Harvest

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mark refilled his wine glass. "Sure, I knew them both," he said. "I knew Larry Kunstler better than Hennessy. Hennessy wasn't with us very long. But Larry was one of the guys who recruited me here, straight from my fellowship. He was an OK guy." Mark set the wine bottle down on the table. "A really nice guy."

The maitre d' swept past, escorting a flamboyantly-dressed woman to a nearby table, where she was greeted with a noisy chorus of" There you are, darling," and'love your dress!" Their high-pitched gaiety at that particular moment struck Abby as vulgar. Even obscene. She wished she and Mark had stayed home. But he had wanted to eat out. They had so few free evenings together, and they hadn't properly celebrated their engagement. He had ordered wine, had made the toast, and now he was finishing off the bottle — something he seemed to be doing more and more these days. She watched him drain the last of the wine, and she thought: All the stress of my legal problems is affecting Mark as well.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about them?" she asked.

"It never came up."

"I would think someone would mention them. Especially after Aaron died. The team loses three colleagues in six years, and no one says a thing. It's almost as if you're all afraid to talk about it."

"It's a pretty depressing thing to talk about. We try not to bring up the subject, especially around Marilee. She knew Hennessy's wife. She even arranged her baby shower."

"The baby who died?"

Mark nodded. "It was a shock when it happened. A whole family, just like that. Marilee went a little hysterical when she heard about it."

"It was definitely an accident?"

"They'd bought the house a few months before. They never got the chance to replace the old furnace. Yes, it was an accident."

"But Kunstler's death wasn't."

Mark sighed. "No. Larry's was not an accident."

"Why do you think he did it?"

"Why did Aaron do it?Why does anyone commit suicide?We can come up with half a dozen possible reasons, but the truth is, Abby, we don't know. We never know. And we never understand. We look at the big picture and say, things get better. They always get better. Somehow, Larry lost that perspective. He couldn't see the long range any more. And that's when people fall apart. When they lose all sight of the future." He took a sip of wine, then another, but he seemed to have lost any enjoyment in its taste. Or in the food.

They skipped dessert and left the restaurant, both of them silent and depressed.

Mark drove through thickening fog and intermittent rain. The whisk of the windshield wipers filled in for conversation. That's when people fall apart, Mark had said. When they lose all sight of the future.

Staring at the mist, she thought: I'm reaching that point. I can't see it any more. I can't see zohat's going to happen to me. Or to us.

Mark said, softly: "I want to show you something, Abby. I want to know what you think about it. Maybe you'll think I'm just crazy.

Or maybe you'll be wild about the idea."

"What idea?"

"It's something I've been dreaming about. For a long time, now." They drove north, out of Boston, kept driving through Revere and Lynn and Swampscott. At Marblehead Marina, he parked the car and said, "She's right there. At the end of the pier."

She was a yacht.

Abby stood shivering and bewildered on the dock as Mark paced up and down the boat's length. His voice was animated now, more animated than it had been all evening, his arms gesturing with enthusiasm.

"She's a cruiser," he said. "Forty-eight feet, fully equipped, everything we'd need. Brand new sails, new nav equipment. Hell, she's hardly been used. She could take us anywhere we'd want to go. The Caribbean. The Pacific. You're looking at freedom, Abby!" He stood on the dock, arm raised as if in salute to the boat. "Absolute freedom!"

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"It's a way out! Fuck the city. Fuck the hospital. We buy this boat. Then we bail out of here and go."

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

"I don't want to go anywhere."

"There's no reason to stay. Not now."

"Yes there is. For me there is. I can't just pack up and leave! I've got three years left, Mark. I have to finish them now, or I'll never be a surgeon."

"I am one, Abby. I'm what you want to be. What you think you want to be. And I'm telling you, it's not worth it."

"I've worked so hard. I'm not going to give up now."

"What about me?"

She stared at him. And realized that, of course, this was all about him. The boat, the escape to freedom. The soon-to-be-married man, suddenly seized with the urge to run away from home. It was a metaphor that perhaps even he did not understand.

