'Excellent.' Sarah checked the time. 'Listen,' she said, 'I'm due back at the hospital. But if you'll walk me back, I'd like to tell you at least a little bit of my version of what happened-why I left.'
'You don't need to.'
Sarah slipped her arm inside Annalee's. 'I know,' she said.
By the time they arrived at the gate to the MCB campus, Annalee, shaking her head sadly, had her arm draped around Sarah's shoulders.
'Nothing you've told me comes as much of a surprise,' she said. 'He's really not a bad guy, just difficult sometimes. And speaking of surprises, it probably won't surprise you much to know that Henry McAllister is as devoted to Peter as ever. He's been to Xanadu for dinner, and he's designing a big fountain for the front lawn.'
'You're right,' Sarah said. 'I'm not surprised…'
Her voice trailed away. Although she had visited McAllister once in the hospital after his operation, he never indicated that he knew the role she had played in saving his life. And she had chosen not to be the one to tell him. She knew, and that was all that mattered-or at least so she had thought at the time.
'Well, now,' Annalee said, quite obviously changing the subject, 'I for one and this baby in here for two are gonna have the time of our lives over these next few months. I'm gonna stop smoking, and stop drinking, and stop staying up to all hours, and stop eating Twinkies, and-say, do I have to stop…?'
'No,' Sarah said. 'No, you can keep doing that right up to almost the end.'
'In that case, what you see before you is the start of the perfect pregnancy.'
'A textbook case. Listen, as long as you're here, I'll tell you what. Why don't you come by the clinic right now. You can register as an outpatient afterward, and have the routine blood and urine tests done before you go home. I have enough time to do a quick exam just to make sure everything's okay. After that, we'll stop by my locker. I have a supply of the natural prenatal supplement that many of my patients take. You ought to get started on it now. That is, assuming you prefer the organic to the stuff from the drug houses.'
'I'm still my father's daughter,' Annalee said. 'Besides, if you recommend something, I'm doing it. After all, you're the doctor.'
Rosa Suarez placed the last of her clothes into the maple highboy, and then set framed photographs of her husband, Alberto, three daughters, and four grandchildren on the doily-covered bedside table. The bed and breakfast she had chosen from the list supplied by her department was hardly elegant, but it was comfortable enough and within easy walking distance of the Medical Center of Boston.
After nearly twenty-five years on the job and dozens of extended field investigations, the routine of unpacking was as familiar as her robe. But there was something special about this assignment. Long term or short, significant findings or not, this investigation would be her last. She had left her letter of resignation on the section chief's desk and had promised Alberto that this time she meant it.
Now everybody would be happy. Her husband, at seventy nearly a decade older than she, would have some reasonably healthy years to enjoy retirement with her. Her department would be able to bring in some new blood. And more important, they would be able to wash their hands of a colleague who had become something of an embarrassment to them-the old lady who many of them believed had botched a major investigation.
'Mrs. Suarez, there's two packages here for you. Heavy ones,' her landlady called out from just outside her door.
'Just sign for them, Mrs. Frumanian. But don't try to lift them. They're books. I'll be down for them in a minute.'
Following her assignment to the Boston case, Rosa had spent hours in the library. She set her portfolio on the bed and took out the notes she had made. Diligent preparation and obsessive attention to details. Those had always been her trademark-the keys to what had once been an unbroken string of successes. They had never failed her, not even in San Francisco. And, she vowed, they would not fail her now.
She knew there was nothing her section chief wanted less than to turn this investigation over to her. The BART fiasco had probably cost him a promotion. And since then, he had gone out of his way to keep her shuffling papers, making out bibliographies, and sorting through miles of computer printouts. But at the moment of the call from Boston, she was the only field epidemiologist available. And people were dying.
She changed into the gray Champion sweatsuit her daughters had given her for Christmas and padded down the narrow stairway. Mrs. Frumanian was standing guard over the two boxes, waiting, it was clear, to check on their contents. She was a pleasant, ample woman with a deeply etched face that Rosa found interesting.
'I can manage all right, Mrs. Frumanian, thank you,' she said.
'Nonsense, I am twice your size, and you are my guest. If you have books to carry, I have books to carry.'
Her dense accent was Eastern European, but Rosa could pinpoint it no closer than that. Frumanian sliced open the boxes with a paring knife she conveniently produced from her apron pocket.
'Hematology… Advanced Computer Programming… Differential Calculus… Coagulation' The older woman read the titles off as she stacked each volume on her arm. Her pronunciation was surprisingly good. 'Two of my boys finished college,' she said. 'They brought home books like this on their vacations all the time, but they never read them.'
'Well, I expect to spend a good deal of time reading these, Mrs. Frumanian.'
Rosa ushered the woman out the door as gently as she could. Limits had to be set if she was to get work done. She had been given this one chance-this one last chance-to go out a winner. This time she would trust nobody. Nobody at all.
CHAPTER 12
Willis Grayson, cradling A $150 bundle of exotic flowers, trotted up the stairs to the fifth floor of the Surgical Building. A slight cold had kept him out of his pool since his return from the coast, and even this bit of exercise was welcome.
He had left the hospital that morning ecstatic over Lisa's decision to talk with him. Later he and Ben Harris had spent an hour with Dr. Randall Snyder. The obstetrician seemed a decent enough sort, though certainly no intellectual giant. Still, Ben was impressed with him, and that was sufficient to soften much of Willis's knee-jerk anger toward the physicians who had cared for his daughter. It also alleviated some of his misgivings about the Medical Center of Boston. The care Lisa had received seemed to have been adequate, especially considering that Snyder and the hospital had believed all along that she was without any means to pay for it.
It was disappointing to learn that Snyder and the others on the medical team had no clue as to what might have caused Lisa's blood problem. Still, it did appear that an effort was being made to get to the bottom of things. Grayson charged Ben Harris with obtaining the names of the leading experts in the field so that they could be put on the case.
Next on Grayson's agenda would be a visit later that afternoon to the head of physical therapy and rehabilitation. He would tactfully inform her that, while he appreciated the efforts of her department, the people at the Rusk Rehabilitation Institute in New York would be overseeing the selection and implementation of Lisa's prosthesis. And then finally, perhaps in the morning, he would try to meet with the obstetrics resident who was said to have done more than anyone else to save Lisa's life. If, in fact, Sarah Baldwin had played such a role, his people would be instructed to learn about the woman and her needs, and to come up with an appropriate reward.
Energized at regaining the control that had eluded him for nearly five years, Grayson strode down the corridor to room 515. Both of the slide-ins on the door were empty. He knocked once and then eased the door open. Both beds were newly made, and the room unoccupied.
'What in the hell?'
Battling anxiety, confusion, and anger, Grayson checked the two metal armoires and then the bathroom. All were clean and empty. After leaving Lisa that morning, he had tried to get her transferred to a single room. When informed that every room on the floor was a double, he had left strict instructions with the head nurse on the floor
