33
Shortly after she had seen the first several office patients of the morning. Suzanne sent word to her nurse to try and reschedule as many of the rest as possible. It was, perhaps, the most killing aspect of private practice that a day’s patients had no way to adjust to their physician having been awake most or all of the previous night. And, indeed, it was doubtful most of them would even want to try. They had waited days or even weeks for their appointments, and they expected—and deserved, as far as Suzanne was concerned—to have their physician be one hundred percent theirs for the short time they had together.
Normally, even after a grueling night she could rev herself up for her office work. This morning, though, try as she might, she simply could not hold her concentration together. A seventy-five-year-old lady who Was taking double the amount of digitalis prescribed, had nearly slipped past her. A housewife had gotten cross with her for not seeming to take her complaints of fatigue more seriously. A pharmacy called because she had neglected to write the strength of a cardiac medicine on one of her prescriptions.
And, she knew, her difficulty was not simply one of fatigue. A child she felt responsible for and a man she was growing to love were both in serious trouble. Her thoughts kept ricocheting from one to the other. Twice, already, she had called the unit to check on Toby’s status, despite knowing that she would be contacted by Owen Walsh or the nurses at the first sign of trouble. Twice, already, she had interrupted the workday of medical staff members to gauge their response to some sort of job action should Frank refuse to back down on his dismissal of Zack.
And overriding even her concern for Zack and Toby Nelms was her growing indignation at the treatment Guy Beaulieu had apparently received from Frank, and the mounting likelihood that unauthorized chemical experimentation was being conducted at die hospital. For more than two years, gratitude for her salvation from Paul and her legal entanglements had kept her from voicing any criticism of Franks decisions or Ultramed policies. Now it was time to take a stand.
She buzzed her nurse.
“Janice, how are we doing with those reschedulings?”
“You’re clear for the next hour” Dr. Cole,” the woman said. “I haven’t been able to reach Mr. Braddock or that new referral from Hanover, but I’ll keep trying.”
“Excellent. Listen, I’ll be in the unit or on page if you need me. There are a few things I’ve got to get done.”
She left her office and took the glass-enclosed walkway from the Physicians and Surgeons Building to the main hospital. On her way to the ICU, she passed the Carter Conference Room. Two dietary aides were busily arranging the tables for a luncheon meeting—almost certainly, she realized, the meeting of the community board and the people from Ultramed. There could be no better time to confront Frank with her concerns than right now. He would listen, and make some major concessions, or face the embarrassment and conflict of having her present those misgivings to the meeting.
Franks outer office door was closed. Suzanne opened it and stepped into the deserted reception area.
“Hello? Frank?” she called as she tapped on the inner door. “It’s Suzanne Cole.… Frank?”
“It’s open, Suzanne.” She was startled to hear his voice through the intercom on one of the desks behind her. “Come in.” She opened the door and he rose from behind his desk.
“Well, now,” he said, shaking her hand. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Thanks, Frank. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but I need to talk with you.”
He glanced at the Lucite clock.
“That would be fine, Suzanne, but this just isn’t the time. You see, I have a b—”
“I know what you have, Frank,” she said, taking a seat in one of the pair of oak-armed chairs feeing his desk. “You have a meeting with the community board and the people from Ultramed. Before you go into that meeting, I think you should hear what I have to say.”
“Oh, you do.”
His buoyant expression chilled, perhaps, a degree.
“Yes. But first, I wanted to find out why you fired Zachary.”
“Because I always do what is in the best interests of my hospital, and getting rid of a disruptive, drunken troublemaker was clearly in the best interests of my hospital. Speaking of which, would you like a drink?”
“Frank, listen to me, please. Two years ago you helped me out of a huge jam. I’m grateful for what you did, and ever since I’ve been here, I’ve done my best to support you.”
“And I appreciate it, Suze. You’ve been great. Tell you what: as soon as this board business is taken care of, let’s you and I do dinner on Ultramed and talk about some sort of increase in your pay.”
Suzanne felt her irritability quicken.
“Don’t patronize me, Frank. I came here to get some issues straight—to voice some concerns Zack has shared with me. And Frank, if you can’t respond to those concerns, I intend to go in and raise them at that meeting.”
I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Frank was thinking, rapidly sorting through his options. The votes to finalize the sale were almost certainly there now, but they were shaky. And of even greater concern were the clauses Mainwaring’s corporate lawyers had forced into their contract, requiring legal reprisals or an immediate return of their investment should there be any deception—or even suggestion of deception—regarding the properties of Serenyl. No, siree, baby, he concluded, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that at all.
He propped his elbows on the desk and his chin on his hands.
“Okay, shoot,” he said.
“That’s better. Well, I have two requests I would like your word on, Frank.”
“Go on.”
“First of all, I want your promise to allow the medical staff to determine whether or not Zack has been disruptive enough to be fired from the hospital.”
“Done,” he said.
“What?”
“You have my word. As soon as possible, next Wednesday’s meeting if you want, we’ll present our cases to the medical staff and let them decide. Satisfied?”
I … I guess so.
“Good. Now, what’s number two?”
