Chapter 33

_Friday, April 10

8:45 P.M.

_

Ellen O'Hara had not left after the day shift ended at six P.M. Instead, she had told Dr. Van de Vliet that she wanted to reorganize some of the NIH paper files she kept in her office on the first floor. The truth was, she had become convinced that the culmination of something deeply evil was scheduled for later that night.

The evil had begun when Kristen Starr's mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she'd been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the inst.i.tute from wherever she'd been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbas.e.m.e.nt the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman.

Then this morning, Bartlett and his j.a.panese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied Alexa

Hampton, but he wasn't put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs.

May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she'd met once when they were on a public-health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for the New York Sentinel.

Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton.

Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem- cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She'd begun responding in a matter of hours.

She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbas.e.m.e.nt?

Now Ellen O'Hara knew the reason.

She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they'd performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight.

The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it.

She was nervous about confronting Van de Vliet, but she didn't know what she could say that wouldn't sound like an indictment. Still, she was d.a.m.ned well determined to do it.

If nothing else, it would provide a diversion.

She put away the files and walked out into the dim hallway, then made her way into the reception area.

"Everything all right, Grace?" she asked the nurse at the desk.

"My, you're working late," came the pleasant reply. "Quiet as a mouse around here. I guess it'll be even quieter when the clinical trials are finished. I mean, after the celebrating is over."

"Right." But they're not over, Ellen thought. And there may

_not _be a celebration. "I'm going down to sublevel one. Is Dr. Vee down there now?"

"I think he's in his office. Everybody else went out for a bite, probably that diner down the road. I think something's scheduled for later on. I don't know. Everybody looks kind of worried."