Marker

thirteen

LAURIE PUT THE SMALL plastic cap on the device after she thought it was adequately saturated, and placed it on the edge of the sink. She certainly wasn't going to sit and watch it for the required time. Instead, she climbed into the shower and lathered herself with a body wash and shampooed her hair. She then stood under the stream of water for a few minutes, allowing it to cascade over her head. For Laurie, a shower wasn't quite the therapeutic experience that a bath was, but it was as calming just the same.

It had been a restless night for Laurie, with her mind refusing to turn off. When she was able to sleep, it was in snatches, haunted by disturbing dreams, including the recurrent nightmare about her brother sinking into the mud. When the alarm had sounded, there was a certain relief that the long night was finally over. She hardly felt rested but was relieved to get out of bed. The covers and sheets were in such disarray from her tossing and turning that it appeared as if there had been a wrestling match.

Similar to the previous two mornings, when she had initially stood up, she had a touch of nausea. As she turned off the shower, there was still a remnant, but assuming the situation would be the same, she expected she'd feel almost normal after a bit of breakfast.

Laurie stepped out onto the bath mat, dried herself off, then turned and bent her head back into the shower stall to shake her thick mane of hair like a dog emerging from a dip in a pond. She then vigorously hand-dried her hair and wrapped it up in the towel. Only then did she hazard a look down at the innocent piece of plastic resting on the edge of the sink.

Laurie caught her breath. With slightly trembling fingers, she picked up the device as if by holding it closer there might be a different result. But there wasn't. In the small window in the plastic sheath were two pink lines. Laurie closed her eyes and held them shut for an extended moment. When she reopened them the pink lines were still there. She wasn't conjuring them up in her mind. Having studied the directions on the side of the box, Laurie knew that the test was positive. She was pregnant!

With trembling knees, Laurie put down the top of the toilet seat and sat down. For a moment, she felt completely overwhelmed. Too many disconcerting things had happened in too short a time. It had all started with her semi-split with Jack, followed quickly by her mother's cancer, the situation with the BRCA1 mutation, and then her whirlwind relationship with Roger. And now she was being drawn into yet another potential tumult. Most of her life, she had dreamed about what it was going to be like to be pregnant, but now that she was, she didn't know how to feel. It was like her life was spinning out of control.

Laurie put the testing device back on the edge of the sink and looked at the box it had come in, which she had placed on top of the hamper. Once again, she was tempted to blame the messenger, as if being pregnant was the fault of the pregnancy test. Laurie could have done it the night before, but she read that it was the most reliable and sensitive in the morning. So she had waited. It was obvious to her that she had been procrastinating and putting off the inevitable. When the thought of possibly being pregnant had suddenly occurred to her in Roger's office, she was almost certain she was. After all, it would explain the morning nausea, which she had been foolishly trying to attribute to scallops.

Laurie shook her head in dismay. The fact that being pregnant had come as such a surprise was yet another example of her ability to put things that she didn't want to think about out of her mind. She distinctly remembered acknowledging to herself that she had missed a period three weeks before. But with everything else going on, she had decided not to worry about it, and she didn't. After all, she had missed periods before, particularly when under stress, and currently, there was certainly no dearth of stress in her life.

Lowering her head to look at her abdomen, Laurie tried to understand that there was the beginning of a child inside of her. Although she had always considered the idea to be natural, now that it was actually happening, it seemed so phenomenal as to defy belief. She immediately knew when the conception had occurred. It had to have been that morning when she and Jack had found themselves both strangely wide awake in the middle of the night. At first, they had been careful not to bother the other, but when they had discovered that they were both not sleeping, they started talking. The talking led to a caress, and the caress progressed to an embrace. The resulting lovemaking had been natural and initially fulfilling, but later, when Laurie found herself still awake, the intensity of the lovemaking had ironically made her realize what she was missing: a family with children. Now the ultimate irony was that the lovemaking had actually created a child she'd longed for, although without the marriage.

