“Yes,” Dopp murmured.
The line clicked off, and Dopp closed his eyes. Windra never said good-bye when he was upset, and it left Dopp feeling rattled, as if he had suddenly been tossed out of a moving car.
He walked to Trent’s office with a purposeful stride so that no one would stop and question him. With his head held high, he could avoid indignant gazes. He ducked into the office and pulled the door shut behind him.
“Hi, boss,” Trent said. “What can I do for you?”
Dopp leaned against the door and crossed his arms. After last night’s dinner, he had come away feeling more sympathetic to Trent, though no less frustrated in general. Joanie had also thought well of him; it was clear that he came from a good Christian family like their own. Dopp sincerely wanted to like him, as he always had—and it was easier to do so when he recalled Banks’s suggestion: Give Trent the benefit of the doubt.
“Albany just called,” Dopp said. “It’s not looking good.”
Trent frowned. “I’m doing everything I can.”
“It’s still not enough.” Dopp recounted his search of all the known labs in the East Village, which had yielded nothing. “You’re supposed to find out what she’s doing in that neighborhood.”
“I know. But she hasn’t gone anywhere except home and the clinic since she got her wheelchair.”
“And I assume she said nothing significant?”
“No, nothing.” Trent looked apologetic.
Dopp shook his head. “It just doesn’t add up. She has an excellent motive, access to embryos, and a black heart.”
“I’ll keep following her and seeing her as much as possible.” Trent reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thin file. “Here’s the report of her comings and goings over the weekend and the transcripts of our conversations.”
“So she hasn’t said anything about Banks showing up every day?”
“No. She’s really focused on her MS. The doctor told her he can’t do much for her at this point, so she said she isn’t even going to see him regularly anymore.”
Dopp paced three steps forward in the cramped room. “She’s young to be so sick. God must be delivering some kind of retribution, but why?”
Trent shook his head, baffled.
“Banks is supposed to be intimidating her,” Dopp went on. “But it’s not working. So obviously what we have to do now is increase his presence.”
“Isn’t he already going every day?”
“Now he’ll start to stay there much longer than what she’s expecting. No wonder she’s not scared enough to talk. But think about Banks going there for hours, maybe even all day, just watching her. Shadowing her.” Dopp’s pulse hammered in his temples. “It’s perfectly legal for us to shadow a doctor as long as we’re not interfering with her patients’ privacy.”
“She stopped seeing patients anyway.”
“Right, and there’s no time limit on our visits. That ought to startle her enough to mention it, don’t you think?”
“It seems like that would be pretty hard for her to ignore,” Trent said slowly.
“Exactly. And then you can coax her to keep talking about her clinic, about why she might be worried about us being there. Everybody wants to confide in someone. You were a reporter, Trent. A darn good one. You should be a professional at getting people to talk to you.”
“I am.”
“Prove it,” Dopp said, and walked out.
* * *
It was two days later, Wednesday at 5:15 P.M. Dopp believed Trent was loitering in Washington Square in order to follow Arianna’s every movement once she left her clinic. But actually, Trent was sipping tea at a café nearby, writing up a phony report of her alleged activities to hand in the next morning. As he typed, his cell phone in his sweater pocket began to vibrate. Arianna. She spoke his name like a plea for mercy.
“What happened?” he asked immediately.
“I need a huge favor. Megan got held up at work, so I need you to bring the case to Sam ASAP. I don’t know who else I trust enough to—”
“It’s fine,” he interrupted, relieved. “Is it at the clinic?”
“Yes. My colleague Emily is still there to let you in.”
“No problem. I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you so much,” she said. “If I didn’t get this batch to Sam soon, it would be too late to use them.”
“Don’t worry, love. He’ll get them.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry it’s so last minute. Megan had actually called me earlier today, but I couldn’t call you until now, just after I left work, because that goddamn inspector has started staying all day. Just watching me!”
He coughed. “Why in the world would he do that?”
“I don’t know! Yesterday he came for four hours. Today, for six. I could barely get out of his sight. It’s bizarre. When Megan called, I knew I had to pick up, but then I could only reply with a word, and of course she couldn’t understand why I was being so short with her.”
“That sounds excruciating. I’m sorry you have to go through that.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Trent’s boiling tea scorched his tongue. “Did the inspector explain?”
“He called it Phase Two of the crackdown—this new shadowing of doctors. But I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.”
“It sounds crazy,” he muttered. “But he left for today, right?”
“Yep, he left when I did. That’s why I couldn’t take the case with me.” A troubled sigh came over the line. “Do you think they’re trying to kill me from stress?”
“No way,” he said. Then you would be useless to them.
* * *
The black case felt oddly light in Trent’s hand, even though he knew it was filled with eight glass flasks. He carried it protectively under his right arm, leaning headfirst into the cold wind as he walked from the clinic to the church, recalling an afternoon when he was a little boy.
For his seventh birthday, his parents had given him a new fifty-dollar bill. It
