The Second Opinion, page 19
“Is this the floor where the window is out?”
“That’s what Kim said. Fifth floor, Dr. Thibideau’s office and lab.”
“She going to call the police?”
“I think she already did.”
Thea stumbled backward into the hallway, casting about from one side to the other for someplace to hide. The exam rooms were small, and the conference rooms and Thibideau’s office offered nothing. It had to be the laboratory—a large area, covering two-thirds of the entire floor, busy with the workbenches, glassware, and complex electronic equipment of basic science research. She could duck behind a counter and wait for the right moment to bolt—or perhaps sneak—down the hallway and through the waiting area to the stairs. She had never been a very fast runner, but the notion of what was in store should she get caught was flooding her body with adrenaline.
Keeping low, she entered the research center and prowled from one row of workstations to the next, searching for one that looked more inconspicuous than the others.
One that looked more inconspicuous than the others . . . Thea almost laughed out loud at the absurd notion. She heard the voices enter the office and ducked down where she was, as far toward the rear of the lab as possible. Somehow, there had to be a moment when she could move forward along the cluttered workbenches back toward the waiting room.
The voices grew louder. Three people, maybe four, including one woman. Thea knew that surprise was the only element in her favor. She crawled ten feet in the direction of the waiting room. There was no choice but to make a dash for the staircase—at least to try—and soon. Realistically, though, she knew there was still too great a distance to the door and the stairs.
She glanced down at her knapsack and the two MRIs. It was going to be even more difficult trying to make it out of the lab carrying them. Perhaps her best chance was to leave them behind inside one of the cabinets, and to come back for them later on. Even if she got caught and was arrested, the twins would help her get a good lawyer, and she would get out of jail before too long. It wasn’t as if she had hurt or killed anyone. If nobody needed anything from the cabinet she chose, there was no telling how long the knapsack and films might stay there undisturbed.
The voices were getting louder, and Thea felt certain at least one person had entered the lab area. Slowly, fearing the hinges were going to squeal, she eased open the door beneath the slate- covered workbench next to her. There was no sound, the movement of the door was quite smooth, and in fact, she realized, the construction smelled new. But even more interesting to Thea was that the cabinet was empty—completely empty. In fact, peering in she could see that the space next to it was empty, too.
There was some electronic equipment on top of the workbench, but it looked as if no scientist had been assigned to this area. If that were so, not only could the knapsack remain there undiscovered, but with a little maneuvering, perhaps she could as well. There wasn’t much space—if she were five ten instead of five seven, or overweight, there might not have been enough room, but the option felt smarter than trying to run.
“Someone go through the lab and try to find the window where they got in.”
There was no more time. Terrified of scraping against the wood, or inadvertently kicking the door, Thea set the knapsack aside and eased herself feetfirst into the cabinet and onto her right side. Her knees could bend just a little. When she tried extending her legs, her feet just touched some glassware. The faint clink it made, given the circumstances, sounded like a church bell.
With a band of tension tightening around her chest, she drew her knees up an inch or two and pulled the knapsack and films into the curvature formed by her belly. Then she reached her fingers around the cabinet door and closed it soundlessly. The moment before her hiding place was plunged into utter darkness, she thought she saw that one of the films wasn’t completely inside. There was no way she could be sure if part of it was sticking out, and no way she could move off her arm to pull it in farther.
Her position was terribly uncomfortable, especially her right elbow, which was pinned beneath her, and the bony medial condyles of her knees, which were pressing against each other, left on right. The knapsack made it extremely difficult to change position.
Outside the cabinet she heard the shuffling of feet as someone walked slowly down her row. Suddenly, directly beside where she was lying, the shuffling stopped. Something solid, a nightstick, she imagined, was laid on the countertop above her. Half a minute passed before Hayley’s MRI film lying beneath her began to move as it was pulled out under the door.
She pressed her arched back tightly against the rear wall of the cabinet. Moments later, the door swung open, flooding the space with fluorescent light. She caught a glimpse of a dark blue uniform just before a powerful flashlight beam struck her in the eyes. The nearly blinding light stayed locked in place as the security guard knelt down behind it, peering in at her.
“Thea?” Dan Cotton said. “What the—?”
CHAPTER 32
With security people and police throughout the lab, there was no way Dan could chance bringing Thea out of the cabinet. He promised to be back for her as soon as it was safe, then softly eased the door closed.
Thea lay in the cramped blackness for another three hours. The terrible throbbing in her arm gave way to a stinging numbness, and finally to no sensation at all. Twice her legs cramped up so ferociously that she had to risk opening the door just to stretch out. Each time she could hear voices not that far away, and each time she pulled her legs back before she was ready.
She knew Dan would do whatever he could to protect her, but she also knew that in terms of seniority, he was low man on the pole, and in no position to give orders. There was no choice but to battle the increasing pain in any way she could and to give her mind work to do. For a time she tried meditating—something she had never done with much success or enjoyment in the past, and didn’t succeed at now. For a while she sang silently—native Congolese songs mostly. And for a time she tried to reason out the significance to what she had found in Lydia Thibideau’s office.
