Of Flesh and Blood (40 page)

He released her from his grip but she didn’t rise from her chair. Instead, she dug a hand into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small clear Baggie. At first, Tyler was bewildered by its content, but then he recognized the butter knife–shaped home pregnancy kit. “Jill . . .”

She stared at him stone-faced. “I’m pregnant, Ty.”

Tyler was too stunned to reply.

Jill waved the test in front of him. “There’s no doubt.”

A huge involuntary smile crossed his lips as the excitement swelled inside him. He folded his arms around her and lifted her off her seat. He rocked her gently from side to side before finally letting go. “You’re pregnant, Jill!”

Her pained expression gave way to a small smile. “Who else but me could time it so badly?”

“Don’t say that!” He held her by the shoulders. “Don’t even think it.”

“It’s true, Tyler. I’ve committed research fraud and I’m on the brink of academic ruin. And you, you’re dealing with a malpractice suit on the front pages of the—”

He put his fingers to her lips to cut her off. “Jill, none of that matters right now. We’re going to have a baby.” With his other hand, he reached down and rubbed her belly through her gown. “
Our
baby, Jill.”

Jill had never heard pregnant women complain of being too cold, only too warm. But as she pulled the comforter tighter around herself, she fought off another chill. Her pregnancy was no longer free of symptoms. Her intestines rumbled constantly, and the nausea worsened by the hour.

Jill glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand: 3:05
A.M
. Still far from sleep, she rolled onto her side to face Tyler. He was only partly covered by the comforter. She wasn’t hogging the covers; he always slept warm. Unlike the past few nights when he had practically thrashed the night away through restless nightmares, Tyler was still and his expression placid. She resisted the urge to touch or kiss his face. Instead, she tucked in as close as possible without waking him. In one week, Jill had plummeted from finger’s-length reach of her lifelong dream to the depths of academic disgrace. Her ambition had been so single-minded that she had tuned out much of the rest of her life, including friends and family. Staring at her husband’s peaceful face, Jill realized she had risked—and maybe still did—losing him, too. She almost grimaced at the memory of Nikki clasping Tyler’s arm, her gorgeous face aglow with adulation.

Jill ran her fingers over her belly. It was as flat as ever, but she could imagine her fetus growing beneath. With a tinge of shame, she remembered her ambivalence at discovering she was pregnant. “I do want this baby, Ty,” she whispered to her husband. “
Our
baby.”

A flicker of optimism comforted Jill. Maybe her career couldn’t survive the news of her research irregularities, but she was no longer convinced her world would end with its disclosure, either. Professional successes had never fully brought the fulfillment she had thought they would. Perhaps she had a better chance of finding it in parenthood.

Jill thought of her parents. The guilt of neglecting them gnawed at her. She was overdue for a return trip to San Diego to help out her mother and spend time with her father. With her lab suddenly in limbo, she contemplated going down for longer than a weekend—possibly even a month—to really reconnect with her parents. At the rate her dad was deteriorating, there would not be many opportunities left. Tyler would understand. Maybe he would even come along. After all, a break from Oakdale—away from the Alfredson—was what they both desperately needed.

With those hopeful thoughts and schemes rattling around her head, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Jill didn’t wake until after nine o’clock. Tyler was gone. But she had no time to think about anything except the knots seizing her stomach. She bolted out of the bed to the bathroom. Her head just made it to the edge of the open toilet bowl before she vomited violently. Kneeling in front of the bowl, she threw up three more times until she had nothing left to spit out. Her intestines twisted and gurgled noisily at the acrid smell of her own vomit.

She leaned back against the wall and spoke to her abdomen. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you, kid?”

Jill sat on the edge of the bathtub and waited until the waves of nausea and cramping settled enough that she felt safe moving away from the toilet. She took a long hot shower but still had trouble warming herself against the chills that followed in the wake of her violent nausea.

Jill waited another fifteen minutes before she felt safe to leave the house. On the drive in to the Alfredson, she had to pull over to the side of the road twice to throw up again. She didn’t reach the hospital until a few minutes before ten
A.M
.