Laurie got to her feet and stood sideways in front of the mirror. She tried to see if there was any bulge to her abdomen, but then openly laughed at herself. She knew that at five weeks, an embryo was no bigger than about eight millimeters, or a third of an inch, hardly enough to cause any visible external changes.

All at once, Laurie stopped laughing and stared at herself in the mirror. Being pregnant under the current circumstances was hardly a laughing matter. It was a mistake with serious consequences for her life, and for others as well. Thinking in that vein made her wonder how it had happened. She had always been careful to avoid lovemaking when she thought she might be fertile, so how did she mess up? She thought back to the night they had made love, and as soon as she did so, she realized what had happened. At two o'clock in the morning, it was technically the next day. The previous day had been her tenth day, and it probably would have been okay, but certainly not the eleventh day.

"Oh, my word!" Laurie said out loud in a despairing voice as the reality of the situation began to sink in. She truly felt overwhelmed, and even a little depressed. The need to talk with Jack had suddenly changed from a desire to a necessity, yet at the moment, she wondered how she was going to find the emotional strength. There were too many problems swirling in her mind, not least of which was the knowledge that she was positive for the BRCA1 marker. How was that going to play into her being pregnant? She had no idea, but the thought invariably brought up the word "abortion." Despite being a medical doctor, Laurie had always associated the word more with its political connotations concerning women's rights than with a procedure that she would consider herself. Suddenly, all that changed.

"I've got to get a grip!" Laurie said to her image in the mirror with more determination than she felt. She got out her hair dryer and began drying her hair. Her one refuge was her professional persona. Despite her problems, she had to get to work.

As she'd expected, Laurie's queasiness all but disappeared after she'd had some breakfast. Bran Flakes without milk turned out to be the most palatable. While she ate, the right lower abdominal discomfort she'd felt on occasion over the last few days returned. With her fingers, she pushed in over the area. It accentuated the feeling, especially when she moved her fingers closer to the midline, but it still wasn't anything she would have called pain. Vaguely, she wondered if it was a normal sensation of early pregnancy. Since she had never been pregnant before, she didn't know if implantation caused such a feeling. Intellectually, she knew that the process involved a kind of invasion of the uterine wall, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. There was also the chance the discomfort could be from the right ovary. One way or another, it wasn't her biggest concern.

When Laurie arrived at the OCME, it was only about seven-fifteen, but she was still pessimistic about catching Jack in the ID office. Lately, he seemed to be coming in earlier and earlier. Her assumption was corroborated when she saw Vinnie's preferred location vacant and his newspaper, open to the sports page, abandoned on the desk, which undoubtedly meant he was already down helping Jack. Chet was hard at work, sitting at the main desk and going through the folders of the bodies that had come in during the night. It was to be his last day for the job that week. Laurie was the medical examiner on call for the upcoming weekend, which also meant that the following week's duty of deciding which cases needed to be posted and distributing them would fall to her.

"Is Jack already downstairs?" Laurie asked as she took her first sip of coffee. Believing the caffeine would help check her melancholy mood, she hoped her stomach would tolerate the strong brew.

Chet's head popped up. "You know Jack. When I got here, he'd already been cherry-picking through all the folders and was eager to get a jump on the day."

"What kind of case is he doing?" The warmth of the coffee gave her a contradictory shiver.

"It's interesting you should ask. He took a case just like the two you got yesterday."

Laurie took the cup away from her lips. Her mouth opened in an expression of surprise. "You mean a case from the Manhattan General?"

"Yup! Fairly young guy who'd had a routine hernia repair and then promptly checked out for good."

"Why did Jack take it? He knows I'm interested in those cases."

"He did it as a favor."

"Oh, come on, Chet. What do you mean as a favor?"

"Apparently, Calvin had left word with Janice that if another such case came in, she was to give him a call. Obviously, she did, because he came in just about the same time as Jack and checked it out. When I arrived, he told me specifically he didn't want you doing it. In fact, he said that you were to have an official paper day today, so you're free and clear. Anyway, Jack then offered to do the case because he said you'd probably want the results sooner rather than later."

"Why did Calvin say that he didn't want me doing it?" Laurie questioned. It seemed like a deliberately low blow, since the diversion of her series was the only thing she had going for herself in the face of all her problems.

