Side Effects

Thursday 20 December

It had taken narcotic painkillers and amphetamines along with his usual pharmacopoeia, but in the end, Becker had prevailed. Now he ached for sleep. He could not remember his last meal.

Catnaps at his desk, cool showers every six or seven hours, bars of chocolate, cups of thick coffee for four days, or was it five?

These had been his only succor. Still, he had endured. In the morning, a messenger would hand deliver his manuscript and box of slides to the editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. The letter accompanying the manuscript would give the man ten days to agree to publish the Estronate studies in their entirety within four months and to oversee the appointment of an international commission to assume responsibility for the initiation of Beckerian population control. The study was in a shambles, with reference books, scrap paper, coffee cups, discarded drafts, candy-bar wrappers, and dirty glasses covering the furniture and much of the floor. Like a prizefighter at the moment of triumph, Willi Becker, more skeleton than man, stood in the midst of the debris and pumped his fists in the air. After forty years and through hardship almost unimaginable, he had finished. Now there was only the matter of gaining acceptance. It was ironic, he acknowledged, that decades of the most meticulous research had come down to a few frenetic days, but that was the way it had to be. With the pathologist Bennett snooping about the Omnicenter and Cyrus Redding's antennae up, time had become a luxury he could no longer afford. Studies in Estronate 250.

Becker cleared off his easy chair, settled down, and indulged in thoughts of the accolades, honors, and other tributes to his genius and dedication certain to result from the publication and implementation of his work. He was nearing receipt of a Nobel Prize when the phone began ringing. It took half a dozen rings to break through his reverie and another four to locate the phone beneath a pile of journals. "Hello?"

"John? Redding here."

The voice brought a painful emptiness to Becker's chest. For several seconds, he could not speak. "John?"

Becker cleared his throat. "Yes, yes, Cyrus. I'm here."

"Good. Fine. Well, I hope I'm not disturbing anything important for you."

"Not at all. I was just… doing a little reading before bed."

Did his voice sound as strained, as strangled, as it felt? "What can I do for you? " Please, he thought, let it be some problem related to their myasthenia. Let it be anything but… "Well, John, I wanted to speak with you a bit about that business at the Omnicenter." Becker's heart sank. "You know, " Redding continued, "the situation with these women having severe scarring of their ovaries and then bleeding to death."

"Yes, what about it?"

"Have you learned anything new about the situation since we spoke last?"

"No. Not really." Becker sensed that he was being toyed with. "Well, John, you know that the whole matter has piqued my curiosity, as well as my concern for the safety of our testing programs. Too many coincidences. Too much smoke for there not to be a fire someplace."

"Perhaps, " Becker said, hanging onto the thread of hope that the man, a master at such maneuvers, was shooting in the dark. For a time, there was silence from Redding's end. Becker shifted nervously in his chair.

"Cyrus? " he asked finally. "I'm here."

"Was there… anything else?"

"John, I won't bandy words with you. We've been through too much together, accomplished too many remarkable things for me to try and humiliate you by letting you trip over one after another of your own lies."

"I… I don't understand."

"Of course you understand, John." He paused. "I know who you are. That is the gist of what I am calling to say. I know about Wilhelm Becker, and even more importantly, I know about Estronate Two-fifty."

Becker glanced over at his manuscript, stacked neatly atop the printer of his word processor, and forced himself to calm down. There was little he could think of that Redding could do to hurt him at this stage of the game. Still, Cyrus Redding was Cyrus Redding, and no amount of caution was too much. Stay calm but don't underestimate.

"Your resourcefulness is quite impressive, " he said. "John, tell me truly, it was Estronate Two-fifty that caused the problems at the Omnicenter, wasn't it?"

"It was."

"The hemorrhaging is an undesirable side effect?"

Becker was about to explain that the problem had been overcome and that his hormone was, to all intents, perfected. He stopped himself at the last moment. "Yes, " he said. "A most unfortunate bug that I have not been able to get out of the system."

"You should have told me, John, " Redding said. "You should have trusted me."

"What do you want?"

"John, come now. It is bad enough you didn't respect me enough to take me into your confidence. It is bad enough your uncondoned experiments have put my entire company in jeopardy. Do not try to demean my intelligence. I want to extend our partnership to include that remarkable hormone of yours. After all, it was tested at a facility that I fund."

"Work is not complete. There are problems. Serious problems."

