Syndrome

by Thomas Hoover

  Ally quickly locked the Toyota and went over.

  "But why did she run?" Stone Aimes was asking. He was disheveled but then being slugged and knocked to the sidewalk takes a toll on anybody's poise.

  "She didn't know who you were," the girl replied She looked like she would have been more at home in the East Village than here: late twenties, tattoo on one bicep, eyebrows pierced blue jeans, hair needing a better day. She had serious acne scars on her cheeks. "I think she thought you werethem, whoever they were."

  Ally looked Stone over and felt a surge of admiration. In spite of the fact he just got decked, there was an athletic feeling about the way he carried his body, as though he was ready to pounce on a news source. Only he just didn't pounce quite fast enough this time.

  She walked up and gave him a hug. For a lot of reasons.

  "Hey, we can't go on meeting like this."

  "My God, how humiliating." He winced.

  "What in heaven's name just happened? That was Kristen, all right. But why was she running from you?"

  "I saw this woman walking very fast up the street carrying a backpack and I just took a shot and called out 'Kristen.' She glanced back at me, then took off like a rabbit. All I accomplished was to drive her directly into the grasp of those goons."

  "You scared her," the girl with the pierced eyebrows shouted, gazing angrily at Stone. "Who are you? Why did you-?"

  "I'm a newspaper reporter," he said. "Who are you?"

  "I sublet the garden apartment from her. I met her when I was doing her makeup at the E! channel. I mentioned I was looking for a place and she said she liked me and wanted somebody she liked to be her subtenant. The rent is really low. Then they canceled her show and she had a mental meltdown and went to a spa somewhere to regroup. Or at least that's what everybody at E! says."

  "So that's definitely Kristen Starr?" Ally asked.

  "I hadn't seen her in over five months, not even to pay the rent, and I couldn't believe it was her when she rang my bell and asked if she could borrow my copy of her key. At first I almost didn't recognize her. She looked. . different somehow. The odd part was, I got the impression that she didn't recognize me either, at least for a minute or two. When I asked her if she wanted the rent, she just looked at me funny. A few minutes later, she brought the key back and she had a half-open backpack stuffed with clothes and papers. She seemed nervous and disoriented. I was going to try and help her get a cab. But then you showed up."

  "Hey, look, I had no idea I was going to freak her out like that," Stone said.

  "What's your name?" Ally asked and then she introduced herself.

  "My named is Cindy Dobbs. And you know something? Kristen didn't seem like the same person, in a lot of ways. She looked really different. I don't know how to explain it. But something was really, really wrong with her. And she kept saying her name wasn't Kristen, that it's something else-I can't remember what now. All I know is, she was totally spooked."

  "Talk about bad timing," Stone said.

  "She was so paranoid she kept babbling about how 'they' knew she was here in her apartment and were coming to get her and she had to get away real quick. I don't know who she was talking about. Some guy used to come by and his white stretch limo would be double-parked for a couple of hours while he went in. But other than him, nobody ever came here."

  "Cindy, the truth is, I was talking to her this very morning on the phone," Ally said. "I'm the one who called her. I also met her mother today, who just got a crazy letter from her and was walking around with a pistol because of it. I'm getting to be deeply invested in Kristen Starr. Something bizarre seems to have happened to her and I need to find out what it is."

  Ally didn't want to confess that she felt indirectly responsible for what had just occurred. If she hadn't phoned. . She stood thinking a minute, then, "Did you say you had a key to her place?"

  Cindy shrugged. "I've had it since I moved in. We had copies of each other's keys. Just in case, you know." She reached into her ragged jeans and pulled it out and stared at it. It was attached to a blue plastic tab,Greenwich locksmiths.

  "Then could we borrow it long enough to go in and take a look around? Maybe we could find some clue to what's going on."

