So she opened the first door. She sent a notice of deposition with subpoena duces tecum to Fifth Third Bank's home office. You can, said the subpoena, avoid appearing at the office of Murfee and Hightower in Chicago by simply forwarding the requested records. She was referring to his bank records, of course.

Fifth Third complied. A week later Christine received a five-inch stack of Sanchez's bank statements and check photocopies. Then she set about scanning each and every document into the Luis M. Sanchez profile, and began the laborious task of dragging and dropping where matches could be made. Was the check made out to his landlord, Gilbert and Betty Hildebrand? If so, it was inserted into his profile > addresses file folder. And so on, ad nauseam.

One week later the young lawyer and his paralegal came up for air and by now they had the goods on Mister Luis M. Sanchez.

Turned out his name wasn't Sanchez at all. His true name was Ragur Amman Hussein.

Ragman, to his associates.

His daughter's kidnapper, to Thaddeus.

It was time to pay him a call.

"How do you want to run this?" Christine asked. She gave him a hard look, her "I'm up for anything" look.

Thaddeus returned her look. "I'm open to ideas."

"Well, the FBI is watching you. They're not watching me."

"And you know this how?"

She shook her head. "Please, Thaddeus."

"Sorry. So what would you do?"

"Let me locate them. Follow them. Try to figure out their game."

"I hate to think what they might really be up to," he said.

"Wouldn't surprise me they're getting set to blow something up. Or poison the city water supply. Or hijack a bus load of school children. Some asshole ploy."

"No kidding," he said. "I'm beginning to think we should go after all of them."

She drank a slug of coffee. "Eliminate all of them?"

"Why not?"

She slowly answered. "Well, it is a joint venture of some kind. Something horrible where innocent people will suffer."

"That's what I mean. They already hurt Sarai. That got my attention."

"I have to agree."

"So we take them all out?"

"Whatever you think."

He nodded slowly and smiled. "I think."

"I'm on it, boss."

14.

The night after Morgana left Jones Marentz, there was a phone conversation between Sandy Green and A.W. Marentz. Sandy had just come off a twelve-hour marathon at SCU, forging records and creating X-rays from healthy actors. He was tired but it was important he talk to A.W.

They discussed Morgana, now that she had jumped ship and told them where they could put it. She wasn't going to cheat. The car and the huge salary hadn't been enough to lure her in, so they were sweating bullets.

Sandy was restless. He was getting a great deal of heat from the Hudd powers-that-be about Morgana walking out on the Jones Marentz law firm. He immediately launched into A.W. "So she walked. Truth be told, I'm not that surprised."

A.W. sighed and there was exhaustion in his voice. "I guess I shouldn't be either."

Sandy rubbed his eyes. He'd been up all night dealing with the VP of security. "You know, A.W., the Hudds won't allow this. Morgana's too dangerous to us now. Look what happened to Garrett Donovan, for god's sakes."

"Meaning?"

"I shouldn't have to spell it out. You already know what it means."

"Look, tell the Hudds I just need a few days. Let me work on the girl."

"I've got my orders. She's got until Monday to come around."

"Give me a week. Just make it a week. She'll get hungry and come crawling back."

"Then they're after me."

"A few days then. Give me four days."

"Wednesday she's back behind her desk or I step in. That's it."

"What does that mean?"

"I can't say. Not over the phone."

"You're not talking about hurting her?"

"I'm talking about keeping her quiet. We don't know what that means yet, do we? But so far you've struck out. Now it's up to me and I will not-I promise you-I will not let this young woman destroy an industry leader."

"So you would hurt her."

"Not over the phone. I told you that."

A.W. shook his head and hung up. Now he had to get to work on Morgana or things were going to get very ugly very quickly.

He was feeling too old for this crap.

He would have given anything if he had just stopped it right then.

But he didn't.

15.

Scared to death.

Leukemia does that to cowards. Leukemia does it to the brave, as well.

