Year One by Nora Roberts Page A

first. Patient Zero. “It’s like a circle,” he murmured.
    â€œWe’re looking at two healthy babies.” Rachel crouched down, examining the placentas, the umbilical cords. “Good. Good.”
    â€œHow soon can they travel?” Jonah demanded.
    â€œI need to have a look at Katie, and I’m going to try to find somebody in Peeds to examine the babies.”
    â€œShe’s fine, and so are they. I can see it, just like I could see her mother wasn’t fine while you were working on her dad. Like I could see you were immune. I had sort of a sense before … before all this. But it’s more now. I don’t expect you to believe me, but—”
    â€œI do,” Rachel corrected. She rubbed her eyes. “I’ve seen things. Things I didn’t believe at first, but you see enough and you’re an idiot if you don’t believe. I’d also be a lousy doctor if I didn’t examine a woman who just gave birth to twins.”
    â€œOnce you do, I need to know when they can travel. And when you can be ready to go.”
    â€œWhere am I going?”
    â€œI don’t know yet, but I know you’re immune. So are Katie and those babies. You said they’re doing sweeps, taking immunes into quarantined areas, testing them.”
    â€œWhat?” Katie gripped his shoulder. “‘They’? Like the government? They’re detaining people who aren’t sick?”
    Rachel let out a sigh. “Jonah.”
    No more bullshit, he thought. No more despair. “She has a right to know. She has babies to think of. You’re a doctor. There are people who don’t have the virus who need doctors. Who need goddamn smart, adaptable doctors. They’re going to try rounding up people like me, too, and I’m damned if I’m going to end up somebody’s experiment.
    â€œIt’s a circle,” he repeated. “Her parents to me, me to you, you to Katie, Katie to me. And now the babies. It means something. When can they travel, when can you leave?”
    Tired to the bone, Rachel looked at the babies, at the woman weeping silently, at the man who so suddenly looked hard as steel.
    â€œMaybe tomorrow depending on what kind of travel you mean. They have roads blocked.”
    â€œI can get a boat.”
    â€œA boat?”
    â€œPatti—she was my partner,” he told Katie. “She had a boat. It’s not much of one, but it’ll do. We get to the boat, we get in the boat, we use it to get across the river. And we start heading … whatever direction looks best. Stick to rural areas where we can. I’m not sure until we get out. Nobody’s putting those kids in some testing ground.”
    â€œNobody’s touching my babies.” Like a tap wrenched off, tears stopped. “Nobody. We can go now.”
    Rachel held up a hand. “Tomorrow. I’m going to examine you, and we’re going to keep an eye on your babies for twenty-four hours. If there are no complications, we can leave tomorrow. We need supplies. We need diapers and clothes, blankets. We may need formula for the twins.”
    â€œDuncan already breastfed.”
    â€œSeriously?” Rachel let out a laugh. “More good news. We still need supplies. I can get some of what we need here. I’ll go, and clear them to go—if they check out medically—because a woman and her day-old infants could use a doctor. Though Jonah could probably handle most anything. I’ll go because you’re right. This?” She gestured to include the five of them. “This means something. And because maybe, out there, I can start feeling like a doctor again.”
    She moved to the bed. “Go hunt up something for the new mother to eat. Maybe a cold drink, definitely some water. And find her something clean to change into. Find us some caps and preemie diapers for the babies. We’ll see how resourceful you are,