She was in the midst of those thoughts when Thibideau’s voice suddenly intruded from not far away.
“How did they handle the glass like that, Detective Putnam?”
“Glass cutter, suction devices. Not so difficult if you know what you’re doing. Whoever did it were professionals, and bold ones at that. It was pure chance that one of the security people, who happens to be a former cop, was working a double shift and remembered the bucket truck parked at another location after working hours.”
“Professional thieves? I . . . I just don’t understand.”
“You have no idea what they might have been after?”
“We have a number of anticancer agents under investigation or in development. It’s possible one of the pharmaceutical companies is involved in some way. If even one of these treatments is approved for general use, there could be a great deal of money involved.”
“Industrial spies are everywhere, especially in the drug industry. Could someone be after something in your patient records?”
“I can’t think of what, and at first glance I didn’t see any sign they were tampered with. But just in case, I’ve got maintenance here right now moving my files to a secured area until we get to the bottom of this.”
The voices faded away. How ironic that Dan was probably the one who blew the whistle on her and Flowers. She probably should have told him what they were planning, but the truth was, she really didn’t want to compromise him in any way. Now, if he could somehow get her out of there with Hayley’s films before her arms and legs permanently stopped functioning, she would have what she needed, and Dan would be something of a hero for thwarting the robbery. Thea waited as long as she could stand, and finally eased open the cabinet door just long enough to move one leg a few inches. Her arm seemed beyond saving, but continuous flexing of her fingers suggested she wasn’t giving her body enough credit.
She returned to the darkness. The lab was again completely silent. Had the police left? What plan did Dan have for getting her out? How big of a chance was he going to have to take? Should she just ignore his orders and try to get off the fifth floor and out of the building?
Their conversation in Wellesley had made it clear Dan wasn’t ready to reapply for the police force yet, and may not be ready ever.
The job here was important to him for a number of reasons, including making his child-support payments. If she were in any way responsible for him getting fired, she would have trouble ever forgiving herself.
Another long stretch of time passed during which she heard nothing but her own breathing and an occasional involuntary groan of discomfort from deep in her throat. For a while, she tried to focus on Hayley, and what she should tell her. Someone, somehow, had created an MRI with her name on it, taken at a private radiology center in Atlanta, and showing her to have a lethal cancer. How could that be? Was Thibideau responsible—drumming up business, perhaps? Was some doctor or other employee at North Central Georgia Imaging being paid off to switch films? Or had there simply been a terrible, terrible mistake in labeling or filing?
The unanswerable questions kept piling on top of one another.
There was just too much for her brain to get around. She needed to get out and she needed to talk with someone who knew medicine, and who understood the deviousness of people, and the lengths to which some were willing to go in order to . . . to what? The perfect person to help her was lying in a dense coma just a few buildings away. But in all likelihood, he was there because he had learned the very same things that she was in the process of discovering.
Strained near to coming apart, Thea closed her eyes tightly and began humming a Congolese lullaby—her favorite of all the music she had learned during her years in Africa. Her mind followed the tune to the village nearest her hospital—a simple, vibrant place where beautiful people woke up each day to profound poverty, illness, and uncertainty, yet still managed to smile . . . and to sing.
My little black dove
Curled up in your nest of love,
The moon is a charm
To keep you from harm
Asleep at my breast. . . .
Humming, a coping strategy dating to her earliest days of therapy, when ferocious meltdowns were nearly a daily occurrence, brought her an almost immediate calm. Her breathing slowed, and the tightness in the muscles of her face abated. She had drifted off to sleep when the door to the cabinet was eased open. This time, a flashlight was shone not in her eyes, but up into the regal face of a man in his thirties. The concern in his expression was genuine. He was extremely handsome, with features and coloring that reminded her of a Congolese surgeon she had worked with a year or so ago. From what Thea could tell from where she lay, he was wearing the gray uniform of hospital maintenance.
“Dr. Sperelakis, I presume,” he whispered. His voice was a rich bass.
“You presume right.”
“My name is Lockwood. Dennis Lockwood. I’m a friend of Dan Cotton’s. I’m also a cop.” He flipped his wallet open and shined the light on his badge. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“That’s okay with me.”
“Can you move?”
Thea tried and was surprised at how easily her arms and legs responded.
“Here I come,” she said, setting her knapsack and the MRIs onto the floor and squirming out after them.
There were no overheads on in the lab, but the walls of windows let in a good deal of light from outside streetlamps.
“It’s just the two of us,” Lockwood said, continuing to whisper as he helped her to her knees, “but I don’t know for how long. Stay low just in case someone shows up or looks in from across the alley. Here, I brought you a limo.”
