But coming here like a spy, Jesus, how sneaky. She felt a little ashamed. And foolish, too. What could she possibly hope to accomplish?
She stood up, and strode across the thick oat-colored carpet to the long wood and chrome desk in the corner. A young tanned [421] receptionist with a mane of streaky blond hair and long red fingernails looked up from her IBM Selectric.
“Shouldn’t be too much longer,” the young woman told her, offering a twinkly smile.
“It’s just ... well, I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer,” Rachel told her. “You see, I have to be back at—”
Rachel heard the click of a door opening, and felt a rush of cool air against the backs of her sticky legs. Then a voice, low and musical.
“I’m sorry. I had an overseas call. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”
Rachel turned, and found herself facing a tall woman who stood in the doorway that connected the reception area to the inner offices.
Rose.
Rachel, staring into those dark, proud eyes, felt a jolt of recognition. She took in the mass of black curls caught up with silver combs. The plain black cotton shift and colorful scarf draped artistically about Rose’s angular shoulders, the hammered gold bracelet clasped about her dusky-skinned right forearm just below the elbow. And—how odd—a single earring, like a pirate’s. A ruby in the shape of a teardrop, set in gold, which dangled from her left ear, winking and shimmering in the fluorescent lights that shone from the ceiling.
A cold gust of fear swept through Rachel, and she thought, She’s beautiful, stunning. Why didn’t I see it, that night in London? No wonder Brian can’t forget her.
She felt dwarfed beside Rose, diminished somehow. Even in her best summer suit, a Galanos, raw silk woven into a cloud of sienna hues. But she herself was limp, like a plant someone forgot to water, listless. Her hair caught back haphazardly with a rubber band, her face pale without makeup, dark circles under her eyes from all the sleepless nights since the summons.
Go now, she told herself. Make an excuse, say anything. You have no business staying here.
“I understand,” Rachel said, “but I do have to be back at the clinic. Look, this is probably a mistake, my coming here. Maybe it would be best if I—”
“You’re in trouble, and you need help,” Rose broke in, her dark eyes fixed on Rachel. There seemed to be no sympathy in her [422] voice, no resentment either. Just stating a fact. “Why don’t you come inside, and we’ll talk about it. Then you can leave if you like. No obligation.”
Rose smiled, and her dark face seemed to glow like some strangely beautiful icon.
“I told you once I owed you a favor,” she added, “and I
meant it.”
Rachel, disarmed and a bit dismayed, too, found herself smiling back, thinking, This woman should hate me. Why is she doing this?
“All right,” she said.
Rose came forward, extending her hand. Long cool fingers that gripped Rachel’s hand firmly, then slid away like water. Rachel caught a faint fragrance, sweet, earthy, like winter pears ripening on a windowsill.
“My office is a bit crowded at the moment,” Rose said. “Papers everywhere. I’m preparing for a case. We can use Max Griffin’s office. Would you like some coffee or tea?”
“Tea would be nice.”
“Tea for Mrs. McClanahan, Nancy,” Rose called to the receptionist. Rachel was struck that she’d used her married name, and not “Dr. Rosenthal.”
Rachel followed Rose through a maze of paneled corridors, to a corner office overlooking the East River. Except for the view, she felt as if she’d stepped into the house she’d grown up in. A palatial antique Oriental carpet, a Victorian gaslight chandelier, Dutch marquetry chairs upholstered in worn velvet. An antique desk piled high with papers and manila folders. A glass-fronted bookcase filled with leatherbound volumes tooled in gilt. Lovely, she thought. And intimidating as hell.
Rose gestured toward what looked like a Duncan Phyfe settee. “Please, sit down.”
Rachel, sinking down on the stiff seat, watched Rose settle in a chair across from her, carved at the top—she was struck by the irony of it—with a dove bearing an olive branch in its beak.
There was an awkward silence. Then Rose said, “It might be easier if we skipped the small talk, don’t you think, Mrs. McClanahan?”
Rachel couldn’t help but admire her directness.
