Syndrome

by Thomas Hoover

  Ally looked at her. Nina was having one of her moments of incredible lucidity, but how did she know so much about what was really going on.

  "Mom, did the doctor tell you what I-"

  "The head nurse, Ellen, told me that you're going to undergo a procedure for your heart. That you're going to start today." Her eyes darkened. "She also admitted he'd never used the procedure on a condition like yours. It's completely experimental."

  "You talked to her this morning?"

  "She took me downstairs, where they did my hair. She said Dr. Vee thinks it's important for everyone here to have a positive attitude. They ask you what you’d like and then they try to do it. Now I'm ready for whatever comes next." She stared directly into Ally's eyes. "But that doesn't mean I still can't be nervous about all this untried stuff."

  "Mom, don't worry about me. I'm going to get through this. If you'll be strong for me, I promise I'll be strong for you."

  She got up and walked to the window. From this vantage she could just see the lake down through the trees. They were starting to put out leaves, but it was still early spring and nippy here, so they mostly had just buds. All the same, there was a sense of renewal about them, which made her think of her own body."

  Life is so bittersweet." Nina sighed. "But you still want to go on living, even when it's a daily struggle. Either I'm an optimist or I'm pigheaded."

  "You're just wonderful," Ally said. "That's what you are."

  She glanced down at her watch. She was scheduled to meet Ellen O'Hara downstairs at ten forty-five, to fill out the paperwork that formally entered her into the clinical trials. If she decided to go ahead and enroll, this would be her last day of freedom. Tomorrow she would have to begin the intense phase of the therapy. Did she really want to do that? She wanted to talk to Van de Vliet one last time. "Look, Mom, I'm going to be downstairs for a while now, but I'll come back up later."

  "All right. Ellen said there's a little library here somewhere, so I may go down and look. I might even get something in Spanish, to try and keep my mind alert." She sighed. "Oh, Ally, I so want to be the way I was again. Pray for me."

  Ally knew prayer wasn't something her mother engaged in a lot. In fact, she'd always been a fervent agnostic. What had brought about the change? Was it that she'd finally discovered that both her body and mind had limits and wouldn't do what she wanted forever?

  "I'll pray for us both, Mom. But we're going to be okay. I have faith."

  "Good for you." She looked away. "I'll try to have it too."

  Ally walked over and kissed her, then turned and headed out the door. Where was this all going to end? She had absolutely no idea. But with Nina's miracle change overnight, the concern she'd heard in the voice of Stone Aimes seemed a million miles away.

  As she walked down the marble stairs, she tried to take the measure of the place. The Dorian Institute did inspire you with its look of utter perfection. It was an appropriate setting for miracles.

  When she got to the lobby, she saw Ellen stepping off the elevator, coming up from the basement.

  "All set to get going?" she asked, walking over. "Before we start any procedures, anything at all, we've got to fill out the forms for the NIH. Technically, what is going on here is a clinical trial, a very detailed study in which we constantly monitor the patients and try to measure their progress objectively. So we'll have to take some time and establish a very thorough baseline. We began that yesterday when you went to the clinic in New York for a stress test. Among other things, we'll be running an EKG on you here on a daily basis."

  "And all this goes into my NIH files?" Ally asked. They were getting on the elevator to go down.

  "Not the raw data. It's our job to structure our patients' files in ways that will permit the NIH monitor, or other third parties, to assess our results quickly."

  They were getting off now, entering the starkly lit hallway that connected the laboratory and Dr. Van de Vliet's office with the examination rooms.

  "Dr. Vee is working in the lab this morning, so we can use his office to fill out all the forms."

  Ally could see Dr. Van de Vliet and three other people, members of his research team, all dressed in white, clustered around a blackboard, where he was drawing some kind of flowchart. Again she was struck by his youthful appearance. He surely did not look a day older than forty, or forty-five tops.