"Then we shall overcome them. You know the potential of this Estronate of yours as well as I do. I am prepared to make you an onthe-spot offer of, say, half a million dollars now and a similar amount when your work is completed to the satisfaction of my biochemists. And of course, there would be a percentage of all sales."

Sales. Becker realized that his worst possible scenario was being enacted. Redding understood not only the chemical nature of Estronate, but also its limitless value to certain governments. How?

How in hell's name had the man learned so much so quickly? "I… I was planning eventually on submitting my work for publication, " he offered.

Redding laughed. "That would be bad business, John. Very bad business.

The value of our product would surely plummet if its existence and unique properties became general knowledge. Suppose you oversee the scientific end and let me deal with the proprietary."

"If I refuse, " Becker said, "will you kill me?"

Again Redding laughed. "Perhaps. Perhaps I will. However, there are those, I am sure, who would pay dearly for information on the physician whom the Ravensbruck prisoners called the Serpent."

For a time there was silence. "How did you learn of all this?" Becker asked finally.

"Why don't we save explanations, Dr. Becker, for a time after our w business arrangement has been consummated."

"I need time to think."

"Take it. Take as much as you need up to, say, twenty-four hours."

"The intrinsic problems of the hormone may be insurmountable."

"A chance I will take. You owe me this. For the troubles you have the caused at our testing facility, you owe me. In fact, there is something else you owe me as well."

"Oh?"

"I wish to know the individual at the Omnicenter who has been helping you with your work."

Becker started to protest that there was no such person, but decided against testing the man's patience. In less than twelve hours a messenger would deliver the Estronate paper and slides to The New England Journal of Medicine, making the hormone, in essence, public domain. He had already decided that exposure of his true identity and the risk of spending what little was left of his life in prison was a small price to pay for immortality. "Forty-eight hours, " he said.

Redding hesitated. "Very well, then, " he said finally. "Forty-eight hours it will be. You have the number. I shall expect to hear from you within two days. The Estronate work and the name of your associate.

Good-bye." He hung up. "Good-bye, " Becker said to the dial tone. As he drew the receiver from his ear, he heard a faint but definite click. The sound sent fear stabbing beneath his breastbone. Someone, almost certainly William, was on the downstairs extension. How long? How long had he been there?

In the cluttered semidarkness of his study, Willi Becker strained his compromised hearing. For a time, there was only silence. Perhaps, he thought, there hadn't been a click at all. Then he heard the unmistakable tread of footsteps on the stairs. "William? " Again there was silence. "William?"

"Yes, Father, it is." Zimmermann appeared suddenly in the doorway and stood, arms folded, looking placidly across at him. "You… ah… you surprised me. How long have you been in the house?"

"Long enough." Zimmermann strode to the bookcase and poured himself a drink. He was, as usual, immaculately dressed. Light from the gooseneck reading lamp sparked off the heavy diamond ring on the small finger of his left hand and highlighted the sheen on his black Italian-cut loafers. "You were listening in on my conversation, weren't you?"

"Oh, perhaps." Zimmermann snapped a wooden swizzle stick in two and used one edge to clean beneath his nails. "Listening was a rude thing to do."

"Me, rude? Why, Father…"

"Well, if you heard, you heard. It really makes no difference."

"Oh?"

"Just how long were you listening in?"

Zimmermann didn't answer. Instead, he walked to the printer, picked up the Estronate manuscript, and turned it from one side to the other, appraisingly. "A half million dollars and then some. It would seem there is some truth about good things coming in small packages."

"Give me that." Becker was too weak, too depleted by the drugs, even to rise. Zimmermann ignored him. "Wilhelm W. Becker, MD, Phd, " he read.

"So that's who my father is."

"Please, William."

"How good it is to learn that the man John Ferguson, who so ignored and abused my mother all those years, was not my father. The Serpent of Ravensbruck. That's my real father."

"I never abused her. I did what I had to do."

"Father, please. She knew that you could have come home much more often and didn't. She knew about your women, your countless women. She knew that neither of us would ever mean anything to you compared to your precious research."

Becker stared at his son with wide, bloodshot eyes. "You hate me, don't you? " There was incredulity in his voice. "Not really. The truth is, I don't feel much for you one way or the other."

"But I was behind you all the way. My money sent you through school.

Your position at the Omnicenter, how do you think that came about? Do you think Harold French just happened to drown accidentally at the moment you were experienced enough to take over for him?