"I want to do this, Abby," he said. He went to her, his eyes glittering. Feverish. "I put in an offer, on this boat. That's why I got home so late. I was meeting with the broker."

"You made an offer without telling me?Without even calling me?"

"I know it sounds crazy-'

"How can we afford this thing? I'm way over my head in debt! It'll take me years to pay back my student loans. And you're buying a boat?"

"We can take out a mortgage. It's like buying a second home."

"This isn't a home."

"It's still an investment."

"It's not what I'd invest my money in."

"I'm not spending your money."

She took a step back and stared at him. "You're right," she said quietly. "It's not my money at all."

"Abby." He groaned. "Jesus, Abby-'

The rain was starting to fall again, cold and numbing against her face. She walked back to the car and climbed inside.

He got into the car as well. For a moment, neither one of them spoke. The only sound was the rain on the roof. He said, quietly, "I'll withdraw the offer."

"That's not what I want."

"What do you want?"

"I thought we'd be sharing more. I don't mean the money. I don't care about that. What hurts is that you think of it as your money. Is that how it's going to be?Yours or mine? Should we call in the lawyers now and draw up the prenuptial agreement? Divide up the furniture and the kids?"

"You don't understand," he said, and she heard a strange and unexpected note of desperation in his voice. He started the car.

HARVEST

They drove halfway home without speaking.

Then Abby said: "Maybe we should rethink the engagement.

Maybe getting married isn't really what you want, Mark."

"Is it what you want?"

She looked out the window and sighed. "I don't know," she murmured. "I don't know any more."

It was the truth. She didn't.

Tragedy Claims Family of Three While Dr. Hennessy and his family slept through the night, a killer was creeping up the basement steps. Deadly carbon monoxide gas, produced by a faulty furnace, is blamed for the NewYear's Day deaths of 34-year-old Hennessy, his wife Gail, 33, and their 6-month-old daughter Linda. Their bodies were discovered late that afternoon by friends who'd been invited to the house for dinner…

Abby repositioned the microfiche, and photos of Hennessy and his wife appeared on the screen, his face pudgy and serious, hers seemingly snapped in mid-laugh. There was no photo of the baby. Perhaps the Globe thought all six-month-old babies looked alike anyway.

Abby changed micro-riches to a date three and a half years before the Hennessy deaths. She found the article she was looking for on the front page of the Metro section.

Body of Missing Physician Recovered from Inner Harbor.

A body found floating Tuesday in Boston Harbor was identified today as Dr. Lawrence Kunstler, a local thoracic surgeon. Dr. Kunstler's car was found abandoned last week in the southbound Tobin Bridge breakdown lane. Police are speculating that his death was a suicide. No witnesses, however, have come forward, and the investigation remains open…

Abby centred Kunstler's photograph on the microfilm screen. It was a blandly formal pose, complete with white coat and stethoscope, Dr. Kunstler gazing directly at the camera.

And now, directly at her.

Why did you do it? Why did you jump? she wondered. And she couldn't suppress the afterthought: Or did you?

The one advantage of being relieved of ward duties was that Abby could skip out for the whole afternoon, and no one at Bayside would notice, or even care. So when she walked out of the Boston Public Library, and into the bustle of Copley Square, she felt a sense of both emptiness and relief that she didn't have to return to the hospital. The afternoon, if she so desired, was hers.

She decided to drive to Elaine's house.

For the past few days, she'd been asking around for Elaine's new phone number. Neither Marflee Archer nor any of the other transplant team wives had even known that Elaine's number had been changed.

Now, with the images of Kunstler and Hennessy still painfully sharp in her mind, she headed west on Route 9, to Newton. Talking to Elaine was not something she looked forward to, but over the last few days, whenever she thought about Kunstler and Hennessy, she couldn't help thinking about Aaron as well. She remembered the day of his funeral, and how no one had even mentioned the two previous deaths. Any other group of people would have found it an unavoidable topic. Someone would normally have remarked, This makes number three. Or Why is Bayside so unlucky? Or Do you think there's a common factor here? But no one had said a thing. Not even Elaine, who must have known about Kunstler and Hennessy. Not even Mark.

