We'll Meet Again

57

Dr. Peter Black began his day Thursday morning by going to visit Tasha. By any medical standards, she should be dead by now, he thought anxiously as he walked down the hallway to her suite.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to make her a part of the experiment, he thought. Normally this experiment would produce useful-and occasionally fascinating-clinical results, but it was proving to be difficult to carry out, due primarily to Tasha’s mother. Barbara Colbert was much too alert and well connected. There were plenty of other patients at the residence who were more likely candidates for this extraordinary research, patients whose relatives would never suspect anything was amiss and who would take even the slightest sign of deathbed cognition as a gift from heaven.

I should never have mentioned to Dr. Logue that Harvey Magim seemed to recognize his wife at the end, Black thought, excoriating himself. But it was too late to stop now. He had to go on to the next step. That had been made clear to him. That next step was contained in the package he’d brought back from the laboratory in West Redding, and it was now safely tucked into his vest pocket.

When he entered the room, he found the duty nurse nodding by Tasha’s bedside. That was good, he thought. A sleepy nurse was exactly what he wanted. It gave him an excuse to get her out of the room.

“I would suggest you get yourself a cup of coffee,” he said sternly, waking her abruptly. “Bring it back here. I’ll wait. Where is Mrs. Colbert?”

“She’s asleep on the couch,” the nurse whispered. “Poor woman, she finally dozed off. Her sons left. They’ll be here again tonight.”

Black nodded and turned to the patient as the nurse scurried out. Tasha’s condition remained unchanged from last evening. She had stabilized, thanks, he knew, to the injection he’d given her when she started to sink.

He took the small package out of his pocket. It felt unnaturally heavy for its size. Last night’s injection had had the expected results, but the one he was about to administer was totally unpredictable.

Logue is out of control, Black thought.

He lifted Tasha’s limp arm and pinched it to find a suitable vein. Holding the syringe in place, he slowly pushed the plunger and watched as the liquid disappeared into her body.

He looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. In about twelve hours it would be over, one way or the other. In the meantime, he was facing the unwelcome prospect of the meeting he had agreed to have with that snoopy newswoman, Fran Simmons.