Several times, Lou ticked through what he had explained to Filstrup in the call from Arbor General. He and his best friend went for a run. Cap fell, sustained a compound fracture of his femur, and nearly bled out. Lou administered first aid and possibly saved Cap’s life. They took a helicopter to the hospital, and Lou missed giving the speech. A reasonable sequence and explanation if ever there was one.

Now, Lou was debating rolling out plan B—earnestly sharing with Filstrup his gut instinct about the unlikelihood of the man’s ever squeaking out a victory in the election, even if Lou had given his speech. For the moment, he chose to shelve the idea. He expected his boss would evolve back to his baseline, self-absorbed, testy state in a matter of no time. He always did.

This time, Lou was wrong.

He had opened the top folder on his bottomless stack of dictations while awaiting a return call from Emily regarding the bake sale, when his desk phone rang.

“Hey, sweetie,” Lou said. “What took you so long?”

“Excuse me,” answered an unfamiliar male voice, “I’m looking for Dr. Louis Welcome.”

Lou cleared his throat, heat from the embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were my daughter calling back,” Lou said. “This is Dr. Welcome. How can I help you?”

“Dr. Welcome, this is Dr. Win Carter, I’m the president of Arbor General Hospital in Atlanta. Do you have a minute to talk with me about Mr. Hank Duncan?”

Lou went cold. He clutched the lip of his desk, steeling himself against a rush of panic. Barely able to catch his breath, he tried willing his racing heart to slow down.

“I’m fine,” he managed. “I mean, this is a good time. Is he all right?”

Everyone at Arbor, it seemed, had heard about Lou and Cap’s exploits in the woods, so he was not that surprised his name had reached the hospital president’s desk. Maybe while Cap was still in the hospital, they wanted Lou to give a grand rounds talk to the medical staff about the treatment—bring Cap down for his version. Maybe the call was about Cap’s ballooning hospital bill. The thoughts were quickly replaced by a far more frightening one. He was Cap’s medical proxy. Something bad—real bad—had happened. But the two of them had just spoken yesterday, and aside from some new aching in the leg, everything seemed okay.

Hey, easy does it! he shouted at himself. Easy frigging does it.

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling,” Carter was saying. “I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but I wanted you to know that we’ve begun work to contain an infection in your friend’s leg.”