Heart Stopper Read Online Free PDF Page A

meaningless expressions that seemed to Priya to rub on every exposed nerve in her body. She nodded her head in the right places all the while desperately waiting for the right amount of time to pass before she could escape to the relative isolation of the office she shared with Tara. She knew some of the staff were looking at her curiously, but it seemed inappropriate to mention her flu again. She knew they were wondering whether she had been as close to Daniel as the rumors suggested. The atmosphere was starting to weigh heavily on her and she excused herself and rushed to her office.
    ∞
     
    Priya sat at her desk feeling the nausea hit her in waves. She could hear the murmur of conversation continuing to roll around the clinic as people wandered back to their offices. She heard footsteps outside the room and Tara walked in shutting the door behind her.
    “You don’t look good, girl.” Her short blond hair tousled, her pale pretty face now rubbed clean of make-up Tara didn’t look too good herself, but Priya didn’t feel like pointing that out.
    “Are you going to go to New York for the funeral?” Tara asked.
    Priya nodded. She had just made up her mind. She needed to see this through. She had a sense that she was missing something.
    Tara said, “Did Daniel seem sick to you? It’s strange; he was so into all that healthy living stuff, exercising all the time. And he ate healthy too, do you remember that time at the French restaurant when he would only eat the salad, none of that cream sauce he said. Seems a bit weird to me, having a heart attack at his age, and he never smoked, didn’t drink much. And look at me, drinking all the time, smoking. At least I eat healthy and the Pilates has been great.” She smoothed down her knee-length skirt and patted her stomach. “Priya, you’re really not looking good. Why don’t you go home, do you have any patients in for checks, do you want me to do yours?”
    Priya shook her head. “I’ve got Jacintha coming in, I need to be here.”
    “Hmm… yeah, you’d better do her check. Wouldn’t want to upset the old biddy again.”
    “You know, one day one of the patients is going to hear you calling them names and report you.”
    “Nah, my patients love me too much. It’s just your Jacintha that prefers the exotic brown Doctor Joseph to do her programmer checks. Funny how she trusts you in a medical capacity, but would probably cross the street otherwise. And she doesn’t realize you’ve got a PhD not a medical degree.”
    Priya smiled. “You know she wouldn’t, you’re too hard on her, she’s just old-fashioned. But she loves hearing an Irish accent coming out of an Indian looking woman. Besides I prefer her to the ones that say one thing, but look like they’d rather not have me near them.”
    “I probably doesn’t help that her son had a heart attack right there when I do her check, I mean, why couldn’t that happen when you’re doing it. Now she crosses herself when I pass her.”
    Priya stared at Tara, her eyes pensive, and said, “I worked with Daniel on Thursday and he was fine. A bit quiet, but that was more like he was thinking about things, not sick. Though, he’s been quiet like that for a few weeks now. Not his usual self.”
    Priya hadn’t told anyone in the clinic about the night of her birthday or the subsequent humiliating experience with the Guards. So she couldn’t tell Tara that the last four or five weeks had been almost as bad as the months following the episode last October. The tense and hostile silence after it had been broken by her mother’s death in December. She had needed leave and Daniel had been surprisingly supportive and, despite their history, she had developed a wary sense of kinship with him when she returned to work in January. They had never spoken of that night again, but the quality of their silence together had been different. Till a month ago.
    Tara said, “You’ve been pretty quiet yourself. Was there a