"They work together?"

"Yes, I think so. They've both come in and interviewed me."

That doesn't mean they work together, Richard thought.

"-although I have to say, she's not nearly as nice as Mr. Mandrake. He's so interested in what you have to say."

"Did she tell you they worked together?"

"Not exactly," she said, looking confused. "I a.s.sumed... Mr. Mandrake's writing a new book about messages from the Other Side."

She didn't know for certain that they worked together, but if that was even a possibility...

Messages from the dead, for G.o.d's sake.

"Excuse me," he said abruptly and walked out of the room, straight into a tall, gray-haired man in a pin-striped suit. "Sorry," Richard said, and started past, but the man held his arm.

"You're Dr. Wright, aren't you?" he said, gripping Richard's hand in a confident handshake. "I was just on my way up to see you. I want to discuss your research."

Richard wondered who this was. A fellow researcher? No, the suit was too expensive, the hair too slick. A hospital board member.

"I intended to come see you after I saw Mrs. Davenport, and here you are," he said. "I a.s.sume you've been in listening to her account of her NDE, or, as I prefer to call them, her NAE, near-afterlife experience, because that's what they are. A glimpse of the afterlife that awaits us, a message from beyond the grave."

Maurice Mandrake, Richard thought. s.h.i.t. He should have recognized him from his book jacket photos. And paid more attention to where he was going."I'm delighted you've joined us here at Mercy General," Mandrake said, "and that science is finally acknowledging the existence of the afterlife. The science and medical establishments so often have closed minds when it comes to immortality. I'm delighted that you don't. Now, what exactly does your research entail?"

"I really can't talk now. I have an appointment," Richard said, but Mandrake had no intention of letting him go.

"The fact that people who have had near-death experiences consistently report seeing the same things proves that they are not mere hallucinations."

"Dr. Wright?" the charge nurse called from her desk. "Are you still looking for Dr. Lander?

We've located her."

"Jo?" Mandrake said delightedly. "Is that who your appointment's with? Lovely girl. She and I work together."

Richard's heart sank. "You work together?"

"Oh, yes. We've worked closely on a number of cases."

I should have known, Richard thought.

"Of course, our emphasis is different," Mandrake said. "I am currently interested in the message aspect of the NAEs. And we have different interview methods," he added, frowning slightly. "Were you supposed to meet Dr. Lander here? She is often rather difficult to locate."

"Dr. Lander's not the person I have the appointment with," Richard said. He turned to the charge nurse. "No. I don't need to see her."

Mandrake grabbed his hand again. "Delighted to have met you, Dr. Wright, and I'm looking forward to our working together."

Over my dead body, Richard thought. And I won't be sending you any messages from beyond the grave.

"I must go see Mrs. Davenport now," Mandrake said, as if Richard were the one who had detained him, and left him standing there.

He should have known better. NDE researchers might collect data and do statistical samplings, might publish papers in The Psychology Quarterly Review, might even make a good impression on children, but it was all a blind. They were really latter-day spiritualists using pseudoscientific trappings to lend credibility to what was really religion. He started down the hall to the elevators.

"Dr. Wright!" Tish called after him.

He turned around.

Tish said, "Here she is," and turned to hurry after a young woman in a skirt and cardigan sweaterwalking toward the nurses' station. "Dr. Lander," she said as she caught up to her. "Dr. Wright wants to talk to you."

Dr. Lander said, "Tell him I'm-"

"He's right here," Tish said, waving him over. "Dr. Wright, I found her for you."

d.a.m.n you, Tish, he thought, another minute and I would have been out of here. And now what am I supposed to tell Dr. Lander I wanted her for?

He walked over. She was not, as Tish had said, mousy, although she did wear gla.s.ses, wire-rimmed ones that gave her face a piquant look. She had hazel eyes and brown hair that was pulled back with silver barrettes.

"Dr. Lander," he said. "I-"

"Look, Dr. Wright," she said, putting her hand up to stop him. "I'm sure you've had a fascinating near-death experience, but right now's not the time. I've had a very bad day, and I'm not the person you want to talk to anyway. You need to see Maurice Mandrake. I can give you his pager number."

"He's in with Mrs. Davenport," Tish said helpfully.

"There, Tish will show you where he is. I'm sure he'll want to know all the details. Tish, take him in to Mr. Mandrake." She started past him.

"Don't bother, Tish," he said, angered by her rudeness. "I'm not interested in talking to Dr.

Lander's partner."

"Partner?" Dr. Lander wheeled to face him. "Who told you I was his partner? Did he tell you that? First he steals all my subjects and ruins them and now he's telling people we work together! He has no right!" She stamped her foot. "I do not work with Mr. Mandrake!"

Richard grabbed her arm. "Wait. Whoa. Time out. I think we need to start over."

"Fine," she said. "I do not work with Maurice Mandrake. I am attempting to do legitimate scientific research on near-death experiences, but he is making it absolutely impossible-"

"And I've been attempting to contact you to talk to you about your research," he said, extending his hand. "Richard Wright. I'm doing a project on the neurological causes of the near-death experience."

"Joanna Lander," she said, shaking his hand. "Look, I'm really sorry. I-"

He grinned. "You've had a bad day."

"Yes," she said, and he was surprised by the bleakness of the look she gave him.

"You said this was a bad time to talk," he said hastily. "We don't have to do it right now. We could set up a meeting tomorrow, if that would be better."She nodded. "Today just isn't-one of my subjects-" She recovered herself. "Tomorrow would be good. What time?"

"Ten o'clock? Or we could meet for lunch. When is the cafeteria open?"

