Flashback

JACK HAD NO IDEA IF HE was chasing white rabbits, but he called Fagan and explained his request for a meeting. Fagan was either a generous man or desperate for something to do. Whatever the motivation, he agreed to meet the next day in the parking lot of Grasso’s, an Italian restaurant just off the Rockland exit of Route 3 South.

Jack said he’d be dressed in jeans and a black shirt and carrying a cane. Fagan met him at the door. He was a compact man about sixty with a ruddy broad face, and he was wearing a Red Sox cap.

The hostess led them to a table with a view of the parking lot. After some small talk about baseball, Jack showed him the photocopy of the newspaper article about the failed search operation. When Fagan finished reading it he asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, why after all these years are you looking into this?”

Again Jack anticipated how weak his reason sounded. “Because she was never found, and I’m wondering what efforts went into finding her.”

Fagan nodded and sipped his beer.

“The article doesn’t say anything about divers being sent out.”

“You’re talking thirty years ago. I don’t think the Coast Guard even had a scuba-ready search-and-rescue unit like today. Even if they did, where would you send them? It’s a big ocean, and there were ten or twelve hours before you had sunlight, and given the turbulence from the storm the visibility would be nil for days.”

“Sure. Do you remember searching for her?”

“Yeah, vaguely, but only because it was a new cutter, and one of my first search-and-rescue operations. We patrolled the coastline for a couple days—maybe two other boats out and a spotter plane. The thing is that the storm was a nor’easter, which didn’t make sense.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Well, the storm came from the northeast, which means the winds were onshore and, like the article said, with strong gusts. Under those conditions, drowning victims almost always wash up. And when they don’t, it’s because of offshore winds or the currents—which weren’t the conditions that night. I don’t mean to be graphic, but drowning victims are floaters—they eventually come to the surface.”

“Which means that a body would most likely have washed up.”

Fagan nodded. “Of course, there’s the problem with that channel out there. Even during a nor’easter you’ve got crosscurrents moving as much as seven knots.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning the storm passes, and she’s carried out to sea; and being August when it happened, the water’s pretty warm.”

Fagan seemed to realize what he was saying and pulled back his explanation and guzzled some of his juice.

“What about the water being warm?” Jack asked.

Fagan sucked in his breath, looking like he wished Jack hadn’t picked him up. “Well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the waters out there, but the island’s at the outer edge of the Elizabeth chain and there’s a channel that occasionally draws in some pretty unusual sea life from the Gulf Stream, including some deepwater pelagic fish, well, you know, like sharks and all. I mean … sorry,” and he took a bite of his scrod.

“Sure.”

They ate without saying much for several minutes. When they finished, Jack paid the bill and walked outside with Fagan.

“Wish I could’ve been more help.”

“No, you were very helpful,” Jack said, feeling a hollowness in his midsection. What he had learned was that his mother might have been eaten by sharks. He prayed that she had drowned first. “I appreciate your time, Mr. Fagan.”

“No problem.”Then he said, “You know, there’s another thing I remember that bothered me back then, just came to me.”

“What’s that?”

“Funny I didn’t think of it before, getting caught up in all the meteorology,” Fagan said. “The boat was an Oday 17, the article says, which means that she was probably out there prepping it for the storm. You were too young to remember, of course, but do you know if there was anyone else in the cottage with her? Your father or other people?”

“No, just my mother.”

Fagan took that in, then made a humpf and shrugged.

“What are you trying to tell me, Mr. Fagan?”

“Well, two would have been faster, but one could have done it. I assume it was moored in the cove, so depending on the wind it could take some time, you know, rowing out there from the shore in a tender. She’d be fighting the wind, of course, which would slow her down, having to remove the mainsail, bagging it, then putting it away in the cutty cabin—maybe put another safety line on the mooring, whatever. But with all the back and forth, that would take some time. Plus it’s dangerous trying to keep your balance, all that pitching. Like trying to stand up on a seesaw. One false move and you’re overboard.”

Fagan shook his head. “Forgive me, she being your mother and all, but what I still don’t understand is how she took the chance, leaving a two-year-old baby unattended in his crib.”

Jack felt a cold flash up his back, but all he could do was nod in reflex.

Fagan shook his head. “That’s something that just never sat right with me, a storm kicking up the water just a hundred feet away. I’ve got a grandchild about that age, and he can climb out of his crib like a monkey. Not something me or my wife would’ve chanced. Hell with the boat’s my attitude.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fagan.”

“No problem. Good luck.”

Jack watched Fagan walk into the parking lot toward his car, his words sizzling in Jack’s brain.

66

RENÉ HEARD THE FAMILIAR HIGH-COMPRESSION GROWL out her window, and she looked out to see Jordan Carr pull up in front of her house in a new Ferrari—this one a black lacquered thing with huge chrome wheels.

Over the months, she had seen Jordan Carr at meetings with other clinicians working on the Memorine trials, but her social relationship was restricted to a few quick lunches in nursing home cafeterias. But it was evident that he was attracted to her. On a few occasions he asked her out to dinner, a movie, or a concert, yet she politely refused, saying that she was busy with work or other engagements. He seemed to take it well, coloring and nodding, bowing out with an exit line—“Maybe another time.” Eventually he stopped asking.

René knew she probably came across as aloof or old-fashioned, maybe even prudish or anti-men. But she was none of those. In fact, she had decided that she wanted to meet new men and go out, and that when her work on the trials subsided, she would start exploring the dating scene. But at the moment she was swamped. About Jordan Carr she was just not interested. What made tonight different was that Jordan insisted that she meet old acquaintances of his to talk about investments and financial planning. With her school loans, the grant money she was making on the trials, plus the growing value of her GEM stock options, her economic situation was becoming more complicated, so she agreed to a dinner date.

“What do you think?” Jordan asked when she stepped outside.

She looked at the low, sleek machine with the midnight-sculpted luster. “Did you and Batman do a swap?”

“Very funny,” he said with a blank face, and opened the passenger-side door.

René got in thinking that that was one problem with Jordan Carr: that he found few things funny, that he had almost no sense of levity, that she could not imagine him having a good belly laugh. Perhaps he was above the display of humor as with real anger. If he got angry or upset, he tended to internalize his reaction, perhaps in accordance with some mannered protocol of behavior—as if the control of his emotions underscored a superior virtue. Ironically, the blotching of his face would betray him. And that’s what bothered René the most about him: She was never completely certain of his true feelings. And in that uncertainty Jordan Carr made others aware that he was superior.

Jordan started the car and they pulled away.

It was Friday afternoon, and they were driving to the cliffs of Manomet, a few miles north of the Cape Cod Canal, where Grady and Luanne Vickers had a summer place. Grady worked for a Boston mutual funds company and was Jordan’s portfolio manager. Luanne was a Boston bank manager.

“But she really doesn’t need to work,” Jordan said “She’s from old Yankee money.”

Old Yankee money.

And that was another thing. For Jordan, money seemed to be a prime mover. Perhaps it had to do with making up for the divorce lawyers, but when once she complained how in the trials there seemed to be more emphasis on the financial than medical, especially regarding the clinicians, Jordan reminded her, “Look, it takes eight to ten years to get trained—school, internship, residency, not to mention high professional expenses and staggering malpractice insurance. Maybe not you, but some people would argue that docs are entitled to financial rewards.” She saw no point in counterarguing and said nothing.

As he ate up the highway in his stallion hat and leather driving gloves, she decided that Dr. Jordan Carr really was that Michael Douglas character—and proud of it.

A LITTLE AFTER FIVE, THEY TURNED off Exit 2 and onto 3A, and from there they found a tree-lined side street that led to the cliff-top house—a gray-shingled two-level place with a deck offering a spectacular view of Cape Cod Bay.

As soon as they arrived, Grady came out of the house. He was a heavyset man with floppy brown hair and an eager, pleasant face. He shook René’s hand when he was introduced. “You’re going to have to forgive me, but I have to leave.” Then, with a woeful expression, he explained that their four-year-old daughter, Leah, who was staying with Luanne’s parents in Wayland, had developed a high fever and had been taken to the local emergency department. Luanne had left earlier and called to ask Grady to join her. The girl had had a seizure.

“How high was her temperature?” René asked.

“One-oh-four point seven. They put her in a cool bath but decided to take her in.”

“That was smart.”

Grady checked his watch. “Luanne called twenty minutes ago and it was down to one-oh-three point six. I’m sure she’s going to be fine, but Leah is asking for me. But you’re welcome to stay, of course. We’ll be back later, depending on how things go. And I’ll be happy to talk financial planning.”

“I understand,” René said.

Grady led them inside and showed them what would be their room if they wanted to stay over. René noted a queen-size bed. She also noted that across the hall were the master bedroom and a smaller room for Leah. But downstairs in the living room there was a couch. She didn’t know how Jordan had characterized their relationship, but she had no desire to share a bed with him. Jordan dropped his bag in the guest room. He had brought a change of clothes. She hadn’t. An overnighter was not part of the evening.

René followed Grady and Jordan down the stairs, where Grady grabbed his keys and headed outside again. He walked over to the Ferrari and shook his head. “Guy’s got it rough,” he said to René. “House in the country, vintage Ferraris, getaway perks to Park City and Aruba.” He winked at her. “All those drug company kickbacks.”

Jordan’s cheeks instantly blotched. He didn’t like that, but he covered well. “And how’s the insider trading going?”

“Touche.” Grady smiled. “But apparently not as well,’cause I’m still driving a Toyota and you’re running around in Stealth fighter jets.” Grady jiggled his keys. “There’s a shrimp and scallop casserole in the oven, rice on the stove, and a terrific salad Luanne made in the fridge. Plus plenty of beer in the cooler and a rack of wine in the kitchen. Enjoy. Again, I’m sorry about this. But maybe later.”

René thanked him and added, “I’m sure Leah will be just fine.”

He nodded and his smile faded. “Luanne’s kind of worried about the seizure … you know, possible consequences …”

“That’s highly unlikely,” Jordan said. “Febrile seizures are over in moments, with no lasting damage. Besides, her temp was too low. It’s when the fever is over one-oh-seven for an extended period of time that there could be some problems.”

“I’m feeling better already.”

Jordan pretended to write something out on his palm. “That’ll be two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Which will just cover room and board for the night,” Grady laughed and got in the car. “And don’t wait up for us. Nice meeting you,” he said to René. “See you later.”

Room and board? It began to feel like a setup.

René followed Jordan inside. The place was designed for the view—cathedral ceiling, open living-room-dining-room-kitchen area, a corner fireplace, and a huge floor-to-ceiling glass wall with sliding doors that led onto a deck. The sun had set behind them so that in the fading light the blue-gray sea made a seamless fusion with the sky. From the canal, a few miles to the right, to Provincetown, the full sweep of the Cape’s arm could be seen. On a clear evening, Jordan said, you could make out the lighthouse in Province-town straight out.

“Well, we might as well make the best of it,” Jordan said, and began to spoon the casserole onto two plates. René opened a bottle of red wine, chiding herself for her earlier suspicions. They would make the best of it, have dinner, and head home, no problem.

They ate the dinner and drank some of the wine they had brought. Then they moved onto a wicker couch on the deck to take in the view. It was a perfect spring night, warm, with a gentle breeze and an opaque sky fretted with stars. To the right, a crystalline moon rose over the water, making a marbleized path all the way out to the horizon. In the distance pulsed the P-town lighthouse.

Jordan poured himself his fourth glass of wine and made a toast. “To us and continued success. And I hope we all make a ton of money.” He was beginning to slur his words.

“Yes, continued success,” René said, and clicked his glass.

“Which reminds me,” Jordan said. “Did you see the Klander Report?”

“Yes, I saw it.”

“So, what do you think?”

She really didn’t want to get into it over wine. “Well, I think it’s something of a whitewash.”

“Whitewash?”

“It dismisses flashback seizures as incidental events.”

Maybe it was the wine, but Jordan’s face darkened. “Because that was the conclusion of the CRO—that they’re simple anomalies unrelated to the drug.”

More likely, that was the conclusion of GEM Tech execs who had vigorously denied any rumors of side effects—rumors that had kept deep-pocket investors awake at night. Unrelated delusional behavior. And helping to counter such anxieties was the frenzy created by the FDA’s decision to fast-track Memorine’s development—the deluge of calls and e-mails to clinicians and trial site administrators from AD victims, their families, health care people, and government reps wanting to know when the drug would be available. (The unofficial response was, this coming Christmas.)

However, that was not the unanimous agreement among clinicians, a few of whom had made their concerns known. Even though it was still impossible to prove conclusively that Memorine caused flashbacks, the observational correlation was overwhelming. “It’s still rudimentary,” René said, “but Dr. Habib’s MRI studies were beginning to confirm a connection between flashbacks and neurological repair. I’m sure they were sent to you following his death.”

Furthermore, the MRI configurations of Jack Koryan’s flashback seizures were identical to those of AD patients during flashback seizures. The EEG readings were also similar. And Peter Habib’s independent study had confirmed the similarities. The only problem was that Jack Koryan refused to submit to any more MRI exams or tests to determine the effects of the jellyfish toxins. Understandably, he had had it with being probed. Besides, he was a “civilian” again and getting on with his life.

Jordan studied her for a moment as he selected his words. “Well, some have argued that those are exaggerated claims.” He got up and went inside to get another bottle of wine.

When he returned, he poured more wine into his glass. René still had half a glass. He took a sip. “I’m not sure what to make of Peter Habib’s findings, but let’s say there is some connection, just for the sake of argument. We’re addressing the problem with standard meds and good results, right?”

He put his hand on hers. “And, look, ask yourself this—if your father were still alive, which would you prefer: him drying up layer by layer until he’s nothing more than just the shell of himself, or him alert and reliving some good old times with old friends?”

She hated the question and deflected it. “If these people were all experiencing delightful nostalgic moments, it wouldn’t be so bad,” she said. “But many of them are being thrust into past traumas over and over again, like Louis Martinetti. He keeps reliving the torture of himself and a soldier friend back in Korea. And others get lost in equally horrible experiences from childhood. For whatever reason, these traumas overwhelm any other recollections and keep pulling them back.”

Jordan made a dismissive gesture with his wineglass.

“Jordan, these flashbacks are turning out to be worse than the disease. Worse than fading away to nothing. The stuff is making some of them prisoners of their worst experiences. And the meds we use to treat the flashbacks not only wear off but they dull them so that they’re barely functional.”

Jordan took a sip of his wine and made a smooth grin. “Whatever, once we get to Utah all the laundry will be sorted and all issues will be resolved with one mind. And if there are those who disagree—me, Nick, or anybody else—they can file separate reports with the FDA.”

Just then the telephone rang and Jordan went inside to catch the call. But that wasn’t necessary since a portable was sitting on the side table. She could hear muffled talking from inside and what sounded like Jordan chuckling. Maybe it was the wine, but Jordan never chuckled. He just made polite, smooth grins when he thought something was supposed to be funny.

A couple minutes later, he returned from the kitchen. “That was Grady. Leah is fine and sleeping comfortably. They’ll be back tomorrow for brunch.”

René felt herself tense up.

“So,” Jordan said. He lowered himself to the couch again and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’ve got a question for you, if you don’t mind,” he began. “I asked you out four times, and four times you turned me down. I’m just wondering what there is about me you don’t like. Is it my appearance? Was it something I said? Do I have bad breath? Every time I ask you say you’re busy.”

“Well, I have been. That’s the truth.”

“Well, you’re not busy now.” He lowered his face to hers, at the same time sliding his hand over her shoulder toward her breast.

“Please don’t,” she said.

“Please don’t what?”

“Don’t this.” And she removed his hand.

Jordan snapped his head back. “What’s your problem?”

“I don’t feel like being pawed.”

His face was nearly the color of the wine. “Pawed? Is everything fucking protocol with you … or should I say no fucking?”

She got up to move to the chair, but he grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?” He glowered hotly at her.

“Jordan, stop this.”

“Stop what? I haven’t done anything but try to give you a damn kiss, for God’s sake.”

“You’re hurting my arm.”

“You’re hurting my arm,” he mimicked, his face making an ugly distortion as he spit out the words. His other hand jerked as she spoke, spilling wine onto his white pullover and making a large red stain. But he held his grip.

His face was maroon and eyes were glassy and wild-looking. Suddenly René felt afraid of him. She was seeing another being in Jordan that had resided below the surface. His face was the color of rage. “Jordan, please let go of me.”

He glared at her for a long moment, still holding her, scrutinizing her face, his own hot and on this side of erupting. He did not let go.

“Please let go of me,” she insisted.

But he continued to study her without expression. So with her other hand she dug her nails into his wrist and snapped her arm free. Then she shot inside.

“Fucking little bitch,” muttered Jordan, and stumbled after her. “Where you going?” he shouted, as he entered the living room.

In an instant, René decided not to go upstairs for fear of being trapped in a bedroom. So she bolted to the fireplace, grabbed a fire iron out of the rack, and raised it like a bat.

Fucking little bitch.

She had not heard him utter such language nor imagined this heat in him. Maybe he was just a bad drunk, but what crossed that thought was that her reaction was confirming the menace she saw in him. And that maybe it was all he needed to assume the role.

Jordan stopped in his tracks as she raised the poker, and for a moment he just stared at her without expression. But in her mind she rehearsed her moves if he came at her. He was drunk, unsteady in his step, sloppy in his movements, seeing double—and she wasn’t. Maybe it was the adrenaline thundering in her veins, but she felt twice her size. One flinch of aggression from him and she’d split his skull.

He must have picked up her radiation, because his face slackened and his mouth creased into a stupid grin. “What the hell you doing? I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You bet your ass you’re not.”

“Put that thing down.” He was wavering and had to steady himself against the couch. “What the hell’s your problem? I was just trying to be romantic, for God’s sake.” And he flopped onto the couch, spilling more wine on himself. “Shit,” he said taking in the big red stain.

“Who was that on the phone?”

“What?”

“Who was that on the phone?”

“Grady. Who do you think it was?”

“And what did he say?”

For a moment Jordan had to regroup himself against the wine. “What do you mean? You know, that Leah wanted them to stay with … the grandparents … Why?”

His face was in flames. He was lying. He could have answered on the portable, but he took the call inside. It had been a setup—to get the Vickers out of the way. And now things were out of hand, and Jordan was too drunk to drive her home.

With the poker in hand, René went up the stairs for her bag, knowing that he was in no shape to follow her but certain that if he did, she’d nail him. She felt that close to the edge. (Once Todd had hit her in a moment of craziness, and she nearly scratched his eyes out.)

But Jordan didn’t come after her, and from the bedroom she called a cab and said it was urgent. “Five minutes, lady. Got a guy in the neighborhood.” She waited several minutes before going back down.

When she did, Jordan was sprawled on the couch, holding his head and groaning. “Where’re you goin’?” His shirt and pants were stained with wine.

“Home.”

Suddenly he was alert, his eyes huge glass balls. “You’re not taking my car?”

“I called a cab.”

“A cab? Aren’t you overreacting?”

Maybe, she thought. Then she remembered how he looked at her when she asked him to let her hand go. And the hot eyes.

Fucking little bitch.

He tried to get up, making it only halfway. He groaned. “God, my head.” Then he looked at her. “You’re being a … You’re being hysterical, you know that? I’m a doctor, for chrissake. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Outside a horn honked, and she headed for the door.

