Page 63 of Booked for Theft

SIXTEEN

“But it’s cheese, Janette.”

Representative Forsythe waited outside of the fast food joint, which sold the greasiest, cheesiest burgers money could buy. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought him to be one of the lower caste men on the hunt for something cheap for lunch. His jeans had seen heavy use, and he wore a denim shirt with an old t-shirt underneath.

When he spotted me with Bradley, he grinned, picked up his backpack, and strolled over. “You have no idea how nice it is to have even a half day off.”

I could only imagine. As the politician seemed determined to start things off on the right foot, I smiled, freed my hand from Bradley’s clutches, and shook with him. “I hope you don’t mind Bradley coming along for the walk. He can have dairy now without consequence, and I’m pretty sure he never would have recovered if he missed a chance for a good cheeseburger.”

Representative Forsythe made a show of shuddering. “While I know it’s not precisely good for me, I’m a cheese fanatic. My wife laments over my love of all things cheese. I brought home an entire wheel of my favorite last week, and she’s horrified over my rate of cheese consumption.”

I sighed, betting the man was a walking cholesterol disaster area. “No, Bradley. You may not test your luck and buy an entire wheel of cheese.”

My fiancé sulked. “But it’s cheese, Janette.”

“I’m sure you can find some comfort in getting yourself a cheeseburger.” I gave the politician my full attention. “I’d apologize for him, but if I couldn’t eat cheese for most of my life and enjoyed an unexpected ability to consume however much of it I wanted, I’d likely be just like him. I’m not going to tell my doctor what I’m eating today as long as you don’t tell her.”

The man laughed. “I’m definitely not telling my doctor, but I fear my wife will. After what happened to Spencer, she’s booked us both in for a check.”

“I can do a quick check if you’d like,” I offered. “I can’t treat anything without the right waivers unless it’s an emergency, but if you do have a cholesterol or blood issue, you’ll at least know.”

“I’d really appreciate that, actually.”

I eyed the man and began the process of checking him over for the telling signs of diabetes, cholesterol problems, and other issues. To my relief, I couldn’t detect anything amiss except a slightly higher cholesterol level than I preferred. “Your cholesterol is a little high, but for a quick look, there’s nothing glaringly amiss.”

“It’s truly that fast for you to tell?”

“I only look with permission, but yes, it doesn’t take long for me to detect things like diabetes and certain illnesses; if it gets into the blood, I can find it. Sometimes, I can detect it in the lungs, as the lungs are so closely involved with the circulatory system. I’d have to touch you to check your heart,” I admitted.

Representative Forsythe held out his hand. “I’ll admit, I find this to be quite fascinating.”

Once upon a time, so had I—and then the reality of what I sensed came crashing down along with the weight of responsibility. With a slight smile, I took hold of his hand, closed my eyes, and focused on the problems that were harder to detect with a cursory glance. After a few moments, my magic locked on to something deep within his body, something that could grow teeth if left alone. Angiosarcoma, which fell into my domain solely due to its presence in the blood vessels of the liver, was a form of cancer I abhorred. It often went undetected until it became a lethal problem, requiring a transplant that most of the patients were too weak to survive. Surgical removal of the tumors might work.

Fortunately for the politician, his had only begun, and I could slice the whole thing out as long as there was a mender backing me.

“You need to have your liver checked for angiosarcoma,” I reported, releasing him. “It’s early—early enough I wouldn’t have spotted it without a closer check. It’s a cancer in the blood vessel of your liver. Its proximity to your blood is why I can detect it—and there’s no evidence of the cancer in your blood itself, so without that closer look, I wouldn’t have been able to spot it.” I struggled to keep from smiling over the fact I could help him, and it would only take a few minutes if only there was a waiver and a mender. “This is something I can treat, because I can just shave out the cancer cells and eject them into the blood stream before removing them—all without any escaping. I need a mender to repair your liver afterwards, but my part of the work is maybe ten to twenty minutes.”

“You can cure cancer in ten to twenty minutes?” Representative Forsythe blurted.

“Only specific types I’ve been trained to do. I’ve seen this one before, and a doctor taught me how to remove it. Yours is so early that it’s not a whole lot to remove. You’d have to sign the waiver and find a mender willing to work with me, though. But I never charge for this sort of thing.” I grimaced, realizing how callous my next words would surely sound. “I learned on animals first, and vets are always trying to find ways to save pets. Pets get cancer, too, and there are a lot of pets out there who can’t get traditional treatments. Money is an issue—or we just don’t have treatments for them. So, I got a lot of practice working with pets that would otherwise die. Some of the pets didn’t make it, but the owners knew that would likely be the case. But then there was that one cat who did make, and we’d already told the owner she wouldn’t. I ended up having to go out and explain to the grieving family we’d fucked up and that the treatment we were so sure wouldn’t work but were willing to try anyway had worked.”

“That must have been one of the times you came home in tears and couldn’t explain why you were trying not to cry,” Bradley said, narrowing his eyes as he regarded me. “You were wanting to cry because you actually succeeded when you expected failure.”

“Stop busting me,” I complained. “You’ve busted me enough for one day, Mr. Bradley Hampton!”

My fiancé snickered. “You’re just a sucker for cats.”

“I really am. With a mender, the procedure is maybe half an hour long with a two day recovery. And the recovery time is to make certain the vessels heal properly. It’s more of a guideline to prevent any issues. You’ll be a little sore for two days, and there’ll be some bruising in your liver, but that’s it.”

“Well, I’ll say something about your method of doing things: the lack of a wait for results is a huge relief. This isn’t my first round with cancer.”

“Oh. I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

“I had childhood leukemia, but it went into full remission. I’m checked every three years to see if there is a recurrence.”

I hated leukemia. “I didn’t notice any signs of leukemia. If you do have a recurrence, contact me. If it’s sourced from your bone marrow, I can help pinpoint the source of it, and depending on the problem, I might be able to resolve it. I can’t do anything other than purge the cancerous cells if it’s genetic, however.”

I’d only done a handful of leukemia treatments, but I shined when the patient was weak, a transfusion was required, and the doctors needed all the infected cells purged.