Chapter 10 – A Second Opinion
Nathan wasn't speaking and, honestly, it was starting to scare her. Not that it was unusual for him to be quiet, he never was much of a talker, at least before his fifth beer, but this was different. He wasn't just being quiet; he was silent. At the moment he was slumped in the passenger seat of his truck, eyes closed and forehead resting against the window. He hadn't said a word since his surprising revelation in the Colden's living room. After that he had slipped into a state of what she could only guess was shock. He hadn't had any reaction as she let an EMT bandage the place on the side of his thigh where the stray bullet had seared his skin, and she had practically had to drag him to his truck.
Of course Audrey would be lying if she said she wasn't shocked too. Everything had been going fine, and then suddenly he was doubling over. She'd had to duck back, rather ungracefully, behind the wall to avoid getting shot at by the crazy man, but the next thing she knew Nathan had ignored her answering shouts and pinned the man to the ground, looking like he was on the verge of pummelling him to death. She hadn't understood why he was ignoring her, not responding to her confused shouts, until he'd looked up at her in fear and awe. Then she'd known something was wrong.
And now he was deaf.
It didn't make sense. He'd been perfectly fine one minute, and the next minute he was stone deaf. There wasn't any loud noise that could have taken his hearing. So how had it happened? People didn't just randomly go deaf.
Although now that she thought about it, maybe it wasn't so random. Nathan had been having trouble hearing things all day, even if neither of them had recognized the symptoms at the time. He had missed about three muttered remarks she'd made to him already that morning. She'd thought maybe he just wasn't dignifying her sarcasm with a response, but maybe he hadn't heard them at all. And this morning, when he had managed to sleep through her shouting at him. That had been strange but she'd brushed it off as a side-effect of the cold, but perhaps that wasn't it at all.
But what had caused it? There was no logical reason for why a man with exceptional hearing would quite suddenly not be able to hear anything. Deep down, she suspected what it was, but she didn't want to believe it. There had to be another reason. That's why the Bronco was being parked outside Haven Regional Hospital for the third time this week. She wanted a second opinion.
"Nathan, we're here," she said, before remembering that he wouldn't hear what she'd said. She glanced over half-hopefully, wanting to believe that maybe his hearing loss had been temporary and had come back, but he hadn't moved. If it wasn't for the tense lines of his jaw, she'd have thought he was asleep. She stared at him thoughtfully, wondering how to get his attention. He wouldn't hear anything she said to him, and he couldn't feel it if she touched him. Leave it to Nathan to make things complicated for her. It must be some sort of cosmic Karma or something.
Grimacing, she climbed out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. She braced herself, in case this didn't work as she planned, and then opened the door Nathan was leaning against. He had slumped halfway forward before he apparently noticed the change in vertigo and he straightened up, looking confused. He undid the seat belt and slid out of the truck when he saw her standing next to him, but when he looked up at the hospital he scowled. "Why are we here?" he asked, his voice oddly flat and without inflections.
Audrey's brain scrambled to come up with a response he would understand. Finally she pointed at him, and then to her own ears, and then behind her to the hospital. Nathan frowned but he still let her take his hand and lead him into the building. She didn't even stop at the front desk, taking them straight to the elevator and up to a familiar floor. At the office door Nathan grunted and tried to pull away, but she just tightened her grip on his wrist and knocked on the door.
"Come in," a voice answered after a moment and Audrey breathed out a sigh of relief. She carefully opened the door and Dr. Kelly Marlow looked up at her in surprise. "Nathan, Agent Parker. Can I help you? No one else has died, have they?"
"No, this isn't about the case," Audrey said, tugging forcefully until Nathan reluctantly entered the office behind her. "It's Nathan. There's something wrong with his ears. We don't know what happened, his hearing just suddenly disappeared. Can you, you know, look and see if you can tell what's wrong?"
Kelly Marlow looked flummoxed for a moment, and then he stood up and nodded. "Yes, certainly," he agreed. On realizing that the detective was several inches taller than him, he directed Nathan into his desk chair and then peered into his ears. "You say he can't hear anything?" he asked over his shoulder as he flashed a light into the right ear of a very annoyed looking Nathan.
"Yes. He was fine one second, and then suddenly he just doubled over and from that point on he couldn't hear a thing, even when I shouted at him," Audrey explained. She hovered in the doorway of the office, her arms folded and her fingers digging into her biceps anxiously. "You don't think it's something from his condition, do you? Like perhaps it's spreading?"
"Impossible," Dr. Marlow said, shaking his head as he moved around to check Nathan's left ear. "Two completely different systems, there's no way the condition could spread between them." He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers loudly just millimetres from Nathan's ear. Nathan didn't even blink. "Was he suffering from any of the other symptoms?"
"Not that he mentioned, but he wouldn't, would he?" Audrey asked. "He wouldn't feel any of the pain in his ears. He thought he might have gotten a cold, like I had, because he couldn't smell anything, but that was the most he told me."
