Synopsis | Reviews | Excerpt
Your
child is almost back to normal after reaching the brink of death—thanks to
brilliant brain surgeon Dr. George Latham, whose controversial surgery is the
reason your child’s mysterious full-body paralysis is gone. Latham says the side effects—the
disabling tics and spasms—will subside in time. Maybe. You should be grateful
for such good results, considering. So just take your kindergartener and go
home . . .
Unless you’re Memphis pediatric resident Dr. Sarchi
Seminoux and the patient is your orphaned nephew, Drew.
Dr. Seminoux asks questions. Dr. Seminoux wants answers.
She begins to see inconsistencies in Latham’s procedures.
Then an anonymous tipster alerts her that Drew’s case is similar to other child
patients of Latham’s in ways that go beyond clinical details.
Something is very suspicious. Patterns emerge. Latham
makes it clear: he won’t tolerate her meddling. Suddenly Seminoux is being
stalked, smeared, and threatened.
The truth is more dangerous than she ever imagined.
Don holds a Ph.D. in human anatomy. In his
professional career, he has taught microscopic anatomy to over 5,000 medical
and dental students and published dozens of research papers on wound healing.
He is also the author of seven published forensic mysteries and five medical
thrillers. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife and two West Highland
terriers.
"Full of twists and turns, and brimming with chillingly authentic medical
details . . . takes the reader on a lively ride." —Tess Gerritsen, New York Times Bestselling Author
"(Donaldson) is every bit the nail-biting equal of Robin Cook and Michael
Crichton." —The Clarion Ledger (Jackson, MS)
"Streamlined thrills and gripping forensic detail." —Kirkus Reviews
"Genuinely heart-stopping suspense." —Publishers Weekly
Prologue
DR.
GEORGE LATHAM pulled the inner core of the biopsy probe from the outer sleeve
and handed it to the scrub nurse, his eyes fixed on the small amount of blood
welling from the sleeve’s opening.
This
didn’t happen often, but when it did it always stopped. And today, it had to,
because as deep as he was in this child’s brain, if it didn’t, there was
nothing he could do.
To
Latham’s left, Dr. Christopher Timmons, present for the inaugural operation
that signaled the final phase of everything they’d worked for, sensed something
was wrong. He leaned over and whispered through his mask. "Does it always bleed
like that?”
Latham
gave him such a sharp look, Timmons took a step back. Now he knew for
sure... the bleeding was unexpected.
Ten
seconds later, as blood continued to issue from the sleeve, the beep of the
pulse oximeter slowed, and its tone dropped. Both Latham and Frank Michaels,
the anesthesiologist, looked at the heart monitor, where the beat was still
steady.
"George, do we have a problem?” Michaels
asked.
Before Latham could answer, the child’s
pulse fell below the warning setting on the oximeter, and the beep became a
continuous buzz.
"Talk to me, George,” Michaels pleaded.
"Can you handle this?”
Latham turned to his scrub nurse. "Get
me a 10-cc syringe, filled with saline.”
Latham’s voice was calm, and he seemed
under control, but Timmons was finding it hard to breathe, and there was a
metallic taste in his mouth.
The nurse brought the syringe, and
Latham discharged a small amount of saline into the biopsy sleeve, hoping to
wash out the blood clot he knew was forming in the child’s brain. Blood diluted
with saline kept coming, but no clot.
As the child’s blood pressure continued
to fall, Michaels thumbed the IV lines to full open and poured fluids in,
trying to compensate. "Is it a big bleeder?” he asked. "Is that the problem?”
"You just concentrate on keeping this
kid alive,” Latham said. "I’ll handle the surgery.”
Timmons glanced at the heart monitor.
Although he was the laboratory arm of their enterprise and wasn’t accustomed to
reading heart rhythms, even he could see that the tracing was becoming
abnormal. Then, to his horror, the tracing suddenly flatlined, setting off the
EKG alarm.
With the patient crashing, Michaels
assumed control, shouting orders. "George... get on her
chest...” Then, to the circulating nurse standing out of the
sterile field, "Doris, call Doctor McCloud and get some more hands in here.”
In seconds, help flooded the room.
Being untrained and useless, Timmons took up a position against the wall and
out of everyone’s way, the stink of fear pouring from his skin.
For the next thirty minutes the team
that had formed so quickly fought off the child’s impending death with the same
ferocity they’d have shown defending their own lives. Finally, after failing to
get a single heartbeat in all that time, Latham looked into the child’s eyes
and announced what no one wanted to hear. "Pupils fixed and dilated.”
The action stopped in freeze-frame. In
a flat monotone, Latham made it official. "Let’s call it.” He yanked his mask
down and looked at his scrub nurse. "Lee-Ann, finish up here, will you?”
Stripping off his gloves, he turned and headed for the door, throwing the
gloves against the wall as he left.
Timmons followed Latham to the locker
room. Once he was sure no one else was there, he stood beside Latham, who was
already taking off his scrubs.
"George... the kid died,”Timmons said.
Latham looked at him with hard eyes. "I
don’t need you to tell me that.”
"It’s an omen, George. We should stop
now.”
Latham suddenly grabbed Timmons by the
arms and shoved him against the lockers. "It is not an omen. This
was just a chance occurrence. It won’t happen again.”
"But there’ll be an
inquiry...”
