Cook,Robin - Mortal Fear.txt
Page 31
he's in finance."
"Must be," Cur-ran said. "Apparently Hayes approached him for seed
capital to front a company."
011 know", Jason said.
The detective looked hard at him. "Did you, now? And just how did you
know about that, Dr. Howard?"
:, It's unimportant. Go on."
"Anyway," Curran said, "Hayes must have told Ingelnook that he was about
to develop some kind of elixir of youth."
"That would have been an antibody to the deathhormone releasing factor,"
Jason said.
1. Hold it a minute," Curran said. "Maybe you should be telling me this
stuff rather than vice versa.
"I'm sorry," Jason said. "It's all finally making sense to me. Please-go
on."
"Ingelnook must have liked the death hormone better than the elixir of
youth," Curran continued. "For some time he'd been racking his brains
about lowering costs at GHP to keep them competitive. So far the
conspiracy only involves six people, but there may be more. They've been
responsible for eliminating a lot of patients they thought were going to
use more than their fair share of medical services. Nice, huh?"
"So they killed them," Carol said with horror.
"Well, they kept telling themselves that the process was natural,"
Curran said.
"Some excuse for murder-we're gill going to die anyway," Jason commented
bitterly. The faces of some of his recently deceased patients rose to
haunt him.
"In any case, it's the end of GHP," Curran said. "The criminal charges
notwithstanding, malpractice claims are through the roof. GHP is already
filing for Chapter Eleven. So I think you'll be looking for a job."
"Looks like it." Then, looking up at Carol, Jason added, "Carol's
finishing her studies in clinical psychology. We thought we'd open an
office together. I think I want to get back to private practice. No more
corporations for a while."
"That sounds cozy," Curran said. "Then I can get my head and my ticker
fixed at the same place."
"You can be our first patient."