Lou had parked his rental in the lot by the museum, but the late-afternoon sun was still warm and the lush air, sweetened with the scents of spring, begged for a walk. Initially, they made their way in a comfortable silence along the walkway that snaked through the vast research complex.

“So how was your day?” Vicki asked finally.

“It was hardly one of my best. I spent it mostly with my friend Cap.”

“The reports we’ve gotten from Arbor General aren’t so good.”

Lou grimaced.

“The reports are right, I’m afraid. He talks when he has the strength to carry on a conversation, but mostly he sleeps. He’s a rock-hard, vibrant man, and it’s terrible to see him like this.”

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

She took his arm in a totally natural, empathetic way.

Lou decided not to tell her about Cap’s nurse finally caving in and allowing him to help change his dressing. The two of them had begun by unwrapping several layers of putrid, drainage-soaked gauze, and tossing them into a red biocontainment bag. The stench was nothing Lou hadn’t encountered before, but the fact that it was a man he knew so well made it hard to take. At one point, he actually felt his blood pressure dip and had to block his nose off with the base of his tongue.

“The hardest part for me has been dealing with all the what-ifs,” he said. “What if we had turned left instead of right where the trail forked? What if I had been just a foot farther over?”

“You know it wasn’t your fault.”

Lou felt the heaviness in his chest recur.

“I know. And it’s not like me to snivel. But this has been one of the worst stretches of my life. I’ve lost my job at Physician Wellness for insisting on coming back down here. Even before this all happened, my significant other decided that she had enough problems in her own life without trying to deal with anyone else’s. Then, last night, I had the first drunk dream I’d had in months.”

“You’re in recovery?”

“You know about that stuff?”

“I have my own issues,” she said, “but alcohol and drugs aren’t among them. You go to meetings?”

“Not many since all this happened.”

“Well, you can’t put this infection on yourself, Lou. Sadly, nosocomial infections are a common occurrence—close to three hundred thousand reported annually in the United States alone.”

“Not a reassuring statistic.”