The Fever Read Online Free PDF

as he backed up, “to St. Ann’s?”
    She nodded, leaning her head against the glass.
    He was used to teen sullenness, even though Deenie’s sullenness was only occasional and never sour. But this felt like something else.
    He wondered how bad it had been for her, seeing Lise. What had she seen?
    â€œAre you going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
    â€œDid they say anything at school?” she asked. Tom could hear a screeching from her headphones. “About Lise?”
    â€œI didn’t wait,” he said. “I just left. Carl took my fifth period.”
    Pushing her headphones from her ears, she looked at him.
    Her face seeming to wilt, flower-like, before his eyes.
    â€œDad,” she said softly. “I think something really bad’s happening.”
    He looked at her, nodded, pressed the gas harder.
    â€œOkay,” he said, hand on her forearm. “One step at a time.”
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    â€œMy daughter is her best friend. She was there when Lise fainted. You can’t tell me anything?”
    The admitting nurse, glasses smeary, hair slipping from its clip, sighed and shook her head.
    â€œYou’re not family, sir.”
    He looked at her, saw the weariness set on her, the feeling around her of fluorescence and confusion, a surly man with a mustache shouting at her from his chair about the president and single-payer health care.
    â€œI know,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He gave the slightest of smiles, the one Georgia used to call the Charmer and eventually called the Croc, and set his palms lightly on the counter. “I’m being a pain in the ass. It’s just, my little girl over there…”
    He let the nurse’s eyes wander over. He imagined how Deenie looked to her, her parka sleeves too long, her brother’s old trapper hat slipping from her brown hair.
    â€œâ€¦she got spooked seeing her friend faint,” he said. “Now she’s just scared out of her mind. I promised I’d find out something.”
    The nurse wouldn’t give him a smile in return, but she did let her gaze float down to the computer screen.
    â€œWhat’s her last name again? Daniels?”
    He nodded.
    She typed a moment, then her face tightened.
    *  *  *
    Standing by the dusty halogen lamp in the corner of the waiting room, Deenie was watching her father talk to the nurse when the corridor doors swung open wildly.
    A middle-aged woman bucked past them, a frizz of blond hair, her bright down coat flapping.
    â€œOh God,” she said, spotting Deenie. “Oh, honey.”
    It was Lise’s mom.
    Rushing toward Deenie, she seemed to envelop her in the coat’s puffy squares.
    â€œMy baby,” she said, pushing herself against Deenie, a gust of perfume and sweat. “You should see what they’ve done to my baby.”
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    At first, it was like on television.
    On TV, this is when you find out your friend is dead. Her face punched through a windshield in a drunk-driving accident. Strangled by her jealous boyfriend. Locked in a cage by a man she met on the Internet.
    Even though it didn’t seem real, Deenie found herself wanting to do what they did on TV, maybe sink to her knees, the camera overhead swirling away from her, the music cueing up.
    But then a doctor arrived to talk to Mrs. Daniels.
    And hearing him, it became real.
    â€œDeenie,” her dad was saying, “it’s okay.”
    He was holding on to her shoulder, which was shaking. She felt her whole body shaking and wondered: Is this how it felt for Lise?
    â€œWe’re very lucky she was here when it happened,” the doctor was saying to Mrs. Daniels. “You did the right thing calling 911. Every second counted. A cardiac event of this kind at home…”
    â€œHer heart stopped,” Mrs. Daniels said, her face damp, mascara ashed across her left cheekbone. “I could feel it in my