"He didn't say. And you know Calvin; it wasn't as if he was about to offer. He just made it crystal clear you weren't to do it. He also said that when I saw you, I was supposed to tell you he wanted to see you in his office ASAP. So the message has been delivered. Good luck!"

"That's weird. Did he sound angry?"

"No worse than normal." Chet shrugged. "I'm sorry. That's all I can tell you."

Laurie nodded as if she understood, but she didn't. Leaving her coat on one of the ID office's club chairs, she retraced her route back out through the ID room and into the main reception area. She was nervous. With everything else in her life, in her words, "going to hell in a handbasket," she wouldn't have been surprised if her career was somehow in jeopardy as well, although she had no idea what she could have done to irritate Calvin, other than perhaps giving her impromptu talk at yesterday's conference. But after the fact, when she'd spoken with him, everything seemed to be all right.

Laurie had Marlene buzz her directly into the administration area, which was tomblike in its stillness. None of the secretaries had yet arrived. Calvin, however, was in his office, scanning documents from his in basket and hastily signing them. He continued the last couple even after Laurie had announced herself. He motioned for her to sit while he gathered up the stack of signed papers and slipped them into his out basket. Then he sat back and eyed Laurie over the top of his rimless glasses, with his chin practically on his chest. "If you don't already know, the name of the potential new case is Clark Mulhausen, and I suppose you want to know why I insisted you don't do it."

"That would be nice," Laurie said. She was relieved. Calvin's tone was hardly strident, suggesting that he wasn't mad and she wasn't about to be harangued or, worse yet, put on administrative leave.

"The long and short of it is that you have yet to sign out those original cases in your so-called series from over a month ago. At this point, you can't be waiting for any other lab work or whatever, so you've got to get them done. To be honest, the chief has been feeling some heat about them from the mayor's office for God knows what reason. Whatever it is, he let me know he wants them signed out, which means I'm getting heat. Maybe it has something to do with insurance and the families. Who knows? One way or the other, get them done! I gave you a paper day to make sure it happens. Fair enough?"

"I haven't signed them out because I can't in good conscience say they were either accidental or natural, and I know you don't want me to say they were homicides, because that would suggest a serial killer, and I don't have any proof-at least not yet."

"Laurie, don't give me a hard time," Calvin said. He leaned forward intimidatingly, extending his huge head toward her and impaling her with his dark, menacing eyes. "I'm trying to be nice about this. I'm also not trying to stop you from looking into the possibility they are causally related, but for now you've got to choose between accidental or natural. I favor natural, like Dick Katzenburg, because there's no more proof they were accidental than homicidal. The death certificates can always be amended if and when new information becomes available. We can't leave the cases in limbo forever, and you can't create a PR firestorm by calling them homicidal or even accidental without some specific justification. Be reasonable!"

"All right, I'll do it," Laurie said with a defeated sigh.

"Thank you! But damn! You make it sound like I'm asking for the moon. And while we're on the subject, what have you found out about the Queens cases? Do they fit the same demographics?"

"So far," Laurie said in a tired voice. She slouched forward, looking down at the floor with her elbows resting on her knees. "At least from what I could get out of the investigator's reports. I'm waiting on the charts."

"Keep me apprised! Now, get up there to that office of yours and sign out those Manhattan General cases!"

Laurie nodded and got to her feet. She gave Calvin a crooked smile and turned to leave.

"Laurie," Calvin called after her. "You're acting browbeaten, which is not like you. What's up? Are you all right? You've got me worried here. It distresses me to see you, of all people, moping around."

Laurie turned back to face Calvin. She was taken aback. It was not like him to ask personal questions, much less suggest concern. She hardly expected that from any authority figure, especially not the often-curmudgeonly Calvin. The surprise caused unwelcome stirrings of emotion within her, which immediately threatened to surface. Since the very last thing she wanted to do was break down in front of her often-chauvinistic superior, she fought the impulse by taking a deep breath and holding it for a minute. Calvin's eyebrows slowly arched, and he leaned forward more, as if to encourage her to speak.