It was me! " Becker's hoarse, muddy voice had become barely audible. "If you care so little about me, William, then why have you helped me in my work all these years? Why?"

Zimmermann gazed blandly at his father. "Because of your connections, of course. Your friend Redding triples what the hospital pays me. You suggested my name, and he arranged for me to get my professorship. I know he did."

"He got you the position on my say-so, and he can have it taken from you the same way."

"Can he, now." Zimmermann held up the Estronate manuscript. "You lied to him. You told him there were still flaws in the work.

Why?

Are you thinking that once he finds out you have sent this off for publication, he will just walk away and leave us alone? Do you think he vvon't find out who I am? What I have been helping you do behind his back? Do you? " He was screaming. "Well, I tell you right here and now, Father, this is mine. I have paid for it over the years with countless humiliations. Cyrus Redding will have his Estronate, and I shall have my proper legacy."

"No! " Even as he shouted the word, Willi Becker felt the tearing pain in his left chest. His heart, weakened by disease, and sorely compromised by amphetamines, pounded mercilessly and irregularly. "My Oxygen, he rasped. "In the bedroom. Oxygen and nitroglycerine." The study was beginning a nauseating spin. For the first time, William Zimmermann smiled. "I'm afraid I can't hear you, Father, " he said, benevolently. "Could you please speak up a bit?"

"William… please…" Becker's final words were muffled by the gurgle of fluid bubbling up from his lungs, and vomitus welling from his stomach. He clawed impotently in the direction of his son and then toppled over onto the rug, his face awash in the products of his own death. Stepping carefully around his father's corpse, Zimmermann slipped the Estronate paper into a large envelope, then he removed the disc from the word processor and dropped it in as well. Next he copied a number from the leather-bound address book buried under some papers on one corner of the desk. Finally, he stacked the three worn looseleaf notebooks containing the Estronate data and tucked them under his arm.

He would phone Cyrus Redding from the extension downstairs. The pharmaceutical magnate evinced little surprise at Zimmermann's call or at the rapid turn of events in Newton. Instead, he listened patiently to the details of Willi Becker's life as the man's son knew them. "Dr. Zimmermann, " he said finally, "let us stop here to be certain I fully understand. Your father, when he was supervising construction of the Omnicenter, secretly had a laboratory built for himself in the subbasement?"

"Correct, " Zimmermann said. "On the blueprints it is drawn as some sort of dead storage area, I think."

"And the only way to get into the laboratory is through an electronic security system?"

"The lock is hidden and coded electronically. The door is concealed behind a set of shelves."

"Does anyone besides you have the combination?"

"No. At least not as far as I know."

"Remarkable. Dr. Zimmermann, your father was a most brilliant man."

"My father is dead, " Zimmermann said coolly. "Yes, " Redding said.

"Yes, he is. Tell me, this bleeding problem, it has been eliminated?"

"Father modified his synthesis over a year ago. It was taking from six to eighteen months after treatment for the bleeding problem to develop.

The three patients you know about were all treated a year ago last July.

There have, to our knowledge, been no new cases since. Keep in mind, too, that there weren't that many to begin with. And most of those were mild."

"Yes, I understand. It is remarkable to me that you were able to insert your testing program into Carl Horner's computer system without his ever knowing."

"As you said, Mr. Redding, my father was a brilliant man."

"Yes. Well, then, I suppose we two should explore the possibility of a new partnership."

"The terms you laid out for my father are quite acceptable to me. I have the manuscript and the notebooks. Since the work is already completed, I would be willing to turn them over to you, no further questions asked, for the amount you promised him."

"That is a lot of money, Doctor."

"The amazing thing is that until I overheard your conversation with my father, I had not fully appreciated the valuable potential of the hormone." Zimmermann could barely keep from laughing out loud at his good fortune. "Are you a biochemist, Doctor?"

"No. Not really."

"In that case, I should like to reserve my final offer until my own biochemist has had the chance to review the material, to see the laboratory, and to take himself through the process of synthesizing the hormone."

"When?"

"Why not tomorrow? Dr. Paquette, whom you know, will meet you at your office at, say, seven o'clock tomorrow night. My man Nunes will accompany him and will have the authority and the money to consummate our agreement if Dr. Paquette is totally satisfied with what he sees."

"Sounds fine. I'll make certain the side door to the Omnicenter is left open."

"That won't be necessary, Dr. Zimmermann. Paquette has keys."

