waited until she was settled on her bed to open it.
Miss Enders I saw your poster and the offer of a reward. I know your brother, and I knorw a lot about him.
He was working freight around Warehouse 18 on the East Boston docks.
Although I don't know what happened to him, there are people working there who do. Ask around, and be persistent. They will try to lie to you. I will be watching for you, and will make myself known to you when I feel it is right to do so. Your brother is a good man.
I hope he's all right.
Laura was preparing to go and question the desk clerk about the note when Eric rang her from the lobby. She took the elevator down, pleased to sense herself so excited to see him again. He greeted her with an uncertain kiss on the cheek. She held him tightly.
Eric glanced back at the empty lobby and then kissed her again, this time with much less inhibition.
'You okay?' he asked.
'I am now. At least I'm better. The things we learned last night about Scott didn't really sink in until about four this morning. The hours since then have been a little rocky.'
'I understand. Well, for what it's worth, I couldn't wait to see you again.'
'You know, at one point, while we were talking on the phone, I thought you were going to beg off.'
'I almost did. I was on the verge of getting myself into a situation at the hospital that probably isn't right.
Some of the things you said to me last night helped me decide to get out of it before I drifted in over my — head.
'In that case I'm glad I said them.'
Eric sighed. 'Unfortunately,' he said, 'a byproduct of my refusal win be that I won't get that promotion.'
'What do you mean?'
He hesitated for a time and then briefly recounted his contacts with Caduceus, and his decision first to join their efforts in exchange for the promotion, and then to let the whole business go.
'I think you did the right thing,' she said after a time. 'The whole idea sounds a little scary.'
'Actually, doctors use unauthorized therapies more than you might think-a drug or piece of equipment that's approved for one purpose, but that theory or their own testing has convinced them is effective for another. I did it myself once.'
Thoughts of the pericardial laser immediately conjured the scene at the bedside of Thomas Jordan.
And in that moment Eric knew that for as long as he practiced medicine, he would never again knowingly risk a patient's life by using an unapproved therapy.
'Well, for what it's worth, I think you've made the right decisionyen at the price you might have to pay.
'I hope so. You said last night that the worst thing that can happen if I don't get what I want is that I get something else instead.
I just hope that whatever that something turns out to be carries a paycheck.'
'That is a definite not-to-worry,' she said. 'We need doctors badly in the Islands, and I'd love the chance to teach you to dive.
How's that for a place to start?' — 'You mean I — can be a doctor and actually do something else at the same time?'
She smiled and kissed him lightly.
'Lots of other things,' she said. 'Listen, I've got some coffee that's getting cold up in the room, but I wanted to speak with the desk clerk first. Look what he handed me a few minutes ago.'
Eric read the note.
'Where did this come from?' he asked.
'That's what I wanted to find out.'
The desk clerk, a thin, wiry Iranian, looked at the envelope, then shrugged and handed it back.
'I couldn't tell you, ma'am,' he said. 'I came on at six-thirty, and it was right here. Perhaps the night clerk knows something.'
'Could you call him?' Laura asked. 'I could, but he's got a day job and I don't have any way to reach him. Why don't you check with him tonight?'
'All right,' she said.
Eric stepped forward and placed a ten in view on the counter.
'We'd love it if you could try,' he said.
The man hesitated and then took the bill.
'No guarantees,' he said.
'You'd think by now I would have learned,' Laura said as the man headed to the back room.
'Actually, I never did that before,' Eric replied.
Two minutes later the clerk was back.
'Malik says the note was dropped off by a guy with a tan jacket on.
Forty or so, dark hair. He says he's seen him hanging around the hotel lately, but he doesn't know who he is.'
They thanked the man and headed for the elevators.
'I saw him, too,' Eric said suddenly.
'What?'
'The guy in the tan jacket. I'm sure I saw him last night. He was sitting right over there. My friend Windy tried to proposition him, but he brushed her off just like that.'
'Would you recognize him?'
'Doubtful.'
They entered Laura's room and stretched out on her bed.
'What do you make of this latest twist?' she asked, setting the muffins out on a towel between them.
'The note doesn't say anything about when Scott was supposed to have been on the docks, and it doesn't say anything that would prove the guy who wrote it actually knew him.'
'So what's your guess?'
'My guess is the guy in the jacket picked up on you, somewhere in your travels, and has been following you around.'
'But why didn't he try to set up a meeting? And why the East Boston docks? Surely there are more secluded places he could lure me to if he wanted to.
And why did he write what he did about people lying to me?'
'I don't know.'
'So, what should we do next?'
'Well, I think we should go and poke around the East Boston docks, and be persistent because people will be lying to us.'
'What about Donald Devine?'
'We can hit the docks this morning. Before we leave, I'll call and arrange for us to enter the Gates of Heaven after lunch.'
'What's Devine like?'
'He has Muzak violins playing in his mortuary even when there's no funeral.'
'Sounds creepy.'
'Let's just say that when I go, he's not the route I want to take.'
Laughing, Laura rolled over on top of him. She stroked her lips across his and then kissed him deeply.
'You know,' she said, 'I really like you.'
Eric glanced down beside them.
'Enough to replace that half a muffin of mine you just flattened?'
She pressed her body tightly against his and kissed him with increasing longing.
'Enough to make you forget you were ever hungry,' she said.
Reed Marshall glanced out at the crowded waiting room. Then he pressed his fingers against his temples and repeated the word serene over and over to himself.