"I guess I've got a lot on my mind," Laurie said finally. She was afraid to make eye contact.

"Do you care to elaborate?" Calvin asked in a voice that was significantly more mellow than usual.

"Not at the moment," Laurie said while flashing Calvin the same crooked smile.

Calvin nodded. "Fair enough, but remember, my door is always open."

"Thank you," Laurie managed before fleeing. As she walked down the main first-floor corridor, she felt a mixture of feelings to add to her chaotic thoughts. On the one hand, she felt lucky to have gotten away without an emotional scene, while at the same time, she was irritated with herself about yet another episode of her embarrassing demonstrativeness. It was ridiculous that she had to fight against shedding a tear because her boss evidenced a bit of solicitude. On the other hand, she was impressed at having witnessed a side of the deputy chief that she had never seen. And after the nervous pessimism that the call to Calvin's office had evoked, she felt relief that she was still employed. If she'd been put on leave for some real or imagined transgression, she wasn't sure she could have handled it. With the new concern about being pregnant combined with her other anxieties, the diversion that her job provided was needed more than ever.

Sticking her head into the investigator's office, she asked the chief investigator, Bart Arnold, if Janice was still around. Laurie wanted to learn the details of the Clark Mulhausen case, to be certain it was another to be added to her series.

"You missed her by about ten minutes," Bart said. "Anything I can help you with?"

"Not really," Laurie said. "How about Cheryl? Is she available?"

"You're striking out. She's already out on a case. Should I have her call you when she returns?"

"You can relay a message," Laurie said. "Yesterday, I asked her to put in a request for hospital charts from Saint Francis Hospital out in Queens. I'd like her to amend the request and make it urgent. I need them as soon as possible."

"No problem," Bart said, as he made a note on a Post-it. "I'll put this on Cheryl's desk. Consider it done."

Laurie headed back toward the ID office to retrieve her coat, but she thought of Jack down in the pit doing the autopsy on Clark Mulhausen. He would have the folder with Janice's investigative report, which would have all the particulars. Reversing her course, she headed for the back elevator. Not only could she make sure Mulhausen fit the demographics of her series, she'd have an excuse to talk with Jack. Remembering her waffling the previous afternoon outside of Jack's office, it would be good to have a professional reason to break the ice with him and give her the opportunity to suggest that they get together away from the OCME for a personal discussion. The thought of the kind of conversation she needed to have with him made her tense. In his current state of mind, she had no idea whether or not he'd be receptive either to meet with her or to what she had to tell him. Lou had suggested he would be, but Laurie didn't know.

In days past, a gown, a hat, and a mask were all that was needed to drop into the autopsy room for a visit to check out a finding or have a short conversation. Times had changed. Now Laurie had to go into the locker room and change into scrubs before heading over to the supply room to get into her full protective gear, as if she was doing a case herself. Calvin had established the new rules, and they were supposedly cut in stone.

"Ahhh!" Laurie whimpered as she extended her arm while hanging up her blouse in the locker. She had gotten a sudden stitch in that same abdominal location that had been intermittently troubling her over the previous few days. This time, it was definitely a sharp pain that made her wince as well as withdraw her hand. Gingerly, she placed it over the bothersome area. Thankfully, the pain quickly eased and then disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Carefully, she pressed in over the area, but there was no residual tenderness. She extended her arm as she had done when hanging the blouse, but still there was no discomfort. Shaking her head with confusion over whether it had anything to do with being pregnant, she thought maybe she should ask Sue whether she had experienced anything similar during her two pregnancies.

With the memory of the pain fading into the background, Laurie continued changing into scrubs, and then headed across the hall to climb into her moon suit. A few minutes later, she pushed into the autopsy room. As the heavy door thumped against the jamb behind her, the two people in the room straightened up from bending over the body splayed open in front of them. They both looked over at her.

"Well, glory be!" Jack quipped. "Is this really Dr. Montgomery already in full regalia, and it is not even eight o'clock? To what do we owe this great honor?"