“You’re being ridiculous,” he said.

She stepped outside.

“Goddamn bitch!”

With her bag, she hustled to the cab. As she got in, she looked back to see Jordan stumble after her. She could hear him still muttering curses.

The cab pulled away and made a U-turn at the bottom of the street. As they passed the house, she noticed Jordan leaning against his Ferrari and vomiting wine and casserole onto the driveway.

67

YOU’RE NUTS! FUCKING WHACKO LOONEY TUNES nuts!

That’s what Jack told himself as he pulled his rental into the Harbor Line parking lot in New Bedford to purchase his round-trip ticket.

Homer’s Island.

It was located at the southwesterly end of the Elizabeth chain, about eighteen miles south of the old whaling port of New Bedford and four miles southwest of Cuttyhunk. Privately owned and devoid of strip malls, clam shacks, minimart Mobil stations, or any other commercial blight, the island consisted of seven hundred unspoiled acres and maybe a couple of dozen august mansions that sneered down from their cliffs over million-dollar yachts as reminders that you were not a member of the Lucky Sperm Club. In spite of the exclusive domain, the summer months drew a few boaters to the tranquil anchorage and the wildlife. The ferry left three times a week at ten A.M.

Jack arrived a few minutes early with a growing sense of unease. He really didn’t know why he was doing this. It was not a casual trip down Memory Lane. Yes, something happened out there when he very young. Maybe on the night his mother had disappeared. Perhaps something would come back to him if the projection guys messing around in his hippocampus would play him a recap. Or perhaps not. But at least he’d get the bug out of his belly.

From the upper deck he could make out the water taxi he had taken last August. The captain’s name was Jeff Doughty. A few days after Jack emerged from the coma, he called Jeff to thank him for alerting the Coast Guard and to tell Jeff that he was back from the dead. Jeff was delighted to hear that.

It was a cool, overcast Saturday, so only a handful of people was on the boat. The trip took a little more than an hour, making only one other stop, at Cuttyhunk. Most of the Elizabeth Islands lay low against the sky, and as the boat pulled out of port Homer’s rose like a gentle ruffle on the horizon.

Approaching from the east, Jack could make out a few mansions along the southern ridge, at the end of which sat Vita Nova, the Sherman estate. Only a few cars and a couple of taxis were on the island. Jack hired one to take him along Crest Drive to about a quarter mile short of the property, preferring the exercise of walking and the gradual approach. Along the way, he passed open sweeps of full-ocean views, some woodland stretches, and a few homes perched along the brow.

Vita Nova was a twelve-room structure of weathered clapboards—one of four homes that looked down on Buck’s Cove, a horseshoe anchorage rimmed with white sand, dune grass, and granite outcroppings. From the road one could not see the complex of flower gardens or the flagstone walkways or the brown caretaker’s cottage. Jack had been inside the estate only once or twice when he was a boy, as tagalong when his aunt dropped in to say hello or report a leaky window. Rental issues were handled by mail or phone, and the Shermans did not socialize with the Koryans or come down to the beach. Jack never understood how people who owned one of the most stunning spots on the New England coast never took a swim at their own beach or put a boat in the water. In fact, he almost never saw activity at Vita Nova.

He also never learned how his family was so privileged to rent the cottage. The Shermans surely did not need the money, and Jack couldn’t imagine why they’d welcome strangers with a couple of screaming kids in for two weeks out of the year. According to his aunt, Jack’s mother had befriended Thaddeus Sherman, the patriarch of the estate, who had offered her the use of the place before Jack was born—an agreement that apparently continued on and off for ten years following her death. Since then, Jack had not returned until college, coming out a few times on a friend’s outboard. They’d drop anchor in the cove, watch the sun go down, and under outrageously starry skies get beer-philosophical.

Vita Nova looked lifeless—dark windows, closed garage doors, no gardeners pulling weeds. Adding to the eerie calm was the fact that at this westerly end of the island you almost never saw cars, people walking dogs, or joggers. Except for the wind ruffling a flag, it felt as if he had entered a still-life canvas. And walking by the place he felt as conspicuous as a kangaroo. About fifty yards west of the estate was the beach access, an unmarked set of wooden steps hidden by scrub and dune grass.

From the time he woke up that morning, Jack kept thinking about descending these steps and how the cottage would emerge on the left and in the cove Skull Rock. He did not know how he’d react—if he’d be assaulted with flashback images and freak out. But he doubted that, since for the last week he had been on the new PTSD Whack-a-Mole pills, and they worked. No seizures, no flashbacks. Nothing. But in anticipation, his heart thudded as he made his way down, fixing his eyes on the water that under the bright gray sky looked chrome-plated. A few steps down, he watched the cottage emerge over the boulders, and he half-expected a blast of psychic shrapnel that would send him scrambling up the steps. Instead, all he felt was emotional blankness. Nothing.

But Skull Rock stopped him cold.

At eleven-thirty, the sea was just coming off high tide, so only the black crown cut the surface like some cryptozoic sea demon arising from slumber. Jack looked away and continued to the bottom, feeling the rock tug at him as he crossed the sand to the shelf of grass that aproned the cottage. The place looked the same as it had for decades—a four-room Cape Cod cottage in weathered shingles, echoing the manse above. The roofing had been patched in places, and the window boxes had been recently painted, but the same wicker rocking chair sat on the patio as on Jellyfish Night.

The interior was dark. As he took in the house, he could feel suction at his back—the kind of sensation you get when you know you’re being watched. Skull Rock. He turned, and keeping his eyes low, he walked to the edge of the water, where a dead skate had washed up, its white underbelly torn open by seabirds. Jack took a breath and raised his eyes.

The rock was black against the horizon, maybe a ten-foot arc crowning the surface. As if in tunnel vision, everything else in the cove fuzzed to a blur, but that rock cap—and it came back to him with stereoscopic clarity: the heavy black clouds, the leaden water, the squawking gulls, the deep-bellied rumble of thunder, the flicker of lightning across the horizon. He could feel the cold grip of the barnacles under his feet, wavelets lapping at his ankles, and the apprehension as he estimated the stretch between him and the beach in his standoff before the mad fifty-yard dash into a coma.

He remembered from mythology class that the ancient Greeks had believed that two rivers led to Hades. One was called Lethe; and on the way to the Elysian fields, departed souls would take a drink of it and wash away all memories and sorrows as a condition of reincarnation and return to the upper world. The ancients also believed in recycling, since the other was the River Mnemosyne—one drink and you remember everything. As Jack stood at the edge of the water, he wondered which was the worse curse.

He headed back toward the cottage, wondering if anything had been changed, if the same honey-colored pine walls, stone fireplace, and red furniture still warmed the room. What it would be like to be at that window looking out—if things would click into place and if some little bone of recollection would float up from the gloom.

Of course, the proper thing would be to go back up to the house, introduce himself as someone whose family used to rent the cottage—might even remember him—then ask if he could please take a peek for old time’s sake. It had been a while. But that would mean reclimbing the fifty steps, and if anyone was home try to explain that he came all the way out here with cane in hand—a two-hour car ride from Carleton followed by another hour by ferryboat—on a cold, bleak Tuesday morning for a casual nostalgic hit. Sure, pal, and pigs have wings.

The other option was the truth—You see, I think when I was not even two years old, my mother … and I just want to run a test, see if anything comes back—so don’t mind me while I cuddle up under the window. Got an old crib lying around?

No problem, Mr. Koryan. First, just one little call.

And a police chopper would be out here like that to drop him into the nearest foam room.

He climbed the stairs, feeling his legs throb, stopping every so often to catch his breath and let his heart catch up. By the time he reached the top, his whole body pulsed. And to think that last year at this time he could have gone up and down these stairs ten times. “In time, in time.” Marcy Falco’s words chimed in his head.

Jack pressed the bell and could hear a muffled ring from inside. He waited a minute and tried again, but still nobody came to the door or peeked out. Nor could he hear footsteps. The momentary flash of relief was quickly crossed with anxiety—there was no excuse not to break in.

He headed back down to the cottage again. His head ached from the blood booming through his veins. He tried the door, but it was locked, and cool relief flushed through him.

Good, head home. Nothing here for you. Dumb idea from the start.

But just as those thoughts passed through his brain, his head snapped to the right—to the window box with the bright ragged geraniums, because under it a plastic key box used to be nailed to the shingles out of view—house rules to lock up when leaving the place, since the cove drew boaters who sometimes came ashore to explore.

Jack walked over to it and stuck his hand below, and like a small electric shock his fingers felt the plastic box. He snapped open the lid and a tarnished brass key tumbled out—the same slightly bent number from twenty years ago, maybe even more. It sat in the palm of his hand, humming like a talisman. With ease it slipped into the tumbler and, with a sticky crack, the door pushed open.

But he did not enter immediately. The blood swelling his head had produced a ten-megaton ache that threatened to split the lobes of his brain.

Don’t do this, man. You’re gonna step in there and get nothing, or it’s gonna set off another Wes Craven gore-fest you may not escape from.

Fuck it! Came this far.

He stepped inside … and nothing.

But instantly the old cottagey seabreath filled his head like a dream. From a cursory glance, the Sherman fortune had not been squandered on makeover. The interior was just as he remembered it from twenty-five years ago—golden knotty-pine paneling, red plaid upholstery on matching sofa and chairs, rectangular coffee table with a glass top under which sat an arrangement of seashells, sand dollars, and starfish, fireplace with the dried wreath, logs in a wrought-iron pot. Familiar pine furniture in the bedrooms, and the same kitchen—an old four-jet gas stove, double white stainless steel sinks, but what looked like a new refrigerator. It was like stepping into an old movie set.

As he walked through the place his mind ticked off the kinds of things he’d do to restore it, were it his, wondering why the Shermans with all their money hadn’t upgraded the place. Maybe it had something to do with not separating old Boston Brahmins from their millions.

He also half-expected goblins to jump out at him. But nothing like that. The dark kinescope of his brain had blown a fuse. Not even a flicker of recollection. Nothing came back. He looked at the room, and the room looked at him, and that was it. So maybe it was a blessing in disguise, he thought. Maybe this was the point in the story where the beleaguered hero finally shakes the gargoyle off his back—in this case to be replaced by his new best friend, Zyprexa, ten milligrams daily. So say adios, take the next boat home, and get on with the rest of your gray-mush life.

“Who are you?”

Jack froze. A woman’s voice. From behind him. For an instant, he thought he was having another spell—that shortly he’d lapse into Armenian lullabies.

But behind him stood a real woman in real-woman flesh and a lavender sweater. “This is private property.”

Before he could respond, a volley of angry barks cut the air like gunshots. And from behind the woman emerged a large German shepherd with about fifty flashing incisors.

“Brandy, stop!” And the woman yanked the dog back on its leash. The dog instantly heeled and ceased barking. “What are you doing here?”

“I tried your house, but nobody was home.”

“That still does not excuse your breaking in.”

He held up the key. “I didn’t. I remembered where the key was kept. My family used to stay here during the summer. I don’t know if it rings a bell, but my name is Jack Koryan.” He pushed down the impulse to extend his hand because he did not expect the woman wanted to take it nor did he want to give Brandy a target.

“I don’t recognize the name,” the woman said. “And that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

Wish I knew myself.

“You may recall someone nearly drowning out here last August. The Coast Guard found him and he ended up in a coma. It was in the papers.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was me.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad you survived.”

But he could see that she was still wondering what he was doing in her cottage. “I’m just trying to put some pieces together,” he began. “I don’t know if you remember the story, but thirty years ago the woman who was staying here disappeared one August night and was never found. That was my mother. She had stayed here a lot.”

And Jack explained: How he was found the next day by a groundskeeper who had shown up to assess the damage from the storm, only to discover Jack sitting in dirty diapers on the floor clutching his stuffed mouse. How he was rushed to a hospital in New Bedford, where he was treated for dehydration and shock and released two days later to his aunt and uncle. How he was unable to relate any of the events of the evening even in the most rudimentary baby talk, so it was assumed that he remembered nothing that had happened that night in the cottage—if anyone else had been there or the circumstances of his mother’s disappearance.

“That’s an unfortunate story, but I still don’t understand why you’re here.”

“It’s crazy, but I was hoping that something would come back. I’ve been having dreams of her.”

The woman looked at him in bewilderment for a moment. “My father sometimes took in odd sorts and occasionally let them stay here.”

“Odd sorts?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way.” She had stepped into the room and was now standing with her foot on the stone lip of the fireplace. Brandy settled beside her, panting and looking bored. “Special people interested him. Artists, writers, naturalists … Did your mother paint?”

“No. She was a biochemist.”

The woman’s face suddenly opened up. “Oh, good heavens. The sea-creature lady.”

Sea-creature lady?

“From Harvard.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll be. She had something to do with a joint lab at MIT.”

“Yes.”

The woman’s eyes expanded, and as if a valve had been turned open, turned effusive. “Yes, yes, yes. You see, Thaddeus was a trustee of the institute, which explains how he met your mother. She must have written a paper or given a talk or something which caught his attention. I think I was maybe ten or twelve at the time, but I remember her—a quick little lady with lots of energy. Yes. She used to come out and gather specimens, wade in the water with a face mask and net.”

Jack could barely breathe as he took in her recollection.

“I don’t know if you’re aware,” she continued, “but the waters out here are very special, because every twenty years or so the Gulf Stream brings in some odd creatures from the tropics—beluga whales and sunfish, Portuguese men-of-war, and smaller things. Sharks, too, even had a hammerhead caught just beyond the cove. But I remember her.”

“Rose.”

“Rose. Oh, yes: Rosie.” And she pronounced the name with warm recollection. “A lovely woman. Wore her hair in a bun. She had a whole collection of things in jars she put on the shelves over there. Even set up a little lab in here of sorts with a microscope and things. She used to show me her collection—little starfish and crabs … and jellyfish. Such a lively, lovely woman.”

“Jellyfish?”

“Yes. She must have been a marine ecologist—you know, someone who fought to save the whales or whatever, because Thaddeus was a great proponent of the save-the-sea movement, of course, and a charter member of the Cousteau Society, but that’s before your time … ,” and she went on.

Then she looked around the room and nodded at the corner. “She even had some mice, a cage with half a dozen or so. And a little maze she had built. She let me play with them.”

“Mice?”

“I don’t know what the connection was …”

Just then her cell phone chimed, and Brandy let out a reflexive bark. The woman produced a phone from her pocket and explained that she was down at the cottage talking to a visitor. She clicked off and stuck her hand out. “And, by the way, I’m Olivia Sherman Flanders.” She checked her watch. It was time to leave.

Jack handed her the key as they walked outside. She locked the door and dropped it in her pocket, probably thinking about calling a locksmith. They headed up the steps, Brandy ranging ahead on the leash. As they reached the top, Olivia said, “You said something about having dreams of her.”

“Yes, just dissociated images, nothing that makes sense.”

“But you must have been a very young child when she drowned.”

He nodded. “I can’t explain. But I apologize for letting myself in like that. I was just hoping that something would jar my memory.”

“Humpf,” she said with a shrug, and offered him a ride to the ferry.

But he refused. He could use the exercise to build up his leg muscles, in spite of the ache.

“I understand,” she said.

He dry-swallowed a Motrin and limped away.

The sun had broken through, warming his shoulders and turning the cove into an open bowl of green mercury. His eyes fell on the Skull Rock, drying to a dusty gray.

Jesus, jellyfish.

68

TO SAVE HER MONEY, THE CABBY had driven René directly to Logan Airport, where she caught a shuttle bus to Dover Falls, New Hampshire, where, on a call from the shuttle driver, another taxi met her to take her home. It was well after two A.M. when she had finally climbed into bed, drained and wondering if she had overreacted. Wondering how far it would have gone if she hadn’t reacted. No, every instinct told her she hadn’t overreacted.

On Sunday morning, René was at her dining room table working on the trial data for Nick in preparation for the Utah conference. At little after eleven, her doorbell rang, startling Silky from his sleep on the chair beside her. Outside was the black Ferrari. And the sight of it set off a small burst of adrenaline in her chest. Jordan was at the front door with a huge bouquet of flowers.

She couldn’t pretend she wasn’t home because her car sat in the driveway, and Jordan had spotted her looking out the window.

She opened the inside door, but not the screened storm door.

“I just wanted to stop by and apologize for the other night.” He was dressed in chinos and a sleeveless polo shirt and looked as if he were heading to a golf course. Except on his feet were boat shoes.

“I don’t remember half of what happened, but I think I acted badly. Really. I’m terribly sorry.”

She could still feel the heat from his eyes as he gripped her arm and swore at her with hot conviction. Maybe he was just a bad drunk. “Accepted.” Maybe she had overreacted, for she could still see herself in the middle of the living room with the fireplace iron raised like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Bull-shit ! Jordan was tall and athletic, and he was gassed. Who knew what he was capable of? Besides, she felt in peril.

Jordan looked at her through the screen with a supplicating expression. It was clear that he wanted to come inside. She opened the door and took the flowers. “Thank you,” and she closed the door again.

“Well, I just want you to know that that wasn’t the real me.”

“That’s a relief.”

His face blotched as he didn’t quite know how to take her comment. Then he made a flat smile of resignation. “I guess I had too much to drink.”

“I guess.”

“In any case, I’d like to make it up to you—you know, start afresh. I’ve got tickets to the auto show at the Exhibition Center.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. Besides, I’m swamped with work.”

Jordan’s facial muscles tightened, and his left eye twitched slightly. And for a moment she expected him to push his way inside. But instead he nodded. “Okay, fine. I said what I was going to say.”

René watched him walk down the driveway to his car. As Jordan opened the door to get in, René noticed somebody in the passenger seat. A man. She didn’t recognize him at first, but she did register a large fleshy head and sunglasses.

Jordan lowered himself into the driver’s seat and started the car. But before he pulled away, he cast a final glance at René as he rolled by her mailbox. In the next moment the car roared away.

And like the afterimage of an old television set, it came to her that in the passenger seat was Gavin Moy.

69

MOTHER’S DAY FELL ON THE FIRST Sunday in May. And because it was a glorious day, Yesterdays was bustling with celebrants.

It was Jack’s second week of working the reception desk as host, and he was enjoying it. He felt engaged and useful. Several of the patrons were his old neighbors, a few former students, and town acquaintances who knew Jack’s story and who were delighted to see him back and on the mend. Between customers, he grabbed a few moments’ rest on a barstool behind the desk. During a lull that evening, Vince came over to Jack with a soft drink to see how he was doing.

Jack nodded that he was fine. “By the way, anyone you know own a Ford Explorer?”

“What color?”

“Black.”

“Yeah, about thirty guys. Why?”

Maybe it was a grand coincidence, but it was now the fourth or fifth time he had noticed the car—the last on his return from the port at New Bedford. “Not important.”

The evening passed well for Jack until, relieved by one of the waiters, he took a break and stepped into the kitchen for a snack. He stopped by the stove—an eight-burner industrial monster with all gas jets blazing—to watch the chef and three assistants moving from one burner to another, stirring and shaking with choreographic precision. On a butcher-block island, sous-chef Rico was carving a flank of beef, making cuts around the bones, trimming off the fat, and exposing the bright red muscle. Jack watched in amazement at the flourish of Rico’s hands, the blade slicing with surgical deftness, leaving neat red slabs, the white bone glistening in the light. Beside him his assistant Oliver lay the cuts flat and began to hammer them with a heavy cast-metal tenderizing mallet.