"All right, then, seven o'clock… Was there something else? "

"As a matter of fact, Dr. Zimmermann, there is. It's this whole business with the Omnicenter and that pathologist."

"You mean Bennett?"

"She has proven a very resilient young woman. Do you believe she was convinced by her conversation with our man at the Ashburton Foundation?"

"No. Not completely. She said she was going to continue investigating.

The woman currently hospitalized here with complications from Estronate treatment is a close friend of hers."

"I see. You know, Doctor, none of this would have happened if you and your father hadn't conducted your work so recklessly and independently. by His voice had a chilling edge. "Don't you feel a responsibility to this company for what you have done?"

"Responsibility?"

"If we are to have a partnership, I should like to know that the millions I have spent on the Omnicenter will not be lost because we were unable to neutralize one woman."

"But she has been neutralized. A serious mistake on a pathology specimen. She's been put on leave by her department head. Isn't that enough to discredit her?"

"I am no longer speaking of discrediting her, my friend. I am speaking of stopping her. You heard my conversation with your father. You know the importance of keeping Estronate a secret. It has been bad enough that Dr. Bennett is threatening, by her doggedness, to bring the Omnicenter tumbling down about our ears. If she uncovers Estronate, we stand to lose much, much more."

"I'll see to it that won't happen."

"Excellent. But remember, I don't handle disappointment well. Until tomorrow, then, Doctor."

"Yes, tomorrow."

William Zimmermann made a final inspection of the house, taking pains to wipe off anything he had touched. The precaution was, in all likelihood, unnecessary. The houseboy was due in at eight in the morning, and the death he would discover upstairs would certainly appear due to natural causes. As he slipped out the back door of his father's house, a fortune in notebooks and computer printouts under his arm, Zimmermann was thinking about Kate Bennett. The nightmare was a juggernaut, more pervasive, more oppressive it seemed with each passing hour. Its setting had changed from the clutter of her office to the deep-piled, fire-warmed opulence of Win Samuels's study, but for Kate Bennett, the change meant only more confusion, more humiliation, more doubt. I know what it looks like, I know what it sounds like. But it isn't true… I don't know who did it… I don't know… Dammit all, I just don't know. Jared's return earlier in the evening had started on a positive note — an emotional hug and their first kiss in nearly a week. For a time, as they weaved their way through the crowds to the baggage area, he seemed unable to keep his hands or his lips off her. It seemed he was reveling in the freedom of at last truly acknowledging his love for her.

I accept you, regardless of what you are involved in, regardless of what the impact might be on me. I accept you because I believe in you. I accept you because I love you. But as she shared her nightmare with him, she could feel him pulling back, sense his enthusiasm erode. It showed first in his eyes, then in his voice, and finally in his touch. He was trying, Kate knew, perhaps even trying his best. But she also knew that confusion and doubt were taking their toll. Why would a company as large as Redding Pharmaceuticals do the things of which she was accusing them?

The Ashburton Foundation had an impeccable reputation. What evidence was there that they were frauds? Why would anyone do something as horrible as switching biopsies? How did they do it? Weren't there any records of the tests she had run at the state lab? How did the letter about Bobby Geary fit in with all this?

I know what it looks like. I know what it sounds like. But it isn't true. With each why, with each I don't know, Kate felt Jared drifting further and further into her nightmare. By the time the subject of his father and sister came up, she was feeling isolated, as stifled as before, perhaps more so. They were nearly halfway home to Essex. "That is absolutely incredible, " Jared had said, swinging sharply into the breakdown lane and jamming to a stop. "I… I don't believe it." It was the first time since his return that he had said those words. "After all these years, why wouldn't he tell me my sister was alive?"

"I don't know." The phrase reverberated in her mind. "Perhaps he was trying to spare you the ugliness."

"That makes no sense. You say he took you to this insititution to convince you to turn down the position at Metro and concentrate on having babies?"

"That's what he said."

Jared shook his head. "Let me be sure I have this straight. My father, who has never communicated all that well with my wife to begin with, sends me out of town so that he can take her to an institution in the middle of nowhere and introduce her to the sister he had led me to believe died thirty-odd years ago. Does that make sense to you9"

"Jared, " she said, her voice beginning to quaver, "nothing has made sense to me for days. All I can do is tell the truth."

"Well, if that's the case, " he said finally, "I think I'd like to find out first hand why my father has been holding out on me."

