Page 67 of Sick of You

“Great. I’d have to haunt you if I died with that on my conscience.” He looked up at me one more time, and this time, those startlingly blue eyes held hope. “So... you don’t feel an overwhelming urge to argue with me?”

“You started all our other arguments. Why would I start now?”

“No, I didn’t.”

I pointed agotchafinger at him. He couldn’t contest my point without starting another argument. Besides, he had totally baited me into arguing with him multiple times.

“Point taken.” He offered me a small smile. “After all this is over, could you care for a cup of coffee?”

“With you?” I tried and failed to hide a ridiculous grin. “Officially, as your caregiver, I can’t consent. Unofficially... ’course.”

“Cool, I’ll come—corporeal or non.”

I left him, laughing.

His dry humor was both funny—and a little on the dark side. While it could be worse, I didn’t like the idea of him stewing in here alone all day, contemplating death.

I’d accrued enough vacation and sick time that I could take off until the end of my fellowship, although I couldn’t abandon my other patients, and I probably couldn’t spend quite that much time in a hazmat suit without getting seriously dehydrated.

Maybe there was something I could do for him still, I realized as I changed out of my suit. My perfect plan had been derailed, but there was still time to help him when I couldn’t be there the whole time.

First stop: Dr. Donaldson. “Have we decontaminated Davis’s belongings?”

Dr. Donaldson nodded, still focused on his screen. He pointed at the level-two lab. “Fumigated his clothes and some things from his office.”

I thanked him, gowned up, and badged into the lab. Davis’s belongings and office equipment—what we could take out of his office that was worth salvaging—filled two biochemical cabinets. It took a few minutes of searching to find his phone, 3% left on its battery, and enter the passcode he’d given me. I found Luke in his contacts and wrote down the number.

If it was fully decontaminated, I could bring the phone back to him when I brought him lunch. After I charged it.

My finger over the power button, I hesitated. If Samantha were anywhere in this hospital—anywhere in the world—facing possible death, I would want to know. As exhausted as Natalie and I were from all she’d put Mom, Dad and us through—not to mention Angela and Carter—we would always care about her.

This wasn’t quite the same situation. Davis was not an addict hiding out from his family, worried about their judgement. But it was still life-threatening.

The screen dimmed, and I tapped it with a gloved finger to wake it up again. In the contact list, I scrolled down to the Es.

No Everett listed.

That didn’t seem right. Okay, granted, in high school Natalie and Samantha had one another in their phones as “stinky McCheeseface” and “ugly monkeybaby,” but that didn’t seem like Davis’s style.

I clicked the magnifying glass icon and typed in Everett to search the contacts. Two came up: a Todd Everett and a Neverett.

Obviously Todd was not his brother unless that was a strange—and boring—inside joke, but Neverett... Hadn’t he used that nickname for his brother once in conversation?

I tapped the contact and hesitated again. This was wrong.

No,Daviswas wrong. Of course his family cared about him. After all, Everett Hardcastle certainly wasn’t an addict who dumped his kids on Davis whenever it was convenient, and even then, we still wanted to hear from Samantha.

But what pushed me over the edge was remembering the lonesome look in his eyes, the way he insisted he wasn’t lonely because he spent his nights working and working out.

Alone.

I didn’t have the details and I didn’t dare press for them, but Davis needed someone to care about him. Desperately.

Davis was wrong. His family had to care every bit as much as we did about Samantha. I could prove it to him.

And hadn’t he said, “You could call them every hour”?

Even if I was doing this as most definitely not just his doctor, that didn’t mean I could violate HIPAA. Davis didn’t have his brother listed as an emergency contact—I’d already checked—nor had he signed anything that authorized me to release information to him. I couldn’t share his health info with Everett.

---