Germ

He stepped into the kitchen to turn off the light over the stove and remembered again the turkey dinner he'd left in the microwave. He pulled it out, peeled back the cellophane, and held up two pieces of meat with his thumb and index finger. He lowered them into his mouth and switched off the light with his other hand. In the master bedroom, he turned on the bedside lamp, stripped off his clothes, and pushed them into a chute. He heard them fall softly into a basket in the basement laundry room, where Maria, his part-time housekeeper, would wash and press them.

He walked naked into the bathroom and up to a panel set into the tile near the doorless shower stall. It was more of a shower

room,

really; some families lived in smaller spaces. He pushed a button that would bring the water temperature and pressure of the showerheads to a preconfigured setting. He checked himself out in the wall-sized mirror opposite the shower, pulling his belly in a little. He didn't look too bad, considering.

A bit of the exhaustion washed away under the steaming shower jets, replaced by a healthy, relaxed tiredness. He cranked his neck around, letting the stream massage his muscles. The heat, the pulsating pressure, the tropical sound of the water splashing against the tiles and reverberating between the walls—it all made holding on to the day's tension impossible. He was just rinsing the shampoo from his hair when the phone rang. He darted out of the shower, snatched a towel off a rung, ran into the bedroom, and grabbed the receiver on the fourth ring.

"Dr. Parker," he announced.

"You're out of breath, sir. You all right?" It was a man with a heavy Southern accent.

"Who is this?" He patted his face with the towel.

"Name's Detective Fisher. I'm investigatin' the murder of Goodwin Donnelley—the man you worked on in the ER today—and the other man who was killed with him."

The clock beside the bed glowed 11:18.

"Isn't it a little late to be calling, Detective Fisher? I'll be happy to talk with you in the morning, but I—"

"That's not why I'm callin'. I mean, not really. We've got ourselves a situation here, and we have reason to believe your life is in danger."

"My life?"

"Two of the nurses who assisted you with Donnelley died tonight. They were murdered."

"Murdered?" He sat heavily on the bed.

"As well as one of the EMTs who brought 'im in, I'm afraid. Tell ya the truth, Doctor, it wasn't until we got the call on him that we made the connection. We checked with the hospital, and they confirmed that the two women and the EMT assisted Donnelley after the shooting."

"What are you saying, Detective?" He wanted to hear it outright.

"What I am tryin' to tell you, Dr. Parker, is that someone—or multiple someones—is killin' off everyone who came in contact with this Donnelley guy before he died."

"Why?"

"Maybe you can help me with that one. I understand Donnelley spoke to you?"

"No."

"Well, sir, that's different from what one of your nurses, Gail Wagner, told me not ten minutes ago. If you—"

"Four nurses assisted me," Allen said, changing the subject. "What about the other two?"

"Like I said, I talked with Ms. Wagner by phone just a few minutes ago. We're sendin' a car over to her apartment right now. We can't reach the other nurse or the other EMT. And nobody seems to know where that special agent woman went."

"Julia Matheson?"

"Yeah, that's her. Even her own office in Atlanta's scratchin' their heads over her whereabouts. I hope that's not a bad sign. We've also picked up the bartender where they gunned down Donnelley and Vero, but I suspect nobody wants him. I think whoever's behind these killings is concerned about some kind of deathbed confession, somethin' Donnelley wouldn't have told just anyone unless he thought he was dyin'." Fisher waited for him to comment. "What's your take on that, Doctor?"

Allen said nothing.

"Dr. Parker, these murders all went down within the last two hours. Someone is moving mighty fast here, mighty fast. Now, sir, I'm sending over—"

A shadow flickered in the hallway outside his door, where the moonlight spilled in from the living room windows. For an instant, the dappled light was totally obscured—not the result of a passing bird or breeze-blown branch. Allen's stomach clenched tight, and his heart seemed to stop before kicking into high gear. The security system was not on. By habit, he set it right before climbing into bed. That way, he didn't have to disarm it to answer the door or wander outside. Some nights, he didn't use it at all.

"Okay?" Fisher was saying. "Dr. Parker?"

"I'm sorry?" His head was swimming. He couldn't move. From his position he could see down the entire hall that bisected the home's front half from its back. All he saw was blackness, spattered as usual with diffused moonlight. He couldn't tell Fisher he thought someone was already in the house. That might encourage them to abandon all caution and hurry to kill him. He figured his best chance for survival lay in not being caught off guard.