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That afternoon, Danny and Louisa worked out some coping mechanisms. Much as he hated the indignity, she brushed his teeth, being exquisitely careful not to lacerate his gums. Then she worked out a system to skootch behind the pillows on the bed, and, lacing her fingers together into a double fist, to push against the small of his back so that he could more easily sit upright and get to his feet. At Danny’s suggestion, she brought the cordless phone up from the office. He told her to fasten it securely to an eighteen-inch length of wooden lath with masking tape. He learned to dial it at arm’s length, then to hold it to his head using the lath extension. As for the two-liter bottle with the widened hole, nothing improved on that.

When Danny got tired, Louisa left him to go shop for groceries. He slipped into an exhausted sleep. And dreamed.

Outlined by the moonlight shining through the east window, Ifetayo stood at the foot of his bed. His eyes flickered open and he admired the woman’s supple musculature. There had been a time when he’d verbally compared her to a great jungle cat. That was just after he had hired her to work on a contract basis for him as an Internet researcher. She had laughed and asked him if he thought the image was at all racist. He wasn’t sure, so kept that image to himself from then on.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he said, mouth dry. “I’d get up—”

“—but you can’t,” she finished. “I know that very well.” She brushed her long dark hair back from the one eye it had covered. “I wanted to see you before …” She hesitated.

“Before what?” Danny didn’t like the sound of that.

“Before whatever may happen happens,” Ifetayo finished.

“Don’t give me any alt.philosophy,” Danny said. “What’s happening to me?”

Her generous lips curved in a smile half hidden by the darkness. “I don’t like you much, lover.”

Danny discovered he could barely force words from his own lips. “You mean you hate me?”

She seemed to ignore the question. “You’ll get a gift,” she said. Ifetayo sighed, sounding more sad than angry. Then she showed her teeth when she spoke. “You deserve anything you get.”

“Iffie—” he said, unaccountably panicked.

The look was hard to read. “When you he down with bitches—” she started to say.

And vanished. The moonlight evaporated. The bedroom flooded with austere late-afternoon sun. Danny blinked and drew in a ragged breath.

Louisa stood in the doorway. “Miss me?” she said.

Danny was never able to remember what he had for supper that night. He did recall that Louisa had fed him like a child, one bite at a time via fork or spoon. Going to sleep was akin to passing out.

In the morning, the phone rang and Louisa answered. It was Dr. King. Louisa handed the lath-handled portable over to Danny.

“I’ve got some test results back,” said the doctor. “As I suspected, your CPK is elevated, which supports the myositis scenario. But I’m wondering if perhaps the inflammation is secondary.”

“What do you mean?”

“I happened to run into my favorite bone man this morning. He reminded me that secondary myositis can be the immune system’s natural reaction to bone fragments in the tissue after a fracture.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Can your friend—uh, Louisa?—bring you in this afternoon? I’m scheduling you for an MRI.”

“What are you looking for?” said Danny.

Dr. King’s reply was terse. “Fractures.”

“He’ll be there,” said Louisa on the other phone.

* * *

The bone specialist at the hospital came across as a bit dubious about the need for the MRI scan. He asked Danny if the patient were sure he had simply awakened in pain. There was no trauma? he asked.

“I didn’t even fall out of bed,” Danny answered.

Maybe, the bone man suggested with a smile, one of Danny’s old flames had sneaked in during the night with a ballpeen hammer and got in a few good licks before making her escape.

Danny was not amused.

He glanced at Louisa, who silently formed an interrogative word with her lips.

Ifetayo?

Danny shook his head. Iffie was quite angry with him, feeling he had betrayed her. But she wasn’t malevolent. Was