Genesis Read Free Page B

beds, some sitting in wheelchairs, all
looking more miserable than they probably had when they'd first arrived
for treatment. Most of them had probably come here right after
work because they couldn't afford to miss a day's wages. They saw
Sara's white coat and called to her, but she ignored them as she read
through the chart.
    Mary said, "I'll catch up with you. She's in three," before letting
herself get pulled away by an elderly woman on a stretcher.
    Sara knocked on the open door of exam room 3—privacy: another
perk afforded cops. A petite blonde woman was sitting on the
edge of the bed, fully dressed and clearly irritated. Mary was good at
her job, but a blind person could see that Faith Mitchell was unwell.
She was as pale as the sheet on the bed; even from a distance, her skin
looked clammy.
    Her husband did not seem to be helping matters as he paced the
room. He was an attractive man, well over six feet, with sandy blond
hair cut close to his head. A jagged scar ran down the side of his face,
probably from a childhood accident where his jaw slid across the
asphalt under his bicycle or along the hard-packed dirt to home base.
He was thin and lean, probably a runner, and his three-piece suit
showed the broad chest and shoulders of someone who spent a lot of
time in the gym.
    He stopped pacing, his gaze going from Sara to his wife and back
again. "Where's the other doctor?"
    "He got called away on an emergency." She walked to the sink
and washed her hands, saying, "I'm Dr. Linton. Can you catch me up
to speed here? What happened?"
    "She passed out," the man said, nervously twisting his wedding
ring around his finger. He seemed to realize he was coming off as a
bit frantic, and moderated his tone. "She's never passed out before."
    Faith Mitchell seemed aggravated by his concern. "I'm fine," she
insisted, then told Sara, "It's the same thing I said to the other doctor.
I feel like I've been coming down with a cold. That's all."
    Sara pressed her fingers to Faith's wrist, checking her pulse. "How
are you feeling now?"
    She glanced at her husband. "Annoyed."
    Sara smiled, shining her penlight into Faith's eyes, checking her
throat, running through the usual physical exam and finding nothing
alarming. She agreed with Krakauer's initial evaluation: Faith was
probably a little dehydrated. Her heart sounded good, though, and it
didn't seem like she'd suffered from a seizure. "Did you hit your head
when you fell?"
    She started to answer, but the man interjected, "It was in the
parking lot. Her head hit the pavement."
    Sara asked the woman, "Any other problems?"
    Faith answered, "Just a few headaches." She seemed to be holding
something back, even as she revealed, "I haven't really eaten today. I
was feeling a little sick to my stomach this morning. And yesterday
morning."
    Sara opened one of the drawers for a neuro-hammer to check reflexes,
only to find nothing there. "Have you had any recent weight
loss or gain?"
    Faith said "No" just as her husband said "Yes."
    The man looked contrite, but tried, "I think it looks good on
you."
    Faith took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sara studied the
man again, thinking he was probably an accountant or lawyer. His
head was turned toward his wife, and Sara noticed another, lighter
scar lining his upper lip—obviously not a surgical incision. The skin
had been sewn together crookedly, so that the scar running vertically
between his lip and nose was slightly uneven. He had probably boxed
in college, or maybe just been hit in the head one too many times, because
he obviously didn't seem to know that the only way out of a
hole was to stop digging. "Faith, I think the extra weight looks great
on you. You could stand to gain—"
    She shut him up with a look.
    "All right." Sara flipped open the chart, writing down some orders.
"We'll need to do an X-ray of your skull and I'd like to do a few
more tests. Don't worry, we can use the blood