[423] “Yes, that would be easier,” she said. “But please call me Rachel. Everyone does.”
Rose seemed to consider this, weigh it, while sun, filtering through the loosely woven drapes, fell across her in a ripply golden haze.
“All right then. Rachel.” She picked up a yellow legal pad from the table in front of her, and balanced it on her knees. “I’ve gone over the paperwork Prudential sent over, and I’ll be very direct with you. I believe you did everything within your power to give Alma Saucedo the best care you possibly could. And a jury will probably believe that, too. But nonetheless that very same jury could easily vote against you.”
Rachel felt her heart begin to thump, thudding hard against her chest. But that was impossible. She’d be ruined, the clinic destroyed. HEW would yank their funding—hadn’t Sandy Boyle warned her of just this kind of thing at their last meeting?—and her privileges at St. Bart’s would be revoked, too. Everything she’d slaved for wiped out, all the women who needed her, who trusted her, they’d have no one.
“In a situation like this,” Rose went on, “the sympathy of the jury naturally lies with the victim—in this case, a sixteen-year-old girl who is brain dead, a vegetable for life. Survived by an infant requiring highly expensive care. So, okay, you know we’re talking big bucks. The question in their eyes isn’t necessarily going to be who, if anyone, is guilty, but who pays? The already overburdened parents of Alma Saucedo, or the rich insurance company?”
“I see.” Rachel felt strangely disconnected, as if she were on automatic pilot, listening and speaking normally, while her mind careened over the catastrophes that lay ahead.
“Do you? I wonder. Most people can’t get rid of the idea when they walk into a courtroom, that it’s a question of guilt or innocence.”
Rachel gathered herself, and answered, “I don’t believe it’s ever that clear-cut in medicine. You always leave a patient feeling you should have done more.”
“Is that how you feel about Alma Saucedo?”
“Yes.”
“The question is, Could you have done more?”
“I wasn’t sure at first, while it was all happening,” Rachel [424] answered, determined to be truthful. “But later, when I went over it step by step ...” She straightened against the unyielding sofa. “The answer is no, I could not have done more. Under the circumstances, which were far from optimal, I took what I felt was the safest course. I don’t think any other doctor could have acted more responsibly.”
Rose’s black eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made the back of her neck go tight with gooseflesh.
The thought surfaced out of nowhere. She and I, we’re here to see something through, aren’t we? Not just this damned lawsuit.
She had felt it the very first time she met Rose. This odd sense of helplessness—as if she and Rose both had somehow been thrown against each other by some quirk of fate.
Both in love with the same man.
And, strange, too, wasn’t it, that of all the law firms in lower Manhattan, the one that represented her insurance company just happened to be this one, Rose’s?
Rose felt it too, Rachel was sure, the two of them sizing each other up like two gunslingers about to face off for the draw.
What does she want from me? Rachel wondered. She doesn’t have to be here. She could have turned this case over to someone else in the firm. But she didn’t.
Why?
The eerie tension broke when Rose bent and scribbled something on the legal pad she held in her lap.
Rose looked up. “I talked to Stu Miller
this afternoon. The Saucedos have rejected the settlement Prudential offered them. Two hundred thousand. According to Stu, yesterday they had tentatively agreed to it, but today they said they’d changed their minds.”
Rachel felt sudden, jarring anger. David. He was behind all this. She could feel him clawing at her. The poor Saucedos, they had a right to their sorrow and their anger. But David, what he was doing ... it was hateful, evil.
And then she began feeling terrified, desperate. How could she fight David alone? If she told the truth, about why he was doing this, it would be the end of her marriage. If she kept quiet, it would be the end of her career. No matter which way she turned he’d destroy her.
“Where do I go from here?” Rachel asked, feeling trapped.
[425] Rose looked at her directly, and spoke firmly. “To court. With me as your attorney.”
Rachel stared at her, then blurted the question that had hung between them from the beginning.
“Why? Why you of all people?”
Rose was silent, and Rachel felt the space between them charged as if with static electricity.