  "Hey, if you want the key, and you think it can help you find her, you can just have it." She was holding it out. "I don't want to go in there, ever. With my luck, those people would show up again and take me away. But let me know if you find out anything, okay? I really thought of her as a friend, even though we actually didn't know each other that well. She didn't ever introduce me to that older guy who came around. Probably because he was married, at least that's my guess."

  "I think she knows those people who grabbed her just now," Ally said, taking the key. "Cindy, can we exchange phone numbers?"

  "Sure. I meant it about letting me know if you find out what's going on with her. Everybody at work is going to be really bummed when they hear about this."

  Moments later, Ally and Stone were alone on the street, with Stone still appearing dazed. Now, taking measure of him in the daylight, she noticed a bit more of the mileage in his face and body. Still, it was good mileage and it had left him seasoned and lean. Also, she sensed that he really cared about things. This was more like the man she remembered, amenschin wolf's clothing.

  "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked.

  "I'm going to be fine," he said. "Jesus, I never dreamed I'd spook her the way I did. By the way, did you get the license number of that Lincoln? I sure as hell didn't."

  "I didn't need it. That guy is Winston Bartlett's personal bodyguard. He called him Ken. I was at Bartlett's place on Gramercy Park a couple of days ago and I saw him there."

  "You're not kidding, are you?"

  "I wish." She paused. "You know, Kristen and Bartlett were being talked about as an item back when. 'Page Six.' "

  "TheSentinelwould never touch it, but that was more than a rumor. Over the years I've had occasion to take more than a passing interest in his affairs." He grinned. "And for the past several days, he's been taking a lot more interest inmyaffairs, ever since he found out about the book."

  "Incidentally," she declared, "I didn't have a chance to tell you on the phone, but Kristen seems to have no memory of who she is. Somebody told her that her name is Kirby, and that's what she insists on being called. All in all, she sounded deeply screwed up." She dangled the key. "So why don't we go up and see if we can learn anything?"

  "Did it seem odd to you that, what's her name, Cindy didn't want to go in with us," he mused as they headed up the steps.

  "Well, maybe she's already seen it. God only knows what we're going to find. Though the place she had in Chelsea was pretty well maintained. After I redid it, it was a knockout, of course, but she'd already moved down here by then."

  The building dated from the middle of the nineteenth century and the entryway, painted white, was a slight nod to the fashion for the Greek Revival style that made its way into the New York town houses of that period.

  She shoved the key into the new lock, a Medico, and pushed open the door. Stone moved past her and switched on the light.

  What awaited them was a minimally furnished but elegant living room, with a small couch and table. The downstairs "parlor floor" had been "opened up"; a lot of walls had been taken out and a staircase was on one side of the front room. It felt like a modern loft.

  Memorabilia from E! was all over, the logo on throw pillows and two empty mugs on the table. The main decoration, however, consisted of publicity photos of Kristen around the walls, a smiling blonde with flowing tresses down over her shoulders. In all of them she was wearing heavy makeup and the photos appeared to have been airbrushed.

  They were both trying to absorb what they were actually seeing. Each photo, and there were at least sixteen, was pinned to the walls with a steak knife, all with matching white bone handles.

  "Jesus, who do you think did this?" Stone asked. "Could it be that ditzy girl downstairs?"


  "I'd say she did it herself. Supposedly the reason she went to the Dorian Institute was because she was having some kind of personal crisis over starting to look older. She was consumed with terminal self-hate. That's what this has to be about."

  "I've never caught her on TV," Stone said, walking over to study one of the photos, "but from what little I saw of her on the street just now, she sure seemed different from these head shots."

  "Well, this is exactly how she looked on the tube." She told him the alleged story of how Kristen had ended up at the Dorian Institute. Then she gazed around the room, still having trouble taking it in. "Jesus, this is really sick."

  "Ally, I'm absolutely convinced that whatever happened or didn't happen-keep that possibility in mind-to Kristen is connected somehow to the reason Gerex's clinical trials have been put under ironclad security."

