Chapter 25

_Wednesday, April 8

7:20 P.M.

_

"Jesus, Ally, are you all right?" He leaned over and shook her.

Finally she jumped, and then her eyelids fluttered open.

"Where ... ?" She looked around.

"The sign says this is it. The inst.i.tute."

"Oh s.h.i.t, Stone, I'm feeling really strange," she said after a moment of getting her bearings. "Everything around me seems like it's moving.

It's as though the s.p.a.ce I'm in has an extra dimension. I don't know .

. . maybe it was totally stupid to come back out here. Maybe I should have just gone to my doctor in the city."

"Hey, you've got a seriously deficient sense of timing. We're here now.

I've been breaking the speed limit for the last half hour."

"I know. s.h.i.t. I really don't know what to do. I don't trust anybody."

"Well, you could start by trusting me. I'm along to try to make sure nothing bad happens." He paused. "So what do we do?"

A bra.s.s plaque on a redbrick pillar beside the gate bore a two-inch- high inscription, THE DORIAN INSt.i.tUTE, and just below it was an intercom.

She stared at it for a moment, then said, "There, give it a buzz. I think there's a video camera around here somewhere. Last time I was here, they knew I'd arrived."

He reached out and touched a black b.u.t.ton.

"Yes," came back a quick voice. She recognized it as belonging to the woman she'd spoken to on the phone.

"It's Alexa Hampton." She leaned over. "We talked--"

"Yes, I know, Ms. Hampton. He's been waiting for you."

A buzzer sounded and the two wrought-iron gates slid back, welcoming them. As they drove down the tree-lined road, an elegant three-story redbrick structure with white Doric columns across the front slowly came into view.

"From here, it's pretty cla.s.sy-looking," Stone declared, sizing it up.

"I know his big manufacturing-and-research campus is right down the road. But still, it sure feels G.o.dforsaken and lost out here in the middle of these pines. It's like the place is hiding from the world."

"Where better to do secret medical research," she said. "If you want to keep everything proprietary, then the isolation gives you a big jump on security."

She directed him to the side parking lot, where she'd left her car that morning.

"Stone, here's what we'll tell them. You're next of kin, a cousin on my mother's side."

"Works for me," he declared. "I'm beginning to feel part of the family anyway." He pocketed the car keys and helped her out of the Toyota.

As they headed up the wide steps, past the white columns, Ally felt a wave of nausea sweep through her. She reached out and took Stone's arm and sank against him.