Nothing she had discovered about the disease had consoled or given hope. The deadly bacteria burst upon the scene in recent years when it killed eleven people in Great Britain. KILLER BUG ATE MY FACE, screamed the Daily Star. DEADLY FLESH-EATING BACTERIA, other tabloids proclaimed. It had killed Jim Henson of the Muppets, Hammer had discovered on the Internet, and was believed to be a virulent form of a strep that had caused scarlet fever in the 1800s. In some cases, NF spread too rapidly for antibiotics to work, and it was feared that Seth would be the latest statistic. His V.I.P. status had ensured aggressive treatment since admission, so the problem lay not in the hospital, but in his general condition.

Seth had poor nutrition. He was clinically depressed. He had a history of heavy drinking and arteriosclerotic vascular disease. He had received a trauma resulting in an open wound and a foreign body that could not be removed. Seth, according to Dr. Cabel, was immunosuppressed and was losing approximately a pound of flesh per hour. This did not include layers lost by surgeons fileting to the next level of healthy, bleeding tissue, which soon after turned black and green, despite all efforts and prayers. Hammer was motionless in her chair, reliving every word she’d ever spoken to her husband, every deed that had been angry or unkind. None of his flaws would come to her now.

This was all her fault. It had been her .38 special, her Remington hollowpoint +P cartridge. It had been her order that he root under the sheets for that gun and hand it over to her this minute. It had been Hammer giving him the ultimatum about his weight, and she halfway believed that what he suffered from now was no coincidence but a functional illness. Seth was melting before her eyes, an inch smaller every hour, slabs lighter after every surgery. This was not the weight-loss plan she would have wished for him. He was punishing her for all those years he had lived in her shadow, the wind beneath her wings, her inspiration and biggest fan.

“Chief Hammer?”

She realized someone was speaking, and her eyes focused on Dr. Cabel in surgical greens, cap, mask, gloves, and shoe covers. He was no older than Jude. God help me, Hammer thought with a deep, quiet breath as, once again, she got out of her chair.

“If you’ll give me a minute with him,” Dr. Cabel said to her.

Hammer went out into the antiseptic, bright corridor. She watched nurses, doctors, family members, and friends alight on different rooms where more suffering lay tethered to narrow hydraulic beds and machines monitored the life force as it struggled on. She stood, in a daze, until Dr. Cabel returned, slipping Seth’s chart in the envelope on the back of the door.

“How is he?” Hammer asked the same question, pulling her mask down around her neck.

Dr. Cabel left his mask on. He took no chances and didn’t even shower at home anymore without lathering from head to toe with antibacterial soap. He shut Seth’s door, eyes troubled. Hammer was shrewd and not interested in further euphemisms, convolutions, and evasions. If this young infectious disease doctor thought he could hide the truth from her, she was about to add to his education.