Head down and sunglasses on, Jill trudged for the neurosciences building, praying she wouldn’t be spotted by a colleague or anyone else who might want to discuss her study. Halfway there, she remembered the earlier phone call from one of the residents informing her of Senator Wilder’s improved condition. Jill felt obliged to visit him, though she dreaded the prospect. It wasn’t his illness—Infection Control had deemed him no longer contagious—so much as her embarrassment and shame over the tainted study that made her feel so uncomfortable. After all, not only had Wilder volunteered to be a subject, but he was prepared to be a spokesperson on her behalf.

Inside the Henley Building, Jill followed the signs to the surgical ICU where Wilder had been moved. The unit had been closed to postoperative patients and now housed only patients who were recovering from
C. diff
or quarantined after exposure to the superbug.

Outside the unit, Jill donned two pairs of gloves and double-checked the snugness of her mask and eye shield before she slipped into the protective gown. She paused to let a wave of nausea and cramping pass and then, satisfied with her protective gear, stepped past the gowned Secret Service agent guarding Wilder’s door and into his private room.

Propped up by a pillow, the senator looked even thinner since her last visit and his color was paler. But his lopsided grin was as wide as ever and his eyes still possessed their usual sparkle. “Hello, Dr. Laidlaw!” he said, recognizing her through her mask. “I bet you thought I was one patient you didn’t have to worry about any . . . m-more.”

She stopped at the foot of his bed, conscious not to get too close. “I was very worried about you, Senator.”

“Takes more than a s-stomach flu to finish me off.”

“You scared us.”

He chuckled. “Scared myself a tad, too.”

Jill smiled behind her mask. “I’m glad you’re doing better, Senator.”

“My guts are better. The rest of me . . . not so much.” His tone assumed a more businesslike edge. “Dr. Laidlaw, I’m eager to get started on your new treatment.”

Jill glanced down at her hands.

“What is it?” he asked, his expression clouding with concern. “Am I too late to en-enroll?”

Jill wavered a moment and then said, “There’s a problem with the study.”

“What kind of problem?”

Jill looked up at him. “The data was, um, manipulated.”

His jaw fell open. “You mean someone c-cooked the results?”

She swallowed. “It appears that way.”

“Who?”

“I am not entirely sure, Senator, though I have my suspicions.”

“So you didn’t know about this tam-tampering beforehand?” His slightly uneven gaze still penetrated.

“Not until a few days ago. No.”

His forehead wrinkled and his eyes narrowed. “Dr. Laidlaw, does your st-stem cell therapy actually work?”

“I think so.” She nodded. “But now that I’ve used more
accurate
data, the results aren’t as dramatic as I’d first thought.”

“Oh. I s-see.”

Watching the hope drain from Wilder’s eyes, Jill felt the guilt soar anew. She wondered how many other patients were already counting on the rumored promise of her treatment.

“Dr. Laidlaw, what if I wanted to pro-proceed anyway?” Wilder rasped.

Jill grimaced. “You’d want to go ahead in light of what I just told you?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think the hospital would allow it, Senator.” She sighed. “Once the Research Ethics Committee learns of the irregularities, they’ll suspend the study. They have to.”

“I see.”

Having trouble meeting his eyes again, Jill began to backpedal for the door. “I’m sure you’re still exhausted from your ordeal. I’ll come back tomorrow and—”

“Dr. Laidlaw, those ICU doctors never asked me if I wanted . . . treatment.”

“You mean for the
C. diff
infection?”

He nodded. “I don’t blame them. I got sick so quickly. They worked so hard just to keep me alive.” He paused. “Maybe t-too hard.”

“Senator, do you really mean that?”

Wilder viewed her for a long moment. “A few years ago, people said I was going to be the next president. Now, I can barely walk across a room. And without a miracle, we both know I’m only going to det-deteriorate.” He shook his head slowly. “I know there are MS victims far worse off than me, but I am not cut out for the life of an in-invalid, Dr. Laidlaw.”

A lump formed in her throat, but she could think of nothing to say.

“I want to try your stem cell treatment,” he went on. “I’m w-willing to face the risks, whatever they are. Even if it’s a long shot, I want one more chance to reclaim my life and my career. I want a chance to finish the race I started. Can you un-understand?”