Dr. Marlow sat back, looking deeply thoughtful as he stared at Nathan. A few seconds later, Nathan glanced sideways at him and arched an eyebrow silently, making the doctor smile sadly. "Well it definitely looks like a fairly severe ear infection," the doctor announced to Audrey, and then lifted a clipboard into his lap and began writing. "Serious inflammation all throughout his ear canal."
Audrey felt her heart plummet into her stomach and she couldn't make herself voice the question that was filling her mind. It turned out she didn't need to, because Nathan read what Dr. Marlow had written on the clipboard and he looked up at the doctor with a furrowed brow. "Just like the others?" he asked.
Dr. Marlow visibly swallowed before answering. "Yes, exactly like the others," he confirmed, nodding for Nathan's benefit. Audrey felt her chest seize up and she sagged against the doorframe for support.
Nathan was frowning as he asked the final question. "The sand?"
"Yes, it appears so," Dr. Marlow agreed. "The same sandy build up that the others had." Audrey felt like her brain was being crushed inside a vice, no matter how she tried to hide it, but Nathan looked completely unaffected by the news. Dr. Marlow glanced between the two of them, and then shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, but there's not much more I can tell you. The best I can do right now is to prescribe him some amoxicillin to fight the infection."
Audrey scowled and shook her head. "No offense, but I think maybe not," she said. "Not that I'm accusing you, but considering the other two died with that medicine in their veins…"
"No, I understand," Dr. Marlow said and she could see that he looked visibly shaken, twisting his hands in his lap as he leaned against the desk corner. "I'll do some research; see if I can find anything. Or see if there's anything I noted in the other files that I might have missed."
"Thank you, Dr. Marlow," Audrey said. She gestured to Nathan, who had been glancing between them looking frustrated, and he stood up to follow her out.
"Agent Parker." She froze when the doctor spoke up and stopped to look back at him. "Keep a careful eye on him, would you? We don't need another of these accidental deaths. Especially not Nathan." When Audrey nodded, the doctor smiled at her wearily.
"C'mon Nathan," Audrey said, knowing he wouldn't hear it but not being able to stop herself anyway. He walked behind her as she left the office and all the way back out to the Bronco.
When they had climbed inside, he said, "Parker," and she twisted to look at him to show she was listening. "Where are we going?"
Audrey had opened her mouth to answer before remembering it was pointless, and she began searching through the cab of the truck for something to write with. She was stopped by Nathan's brief, hollow laugh. "Parker, I think I can read lips well enough," he said and she turned back to him.
"I'm taking you home," Audrey said, speaking slowly and being sure to shape the words fully on her lips.
"No." Even though she had been half-expecting that answer, hearing it still made Audrey huff in irritation. "No. We should keep working."
"Nathan," Audrey started in exasperation but this time she was silenced by his stern glare.
"Please, Parker," he said firmly. "I don't need rest, I need normal. Let's just keep working." Audrey still didn't like the idea but she didn't say anything, and Nathan seemed to take her silence as consent. "We should go interrogate Marion Yardley."
This time Audrey let out an almost hysterical laugh. "How? You can't hear," she said.
Nathan smirked sarcastically. "Right, because I had forgotten that," he drawled and she gave him an annoyed look. "You listen, I'll watch. See if I can pick up anything in her body language. You can write up anything interesting she says for me later."
Frowning thoughtfully, Audrey drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. Everything in her was screaming that they should just get somewhere safe, where she could watch over her partner and make sure nothing else happened to him. Yet at the same time, the logical part of her mind told her that Nathan had been targeted by whoever had killed the others, and finding out who that person was might be their only chance of fixing this. Solving the case could be the only way to save Nathan. So she gave a grudging nod.
The drive from the hospital was as hauntingly quiet as the drive there had been, until Audrey reached over and turned up the radio a little just to have some noise besides the rumbling engine. Nathan was slouched in the passenger seat, but at least this time he looked more attentive as he stared out of the windscreen. His forehead was furrowed as he scowled, an expression Audrey had come to recognize as 'deep in thought' and she could only imagine what he was thinking about.
Her own mind was reeling with the new turn of events. It was difficult enough to unravel the Troubles when they were random people around town, when it was strangers that were dying unusual, unexplainable deaths. It had been scary when it was Duke who had aged a half century in a day. But Nathan… She cared about Duke, a lot, but in her mind there was no room for argument: Nathan came in first. And now that it was Nathan's life on the line, she wasn't just scared. She was terrified.
Two people so far had died from whatever this was, and had died within forty-eight hours of it beginning. Within forty-eight hours of the point that Nathan was at. They still had no idea what exactly it was that was killing them, whether it was the actual sand problem or if that was just a side effect. They still had no real idea of who was even doing it. There was really only one thing in this case that Audrey was sure of, and that was that she was going to save her partner.
She pressed down on the truck's accelerator harder, propelling them on ever faster.