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 Inst.i.tute 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."

"My G.o.d," Elise blurted out "Did we have to wait till some crazy person with a gun barged in here before you got around to telling us that clinical-trial data had been fiddled with?"

"Maybe Dr. Vee still intends to provide a full report to the NIH.

Whatever he intends, if this whole matter blows up, the less any of us knows about what may have gone on, the better."

"Well," Elise declared, "I think they all should be confronted. The clinical trials aren't over yet. There'll be a final report so he can still give the NIH whatever data had been left out. We should confront him and demand that he give a full accounting in the final report Otherwise we all could end up being part of some conspiracy."

"Maybe we ought to think this over for a few days before we do anything drastic," Mary said. "We don't know what he intends to do and there's still time. If we start giving Dr. Vee ultimatums, it's just going to upset him even more. He could have been killed taking the gun away from her. He's got enough to worry about just now. Maybe he's going to handle her special case some other way that we don't know about."

"My concern right now," Ellen said, "is the people who work under us. I don't think pulling an ostrich number is going to protect anybody.

We've got to get out of denial and face up to how serious this might get. And I'll tell you our number one priority right now. If Katherine Starr walks out of here before the Kristen problem is cleared up and gets the ear of someone in the media, then everybody who works here . .

. Let's just say we mustn't allow that to happen. That's why we're having this meeting."

"Are you suggesting we should keep her ... sedated?" Mary asked. "All her medications have to be approved by--"

"No sedative should be listed on her chart and I'm not telling you what to do, but use your imagination."

There was a moment of silence as the implications of the unspoken order settled in.

"And starting immediately, we need to hold a meeting of the staff on each floor and impress on them that the story of Katherine Starr must never leave this building. Ever. Remind everybody that that would be a serious violation of a staffer's original security agreement and would subject them to legal action the likes of which they can't even begin to imagine. And if somebody comes around asking questions about Kristen Starr, n.o.body here knows anything. We can say she was here because that's part of the record and she is no longer here. End of statement.

Beyond that, n.o.body knows zip."

This problem is far from over, Ellen told herself. G.o.d only knows how it's going to end.

Chapter 23

_Wednesday, April 8

3:22 P.M.

_

As Stone Aimes stepped off the elevator on the sixth floor, his mind was running through his options. This phone call had to be about Winston Bartlett. He was going to step up the pressure. First there was the h.e.l.lfire meeting in Jane's office, and now he'd seen a kidnapping.

Maybe this was about that. Was Jane going to pa.s.s along a threat of legal action if that crime got reported?

The managing editor, Jay, had left a message with the third-floor receptionist, Rhonda, to be forwarded to Stone. Gist: he was urgently required in the office of their corporate counsel.

What does this tell me? he wondered. That they're going to try to do something to me that could have legal ramifications?

No, more likely it means that I'm going to be given an ultimatum, maybe an injunction. And Jane gets to deliver it with all the legal tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

Still, he was determined to go on. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you jive." Right? Well, not necessarily. But at the least, the truth could make a h.e.l.l of a book. And with that came financial freedom, at least for a while... .

The hallway felt desolate and ominous as he walked through the doorway that opened onto the cubicles. Jane Tully was down on the third floor, but he wanted to stop by his desk first and see if there'd been any further communications from Winston Bartlett. Possibly there still could be a deal in the making

The room itself was silent, no one meeting his eye. Maybe, he thought, it's the middle of the afternoon and everybody's dozing off from a late lunch. But when he got to his cubicle, he realized why he had suddenly become invisible. The top of his desk was bare, and there were three large cardboard boxes sitting on the gray carpet next to it.

"I think I get the picture," he said to the empty s.p.a.ce.

It looked like Winston Bartlett had just provided him with a career decision. For a moment he felt his life pa.s.sing before his eyes, but then all he could think about was the future. This was not just the end of a wage-slave era; it was the beginning of the next phase of his life.

He saw everyone still avoiding his eyes as he turned around and walked back to the elevator. How much did Jane know about this? She had to know everything, which was why Jay sent him to see her. She would have no qualms about giving someone the ax, including a former lover.

When he stepped off the elevator on the third floor, Rhonda looked at him as though he were a corpse.

"She's--"

"I know she's here. Don't bother buzzing her."