bilious green sea in her stomach, she tried cracking her lips and redirecting her inhales and exhales through that route.
“Ms. Early?” the receptionist said some time later.
After checking in with her driver’s license and her insurance card, it was back to waiting, and then she was finally in a room. The male nurse who took her weight, her vitals, and her temperature seemed nice enough, and she prayed she didn’t throw up on him.
“So,” he said as he entered her blood pressure into her electronic chart, “tell me a little about what’s been going on.”
“Is my blood pressure, okay?”
“It’s on the low side. But your oxygen stats are great and your pulse is fine. You’re running a low-grade fever, though.”
“So I’m sick.”
He stopped typing into the computer and faced her. He was probably thirty, and he had a good haircut, a precisely trimmed beard, and eyes that were not anywhere near as tired as she felt.
“What have your symptoms been?” he asked.
“I’ve been feeling sick. Fatigued. Headachy.”
“Hmm . . .” He went back to typing. “There’s a lot of that going around. Flu season is heartier than usual this year, it seems. So how long has this been going on?”
“Three months. Maybe four.”
He stopped again and looked over at her with a frown. “Since November, then?”
“I mean, I’m sure I’m fine.” Which, of course, was exactly why she was sitting in this exam room, telling herself not to barf on the guy’s white uniform. She was just GREAT. “Really.”
“Okay.” He typed some more. “Anything else?”
“I haven’t been losing weight, though. Kind of a bummer, really.”
“So you’ve always been . . .” He scrolled up and read a number.
“That’s what I weigh now?” When he looked at her again, she waved her hand like she could erase the question. “I mean, it’s fine. I’ve lost a little weight, but it’s no big deal.”
“How much did you lose?”
“Ten pounds. Fifteen at the most. I’m tall, though.”
Okay, for all the sense she’d made while drafting the online article on that decapitated body on the fire escape, she had now apparently lost her ability to think. Because she was making no damned sense.
Unless she’d also made no sense with the article and just hadn’t known it.
“I’m sorry, but I think I’ve wasted your time.” She made like she was going to slide off the examination table. “I’m fine—”
The nurse put his hand out like a crossing guard’s stop sign. “Take a deep breath.”
Figuring it was medical advice—and also a good idea—Jo followed directions. Twice.
“Okay.” He smiled, but she wasn’t fooled. That was not the casual one he’d given her as he’d wrapped her biceps in a cuff or shoved a thermometer in her mouth. “Good. Why don’t you talk to the doctor when she comes in, okay? Dr. Perez is really easy to speak to. Just tell her what’s been going on. Maybe it’s nothing, but she’ll be able to think the symptoms through with you and give you some options about further diagnostics if she believes it’s warranted. Sound good?”
Jo nodded because she felt like a fool. And because she was suddenly very terrified.
She’d been thinking about going to a see a doctor for a good month and a half, maybe two months. And she’d decided to finally follow up on the impulse largely to give herself something to do as she waited for McCordle to check in again. Anything was better than sitting in that empty newsroom with Dick steaming pissed at her behind the closed door of his office—
Oh, who was she kidding. Someone she didn’t know had spoken her biggest fear out loud to her last night. And she was here to find out if she was dying.
As if that man in leather was a fortune-teller.
“Have you been under a lot of stress lately?” the nurse asked.
“I accused my boss of a pattern of sexual harassment about a half hour ago.”
The nurse whistled under his breath. “That counts. And I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“And last night, I saw my first dead body.” As his eyes bugged, she figured she’d keep the head-as-bowling-ball stuff to herself. “And I’m working on my first big story as a reporter—now that you mention it, things have been a little intense.”
All of that was child’s play, though. That man she’d run from the police with? Who she’d kissed in that abandoned restaurant? He was the real stressor, the first-in-line. Which considering the list of stuff he’d beaten for that coveted pole position was really