"Hardly ever," she said, and smiled. "Ten is fine. Where?"

"My lab's up on six-east," he said. "602."

"Tomorrow at ten," she said, and started down the hall, but before she had gone five steps she had turned and begun walking back toward him.

"What-" he said.

"Shh," she said, pa.s.sing him. "Maurice Mandrake," she murmured, and pushed open a white door marked "Staff Only."

He glanced back, saw a pin-striped suit coming around the corner, and ducked in the door after her. It was a stairway, leading down.

"Sorry," she said, starting down the gray-painted cement stairs, "but I was afraid if I had to talk to him right then, I'd kill him."

"I know the feeling," Richard said, starting down the stairs after her. "I already had one encounter today."

"This'll take us down to first," she said, already down to the landing, "and then to the main elevators." She stopped short, looking dismayed.

"What is it?" he said, coming down to where she was standing. A strip of yellow "Do Not Cross" tape stretched across the stairway. Below it, the stairs gleamed with shiny, wet, pale blue paint.

3.

"Oh, s.h.i.t."

-Last words on majority of flight recorders recovered after plane crashes.

"Maybe the paint's dried," Dr. Wright said, even though it was obviously still wet.

Joanna stooped and touched it. "Nope," she said, holding her finger up to show him the pale blue spot on the tip."And there's no other way out?"

"Back the way we came," she said. "Did Mr. Mandrake happen to tell you where he was going?"

"Yes," Richard said. "In to see Mrs. Davenport."

"Oh, no, he'll be in there forever," she said. "Mrs. Davenport's life review is longer than most people's lives. And it's been three hours since I saw her last. She's no doubt 'remembered' all sorts of details in the meantime. And what she hasn't, Mr. Mandrake will manufacture."

"How did a nutcase like Mandrake get permission to do research in a reputable hospital like Mercy General anyway?" he asked.

"Money," she said. "He donated half the royalties of The Light at the End of the Tunnel to them. It's sold over twenty-five million copies."

"Proving the adage that there's one born every minute."

"And that people believe what they want to believe. Especially Esther Brightman."

"Who's Esther Brightman?"

"The widow of Harold Brightman of Brightman Industries and the oldest member of Mercy General's board of trustees. And a devout disciple of Mandrake's, I think because she might cross over to the Other Side at any moment. She's donated even more money to Mercy General than Mandrake, and the entire Research Inst.i.tute, and when she dies, they get the whole kit and caboodle.

If she doesn't change her will in the meantime."

"Which means allowing Mandrake to pollute the premises."

She nodded. "And any other project connected with NDEs. Which is what I'm doing here."

He frowned. "Isn't Mrs. Brightman afraid legitimate scientific research might undermine the idea of life after death?"

She shook her head. "She's convinced that the evidence will prove the existence of the afterlife, and that I'll come to see the light. I should be grateful to them. Most hospitals won't touch NDE research with a ten-foot pole. I'm not, however. Grateful. Especially right now." She looked speculatively up at the door. "We might be able to sneak past him while Mrs. Davenport's telling him the riveting story of her third-grade spelling test." She tiptoed up the stairs and opened the door a silent crack.

Mr. Mandrake was standing in the hall, talking to Tish. "Mrs. Davenport and the others have been sent back as emissaries," he said, "to bring us word of what awaits us on the Other Side."

Joanna eased the door shut carefully and went back down to where Dr. Wright was standing.

"He's talking to Tish," she whispered, "telling her how NDEs are messages from the Other Side. And meanwhile, we're trapped on This Side." She walked past him down to the landing. "I don't knowabout you, but I can't stand the thought of having to listen to his theories of life after death. Not today.

So I think I'll just wait here till he leaves."

She went around the landing and sat down out of sight of the door above, her feet on the step above the yellow "Do Not Cross" tape. "Don't feel like you have to stay, Dr. Wright. I'm sure you've got more important things-"

"I've already been caught once today by Mandrake," he said. "And I wanted to talk to you, remember? About working with me on my project. This looks like an ideal place. No noise, no interruptions-but it's not Dr. Wright, not when we're stuck in a half-painted stairwell together. I'm Richard." He extended his hand.

"Joanna," she said, shaking it.

He sat down across the landing facing her. "Tell me about your bad day, Joanna."

She leaned her head back against the wall. "A man died."

"Somebody you were close to?"

She shook her head. "I didn't even know him. I was interviewing him in the ER... he..." He was there one minute, she thought, and the next he was gone. And that wasn't just a figure of speech, a euphemism for death like "pa.s.sed away." It was how it had felt. Looking at him lying there in the ER, the monitor wailing, the cardiologist and nurses frantically working over him, it hadn't felt like Greg Menotti had shut down or ceased to exist. It was as if he'd vanished.

"He'd had an NDE?" Richard asked.

"No. I don't know. He'd had a heart attack and coded in the ambulance, and he said he didn't remember anything, but while the doctor was examining him, he coded again, and he said, 'Too far for her to come.' " She looked up at Richard. "The nurses thought he was talking about his girlfriend, but he wasn't, she was already there." And he was somewhere else, Joanna thought. Like Coma Carl.

Somewhere too far for her to come.

"How old was he?" Richard asked.

"Thirty-four."

"And probably no prior damage," he said angrily. "If he'd survived another five minutes, they could have gotten him up to surgery, done a bypa.s.s, and given him ten, twenty, even fifty more years."

He leaned forward eagerly. "That's why this research is so important. If we can figure out what happens in the brain when it's dying, then we can devise strategies for preventing unnecessary deaths like the one that happened this afternoon. And I believe the NDE's the key, that it's a survival mechanism-"