“Well, number two has to do with some concerns Zack has raised regarding Jason and Jack Pearl.”
“Ah, yes, the infamous anesthetic.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“Of course I don’t believe him, Suzanne. But I am investigating his allegations.”
“You are?”
Frank was hardly acting like the man Zack had described meeting with earlier that morning. And despite herself, Suzanne once again felt a spur of doubt regarding what she had been told.
“Absolutely,” Frank was saying. “I have already contacted die members of the medical ethics committee, as well as Jason and Jack, and have scheduled a meeting for the first thing next week. Call them and check on that if you want. I’ll be happy to have both you and my brother present if you wish.”
“I wish. But what about Toby Nelms?”
“What about him?”
“Frank, if what Zack believes is true, that child might not have until the first thing next week. Is there any way you could try and reason with Jason and Jack, just in case?”
“Jason’s away, but if it will make you feel better about things, you and I can meet with Jack at, say, five o’clock today, right here.”
“Thank you. Would you mind if Zack comes, too?”
“If you insist. Suzanne, you’re one of the best things that has ever happened to this place. I would do anything I could to keep you here and happy. But now, if you’ll pardon me, there is a meeting room filling up with people. We can plan on getting together again at five o’clock.”
By then, his thoughts continued, I’m sure I will have come up with some more permanent way of dealing with both you and my brother.
“Frank, I appreciate all of this very much,” she said, rising.
In that moment, inexplicably, she began to sense that so
mething was wrong—very wrong. The whole session had gone much too smoothly. There was too great a difference between the man Zack had described firing him and the one she was confronting now.
“Hey, no problem,” Frank was saying, his hand extended. “I’m as committed as you are to making sure this place is the best.”
Suzanne took his hand and, for just a few seconds, continued to hold it. There was an unnatural feel to it—a coolness, a tension.
“Frank, tell me one last thing,” she said, releasing his hand but keeping her eyes firmly fixed on his. “Were you responsible for all those rumors and stories that circulated about Guy?”
Frank held her gaze unwaveringly. “Absolutely not,” he said.
In that instant, Suzanne knew. The unflinching darkness in his eyes, the earnest set of his face—it was a look that had confronted her before. Many times before. It was Paul!
“Frank, you’re lying to me, aren’t you?” she said.
“Nonsense.”
He forced calm into his voice, but beneath his lightweight suit, he had begun to sweat. There was no way, he reaffirmed even more strongly, that Suzanne Cole was going to that board meeting.
In the back of his desk drawer was a small revolver. Carefully, Frank eased the drawer open. Then he stopped. If Zack was right, there was an easier, far easier, means of regaining control of the situation. It was certainly worth a try.
“Suzanne, sit down, please,” he said calmly, rising from his own chair.
Puzzled, she did as he asked.
“There’s something I want you to listen to.”
“Okay, but I don’t see what—”
“Please.”
“A-All right.”
She followed him with her eyes as he crossed to his stereo, switched on the tape deck, and replaced the cassette that he had listened to earlier. After just a few notes, she recognized the music.
“Have you heard this before?” Frank asked, returning to his desk and opening the drawer another inch.
Suzanne did not answer. Instead, she began to stare at the large aerial photo of the hospital complex. The colors were growing more and more intense.
Get up! her mind screamed. Get up and run!
Her legs would not respond.
“Well, have you?” he asked again.
His voice was rumbling and muted, his face twisted in a strange, bemused smile.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she heard him say.
Suzanne rubbed at her eyes. The sounds in the room Franks breathing, her own, gave way to the music, which itself drifted farther and farther away.
Then she heard the voice—slow and patient and reassuring.
“All right, Suzanne, now I want you to count back from one hundred.…”
“One hundred,” she heard herself say.
“Go on … go on.”
“Ninety-nine … ninety-eight …”
The blue johnny covering her was pulled away, exposing her breasts. She shivered at her nakedness and the sudden chill.
“Ninety-seven … ninety-six …”
“She’s under, Jason.”
“Excellent. Lets get started, then.”
“No, Jason,” she begged, as russet anesthetic was swabbed over her breast. “Please wait. It hasn’t worked yet. The anesthetic hasn’t worked.”
‘Turn the music up a bit. Fine, that’s fine. Okay, then, knife.”
“No, wait! Ninety-five! … Ninety-four! Please hurry, please work.”
Overhead, the bright, saucer light flashed on. Gloved hands appeared just below Jason Mainwaring’s sterile, blue eyes. Nestled in the right hand was a scalpel. In agonizing slow motion it drifted down toward her.
“Jason, no!” she screamed as the blade cut into the skin by her shoulder, releasing a spurt of crimson.
The pain intensified as the scalpel began slicing a slow arc around the base of her breast. But before she could scream, a gag was pulled tightly between her teeth and tied behind her head, and her arms were bound just as vigorously to her sides.
Soundlessly, praying for the relief of unconsciousness, Suzanne endured the agony of the surgical removal of her breast. And when the dissection was complete, she looked down at herself in wide-eyed terror. Where once there had been skin and breast tissue and a nipple, now there was only a gaping, bloody crater.
