The Second Opinion, page 22
“Hey, there, sis.”
Selene, elegant in a white pants suit with gold lamé trim, cradled a glass of champagne in her left hand, and a dainty lobster salad sandwich in her right.
“Oh, hi, Selene. Nice party, huh?”
“Niko and Marie throw the best barbecues.”
“Everyone seems to be having a great time.”
Small talk. There was a time when Thea didn’t have the vaguest idea of what it was or what purpose it served. Now she smiled inwardly whenever she heard herself use it seamlessly.
“See Petros today?”
No more small talk from Selene.
“Twice.”
“He blink you any messages?”
Thea sought to comprehend the tone behind the words, then simply gave up.
“How’d you learn about that?” she asked.
“Everybody knows about it, Thea. But I must add that not so many, me included, believe it.”
“That’s okay.”
“Knowing how he felt about you leaving the country the way you did, it’s a little hard for me to see him choosing you as the one portal for his communication with the world.”
“Maybe I’m just misinterpreting things.”
Thea began casting about for someone else she might want to talk with. The combination of Selene’s now clearly disparaging tone, and the information passed on about the woman by Dimitri, were more than she wanted to deal with at this moment.
“You know, Thea,” Selene went on, “in this family we pride ourselves in not keeping secrets from one another. If you have something to tell us about Petros, we’d like to hear it.”
“Like what?”
“Like whether he’s really awake and alert, and whether he’s found a way to tell you that he knows whether or not the driver of that car actually hit him on purpose.”
Thea felt slightly ill at the notion of how much conversation had been going on about her throughout the hospital, first about her and Dan, now this.
“Do you believe that was the case?” she asked.
“I believe what the police believe after their thorough investigation.”
“Selene, if I learn anything at all from Dad, you’ll be the first one I tell.”
“You should have just let him die, you know.”
“What?”
“Not everything is as simple as you think. It was his time. He could have had a peaceful passing, but you just couldn’t let it happen.”
Thea felt an intense burn across the back of her neck.
“No, Selene,” she said, “I just couldn’t.”
She reached out to a passing waiter and plucked a cucumber- and-something hors d’oeuvre from his tray, then followed him across the lawn, consciously refusing to look back. When she finally did, on the far side of the yard, she saw Selene huddled in animated, secretive conversation with her twin. Twice, she thought Selene actually gestured in her direction.
Half an hour of standing by herself, except for an occasional brief visit from one of her Aunt Marys or a cousin, had Thea thinking about going home, even though the jazz trio had just begun playing, and there was no sign yet of dessert. None of those at the party were friends of hers, or even acquaintances from her school years. Dimitri might have been fun to have along, but then again, he was just as likely to do something outrageous and disruptive. In fact, she found herself wondering if Niko had actually invited their brother at all, or if she had just assumed he had. If she were somewhat out of place here, Dimitri would have been positively extraterrestrial.
Thea was about to return to the buffet for seconds when she saw Amy Musgrave striding purposefully toward her. The legendary director of nursing at the Beaumont, a trim, intense fifty or so, was married to a doctor, and had some children, but at the moment her husband, a psychiatrist, Thea thought, was nowhere in evidence. Remembering that Marlene had warned her about Amy being irritated that Thea had hired special-duty nurses, she was on alert. Within seconds, she knew she had good reason to be.
“So, Thea, what do you think of your welcome-home party?”
“It’s very beautiful here. So peaceful.”
“Yes, peaceful. Niko and Marie certainly know how to throw a shindig.”
“Listen, Amy, I want to explain why I decided to hire specials for my father.”
“No need,” she replied coolly.
“My brother Dimitri has a theory regarding the hit- and-run. He thinks it was deliberate.”
“Excuse me for saying it, Thea, but I’ve met Dimitri a number of times. He doesn’t seem too, how should I put it, reliable.”
“But he is very bright. You’ll have to give him that.”
“Actually, since you brought it up, it seems as if he goes out of his way to rile people up and upset them.”
“Perhaps. But I’ve seen him be right any number of times.”
“If you say so.”
“Then, remember the fake orderly who assaulted the guard outside of the unit?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I believe he was sent into the hospital to silence my father.”
“The motive?”
“Well, Dimitri feels that Petros learned something that someone didn’t want to have made public.”
“About what?”
Musgrave suddenly seemed interested.
“I don’t know.”
“But you agree with him?”
“I do. That’s why I decided to have Father watched around the clock—not because I thought he needed more or better nursing care, just to keep a closer eye on the many visitors to his room, and to stay on the lookout for anyone who wasn’t there as a friend.”
Musgrave sighed and gazed out across the crowd.
“Thea, someone needs to tell you,” she said finally.
“Tell me what?”
“Tell you that in all likelihood, your father’s accident was just that, an accident. But if it wasn’t, if somebody had intentionally tried to harm him, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to a lot of people.”
. . . wouldn’t have come as a surprise to a lot of people.
Thea was stunned. She struggled to make sense of the words coming from a woman she respected—a woman whom she had thought was a staunch supporter of her father’s.
“I don’t understand,” she managed.