If he kept this from me, what else hasn't he told me?

She pulled into Elaine's driveway and sat there for a moment, her head in her hands, trying to shake off her depression. But the pall remained. It's all falling apart for me, she thought. My job. And now I'm losing Mark. The worst part about it is, I don't have any idea why it's happening.

Ever since the night she'd brought up the subject of Kunstler and Hennessy, everything had changed between her and Mark. They lived in the same house and slept in the same bed, but their interactions had become purely automatic. Like the sex. In the dark, with her eyes closed, she could have been making love to anyone.

She looked up at the house. And thought: Maybe Elaine knows something.

She got out of the car and climbed the steps to the front door. There she noticed the newspapers, two of them, still rolled up and lying on the porch. They were a week old and already yellowed. Why hadn't Elaine picked them up?

She rang the doorbell.When no one answered, she tried knocking, then rang again. And again. She could hear the bell echoing inside the house, followed by silence. No footsteps, no voices. She looked down at the two newspapers and knew that something was wrong.

The front door was locked; she left the porch and circled around the side of the house, to the back garden. A stone path trailed off into curving beds of well-tended azaleas and hydrangeas. The lawn looked recently mown, the hedges clipped, but the flagstone patio seemed disconcertingly empty. Then she remembered the furniture, the umbrella table and chairs that she'd seen here the afternoon of the funeral. They were gone.

The kitchen door was locked, but just off the patio was a sliding glass door that hadn't been latched. Abby gave it a tug and it glided open. She called: "Elaine?" and stepped inside.

The room was vacant. Furniture, rugs — it was all gone, even the pictures. She stared in bewilderment at the blank walls, at the floor where the missing rug had left a darker rectangle on the sun-faded wood. She went into the living room, her footsteps echoing in the bare rooms. The house was swept clean, vacant except for a few advertisement postcards lying just inside the front door mail slot. She picked one up and saw it was addressed to Occupant.

She went into the kitchen. Even the refrigerator was empty, the surfaces wiped down and smelling of disinfectant. The wall telephone had no dial tone.

She walked outside and stood in the driveway, feeling completely disorientated. Only two weeks ago she had been inside this very house. She had sat on the living-room couch and eaten canap6s and eyed the Levi family photos over the fireplace. Now she wondered if she'd hallucinated the whole scene.

Still in a daze, she got in her car and backed out of the driveway. She drove on automatic pilot, scarcely paying attention to the road, her mind focused on Elaine's bizarre disappearance. Where would she go? To uproot her life so abruptly after Aaron's death didn't seem rational. Rather, it seemed like something one did out of panic.

Suddenly uneasy, she glanced in the rearview mirror. She'd made it a habit to check the mirror, ever since Saturday, when she'd first glimpsed the maroon van.

There was a dark greenVolvo driving behind her. Hadn't it been parked outside Elaine's house? She couldn't be sure. She hadn't really been paying attention.

The Volvo blinked its lights on and off. She accelerated. The Volvo did too.

She turned right, onto a major thoroughfare. Ahead stretched a suburban strip of gas stations and mini-malls. Witnesses. Lots of witnesses. Yet the Volvo was still right behind her, still blinking its lights.

She'd had enough of being pursued, enough of being frightened. To hell with this. If he wanted to harass her, she'd turn the tables and confront him.

She swerved into the parking lot of a shopping mall. He followed her. One glance outside told her there were plenty of people around, shoppers pushing carts, drivers searching for parking spots. Here was the place to do it.

She slammed on the brakes.

The Volvo screeched to a halt inches from her rear bumper.

She scrambled out of her car and ran back to the Volvo. Furiously she rapped at the driver's window. "Open up, damn you! Open up.t'

The driver rolled down his window and looked out at her. Then he removed his sunglasses. "Dr. DiMatteo?" said Bernard Katzka. "I thought it was you."