From the other side of the kitchen Vince came over with a dish of homemade mango sorbet. “Hey, Jacko, I need a sampler.”

Suddenly something happened.

“Jack?”

Jack did not answer. He was stunned in place—his eyes huge and fixed on Oliver hammering the red meat.

“Hey, man?”

But Jack was mesmerized by Oliver. Then Jack’s mouth started twitching as a low groan pumped up from his lungs.

Vince swooped over to him. “Jack, it’s okay.”

Jack’s body hunched over, his knees collapsing, his face a rictus of horror.

“What the hell’s happening to him?” Rico asked.

“Some kind of seizure,” Vince said. The others in the kitchen clustered around them, and somebody handed Vince a cold cloth. “Jack, snap out of it. Everything’s okay, okay.” He dabbed his face.

Rico found a chair and they lowered Jack onto it. He was still making those small weird grunts.

“What’s that, Jack? What are you saying?”

Jack had folded into the chair with Vince holding him in place, but all the while Jack’s eyes were fixed on the butcher block and the red wet meat and the bright metal hammer.

“Jack! Snap out of it.” And Vince slapped him on the face. That worked, because Jack let out a sigh, his mouth went slack, and his eyes closed. “Jack, come on, man. It’s okay.”

Jack opened his eyes and looked at Vince, then at the circle of people gaping at him. “What?”

“It’s okay. You had a little spell is all.” He handed him a glass of water. Jack’s face was tight and drained of color, his lips gray, his eyes all pupils. His face was slick and cold. “Somebody call an ambulance,” Vince said.

“No, no,” Jack said. “I’m … okay. Outside. Just need some air.”

They helped him to his feet and moved away as Vince took him through the back door. Rico followed with a chair and bottle of water.

The night was warm and clear, the stars hard white points against the black sky. Cicadas chittered in the trees. “Scared the hell out of us, pal.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry, shit! I want you to call that doctor of yours tomorrow and tell her your damn meds are screwing you up is all. She must have better stuff you can take.”

“I just saw her.”

“Well, see her again, because whatever they gave you isn’t working.”

Jack didn’t say anything but stared off into the sky.

“Are you hearing me?”

“I hear you.”

“Well, I’m telling you, it was freaky, man. First I thought you’d had a stroke, then it was like … I don’t know … like you’d turned into a frightened child or something.”

Jack didn’t say anything.

“Whatever, promise me you’ll call and tell her what happened.”

Jack nodded.

“Promise me. I want to hear the words.”

“I’ll call her.”

What Jack did not tell Vince was that he was off the meds—off the Zyprexa because it was numbing his brain, killing the flashbacks.

And he wanted them back.

JACK STILL FELT SCOOPED OUT BY the time he got home.

He changed and got into bed, thinking about taking a triple hit of lorazepam to slam-dunk his head into oblivion. Thinking about packing up again and moving to a different town, a different state, maybe even Canada—just to get away from Carleton, the restaurant, Massachusetts, all the places with pastlife hooks into his psyche. Someplace where he could reincarnate.

Fat chance, because even if you could afford to move, you’d still be stuck in the padded cell behind your eyes. And there’s only one way out, me boy.

In the dark his hand fell on the little amber vial. He shook it. He could tell in the dark which pills they were from the sound of the rattles—at one end the tiny one-milligram lorazepams, little more than grains of sand to the Zyprexa bombs, and in between enough maracas to rhythm out a salsa band. He undid the cap and fingered out two tabs.

Ten would do it. Okay, maybe twenty, given the tolerance you’ve built up. Thirty tops. A couple of gulps of water and no more Freddy Kruegers.

He stared up at the ceiling. Just enough light leaked from the windows to cut the total black. If he popped the pills, he’d drain away in under five minutes, wake up four hours later. Then, if his legs began to fuss, pop another tab and a pain pill, send himself back to black until dawn—the pattern of the night.

“Thought you’d had a stroke or something.”

A stroke would have been a gift. The something’s the thing.

“A frightened child or something.”

Other possibility is you’re losing your mind. Makes sense-lost everything else. Why not a clean sweep?

“You’re blocking something.” Dr. Heller’s words floated up like big yellow balloons.

He dropped the tabs back into the vial and got out of bed and went downstairs. The kitchen was a small space with very little counter area, filled mostly with ceramic cannisters for sugar, coffee, flour, and a wire spice rack with jars of different powders and herbs, a microwave, a small Mr. Coffee, and teapots. All the utensils were in two drawers.

He cleared a space on the counter and pulled open one of the drawers and dumped the contents onto the counter. Knives of all sizes and shapes, forks, spatulas, pie cutters, and other things tumbled out like pickup sticks.

He picked up one black-handled carving knife with a ten-inch blade of shiny, honed blue steel that came to a stunning point. He slowly turned the knife, and the overhead light arced across the curved honed edge like neon.

Nothing.

He picked up another, a heavier cutter with a thicker steel stock, probably for heavy carving or chopping. He held it in his right palm, felt the heft.

He put it back. Nothing.

He stirred his fingers through the pile looking for some connection, some zap of awareness.

Nothing.

He swept the knives and other utensils into the drawer and closed it. He then tore open the second drawer—handles of rolling pins, serving spoons, barbecue forks, whisks, eggbeater blades, spatulas, and small steak knives, all under a pair of pot holders and oven gloves. He removed the pot holders and gloves to expose the full contents of the drawer.

For a numbed moment his eyes rested on a single object: the heavy-duty wooden-handled stainless-steel mallet, one side tooled flat for pounding thin cutlets, the other a crosshatch of tiny pointed pyramids for breaking fibers of flesh or cracking bone.

Jack picked it up and felt a hitch in his breathing.

He did not gasp in recognition. He did not become assaulted with shakes or break out in a sweat or feel a rush of blood to his head. Just the solitary hitch in his breathing, as if on some level just below the surface the something beamed up an impression like a sonar image almost too blurry to make out.

A meat mallet.

A MEAT MALLET.

At two-thirty he lay in bed staring into the black as he had for the last two hours. His mind was very alert, as if a bungee cord had been affixed to it and every few minutes that drawer down there would give a yank.

A goddam meat mallet.

The sickening whacks against bone cap.

Sweet Jesus!

He kicked off the covers, pulled on his jeans and shoes, and went back down to the kitchen, tore open the drawer and removed the meat hammer. Still on a weird autopilot, he made his way through the dark to the garage, where he found a shovel, and cut across the lawn to the rear edge of the property by an anchor fence, and under some yews he dug a hole and buried the mallet. He returned the shovel to the garage and went back inside, where he cleaned up and got back into bed.

For another forty minutes he lay in the dark feeling his heart pony around the inside of his chest and trying to shut off his mind. He rolled around on the sheets, concentrating on regulating his breathing, calming his heart rate, and composing his mind to sleep. Several times he grabbed the vial of lorazepams, but he knew they would do little to block the pull of that mallet. It lay under two feet of dirt out back, but it might just as well have been strapped to his head for the way it kept slapping against his mind.

Die, goddamn it, die.

It was a sick, crazy, obsessive compulsion of the purest ray serene, but he could not shake it, and doping himself into slumber would only put off the next assault. And daylight would only make it worse, because the freshly overturned dirt would be glowering at him until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Shit”

He kicked off the covers once again, got dressed, and went out back with the shovel and dug up the mallet. He put it in a paper bag so he wouldn’t have to touch it. Then he headed down the driveway in the dark and onto the Mystic Valley Parkway that led to a small bridge over the Mystic River where it drained into the lower Mystic Lake. Because of the hour, no cars were on the road. He removed the hammer, and with all his might he flung it into the water.

For a long moment he watched the water smooth over itself as the moon rode the ripples.

He was sweating yet chilled by the time he returned to the house. Because his mind was still on high alert, he got himself a beer and went to the porch and sat in the dark, his insides trembling as if he were sitting in wet clothes. He took a sip—always the best part—but it was not satisfying. He tried to distract himself with the bright electric sounds of the cicadas, a hoot owl, the moon whitewashing the yard grass. None of that worked.

As he gazed into the dark corner of the yard where he had dug the hole, the pieces came together with such clarified horror that a squeal rose up from three decades of merciful sleep.

A man.

He could not see his face or morph together the body from the shadowy flashcard form, but it was a man. And something had happened and he had pushed her or she had fallen, and she was on the floor by the fireplace … then he was bending down over her muttering … Oh, shit, no!

Then a towel across her head to absorb the muffle the sound—

Goddamn it, die.

And blood …

Dark clothes, bending over, legs straddling her as she lay groaning, twitching horribly on the floor by the stone fireplace.

Her feet moving, as if trying to catch traction on the air. Groaning. The arm raised, hammer arching upward, coming down and down and cracking the bone.

Die … Die … Die …

The bright red spot spreading across a towel and puddling onto the floor.

Looks this way, thinks twice: Do him, too—the kid in the crib?

Stop that screaming.

Charges over … the big shadow face.

And all goes black.

70

“TELL ME ABOUT THE JELLYFISH DRUG.”

“What about it?”

“You said it had something to do with enhancing memory.”

It was the following morning, and Jack and René Ballard were sitting in a booth at the Grafton Street Pub and Grille in Harvard Square. The luncheon crowd had left, and it was three hours before the dinner menu kicked in. Jack had surprised her with his call, reminding her of her offer to help if he had any problems.

René looked very stylish in jeans and a black silk top and red paisley scarf, her shiny chocolate hair framing her face like a feathered wreath. Her face was smooth and well designed. Her nose was thin and sharp, her cheekbone high, her mouth full and expressive. Her eyes were perfect orbs of reef-blue water. It was a beautiful and intelligent face, and Jack took pleasure in it. “It reverses the damaging effects of the plaque that builds up in the brain of Alzheimer’s victims.”

“And it restores memory.”

“In patients with the disease, yes.”

“Short-term and long-term?”

“Yes. May I ask why you’re asking all this?”

“In a moment. But just tell me approximately how far back, the recall.” He could feel something pass through her mind as she considered the question.

“In some cases very far.”

“Even early childhood?”

Rene’s eyes were calm but guarded. “Yes. But why do you want to know?”

But he disregarded the question. “And if they go off it, what happens?”

“The process is reversed. The plaque returns. But …”

“What about in non-Alzheimer’s patients? Any signs of plaque or dementia from taking the stuff?”

“No. Now, why are you asking me all this?”

“Because I think I witnessed the murder of my mother.”

“that?”

“I was very young at the time, but I’m almost certain somebody killed her in my presence. And I’m just remembering it by way of memory-related nightmares and flashbacks.”

“Flashbacks?”

“Yeah. Sometimes when I’m awake I have these spells. Just scraps, like a filmstrip with lots of frames missing.” And he described some of the episodes. But as disturbing as they were, he felt relief in getting them out, in telling her—and it was not just like lancing a psychic boil. For some reason he wanted her to know. He wanted René Ballard to know about him.

At the moment, she seemed transfixed. “Go ahead.”

“I think it was at the cottage on Homer’s Island the night she disappeared,” he continued. “And I think she knew whoever it was, because I don’t sense immediate hostility as with a stranger. I think there was a fight, because I remember shouting and commotion. The next thing, I’m looking outside and the man is smashing her skull with a hammer—actually, a meat mallet, I think.

Die, goddamn it. Die.

“My sense is that the killer was desperate to finish her off, because I keep seeing him hanging over her and hammering away.”

René studied him suspiciously. “Do you have any idea who he was?”

“I couldn’t see his face—just a vague dark shape with a pointed hat or something covering his head. Maybe a rain slicker. I couldn’t make it out. But I have a strong feeling it was somebody she knew. Besides, a storm was brewing so there wouldn’t have been strangers boating up, and the only other male in the area was a frail old guy in the mansion who couldn’t have made it down the stairs.”

“And you’re certain you’re recalling something you’d experienced, not just a recurring dream.”

“I know the difference between a dream and these spells. It’s like I’m reliving a very bad thing in flashes, but I can’t get the whole footage.”

Silence fell between them as the sounds of the restaurant filled the gap. René took a sip of her drink. “What’s the connection with Homer’s Island?”

“I’m not sure of the exact details, but Thaddeus Sherman let her stay in the caretaker’s cottage.” And he explained what Olivia Sherman Flanders had told him. “The official story is that she got swept off her boat while trying to secure it.”

“And you don’t believe that.”

“No.”

“But someone she knew entered the cottage that night, had a fight with her, then killed her with … a meat mallet, you’re saying.”

“It’s my grassy knoll.”

He knew how absurd it all sounded—trying to piece together evidence of a thirty-year-old murder when there was no physical evidence and no body, where the only witness was a two-year-old baby and suspicion was rooted in bad flashes following emergence from a coma. Not exactly a hard-and-fast case.

Even on the off chance that his mother was murdered, Jack had no idea how to mount an investigation. Most island residents from back then were probably dead or in parts unknown. Even if he had money to hire the best private investigator in town, there was virtually nothing to go on. And he had neither the energy nor the resources to play Sam Spade.

“What I’m having problems with is how old you were at the time. Memory consolidation doesn’t start until a child is three or four years old.”

“You don’t remember things from very early in life?”

“Not that early. And what little I do remember is mostly fictionalized.”

“Fictionalized?”

“Yes. I know my father took me to the Statue of Liberty when I was five, and in my head I have a recollection of being there. But in reality I only remember the memory—what my father told me. I just put together the details and re-created the scenario, but not the experience itself.”

“But isn’t that what’s happening with your dementia patients, the ones you’ve been testing at Greendale?”

“Those are more interactive, autocreative.”

“So you’re saying that I’m experiencing meaningless vignettes put together from some old horror flicks.”

“I don’t know where they’re coming from.”

He thought for a moment. “Maybe I am crazy.”

“Doubtful, but I can suggest something to help counter the experiences.”

“I’ve got enough meds. And that’s the problem. They’re working too well.”

“Too well? What does that mean?”

“It means that I don’t want to bury them. I want to catch them. I want to go back.”

A sucking silence filled the space between them.

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“Memorine. I’ve seen how it works on people with dementia—sending people back in their heads. I’ve seen what the stuff can do.”

René’s eyes flared at him. “Jack, what you’re suggesting is ridiculous. It’s also impossible.”

“Maybe, but to me it’s worth a try.”

“Not to me. One, it’s a trial drug not for public consumption. Two, it’s not something you can fine-tune, just dial a date and pop a pill to relive it. Three, if I gave you samples it would also cost me my job. And that’s not going to happen.”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “But nobody would have to know if a few pills are missing.”

“Jack, every pill, every capsule, every cc of patient medication is accounted for, rigorously documented on forms and signed off by doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.”

“You mean to say that you can’t cop a few tabs and write down that Mrs. Smith took them?”

René looked at him in disbelief. “No, I can’t.”

“Or you won’t.”

“And I won’t. Besides, we don’t know what the effects would be on you.”

“But you said there were no effects on non-Alzheimer’s patients. Besides, they couldn’t be any worse than what I’d already experienced. Unfortunately, that’s gone the way of Zyprexa.”

“Pardon me?”

He tapped his head with a finger. “My VCR’s dead. Not even a lousy LED light. That stuff killed the flashbacks. I haven’t had one for days.”

“Then maybe you should count yourself lucky.”

So much for that idea, Jack told himself, and he dropped the subject.

When it was time to go, Jack said, “By the way, doesn’t it seem odd that the same jellyfish that knocked me into a coma happens to be your Alzheimer’s drug?”

She thought of that for a moment, “Just a coincidence. No more so than if you’d gotten stung by a bee. Ever hear of apitherapy?”

“No.”

“Bee stings can be fatal to some people, by causing such a severe allergic inflammatory reaction that the person can go into shock and die. But in small doses, the toxin is sometimes used to treat other inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or neuralgia. Just a matter of the right dose.” And she stood up to go.

“While we’re playing Scrabble, maybe you can tell me just what species of jelly it was. They said it was rare, but nobody ever gave it a name.”

“Solakandji.”

71

THE WOMAN WITH THE CHILD FROZE when she saw him.

Louis had just buried his parachute in a flowerbed and was crawling on his belly toward the water, his weapon in his right hand, two ammo clips and a grenade belt over his left shoulder. An enemy gunship was rounding the bend in the river. He could make out men in the machine-gun nests. One scream from her, and Commie soldiers would be all over him like ants. And if they didn’t kill him on the spot, they’d haul him off to another prison camp and finish him off for good. Or, worse, take him back to the Red Tent to beg Chop Chop and Blackhawk for death.

Louis fanned the woman and kid with his carbine, looking down the barrel capped by the black military-issue silencer.

Thwump. Thwump.

And she and her kid would be gone—and he’d be out of harm’s way and back on his mission.

God damn you, woman!

Less than twenty-four hours ago, Louis and other select combat paratroopers were summoned to a group briefing at battalion HQ where recon officers displayed large photos of a small village with a cluster of buildings around a pavilion that was HQ of high-ranking North Korean officers who had fled Pyongyang. Because American POWs were believed housed in the same locale, they couldn’t carpet-bomb the site. So, their mission was to make a surgical combat parachute assault—their drop zone being a mountain clearing northwest of Jinan. Their assigned target was that pavilion.

At Kimbo Airfield, Louis and the others boarded the Dixie Dame, a C-119 transport piloted by Captain Mike Vigna. They would take the plunge from six hundred feet up, knowing that if anything went wrong, they were seconds away from an abrupt death. Each man had been issued ammunition, rifle, grenades, pistol, extra ammo, three days’ assault rations, and a T-7 parachute. Louis must have weighed over 250 pounds with all that was strapped to him. But he didn’t mind, since among the attendees ID’d by recon was NK 23rd Brigade commander Lieutenant Colonel Chop Yong Jin and Russian military advisor Gregor Lysenko. Who made Operation Buster special. What Louis had been waiting for all these months.

Colonel Chop Chop was the most hated man in the NK command—the same guy who had ordered his soldiers to pillage South Korean villages and massacre unarmed civilians. Same guy who had disregarded all international conventions on the treatment of POWs. Same bastard who had captured five GIs from King Company and left their bodies in a railway tunnel. And the same guy who had ordered the mutilation and death of Fuzzy Swenson and the summary execution of Louis’s buddies from the first platoon.

That was four months ago, and since then Louis had declared his own private war against Colonel Chop Yong Jin and General Gregor Lysenko. Although Command had given him a copy of those men’s photos, their faces had permanently scored themselves into Louis’s memory banks that night in the Red Tent.

He checked his watch. Right now, Marie was in bed in Wethersfield, Connecticut, and here he was in the middle of a gook village on the Yesong River. It had been a bad drop.

Unexpectedly, Jinan was being defended by automatic weapons, including forty-millimeter ack-acks. At 20:15, just fifteen hours ago, under a clear, moonlit spring night, the Dixie Dame took off. The plan was to fly due north along the usual C-119 route, then break off over the sea and drop to seven thousand feet, where they’d make a left correction, drop again toward the water until they were at eight hundred feet, then bank right until they made landfall.

