“I’m on my third night,” Peters muttered, as if this piece of information automatically excused his rudeness. Leisurely, he adjusted himself from a prone position from to sitting up. “She was an HIV-positive junkie. An absolute mess. Took up our last bed,” he snorted. “By the time she got here, she had double-sided pneumonia. Even on the ventilator, we couldn’t keep her oxygen saturations up. She was on multiple antibiotics, but they had no chance to work.” He craned his neck to look around Lopez at the TV. “I figure it must have been staph aureus or group-A strep that did her in so quick. The addicts are really susceptible to those skin bugs.”

Lopez took another step to her right, further blocking the screen. “What do you know of her premorbid condition?”

“Doubt she ever was premorbid,” Peters grunted. “The girl had full-blown AIDS and weighed about eighty pounds. She was covered in track marks and multiple skin ulcers from popping. Popping is when—”

“We know,” Lopez snapped. “Necrotic ulcers from the vasoconstrictive effects of cocaine injected, or ‘popped,’ under the skin.” She sighed. “Both Dr. Warmack and I are epidemiologists. We have a vague idea what drug users are susceptible to.”

“My point is,” Peters said, unperturbed, “she looked like someone looking for an excuse to die.” He flashed a look somewhere between a smile and a sneer. “Know what I mean.”

“And that just broke your heart, didn’t it?” Lopez said.

Peters shrugged unapologetically. “Look around this ICU,” he grumbled. “We never have space for the traumas, the hearts, and the other tax-payers who need our help, because most times we’re wasting our resources on patients like her and the other addicts and drunks with their self-induced problems.”

You judgmental prick, Lopez thought. Just as she opened her mouth to respond, she felt Warmack’s hand gently pull at her elbow. “Dr. Peters,” he spoke up. “Have you had any other similar cases come through the ICU in recent weeks?”

Peters stifled a yawn. “We always get our share of septic pneumonias, but none like her.”

“And no new cases since?”

“No.” Peters frowned, as if realizing for the first time that the visitors had not arrived merely to harass him. “Why is the CDC and State Health interested in this case, anyway?”

“I guess you never checked Jackson’s sputum culture results, huh?” Lopez sighed.

Peters shrugged. “I don’t have time to run around checking on dead people’s lab results. Don’t know about you, but it’s not the best use of my time.”

“Too bad,” Lopez said evenly. She fought off the urge to demonstrate the right uppercut her cousin had taught her to throw when they were both eight. “The sputum cultures grew group-A strep.”

Peters flashed a self-satisfied, told-you-so grin.

Lopez smiled back. “But this wasn’t just any G.A.S. According to microbiology, it’s resistant to all antibiotics.”

Peters eyes widened. “All antibiotics?”