"Why have you been following me?"

"I saw you drive away from the house."

"No, before. Why did you follow me before?" 'when?"

"Saturday. The van."

He shook his head. "I don't know about any van."

She backed away. "Forget it. Just quit tailing me, OK?"

"I was trying to get you to pull over. Didn't you see me flash my lights?"

"I didn't know it was you."

"Mind telling me what you were doing at Dr. Levi's house?"

'! stopped by to see Elaine. I didn't know she'd moved."

'why don't you pull into that parking space? I'd like to talk to you. Or are you going to refuse to answer questions again?"

"That depends on what you're going to ask me."

"It's about Dr. Levi."

"That's all we're going to talk about? Just Aaron?"

He nodded.

She thought about it. And decided that questions could go both ways. That even the close-mouthed Detective Katzka might be induced to give out information.

She glanced towards the mall. "I see a doughnut shop over there. Why don't we go in and have a cup of coffee?"

Cops and doughnuts. The association had become an urban joke, HARVEST

reinforced in the public's mind by every overweight cop, by every patrol car ever parked outside a Dunkin Donuts. Bernard Katzka, however, did not appear to be a doughnut fan; he ordered only a cup of black coffee which he sipped without any apparent pleasure. Katzka did not strike Abby as the sort of man who indulged in much of anything that was pleasurable, sinful, or even remotely unnecessary.

His first question came right to the point. "Why were you at the house?"

"I came to see Elaine. I wanted to talk to her."

"About what?"

"Personal matters."

"It was my impression that you two were just acquaintances."

"Did she tell you that?"

He ignored her question. "Is that how you'd characterize the relationship?"

She let out a breath. "Yes, I guess so. We know each other through Aaron. That's all."

"So why did you come to see her?"

Again she took a deep breath. And realized she was probably clueing him in to her own nervousness. "Some strange things have happened to me lately. I wanted to talk to Elaine about it."

"What things?"

"Someone was following me last Saturday. A maroon van. I spotted it on the Tobin Bridge. Then I saw it again, when I got home." "Anything else?"

"Isn't that upsetting enough?" She looked straight at him. "It scared me."

He regarded her in silence, as though trying to decide if it really was fear he was seeing in her face. 'what does this have to do with Mrs Levi?"

"You're the one who got me wondering about Aaron. About whether he really committed suicide. Then I found out two other Bayside doctors have died."

Katzka's frown told her this was news to him.

"Six and a half years ago," she said, 'there was a Dr. Lawrence Kunstler. A thoracic surgeon. He jumped off the Tobin Bridge."

Katzka said nothing, but he had shifted forward, almost imperceptibly, in his chair.

"Then three years ago, there was an anaesthesiologist," continued Abby. "A Dr. Hennessy. He and his wife and baby died of carbon monoxide poisoning. They called it an accident. A broken furnace."

"Unfortunately, that kind of accident happens every winter."

"And then there's Aaron. That makes three. All of them were on the transplant team. Doesn't that seem like a terribly unlucky coincidence to you?"

'what are you formulating here? That someone's stalking the transplant team? Killing them off one by one?"

"I'm just pointing out a pattern here. You're the policeman. You should investigate it."

Katzka sat back. "How is it you got involved in all this?"

"My boyfriend's on the team. Mark doesn't admit it, but I think he's worried. I think the whole team's worried, and they're wondering who's going to be next. But they never talk about it. The way people never talk about plane crashes when they're standing at the boarding gate."

"So you're worried about your boyfriend's safety?"

"Yes," she said simply, leaving out the larger truth: that she was doing this because she wanted Mark back. All of him. She didn't understand what had happened between them, but she knew their relationship was crumbling. And it had all started to deteriorate the night she'd mentioned Kunstler and Hennessy. None of this she shared with Katzka, because it was all based on feelings. Instinct. Katzka was the kind of man who worked with more tangible coinage.