He reached behind him and pulled over a large canvas laundry cart. Thea tumbled gracelessly over the edge and dropped onto some blankets on the bottom.
“Did you work with Dan on the force?” she asked. “Is that why you’re here?”
“No. He saved my life. That’s why I’m here. If he told me to roll on hot coals, I would seriously consider doing it.”
“I don’t think he would, though,” Thea said.
“No,” Lockwood said curiously, “I don’t suppose he would. . . . Okay, Doc. Hunch down and pull those blankets over you. We’re going to meet Dan outside.”
Thea did as she was asked, and used a corner of one blanket to wipe the greasepaint from her face. It was a miracle that she was about to get away unscathed from what had been an absolutely horrible idea. And even more miraculous, she was coming away with serious, credible evidence as to what might have caused someone to try to kill her father. All she needed now was to figure out how best to use what she had gathered, what it actually meant, and what to advise Hayley to do.
Dennis Lockwood wheeled Thea out of the building without incident. When he finally told her it was safe to stand, they were in a secluded grove in the far southwest corner of the campus. Dan was waiting, and held her firmly against his broad chest.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” she said to Lockwood.
“Anytime.”
“I hope not.”
“Pardon?”
“I hope you don’t have to rescue me again.”
“We need to get going,” Dan said, making no attempt to explain Thea to his friend. “Lock will take you to your car. I don’t want you to get caught now after all we’ve gone through, and I think the BPD are still nosing around.”
“Did they catch Sean?”
“That’s your cat burglar partner?”
“It’s a long story, but yes.”
“Well, he seems to have outrun the law. I think I could have had him, but my boss wanted the glory of making—”
“—the bust.”
Thea joined him saying the words, and they both grinned.
“It’s another long story,” Dan said to Lockwood. “Thanks for doing this, my friend.”
“You call, I come. You and me are still a long way from being even. We’re saving your place at work, you know.”
“I know, Lock. I know.”
Thea could feel the sadness in his voice.
CHAPTER 33
Through the faintest gray of early morning, Thea rode with Dennis Lockwood to the Sperelakis Institute parking lot on the exact opposite side of the Beaumont campus. It had taken Thea some time and thought to decide to park there and not in one of the high- rise garages on the other side of the campus. But in the end, she was determined not to have her actions dictated by the animal who had assaulted her.
“Do you think Dan did the right thing?” she asked Lockwood.
“Right thing?”
“Quitting the force the way he did after he was forced to shoot that boy.”
“I’ve never killed a kid, killed anyone for that matter, so I really couldn’t say.”
“I have.”
“You have what?”
“Killed a kid. Sometimes, in my business, when patients are really, really sick, we have to make choices and make them quickly. Sometimes the choices we make don’t work. Sometimes they actually make a bad situation worse. Sometimes . . .”
Her voice trailed away.
“I understand,” Lockwood said. “And I suppose you could say Dan should have rolled with the punch of what he had to do. But I was there. I saw how crazed that poor kid was after being picked on and bullied the way he had been. He didn’t know up from Thursday. From what we learned later, he never did anything wrong except for trying to be himself. That got him chased and beaten up again and again. Some of the gang who did it didn’t even go to his school. Some were several years older.”
“That’s so ugly and so sad.”
“Dan yelled at him to drop his gun or he would shoot. That’s when the kid whirled with the gun pointed right at my chest from like twenty feet away. His eyes were glazed over. There’s no way he saw me as a person.”
“Dan had no choice. Just like if he was a doctor. You do your best and then live with the consequences.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” the policeman said coolly.
Thea sensed that her statement didn’t sit well with Lockwood—hard to believe since it made perfect sense to her. She sensed as well that there was something missing in her response—something else she should be saying.
“Is there anything I could do or say to help Dan out now?”
The moment she heard her words, she pictured Dr. Carpenter smiling at her and nodding from across her desk.
You’re getting it, Thea. You’re getting it.
Lockwood shrugged, but his expression said clearly that her question met his approval as well.
“Just be there, I guess,” he said. “Be there and be patient. Don’t try and force him into any decisions before he’s ready.”
Thea hugged Lockwood, thanked him again, then asked him to wait until she had locked herself into her car. She drove out of the parking lot behind him, and headed up Route 9 toward Wellesley, wondering if Dan was thinking she might be the woman he had been waiting for—if, in fact, he had been waiting for a woman at all.
It was after five when she pulled into the drive. The lights in the carriage house were on as usual, although she knew they were no guarantee Dimitri was awake. After she showered and changed, it might be worth asking his opinion as to how she should approach Hayley with the news of her MRIs, and also any speculation as to what the disturbing findings might mean. His contribution to any situation was always hit or miss, but his unquestioned genius often allowed him to think outside any box.
Perhaps she could even talk him into accompanying her to the barbecue Niko and his wife were having that evening in honor of her return. Niko promised that a full complement of Aunt Marys would be there, and it would be the first time all four of Petros’s children had been together in years.