All went according to plan as Vigna pulled up off the sea and rode the contours of the land. At about five minutes before target, the jumpmaster gave his command to hook up to the cable running down the aisle of the plane and face the door. But as they were doing equipment check on the next man’s chute, antiaircraft batteries opened up at them. Within seconds, Louis felt the plane get punched. In moments, they began bucking wildly.

The jump door flew open, and Louis felt the 120-mile-an-hour rush of air. He could barely register the fire ripping at the right wing or the groan of the plane or the other bodies pressing him against the opening. All he remembered was the green light and the shout: “Go?”

Hours later he woke up to morning light feeling stiff but unhurt. He had passed out under a thick willow, its branches stretching to the ground like a curtain—a perfect blind. He had just buried his chute among some tulips, when a village woman happened by with her son, a kid about eight or ten. Hard to tell with Asians.

Slowly the woman backed away, shielding her son with her body.

The kid said something to his mother. Louis had no idea what, but he lowered his gun because the kid looked terrified. He couldn’t shoot them. But he raised his fingers to his lips to warn them not to blow his cover. The woman nodded and took off with her kid.

A quick surveillance of the area told Louis that he had landed in the People’s Garden. He could see lots of manicured green grass, some sort of garden park with flowers, fountains, walkways, even a footbridge—right on the banks of the Yesong River. Although he couldn’t see enemy troops, he could hear the din of their armored vehicles on the move toward Highway 1 to Kaesong. His heart sank because it meant Chop Chop and company were miles away by now. They had given him the slip.

Louis crawled out from under the tree. He had no idea where the other crew members were or where the plane went down. He hoped they’d made it to the sea where allied patrol boats could pick them up.

He made his way on his belly toward the river’s edge. Villagers were walking about, but Louis’s attention was fixed on a small fleet of boats. They were clearly Chinese because they were painted green with red trim, and the pilot’s cockpit was camouflaged as a large white waterbird. He also noticed that the pilot was actually peddling.

Shit! The bastards were sporting a U.S. flag at the stern, and the troops were all disguised as US. civilians—which meant they were heading downriver to sneak up on allied warships for a midnight raid.

God in heaven! He had to stop them.

Louis positioned himself at the base of a large bronze lantern. Over his shoulder was a statue of a rider on a horse facing the other way. Maybe Chop Chop. This was his region, his town, his people. Louis steadied his weapon at the patrol boat emerging from the low bridge. It passed noiselessly in front of him, the troops playacting normal, like it was a typical day in the park. He had studied the movement of the previous boat, so he knew it was going to round the island, then head downriver. And as soon as it did, he’d open up with everything he had.

In a matter of seconds, the patrol boat rounded the island. Louis tracked the pilot in his crosshairs. Plug him then blow enough holes in the port side to beach the bastards. Do the same with the next one just nosing its way under the bridge. He knew he’d go down, but he’d take a lot of Reds with him. Slowly he began to squeeze his finger.

“Hey, what the hell you doing?”

Louis froze.

Over his shoulder were two North Korean cavalry regulars on horseback. He rolled on his back with his gun raised.

“It’s a hockey stick.”

One Commie got off his mount and grabbed Louis’s gun barrel.

Thwump, thwump.

Louis squeezed off two shots, but the soldier didn’t flinch. Probably wearing a bulletproof vest.

“What the hell you think you’re doing?”

“I think he’s been in the sun too long,” the other soldier said, taking Louis’s gun out of his hands.

After two years of duty Louis knew some Korean. “Kop she-da mamasan!” he said, telling the gook to go screw his mother.

“What he say?”

The mounted soldier shrugged and took hold of the reins of the other’s horse. “It’s all right, folks,” he said to the small crowd of villagers that was gathering. “You can leave.”

“Poor guy,” one of the peasants said. And he took a picture of him with his camera.

Louis held his arms high in the air. “Go ahead, shoot me, you Red bastards. Get it over with.”

Louis thought about making a run for the water, but either they’d nail him in the back or the gunners in the duck boats would get him. The gook on the horse radioed for support while the other kept interrogating him.

“Can you tell me your name, sir?” The soldier took Louis’s arm and inspected his wrist.

They were trying to steal his watch. “Louis Martinetti. Corporal. US41349538.” They’d have to shoot him before he named his company and location.

“Some uniform,” the first soldier said. “Pretty old.”

“Go to hell,” Louis said.

“Mr. Martinetti, where do you live?”

Louis looked defiantly at the small crowd. Some took photos of him to show their relatives a real American POW. In the distance he heard sirens, and his heart leapt up. An air raid. U.S. planes were approaching, and they’d blast these animals to smithereens. But nobody seemed concerned. They just mumbled and shot pictures.

“It’s a medical tag. Alzheimer’s,” said the first Commie, still trying to steal his watch.

Louis did not resist. He had nothing else to lose. But he’d hold tight when they brought him to the Red Tent. He’d die before he’d reveal anything about the mission. And if he ever got out alive, he’d finish it. Oh, yeah! And he glanced at the high statue of the horseman. Someday, you son of a bitch.

The soldiers began to lead Louis away, when from the mob of peasants a woman burst forth.

“Dad!” She ran to the soldiers and took Louis’s hand. “I’m sorry, officers. We were in line for the swan boats, and he just wandered off. I’ll take him, he’s fine.” Then to Louis, “Dad, you’ve got grass stains all over you. What’ve you been doing?”

Louis looked at the woman, and for a long moment he had no idea who she was.

72

TO CELEBRATE THE END OF THE trials, the GEM Tech clinical team and executive administrators met at the Red Canyon Resort Hotel, a rustic but grand hundred-year-old lodge located near Bryce Canyon and Capital Reef on Route 12. It had been selected for its privacy and because it was located within driving distance of the splendid canyon and Rocky Mountain scenery crisscrossed with endless hiking trails and whitewater rapids. It was also near Gavin Moy’s ski condo.

Although people had arrived on Friday, the official opening of the conference was Saturday at noon with a formal kickoff luncheon and talk, followed by the clinical investigators’ meeting behind closed doors for the FDA strategy session.

Nick’s overriding impression of the conference was the expense. Little had been spared. GEM had flown in sixty people from various parts of the country—execs, medical officers, marketing VPs, legal staffers, clinicians from outside the company, as well as the twenty-three clinical physicians who, for nearly two years, had headed up various trial sites. They had rented out half the lodge and the adjoining Mountain Lion Room, where later in the day the principal investigators would determine the final application report to the FDA. In the balance lay the hopes and fate of millions of Alzheimer patients, their families, and caregivers. Also billions of dollars.

The afternoon began with a five-course meal served in the elegantly appointed Ponderosa Room, where a SWAT team of waiters had assembled. Dinner consisted of leek and potato soup, carpaccio of tuna, salad greens, a choice of filet mignon, salmon, or lobster tail served in elegant presentations, assorted spring vegetables, and fancy Italian desserts. There were the finest wines from Napa Valley as well as endless bottles of Taittinger champagne. Table conversation sparkled with talk of skiing in Utah versus Gstaad and Chamonix, diving on the Great Barrier Reef, trekking in New Zealand’s Milford Sound, the comparative virtues of Mercedes and BMWs.

It was an afternoon of well-decorated egos assembled in celebration of scientific success, of historic possibilities, and, of course, high personal rewards. While the setting and glittering promise were very alluring, Nick could almost hear folks calculating how many millions they were about to make in the next few years. If the projection of GEM’s bean counters was accurate, the value of Nick’s own shares would top ten million dollars in two years, maybe twice that when the European markets opened up. Then there was Asia, the Middle East, and the rest of the world.

What ate at him was how all the others would react once, with the backing of Brian Rich, Paul Nadeau, and Jordan Carr, he dropped a bomb.

AFTER LUNCH, MARK THOMPSON, GEM TECH medical director, introduced Gavin Moy, reminding the audience of his humble beginnings as a medical resident who decided to start his own lab in a cramped basement behind MIT.

“What separates Gavin Moy from the rest of us mere mortals is the genius to recognize possibilities. What to a lesser man would have been merely a happy accident was to Gavin a discovery humming with neuropharmacological benefits. And he was clever enough to get patents on a whole family of base compounds from the jellyfish toxin.

“Not only did he believe in himself, but he also had the courage and tenacity to pursue a dream that led to this very room. Yes, it took years of isolation and synthesis, research and development. But over those years Gavin raised enough capital to expand his labs and to create a certain esprit de corps, a palpable feeling of shared enthusiasm that may not be found in every such scientific enterprise. That energy and sheer pride is a reflection of the man who resides at the top.”

More applause and cheers filled the air.

“It has been nearly four decades since young Gavin Moy and a couple of local grad students first fired up their Bunsen burners in that small room below Junior Dee’s Auto Parts Store. Today we are at the culmination of that determination, vision, and genius as we are about to give to the world the fruits of such great labor and science—the world’s first cure for Alzheimer’s disease, a scourge of aging humanity for generations and generations. Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to introduce Gavin Moy.”

To a thunderous standing ovation Gavin Moy rose to the podium, looking elegant in his black pinstripe suit and tanned shiny head. Nick looked around the room. Brian Rich and Paul Nadeau shared a table with Jordan Carr, who had told Nick that he had reconsidered the data and was behind him in his recommendations for an extension.

Jordan caught Nick’s eyes and nodded. And Nick felt a warm rush of gratitude.

“For the first time in history,” Moy began, “we have demonstrated a plaque eradicator in the treatment of mild to severe Alzheimer’s disease, thus representing the world’s first treatment …”

And he cited impressive statistics on patient improvement while faces glowed with wine and expectation. “In one study alone, one hundred and sixty patients with moderate to severe dementia had experienced an average of seventy percent improvement in cognitive behavior as measured by various mini-mental and higher cognitive tests …”

Bolstering Moy’s claims was a video of AD patients moving about the wards of different nursing homes looking purposeful and alert. Other patients answered the questions of interviewers. Responses were sometimes halting but focused and generally lucid. In one sequence, subjects—including Louis Martinetti—happily explained how wonderful it was to regain their memory. But what the video did not show was that Louis, home on furlough, was having continuous and traumatic flashbacks to his POW days, and yet for some mysterious reason he resisted taking medications prescribed to control those flashbacks.

The video segued into testimonials by members of the Alzheimer’s Association who had witnessed miraculous improvements. Also tearful and touching reports of nurses, home staffers, and family members who expressed profound gratitude that their loved ones were improving. Heartfelt applause followed the testimonials.

The video presentation ended with a slick promotional on the healing power of the drug—elderly patients having fun moments with younger family members, concluding with a voiceover pronouncement: “The Memorine Solution.”

Gavin Moy concluded with the reminder that they were at a turning point in medical and social history. “The world is waiting, and it is morally imperative that we respond accordingly and in a timely manner.”

A standing ovation exploded. The pep rally had come to a conclusion.

73

THERE WAS A HALF-HOUR BREAK AS people stretched and mingled, some execs and invited guests retiring to one of the bars. Then the twenty-three PIs moved to the Mountain Lion Room for the closed-door strategy meeting.

At the center of the room sat a large oval table with twenty-three chairs, each with place cards—nineteen men and four women. Although Nick thought it rather excessive, each clinician had been sworn to secrecy, their signatures appearing on a confidentiality document drawn up by GEM’s legal department.

Nick took his seat. He looked over at Paul Nadeau and Brian Rich. They nodded. From the other side of the table Jordan flashed Nick a thumbs-up. His backers—renegades in dissent, as René called them. (He would telephone her and, of course, Thalia when it was over.)

Nick called the meeting to order and offered sincere appreciation for the arduous work by the researchers and their various staff members. “I share with my colleagues the high enthusiasm over the successes of Memorine and the hopes that it can eventually live up to expectations. I need not remind anyone of the global impact of this meeting and the decisions we make. But I’d like to say that our purpose here is to evaluate the accuracy and legitimacy of our application report to the FDA and not to agree on strategies that would ensure smooth sailing through that process.”

An uneasy rustling circled the table.

Nick then asked for each doctor’s comments on the collective findings of the trials. And one after another the comments were expectedly praiseful. Some spoke of how exciting it had been to work on such a miraculous compound, others saying how personally gratifying it was to witness such positive results. Murmurs of “Hear, hear,” arose from others.

When it was Jordan Carr’s turn, he shot Nick a nervous glance and said he had nothing else to add but high expectations. Nick felt confused. It was agreed that Jordan would initiate the concern about the flashbacks and begin to quote troublesome data. But he just looked away.

When it came to Paul Nadeau and Brian Rich, they also concurred with the others’ praise and expectations, although Nadeau did mention a few cases of regressive delusional behaviors that were correctable by standard antipsychotic medications.

Nick was beginning to read the portents. “Thank you for your comments,” he said. “And while I appreciate your enthusiasm, I heard only passing reference to what I believe are serious adverse reactions as manifested in over thirty percent of the trial subjects—namely, the flashback seizures. And if we are to offer a balanced report of our findings, it is incumbent upon us to highlight those problems which have resulted in a number of deaths, including one murder and three suicides, several injuries, and some arrests, not to mention the effect on family members and caregivers.”

“I beg to differ,” said Harvey Schultz, a PI from Trenton. “I’m not sure where you’re getting your figures, Nick, but I have not experienced such adversities. And frankly I thought we had clarified this problem—namely, that these alleged flashbacks are delusions stemming from structural changes from AD and not the application of Memorine.”

Nick was ready for that. “We have not clarified the problem but buried it.”

A grumble arose. Jordan looked at Nick, his face reddening.

“A significant number of patients are receding into hallucinatory delusions of past-time-even early childhood—experiences. And many are very traumatic, locking patients into flashbacks. We’ve documented several cases of residents becoming highly agitated, including Louis Martinetti, from the video earlier, who out of the blue is back in a Korean POW camp. Another keeps getting stuck in a house fire that she was in when she was ten years old. Another relives the discovery of his father’s suicide by hanging. These are terribly traumatic flashbacks that they just can’t seem to escape.

“Furthermore, these episodes have not only created great difficulties for nursing home staffers, but, as you can imagine, they have had devastating effects on family members.”

Then he read a few sample letters from caregivers. “‘You have made my husband into a guinea pig and into someone I don’t know. His behavior is erratic. One minute he’s himself, the next he’s talking crazy things to people who died years ago. At least when he was demented, we knew what to expect. Now he’s like a lost child who cannot come out of his trances.’

“Another writes: ‘I don’t like what this has done to my father. It’s frightening and painful for our family to see him reliving painful experiences once forgotten. Our only option is to fill him up with tranquilizers and other drugs that send him into a stupor. You’ve created for us a horrible emotional seesaw. At least with the Alzheimer’s we knew what to expect and learned to deal with it. But this is awful.’

“Another says of his eighty-two-year-old wife who plays with toy animals all day: ‘I spent fifty-four years growing old with Helen, but I’m not sure I can grow young with her.’”

Silence filled the room.

Then Brian Rich spoke up. “As you know, Nick, I’ve scrutinized the data and given this a lot of thought over the last few weeks. But with all due respect, I’ve decided that our job is to cure diseases, not the social consequences of our successes. What we should be discussing is how best to make our deadline with this report. The world is waiting.”

And from around the table voices made a spontaneous chorus: “Hear, hear!”

“Can you demonstrate that once a patient is off the drug the flashbacks subside?” asked another physician.

They all knew the answer. “No, since we can’t take anyone off the drugs without bringing back the plaque. And that constitutes a double punishment by limiting our treatment of the flashbacks.”

“Then where’s the evidence that Memorine causes flashbacks if you cannot demonstrate the inverse?” Josh Rubell from Pittsburgh asked.

“Because in most cases the subjects experienced no sustained delusional activities prior to the trials.”

Rubell jabbed a long yellow pencil at Nick. “Those complaints wouldn’t have arisen had you not alleged that these flashbacks were the result of Memorine. You and you alone have poisoned the well, Nick, and I resent that.”

The place hushed. And Nick felt his face burn.

Another added, “Frankly, I’m getting tired of all this talk of flashbacks and adverse drug reactions. We hired an independent outside CRO to review all the data and make a determination. We have the Klander Report, and I’m going with that.”

Agreement passed around the table. Nick looked to Paul Nadeau and Brian Rich, who had shared Nick’s decision to seek an extension on the application. They were both nodding and muttering, “Hear, hear.” Across the table from them sat Jordan Carr, who was also nodding, his eyes steadfastly avoiding contact with Nick’s.

Et tu, you son of a bitch, Nick thought.

In three weeks, the Klander Group had pored over all the clinical data that René Ballard and others had helped amass—med schedules, behavior reports, charts, clinical observations, progress reports, test scores, and any alerts raised by Nick and others. But it was a foregone conclusion that the Klander Report would dismiss the flashbacks as a consequence of the disease.

It was also understood that Nick’s rejection of the Klander Report could mean the end of Nick’s participation in the trials, his funding, the support for the MRI lab—a financial and image loss to the hospital. But institutional politics and fiduciary health was not what this was all about. “With all due respect, I think the Klander Report is bullshit.”

“Then you’re all alone, Nick,” Dr. Rubell said.

For the first time that night Jordan Carr raised his hand. “Look, Nick, we’ve worked together on this for a long time. And for the most part we shared the analysis and interpretation of the data. But I’ve studied the Klander Report, and I must say that I am comfortable with its conclusions. We’ve treated hundreds of people with dementing conditions, and most have been brought back from inevitable oblivion. That’s confirmation enough for me.”

“Hear, hear.”

“More than that, behavioral anomalies are to be expected in such a wide-ranging population.” Then Jordan thumbed through the report to its core argument. “It’s a proven fact that during the deterioration of the brain, connections are repatterned, while good ones become dominant. Which is why AD patients sometimes have sudden recall and forgotten talents—like sitting at the piano and playing the Moonlight Sonata when we thought there was little left inside. This is precisely what occurs with these flashback victims.”

And he continued in his smooth high-reasoned tone as he quoted statistics. When Carr finished, the others applauded. And Jordan flashed Nick a smile that could barely disguise the “gotcha” glow. René was right about him: He was a self-serving chameleon who said all the right things if it advanced his cause.

“If I may quote Mark Twain,” Nick said when the place quieted down, “‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’ What we did was hire the Klander Group to give us what we wanted to hear: That Memorine is a miracle cure with no side effects. Period. Frankly it’s disingenuous of us to claim that this report offers a fair and neutral evaluation of our data. And I won’t be part of it.”

“I don’t like what you’re suggesting.”

“What, that money talks? Well, that’s what’s happened. And I cannot live with myself were I to vote to accept this report and, thus, make what I assume will be a unanimous endorsement of our application.”

“Nick, we’ve got spectacular results, and you’re harping on some minor problems. Just what do you propose?”

“That we request an extension of up to two years before approaching the FDA.”

“But we have a deadline,” someone shouted over the protests.

“Yes,” Nick said, “a deadline of GEM Tech’s marketing department, but not the health needs of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

“Let’s say we accept the report and Memorine hits the market. What happens if we get another suicide or murder? Remember the multimillion-dollar settlement against GlaxoSmithKline after a man shot his wife, daughter, and granddaughter? The jury decided there was enough scientific evidence that it was the Paxil he was on. Do we want GEM taken over by the courts?