Obviously, he'd expected her to say more. When she remained silent, he asked: "Is there anything else you want to tell me? About anything at all?"

He's talking about Mary Allen, she thought with a flash of panic. Looking at him, she had the overwhelming urge to tell him everything. Here, now. Instead she quickly avoided his gaze. And responded with a question of her own.

'why were you watching Elaine's house?" she asked. "That's what you're doing, isn't it?"

"I was talking to the next-door neighbour. When I came out, I saw you pull out of the driveway."

"You're questioning Elaine's neighbours?"

"It's routine."

"I don't think so."

Almost against her will, her gaze lifted to his. His grey eyes admitted nothing, gave nothing away.

"Why are you still investigating a suicide?"

"The widow packs up and leaves practically overnight, with no forwarding address. That's unusual."

HARVEST

"You're not saying Elaine's guilty of anything, are you?"

"No. I think she's scared."

"Of what?"

"Do you know, Dr. DiMatteo?"

She found she could not look away, found there was something about the quiet intensity of his eyes that held her transfixed. She felt a brief and completely unexpected flicker of attraction, and she had no idea why this man, of all people, should inspire it. "No," she said. "I have no idea what Elaine's running from."

"Maybe you can help me answer another question, then."

"Which is?"

"How did Aaron Levi accumulate all his wealth?"

She shook her head. "He wasn't particularly wealthy, as far as I knew. A cardiologist earns maybe two hundred thousand, tops.

And he was sending a lot of that to his two kids in college."

"Was there family money?"

"You mean like an inheritance?" She shrugged. "I heard Aaron's father was an appliance repairman."

Katzka sat back, thinking. He wasn't looking at her now, but was staring at his coffee cup. There was a depth of concentration to this man that intrigued her. He could drop out of a conversation just like that, leaving her feeling abandoned.

"Detective, how much wealth are we talking about?" He looked up at her. "Three million dollars." Stunned, Abby could only stare at him.

"After Mrs Levi vanished," he said, "I thought I should take a closer look at the family finances. So I spoke to their CPA. He told me that shortly after Dr. Levi died, Elaine discovered her husband had a Cayman Islands bank account. An account she'd known nothing about. She asked the CPA how to access the money. And then, without warning, she skipped town." Katzka gave her a questioning look.

"I have no idea how Aaron got that much money," she murmured. "Neither does his accountant."

They were silent a moment. Abby reached for her coffee and found it had gone cold. So had she.

She asked, softly: "Do you know where Elaine is?"

"We have an idea."

"Can you tell me?"

He shook his head. "At the moment, Dr. DiMatteo," he said, "I don't think she wants to be found."

Three million dollars. How had Aaron Levi accumulated three million dollars?

All the way home, she considered that question. She couldn't see how a cardiologist would be able to do it. Not with two kids in private universities and a wife with expensive taste in antiques. And why had he hidden his wealth?The Cayman Islands was where people stashed their money when they wanted it kept out of sight of the IRS. But even Elaine had not known about the account until after Aaron's death. What a shock it must have been to go through her dead husband's papers. To discover that he'd been hiding a fortune from her.

Three million dollars.

She pulled into the driveway. Found herself surveying the neighbourhood for a maroon van. It was getting to be a habit, that quick glance up and down the street.

She walked in the front door and stepped over the usual pile of afternoon mail. Most of it was professional journals, two of everything for the two doctors in the house. She gathered them all up and lugged them into the kitchen. On the table she began sorting everything into two piles. His junk, her junk. His life, her life. Nothing here worth a second glance.

It was four o'clock. Tonight, she decided, she'd cook a nice dinner. Serve it with candlelight and wine. Why not? She was now a lady of leisure. While Bayside took its sweet time deciding her future as a surgeon, she could stay busy fixing things up between her and Mark with romantic dinners and feminine coddling. Lose the career but keep the man.

Shit, DiMatteo. You're starting to sound desperate.