"I just want to find out if this case truly fits into my series." Laurie said as lightly as she could while bracing herself for Jack's probable continued sarcasm. She advanced to the foot of the table. Jack was on her left and Vinnie on her right. "Please! Go back to work! I don't mean to interrupt."

"I don't want you to think I took this case away from you. Do you know why I'm doing it?"

"I do. Chet told me."

"Have you seen Calvin yet? I couldn't read him this morning. He was acting weird. Is everything hunky-dory between you two?"

"Everything is fine. I was worried myself when Chet told me I was to have an official paper day and that Calvin wanted to see me ASAP. It turned out that all he wants is for me to sign out the earlier cases in my series. I'm supposed to say they were natural."

"Are you going to do it? I'm thinking there's no way they were natural."

"I don't have a lot of choice," Laurie admitted. "He laid it on the line. I hate the political pressures of this job, of which this situation is becoming a prime example. But, be that as it may, what's your take on Mulhausen. Does this case belong in my series?"

Jack looked down into the corpse's open thorax. He'd already removed the lungs and was in the process of opening the great vessels. The heart was in full view. "So far, I'd have to say yes. The demographics are the same, and I don't see any suggestion of pathology of any note. I'll know for sure in a half hour or so when I finish with the heart, but I'll be very surprised if we find anything."

"Do you mind if I look at the investigator's report in the folder?"

"Mind? Why would I mind? But I can save you the trouble by giving you the facts. The patient was a healthy thirty-six-year-old stockbroker who'd had an uncomplicated hernia repair yesterday morning and was doing fine. Four-thirty this morning, he was discovered dead in his bed. The nurses' notes said he was practically room temperature when he was found, but they tried to resuscitate him anyway. Obviously, they got nothing. So, do I think he fits your series? I do. What's more, I think you are genuinely onto something with this series idea. Obviously, I didn't at first, but I do now, especially now that you've got seven cases."

Laurie tried to see the nuances of Jack's expression, but she couldn't through his plastic screen. Still, she was encouraged. Somewhat like Calvin, he was acting more affable than expected, and it made her feel optimistic on a number of fronts.

"What about those cases Dick Katzenburg mentioned yesterday?" Jack asked. "Have they panned out so far?"

"Yes. At least from the investigators' reports. I'm waiting for the hospital charts to be certain."

"It was a good pickup," Jack said. "Yesterday, when you got up to go to the microphone to give your little presentation, I was pissed, since it meant that the Thursday-afternoon torture session was going to be extended, but now I have to give you credit. If Dick's cases do turn out to match yours, your series doubles, which kind of casts a pall over AmeriCare, wouldn't you say?"

"I don't know what it says about AmeriCare," Laurie said. She was surprised at Jack's talkativeness. Even that seemed encouraging.

"Well, as the saying goes, something's rotten in Denmark: At thirteen cases, it's gone way beyond coincidence. But it's interesting there's no smoking-gun commonality, which is why I hesitate to support your homicide idea, although I'm warming to it. Tell me, have any of the cases occurred in the intensive care unit or the postanesthesia care unit?"

"None of mine. I don't know about Dick's. Mine have all been in regular hospital rooms. Why do you ask? Was Mulhausen in either?"

"No! He was in a normal room. I'm not sure why I'm asking. Maybe because drugs are handled differently in either the ICU or the PACU than they are on a regular hospital floor. Actually I'm trying to think of some sort of systems error, like they are all getting a drug that they are not supposed to get. It's just something else to consider."

"Thanks for the suggestion," Laurie said without a lot of conviction. "I'll keep it in mind."

"I also think you should continue to press toxicology. I still think that ultimately, it's going to be toxicology that solves this conundrum."

"That's easy to say, but I don't know what else I can do. Peter Letterman has really gone out of his way, trying to the point of thinking about minutiae. Yesterday, he was talking about checking into some kind of unbelievablely potent toxin from a South-American frog."

"Whoa! That's a bit far afield. That calls to mind the adage, 'When you hear hoof beats, think of horses, not zebras.' Something is interrupting these people's cardiac conduction system. I can't help but believe it's got to be a garden-variety arrhythmia drug. How they are getting it is another story."