"Couldn't we at least wait until-"

"No! I can't think of a damn thing to do about Bobby Geary or the Omnicenter or the Ashburton Foundation or the runaway technician or the goddamn breast biopsies, but I sure as hell can do something about my father."

Without waiting for a reply, he had swung off and under the highway and had screeched back onto the southbound lane, headed for Boston. Now, in the uncomfortably warm study, Kate sat by a hundred-and thirty-year-old leaded glass window, watching the fairyland Christmas tights of Louisburg Square and listening to her husband and her fatherm-law argue over whether she was a liar, a woman in desperate need of professional help, or some combination of the two. Jared, in all fairness, was doing his best to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it had, purely and simply, come down to her word against his father's. When taken with the other issues, the other confusions she had regaled him with since his landing at Logan, it was not hard to understand why he was having difficulty taking her side. "Once again, Jared, " Win Samuels said with authoritative calm, "we dined together-Jocelyn's special duck. After dinner we talked. Then we went for a long drive in the country. I hadn't been out of the house all day and was getting a severe case of cabin fever. We did stop at the Stonefield School, I'm on the board of trustees there. But I assure you, Son, our visit was quite spur of the moment. We were only a few miles from the school when I remembered a set of papers in the back seat that I was planning on mailing off tomorrow to Gus Leggatt, the school administrator. While we were there, we did look in on some of the children. Largely because of our visit, on the way home I was able to share my fears with Kate about what happens to the rate of birth defects in children of older mothers. Kate explained the advances in amniocentesis to me, facts, I might add, that I found quite reassuring. I mentioned your sister, certainly, but I never implied she was alive. I'm sorry, Jared. And I am sorry for you, too, Kate." He looked at her levelly. "You've been under a great deal of pressure. Perhaps… a rest, some time off."

Time of, Kate sighed. Winfield had no way of knowing Stan Willoughby had already seen to that. She rose slowly, and crossed to Jared. "Stonefield School is listed in information, " she said wearily. "Broderick, Massachusetts. If the snow doesn't get any worse, I can drive us there in forty-five minutes to an hour. That should settle this once and for all."

"Do you want to come with us, Dad? " Jared asked. "There is no reason to go anyplace, " Win Samuels said simply. "Kate, Jared's sister had severe birth defects and died exactly when he thinks she did, thirty years ago.

Perhaps you had a dream of some sort. Strands of fantasy woven into reality. It happens, especially when one has been under an inordinate amount of stress such as you-"

"It is not stress! It is not stress, it is not a dream, it is not the desperate lie of a desperate woman, it is not… insanity." She confronted him, her eyes locked on his. Samuels held his ground, his face an expressionless mask. "It is the truth. The truth! I don't know why you are doing this, I don't know what you hope to accomplish. But I do know one thing. I'm not going to break. You manipulate the people in your life like they were pieces on some some enormous game board.

Jocelyn to king's knight four, Jared to queen three. Not your turn?

Well you'll just throw in a few thousand dollars and make it your turn.

" Samuels moved to speak, but Kate stopped him with raised hands. "I'm not through. I want to tell you something, Win. You've underestimated me. Badly. I've made it through a childhood of total loneliness, an education of total aimlessness, and a marriage to an alcoholic madman who insisted on picking out my pantyhose for me. I've survived and grown in a profession where I am patronized, and discriminated against i've dealt with men who couldn't bring their eyes, let along their minds, above my breasts. I've dealt with them and I've succeeded. "It's been hard. At times, it's been downright horrible. But for the last five years, I've had a secret weapon. He's right there, Win. Right over there." She nodded toward Jared. "When I forget that I'm okay, he reminds me. When I have to face the Norton Reeses and the Arlen Paquettes and, yes, the Winfield Samuelses of this world, he gives me strength. I love him and I have faith in him. Sooner or later, he's going to see the way you toy with the lives of those around you. Sooner or later, you'll go to move him, and he won't be there."

"Are you done? " Samuels said. "Yes, I'm done. And I don't want to hear any more from you unless it's an apology and the truth about the other night. How could you think I wouldn't tell Jared? How could you think I wouldn't remember where we went, what we did? Please, Jared, let's get going. It's late, and we have quite a drive ahead of us."

At that moment, there was a noise, the clearing of a throat, from the doorway. The three of them turned to the sound. Jocelyn Trent stood holding a silver tray with coffee and tea. "How long have you been there? " Samuels demanded. The woman did not answer. "Well?"