She scooped up her half of the junk mail, carried it to the trash can, and stepped on the pop-up lid pedal. Just as the mail was tumbling in, she glimpsed a large brown envelope stuffed at the bottom. The word yachts, printed in bold letters in the return address, caught her eye. She dug out the envelope and brushed off the coffee grounds and egg shells. At the top left was printed: East WindYachts Sales and Service Marblehead Marina It had been sent to Mark. But it was not addressed to their Brewster Street house. It had been sent to aPO Box.

She looked again at the words: Yacht Sales and Service.

She left the kitchen and went to Mark's desk in the living room.

The bottom drawer, where he kept his files, was locked, but she knew where the key was. She'd heard him plunk it into the pencil cup. She found the key and opened the drawer.

Inside were all his household files. Insurance papers, mortgage papers, car papers. She found a tab with BOAT written on it. There was a folder for Gimme Shelter, his J-35. There was also a second folder. It looked new. On the tab was written: H-48.

She pulled out the H-48 file. It was a sales contract from East Wind Marine. H-48 was an abbreviation for the boat's design. A Hinckley yacht, forty-eight feet long.

She sank into a chair, feeling sick. You kept it a secret, she thought. You told me you'd withdraw the offer. Then you bought it anyway. It's your money, all right. I guess this makes it perfectly clear.

Her gaze moved to the bottom of the page. To the terms of sale. Moments later, she walked out of the house.

"Cash for organs. Is it possible?"

In the midst of stirring cream into his coffee, Dr. Ivan Tarasoft stopped and glanced atVivian. "Do you have any proof this is going on?"

"Not yet. We're just asking you if it's possible. And if so, how could it be done?"

Dr. Tarasoft sank back on the couch and sipped his coffee as he thought it over. It was four-forty-five, and except for the occasional scrubsuited resident passing through to the adjoining locker room, the Mass Gen surgeons' lounge was quiet. Tarasoft, who'd come out of the OR only twenty minutes ago, still had a dusting of glove talc on his hands and a surgical mask dangling around his neck. Watching him, Abby was comforted, once again, by the image of her grandfather. The gentle blue eyes, the silver hair. The quiet voice. The voice of ultimate authority, she thought, belongs to the man who never has to raise it.

"There're been rumours, of course," saidTarasoff. "Every time a celebrity gets an organ, people wonder if money was involved. But there's never been any proof. Only suspicions."

"What rumours have you heard?"

"That one can buy a higher place on the waiting list. I myself have never seen it happen."

"I have," said Abby.

Tarasoft looked at her. "When?"

"Two weeks ago. Mrs. Victor Voss. She was third on the waiting list and she got a heart. The two people at the top of the list later died."

"UNOS wouldn't allow that. Or NEOB. They have strict guidelines."

"NEOB didn't know about it. In fact they have no record of the donor in their system."

Tarasoft shook his head. "This is hard to believe. If the heart didn't come through UNOS or NEOB, where did it come from?"

"We think Voss paid to keep it out of the system. So it could go to his wife," said Vivian.

"This is what we know so far," said Abby. "Hours before Mrs Voss's transplant, Bayside's transplant coordinator got a call from Wilcox Memorial in Burlington that they had a donor. The heart was harvested and flown to Boston. It arrived in our OR around 1 a.m., delivered by some doctor named Mapes. The donor papers came with it, but somehow they got misplaced. No one's seen them since. I looked up the name Mapes in the Directory of Medical Specialists. There's no such surgeon."

"Then who did the harvest?"

"We think it was a surgeon named Tim Nicholls. His name is listed in the Directory, so we know he does exist. According to his CV, he trained a few years at Mass Gen. Do you remember him?"

"Nicholls," murmured Tarasoft. He shook his head. "When was he here?"

"Nineteen years ago."

"I'd have to check the residency records."

"We're thinking this is what happened," said Vivian. "Mrs Voss needed a heart, and her husband had the money to pay for it. Somehow the word went out. Grapevine, underground, I don't know how. Tim Nicholls happened to have a donor. So he funnelled the heart directly to Bayside, bypassing NEOB. And various people got paid off. Including some of the Bayside staff."