“What happens when caregiver complaints over flashbacks force the FDA to put a hold on distribution? And while we scramble to figure out what to do, millions of victims begin to slip away again. Meanwhile lawsuits fall from the sky like hail, and GEM Tech stocks won’t be worth the paper they’re printed on.

“And what happens when outside medical studies conclude that GEM Tech clinicians cut corners and pulled strings to get FDA approval? GEM Tech and every one of us in this room would be litigational toast. And the only ones celebrating would be the lawyers and the competition.”

Jordan spoke up again. “Nick, for the sake of argument, let’s say that some of these flashbacks are the direct result of the drug. So what? The alternative is dementia and death. But if the flashbacks don’t intrude, don’t threaten anyone, why not live with them? Look at Louis Martinetti—his Mini-Mentals are over seventy percent. That to me is a miracle.”

More chants of “Hear, hear.”

“I say we vote to accept this report while initiating an aggressive demographic profiling of patients who may have such seizures. This way we determine susceptible target groups.”

“You mean we conduct a demographic screening after approval?” Nick asked.

“Yes,” Jordan said. “And that population with a propensity for flashback problems would be warned to avoid the drug, and at the same time GEM could offer a free test to screen for it.”

“But that’s putting the cart before the horse,” Nick said. “I think it makes better sense to make those determinations before we submit our application. Even if it takes a year or so, it’s to everybody’s advantage to determine which patients might be susceptible to these flashbacks. The alternative is a dangerous rush to market that is unacceptable to me.”

“The other option is a black box,” Paul Nadeau threw out.

Nick chuckled. A black box was the warning that the Food and Drug Administration required in a drug’s labeling—nothing a pharmaceutical company welcomed. “Sure: ‘If you don’t want your elderly patients to play Ding Dong School all day or attack the postman because he took your marbles, then this drug may not be for your dementia patient.’”

Nobody else found that amusing.

“What you are asking, Nick,” said Rubell, “is that we tell millions of people out there that they’ll have to let the fog close over them while we work out these little details. In my book there’s no crueler punishment—show them the light, then blow it out. We are simply not going to stop this train.”

“I agree,” said Jordan.

“Well, then,” Nick concluded, “I have to say that I cannot in clear conscience vote to allow this report to go to the FDA without a disclaimer statement. It’s a whitewash job that feeds false hope to sufferers and caregivers. And I refuse to contribute to the perception that we researchers are so embedded with GEM investors that we have collectively voted to look the other way.”

Hard eyes beamed at him, as heads bowed together in judgment. And for a second, Nick felt like the centerpiece of Leonardo’s The Last Supper.

“That being said, I will write my own letter of recommendation that the FDA postpone review until further tests are conducted.”

A gaping silence filled the room as the blank ballots were passed around. Two minutes later the count was made: twenty-two in favor, one opposed.

Nobody said anything to Nick as he left the room and took the elevator upstairs to his room.

74

TWO THOUSAND MILES AWAY JACK KORYAN lay in his bed thinking about his biological father’s remains lying in a grave somewhere in a Cranston, Rhode Island, cemetery.

75

A LITTLE AFTER NINE THAT SAME evening, Gavin Moy called Nick to join him at the bar downstairs. “I didn’t see you at dinner.” Moy was sitting alone in a private booth at the dimly lit rear of the room.

“I had room service.” Nick was tired and wanted to go back up to bed.

They shared a bowl of mixed nuts. “You ate all the almonds,” Moy said. “All you left me are friggin’ peanuts.”

Nick swirled the bowl with his fingers and pulled out an almond. “Here’s a friggin’ almond.”

Moy took it and popped it in his mouth and crunched it down. They sat quietly sipping their drinks for a few moments. Then Moy said, “I heard what happened this afternoon.”

“I said what I’ve said all along. No surprises.”

“Except that your dissenting report will be a major setback for us.”

“Just one voice in the wind. I doubt it.”

“But a big voice.”

“Then you might consider reevaluating the rush to market, because the drug is badly flawed.”

“Bullshit, it’s not flawed.”

“Gavin, the only thing worse than Alzheimer’s is experiencing the same horrible trauma over and over again. And that’s what this compound has done to many victims: It keeps sending them back to relive terrible events. And that’s worse than Alzheimer’s. That’s worse than death.”

Moy made a hissing sound and batted the air with his hand. “I heard your arguments. I just wish I could talk you around to our view. A letter from you could derail the train.”

“Sorry, Gavin, but I can’t.”

They sat in silence for a long moment sipping their drinks. Moy flagged the waiter for a refill and another bowl of nuts. Then out of his jacket pocket he removed a sheet of paper and handed it to Nick. It was a photocopy of the story of Jack Koryan emerging from his coma.

“What about it?”

“It’s our jellyfish,” Moy said. “You know who he is?”

Nick felt himself tighten. Jordan Carr had requisitioned a blood assay on the guy. He had also asked for a frozen sample of his blood to check how much toxin was still in his system. “Yes.”

“I understand he’s been complaining about bad dreams.”

The son of a bitch is baiting me. “Yes. He’s been having flashbacks.”

“Flashbacks,” Moy repeated. “Something about nightmares of violent confrontations of some sort.”

“That’s my understanding.” Nick kept his voice neutral.

Moy nodded, not taking his flat eyes off Nick’s face, and picked out a couple almonds and crunched them in his molars. “I’m just wondering if you think there’s anything to it.”

He’s playing tricks with me, Nick thought. Some kind of twisted blackmail thing. “It could be recollection; it could just be bad dreams. I’m not really certain. There’s no way to know.”

“It doesn’t bother you? You don’t see a problem here?”

“We’re talking about stuff in the subconscious mind—nothing one can substantiate.”

“Well, it seems we’ve both been wondering about this guy and what he remembers, and if that’s a problem.”

“I don’t believe it is. Besides, our interest in him was strictly scientific.”

“Of course,” Moy said, and he clinked Nick’s glass where it sat on the table. “And, frankly, I’m getting tired of this fucking ghost dance.”

Nick took a deep breath. “Me, too.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah, your sunrise safari.”

Nick had mentioned that he would be heading off to Bryce Canyon.

“You know that the forecast is for freezing rain in the mountains.”

“Cuts down on the crowd.”

Moy chuckled. “A crowd of one.”

Nick’s plan was to get up around four-thirty A.M. and make it to the canyon before sunrise. “You’re welcome to join me.”

Moy made a humpf. “The option of getting up in the cold and dark to drive twenty miles to watch the sun rise, or stay in bed. What we call your basic no-brainer.”

“How often does one get the chance to catch a sunrise on Bryce Canyon?”

“Almost as often as sleeping in. You can show me your pictures.”

Nick left thinking that maybe he was wrong. Maybe they were dancing with ghosts.

76

“MY GOD,” NICK WHISPERED TO HIMSELF as he looked down.

He was standing a few feet from the four-hundred-foot drop-off ledge that made up Inspiration Point at the southern rim of the canyon. The only sound was the rustling of chilled winds through the ponderosa pines and jagged sandstone promontories—a sound unchanged for a hundred million years.

Bryce Canyon gaped at Nick’s feet—a deep series of amphitheaters filled with thousands of limestone and sandstone spires, fins, and towers carved by wind and rain into whimsical shapes, creating a maze of ancient hoodoos. Overhead, the indigo vault was rapidly fading to an orange fire as the rising sun spread from the eastern horizon, bleaching out the last few stars. A crystalline quarter moon rocked in the northwest sky.

Nick inched closer to the drop-off for another shot.

He had gotten up as planned, and made it out here in his rental in about half an hour, stopping for coffee and donuts at a gas station mini-mart. Of course, the roads were wide open with no one else on them. He had checked out of the hotel at four-thirty A.M., his rental packed to take him back to Salt Lake City for his afternoon flight back home—after this glorious pit stop, of course. The last couple days had been stormy, but today the clouds were breaking. And because of the nearly nine-thousand-foot elevation, the air was still chilled and the trails dusted with snow.

The most amazing thing was that nothing moved. He could see for over a hundred miles, and there was no motion but for the junipers and pines. Not even a falling stone. Given the hour and the frigid, windy conditions, not another hiker or tourist appeared to be within miles of the place. Nick’s rental was the only car in the parking lot. From his perch, not a road or car or building or urban light violated the primitive panorama. Not a single sign that this was the twenty-first century and not a sunrise during the Mesozoic age. In fact, this could very well be another planetscape—a vista on Mars, given the reddish stones. Yet the stunning lack of sound was a gratifying relief from the noisy, crowded conference rooms and dining halls.

Nick mounted the Nikon with the three-hundred-millimeter gun-barrel lens onto the tripod, attached a shutter release cable, and began taking shots of the predawn light glazing the towering fins rising from the canyon floor.

He would take maybe four or five shots, then move along the rim as the light changed. When the sunlight began slanting into the canyon, he switched to the two-and-a-quarter Mamiya 7 with the wide angle and headed for the very edge to shoot vistas. One must sustain a near-religious trust in the integrity of limestone, for he was at the very edge of a sheer drop-off, the sight of which sent electrical eddies up his legs.

He aimed at the sunrays gilding a row of rock blades.

Click click click.

Then back to the eighteen-millimeter wide angle.

Click click click.

The light was changing by the second. He shot off the rest of the roll and put in another, then moved up the rim. There he crouched down at the edge and shot down at the sunlight glancing off a clutch of sun-enameled fans of limestone. It was amazing how they resembled a colony of fire coral, but in monstrous proportions. Of course, despite the calcium carbonate structures and the fragile flamelike shapes, so-called fire corals are not true corals but rather a hydrozoa whose stinging cells are equipped with needlelike projections containing burning neurotoxins closely related to those of jellyfish.

Jellyfish.

Amazing how lines converge. Of all the people on the planet to meet up with Solakandji jellyfish, Jack Koryan. And what had brought them together was a confluence of seemingly random geophysical events—cool Pacific seas, warm Atlantic highs, errant Gulf Stream waters, a man on a swim in the right place at the right time.

The jellyfish effect.

Statisticians would put the odds at one in a million-except that this was not a statistically random convergence of the twain. Far from it. Nick didn’t know to what extent things connected, but when he got back to Boston he’d check. But it was amazing how the closer you looked at life, the fewer accidents there were. In fact, maybe there were no real accidents.

Oh, Jack Koryan, he thought. Poor Jack Koryan. You’ve got demons clawing at your brain, and you don’t know what to do. The sad thing is that nothing can be proven after all these years. And even if it came to that, how do you explain? It’s all so garbled by time. Even if you could explain, what can you do about it?

But maybe you should, Nick told himself. Maybe do the one decent thing that would free the guy. And isn’t that your playbill role out here: Dr. Ethics?

Deep down, Jack, we’re really not bad people, just humans in conflict—like the rest of the race. Except the stakes are higher.

Nick looked at the sun rising between a fissure in a hoodoo blade rising out of the chasm. A shaft of gold sent spikes in all directions like a crown of glory.

Sorry, Jack Koryan, for the long bad nights. But, I swear, when I get back I’ll open the door for you.

Nick moved to another outcropping of rock where he hung over the edge with the Nikon. He clicked off three shots. The light was rapidly shifting, shafts of gold shooting from the horizon through the cloud holes. He traced one to his right when he thought he spotted some movement on the higher ledge. He swung his camera around to zoom in on what appeared to be a clotted shadow among some pines just below where the rays lit the treetops.

In the split instant he depressed the shutter release halfway for autofocus, uncertain whether the shadow was an animal or a person, sudden movement from behind him sent a reflexive shudder through his body.

Before he knew it, a figure rushed out at him. In the instant before impact, it all became clear to Nick. But in a hideously telescoped moment he felt the wind punch out of his lungs, and his body was propelled off the rockface lip and into the abyss.

FROM A PERCH FIFTY YARDS TO the upper right, the only sound was a solitary note of recognition—a short “ahhh” escaping from Nick Mavros’s lungs as if he had found a misplaced key—then maybe ten seconds in real time the soft smack of his body against the rock rubble below … then some muffled afterechoes as he and his camera tumbled to their final resting place in the cretaceous layers of ancient seas.

It was done, and Dr. Jordan Carr signaled below to his accomplice to return to their car before day hikers began to show.

Jordan’s guess was that Nick would eventually be found by backpackers or park rangers—a battered thing in a red North Face parka and jeans. And, depending on how long it took to recover the body, the newspapers back home would run the sad obituary of Dr. Nicholas Mavros of Wellesley, Massachusetts, senior neurologist of MGH and chief principal investigator of clinical trials of the new experimental wonder cure for Alzheimer’s, who had apparently lost his footing during high winds on a slick and crumbly rim in Bryce Canyon National Park while alone on a photo hike. He had been in Utah attending a meeting of clinical physicians for blah blah blah, as Gavin Moy would so eloquently put it.

Jordan took a final glance into the abyss.

The only barrier between him and the Promised Land now lay below. And God’s in his heaven, and all’s right with the world.

77

SOLAKANDJI.

Jack had written the word on the back of René Ballard’s business card.

It was a warm afternoon, a fine day to be outside. And Jack’s rehab people were of the Kamikaze School of physical therapy, encouraging him to get out and walk twice a day.

The Robbins Memorial Library was no more than two miles from his house—maybe an hour’s walk at his rate with the cane. Located in the center of town on Massachusetts Avenue, the library was a beautiful Italian Renaissance building whose interior might have been one of the most stunning in the Northeast—high vaulted arches, Doric columns, carved marble niches, paintings, and multicolored marble floors. Beyond the rotunda was the reference room, where a bank of online computers stood against a wall. At this hour most students were in class, so there was no wait for a machine.

On Google, he came up with hundreds of hits for “Solakandji jellyfish.” He scrolled down the list, uncertain what he was looking for, but positive that this was preferable to laundry and housecleaning. Besides, he was curious about the little critters that had taken a half-year bite out of his life.

Some of the sites contained general info about jellyfish with sidebars about Solakandji; other sites were for naturalists, students of marine biology, and underwater photographers. Several explained treatments of jellyfish stings. Aunt Nancy had been right—vinegar, and don’t rub.

He clicked on a few sites that included color photographs of the animal. And there it was: Solakandji medusa—a smoky yellowish translucent mushroom with spaghetti tendrils. It looked so innocently pretty.

This highly venomous jellyfish is extremely hard to detect in the water …

… its tentacles can grow up to 2m long and are near invisible under water.

The Solakandji sting causes a rapid rise in blood pressure and a cerebral hemorrhage …There is currently no anti-venom available for the sting because scientists have struggled to capture enough of the jellyfish to develop an antidote …

Coelenterates have stinging cells called nematocysts, which are made of a spirally coiled thread with a barbed end. On contact, the thread is uncoiled and the barb delivers the toxic substance …

(St. Thomas, V.I.) By the time the emergency helicopter arrived, he was screaming in agony; a few hours later he was in a coma … died four days later …

There were similar news items about rare encounters in the Caribbean with swimmers and snorkelers, but none in North America. The news account of his own attack had apparently expired.

As he continued down the hit list, he found more technical sites cued by scientific terminology—“Coelenterate,” “envenomations”—and linked to lengthy abstruse articles for marine biologists and not the beachcomber or sport diver.

Jack clicked on a few terms and found himself getting lost in the details. After nearly an hour, he came to a cluster of links to more medically slanted sites concerned with the toxin and possible neurological problems. A few enumerated the venom of various species that were clearly dangerous to humans but which were being researched for potential medical application—all very scientific. Out of curiosity he explored some of the archival abstracts of papers published in obscure journals.

Scrolling down a long list Jack came to a dead stop. For a long moment he stared at the screen in numbed disbelief:

Sarkisian N., Nakao M., Sodaquist T. A novel protein toxin from the deadly Solakandji jellyfish. Biotechnology Today 66: 97—102, 1969.

What nailed his attention was the name buried in the authors list: Sarkisian, N. Nevard, Armenian for “Rose.” Her professional name.

His mother.

The realization came to him in a stunning moment of awareness: She had coauthored an article about the toxins of the same jellyfish that had rendered him comatose. As if in autoreflex he read the beginning of the abstract, trying in a side pocket of his mind to put it all together:

The deadly Solakandji jellyfish Chiropsalmus quadrigatus Mason is rare and distributed in the tropical Caribbean and equatorial Atlantic. Four fatal cases due to stings from this species have been officially reported. C. quadrigatus toxin-A (CqTX-A, 43kDa), a major proteinaceous toxin, was isolated for the first time from the nematocysts of C. quadrigatas … CqTX-A showed lethal toxicity to crayfish when administered via intraperitoneal injection (LD50=80 g/kg) and hemolytic activity toward 0.8% mice … .

The arcane scientific language meant nothing to him. But it was his mother’s words, her fierce intelligence expressed in her adoptive language. The coincidence was almost too much to grapple with. And yet, he sensed a logic and some greater import, like watching a Polaroid photo slowly develop.

He moved the cursor back to the search box, typed in “Solakandji N. Sarkisian,” and hit the Search button. Four articles came up listed under “Hydra Library”:

Sarkisian, N.A., 1969. Isolation and determination of structure of a novel polypeptide extracted from marine organism Chiropsalmus quadrigatus Mason. Pure Appl Chem 14: 49.

Sarkisian, N.A., 1970. The potent excitatory effect of a novel polypeptide, protopleurin-B, isolated from a rare jellyfish (Chiropsalmus quadrigatus Mason). J Pharmacol Exp Ther 14: 443—8.

Sarkisian, N.A., 1972. Pharmacologically active toxin from a rare tropical jellyfish. Various neurological activities demonstrated in maze-patterned behavior in laboratory animals. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 17: 226—233.

And there were others with her name and coauthors. From what he could determine, his mother had been involved with the identification of some properties in the jellyfish toxin that over time had been found to have some effect on lab animals with potential pharmacological implications.

He then went back to the less technical sites, those of general information on the species, and looked up pages that gave its habitat. After scanning several articles about the creatures’ encounters with swimmers off various Caribbean islands, he got the hit he was looking for—an article written by a reporter for the Cape Cod Times: “Fish Out of (Home) Waters,” with the subheading : “Writer finds tropical fish in an unlikely place—Homer’s Island”

For years scuba divers have reported seeing exotic strangers such as butterfly fish, triggerfish, and angelfish around the point of Buck’s Cove of Homer’s Island in late summer and early fall. They are not so much visitors as prisoners of the sea—swept north by the Gulf Stream when they’re the size of a button.For most of them, the journey is a one-way trip, and their time is limited. They’re doomed to die when the water temperature falls as winter approaches … .Among the visitors spotted by aquarists are cobia, black drum, and stingrays. Even a juvenile lionfish was captured two years ago … .But the most unusual finds in recent years were the meter-long Solakandji jellyfish, which are usually found in the Caribbean and Pacific …

JACK WAS NOT CERTAIN WHAT HE had found, but what stood out in his mind was the fact that his mother had decided to publish under her maiden name and not her married name, Najarian. Had she gotten caught up in the woman’s liberation movement? Did she decide to distinguish her professional self from her married self? Or were she and his father so estranged?

That last possibility sat festering in his brain as he left the library and headed home.

Jack knew almost nothing about his biological father or his parents’ marriage. He had also never visited his father’s grave.