"But that certainly would have shown up in toxicology."

"That's true," Jack agreed. "What about a contaminant in their IV fluid? Have they all had IVs running?"

Laurie thought for a minute. "Now that you mention it, they have. But it's not unusual, since most people who've had surgery keep an IV for at least twenty-four hours. As far as a contaminant in the IV fluid is concerned, it passed through my mind, but it is extremely unlikely. If a contaminant were involved, we'd have more cases than we have, and it certainly wouldn't favor the relatively young and healthy, nor just patients having had elective surgery."

"I don't think you should eliminate anything out of hand," Jack said. "Which reminds me of the question about electrolytes the fellow from Staten Island asked you yesterday after you made your presentation. You told him the levels all tested normal. Is that true?"

"Absolutely. I made it a point to ask Peter to check into that specifically, and he reported back that they were all normal."

"Well, it certainly sounds as if you are covering all the bases," Jack said. "I'll finish up with Mulhausen just to be sure there's no emboli or cardiac pathology." He repositioned the scalpel in his hand and bent over the corpse.

"I'm trying to think of all the possibilities," Laurie said. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she added, "Jack, could I speak to you for a moment on a personal note?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Vinnie said suddenly. He'd been impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other during Laurie and Jack's extended conversation. "Can't we get this freaking autopsy done?"

Jack straightened back up and looked at Laurie. "What is it you want to talk about?"

Laurie glanced at Vinnie. She felt awkward in his presence, especially considering his impatience.

Jack noticed Laurie's reaction. "Don't mind Vinnie. With as much help as he is as an assistant, you can just pretend he's not here. I do it all the time."

"Very funny," Vinnie responded. "How come I'm not laughing?"

"Actually," Laurie said, "I don't want to talk with you now. What I'd like to do is arrange for us to get together. There are some important things I need to share with you."

Jack didn't answer right away but rather stared at Laurie through the plastic face masks. "Let me guess," he said finally. "You're getting married, and you want me to be a bridesmaid."

Vinnie laughed so hard it sounded as if he was choking.

"Hey, it wasn't that funny," Jack protested, although he was now laughing along with Vinnie.

"Jack," Laurie said, maintaining a calm voice with some difficulty. "I'm trying to be serious."

"I am, too," Jack managed. "And since you haven't denied the nuptials, I'll consider myself informed, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline the bridesmaid offer. Was there anything else?"

"Jack!" Laurie repeated. "I'm not getting married. I need to talk with you about something that involves you and me."

"Okay, fine! I'm all ears."

"I'm not about to talk to you here in the autopsy room."

Jack made a gesture around the room with all its gothic details. "What's wrong with this? I feel quite at home in here."

"Jack! Could you be serious for a moment? I said it was important."

"Okay, fine! What other venue do we have at our disposal that would better suit your needs? If you give me a half hour or so, I could meet you upstairs in the ID office, and we could chat over a nice cup of Vinnie's coffee. The only problem with that is that the other hoi polloi will just be arriving for their workday. Perhaps you'd prefer we rendezvous in our scenic second-floor lunchroom and have something delectable out of the vending machines. There, we could hobnob with the janitorial staff. What's your preference?"

Laurie eyed Jack as best she could through the plastic face shields. His reversion to angry sarcasm seriously eroded her earlier optimism about his receptivity, but she pressed on: "What I was hoping is that we could have dinner tonight, possibly at Elios, if we could somehow manage a reservation." Elios was a restaurant that had played a role in Laurie and Jack's long relationship.

For another extended moment, Jack stared back at Laurie. Although the day before he'd not given Lou's comments about Laurie much credence, he suddenly wondered if there had been a germ of truth to what he'd said. At the same time, Jack reminded himself that he was in no mood for further humiliation. "What's the matter with Romeo? Is he sick tonight?"

Vinnie chuckled again and then tried to suppress it when Laurie glared at him.

"I don't know," Jack continued. "It's kind of short notice, considering I was supposed to go bowling tonight with seventeen nuns from out of town."