Tarasoft looked horrified. "It's possible," he said. "You're right, it could happen that way."

The lounge door suddenly swung open and two residents walked in, laughing, as they headed for the coffee pot. They seemed to take forever as they fussed with the cream and sugar. At last they left the room.

Tarasoft was still looking stunned. "I've referred patients to Bayside myself. We're talking about one of the top transplant centres in the country. Why would they go outside the registry? Risk getting into trouble with NEOB and UNOS?"

"The answer's obvious," said Vivian. "Money."

Again they fell silent when another surgeon walked into the

HARVEST

lounge, his scrub top soaked with sweat. He gave a grunt of exhaustion and sank into one of the easy chairs. Leaning back, he closed his eyes.

Softly Abby said to Tarasoff: "We need you to look up the residency file on Tim Nicholls: Find out what you can about him. Tell us if he really did train here. Or if his CV's a complete fabrication."

"I'll just call him myself. Put the questions to him directly."

"No, don't. We're not sure yet how far this reaches."

"Dr. DiMatteo, I believe in being blunt. If there's a shadow organ procurement network out there, I want to know about it."

"So do we. But we have to be very careful, Dr. Tarasoft." Abby glanced uneasily at the dozing surgeon in the chair. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "In the last six years, three Bayside doctors have died. Two suicides and an accident. All of them were on our transplant team."

She saw, from the look of shock on his face, that her warning had had its intended effect. "You're trying to scare me," he said. "Aren't you?"

Abby nodded. "You should be scared. We all should."

Outside, in the parking lot, Abby and Vivian stood together under a grey, drizzling sky. They had arrived in their separate cars, and now it was time to go their own ways. The days were growing so short now; only five o' clock, and already the light was fading. Shivering, Abby pulled her slicker tighter and glanced around the lot. No maroon vans.

"We don't have enough," said Vivian. "We can't force an investigation yet. And if we tried, Victor Voss could just cover his tracks."

"NinaVoss wasn't the first one. I think Bayside's done this before. Aaron died with three million dollars in his account. He must have been getting payoffs for some time."

"You think he got second thoughts?"

"I know he was trying to get out of Bayside. Out of Boston. Maybe they wouldn't let him go."

"That could be what happened to Kunstler and Hennessy." Abby released a deep breath. Again she glanced around the lot, searching for the van. "I'm afraid that's exactly what happened to them."

"We need other names, other transplants. Or more donor information."

"All the information about donors is locked up in the transplant coordinator's office. I'd have to break in and steal it. If it's even there. Remember how they misplaced the donor papers on Nina Voss?"

"OK, so we go at it from the recipient side."

"Medical Records?"

Vivian nodded. "Let's find out the names of who got transplanted.

And where they were on the waiting list when it happened."

"We'll need NEOB's help."

"Right. But first we need names and dates."

Abby nodded. "I can do that."

"I'd help you out, but Bayside won't let me in their doors any more. They think I'm their worst nightmare."

"You and me both."

Vivian grinned, as if it was something to be proud of. She seemed small, almost childlike in her oversize raincoat. Such a fragile-looking ally. But while her size didn't inspire much confidence, her gaze did. It was direct and uncompromising. And it saw too much.

"OK, Abby," sighed Vivian. "Now tell me about Mark. And why we're keeping this from him."

Abby released a deep breath. The answer spilled out in a rush of anguish. "I think he's part of it."

"Mark?"

Abby nodded. And looked up at the drizzling sky. "He wants out of Bayside. He's been talking about sailing away. Escape. Just like Aaron did before he died."

"You think Mark's been taking payoffs?"

"A few days ago, he bought a boat. I don't mean just a boat. A yacht."

"He's always been crazy about boats."

"This one cost half a million dollars." Vivian said nothing.

"Here's the worst part," whispered Abby. "He paid in cash."