Then Rose’s mouth twisted up in a strange, lopsided smile.
“Let’s just say I like to pay my debts.” She paused, and added, “I can’t make any promises. Except one. I’ll fight for you. I’ll do everything within my power to win this case. And who knows?” Her smile widened. “I just may pull it off.”
Looking at her, at her dark flashing eyes, Rachel struggled to understand.
Is she doing this for me ... or for herself? Is she using me to get back at Brian? Or, God forbid, to get closer to him?
Rachel felt as if she’d just swallowed a rock. Then she thought, If that’s true, if she’s doing this for herself, then she’ll fight harder than anyone else would. And I need that. I need every bit of help I can get.
A knock on the door.
Rachel jumped a little, yanked from her thoughts. But it was only the blond receptionist with her tea, a steaming mug with the dangling string of a Twining’s tea bag.
She took the mug, and sipped the scalding liquid. Tears pricked her eyes with the pain of it. She brought the mug down, cradled in both hands, glad for the warmth in the glacial air conditioning.
“All right. Say I agree. What now?” Rachel asked.
“We gather all the medical records and any other relevant evidence. Depositions from everyone involved. Can you think of anyone who might testify against you? Another doctor, a nurse?”
Rachel thought of Bruce Hardman, the young resident who had helped deliver Alma’s baby. His white, frightened face, the patches of sweat staining his surgical greens. Relieved, probably, that no one was pointing the finger at him.
The thought of David flashed across her mind, too, but she didn’t dare mention him. Besides, she recalled, he had advised her to wait, not to induce labor. And he wasn’t around when she delivered Alma’s baby. So what evidence could he have?
“No. No one I can think of.”
[426] Rose scribbled something on the legal pad in her lap. “We’ll talk more about that later. We may not even go to trial. Prudential still wants to try to settle. I have a meeting scheduled with the Saucedos’ lawyer for Monday. After that I’ll have a better sense of where we’re headed.”
For so many years now, Rachel had fought her own battles. Now could she just sit back, and let someone else fight for her?
The one person in the world besides David who had reason to hate her.
Yet, oddly, she felt that she could trust Rose.
She’ll fight for me if it means fighting for Brian.
And if it should ever come to a contest between her and Rose, what then? Which of them would win?
In the end, who would Brian choose?
She remembered her father taking her on the subway when she was very little. Mama would have had a fit if she’d known; but Daddy wanted her upbringing to encompass even the unpleasant aspects of life. “If the meek ever inherit the earth,” he had told her, gripping her hand as they descended into the IRT one hot Friday afternoon, “it will only be because the mighty have given up inhabiting all but a tiny portion of it.”
She remembered the crowds impatiently waiting to push through the turnstiles; then after Daddy had dropped the token in, being propelled onto the jammed concrete platform, where she stood staring into the blackened throat of the tunnel, feeling the hot smelly air of an approaching train on her face. Daddy had turned his back for a moment to read the map on the wall, and she had crept closer to the tracks, until she was looking straight down at the rails. A train skidded toward the platform, shrieking, blue sparks shooting up from its wheels. And in that instant, she had thought, I could jump. Right now. I could jump onto the track and it will be the biggest thing I’ve ever done.
Rachel felt that way now. As if she were drawing too close to something that might be deadly, but was also irresistible. I will know the truth ... if he still loves her. Even if it may kill me.
“Why don’t we have lunch on Monday, then, after my meeting with their lawyer?” Rose suggested, rising.
Rachel placed her unfinished tea on the low table in front of her, and stood up. “Yes, good. That would be a good idea.”
[427] “The Odeon, twelve-thirty or so?”
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
She was halfway to the door, where a secretary waited to show her out, when Rose called out, “Oh, and give my love to Brian.”
Rachel paused a moment, feeling a little sick, and started to turn, then decided she wouldn’t, she just couldn’t look into Rose’s face, let Rose see how afraid she was of losing the man they both loved.
The hospital elevator was taking forever to reach the sixth floor.