  "Which is why, no matter what, they've got to get her back on the reservation." Ally thought a moment. "Van de Vliet told me she'd left the clinic of her own accord. Which clearly was BS. Winston Bartlett has her stashed somewhere. Probably in an apartment in one of the buildings he owns." She looked over. "What do you think it all means?"

  "How's this for a guess? Kristen is experiencing some kind of side effect that's truly horrendous. Losing your memory is bad enough, but there's probably something more too. I can't imagine what it is, but if the truth about it ever gets out, their entire program of stem cell research would be jeopardized."

  "Well, I don't see much here to help us find her," she declared, looking around. "The knives in the walls don't speak well for her grip on sanity. Who knows? Maybe nothing's physically wrong with her. Maybe it's just all in her crazy head. Look at this place, for goodness' sake. Except for the knives, it looks pretty normal. Maybe she's just a nutcase and imagining that her memory is going."

  As she gazed around the room one last time, she noticed an answering machine on the floor next to the couch. The message light on it was blinking, and she walked over and pushed the play button. She remembered that Stone had said he hadn't left a message, and Kristen had picked up when she called her, short-circuiting the voice mail.

  The phone machine announced in an electronic voice, "You have one message, at two-elevenp.m."

  Then an unctuous male voice came on. "Kirby, we know you're there. You're still in treatment. You shouldn't be wandering around unsupervised. It's a lot better, a lot safer, for you to stay with us now. This is Ken. I'm coming with Delores to pick you up. I know you're upset, but you shouldn't be. We're going to take care of you and help you."

  Then the phone machine clicked off.

  "My God" Stone said glancing at his watch, "that's almost exactly when I got here. That's why she thought I was with them."

  "That's the guy who slugged you. I recognize his voice. Guess they suspected she was here and that phone call was intended to flush her out. It worked."

  "And I ended up right in the middle of it. Damn."

  She walked around the empty room, checking it out. Except for the head shots stabbed to the wall, there was not a scrap of paper to be seen.

  So how do we find Kristen without a clue? she wondered. Should the kidnapping, if that's what it was, be reported to the police? But what proof do we have that any of it actually happened? They're not going to third-degree Winston Bartlett.

  "You know," Stone said staring closely at one of the photos, "I didn't actually get a really good look at the woman running down the street. She glanced back at me when I called out her name, but the truth is, I'm not a hundred percent sure this is her."

  "Come on," Ally said "that had to be Kristen. The girl downstairs recognized her. Though she did say she looked different somehow."

  "You're going to think I'm crazy," he went on, still staring around at the walls, "but it seems to me the girl on the street was a lot younger than this one." He bit a fingernail contemplatively. "Christ, this is some sick material."

  "Stone, I'm going down to my office, to take care of some things and think about this. Come along if you like. Maybe we've overlooked something obvious. Something that-"

  That was when the beeper on his belt went off. He looked down at the number.

  "Whoops. It's my managing editor."

  "Where you work?"

  "Right. Only I've got a feeling this call could be about how Iusedto work there."

  Chapter 22

  Wednesday, April 8

  3:18p.m.

  Ellen O'Hara, R.N., who was in charge of the nursing staff at the Dorian Institute and chair of the union committee for the Gerex Corporation, looked around the room, which was a conference space just off the laboratory in the first level of the basement. Each of the three other nurses present reported directly to her and they had filed in casually one by one, in order not to draw the attention of the research staff as they passed the laboratory. They all sensed the imminence of crisis and this was a clandestine emergency meeting.

  The appearance of Katherine Starr and the shooting that transpired had left the entire nursing staff in dismay. Of course they all remembered Kristen Starr, the outgoing and scatterbrained TV personality, who had arrived in the throes of a mental meltdown. Some also remembered her mother, Katherine, who had made a nuisance of herself till she was refused further admittance (on the orders, everyone suspected of the owner, Winston Bartlett, who was widely reported to have a romantic relationship with the girl).