  This was the first time she had been in his office, and she paused to look around. As was usual, he had a wall of framed diplomas and certificates. From her cursory checkout, they seemed to correspond to the educational history she remembered from his CV. It was a spacious room, with an executive feeling, and he had an expensive fiat-screen nineteen-inch monitor sitting on the left-hand side of his desk. Next to it was a wooden table and chairs. A pile of NIH forms was there, along with a greenrakumug, filled with ballpoint pens.

  "He likes to let people use his office whenever possible," Ellen explained. "It's a lot less institutional than the conference room."

  Ally settled at the table and picked up the form.

  "They want a lot of personal information," Ellen went on, "but your mother and I filled out her items yesterday and it wasn't too hard. Needless to say, all personal information is completely confidential. Even your name. After the first week, we only identify you with a coding system."

  As Ally was reaching for a pen, a petite blond woman with a smashing figure strode through the door. She was wearing a lab coat, not a nurse's uniform, but it still showed off her curves. She was carrying a stainless-steel tray containing a hypodermic needle and three glass vials.

  "Hi," she said with a smile, "I'm Dr. Connolly. Welcome to the Dorian Institute. We're all very excited about having you here."

  "Deb, come in," Ellen said seeming slightly startled "Is there something we forgot to-"

  "No, I just need to take one hundred fifty milliliters of blood. We've got to get started on the cultures we'll be using ASAP."

  "Hang on a second" Ally said. "I was hoping to talk this over a bit more with Dr. Van de Vliet before I take the final leap."

  "You're free to dither as much as you like," Dr. Debra Connolly said, her smile vanishing, "but our programs are on a schedule."

  "I'd still-"

  "I'll just be taking a small amount of blood. We can then get started on the cultures while you talk." She was already swabbing Ally's arm and feeling for a vein. "Now make a fist."

  Ally hated giving blood and to distract herself she glanced around the office, trying to construct a life story for Dr. Karl Van de Vliet. Then she noticed a photo of him and a woman standing together on a bridge, next to a sign that saidCharles river, which meant Boston, and they were holding hands and smiling.

  The odd thing was, the cars behind them were models at least fifteen years old, yet he looked just the same as he did today.

  Whoa. There it is again. That odd age thing. There is something very strange about this man.She finally got up her courage to ask.

  "Dr. Connolly, do you know how old Dr. Van de Vliet is? He looks so young."

  "There are some things it's not polite to ask." She was capping off the vial and reaching for a second. Her voice had grown genuinely frosty.

  "Frankly, I don't see why. He knows everything there is to know about me. He has all my files."

  "You could ask at the front desk for one of our brochures. I'm sure it would clear up any questions you have." She attached the second vial to the needle.

  "I've seen it. I know when he went to school and all that. But still-"

  "If you really want to know personal things, you might just ask him yourself. You two seem to get along so well."

  What is with her? Ally puzzled. Why is she being so hostile and negative? And why that little jab about "getting along"? The truth was, Debra Connolly could have been a runway model, but in a lab coat her blondness and figure just intensified her bitchiness.

  Okay, maybe the question about his age wasn't overly relevant, more a matter of
idle curiosity. But howdidhe do it? Every woman alive would like to know. Maybe the story Grant had told about Van de Vliet and his experimental skin treatment was actually true. She hadn't put much stock in it at the time, but seeing him out here in the flesh. ."

  "There's actually something else I was curious about. Was a patient dropped from the trials a few months back? I was wondering if you could tell me anything about that."

  "What have you heard that would make you ask such a question?" Debra Connolly's face went blank, but her blue eyes registered alarm. "No one here is allowed to discuss specific cases. That would be a violation of NIH rules and highly unethical. What made you ask that question?"

  Hey, why so defensive? Could it be Stone is on to something that needs more daylight?

  "I did a little research on the Gerex Corporation and. ." Then she had an inspired hunch. "You know, the NIH has a Web site where they post all the clinical trials they have under way." This was actually something she knew to be true. She had used the site to look up information about possible clinical trials for Alzheimer's patients that might accept her mother. But she never could find any in the New York area that seemed to offer any hope. "So naturally, your study was there. I like to know as much as I can about what I'm getting into."