So why all of a sudden was he calling ahead for the exact location? And why spend the better part of two hours driving to Cedar Lawn Cemetery in Cranston, Rhode Island?

A little late to be showing respect for the man who had sired him, he told himself.

Or do we smell the proverbial rat?

THE CEMETERY OFFICIALLY CLOSED AT SUNSET.

In his rental, Jack arrived an hour before that. The directions given to him by the administration office were perfect.

LEO K. NAJARIAN

There was no inscription. Just the incision of the Armenian cross and the dates.

What Jack knew about his father was that he had come to this country from Beirut, Lebanon, and settled in Rhode Island, where he had relatives, all dead now. That was the Armenian immigrant pattern. But apparently the two sides of his family were not close; after his mother’s death Jack had almost no contact with the few people on his father’s side.

Perhaps it was strictly a professional decision to use her maiden name. Perhaps their marriage was in trouble and she was receding from it. His aunt and uncle told him nothing about their relationship. And even if they had marital problems, what was the point of his knowing?

He looked at the headstone, his eyes filling up as he took in the name of the father he had never known. The man who was just a name and a couple of faded photographs.

For most of his life, Jack felt the absence of a real father the way amputees suffer phantom limbs. His uncle Kirk was a nice man, but too infirm and too distant to fill the void that left Jack wondering just what it would have been like to have had a real father to have done things with. “Hey, Dad, let’s play catch.”

Who were you?

Who am I?

“Sorry, Dad,” he whispered, feeling a deep, searing guilt that he had ever entertained the hideous suspicions that the man buried here was the creature in the dream—the thing in the hood with the mallet.

He put down the pot of flowers he’d bought and through the mist took in the headstone. It looked so stark. Only the years were listed: 1931—1972. No month and date—which seemed odd, since the surrounding headstones gave complete birth and death dates.

Whatever, he had come and paid his respects, and now it was time to get back to the here and now. And he limped back to his car and drove home, thinking about calling René Ballard. She had some explaining to do.

78

NICK’S FUNERAL TOOK PLACE THAT SATURDAY morning at St. Athanasius Greek Orthodox Church in Arlington, Massachusetts. René was numb with grief.

Hundreds of people had turned out, drawn from the greater medical and health-care community. She recognized several faces and joined Alice Gordon and staffers from Broadview, Morningside, and other nursing homes. In the front pews sat Nick’s wife of thirty years, Thalia, their two sons, and their grandchildren. He was always showing René his photos of them. Now they looked lost in disbelief that he was gone.

From her aisle seat at the rear of the church she watched the mourners file in, recognizing several of the trial PIs and MGH people. She also spotted GEM Tech executives and scientists. Gavin Moy, in dark glasses, and some associates seated themselves in a pew ahead of her. Jordan Carr was with them. As he passed by, he stopped and gave her a squeeze of condolence on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, then filed in beside Moy. René nodded and wept quietly.

In a short time, the vast interior of the church filled up, dozens of people standing ten-deep in the rear and pressing down the outer aisles under the stained-glass windows.

The official story was that Nick had lost his balance—a combination of precarious footing, strong winds, and possibly vertigo. Rumor had it that Nick had been given to dizzy spells—and at the high elevation in early morning light he might have had a destabilizing experience for one fatal second. Park authorities had reported snow flurries during the night and early morning winds with gusts up to fifty miles an hour.

All throughout the service, René was distracted by a small filament of uneasiness glowing in her gut. Every so often it would flare up, but she would close her eyes and will it away.

Later, at the grave, where the priest in his robe and headpiece pronounced the final benediction, her eyes floated over the large crowd of mourners and came to rest on the entourage of GEM Tech people standing in close file around Gavin Moy—various executives, marketing people, physicians, lawyers, officials from the FDA, and other power brokers.

Jordan Carr acknowledged her with a nod and a flat smile. Their collective somberness was appropriate, but it still could not dispel that little hot-wire sensation spoken earlier by one of the nurses in a whisper: How convenient was Nick’s death.

79

JACK HAD LEFT SEVERAL MESSAGES ON René Ballard’s cell phone and had nearly given up on her when she returned the call on Tuesday. She had taken some personal days following the death of a friend, she said.

Because it was a bright, warm day, Jack suggested they meet at Fins, a seaside bistro in Portsmouth. René was waiting for him at a table on the deck under an umbrella. Behind her, the Atlantic spread out gloriously, the sun dancing off the surface as if covered with diamond dust. Jack ordered a sparkling water and under the table he slipped his briefcase with printouts of some of the material he had found online. When René removed her sunglasses, her eyes were red and tired-looking, her face drawn.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

She nodded. “It just shouldn’t have happened. He was such a good person.” Her mouth began to quiver and she shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.”

The waiter arrived with Jack’s drink.

René took a sip of her wine. “So, what did you want to show me?”

She looked up at him, and for a brief moment he felt himself taken in by her eyes. The hard blue crystals were softened by her tears. He felt a warm rush in his chest and wanted to put his arms around her. But he pushed away those thoughts. “They’re gobbledygook to me,” he said, and laid before her what he had printed from the journal archives.

René looked at them. “I found some of these myself when I first heard about you.”

Jack lay his finger on the authors’ line. “That’s my biological mother. Her maiden name was Sarkisian. Koryan is from my adoptive uncle.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “What?”

“But it’s not so grand a coincidence when you put it together. Homer’s Island is one of the only places on the Northeast where these creatures ever show up, and she had rented the place specifically for that reason. She was a biochemist, and from what I gather … Well, you tell me.”

While Jack sipped his water, René silently scanned the pages of the articles, occasionally nodding and humming recognition to herself. After a few minutes, she looked up. “This is incredible,” she began. “But I think your mother helped identify the biochemical structure of the toxin. Her name is listed first, which is protocol for principal investigators. And this one a year later links it to its neurological effects on cognition and memory.”

“Which is why the last one she coauthored talks about lab mice and maze problems.”

“Yes, which means … I don’t believe this … not only did she help identify the biochemical structure of the compound, but I think your mother discovered the neurological benefits of the toxin.”

“You mean the Alzheimer’s drug?”

“Yes.” She looked up at Jack in dismay. “You’re sure this is your mother?”

“How many biologists from MIT named N. A. Sarkisian do you think there were?”

René nodded. “Then she must have known Nick Mavros.”

“Nick Mavros?”

“My friend who just died.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out the obituary from the Boston Globe. The headline read “MGH Neurologist Falls to His Death in Utah.” “He was chief PI of the Memorine trials,” she said in dismay. “He also did the imaging work on you when they brought you into MGH. This is unbelievable.”

Jack stared at the photo of Dr. Nicholas Mavros. “He came to visit me at Greendale.”

“He did?”

Jack felt a hole open up in his gut.

“Just one more question, if you don’t mind.”

“One of those standard memory test questions.”

“He came to ask about my mother.” Jack stared at the obit photograph, then pulled up his briefcase and rifled through the papers until he found the photograph he had discovered in the old albums boxed in the cellar of his rented house. “Son of a bitch.” He turned the photograph so René could see it.

“That’s Nick,” she said.

Shot in front of an auto parts store, the photo was of a younger, leaner Nick Mavros with long, black, shoulder-length hair, smiling at the camera, his arm around the shoulder of Jack’s mother, who grinned happily, her head tilted toward Nick Mavros. They both wore white lab smocks. And they looked so together.

“They must have been in the same research group as grad students.”

Jack’s eyes were stuck on the image of Mavros. “He asked me twice if I remembered her.”

“One of those standard memory test questions.”

“What was your mother’s maiden name?”

But they already knew that from Dr. Heller’s tests days earlier. Then Jack thought of something and fingered through the packet of articles until he found what he was looking for:

“He even wrote about it with her,” he said and showed her the abstract.

Sarkisian N. A., Mavros N. T., et, al. 1971. Neurotoxic activity on the sensory nerves from toxin of the deadly Solakandji tropical jellyfish Chiropsalmus quadrigatus Mason. Chem Pharm Bull 17: 1086—8, 1971.

“My God, I found the abstract for this same article, except I didn’t know she was your mother.” Then she picked up another article and scanned the pages. “Listen. ‘Proteinaceous toxin from the nematocysts of C. quadrigatus found effective in facilitating attentional abilities and acquisition, storage and retrieval of information, and to attenuate the impairment of cognitive functions associated with age and age-related pathologies in mice.’”

“Translating as what?”

“That they were moving down the pipeline toward Memorine.” She looked at the other articles and abstracts he had printed up. “Nick’s name appears only on this one, but she’s on all these. The last with her name on it is from March 1975.”

“Because she died in August that same year.” Jack was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “He was testing me.”

“Testing you?”

Jack could still see the shift in the man’s face. “I think he wanted to know how far back I could remember. Like early childhood. Like the night she disappeared.”

René’s eyes seemed to veil over. “Jack, what are you trying to tell me?”

“That he may have known something about her disappearance. That he may have been the visitor to the cottage that night. That maybe he’s the figure in those flashbacks. That maybe he killed her.”

René’s head recoiled as if Jack had punched her. “That’s outrageous.” Her voice was scathing. “Nick was a wonderful and compassionate man.” Suddenly her face began to crumble. “How dare you say such things? He just died, for God’s sake.”

“He knew her and never said anything. He never said, ‘I remember your mother.’”

“Maybe he didn’t know she was your mother. You have a different name.”

“Then why did he ask her maiden name? Heller had already established that. He wasn’t there to check for brain damage. He wanted to hear it from me. Son of a bitch! I had a weird feeling about him the moment he showed up. He probably wanted to know if I remembered him from that night.”

“Why would he want to kill her?”

“I don’t know. I know nothing about him and practically nothing about her, except that they knew each other. And he wanted to know if I remembered her. You put it together.”

“That’s absolutely insane.”

“Then tell me why he was pussyfooting around, why he didn’t say he had been friends with her.” And he held up the photo.

“I don’t know why. But he’s dead, and I don’t want to hear his name slandered, okay?” Her eyes blazed at him through her tears. She looked down at the photograph. “Besides, it’s been thirty years, for God’s sake. There’s no way to know what happened that night.”

“Yes, there is.”

For a moment she stared blankly at him.

“It could take me back to that night.”

“Christ! We’ve already been through this. I’m not stealing any Memorine. Period.”

He expected that, of course. And she was probably right. The stuff can’t be fine-tuned. It’s unpredictable in its effects. It may not even work. But as he sat there under her angry glare, it crossed his mind that deep down where the sun didn’t shine maybe René didn’t want him to remember what he saw that night—and who was under that rain slicker.

“This is the last I’m going to say about it, but I think you’re stuck on a foolish and sick idea just to satisfy some neurotic obsession.”

Jack said nothing, just nodded as the syllables seeped in one by one. “Maybe so.” Then he looked out at the sea, and into the reflective light of the sun, feeling possibilities dance before his eyes.

“By the way,” he said as they got up to leave. “What kind of a car did Nick Mavros drive?”

“Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“Some kind of SUV … I think a Ford.”

“What color?”

“Black.”

80

JACK HAD NOT BEEN BACK TO Greendale for nearly two months. So when he showed up that Wednesday morning, he was welcomed like a famous alumnus returning to campus. Aides and administrative staff flocked around him and in tears Marcy Falco threw her arms around him. Jack had been one of her “witchcraft” successes.

“I just wanted to stop in to say hello and thank you for all you did for me.” He had brought a large bouquet of flowers for the ward and a five-pound box of chocolate for Marcy. He said that he wanted to see how some of the residents were doing. He had heard that a few were progressing well in the trials.

Marcy took him upstairs to the ward, where it was morning rounds, and patients were getting their meds.

“How’s Joe McNamara?”

“Up to his own tricks,” Marcy said. “He won’t take his meds. Connie’s coming along now.” She led him into Joe’s room, where Joe was sitting up in his bed. He had apparently slipped and injured his hip.

“Hey, old-timer, remember me?”

Joe looked at him, his face straining in confusion to place Jack.

“Joe, you remember Jack,” Marcy said.

Still Joe scowled as he rummaged in his brain for recognition.

“In any event, Connie will be by in a moment,” Marcy said. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

When she left, Jack whispered into Joe’s ear. “Father O’Connor.”

Joe’s mouth dropped opened as recognition swept across his brain. “Oh, Father, Father, forgive me.”

“How’ve you been, my son?” Jack asked.

Joe was beaming. “Pretty good, Father, pretty good, but I hurt my hip, you know.” And he pulled up the blanket to show a huge black-and-blue bruise along his flank. “It looks worse than it feels, though.”

Jack could hear a wad of phlegm in Joe’s throat. “Well, that’s a blessing.”

Just then Connie came in with a small tray with juice and a cup of meds. “Look who’s here,” she chortled, as she placed the tray on the table. Joe said nothing but studied the contents of the pill cups.

Jack pulled Connie aside. “I hear Joe’s not being very cooperative.”

She lowered her voice as Joe stared at the orange juice. “He likes the blue pills, but the white one he spits out.”

“How come?”

“He claims they make him dull.” And she made a what-are-you-going-to-do face.

“What’s the blue?”

“His Alzheimer’s drug.”

“And the white?”

“Zyprexa.”

“Of course.” Then Jack lowered his voice. “Maybe if just the two of us are alone, I can get him to cooperate.”

Connie thought that over. “Whatever.” Then she moved to the bed. And in a loud, clear voice she reserved for the elderly patients, she said, “Joe, you’re gonna do Jack a favor and take your meds like a good guy, okay?”

Joe looked at her but didn’t answer. Then he picked up the cup with the square blue pill and gulped it down with orange juice. Connie watched from the doorway. Nurses were supposed to witness patients’ taking their meds so they could mark the charts.

“Joe, it’s me, Father O’Connor.”

Joe looked up and his eyes saucered.

Jack held up the cup of Zyprexa. “You’re going to make me proud, okay? You’re going to be a good lad and take your pills for me.” Jack did all he could not to lapse into a Barry Fitzgerald brogue. He laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder, glaring at him with a sanctimonious smile. “Come on now, lad.” And Jack raised the cup with the single pill to Joe’s lips.

Joe opened up, Jack poured it in, then raised the orange juice to his lips. And Joe swallowed.

At the doorway, Connie grinned and flashed a thumbs-up. When she left, Jack sat at the corner of the bed. His eye fell on the suction bottle with the hose connecting to the wall.

“I don’t like her. She makes me take that crud. They just put me to sleep. I like the blue ones better. They’re kinda fun.”

“How’s that?”

Joe’s thin dry lips cracked into a wry grin. “They bring me back to some good times.” And he gave Jack a naughty wink.

Jack checked his watch. Marcy would be back in moments. “Joe, did I tell you the story about the new nun at her first confession?”

“Uh-uh,” Joe said, looking up at him with an eager face.

“Well, there was this new nun, and she tells the priest that she has a terrible secret. The priest then tells her that her secret is safe in the sanctity of the confessional. So, she says, ‘Forgive me, Father, but I never wear panties under my habit.’ The priest chuckles and says, ‘That’s not so serious, Sister Katherine. Say five Hail Marys, five Our Fathers, and do five cartwheels on your way to the altar.’”

Jack waited a moment until he was sure Joe got the joke. Not getting a reaction, Jack began to explain, when it all clicked in Joe’s brain, and he started to laugh. Jack took Joe’s hand and laughed along with Joe, which made him laugh even more, until Joe started coughing. In a moment, Joe got locked into a coughing jag and Jack shot out of the room. Connie was just rolling by with her cart. “I think Joe needs to be suctioned,” he said. And hearing Joe trying to catch his breath, Connie rushed inside the room.

The moment was Jack’s, and his awareness was crackling. He had less than two seconds as everybody else in the room was distracted—Marcy at the other side of the dayroom with another resident, the aides with their backs to him. And the cart sat right there, drawer open, folders of patients’ meds all in a row—Joe McNamara’s gaping at him. And inside of it the card of blue pills in shrink-wrap windows.

Connie never locked the cart when she ducked into the rooms. Officially, she was supposed to, since it was a fundamental regulation in the nursing home that medication carts be locked when the nurses were out of view of them. But in all the weeks that Jack had spent on the ward he almost never saw the nurses lock the carts, unless they had to leave the area for a length of time—but never for a fast dip into a patient’s room. And why bother, since everybody on this ward was mentally out of it?

In a flash, Jack’s hand shot into the folder, and a moment later a card of thirty Memorine tabs was inside his shirt. He ducked his head into Joe’s room and said good-bye. Joe had caught his breath and waved. “Good-bye, Father. And thanks for stopping by.”

“Any time, m’lad, and God bless.”

Half an hour later, Jack was home.

It would take them another day to realize that a card of thirty was missing. And nobody would connect the absence to Jack. Even if they did, it would be too late to stop him. He looked at the card of pills.

And the son of a bitch also had a black SUV. He’d been tailing him for weeks. He knew Jack was on to him. He knew, and now he was dead and had taken it with him.

81

MEMORINE CLEARED BY THE FDA FOR THE TREATMENT OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

BOSTON—GEM Neurobiological Technologies of Walden, Mass., today announced that it has received marketing clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Memorine, a new drug for the symptomatic treatment of mild to severe Alzheimer’s disease. Memorine has proven highly effective in reversing the damage done to patients with mild to advanced Alzheimer’s disease while enhancing cognition and patient functionality.

“GEM Tech’s dedication to the needs of patients and their families and our commitment to human health care and Alzheimer’s disease research have fostered this new breakthrough therapy,” said Gavin E. Moy, president and chief executive officer of GEM. “For generations, Alzheimer’s disease has been a family tragedy affecting millions of people. Memorine represents the first cure of this dreadful affliction, thereby all but eliminating the anguish of families and terrible deterioration of patients.”

Controlled clinical trials in over 900 patients demonstrated that more than 70 percent taking Memorine dramatically improved in tests of cognition over the course of the studies and assessment of patient function and behavior and activities of daily living, in comparison to patients taking placebos, after 24 weeks of treatment.

The efficacy of Memorine was established by placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trials. In the trials, patients diagnosed with mild to severe Alzheimer’s disease received single daily doses of either a placebo or 10mg of Memorine for 24 weeks … .

Cognitive improvement and memory were measured by the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-cog). Patients on Memorine achieved results nearly 80 percent higher compared to placebo groups. Likewise, patient function was markedly improved, based on clinicians’ observations and interviews with patients and caregivers … .

Memorine will be available by prescription by the beginning of next year … .

THE TELEPHONE PULLED JACK AWAY FROM the morning paper. It was the administrator from Cedar Lawn Cemetery returning his call from the voice mail messages he had left yesterday.

It was an unusual request, and Jack had to answer a few questions to prove his identity. But they had the information he had sought.

Leo K. Najarian was born on July 19, 1931, and died on March 30, 1972.

Jack asked the man at the other end to repeat those dates, and the man did so. They had come from the coroner’s certificate of death.

Jack thanked the man for his time and effort and hung up the phone.

And for a long moment Jack stared at what he had written down. Leo Najarian had died eleven months before Jack was born.

82

IT WAS CLOUDY, AND THE FORECAST was for an evening thunderstorm. Jack was packed and just leaving the house when he heard the doorbell ring.

It was René. Her face was stiff and white. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“And a good morning to you.” He closed the door behind her.

She glared at him. “The nursing staff at Greendale reports that a thirty-tab card of Memorine is missing from the med cart. They also report that you had dropped in for a visit on the same day.”