The jazz trio had been joined by a singer—a stocky woman with a powerful voice, who was bemoaning the man who got away. Thea found herself unable to maintain even the slightest eye contact with Musgrave, and instead focused on the lantern light sparking off the singer’s skintight sequined gown.
“Do you know,” Musgrave said, “that the National Hospital Association is locked in a war with the nursing services from all over the country as to whether or not there should be legislation setting minimum standards for RN staffing?”
“Not really. I—”
“The nursing associations are battling bravely to see those standards implemented, but we’re up against big, big money—insurance company money, managed care money, hospital corporation money. And the truth is we’re going to lose. As things stand, the only hospital of our size in this country that meets the standards right now is the Beaumont.”
“So that’s good.”
“Good for us, but we are fighting for other hospitals and their patients as well. The correlation between a sufficient number of RNs and hospital morbidity and mortality has been well established.”
“I think I might be missing something. What has this got to do with Petros Sperelakis?”
“Your father has been fighting against the fundraising philosophy that has enabled our main hospital and its satellites to win award after award for our nursing service. If your father had his way, the Beaumont would not be in a position to lead the way in nurse staffing or any other area.”
“Knowing my father as I do, Amy, excuse me for saying so, but I just don’t believe it.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Exactly what do you mean by fundraising philosophy anyway?”
The figure written beside Scott Hartnett’s thank-you in Jack Kalishar’s chart flashed across her mind.
Two hundred million dollars.
“Your father was made a department chief in the Beaumont because of his name and reputation, and in that regard, he has also brought in a good deal of revenue—but certainly not nearly the sort of revenue we need to run and expand an institution of the stature of the Beaumont. The truth is, Thea, the man has been a thorn in the side of almost everyone responsible for raising the sort of money we need to keep our hospital at the top of the heap. There are a lot of us who feel Petros had been throwing his weight around just because he liked the sound when someone got hit.”
Thea pulled her gaze from the singer and was finally able to level it steadily at Musgrave.
“Is Scott Hartnett one of those people?” she asked.
“I think I’ve said enough for now. I hear that you have decided to take over your father’s practice. I hope you have allegiance to hospitals like ours and the lengths they have to go to in order to keep saving lives.”
“I asked you if Scott was one of those who feels my father has been an impediment to raising funds at the Beaumont.”
“That’s not for me to say, but I just want you to know that your father is not always the icon you might think he is. And you are beginning to make some enemies around here—very powerful enemies.”
Without waiting for a response, the nursing director turned on her heel and was gone.
Utterly stunned by Musgrave’s words and the vehemence behind them, Thea followed with her eyes until the woman had disappeared around a corner of the house. Then she decided that she had heard as much as she wanted to hear about her deficiencies and those of her father, and had met as many people who were there to honor her as she was going to meet. Dessert or no dessert, she was leaving.
CHAPTER 38
From her twenties until the day she was diagnosed with cancer, Hay-ley was seldom aware of having dreams or of having dreamed. Now, she was awakening from nearly every sleep—even short naps—to vivid, frightening scenarios. The recurring themes of her nightmares were helplessness and enclosure: being buried alive in a coffi n, being staked out on sunbaked ground, running from an unseen pursuer through a structure with no doors and no windows. A fourth, recurrent theme, so realistic that she inevitably woke up gasping and in an icy sweat, was being eaten alive by vermin or insects.
She was invariably wearing a dress in those dreams—a yellow housedress with a matching belt. The ants or rats or more exotic bugs would climb her naked legs and begin to gnaw their way inside her, first through flesh and then muscle, until they had devoured her bright crimson tissues and eaten down to white bone.
So realistic were the images that she wondered if they were a side effect of the chemotherapy, or even of the death of the cancer cells in her body. She mentioned the dreams to Lydia Thibideau, but got only a somewhat bemused “don’t know” shrug.
Hayley’s mother, Belle, had been career Army and the center of her world. The nightmares began with Belle’s death in a truck rollover when Hayley was nine. Invariably, the terrifying dreams centered on soldiers, explosions, and death. Her father, also military, though never married to her mother, took over her upbringing, and did the best he could between benders.
Throughout her early years, in housing units on military bases around the country, and indeed the world, Hayley had been a tomboy—resilient, stubborn, and determined to succeed. She earned her first hundred dollars at age ten, cashing in empty bottles and cans. Five years ago, when her Wildwood Enterprises acquired Harmon Electronics in a bitterly contested hostile takeover, her net worth passed three billion—placing her firmly among the wealthiest women in the country.
Still, she described herself as having enlightened toughness, and was routinely included on lists of the most active and broad- based philanthropists.
Now, though, all of her money and all her enlightened toughness were not enough to keep the cancer cells from eating away at her core, or the nightmares from attacking her spirit. If she ever made it past this chemo, she vowed, people would benefit. Many people. Curing cancer on an individual and global basis would be her cause, and the reason for her to continue making money. But first, she needed to survive.
“Ms. Hayley Long?”