Rachel punched the button again, knowing it would do no good. The elevators at St. Bart’s, like everything else, were prehistoric. She could hear its creaking cables, its slow ratchety climb. She looked up, watching the strip of numbers over the door light up, one by one, as the elevator stopped at each floor. Four, five, next would be hers. And then, incredibly, it reversed, starting down again.
Damn. Damn it to hell. Everything else here was conspiring against her, why not the elevators?
“Shit,” she swore out loud. A tall, reed-thin nurse, passing by, slowed and turned. Rachel recognized her, Jane Sackman, and started to greet her. She didn’t know Jane very well, but liked her. A nurse who always seemed to manage a genuine smile. But Jane’s gaze slid away from hers, and Rachel’s “Hi” stuck in her throat. She watched Jane quicken her step, hurrying past.
What was going on around here? She’d been getting evasive looks like this all day. Or was she just being paranoid?
Seeing Alma just now, up in ICU, hooked up to a respirator, catheterized, corpselike, God, it shook her up more each time. Rachel’s knees felt weak, wrists floppy. And her mouth was sour from coffee, strong and bitter.
Finally the elevator doors wheezed open, and she ducked inside. Thank goodness, she was finally going home. Brian would be waiting. They’d sip some sherry, nibble on Brie and Rye-Krisp. Then they were going to an opening at that new gallery on Spring Street, then on to dinner with Brian’s agent and his wife. The evening ahead shimmered in her imagination like an oasis in the desert. An evening with people she loved, people who loved her. She wouldn’t think about anything else. Not Alma. Not Rose. Not—
[428] “Hello, Rachel.”
She turned. David. She hadn’t seen the face, only the white coat. Oh Christ.
And they were alone.
The doors banged shut behind her, the elevator jerked a little as it began its descent. Rachel felt her stomach roll out from under her, her skin pull tight.
David was grinning, a cold triumphant grin. He reminded her of how she used to feel watching hunters driving home with bloody deer roped to their bumpers. Under the fluorescent glare, he seemed almost unreal, the knife edges of his tan slacks, the white jacket gleaming with starch, the hair so immaculately sculpted. As
perfect as if he’d been cut from a magazine ad, or one of those doctors on TV proclaiming the wonders of some cold remedy ... except for the eyes—bloodshot whites and the cold Arctic green of his pupils.
Those eyes were fixed on her now, and she shivered. Turning her back to him, she thumbed the button marked MAIN though it was already lit, hoping to God he would leave her be if she ignored him.
Damn this old crate. She’d be trapped in here forever.
She thumbed the button once again.
“You can run all you like. But it won’t help.” David spoke softly, almost caressingly. “I’ve recommended to the Board that your privileges be revoked.”
She whirled around, furious. “On what grounds?”
“Criminal negligence. My God, did you really think you’d get away with it? That kid and her baby. You might as well have tried to murder her.”
Rachel stood there, stunned. Some part of her had an urge to laugh. This wasn’t really happening—David, saying those things, like lines from some hack melodrama.
But she knew the hollow punched-out feeling in her stomach was real.
The elevator jerked to a stop, doors bumping open.
David brushed past, immaculate, serene, pausing only long enough to cast her a thin smile, like a cold slice of moon glittering in a winter sky.
“It’s a long way to hell, Rachel, and you’re not even halfway there.”
[429] Rachel, watching him walk away, was shaking so badly she could hardly stand. She was terrified.
Of herself.
She had wanted to kill him. If she’d had a gun in her hand at that moment, she would have pulled the trigger.
Chapter 30
Rose and Max dined on flaky pan bread and tandoori chicken at an Indian restaurant on Lexington and Twenty-eighth, then strolled over to Fifth. It was a hot night, made even hotter by the spicy curry that kept sending up smoke signals from Rose’s stomach. She felt uncomfortably warm, sticky, even in her coolest cotton blouse and seersucker skirt. The baked-in heat of the sidewalk seeping up through the thin soles of her sandals seeming to slow her, as if she were trudging across the salt flats of Death Valley.
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