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in all the people they came into contact with there, and all their families and friends, and the odds are that if you live on this island, you’ve been exposed already.”
“You’re not making us feel any better, Dec.” This time Tim’s voice was less belligerent. Quieter, as if unhappiness was overtaking anger.
“I know I’m not. I wish I could be reassuring. But the simple fact is, if this is a contagious disease, this is the best place in the world for all of us to be.”
That evidently shocked Tim, and even Joe Gardner looked a little surprised.
“Think about it,” Declan continued. “If we find out it’s a disease, it’s only a short step or two to finding a cure or a treatment.” Gross exaggeration, but he didn’t want to start a riot. “If we’re all here, we can receive treatment quickly. If we’re scattered all over hell and gone, that won’t be true.”
Amazingly, Tim was nodding.
“Moreover,” Declan said, “we have a moral responsibility here. If this is a contagion, we can contain it here. So any way you look at it, the smartest thing we can all do is hunker down on the island and get through this together.”
Tim nodded again. Then he looked at Joe. “You agree, Dr. Gardner?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve treated outbreaks of some of the worst diseases known to man. I can assure you, even with Ebola, if you get treatment in time, you can survive. So it’s important that everyone remain here on the island. We will bring in whatever resources are necessary to solve this problem.”
Tim’s choler was fading a bit. “Why aren’t you wearing one of those fancy protective suits, Dr. Gardner? Aren’t you afraid?”
Joe Gardner smiled. “We’ve found no evidence the disease is airborne. The best analysis we can make right now is that it seems to spread by direct human contact.”
“How can you know that?”
“There’ve been two cases. The victims were married. We have no other patient reports. If it is a disease, it’s apparently hard to spread.”
Tim sank back in his chair. “I think that’s the best news I’ve heard since yesterday morning.”
“I agree,” Gardner said. “But it seems quite clear to me that if this disease were airborne or waterborne, we’d have other cases by now.”
That wasn’t entirely true, and Declan was sure Joe Gardner realized it. So much depended on incubation periods, as well as type and duration of exposure. Gardner was betting, a very dangerous bet indeed.
Outside the conference room, Dec took a minute to warn Steve Chase about his blood pressure and to tell him to come by that afternoon. Then he caught up to Joe Gardner, who was walking back to the lab.
“You’re a fool,” he said.
“Maybe,” Gardner replied. “But Carter Shippey hasn’t been off this island in months, has he?”
“No. He and his wife were planning a vacation, but they’d had to do a lot of work on their boat. It was banged up in a tropical storm last year.”
“And you don’t get a whole lot of strangers here?”
“Just occasional houseguests at the other end of the island. Deliveries at the airport and the harbor, but everyone there checks out clean.”
Joe nodded. “Then whatever it is started here. And it’s my bet that it can’t be highly contagious. No way. Anything highly contagious that had been introduced on this island over the past couple of months would have affected other people besides a retired fisherman.”
Dec nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Not yet. So far we haven’t found a single living or partly living thing in Shippey’s body. Not so much as a prion.”
“What about chemicals?”
“Nothing unusual so far. But we’ll keep testing.” Joe yawned and stretched. None of them had slept since the previous morning. “So tell me again how this island works. If you had an outbreak of say, influenza, what kind of epidemiology would you expect to see?”
That was an easy question. The other doctors at the hospital had often talked about that, since they’d had an influenza outbreak two years before. “We all live pretty closely on this end of the island. I’d expect to see a number of cases reporting simultaneously, and then a rapid spread through the town and schools. It’d hit the other end of the island somewhat later, carried over there by household employees.”
Joe nodded. “How long?”
“Last time it was flu, and it only took a week for full contagion.”
“I would have expected that.” Joe yawned again. “Between you, me and the fence post? This isn’t going to be an easy solve.”
“Do you have to sound so damn happy about it?”
Joe laughed. “Admit you’re intrigued, doctor.”
Declan was. But he wasn’t happy to admit it. Not at all.
Tim Roth wasn’t happy, either. He’d cornered Steve Chase on the way out of the hospital.
“Let’s take a drive,” he’d said, his hand tightening on the man’s forearm.
They’d climbed in his Land Rover and wound their way up into the hills, where he pulled off onto the shoulder. To their right, six hundred feet below, a white beach was empty despite the picture-perfect teal expanse of the Caribbean. To their left, a handful of blackened, chiseled stones fought a losing battle with the underbrush. They were the sole remains of a plantation house that had been burned to the ground two hundred years before.
“Why here?” Steve asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Why here, of all places?”
“You need to calm down,” Tim said. “Quinn had his eyes on you. You’re a public figure.”
“Declan Quinn is my doctor,” Steve said. “If he was concerned, it was strictly medical.”
“Maybe. Probably. But we don’t need the attention.” Tim pointed to the ruins. “It’s rubble, Steve. Dust and ash, just like she is.”
Steve’s chin set. “Carter Shippey said he saw her. Carter wasn’t the type to make up stories.”
Tim hesitated, then met his gaze. “Carter was a fisherman. He’d spent his life at sea. Tall tales are as much a part of a sailor’s life as salt spray.”
“You’re a fisherman.”
“I’m a businessman,” Tim countered. “I send rich people out for day trips with a bottle of champagne, a case of beer and the hope that they’ll catch a marlin to hang on a wall. The sea isn’t a mystery. It’s a cash cow.”
He paused for a moment. “And Annie Black isn’t a ghost. She’s a legend you tell to make people feel like they’re buying a slice of the supernatural with their five-thousand-square-foot Colonial Georgian with verandah and pool. She’s an extra five grand on the asking price. That’s all.”
“And the Shippeys are still dead. Of unknown cause.”
“Exactly.” Tim sighed and repeated the words. “Of unknown cause. Could be a virus. Could be some chemical he got hold of at the high school shop. There’s just no reason to assume they were killed by a two-hundred-years-dead murderer.”
Steve shifted uneasily, eyeing the blackened stones again. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but it’s crossed your mind ever since Cart opened his damn mouth.”
Steve nodded, and Tim pressed on.
“Look, we’ve lived on this damn island most of our lives. If the ghost of Annie Black were hanging around,