“And they sent you over here to see if I know anything about that.”

“No, they didn’t, because they can’t possibly imagine why you’d be interested in the stuff. They’re still searching for it.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” A week had passed since he was out there.

“Jack, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He picked up his travel bag. “I’m going to find out who killed my mother.”

“This is absolutely crazy.”

“No crazier than the stuff I’m carrying in my head.”

“First, you don’t even know if it’s going to work for you. Second, you can’t just pop a pill and wait for flashbacks. It has to build up in your system. Third, I resent your suspicions of Nick Mavros.”

He reached into the travel bag and pulled out the card of tabs. Nearly a third of them were gone. “It works, but all I’m getting is snippets—nothing connecting. I need the proper stimulus. The right setting. The right conditions, like the weather.”

“What if something goes wrong? What if you trigger some awful psychotic reactions?”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

She tugged at his arm. “And what the hell do you hope to accomplish?”

“The truth.”

“What truth? That you’ve got some sick obsession about your mother’s death and you’re trying to pin it on an innocent man?”

“I’m stuck in a little horror loop and it’s going to continue until I do something about it.”

“Like what?”

“Like opening a door.”

“This is insane. You don’t know what you’re doing. I’m telling you, you’re not going to do anything but set off more seizures.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for.”

She stomped her foot. “Jesus Christ! You could damage your brain.”

“Been there, done that. And just in case … ,” and he reached into his pocket and pulled out four vials of pills. Dilantin, Depakote, Tegretol, Zyprexa—antiseizures, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, you name it.

She looked at the labels. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered in exasperation.

“If I begin to trip out, I pop some of these. Isn’t that what you do on the wards?”

She looked at him nonplussed. “Did it ever occur to you that you may not be in any mental condition to take any of this?”

He nodded. “Then want to come along and hold watch?”

“Where?”

Jack checked his watch. “The boat leaves in three hours.”

THEY ARRIVED AT NEW BEDFORD JUST in time to catch the one o’clock ferry. Jack had brought with him a travel bag with enough food for the weekend. The sky was a bundle of dark clouds, and rain was beginning to fall.

René had continued to protest as they drove along until she realized it was a lost cause. Jack was adamant, but he was also touched by the fact that maybe René Ballard cared enough to come along to keep watch. Or maybe it was to defend the reputation of her friend and former professor. Whatever, he was glad she was with him.

Earlier Jack had called Olivia Sherman to ask if he could rent the cottage for the weekend. She said that the weather would not be good, but he said that he didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred the beach under dramatic conditions. She didn’t seem to understand but welcomed him to come.

For most of the boat trip to the island René remained in a quiet funk. But at one point she asked, “What if you take your little trip and convince yourself you saw Nick in the cottage that night? What do you have?”

“I already told you—the truth.”

“Bullshit. You’ll have a self-fulfilling delusion,” she said. “You’ve lined things up in your head so you can arrive at a predetermined conclusion—that Nick had something to do with your mother’s disappearance.”

“I’m counting on recognizing the difference between delusion and memory.”

“Yeah, and thirty percent of the patients on Memorine are conversing with people from their childhood.”

“But in their heads they’re back there.”

She shook her head in frustration.

THEY ARRIVED AT THE ISLAND AT about one-thirty and hired a taxi to take them to the Vita Nova. They had begun to descend the steps to the cottage when Jack felt a small shudder. Overhead the sky was a dark, roiling canopy of clouds. And in the distance they could hear the rumble of thunder accompanied by explosions of light in the clouds as if from an unseen battle at sea. The conditions were nearly the same.

They made their way down to the cottage without saying a word. The key was back in its plastic container under the flower box, and with it Jack let them inside.

In spite of his adamancy, he really had no idea whether this would work or how long it would take even if it did—or how long René would tolerate the experiment. But for the last several days, all the drug had done was turn his head into a kaleidoscopic run of dissociative past-time vignettes that had no connection to that night three decades ago. But the storm resonated in some deep place.

And Jack knew that the flashbacks needed just the right stimuli—like some of the old people on the Greendale ward hearing an old tune and suddenly they would be back in grade school. And although René might turn out to be right—that it was insane, dangerous, and probably a dead end—it was also a last-ditch effort to satisfy a festering unknown that he knew would not otherwise go away until his death.

Around three P.M. Jack took his first tab. By then René had resigned herself to the absurdity of the experiment and saw herself as simply on standby alert should Jack flip out. Over the next few hours Jack tried to make small talk with her. She gave halfhearted answers about where she was born, where she went to college, about her parents.

By six, Jack still felt nothing, so they made a dinner of pasta with a jar of store-bought sauce. At one point, while they were working in the close confines of the small kitchen, Jack turned to her. “René.”

She turned toward him from the stove where she was stirring the sauce.

“Why did you decide to come out here with me?”

The question caught her off guard. “To make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”

Jack could not help it, but as he took in those clear blue eyes and full and faintly disapproving lips, he felt a warm longing flood him. Here was a beautiful, desirable, and intelligent woman—the kind who dated famous brain surgeons, business execs, or movie stars—a woman who was so far above his league yet who had come all the way out here in the middle of a storm because she cared. Yes, maybe it was academic or out of some professional sense of obligation—but he didn’t want to believe that. And now he was sharing a very small space with her and enjoying it in spite of the bizarre circumstances. “That’s very nice of you.” And for a second he thought he was going to slip and lower his face to kiss her.

But a sudden sizzle cut the air.

“The pasta water’s overflowing.”

Gratefully, Jack snapped off the gas jet as foam poured over the sides of the pot. With a fork he snagged a strand of spaghetti and handed it to her. She blew on it, then tasted it. She nodded. “Perfect.”

As he poured the pasta into a colander in the sink, he said, “By the way, do you like Armenian food?”

“You mean like shish kebab?”

“Yeah, and pilaf, stuffed grape leaves, and lamejun, which is Armenian pizza.”

René was setting out the dinnerware and dishes. “I’ve never really tried it. Why?”

“I’m just thinking that once this is over, what do you say we give it a shot? I know a nice place in Watertown. They also have takeout.”

He could see that she clearly was not in the mood to talk about some future date. “We’ll see.”

Jack nodded and stored that away, glad that he had not yielded to his foolish impulse and spoiled the moment. Besides, he reminded himself, another reason she was out here was to vindicate her old friend and mentor, Nick Mavros, from the nuttiness of Jack’s experiment. But her “we’ll see” gave him hope.

With dinner, Jack took another half tablet. Still nothing happened, and the storm was getting closer.

After they ate, René settled on a couch with a book. She did not want to talk any more, sending the message that she was not a participant in Jack’s nutty experiment.

At eleven Jack took another tab—swallowing a whole pill to René’s protest. By one o’clock he still felt nothing but drowsiness. He put more logs on the fire.

Meanwhile, René sat with her book and sipped wine. Vials and syringes of antiseizure agents were lined up on the coffee table. Every so often she’d mutter how she couldn’t believe she was doing this. And on the other side of the coffee table Jack sat in another sofa, where the crib had been, and stared at the door.

After a while he felt a fluidy warmth spread throughout his brain. The lull of the rain against the roof and the fire conspired against him, and he closed his eyes as a delicious drowsiness settled over him.

He could hear the rain pelt the roof like BBs. And in the distance, a deep-bellied rumble of thunder.

On the coffee table sat a shiny metal meat mallet he had brought. Also, the photograph of him on a pony beside a statue of an Indian; his mother was holding him in the saddle. According to the faded ink on the back, it was taken on the Mohawk Trail when Jack was fourteen months old.

It was the last image in his mind as the warmth of the fire pulled him under.

He knew he must have fallen asleep, because sometime later he vaguely felt himself being lifted and carried to another room, which was dark and where he was laid onto a bed and covered.

“And here’s Mookie.”

And he felt something nuzzle up against his side.

“Ahmahn seerem.”

(How did René know Armenian?)

“His eyes are moving.”

“That’s good, he’s dreaming.”

“Jack, I’m right here.”

(Beth? I thought you were in Texas.)

“They’re just going to take some pictures.”

He could hear her through the door, on the far side of the living room. He tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t work.

“You won’t feel a thing.”

Thunder rumbled.

“Almost there.”

(I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming … . )

He was in a deep sleep when he heard a knock at the door. His eyes cracked open, and through the space of the open door he saw René let in the visitor. “I thought you’d never make it,” she said in a low voice.

(How did René know somebody was coming out here?)

Jack saw the figure pass the opening of his door. Because of the storm, he was wearing a dark, hooded slicker that blocked his face. René closed the door and asked how he managed to make it in this weather, and he said something about the sea not being bad yet.

Jack did not identify the voice. And René’s voice sounded strange, accented. And she looked smaller, darker than he recalled. And her hair was in a bun.

Jack knew he wanted to stay awake—he knew how important it was that he take watch …

The big replay, pal. What you’ve been waiting for, stole all the blue beauties for …

But for the life of him, he could not keep his eyes open.

A sharp voice woke him again. “I’m not going to do that. Simple as that.”

“I’m a part of this, too.”

“I don’t give a damn.”

“You never give a damn.”

“I do, but I’m not going to give it all up for him. It’s as simple as that.”

“Stop shouting, you’re going to wake him. Stop it.”

Jack climbed out of the crib and onto the floor. He walked to the opening and looked into the living room.

The next moment exploded in a flurry of movements. The man’s back was to him but he could see the woman slap her hand at him. “You son of a bitch,” she cried.

The man’s own hands rose to block her attack, but she continued to swear and swing at him, and he slapped her back, connecting with sounds of smacking flesh, her screaming.

Her screaming …

“Call the friggin’ cops. Go ahead.”

And with a fist he backhanded her in the face. The blow sent her stumbling backward, and her head cracked against the stone edge of the fireplace—the contact passing into Jack’s brain like a hot needle.

Jack heard himself cry out—a sharp, bright cry that sliced the air.

“Shut up, goddamn it.”

But Jack could not shut up. The man turned toward him, his face still out of view, and a terrified Jack scurried back into the bedroom. A moment later the man slammed the door shut.

Jack crawled under his crib, his stuffed mouse pressed against him, the hard wood floor cold against his legs. He could see movement in the light strip. And he could hear movement and the man’s voice. “Oh, shit, Rose! Rose!”

Then a long silence. Jack crawled out from under the crib and padded to the door, his mouse still held against him. There was no lock on the door, and he knew how to open it—just push the metal handle down.

He did, and through the crack he saw the man with the slicker on his head dragging her out the front door, a thin dark trail smearing the floor.

Jack could feel the cold breeze rush into the room. A moment later, the man closed the front door. Thunder cracked overhead and the window flickered blue light.

Jack went to the front door.

“Goddamn you, die.”

Jack opened the big door to see the man hanging over the woman on the ground. In the man’s hand was the meat mallet. In the dark wet the woman was whimpering and her feet were twitching horribly, as if she were trying to walk on air. And the mallet came down and down.

Jack let out a cry. And the man looked up, his hood casting a sharp shadow over his face. Jack ran back to his room and closed the door and climbed back into his crib.

But the door flew open and the man filled the light, his head a large black bullet, the mallet still gripped in his hand.

Jack heard himself crying so loudly that it felt as if pieces of his throat were breaking loose.

And the man just stood there taking in the screams, watching Jack squirming, cowering in the corner of his crib, clutching Mookie to him, the blanket over his head but with just enough of a hole in the folds to see the man who continued to stand there in the doorway staring at him, his terrible head and slanting shoulders—thinking about what he should do about the baby in the crib eyeing him through his blanket.

Jack could hear himself whimper, wishing he could stop, wishing he could just disappear, blink out of existence.

“Won’t remember a thing.”

And then the room lit up in an electric blue light as a crack of thunder shattered the air.

The man closed the door.

He must have cleaned up the mess in the other room, because Jack could smell something—bleach—as he lay there in the dark waiting for the door to burst open again. But it didn’t.

And some time later he heard the outside door bang shut.

JACK HEARD A WARBLING CRY AND snapped his eyes open.

He had slipped to the floor. His throat felt thick and his chest hollow as if he had been sobbing deeply. His mind was raw. He looked around the room.

All was still, and outside a gentle rain pattered against the roof. The fireplace was a bed of glowing coals and burnt log ends. A soft yellow night-light burned in a lamp on the table. The clock on the wall said 3:35.

René was curled up on her couch under an afghan.

Jack must have made sounds as he awoke, because René rolled onto her back and sat up. “You okay?”

He nodded. “I saw his face.”

5

83

“DAD, WE HAVE TO BE THERE at six. Might be time to get dressed.”

Louis had just stepped out of the shower. Through the door he could hear her voice calling up the stairs. “Okay,” he said. He could hear the excitement in his daughter’s voice. She had been that way since the invitation came. In fact, since he’d been home on furlough.

Then she added, “Remember, you’re going to be one of the star guests tonight. You excited?”

“Yup.”

Then another voice yelled up the stairs. His wife’s. “And don’t forget to take your pills. The white ones. They’re on your bureau with the water.”

“Okay.” He found the pills. The white ones. The ones that dulled his brain. He dropped them into the toilet.

Then he toweled himself off and looked in the mirror. He raised his arms and flexed his muscles, which bulged up thick and tan from going shirtless under the hot Asian sun. He inspected his teeth—white and straight. Then he smiled at the smooth young face staring out at him. With a comb he slicked back the thick black hair so that it looked like an ebony plate across his head. He had his father’s hair. Unfortunately, Dom had gone bald by the time he was fifty. Louis still had thirty years to worry about that.

On the bed lay the black tuxedo his wife and daughter had gotten him. That would be his cover.

Before he got dressed, he checked the map again and the recon photos, trying to fix in his head the layout of the village center and the entrances to the pavilion. When he had them burned into his brain, he slipped them back into the plain envelope.

He put on his watch: 18:22 hours. All was going according to schedule.

He slipped on his fatigues, then the monkey suit. In the mirror he fixed his bow tie and sent the comb through his hair for the last time. He wished they had some kind of hat to complete the look.

Under his jacket he fixed his weapon, certain that the layers would hide the bulge. He took one last look in the mirror and gave the soldier a stiff salute.

Then he headed out. At last. This time it was the real thing: Operation Buster.

84

FOLLOWING THE ANNOUNCEMENT of the FDA’S approval of Memorine, Alzheimer’s organizations, support groups, caregivers, and allied health-care people everywhere celebrated the good news. And so did the White House.

And on this balmy Saturday evening, a huge victory gala was held at the seaside estate of Gavin E. Moy. In the setting sun, the place glowed like a huge and magnificent jewelry box on the Manchester cliffs overlooking Moon Harbor, where Gavin Moy’s boat the Pillman Express lay moored in a black-glass sea. Inside, a small regiment of tuxedoed waiters moved throughout the crowd with trays of canapes and champagne.

There must have been two hundred people spread throughout the thirty rooms and out on the patios, but mostly filling the first-floor ballroom, the library, and various parlors. There were executives and scientists from GEM, of course, and medical and health-care folks from all over New England, as well as representatives from different Alzheimer’s organizations, the FDA, the state legislature, Capitol Hill, and, of course, the White House. The president himself could not be there, but he sent a telegram that was read by Gavin Moy over the PA system.

Partway through the evening, Jordan Carr silenced the crowd. The house lights dimmed as monitors positioned around the rooms flickered to life. The videos contained old and new footage of AD success stories, including some of Louis Martinetti, who addressed the camera in a clear and lucid delivery. Louis was then introduced. He was wearing a tuxedo and was flanked by his daughter and wife. He did not give a speech. In fact, he looked overwhelmed, even anxious, mumbling to himself. But through tears of joy, his daughter thanked everybody for making Louis a living miracle.

A thunderous applause arose from the group, many of whom were wiping tears from their own eyes, René included.

More video presentations and testimonials followed. Also, a television commercial for Memorine that would begin airing on all major networks and cable on Monday. The spot was mostly visuals, with swelling background music, as happy and focused elderly folks played in grassy green yards with grandchildren, pushed them on swings, sat around dinner tables. And the only words were those of the unseen narrator: “Alzheimer’s: At last a cure. Ask your doctor about the Memorine solution.” And at the bottom of the screen the name GEM Tech and its sparkling diamond logo.

Following the video, Gavin Moy gave a brief speech in which he thanked all those scientists, researchers, physicians, nurses, and others for their dedication and determination to bring to an end the scourge of Alzheimer’s disease.

After the cheering, people formed a line to congratulate Gavin.

WITH A BRIEFCASE IN HAND Jack waited patiently behind people he didn’t know, in front of people he didn’t know. Somewhere in the crowd René was talking to the Martinettis. She had told him about Louis and how he had become a very special patient of hers and how his successful comeback from dementia had been like a redemption for her—a final exorcizing of her own guilt and of those tormenting memories of her father as he faded away. Louis’s recovery was a kind of recovery for her too.

When his turn came, Jack took Gavin Moy’s hand.

“Hi,” Moy said, his large, smiling, tanned face taking focus on Jack.

“Meds Gama.” Jack’s voice was barely audible over the din of the crowd.

“Beg pardon?” Moy said, cocking his head toward Jack.

Jack repeated the words. “Meds Gama.”

Moy’s expression ruffled. “Nice to meet you,” he muttered, and tried to pull his hand away.

But Jack did not release Moy’s hand. Nor did he release the grip of his stare. “Meds Gama, also known as Meds Garmir, also known as Big Red.”

Moy looked at him, startled. “Sorry, but I don’t believe I know you.” The others in Moy’s entourage were beginning to take notice.

“I think you might have an idea.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Jack Koryan. Son of Rose Najarian, also known as Rose Sarkisian.”

Something passed over Moy’s face as he held Jack’s glare, then he turned to the others. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and tortured his face into a smile.

When a bystander offered to accompany him, Moy said he’d be fine. He looked back to see René suddenly tailing Jack. He raised a cautionary finger at her. “I think you can stay here.” And she fell back. Jack did not like the threatening gesture, but he said nothing and nodded for her to fall behind.

Moy continued to smile as he cut his way through the crowd, making terse comments to people, a big strained Happy Face preceding him as Jack followed him out of the ballroom and into the hallway.

Jack expected Moy to turn on him when they were alone, but he said nothing and led him down a corridor, then up some back stairs and through two rooms and doors and into a corner room overlooking the harbor. Moy’s home office was furnished with bookshelves, a robust marble table, and a large desk in the windowed corner. Moy moved behind the desk and sat in the big black leather mitt of a chair. He folded his hands and leaned across the desk glowering at Jack. “Okay, what’s this all about?”

On the walls behind him were photos of Moy and other people on his boat posing with fish. Others showed him in hunting outfits with dead deer. Also on a table were trophies for pistol marksmanship. “It’s about the death of Rose Sarkisian.”

Moy stared at him impassively and said nothing—a withering ploy he probably used to bring his employees to their knees. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You don’t recognize the name?”

“No.”

“Think hard. Rose Sarkisian.” And Jack enunciated the syllables with deliberate clarity.

“Look, I’ve met thousands of people in my travels over the years.”

“She was my mother.”

“So, good for you.”

“You killed her.”

Moy’s face froze for a moment. Then he leaned forward menacingly. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are coming in here making such claims, but I’ve heard enough.” His hand moved toward the telephone.

