Page 31 of The Shadow Friends

Lloyd smiled modestly. “It’s the sort of thing I enjoy doing. We all have hobbies.”

“You know, other people collect stamps.”

“I collect data. It keeps me out of trouble.”

She looked at his half-empty martini glass. “I doubt it.”

“You can use this dossier as a sort of psychological autopsy. It might include a detail that you and Detective Alfond haven’t uncovered yet. Deal?”

How could she refuse? As she looked around at Ingrid and Ben and Lloyd, she still had the nagging suspicion that they were not being entirely forthcoming. That there were details they’d withheld. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t see any reason why you can’t have a photo of the stiletto. And the metal analysis, when it comes back.”

“Then the dossier is all yours,” said Lloyd, with a wink. “Now. Are you sure you won’t join us for a drink? Just a small one?”

Before Jo could answer, Declan came back out onto the patio. The look on his face cut off all conversation.

“That was Maggie on the phone,” he said. “Dr. Maslov just died.”

Chapter 13

Maggie

Wednesday

Dead woman walking. That’s what she felt like as she faced the two masked doctors who stood at the foot of her bed while a phlebotomist drew Maggie’s blood. In the past few days, a parade of medical specialists from Maine CDC had trooped through her room, and now this new pair of doctors had arrived from Atlanta. Neither one would touch her with their bare hands. Nor did they want her breathing on them, and they hid behind their plastic face shields and Tyvek suits as if they knew death was incubating somewhere in her body, like a monster waiting to spring out to attack them. They watched, expressionless, as a similarly garbed phlebotomist swabbed Maggie’s skin with alcohol and wrapped a tourniquet around her arm.

“And you have no discomfort at all?” the male doctor asked. His Tyvek suit covered his name tag, but he’d introduced himself as Dr. Dikeledi. An African surname. Through his face shield, she could see ebony-colored skin and extravagant lashes that any woman would envy.

“I feel perfectly fine,” Maggie said, and winced as the phlebotomist’s needle pierced her vein. “Except for all these blood draws. This is the third time today.”

“All done,” said the phlebotomist, removing the tourniquet with an elastic snap. She’d drawn four tubes of blood this time, each with a different-colored stopper, and she slipped them into a plastic bag emblazoned with the alarming red symbol for biohazard.

“We need the blood for a new round of tests,” the woman doctor said. “And we’ll need urine as well.”

“Again? It was normal the last time you checked.”

“This is for a different test. And now I have a question for you. I don’t know if anyone’s asked you this before, but when you were in Dr. Maslov’s room, did you happen to notice if there was any food there? A leftover meal tray, maybe. Or any indication that he’d had something to eat or drink in the room?”

“Do you think he had food poisoning?”

“We’re just trying to collect a more thorough history. After he was brought to the hospital, the linens and other items from his room were considered a biohazard, and everything was disposed of or incinerated. So we don’t know what was in the room at the time he fell ill. We’re hoping you can fill us in.”

Maggie tried to recall those frantic moments in Maslov’s hotel room. She remembered the stench of sickness and sweat, the rumpled bed, the open suitcase. She remembered yanking on a corner of the bedsheet to wipe the sweat and saliva from his face. “I’m sorry. I was so busy trying to resuscitate him, I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. But I don’t remember seeing any food.”

“Maybe just a coffee cup? Or a drink from the minibar? Any sign that he’d had anything to eat or drink?”

“I think there was a water glass on his nightstand, that’s all.”

“And did you drink any water in his room?”

Maggie gave a disbelieving laugh. “Of course not! I was too busy trying to keep him alive.”

The woman nodded. “We just had to ask. Now, if you have any symptoms at all, if you feel like anything’s not quite right, please let the nurses know immediately.”

Not quite right. What did that mean?

After the doctors left, Maggie paced the room, trying to decide if she really did feel perfectly fine. Was that a scratchy throat coming on, a headache beginning to throb? Did the lunch she’d eaten—a tuna sandwich and fruit—leave her just a tiny bit queasy? No, no, and no. She was fine. She wasn’t coming down with Ebola. Yet that possibility hung over her like a guillotine blade ready to drop on her neck. Mind over matter. She was not going to get sick. She refused to die while hooked up to machines, with a tube down her throat.