“And that makes you dead,” Will finished with a grim smile. “See? I’m learning.”
“I don’t know how useful that is, though,” Lauryn admitted. “You said the victims died of heart attacks, not hypoxia.” At his blank stare, she translated. “Lack of oxygen in the blood. Also, too much sulfur wouldn’t explain the hallucinations or psychosis.”
“Good to know you’re just as stumped as we are,” Will said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Personally, I don’t care what the chemical compound is. I just want to find whoever’s pushing this crap and bag ’em. Street drugs are poison, but something that turns normally docile addicts into monsters? That’s a nuke, and we need to stop it yesterday.”
“No argument here,” Lauryn said. “But I still don’t get the sulfur thing. It just doesn’t make sense.” It might explain how the green stuff had burned her fingers, since sulfur was mildly corrosive, but no amount of sulfur exposure could possibly cause the other symptoms. Even if it was just being used as a chemical base for something nastier, any dangerous compounds would have shown up in the lab report way ahead of sulfur. She was still thinking it over when yet another knock sounded on her door. This time, though, it was the one she wanted.
Lauryn’s face lit up like Christmas when the girl from the lab stuck her head in. “Dr. Jefferson? I have your reports.” She stopped there, casting a wary look at Will, who was obviously a police officer despite his street clothes. Even if he hadn’t left his badge lying on the bed, everything about his posture and bearing screamed “cop”—and anyone who’d been in a hospital long enough could play “cop or fireman” with 90 percent accuracy. “Is this a bad time?”
“For blood work?” Lauryn flashed her a grin. “Never.”
She reached out with both hands for the thin manila envelope. But rumors about Lauryn’s drug exposure must have been reaching critical mass, because the tech handed it over with only her fingertips, keeping maximum distance like she was giving food to a leper. That was going to be annoying to deal with later, but for now, Lauryn was too busy ripping open her results to care.
As the priority case, Lenny’s report was on top. At first glance, it looked like every other set of tests Lauryn had ever ordered run on him. He had all basic vitamin deficiencies you’d expect from someone who didn’t have access to regular meals or shelter, though no hepatitis or HIV, which was a miracle considering how long he’d been on the streets. But despite the thorough report she’d ordered, the section Lauryn was really interested in, the toxicology report, was infuriatingly blank save for a one-word note at the very bottom.
Sulfhemoglobinemia.
“That’s the same thing the others had,” Will said, reading over her shoulder. “Anything else?”
“Nothing,” Lauryn said, flipping the printout over just to be sure she hadn’t missed a page. “I told you, he’s clean.” And while she was very happy to be right about that, it made no sense. It was like the more information she got, the more infuriating the puzzle became. For example, the last report she’d had from Lenny’s nurse said that he was still hallucinating, claiming to see all kinds of horrors. For a patient with zero history of hallucinatory psychosis, drugs were the most likely culprit. Even if it wasn’t a street drug, the toxicology report should still have found something.
Frustrated, she moved on to the second report in the folder, the one with her name printed at the top. Here again, however, there were no surprises. She was slightly anemic with terrible vitamin D from never getting outside in the sunshine, but no trace of anything that could possibly account for what she was almost positive was her hallucinatory episode under the bridge. Frustration levels moving up a notch, Lauryn skipped to the end to check her sulfur levels. She already knew what it would say, but still she wanted to confirm the proof with her own eyes, which only made the whole thing even more frustrating when she opened the second page only to find it was blank.
Staring at the empty sheet, Lauryn’s first thought was that someone must have fucked up. When she checked again, though, all the toxicology tests she’d ordered were there. They’d just managed to fit the results on one page because there was nothing to report. Everything, including Lauryn’s sulfur, was perfectly normal.
And she had no idea what to make of that.
“Do you need a ride home?”
Lauryn looked up from her paperwork to see Will standing over her. “I need to get back to the station, but I can drop you off at your apartment on the way.” He smiled. “It’ll be like old times.”
Him driving her home from the hospital before heading back to work would, in fact, be exactly like old times, and that was precisely why Lauryn didn’t want to go.
After her clean report, there’d been no more need to keep her under observation, so Lauryn had abused her status as a doctor and written her own discharge. She’d already changed back into her normal clothes and checked out of her room. The paperwork was the last step, but the whole process was still taking longer than she liked. It was now nearly one in the morning, and even though she’d just have to come right back in five hours for her 6 am shift, all Lauryn wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. She was trying to decide if she wanted that badly enough to risk being alone in a car with her ex when her phone began to ring with a jangling tone she hadn’t heard in a long, long time.
“What the—”
Lauryn dropped her pen and dug out her cell phone, eyes going wide when she saw her father’s name on the screen. She hadn’t talked to her dad since Easter, when he’d called to guilt her for skipping church. Unless there was a holy day in November she’d forgotten about, there was only one reason he’d be calling now. But while her dad was the absolute last person Lauryn wanted to talk to after the night she’d had, ignoring him wasn’t an option. On the rare occasions Pastor Maxwell Jefferson remembered he had actual, physical children in addition to the spiritual sons and daughters in his congregation, he tended to go overboard. If Lauryn didn’t answer, he’d just keep calling until he got fed up enough to come find her in person.
That would lose her even more sleep, so Lauryn gave in, hitting the button to accept the call. Before she could say anything—or even get the speaker to her ear—her father’s voice boomed out loudly enough to make everyone in the hallway turn and look.
“Why didn’t you call?”
Lauryn sighed bitterly. That was her dad. No “hello” or “how are you doing?” or “oh my God, I heard you got attacked, are you okay?” Just accusations for not living up to how he thought she should have acted. Like always.
“Lauryn!” Maxwell barked.
“Sorry,” she muttered, rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m fine. It was nothing serious.”
“Then why were you in the hospital?” His voice grew suspicious. “I heard you were on drugs.”
“Who told you that?”
“Solange Peterson from the prayer circle works at the front desk,” he reminded her. “She called to let me know the moment she heard.”
Lauryn rolled her eyes to the ceiling. She’d forgotten all about Miss Solange, which was very stupid of her. When hospital gossip collided with church gossip, nothing was safe. “Well, she was mistaken,” she said stiffly. “I was attacked and put at risk, but I didn’t actually get exposed to anything.” At least, not according to her toxicology. “I’m fine. I just want to go home and get some sleep.”