First to Die

Chapter 109

THE FOLLOWING DAY, the day Nicholas Jenks was set to be arraigned for the murders of Rebecca and Michael De George, I set out to track down a new killer. I couldn't let Jenks know we were looking that closely at Joanna. Of course, I didn't want Joanna to know we were focusing suspicion on her, either. And I didn't want to face Mercer's or Roth's reactions. With all this going on, it was my Medved day, too. After that spell in the park with Chris three days before, I had gone for a blood test. Medved called back himself, told me he wanted me to come in. Being called in again like that scared me. Like that first time with Dr. Roy. That morning, Medved kept me waiting. When he finally called me in, there was another doctor in his office- older, with white hair and bushy white eyebrows. He introduced himself as Dr. Robert Yatto. The sight of a new doctor sent a chill through me. He could only be there to talk about the bone marrow procedure. "Dr. Yatto is head of hematology at Moffett," Medved said. "I asked him to look at your latest sample." Yatto smiled. "How are you feeling, Lindsay?" "Sometimes okay, sometimes incredibly weak," I answered. My chest felt tight. Why did I have to go through this with someone new? "Tell me about the other day." I did my best to recount the reeling spell I'd had in City Hall Park. "Any emissions of blood?" Yatto asked matter-of factly "No, not lately." "Vomiting?" "Not since last week." Dr. Yatto got up, came across the desk to me. "Do you mind?" he asked, as he cradled my face in his hands. He expressionlessly pressed my cheeks with his thumb, pulled down my eyes and peered into my pupils, under my lids. "I know I'm getting worse," I said. Yatto released my face, nodded toward Medved. Then, for the first time since I'd started seeing him, Medved actually smiled. "It's not getting worse, Lindsay. That's why I asked Bob to consult. Your erythrocytic count jumped back up. To twenty eight hundred." I gave a double take to make sure I had heard right. That it wasn't some kind of wishful dream I was playing out in my own mind. "But the spells… the hot and cold flashes? The other day, I felt like a war was going on in me." "There is a war," Dr. Yatto said. "You're reproducing cells. The other day, that wasn't Negli's talking. That was you. That's how it feels to heal." I was stunned. My throat was dry. "Say that again?" "It's working, Lindsay," Medved said. "Your red blood count has increased for the second time in a row. I didn't want to tell you in case it was an error, but as Dr. Yatto said, you're building new cells." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "This is real? I can trust this?" I asked. "This is very real," Medved said with a nod. I stood up, my whole body shaking, tingling with disbelief. For a moment, all the joys that I had suppressed- a chance at my career, running on Marina Green, a life with Chris- came tumbling through my brain. For so long, I had been so scared to let them free. Now, they seemed to burst out of me. Medved leaned forward and warned, "You're not cured, Lindsay. We'll continue the treatments, twice a week. But this is hopeful. More than hopeful, Lindsay. This is good." "I don't know what to say." My body was totally numb. "I don't know what to do." "If I were you," Dr. Yatto said, "I'd bring to mind the one thing you might've thought you'd miss most, and go do that today." I wandered out of the office in a haze. Down the elevator, through the sterile lobby, into a flowered courtyard that overlooked Golden Gate Park. The sky was bluer than I'd ever seen it, the air off the bay sweeter and cooler and more pure. I stood there, just hearing the beautiful sounds of my own breaths. Something crept back into my life that had been away, something I never thought I would embrace again. Hope.