She hesitated, then she set the tray on the nearest table and ran from the room. "Stonefield School, " Kate said. "See, I told you I could find it. Only two wrong turns." She swung into the driveway, past the small sign, and up to the front door. "This is almost the exact hour we were here the other night. With any luck, the nurse who was on duty then will be on again. Her name was Bicknell, Sally Bicknell, something like that.

I'll recognize her. She wore about eighty gold bracelets and had rings on three or four fingers of each hand. What a character!"

Her chatter was, she knew, somewhat nervous. Jared had said little during their drive. His pensiveness was certainly understandable, but she found herself wishing he could recapture at least some of the emotion he had shown at the airport. No matter, she consoled herself.

Two nlinutes at Stonehill, and he would know that, in this arena, at least, she was telling the truth. How foolish of Win to think things would not develop the way they had. How unlike the man to miss predicting a person's actions as badly as he had missed hers. The nurse, Bicknell, was working at her desk in a small office just Off the lobby.

Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she was wearing only a single gold chain on one wrist. Hardly the flamboyant eccentric Kate had depicted. It was an observation, Kate noted uneasily, that was not overlooked by her husband. "Are you sure it's the same woman? " he whispered, as they crossed the lobby. "It's her. Hi, Miss Bicknell.

Remember me?"

The woman took only a second. "Of course. You were with Mr. Samuels four-no, no, — three nights ago. Right?"

"Exactly. You have an excellent memory."

"An elephant, " Sally Bicknell said, tapping one finger against her temple. "This is my husband, Jared, Miss Bicknell. Mr. Samuels's son."

"Pleased to meet you." The woman took the hand Jared offered. "We don't get too many evening visitors here at Stonefield. In fact, we don't get too many visitors at other times, either." She looked around. "Sort of a forgotten land, I guess."

"Miss Bicknell, we came to see my husband's sister."

The woman's expression clouded. "I… I'm afraid I don't understand."

Kate felt an ugly apprehension set in. "Lindsey Samuels, " she said, a note of irritation-or was it panic? — in her voice, "the girl we saw Monday night right over there." She pointed to the blue velvet curtain.

Sally Bicknell looked at her queerly and then ushered them over and drew back the curtain. "Her? " The girl was there, lumbering about exactly as she had been before. "Yes, exactly, " Kate said. "That's her, Jared.

That's Lindsey."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Samuels, but you're mistaken. That girl's name 1S Rochelle Coombs. She is sixteen years old and has a genetic disease called Hunter's Syndrome."

Kate stopped herself at the last possible moment from calling the woman a liar. "Could I see her medical records, please?"

The nurse snapped the curtain shut. "Her medical records are confidential. But I assure you, her name is Rochelle Coombs, not-what did you say?"

"Lindsey, " Jared said, "Lindsey Samuels." It was, Kate realized, the first time he had spoken since just after their arrival. "It is not Lindsey Samuels." Sally Bicknell completed her sentence. In that moment, Kate realized what had bothered her so about the girl the first time she had observed her. She was too young to have been Jared's sister. Far too young. Her thick features and other physical distortions added some years, but not twenty of them. The girl's grote. Rnlleness had made her too uncomfortable to look very closely. Had I Win Samuels counted on that? Silently, she cursed her own Stuplulty. Helpless and beaten, she could only shrug and shake her head. "Will there be anything else?"

Bicknell asked. Kate looked over at Jared, who shook his head. "No," she said huskily. "We're… we're sorry for the intrusion."

"In that case, " the woman said, — "I have rounds to make." She turned and, without showing them out, walked away. Kate felt far more ill than angry. As they approached the car, she handed Jared the keys. "You drive, please. I'm not up to it. Your father told me it was Lindsey, Jared. I swear he did. And that woman was right there when he said it."

There was, she realized, no sense in discussing the matter further. Win Samuels had set up a no-lose situation for himself. Either she would be impressed by his demonstration, in which case she might have agreed to back off at the hospital and, as he wished, turn her attention to domestic issues, or she would be angered enough to do exactly what she had done. His son, already in doubt about her, would be drawn further away from their marriage and toward a political future, unencumbered by a wife whose priorities and mental state were so disordered. All that for only the price of a tankful of gas and whatever it cost to buy off Sally Bicknell. Nice going, Win, she thought. Nice goddamn going. She sank into her seat and stared sightlessly into the night.