  "I've been to that Web site many times. The public part doesn't include-"

  "So,hasa patient ever been terminated?" Ally cut her off, hoping to avoid being caught in a lie. "If so, I'd really like to know why."

  "No one is allowed to discuss any details of the clinical studies." She was capping off the last vial of blood the three cylinders of red against the steel.

  "I think I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Van de Vliet before I go any further with this program," Ally said feeling her temper and her warning instincts both ratchet up. "I feel like I'm being stonewalled."

  "You're free to think what you like." Debra Connolly had turned and was brusquely heading for the doorway when it was blocked by another blonde, this one in her late fifties, who was standing in the threshold and brandishing a black automatic pistol. Her eyes were wild. The security guard from the entrance and the nurse from the front desk upstairs were both cowering behind her.

  "Where's Kristen?" she demanded. "Where's my daughter? I know she's alive, goddam you. I've come to take her home."

  Chapter 18

  Wednesday, April 8

  11:03a.m.

  "Who are you and how did you get in here?" Debra Connolly demanded backing away from the door and quickly settling her steel tray onto a table. Ally got the instant impression that Deb knewexactlywho she was.

  The woman's hair was an ash blond tint above dark roots and was clipped short in a curt style. Her troubled face had stress lines, and her heavy makeup reminded Ally of a younger Sylvia Miles or perhaps a particularly intense real estate agent, except that real estate agents don't charge in on you brandishing a Beretta.

  "It's all been a lie," the woman declared her cigarette-fogged voice shrill. If she recognized Debra, it wasn't apparent.

  Ellen hit a button on the desk and spoke into the intercom. "Dr. Vee, could you please come to your office immediately. It's an emergency. There's someone here who-"

  "You're damned right it's an emergency," the woman barked at her.

  "Hadn't you better give me the gun?" Debra asked, holding out her hand and stepping toward her.

  The woman turned and trained the pistol on her. "Just back off, sister. And keep out of this. I know you work for him but you're just a flunky."

  "Then could you at least keep your voice down," Debra Connolly said, her composure hard as ice. The jab had bounced right off. Underneath the beauty pageant exterior she was all steel and sinew. "There are patients upstairs. . "

  The hapless security man who'd been trailing behind the woman had gone over to the positive-pressure door of the laboratory and was desperately banging on the glass and waving for Dr. Van de Vliet. A moment later, he strode out, still wearing his white lab jacket.

  "You," the woman hissed, turning to meet him. "You're the one who has her. You and that bastard Bartlett."

  "Madam, I must ask you to leave," he said warily as he came up to her. "Immediately." He glanced down at the pistol. "Otherwise I'll have to call the police."

  Although he was giving the impression that the woman was just an anonymous annoyance, Ally was sure she caught a glimmer of recognition, and a patina of poorly disguised panic, in his eyes.

  "I want to see Kristen, damn you. I want to know what you've done with her. To her. You and that bastard Winston Bartlett who got her into-"

  "Kristen?" He seemed puzzled. Then he appeared to remember. "There was a patient here briefly a while back, who I believe was named-"

  "Kristen Starr. That's right, you fucker. And you damned well do remember her. And me. She's my daughter. Where is she?"

  My God, Ally thought,could she meanthatKristen Starr, the one who had an interview show on cable. The world around this institute just keeps getting smaller.

  Ally had actually done an interior-design project for Kristen

  Starr back when she was first getting up to speed at CitiSpace. It was one of her first jobs. At that time Kristen had just signed a two-year contract with E! and she wanted to renovate her co-op in Chelsea. But then just as the job was completed, she sold the place and moved to a brownstone in the West Village, or so she'd said. Ally didn't know why she had done it or where precisely she had moved to, but she got the impression some very rich new sugar daddy was setting her up and he wanted the privacy of a town house.