Hayley had been asleep in her reading chair when the orderly awakened her. The dream this time had been even sharper than usual—a wooden coffin, seen from the inside, buried deep beneath the earth. She was on her back within it, her nose just inches from the lid, suffocating as she pushed and pounded against the wood, helpless to force her way out, and unable to keep sand from falling between cracks and into her eyes and mouth.
“That’s me,” she heard herself say hoarsely.
She mopped her face and under her arms with a hand towel kept on her lap for just that purpose.
The orderly, tall and slender, was wearing a surgical mask and standing behind a wheelchair.
“Chest X-ray, then an MRI,” he said, checking the instructions he was holding.
“I didn’t know I was scheduled for X-rays. It seems awfully late.”
“I have no idea. They send me, I go.”
“Well, can I at least see your face?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve got a wicked chest cold. I would have stayed home, but they couldn’t get anyone else.”
The man lowered his mask, revealing a lean, well- tanned face that many would have felt was good- looking, but that didn’t hold much appeal for Hayley. She felt excited to be getting the MRI done, and wondered if Thea might have said something to her oncologist about Master Fang’s findings. She transferred herself and her blanket from chair to wheelchair, and paused to inspect the orderly’s ID.
“Okay, Mr. Elliot Smolensky,” she said, “put up your mask and let’s ride.”
The orderly was well-spoken and amusing. He said he was in his last few weeks at the Beaumont before starting his second year as a nursing student at Emmanuel College—a career transformation from working as a salvage diver. Too bad, she told him as he backed her into the elevator. She had constant use for industrial divers, but not so much for nurses.
“That’s very kind of you just the same,” Gerald Prevoir said.
Those were the last words Hayley heard from the man.
In what seemed like a single motion, he stopped the elevator long enough to clamp a hand over her mouth and bury a needle deep into the muscle at the base of her neck. Then he depressed the plunger and waited for the thirty seconds it took the drug to work.
Hayley was slumped back in the wheelchair, no longer conscious, when the doors opened on the main tunnel. Prevoir held her head erect and turned off into a side passageway. Traffic was light, and no one seemed to notice them.
Moments later, Hayley was covered with sheets, in a fetal position at the bottom of a laundry hamper. Soon after that, Prevoir calmly wheeled her out of a service entrance and hoisted her limp form into the back of a waiting van.
Hayley regained consciousness slowly, accompanied by a headache slamming against the back of her eyes like storm waves against a breakwater. She was in a small, windowless room, no more than eight by eight. The floor was plywood, and the walls packed dirt. A single bare lightbulb, no more than forty watts, illuminated the space from a sconce on the wall. Air from some sort of compressor blew in gently from a vent set in the ceiling. Along the walls were an apartment-sized refrigerator, a small micro wave, and a pile of perhaps twenty paperbacks—half fiction. In addition, there was a five-gallon bottle of spring water, some microwaveable food, and three pairs of pajamas.
Welcome to your fortress of solitude, a computer-printed note on the wall read. prepare yourself for a lengthy stay.
Her mind unwilling to acknowledge her situation, Hayley sank down on the edge of a metal-framed cot with a mattress that smelled of mildew. Then she scanned the damp, unadorned walls and the crude floor, and she began to scream.
CHAPTER 39
Thea knew that extricating herself from Niko and Marie’s barbecue had become critical for her peace of mind, but she also knew it was not going to be easy—at least not without lying again. She stopped at the pod of guests clustered about her brother, mentally ticking off a list of excuses—most of them acute medical conditions—that she might use. In the end, she decided that lying about anything was not an option. There was no excuse with which she felt comfortable other than the truth—or at least the part of the truth that didn’t involve her sister’s unpleasant behavior, or that of the Beaumont director of nursing.
“Hey there, sis,” Niko called out as she approached, “come over and meet some people.”
In an instant seven guests, all beaming, swung from her brother to her, hands extended, titles and names and connections to her father or Selene, or Niko and Marie, flying at her like darts. With the onslaught, Thea began feeling shaky and confined. Still, she managed to pump each hand in the group. She had never passed out—never even came close that she recalled, but now, sensitized by Selene and Mus-grave, and enclosed in a ring of Niko’s friends, she wondered if it might possibly happen.
“Niko, could I talk to you for a minute?” she managed.
“Sure, sis. Hold the fort, everyone. That bartender looks like he’s about to die of boredom. Why don’t you all go and give him something to do? . . . You okay, Thea?”
“Actually—” Thea stopped herself again from taking the easy way out with a lie, the pounding headache one that she had selected as most believable. “I’m worn out, and I need to go home.”
“But this is your party. Have you seen Aunt Mary? She came all the way from Springfield to see you.”
“I’m sure I haven’t missed any Aunt Marys. I’ve just had enough crowd and steak for one night. The party’s been wonderful, Niko. Really, it has.”
Niko tried to look hurt, but Thea thought that he missed. At that moment, she noticed Lydia Thibideau halfway across the lawn, deeply enmeshed in conversation with Sharon Karsten. Lydia, the specialist called in by Petros to care for Jack Kalishar and Hayley Long, and probably a number of other patients as well, and Sharon, Petros’s paramour and possibly one of his heirs. Thea wished that she could be close enough to hear.