“Yes, Senator, I can,” she said, filling with empathy. “I will do what I can to proceed with your stem cell transplant.”

He flashed a crooked grin. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

Outside the unit, she shed her protective clothing and dumped it into a biohazard container. She was pulled from the verge of tears by the cramp that tore at her belly. She clutched a hand over her mouth and sprinted for the washroom down the hallway, relieved to find it empty. She arrived just in time to throw up in the sink.

How can I go from feeling nothing to this in just a few days?
she wondered as she studied her gaunt face in the mirror.

After fifteen minutes, the cramps settled. She hurried across the complex and into the neurosciences building. She was relieved to reach the door without being stopped by anyone. The people inside her lab—none of whom had yet heard about the taint of research fraud—were all smiles as she entered. Two of the young male research assistants even hooted and pumped their fists in the air as though Jill were a rock star taking the stage.

Jill mumbled an embarrassed hello and rushed to her office. In the hallway, she almost bumped into Carla Julian, another grad student in biostatistics. The cute, though emotionally frail, brunette nodded once to Jill but appeared equally eager not to chat. Carla had never been the same since her breakup with Andrew Pinter. Jill had heard rumors Pinter had broken Carla’s heart by sleeping with her best friend, but she never broached the subject with the girl, always steering clear of her staff’s personal lives.

As soon as Jill crossed the threshold of her office, she locked the door behind her. Gripped by another wave of nausea, she pressed her forehead against the cold door. Breathing slowly, she tried to decide on the best way to break the bad news to the rest of her lab, realizing that many of them would take it as hard as she had.

A laugh came from somewhere behind her. “Paparazzi causing you grief?”

Jill spun to see Andrew Pinter at her desk, leaning back in the chair with his hands clasped behind his head. The remnants of another muffin overflowed a torn paper bag lying on the desk beside his coffee cup.

The sight of him ignited her ire. “Can you please leave my office, Andrew?” she muttered tersely.

“Nice greeting.” He offered a rakish grin. “I’m not sure sleeping in agrees with you.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“I’d say.”

“
Out
, Andrew!”

“I’m already gone.” Pinter stretched and yawned noisily before rising from the chair. He swept up the coffee cup, paper bag, and most of the crumbs and tossed them into the wastepaper basket. He ambled around the desk and toward her. “You still sick, Jill?”

For a moment, she thought he knew about her pregnancy and nausea but then she remembered her alibi for not coming to work the previous day was that she had picked up a virus. “I’m doing better, thanks,” she muttered.

“You look kind of peaked, as my grandma used to say.”

“I’m okay.”

He stopped a few feet from her. “What about those data files?” he asked.

Jill resisted the impulse to grab her abdomen as another cramp stabbed her. She intended to confront the statistician, but not until after she had let the rest of the team know about the data tampering. “What about them?” she asked.

“Are you done with them yet? I need to reorganize the files for the next go-round of data collection.”

She tasted acid. “I didn’t think researchers were supposed to reorganize data,” she blurted.

He rolled his eyes and grunted. “I didn’t say anything about reorganizing the data.”

“Maybe not, but I did.”

The self-satisfied smile slid off his lips. “What’s your point, Jill?”

“Who excluded all those patients?”

Pinter shrugged impatiently. “We all did. You, me, and most of the others here working on the study.”

Jill’s face heated and her heart pounded against her rib cage. “I saw your name on most of those exclusions.”

“No shit!” he snapped. “I’m the gopher who gathers and keeps the data forms, remember? Every one of those exclusions had a reason for it spelled out on the front page.”

“You found some pretty flimsy reasons.”

“Your opinion. I ran every one of those exclusions past at least one of the other research assistants.”

“You didn’t run them by me.”

“Here we go again.” Pinter heaved a sigh. “I didn’t think I needed to bother you. What am I, eight? I know how to do my job. I could—”

“I plugged them back in,” she said, cutting him off.

His eyes narrowed. “The exclusions?”

She nodded.

“You can’t do that,” he scoffed. “That’s changing endpoints in the middle of a study. It’s meaningless.”