  They also suspected that something had started going terribly wrong with Kristen's cosmetic procedure. After seeming okay, her behavior had suddenly become erratic and she had been immediately whisked into intensive care in the subbasement and quarantined before anybody on the regular nursing staff could learn what the problem was. She was attended by the research team he had brought from California, and the information officer at the registration desk in the lobby, May Gooden, was instructed to say she had voluntarily left the program. (Well, maybe she had, but she hadn't left the institute.) Then less than a week ago, she was rolled out on a gurney and loaded into the ambulance, which was driven by Winston Bartlett's Japanese thug, and taken God knows where.

  Ellen had checked and was dismayed, though not entirely surprised, to discover that none of this had been included in the weekly clinical-trial reports being forwarded to the National Institutes of Health. (Which in itself was a flagrant violation of procedural requirements.)

  And now this. Kristen's own mother showed up deranged and carrying a pistol, looking for her. How much longer would it be before the NIH, or the police, found out that something funny had gone on?

  Right now the first thing to do was to get the three senior nurses in the room to put a lid on the rumors. They were her lieutenants; it was their job.

  Elise Baker, single and sharp and acerbic, was in charge of the second floor; Mary Hinds, a kindly mother of two, had responsibility for the third floor, and May Gooden, the queen of communication skills, handled the reception and oversaw the staff responsible for the dining room. All three were in their forties and they reported to Ellen O'Hara, who reported to Karl Van de Vliet.

  "Elise, could you please close the door."

  "Sure." She was getting up. "Is this the quorum? You don't want anybody else here?"

  "We have to decide what to do about Katherine Starr," Ellen began. "In my opinion, the absolute first thing we have to do is make sure the story of what just happened never leaves this building."

  "Well, I think Dr. Vee should call the police and have her arrested" Elise said as she quietly shut the door. "The very idea. Barging in here with a loaded gun."

  "I don't feel safe in the lobby anymore," May Gooden declared. Her face was lined and she had streaks of premature gray. "We're all exposed out here in the middle of nowhere. I think Charles should have a pistol. What good is it having a 'security guard' if you're still not secure."

  "Mary, what do you think?" Ellen asked. She knew Mary would always try to split the difference and reconcile differing opinions.

&nbs
p; "I don't know. Maybe it was just the case of one crazy person. It's probably not going to happen again."

  Okay, Ellen thought,that's three different votes. Call the cops, beef up security, or put our collective heads in the sand.

  She worried about the others, but she was also worried about her own situation. Her husband Harold left her eight years ago for a younger woman, and after reclaiming her maiden name, she'd raised their two young sons on her own. Now the oldest, Eric, was ready to start college and she had no idea how she was going to pay for it if she lost this job.

  The Gerex Corporation paid her almost twice what she would be earning as an R.N. at an ordinary hospital. With her current salary, she had a shot at providing the boys with an education. Without it-if Gerex got embroiled in some horrible scandal and was put out of business-she had no hope whatsoever.

  Even worse, she might be named as being complicit in some unethical shenanigans, knowingly putting a patient at risk in a human trial. That would certainly drive a stake into the heart of her nursing career.

  "Elise, we'd better think long and hard about bringing in the police. They would talk to Katherine and she'd tell them Kristen was missing and we simply have no idea where it would end." She paused. "I'm about to say something I shouldn't, but I guess this is the moment. You all deserve to know an important fact. The NIH has not been told the reason Kristen Starr was terminated from the stem cell program."

  "How do you know that?" Elise asked.

  "I just checked the reporting records. Call it a hunch. We all know that, for a formal clinical trial, that's a flagrant violation of NIH rules."

  "What are you saying?" Mary asked, her voice filling with alarm.

  "I'm saying we have no choice but to keep this whole matter of Kristen and her mother under cover. If the Dorian Institute gets caught tampering with the data from a clinical trial, it could be the end of everybody's career. Dr. Van de Vliet's certainly, but most probably ours as well."