Morgana came clean with Caroline on the drive to the doctor. "He said leukemia, now I get to find out what that means."

Caroline had been hanging on to the Volvo's passenger grip, showing white knuckles, since then.

They parked out front, trudged through the morning snowfall, and elevated up to the third floor.

Dr. Romulus was African-American, maybe ten years older than Morgana, wire eyeglasses, and a large turquoise bolo tie on his denim shirt. Spotless white lab coat, stethoscope coiled in his side pocket, showing blue jeans and sandals with socks below. He knocked once, came bouncing into the examination room, and shook hands. Caroline was introduced, and then they got down to it.

"Morgana the news is not great, but there's hope."

Morgana's heart jumped. "The tests are back, I take it."

Caroline slumped. "God. Start with the hope, please."

He raised a hand. "Let me ask Morgana a few questions first, please. I'm going to suggest symptoms, and you tell me if I hit one that applies, okay?"

Morgana was perched on the exam table, stripped down to suit pants and tee. Goose bumps rippled along her arms. "Okay."

"Swollen lymph nodes? Notice any?"

"No."

"And I don't palpate any."

"Next, fevers or night sweats?"

The young lawyer smiled. "Night sweats the night before a trial starts? That count?"

"Nope. We're talking about more than one, unrelated to any known stressors."

"Then no."

"Fair enough. Feeling weak, tired?"

"No more tired than usual. Well, maybe. Definite yes."

"Bleeding and bruising easily?"

"Nope. Sometimes when I floss, there's a little blood. But I floss every night for a few days and that goes away."

"Swelling or discomfort in the abdomen?"

"No."

He sighed. "Pain in bones or joints?"

"My knees. After I jog, my knees swell up. Especially the right one."

"That's the knee that was scoped after the accident?"

Morgana had been rear-ended and it drove her knee into the dashboard. "Yes, that was injured in the wreck. And scoped."

"Fair enough. Really none of the classical symptoms."

"Of what?" Morgana asked, thinking it might be an infection, mono, something like that.

"Leukemia. You have leukemia, that's my working diagnosis. Confirmed by an oncologist I spoke to. And the biopsy, of course."

Morgana shivered violently on the exam table. Her head was suddenly spinning and she saw spots. Her mind raced backwards, day by day, looking for symptoms, unusual complaints, anything that confirmed what he was saying. But her mind came back empty-handed. She had noticed nothing. Except for the tired. There was that.

"Leukemia," she said to her mate. "I've wondered all my life what would finally get me."

"We all wonder that. You're not alone in that."

Morgana shook her head. "But for me, I figured I would cash it in by drunk driving or maybe blowing my brains out if Caroline left me. Never thought it would be something like leukemia."

"Let me tell you what we know."

"Please."

Caroline retrieved a note pad and a pen from her bag. She was always prepared for the big moments.

Dr. Romulus crossed a leg in the steel-framed chair he occupied. The mandatory computer screen was behind him, and it looked like a long form that was partially filled in. Morgana's history, exam findings, workup, she guessed. It was all right there, in electronic measure, tapping out the beats left in her life. Did she have a will? Did she even need one? They owned very little. Just the condo, the 401(k), a few thousand left from the accident, and the paid-for Volvo. Nothing else. Maybe she would do a will online.

"Okay, here's what we have. You came in two weeks ago for your annual physical. You'd had blood work done, my orders. The lab did a CBC-complete blood count, to check the number of white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. Came back terribly skewed, off the charts elevated white blood cells. Plus very low levels of platelets. 'Danger,' it said. 'Danger.'"

He was studying Morgana as he spoke. Probably deciding if Morgana was hearing what was being said.

She was.

"So we immediately performed a biopsy. A sample of your bone marrow was aspirated from your hipbone. The path doc studied the sample under a very powerful microscope. Leukemia cells present. Report sent to me, diagnosis followed. That's what we know so far."