  Could it be thatKristenwas the mysterious missing patient Stone was trying to locate and interview? Ally hadn't seen her on TV for a while, so maybe she had moved on to other things.

  "I really don't know where she is now," Van de Vliet said. "She became emotionally unstable in the middle of her treatment. It's a rarity but it has happened. She checked out. After that, I don't-"

  "That's a damned lie," the woman declared. "I know it now. That's what your receptionists have been telling everybody. It sounded a little like her at first, but now I realize it's preposterous. She didn't just up and run off. You're keeping her somewhere. Where is she? Where's my only child?"

  "Wherever she is, I can assure you she's most assuredly nothere," Van de Vliet intoned smoothly, even as his eyes struggled to stay calm. "Would that she were. She wanted … a procedure done and I think we were having some success. But then she became traumatized for some reason best known to her and insisted on leaving. No one is forced to complete the regimen here against their will. As best I recall, someone said she went to a spa in New Mexico."

  "I know that's what your flunkies have been telling me over the phone. That she went to New Mexico to hide out. But now I know everybody lied to me. For the last three years she's been sleeping with that bastard Winston Bartlett, but now his office won't even return my phone calls. You all think you're so smart, but I could smuggle a gun past your guards. In my bra!" Her eyes had acquired a further kind of wildness now as she awkwardly began opening her purse, hanging from a shoulder strap, with her left hand while still holding the pistol in her right. "And I got a letter from her just this morning. The postmark is New York City. So-"

  "What-" Van de Vliet's eyes began to blink rapidly.

  "She's not in New Mexico now. If she ever was." The woman waved a small tan envelope at him. There was large, loopy writing on the outside.

  "Could. . could I see that?" He started to reach for it, but she waved the black Beretta at him and shoved the letter back into her purse.

  "No you can't. What youcando is tell me where thehellyou're keeping her.Now."

  "Before we proceed any further, that gun really isn't necessary," Van de Vliet said as he reached and deftly seized her wrist. He was quick, and his quickness seemed to spook her, because just as he turned the pistol away, it discharged.

  The round went astray, ricocheting off a metal lighting fixture at the end of the hallway and into the
wall. The hapless, unarmed guard who'd followed her downstairs yelled and dived behind a large potted corn plant near the office door. Both Ellen O'Hara and Debra Connolly just stared, momentarily too stunned to move.

  Ally stepped toward the woman, wanting to help Van de Vliet disarm her. She was feeling her heart race dangerously upward.

  Van de Vliet was still struggling with the woman when the Beretta discharged again. This time it was aimed downward, at the hard tile floor, and the ricochet was not so harmless. The round bounced back and caught the woman in the chest knocking her sideways. Van de Vliet unsuccessfully grabbed for her as she crumpled. Ally reached for her too, but by that time she was already on the floor. Ally pulled the hot pistol from her fingers, then turned and handed it to Ellen.

  "Here. For God's sake, do something with this." She realized she had never actually held a real pistol before.

  Blood was flowing across the floor as Van de Vliet and Debra Connolly began tearing open the woman's blouse. The bullet appeared to have entered her chest just below the rib cage, a jagged wound caused by the projectile's tumble and splattered shape, and then exited a few inches away, at her side. She had passed out.

  "Get a gurneynow," he yelled to Ellen. "We've got to get her into OR one and try to do something about the bleeding."

  My God, Ally marveled,what desperation drove her to threaten him with a gun when she obviously didn't know the first thing about how to use it?

  The woman's open purse was lying no more than two feet from where she had fallen. With the hallway rapidly filling as nurses from upstairs poured off the elevator, no one was paying any attention to anything but the prostrate woman.

  Get the letter, Ally!

  She gingerly moved over to where the purse was resting and peeked in. There was a jumble of the usual things: cosmetics, a ballpoint, a change purse, an address book, and a billfold. There also was the tan envelope. Yes!