Vinnie lost control and left the table. He wandered over to the sink and busied himself.

"Could you please be serious for a moment?" Laurie repeated. "You're not making this easy."

"I'm not making it easy?" Jack questioned superciliously. "That's a switch. I tried for months to arrange spending an evening with you, but you were always heading off to some major cultural event."

"It's only been a month, and you asked me twice, and both nights I had plans. I need to talk with you, Jack. Will you see me tonight or not?"

"It sounds like you are really motivated about this rendezvous."

"I'm very motivated," Laurie agreed.

"Okay, tonight it is. What time?"

"Is Elios all right?"

Jack shrugged. "It's fine."

"Then I'll call to see if I can make a reservation, and I'll let you know. It might have to be on the early side, since it's Friday night."

"Okay," Jack said. "I'll wait to hear from you."

With a final nod, Laurie left the table, opened the door to the hallway, and walked back to the storeroom to get out of her protective suit. She was pleased that Jack had finally agreed to get together, but, as Calvin had suggested earlier, she felt browbeaten about getting Jack to commit to their meeting, and, sensing his anger, she was no longer particularly optimistic about how he was going to react to her news.

After getting into her street clothes and rescuing her coat from the ID room, Laurie took the elevator up to the fourth floor. Her idea was to pay Peter a quick visit to give him a morale boost for his efforts and to make sure he hadn't struck gold with either Sobczyk or Lewis. As preoccupied as she was with personal thoughts, she didn't even consider the possibility of having to confront her nemesis, the laboratory director, John DeVries. Unfortunately, he was in Peter's office, apparently in the process of dressing down Peter. He had his hands angrily thrust onto his hips, and Peter had a sheepish expression on his face. Laurie had unknowingly run headlong into the fray.

"Such timing!" John exclaimed. "If it isn't the seductress herself!"

"Excuse me?" Laurie questioned. With such a sexist comment, she could feel her own ire rising.

"Apparently, you have been able to seduce Peter into becoming your own laboratory slave," John snarled. "You and I have had this discussion before, Dr. Montgomery. With the pittance I'm allocated to run this lab, no one gets special service, which invariably makes everyone else wait that much longer. Do I make myself clear, or do you want me to write it out for you? Furthermore, you can be sure that Dr. Bingham and Dr. Washington will be notified of this situation. Meanwhile, I want you out of here." To emphasize his point, John gestured toward the door.

For a moment, Laurie looked back and forth between John's gaunt face and Peter's. The last thing she wanted to do was make things any worse for Peter, so she refrained from telling John what she thought of him. Instead, she turned around and walked out of the lab.

As Laurie climbed the stairs, she felt more depressed than she had earlier. She hated run-ins with people, particularly people she had to work with. They often lead to inappropriate emotional responses like the one she'd had earlier with Calvin, although on this occasion with John, anger was ascendant. Thinking of Calvin, she vaguely wondered what the fallout would be, since John invariably made good on his threats. She thought the chances were good that she'd hear from the deputy chief, and what that would mean, she had no idea. She truly hoped she hadn't caused any long-term problem for Peter, since he had to deal with John on a daily basis.

Entering her office, Laurie closed the door behind her. She hung up her coat and noticed Riva's hanging on its hook, which meant Riva was down in either the ID office or the autopsy room. Laurie sat down and thought about the telephone call she had to make. She'd been dreading it since the pregnancy test had been positive. In her mind, it was as if the process of making the call would finally and ultimately confirm the reality of her being pregnant. She had been trying to deny it to some degree, because of how big a mistake it was. As much as she wanted to have children, this was not the time, and she questioned what had gone through her mind to allow her to take the risk. Even though it was only a few weeks ago, she truly couldn't remember.

Reaching for the phone, Laurie reluctantly placed the call to the Manhattan General Hospital. As the connection went through, she looked down at the material from the Queens cases, which she needed to add to her matrix, along with the case Jack was currently doing.

