Plague: A gripping suspense thriller about an incurable outbreak in Miami

reconciled to their mortality. But young David Kelly was just nine years old, and today he was supposed to have gone to the Monkey Jungle.
‘Anton,’ said Dr. Petrie, ‘I’ll catch you later. I have to tell the father.’
‘Okay,’ said Dr. Selmer. ‘But don’t forget to tell both parents to come in for a check-up. I don’t want this kind of disease spreading.’
Dr. Petrie walked quickly down the fluorescent-lit corridors to the waiting-room. Before he pushed open the door, he looked through the small circular window, and saw Mr. Kelly sitting hunched on a red plastic chair, smoking and trying to read yesterday’s Miami Herald.
He didn’t know what the hell he was going to say. How do you tell a man that his only son, his nine-year-old son, has just died?
Finally, he pushed open the door. Mr. Kelly looked up quickly, and there was questioning hope in his face.
‘Did you see him?’ Mr. Kelly asked. ‘Is he okay?’
Dr. Petrie laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and pressed him gently back into his seat. He sat down himself, and looked into Mr. Kelly’s tired but optimistic eyes with all the sympathy and care he could muster. When he spoke, his voice was soft and quiet, expressing feeling that went far deeper than bedside manner.
‘Mr. Kelly,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you that David is dead.’
Mr. Kelly’s mouth formed a question, but the question was never spoken. He simply stared at Dr. Petrie as if he didn’t know where he was, or what had happened. He was still sitting, still staring, as the tears began to fill his eyes and run down his cheeks.
Dr. Petrie stood up. ‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll drive you home.’
*
By the time he got back to his clinic, his assistant Esther had already arrived, opened his mail, and poured his fresh-squeezed orange juice into its tall frosted glass. She was sitting at her desk, her long legs self-consciously crossed and her skirt hiked high, typing with the hesitant delicacy of an effete woodpecker. After all, she didn’t want to break her long scarlet nails. She was twenty-one – a tall bouffant blonde with glossy red lips and a gaspy little voice. She wore a crisp white jacket that was stretched out in front of her by heavy, enormous breasts, and she teetered around the clinic on silver stilettos.
For all her ritz, though, Esther was trained, cool and practical. Dr. Petrie had seen her comfort an old woman in pain, and he knew that words didn’t come any warmer. Apart from that, he enjoyed Esther’s hero-worship, and the suppressed rage of his medical colleagues whenever he attended a doctor’s convention with her in tow.
‘Good morning, doctor,’ said Esther pertly, when he walked in. ‘I looked for you in your bedroom, but you weren’t around.’
‘Disappointed?’ he said, perching himself on the edge of her desk.
Esther pouted her shiny red lips. ‘A little. You never know when Nurse Cinderella might get lucky and catch Dr. Charming’s eye.’
Dr. Petrie grinned. ‘Any calls?’
‘Just two. Mrs. Vicincki wants to drop by at eleven. She says her ankle’s giving her purgatory. And your wife.’ Dr. Petrie stood up and took off his jacket. ‘My ex-wife,’ he corrected.
‘Sorry. Your ex-wife. She said you’d have to pick your daughter up tonight instead of tomorrow, because she’s going to visit her mother in Fort Lauderdale.’
Dr. Petrie rubbed his eyes. ‘I see. I don’t suppose she said what time tonight.’
‘Seven. Priscilla will be waiting for you.’
‘Okay. What time’s my first appointment?’
‘In ten minutes. Mrs. Fairfax. All her records are on your table. There isn’t much mail, so you should get through it all by then.’
Dr. Petrie looked mock-severe. ‘You really have me organized, don’t you?’
Esther made big blue eyes at him. ‘Isn’t that what clinical assistants are for?’
He patted her shoulder. ‘I sometimes wonder,’ he said. ‘If you feel like making me some very strong black coffee, you may even find out.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Esther, and stood up. ‘Just remember, though, that a girl can’t wait for ever. Not even for Prince Valiant, M.D.’
Dr. Petrie went through to his clinic. It was built on the east side of the house – a large split-level room with one wide glass wall that overlooked a stone-flagged patio and Dr. Petrie’s glittering blue swimming pool. The room was richly carpeted in cool deep green, and there were calm, mathematical modem paintings on every wall. By the fine gauzy drapes of the window stood a pale marble statue of a running horse.
Dr. Petrie sat in his big revolving armchair and picked at the mail on his desk. Usually, he went through it fast and systematically, but today his mind was thrown off. He sipped his orange juice and tried not to think about David Kelly’s flour-white face, and the anguished shivers of his grieving father.
There wasn’t much mail, anyway. A couple of drug samples, a medical journal, and a letter from his attorney telling him that Margaret, his ex-wife, was declining to return his favorite landscape painting from the one-time marital home. He hadn’t expected to get it back, anyway. Margaret considered that the home, and all of its contents, were fair pickings.
Esther came teetering in with his coffee. The way her breasts bounced and swayed under her white jacket, she couldn’t be wearing a bra. Dr. Petrie wondered what she’d look like nude; but then decided that the real thing would probably spoil his fantasy.
She set the coffee down on his desk, and stared at him carefully. ‘You don’t seem yourself this morning.’
‘Who do I seem like? Richard Chamberlain?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean you don’t look well.’
Dr. Petrie stirred Sweet ‘n’ Low into his coffee, and tapped the spoon carefully on the side of the cup.
‘I’m worried,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
Esther looked at him seriously. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
He raised his eyes. He gave a half smile, and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It was what happened this morning. I was