Syndrome

'You're free to dither as much as you like,' Dr. Debra Connolly said, her smile vanishing, 'but our programs are on a schedule.'

'I'd still-'

'I'll just be taking a small amount of blood. We can then get started on the cultures while you talk.' She was already swabbing Ally's arm and feeling for a vein. 'Now make a fist.'

Ally hated giving blood and to distract herself she glanced around the office, trying to construct a life story for Dr. Karl Van de Vliet. Then she noticed a photo of him and a woman standing together on a bridge, next to a sign that saidCharles river, which meant Boston, and they were holding hands and smiling.

The odd thing was, the cars behind them were models at least fifteen years old, yet he looked just the same as he did today.

Whoa. There it is again. That odd age thing. There is something very strange about this man.She finally got up her courage to ask.

'Dr. Connolly, do you know how old Dr. Van de Vliet is? He looks so young.'

'There are some things it's not polite to ask.' She was capping off the vial and reaching for a second. Her voice had grown genuinely frosty.

'Frankly, I don't see why. He knows everything there is to know about me. He has all my files.'

'You could ask at the front desk for one of our brochures. I'm sure it would clear up any questions you have.' She attached the second vial to the needle.

'I've seen it. I know when he went to school and all that. But still-'

'If you really want to know personal things, you might just ask him yourself. You two seem to get along so well.'

What is with her? Ally puzzled. Why is she being so hostile and negative? And why that little jab about 'getting along'? The truth was, Debra Connolly could have been a runway model, but in a lab coat her blondness and figure just intensified her bitchiness.

Okay, maybe the question about his age wasn't overly relevant, more a matter of idle curiosity. But howdidhe do it? Every woman alive would like to know. Maybe the story Grant had told about Van de Vliet and his experimental skin treatment was actually true. She hadn't put much stock in it at the time, but seeing him out here in the flesh. .'

'There's actually something else I was curious about. Was a patient dropped from the trials a few months back? I was wondering if you could tell me anything about that.'

'What have you heard that would make you ask such a question?' Debra Connolly's face went blank, but her blue eyes registered alarm. 'No one here is allowed to discuss specific cases. That would be a violation of NIH rules and highly unethical. What made you ask that question?'

Hey, why so defensive? Could it be Stone is on to something that needs more daylight?

'I did a little research on the Gerex Corporation and. .' Then she had an inspired hunch. 'You know, the NIH has a Web site where they post all the clinical trials they have under way.' This was actually something she knew to be true. She had used the site to look up information about possible clinical trials for Alzheimer's patients that might accept her mother. But she never could find any in the New York area that seemed to offer any hope. 'So naturally, your study was there. I like to know as much as I can about what I'm getting into.'

'I've been to that Web site many times. The public part doesn't include-'

'So,hasa patient ever been terminated?' Ally cut her off, hoping to avoid being caught in a lie. 'If so, I'd really like to know why.'

'No one is allowed to discuss any details of the clinical studies.' She was capping off the last vial of blood the three cylinders of red against the steel.

'I think I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Van de Vliet before I go any further with this program,' Ally said feeling her temper and her warning instincts both ratchet up. 'I feel like I'm being stonewalled.'

'You're free to think what you like.' Debra Connolly had turned and was brusquely heading for the doorway when it was blocked by another blonde, this one in her late fifties, who was standing in the threshold and brandishing a black automatic pistol. Her eyes were wild. The security guard from the entrance and the nurse from the front desk upstairs were both cowering behind her.

'Where's Kristen?' she demanded. 'Where's my daughter? I know she's alive, goddam you. I've come to take her home.'

Chapter 18

Wednesday, April 8

11:03a.m.

'Who are you and how did you get in here?' Debra Connolly demanded backing away from the door and quickly settling her steel tray onto a table. Ally got the instant impression that Deb knewexactlywho she was.

The woman's hair was an ash blond tint above dark roots and was clipped short in a curt style. Her troubled face had stress lines, and her heavy makeup reminded Ally of a younger Sylvia Miles or perhaps a particularly intense real estate agent, except that real estate agents don't charge in on you brandishing a Beretta.

'It's all been a lie,' the woman declared her cigarette-fogged voice shrill. If she recognized Debra, it wasn't apparent.

Ellen hit a button on the desk and spoke into the intercom. 'Dr. Vee, could you please come to your office immediately. It's an emergency. There's someone here who-'

'You're damned right it's an emergency,' the woman barked at her.

'Hadn't you better give me the gun?' Debra asked, holding out her hand and stepping toward her.

The woman turned and trained the pistol on her. 'Just back off, sister. And keep out of this. I know you work for him but you're just a flunky.'

'Then could you at least keep your voice down,' Debra Connolly said, her composure hard as ice. The jab had bounced right off. Underneath the beauty pageant exterior she was all steel and sinew. 'There are patients upstairs. . '

The hapless security man who'd been trailing behind the woman had gone over to the positive-pressure door of the laboratory and was desperately banging on the glass and waving for Dr. Van de Vliet. A moment later, he strode out, still wearing his white lab jacket.

'You,' the woman hissed, turning to meet him. 'You're the one who has her. You and that bastard Bartlett.'

'Madam, I must ask you to leave,' he said warily as he came up to her. 'Immediately.' He glanced down at the pistol. 'Otherwise I'll have to call the police.'

Although he was giving the impression that the woman was just an anonymous annoyance, Ally was sure she caught a glimmer of recognition, and a patina of poorly disguised panic, in his eyes.

'I want to see Kristen, damn you. I want to know what you've done with her. To her. You and that bastard Winston Bartlett who got her into-'

'Kristen?' He seemed puzzled. Then he appeared to remember. 'There was a patient here briefly a while back, who I believe was named-'

'Kristen Starr. That's right, you fucker. And you damned well do remember her. And me. She's my daughter. Where is she?'

My God, Ally thought,could she meanthatKristen Starr, the one who had an interview show on cable. The world around this institute just keeps getting smaller.

Ally had actually done an interior-design project for Kristen

Starr back when she was first getting up to speed at CitiSpace. It was one of her first jobs. At that time Kristen had just signed a two-year contract with E! and she wanted to renovate her co-op in Chelsea. But then just as the job was completed, she sold the place and moved to a brownstone in the West Village, or so she'd said. Ally