When the operator came on the line, Laurie asked to be connected with Dr. Laura Riley's office. As the extension began to ring, Laurie was thankful that Sue happened to fix her up with a GYN doctor who also did OB. In the current medical malpractice milieu, that certainly was not always the case.

When Dr. Riley's scheduling secretary answered, Laurie explained her situation. She found herself stumbling over her words when she revealed she was pregnant according to an OTC test kit.

"Well, in that case, we certainly cannot wait until September," the secretary said brightly. "Dr. Riley likes to see her obstetrics patients at eight to ten weeks after the last period. Where are you?"

"It's been about seven weeks," Laurie said.

"Then we should see you next week or the week after." There was a pause. Laurie realized that her hand holding the phone was trembling.

"How about next Friday?" the secretary said, coming back on the line. "That's a week from today, at one-thirty."

"That will be fine," Laurie said. "Thank you for squeezing me in."

"My pleasure. Now, can I have your name?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I didn't give it to you. I'm Dr. Laurie Montgomery."

"Dr. Montgomery! I remember you. I spoke with you yesterday."

Laurie winced. Her secret was now quasi-public. Even though she had never met the secretary, the woman now knew a terribly private, intimate detail about her life that Laurie had not yet decided how she was going to handle. Difficult choices would have to be made.

"Congratulations!" the secretary continued. "Hold the line! I'm sure that Dr. Riley would want to say hello."

Without a chance to respond, Laurie found herself on hold, listening to music. For a brief moment, she thought about hanging up, but she decided she couldn't do it. To keep her mind in check, she looked down at the stack of death certificates and investigative reports from Queens. Anxious for a diversion, she picked up the first and began reading. The patient's name was Kristin Svensen, age twenty-three, who had been admitted to St. Francis Hospital for a hemorrhoidectomy. Laurie shook her head at the dimensions of the tragedy. It made her problems seem small compared to the death of a healthy young woman in a hospital after having her hemorrhoids removed.

"Dr. Montgomery! I just heard the good news. Congratulations."

"You can call me Laurie."

"Fair enough, and you can call me Laura."

"I'm not sure congratulations are in order. To be perfectly frank, this is an unexpected and rather an inconvenient surprise for me, so I'm not sure how I feel about it."

"I see," said Laura, reigning in her exuberance. Then, with sensitivity born of experience, she added, "We still have to make sure you and the conceptus are as healthy as possible. Have there been any problems?"

"A bit of morning sickness, but it's been very transient." Laurie found herself uncomfortable talking about the pregnancy and wanted to get off the line.

"Let us know if it gets any worse. There are lots of suggestions for dealing with it in the thousands of pregnancy books available. As for books, my advice is to stay away from the most conservative ones, because they'll drive you crazy, thinking you can't do anything, like take a hot bath. With that said, we'll see you next Friday."

Laurie thanked her and hung up the phone. It was a relief to get the call behind her. Picking up the computer printouts of the cases from Queens, she tapped them against the surface of her desk to align them. The motion caused an almost subliminal unpleasant sensation in the same location where she'd had the pain while down in the locker room. She wondered if she should have at least mentioned the feeling and pain to Laura Riley. She thought she should have, but wasn't about to call her back. Instead, she'd bring it up during her appointment, unless it became frequent or intense enough to warrant a call. She also wondered if she should have mentioned about being positive for the BRCA1 marker, but as with the discomfort, she decided it would be perfectly appropriate to discuss it on her first visit.

With the papers in one hand, Laurie reached for the phone again, but then hesitated with her hand on the receiver. She had it in her mind to call Roger for several reasons, not the least of which was feeling guilty about leaving him in the dark about what must have seemed strange behavior in his office. But she didn't know what she was going to say. She wasn't yet willing to tell him the whole truth for a number of reasons, but she knew she would have to say something. Ultimately, she decided she'd use the BRCA1 issue, as she'd already done.

Laurie picked up the phone and dialed Roger's direct line. What was really motivating her was her desire to take copies of the Queens materials over to him so she could talk with him directly about them. Despite the turmoil in her mind from her personal problems, she'd come up with an idea about the cases from Queens that might possibly solve the mystery of SADS.