excitement slipped away.
Friday was the day after tomorrow, and somehow it all seemed to be happening too fast.
Way too fast.
But what could she do? She’d already made up her mind — in fact, she’d been ready to argue with her father for as long as it took to get his approval, or even go ahead without it. So what had changed?
But she already knew what had changed. It was the fact that it was actually going to happen on Friday afternoon. Someone from Conrad’s office was going to pick her up at Wilson and take her up to Le Chateau, and they were going to put her under anesthetics, and Conrad would operate on her.
And suddenly she was frightened. Just thinking about it made her heart beat faster and her skin feel clammy and—
She reopened her history book and found the paragraph she’d been reading over and over again. Her paper on the Boer War wasn’t actually due until Friday morning, so maybe instead of trying to work on it tonight, she should do something else.
Like try to relax.
Three sharp knocks on her bedroom door startled Alison out of her reverie, and she reflexively pulled the book closer, as if that would convince whoever was in the hall that she’d been studying rather than worrying. “It’s not locked,” she called out. “Come on in.”
Conrad Dunn opened the door and held up three small bottles of pills. “Hey,” he said. “In the middle of something? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Just trying to get through my history assignment,” she replied.
“And not getting anywhere with it, right?” Conrad stepped into her room, and when he didn’t close the door behind him, Alison felt a strange sense of relief, and found herself nodding in agreement with what he’d said.
“I thought so. Unless you’re completely different from everyone else, you’ve been sitting up here thinking about Friday afternoon and wishing you could change your mind.”
She stared at him. How could he have known what was going on in her mind? But before she could ask the question, he answered it.
“Happens to everyone. Until the surgery’s actually scheduled, it’s all just an abstraction. But then suddenly you know exactly what day and what time it’s going to happen, and it all becomes real. And scary. Which is one of the reasons I came up here — couldn’t let you go to bed terrified and feeling guilty about wanting to change your mind. If you want to change your mind, do it. I penciled in the appointment, remember? One word from you and it goes away.” Conrad crossed the room and put the three vials on Alison’s desk, and when she didn’t stand up, he crouched awkwardly next to her chair. “But if you don’t change your mind, I want you to start taking these. They’re homeopathic medicines that do absolutely amazing things to reduce bleeding and bruising from surgery, and there are others I’ll give you afterward that will speed your recovery time.”
She picked up the bottles one by one to read the labels as he explained each one.
“Arnica reduces swelling and bruising, and ferrum phos is good for inflammation and any kind of fever. That last one is a combination of hormones. I want you to take two capsules three times a day,” he finished as she studied the label on the third bottle. “Starting now.”
“And you really think I can go back to school on Monday?” she asked with disbelief.
“Barring any complications,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard the doubt in her voice. He stood up, his knees cracking. “You should be off all pain meds by then, except maybe for a little Tylenol. I’ll keep you on the homeopathics for a week afterward, but you won’t even notice them — they have absolutely no side effects whatsoever. There will still be stitches, of course, and possibly some very minor swelling, so no gym class, no running, throwing, or anything like that at all for a month. Okay?”
“Okay,” Alison said, setting the three bottles on the edge of her desk.
“Okay, then,” Conrad said, touching her shoulder lightly. “And don’t forget — say the word, and we cancel the whole thing.”
Alison looked up at him. “Thanks,” she said softly. “I’ll think about it, but I think I’m gonna be okay now. Maybe all I needed was a little pep talk.”
“Well, if you need another, just come find me. Good night.”
“Good night.”
As soon as her stepfather was gone, she logged on to the Internet to look up the medicines he’d given her. Arnica and ferrum phos — which turned out to be short for phosphoricum — were easy to find and turned out to be exactly what Conrad had told her they were: fairly common remedies for pre-and postsurgical procedures.
But there was no information on the label of the bottle containing the pink capsules. All it said was:
That, and the name of the manufacturer, Healing Health Laboratories, which was in Beverly Hills.
She found the HHL website, and after hunting all over the site finally figured out that the company was a subsidiary of DeLorian Cosmetics. But when she tried to find out more about the pink capsules Conrad had given her, she was confronted with a page asking for a user name and password. At the bottom of the screen was a notice to the effect that more information about Healing Health products could be obtained from any one of a short list of doctors. The fourth name on the list was “Dunn, Conrad,” followed by his office address and telephone number.
After trying a couple more searches for either the pills or Healing Health products, she logged off. Though she hadn’t found much, she knew DeLorian Cosmetics was one of the best — and most expensive — around. And she remembered meeting Danielle DeLorian at her mother’s and Conrad’s wedding.
She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, doing her best to rid herself of the last of her misgivings. She was just nervous, that was all. But not as nervous as she’d been before Conrad had told her she could back out at any time. And, as she thought about it, she realized she didn’t want to back out of it. It was scheduled, and everybody at school knew about it, and—
— and she kept seeing herself in that beautiful dress hanging in her closet, and in her mind’s eye its bodice was filled not with Kleenex, or even falsies.
It was filled with her own perfect breasts.
She shook out the pink capsules from their bottles, took them into her bathroom, got a glass of water, and washed them down.
Back in her room, she put the homeopathic tablets under her tongue and let them dissolve, just like the labels instructed.
And suddenly she couldn’t wait for Friday.
Or, more exactly, for Friday evening, when it would all be over.
20
TINA WONG LEANED BACK IN HER DESK CHAIR, CLOSED HER EYES, AND rubbed at her right shoulder, even though she knew the pain from hours of manipulating her computer’s mouse wouldn’t ease for at least three days. And the work had barely begun: her editing bay wouldn’t be available until five-thirty, though at least Pete had taken the footage home to make a rough cut on his personal equipment so they could get a running start this evening. So if everything went smoothly — which, of course, it never did — they’d have a good cut by morning. Then Michael could review it, run it by any executives who needed to approve it, and they could recut it if they had to.
And they’d have time to spare before airing the special on Sunday night.
If everything went smoothly.
Which, of course, it never did.
There were too many things that could go wrong. If the police caught the killer, the whole thing would have