In that moment, amidst a final, silent scream, blackness mercifully intervened.
Fascinated by what he was observing, Frank set the stereo playing Fantasia on Greensleeves for automatic repeat and turned up the volume. For once, at least, his goddamn brother had been something of a help.
Suzanne lay semiconscious on her back on the rug, twitching and shuddering from time to time, and crying out as much as the handkerchief tied tightly through her mouth would allow. Frank loosened the sleeves of his suitcoat, which he had used to bind her arms, and then cut a bath towel into strips. It was probably overkill, he realized, even to bother tying her up. Mainwaring’s syrupy music was doing as fine a job of immobilizing her as any truss. Still, at least until she could be removed from the hospital to some safe—and permanent—resting place, it was worth the extra precaution.
He rolled her onto her side and bound her hands tightly behind her. Then he laid her back and secured her ankles. Her eyes remained closed, but her restless movements had increased—almost in reflection to the intensity of the music.
Frank knelt beside her. Even under such difficult circumstances, she was a real beauty. Brains and looks—Leigh Baron without the hard edge. When Suzanne had first come to Sterling, he had made several carefully gauged attempts to start something up between them. Each time, she had politely but firmly refused him. It angered him that, after just a few weeks in town, his brother was already getting inside her pants.
Well, so be it, he thought. The two of them deserved one another.
And as soon as the board meeting was over, he would set about seeing to it that they got to spend an eternity together. He had tried to play it easy with both of them, but that approach had nearly blown up in his face. They had forced him to take off the gloves, and now they would see what kind of competitor Frank Iverson really was. He had always played to win, and now there was far, far too much at stake even to think of backing off.
He reached down and ran his fingertips over Suzanne’s face and then down over her breasts. She really did have a phenomenal body. Phenomenal! Lisette, Suzanne—Zack was spiteful enough to be planning on screwing them both, if he hadn’t done so already.
No way, Zack-o, Frank thought as he dragged Suzanne into his bathroom and set her on the damp floor of his shower stall. No way you’re ever going to humiliate me like that.
He smoothed out his suitcoat and then combed his hair. The music reverberated through the tiled room. Behind him, reflected in the mirror, Suzanne continued to jerk spasmodically.
Perhaps, Frank thought, after the meeting, before he set about arranging an accident of some sort for her and his brother, he would take a few minutes to enjoy the favors she had denied him. To miss such an opportunity would be a shame.
Besides, he mused as he checked himself in the mirror, a moment before setting off for the board meeting, it would be a crime to waste such romantic music.
34
“I’m sorry, Dr. Iverson, but as I told you before, I’m under strict instructions from Mr. Iverson that no calls from you are to be put through to anyone at the hospital except him.”
“But all I want you to do is to page Dr. Cole for me. Ask her to call me.”
An hour had passed since Zack had been fired and ushered out of the hospital he had expected to work in for the rest of his professional life. He had driven home with the patrol car following him right into his driveway, and then had tried to reach Suzanne at her office. After a number of busy signals, he had gotten a tape saying that the office would be closed until one. He had tried his own office, but the line had already been disconnected. Now, after a fruitless call to the hospital switc
hboard and a no-answer try at Suzanne’s home, he was giving the page operator one last shot.
“I understand what you are asking, Doctor,” the operator said.
“And even when I tell you it’s a medical emergency you won’t do it?”
“Mr. Iverson was quite specific.”
“What’s your name?” “Janine.”
“Well, Janine, I appreciate that you have your orders, but how is Mr. Iverson to know if you just put this one call through for me?”
“You’d be amazed at the things Mr. Iverson finds out, Doctor. And if he does, it’s my job. Now please, I’ve got to get back to my board.”
“Janine, wait—Damn.”
Zack slammed the receiver down and then snatched it up for another attempt. This time, he stopped before the switchboard operator could even answer. Frank had put an airtight seal on the hospital that no simple phone call was going to breach. Nor did it help matters that his decision to forsake his fathers care in favor of the town derelict had reduced his influence around Ultramed-Davis to near zero.
Still, he had to get back into the hospital—to tell Suzanne of the trigger, and, he hoped, to enlist her help in confronting Jack Pearl. He had given up on even trying to speak at the board meeting. Frank would have him in a cell before he could get close to the door. But Toby Nelms was a different matter. Without cooperation from Pearl, without the mans willingness to admit what he and Mainwaring were doing, he felt quite certain the boy was as good as dead.
Perhaps, he began to think, the board meeting might be the key. With Frank inside the conference room, and his security people stationed nearby, there might be some other, unguarded way inside the hospital. He scratched out a crude drawing of the building as best he could remember it. There was, he was nearly sure, a delivery entrance outside the cafeteria—one that had to be open. Assuming Suzanne was in the ICU, he could enter the hospital through the kitchen and reach the ICU by a back staircase.
He checked the time. The board meeting, if not already under way, would be starting any minute. He could park on the highway and circle through the woods to the delivery entrance. Police or no police, it was worth a try.
Flashback (1988) Page 39