiff as a board.

And something caught Duffy's eye.

Amy usually wore white stockings to work. She said they made her feel "more professional," more "like a real nurse." But today, she was wearing sheer beige on her legs. And underneath the pale, nearly transparent fabric, Duffy could see, on the back of Amy's leg, an ugly dark red mark, etched

across the flesh like a streak of lightning.

"Amy," Duffy called impulsively, *Svhat happened to the back of your leg?"

Amy turned slightly. 'What? Oh, that ... cut myself shaving. Gross, right? Bled all over the place. See you." And she disappeared out the door and into the hall.

IVe cut my legs shaving thousands of times, Duffy told herself, but I don't remember ever bleeding "all over the place." And I certainly never made a nasty cut like that. What was Amy shaving with, a power saw?

Or... had someone else made that cut? Someone desperate, armed with a small pink razor, in the darkness of a puddled shower stall?

What was the matter with her? She really was paranoid. If, she thought with disgust, it was my little pink razor that carved that gash in Amy's leg, she wouldn't have been so casual when I asked her about it. And she wouldn't have worn see-through stockings to work today. Or she would have covered the cut with a bandage so I couldn't see it.

Unless . . . unless Amy was so sure of herself, so sure no one beheved Duffy's theory about someone being after her, that she felt she had absolutely nothing to hide.

Maybe she even wanted Duffy to know it was her. Maybe she was doing a Uttle knife-twisting herself, knowing that a weak, sick person whose sanity was in question would be helpless to stop her.

And Duffy realized with a terrible feeling of

dread that of all the people she knew Amy Severn was the only one with a motive to hurt her. Amy was still in love with Dylan. And Dylan was clearly interested in Duffy.

The p)olice always looked for a motive.

Duffy had just found one.

Chapter 16

Questions about Amy had to be put on hold as Duffy's parents arrived for a quick visit.

"I wish we could come more often," her mother said apKDlogetically. "I worry about you every minute. But it's tax time, honey, and you know what that's like,'' Duffy's parents were accountants, and she did know what tax time was like. She had picked a lousy time to get sick.

"Can't I please go home?" she begged. "FU get better faster there, I promise." They hadn't mentioned the shower attack, so she knew the staff had con\dnced them that it hadn't really taken place. Thej^d never bring it up, thinking it would upset her further.

"Oh, Dufh,', please don't start that again," her mother pleaded. 'Tou're much better off here. I just told you how busy we are. At least here, there's someone watching you every minute."

Well, not really. Where had all the nurses and doctors been the night she'd heard those sounds in her room?

"But I don't feel safe," she protested. 'This isn't a safe place to be . . ."

Her parents exchanged worried glances.

She read the gaze. They, too, were concerned that the fever was affecting her mental health.

It was hopeless. She spent the rest of their brief visit in sullen silence and tried not to feel guilty when they left looking uneasy and unhappy. They should have listened to her. . . .

When they had gone, her thoughts returned to Amy. She had thought of Amy as a nice, sweet person, and she was, most of the time. But Amy had a temper, DuSy knew that now.

How angry could Amy get?

And had she really cut herself shaving her legs?

Or was she so angry about Dylan's interest in Duffy that she was determined to obliterate the competition?

To escape the questions that had no answers, Duffy picked up the newspaper and began skimming through the track meet article on the sports page. The words had no meaning for her. The fact that Twelvetrees High School's varsity track team would be advancing to the state finals failed to touch her. It seemed unimportant. If Kit were still on the relay team, maybe she'd feel something, in spite of her nerves being strung as tightly as violin strings. But he wasn't.