Jack pulled out a photograph of Rose and Nick and slid it across the table.

“That’s Rose Sarkisian and Nick Mavros taken about thirty years ago. I did some research. They’re standing in front of Junior Dee’s Auto Parts store, which used to be where Kendall Square is now, behind MIT It’s where you had your lab down below.”

Jack watched Moy intently, but there was nothing in his face that betrayed him—not a flicker of his eye or a microtwitch of his facial muscles.

“So I knew her.”

“And you were at the cottage the night she died.”

“What cottage? What night?”

“Homer’s Island, August 20, 1975, Vita Nova.”

“I don’t know what you’re friggin’ talking about.”

Jack pulled out of his tuxedo jacket a photocopy of the story of Rose Sarkisian’s disappearance.

Moy glanced at it. “You know nothing,” he said. He picked up the phone. “You’ve got ten seconds to get out of here or I’m calling the police.”

“You murdered her. I was there. You came in. You had a fight and pushed her. She fell backward and hit her head and went unconscious. But that didn’t satisfy you, so you smashed her on the skull, then dragged her outside to finish her off with a kitchen meat mallet that she used to make dinner for you. Then you came back in and cleaned up the mess with bleach. Then you left to dump her body in the water.”

Moy looked at Jack as if he were an alien. His eyes were intense and his mouth in a twisted rictus. He looked positively stunned. “How?” That was all he could say.

“How do I know?” Jack pulled out a single blue tablet and slid it in front of him. “The Memorine solution.”

Moy stared at the pill for a telescoped moment.

And in Jack’s head he heard that voice: “Die, goddamn you, die.”

Moy raised his face again. He settled into his chair and stared at Jack for several seconds. “So, I knew your mother,” he said, as if in a trance. His body seemed almost to deflate into the confession.

And the sound of the words sent a cold flush through Jack. His hand reflexively slid up the front of his jacket to the lump under his arm.

“But no pill will conjure up the truth.”

“And what’s that?”

“She tried to blackmail me.” Moy stopped and waved his hand in the air. “I’ve said enough.” He straightened up in his chair. “I want you out of here. You’ve got nothing on me.”

“Except my memory.”

“Get out of here before I call security.” And he picked up the desk phone.

“She discovered the toxin, and you ran off with her patent.”

“Bullshit.”

Jack reached into his briefcase and pulled out the downloaded stack of articles and abstracts. “Her name is all over these, until you killed her and appropriated her discovery.”

Moy looked at the pile as Jack fanned out the collection.

“She was on the ground floor of your wonder drug.”

“And what do you think you can prove by these, huh? You going to take me to court after thirty years?”

“It’s evidence of a motive for murder. I saw it all, but you didn’t think I’d remember. I was too young—just a toddler. But it all came back because of your magic jellyfish. Pretty funny, huh? What goes around comes around.”

Moy’s face was bright red. “She fell and hit her head … We had a fight, and she fell and hit her head.”

“And you finished her off with a hammer because you feared she’d report you—report that she was the one who discovered the toxin and saw the potential benefits and demanded equal billing with you.” Jack pulled one of the articles from the pile. “She was the one who determined how the stuff stimulated the adrenal medulla to activate the brain’s beta-receptors on neurons that receive noradrenaline, resulting in an enhanced emotional memory. It’s all in here—her experiments with mice. She’s the one who should be celebrated down there, not you, you son of a bitch. You killed her. You killed her.”

Moy’s face looked as if it would explode. “Yeah, I killed her and she deserved it. You happy now? I killed her. She tried to extort money from me. And it wasn’t because of the goddamn science. It was because of you. You!”

Jack’s breath caught in his throat.

“I was married, and just starting all this, up to my ass in debts, and she was threatening to destroy everything. She wanted me to leave my wife and marry her. And when I said that wasn’t going to happen, she started threatening to sue for child support.”

“Child support?”

“Yeah, child support. You.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t.” Moy started around the desk toward him.

“This is pure bullshit.”

Moy pointed to his face and pressed toward Jack. “Yeah, then look at these eyes and look in a mirror.”

Jack stared at Moy’s eyes, and a sensation slithered through his body that left him thinking how the universe had just shifted on its axes.

“The fuck’s going on?”

A voice behind them.

Jack turned, and a thick, short man in a tuxedo entered. Behind him was another, taller man.

The Mr. Fixit guy from Greendale—the guy who came to repair the blinds. Theo.

Behind him was some physician Jack had met outside. A Dr. Jordan Carr. And Mr. Fixit was holding a shiny silver pistol on Jack.

JACK HAD BEEN GONE FOR OVER twenty minutes, and René was beginning to worry.

As she looked around the crowd, she spotted Louis Martinetti. He had slipped away from her and his daughter and wife, who were now talking to some FDA officials. They were laughing over something. Meanwhile, René tracked Louis moving through the crowd toward the rear of the hall and corridor leading to the staircase to the executive offices.

She excused herself from the people she was with, saying she was going to find a rest room. She scanned the crowd, but Louis had disappeared.

CORPORAL LOUIS MARTINETTI SLID BEHIND a tall bush growing out of a pot. The entire headquarters staff was assembled. It was like a Who’s Who of the North Korean General Command. Operation Buster. The big payoff.

He surveyed the crowd—most of them officers of the 23rd Brigade, a few regulars standing guard, ready for some grunt command. He didn’t know how much time had passed as he remained staked out—ten minutes, twenty, an hour. But suddenly his body clenched.

Corporal Martinetti raised his field glasses and adjusted the sights. And his heart leapt up. Colonel Chop Chop had stepped out from the masses. And he was heading for private consultation with Blackhawk.

“THE REAL QUESTION IS: WHAT DO I do with you now?” Moy said. “You are my son.”

“A mere technicality.”

“Ah, yes, a slip of biology. But I still can’t let you go, you know.”

“What’s this?” Carr looked confused. “I thought Teddy was—”

“He is also, and it’s a long story,” Moy said. “I’ll tell you later.”

“He hasn’t got anything on you,” Teddy said to his father.

Jack looked at his half-brother or whatever the hell he was. His overly developed body was pressed into a tuxedo, making him look like a small orca. And it all came clear to Jack as he stared into the stolid eye of the gun barrel: this Teddy had visited him at Greendale in his Mr. Fixit role under the cover name Theo Rogers so the staffers wouldn’t connect him to Gavin Moy. (He probably even used a false ID.) And his purpose was to determine if Jack remembered anything because Moy must have told him that Jack was his blood son out of wedlock; and Theo/Teddy here was checking up on Jack’s recall, maybe in protection of his father, maybe sweating potential conflicts over who was rightful heir to the Moy fortune. Whatever, the guy had come out to spy on him.

“No, but he’s the type who won’t let go. Unfortunate, but it’s in the blood.”

“If I suddenly disappear,” Jack said, “people are going to wonder, and there are a hundred of them downstairs who saw me.”

“I’ll get the boat,” Teddy said.

“Oh, look at that,” Jack said. “A chip off the old block, bro.”

“Fuck you, asshole.”

“And silver-tongued at that.”

“Yes,” Moy said. “The boat.”

“Another replay, right? First your lover, now her son.”

Moy looked point-blank at Jack. “I don’t care who you are. I don’t like you. And I’m not going to let you fuck things up for me. I’ve worked more friggin’ decades to get here than you’ve been alive. And you mean nothing to me. Nothing.”

“Wait a minute,” protested Carr. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” And he looked from Moy to Teddy. “Really. He suddenly disappears, and people are going to get suspicious.”

Teddy snapped at Carr. “No time to turn chickenshit.”

Carr flashed a look at Jack. “But he’s right—a lot of people saw him tonight.”

Teddy nodded toward a rear door. “He went for a stroll on the rocks and slipped. It worked in Bryce.”

“Get him out of here,” Moy said.

Teddy jabbed the pistol at Jack. “Move it.”

“Freeze!”

Jack turned. Behind them in the shadows was an older man aiming something barrel-like at them. “Hold it right there. Hands behind your heads, legs spread, and don’t move.” He stepped into the light.

Louis Martinetti.

He must have been wearing his tux over his fatigues, because he was dressed for combat, with a chest full of medals, including a Purple Heart. When they turned, Louis dropped down to a squat behind a table with flowers shooting out of a huge Chinese porcelain vase. The problem was that he was holding a furled umbrella on the gunman. Suddenly Louis began shouting over his shoulder for his men to advance on the eastern flank of the compound. They had the colonel and Blackhawk cornered.

“What the fuck?” Teddy said. He began to swing his gun arm toward Louis, who ducked behind the table making shooting noises.

Someplace in the shadows of the outer office Jack heard a scream. “Louis, no!”

René.

A shot rang out, and instantly Jack heard a grunt as Louis fell backward. He had dropped his umbrella and was clutching his arm.

Before Teddy could get off a shot at René, Jack flew at him, knowing instantly that in his condition he was no match for Teddy. So he sunk his teeth into Teddy’s wrist. The guy screamed and released the gun, but not before catapulting Jack off of him. But Jack grabbed the pistol and rolled away, his muscles paining him with the effort. It passed through his mind that he had not held a gun for a couple years, since target practice with Vince at the police range. But now a gun felt good in his grip.

The next moment exploded with a scream from René as Teddy made a move to stomp Jack. Without thought, Jack took aim and squeezed the trigger. And Teddy hit the floor with a huge grunt, grabbing his leg. The bullet had hit him in the calf.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Moy pick up a crystal sculpture of his company’s logo to hurl at him. But Jack flashed the gun at him. “Drop it or you’re dead,” Jack said.

Moy dropped it and Jack pulled himself to his feet, holding the pistol in both hands.

“I should have taken care of you, too,” Moy said.

“Yeah, you should have.”

From the shadows behind them Louis sprang up. His injured arm didn’t stop him from flying at Jordan Carr and pulling him to the floor and flailing at him with his elbow and good hand. Louis was muttering odd syllables and swearing at Carr and saying something about Fuzzy. Jack didn’t understand, but Louis had Carr pinned to the floor.

René shot over to him to pull him up to tend his wound. But Louis kept pummeling Carr, who yelled for help. René shouted for Louis to stop and managed to pull Louis off him. She removed Louis’s shirt and fashioned a tourniquet for his arm with the bow tie. His shirt was soaked in blood, but Louis insisted she put it back on him.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Just had a little—” Louis cut himself short, seeing Jack tying Moy’s hands behind him. Louis’s face lit up. “We got ‘em both, Fuzz. Hear that? We got’em.”

Jack didn’t know what Louis was saying, but he seemed pleased. He pushed Moy on his front while René bound his hands and Jack fanned the gun from Moy to Theo to Jordan Carr, who had pulled himself to his feet again.

Jack aimed the gun at him. “Playing both ends against the middle, right?”

René looked at Jack. “What are you doing?”

“He’s with them.” With his free hand Jack knocked a small lamp off Moy’s desk, pressed his foot on it, and tore the electrical cord off it. He tossed it to Carr. Then he pulled telephone wires out of the phone and wall. “Tie him,” he said, nodding to Teddy Moy, who was writhing on the floor. “Good and tight.”

“Jack!” René said, glaring at him for an explanation.

“I think they had something to do with Nick’s death.”

“The fuck you doing?” Teddy protested as Carr began to tie him up. “Get the gun.”

Carr looked back at the gun in Jack’s hands and began binding Teddy Moy’s arms behind him, then his legs to the thousand-pound marble table.

“What are you saying?” René asked as she came over to Jack. She glared at Jordan Carr on his knees tying a tourniquet on Teddy’s left leg. Then she looked back at Jack for confirmation. Jack nodded, and René flew to Jordan. She grabbed Jordan by his shirt. “You killed Nick? You killed Nick?”

“I didn’t. He did.”

Teddy swore at Carr from his facedown position. “And you were right there calling the shots.”

“But why?” René cried, and she whacked Jordan in the face.

Jordan put his hand to his cheek, which looked branded. “Because he was in the way, that’s why. Because he wanted to stop something that was good. And maybe before you go sanctimonious on me again, you can ask yourself this: If you could have saved your father, wouldn’t you have done anything? Wouldn’t you?”

René said nothing.

“Sure you would, even if it meant eliminating anyone who stood in the way of his cure, right? You would have done the same—anything to keep him from dying layer by layer, even if it meant a few flashbacks. Right? Right?”

For a stunning moment René could not respond, as if she did not know how to answer the questions. But she backhanded Jordan in the face.

The moment was broken when Moy’s cell phone cut the air. Jack reached into Moy’s jacket pocket and pulled it out. It was someone identifying him as GEM’s executive vice president.

“Yeah, everything’s just dandy,” Jack said. “We’re on our way down.”

When Jordan Carr was finished binding Theo, he looked at Jack and René. “So now what?” he asked, trying an ingratiating smile on Jack.

Louis was sitting in a chair muttering to himself. But he looked okay. Just a flesh wound.

Moy was in his chair, his hands bound behind him. Theo was tied to the marble table and going nowhere. Jack aimed the gun at Jordan Carr’s chest. “You’ve got thirty seconds to tell us about Bryce or I’m going to start shooting holes in you.”

ALL THE WAY DOWN THE STAIRS and through the corridor they could hear the chant of the crowd initiated by his management team: “Gavin! Gavin Gavin!”

They paraded into the hall, Gavin leading the way, his hands bound behind him, Jordan Carr in tow, also bound. And behind him came Jack with the gun and flanked by Louis and René. Teddy was back in Moy’s office enjoying a view of the underside of his father’s pink marble table.

For a moment, cheering flared up as people at the rear of the hall spotted Moy. But instantly it began to mute as people saw the spectacle of him being led at gunpoint to the podium. In the distance the sound of police sirens from Jack’s 911 call. But he had plenty of time before they arrived.

At the microphone, he introduced himself, then said he would like to make an announcement. He felt for the lump in the breast pocket of his sportcoat and he removed the small silver MP3 recorder that Vince had given him. He held it up to the microphone and pressed Play.

“You killed her. Admit it.”

“Yeah, I killed her and she deserved it. You happy now? I killed her.”

Epilogue

Homer’s Island · Seven Weeks Later

A SMALL SIGN ON THE beach read BEWARE OF JELLYFISH!

“Nice timing,” Jack said, and handed René a plate.

They sat on beach chairs by the water’s edge picnicking on shish kebab, stuffed grape leaves, pilaf, and stewed vegetables.

“In the late sixties, she was on a marine science panel in Cambridge with Jacques Cousteau—something about the threat of industrial pollution and global warming on the oceans of the world. Thaddeus Sherman was impressed, and they started talking. One thing led to the next, and he invited her to stay here because it was the only place in the northeast where Caribbean sea life shows up. One visit, and she fell in love with the place and started collecting specimens.”

Jack poured two glasses of chardonnay.

“Sounds like she was a very special woman.”

“I think she was.” They clicked glasses.

Today was the thirty-first anniversary of Rose Sarkisian’s death.

“She apparently had an affair with Gavin Moy, who was more her type—academically speaking—than the man she married. Who knows? Records say they were in divorce proceedings before he was killed in a plane crash. They hid that fact on the gravestone to save face.”

Jack also learned that Rose had specialized in the therapeutic properties of marine toxins. After having bagged some Solakandjis, she had chemical assays done on the toxin and found that the compound demonstrated beneficial properties on the neurological system. When Moy decided to start researching these neurological properties, Rose went to work with him as a partner. They apparently became lovers. And when she became pregnant with Jack, she insisted that he either marry her or provide financially for Jack’s upbringing. Moy refused. They fought, and she was killed. Moy and his people went on to develop an FDA application of the compound for the treatment of dementia. But Rose Sarkisian was the prime mover. She had identified the agent and its therapeutic properties with lab mice.

Mookie. Where’s Mookie?

And that stuffed animal was what she had made for her little boy.

Jack looked out over the water to Skull Rock and the glittering azure expanse beyond. And for a moment he thought he heard thunder.

“I didn’t know that Nick knew your mother. He never said anything.”

“Except he must have suspected when he saw me on his MRI patient list. Then he did some name and date checks.”

“He must have suspected foul play all along, since she had identified the toxin’s benefits, then mysteriously disappeared.”

“My guess. And then Moy appropriated the discovery and slapped his name on the patents.”

“Which is why Nick kept pressing to discover whether you remembered anything.”

“He even sent you after me. Kind of glad he did.”

She smiled. “Me, too.” He felt a flush of warmth as she took his hand.

Because there was no statute of limitations in Massachusetts, Gavin Moy had been indicted for murder, the evidence being his own confession on tape. Likewise, Jordan Carr and Teddy Moy were also indicted for the murder of Nick Mavros. After the discovery of Nick’s body, the film in his camera had been developed. At first it had meant nothing in the investigation of the accident. But when the police heard the tape of the exchange recorded in Moy’s office, they went back to the film to discover on the last frame a face staring out from a clutch of dark bushes. When blown up, the face in the dark looking directly at the camera was Jordan Carr’s.

But that was not the only evidence for the prosecution undercutting Carr’s insistence that he had not been at Bryce Canyon. Teddy Moy had decided not to go down alone. He confessed that Jordan had been complicit with him and Gavin Moy, although Teddy had done the actual dirty work of pushing Nick off the cliff. There was suspicion that Teddy was also responsible for Peter Habib’s death, now being investigated as a possible homicide.

“How’s Louis doing?”

“Fine. I was out to their place the other day. He sends his regards.”

“He was a real hero.”

“Yes. He really was. No, is.”

As René had explained it, that night at Moy’s estate Louis had apparently experienced a memory-induced hallucination, believing he was engaged in a long-anticipated assault on North Korean military high command including individuals who had participated in the torture and execution of members of his platoon. And although he had experienced no more such hallucinations since, he could not be taken off the drug, of course. But he was being more closely monitored and treated with different doses of medications that would block his flashbacks and possible hallucinations without sending him into a stupor. His short-term memory continued to improve, and he was living almost a normal life again.

But understanding why some patients like Louis Martinetti were susceptible to flashbacks clearly required more research. The problem was that after four to six months of regular dosing, sixty percent of the patients showed cognitive and functional improvement; yet, for some reason, nearly half of those experienced disturbing flashbacks. As a result, the Memorine’s FDA application was withdrawn. Those trial patients already on the compound would be continued and closely monitored and properly treated for flashback seizures. Meanwhile, the FDA had mandated that GEM Tech scientists in conjunction with outside research groups make aggressive efforts to determine what genetic, chemical, or demographic factors might account for the phenomena before reapplication of Memorine or any refashioned compound for approval.

Understandably, thousands of AD patients, caregivers, and health-care workers were disappointed at the news. But Orman-Witt, the director of the FDA, said that this was medical progress. “This initiative is going to push drug companies to be more thoughtful when testing their products and not rush them to market or cover up damaging evidence.” The hope was for a safe and efficacious treatment within two years.

Alas, the world would have to wait. And when some safe variation of Memorine eventually reached the market, Rose Sarkisian would share credit for its discovery.

Jack’s own flashbacks and related nightmares had also faded, as if on some deep level a ghost had been laid to rest. He was back at the gym with Vince and pumping chrome once again. And next month he’d be back in the classroom at Carleton Prep and helping Vince out hosting Yesterdays on weekends.