Latham let Timmons go and returned to
changing his clothes. "Which will find nothing.”
1
Three years later
IF ANYTHING, THE spot where George
Latham had touched Lee-Ann on the shoulder had become even warmer and more
tingly by the time she reached home. Moreover, it had been augmented by the
most delicious prickly sensation between her thighs.
What a fool she’d been. He did care.
Those hours she’d spent hating him for his indifference...
the days. All without reason.
Her imagination frequently got her into
trouble. But even knowing that, it was hard to avoid the trap. Often, she
didn’t see it until it was too late. That’s the way it is with your
imagination.
Trying to ignore the other feeling, the
unpleasant gnawing anticipation higher up in the pit of her stomach, prompted
by what she must do in less than two hours, Lee-Ann carried the tissue
retractor she’d stolen into the bedroom. At the dresser, she opened the bottom
drawer, which was filled with bagged and dated instruments from each of the
operations in which she’d assisted since joining Latham’s team, minus, of
course, any from those that had taken place during the times when she hated
him.
She dated the new plastic bag with a
marker from the top of the dresser then added the bag to the others and stood
for a moment admiring her collection. It was like owning a part of him.
She wanted to linger and spread all the
bags out on the bed in chronological order, reminisce about each case and
picture him working, but there was no time.
It was now time to think.
She went to the bed, sat on the edge,
and closed her eyes, trying to see the physical layout of the eight-story
parking garage adjacent to the restaurant where she was to meet Greta Dunn.
Dunn would almost certainly never find a place for her car on the street, and,
if she did, the maximum time on those meters was only fifteen minutes. That
meant she would surely choose the garage. So that was the scenario Lee-Ann
thought about.
In short order, the same imagination
that had gotten her into this spot showed her a way out. It wasn’t a perfect
plan, but given the circumstances, it seemed to offer the best possibilities.
She would need paper for signs. But how
many?
She thought there were only two
elevators, but there could be three. Better to over-plan than be caught short.
Did she even have any paper?
A frantic search turned up something
better—three old jumbo Christmas cards, which, along with a roll of adhesive
tape, she took to the bedroom. There, she ripped the front halves off the
cards, and with the Magic Marker she’d used to date the bag containing the
stolen retractor, jotted the same three words on the back of each card.
She put the cards and the tape in her
handbag.
One more item, and she’d be ready to
leave. But what item?
She went to the kitchen and pulled out
the drawer containing the tableware. While considering the choices laid out
before her, she remembered her late father’s old toolbox in the basement, which
contained just the trick. But she’d have to change handbags. Go with the straw
beach bag.
But it was fall, and straw was out of
season. In the end, deciding that being in fashion was the least of her worries
at this point, Lee-Ann packed everything in the straw bag.
Was that it? Did she have everything?
Latham had put her in charge of supplies, and it was her job to make sure they
always had plenty of everything on hand, which she was very good at. But this
was different. And she found her mind clouded and disorganized.
Gloves... of course.
She added a pair of thin tan gloves to
her bag, then leaned into the mirror and fussed with her hair.
Lee-Ann hated her appearance, those fat
cheeks that resisted every diet she’d ever tried. She could get almost
anorectic, and those cheeks would never change. When most women smiled, they
looked more attractive. But not her. Oh, no, not Lee-Ann. She looked like a
demented chipmunk.
It was genes. Some people get good ones
and others, like her, get the pot scrapings. That was why she’d coated all the
mirrors in the house with hair spray, leaving only a few small clean spots
where she could do her hair or lipstick without being reminded of the total
obnoxious picture.
And there were only two people
responsible. There were times when she missed her parents, and times when she
worried about how arsenic could be found in tissues many years after death. But
mostly, she felt nothing toward them and barely remembered what they’d looked
like.
LEE-ANN ARRIVED at the garage
twenty-five minutes before her meeting with Greta Dunn, who was driving into
New Orleans from Baton Rouge. She took her ticket from the automated dispenser
and started looking for a parking place.
The restaurant where they’d agreed to
meet was one floor below street level in a ten-story medical arts building so busy
that only rarely could a space be found on the garage’s lower levels. Today was
no exception, and Lee-Ann had to go up to level E before locating a spot.
She didn’t know what kind of car Dunn
owned, but even if she did, she wouldn’t have been able to stand on level E and
watch the street out front for it because the woman might find a slot on a
lower floor. There’d be nothing she could do then.
Her heart tripping, Lee-Ann hurried to
the elevators, which she noted were two in number, just as she had remembered.
She took the right member of the pair down to ground level, got off, and
positioned herself beside a white van where she could see the driver of every
entering car as it passed, but she would not be visible unless the driver
looked to the left.
Lee-Ann had listened through the door
when Dunn had her preoperative discussion with Latham. And she’d seen the woman
at her son’s bedside before leaving him in Latham’s care. In both instances,
Dunn had been composed and in control of herself. Next to beauty, Lee-Ann
admired toughness more than any other trait, and Greta Dunn seemed to have that
in spades. That was why when Lee-Ann was wondering who could create the most
trouble for Latham, she’d thought of Dunn.
It was raining hard now, and gusts of
wind were blowing in through the open front of the garage, soaking the entry
ramp. Behind Lee-Ann, a burgeoning waterfall seeped copiously from a supporting
beam overhead, splattering the cement retaining wall behind her.
A car passed into view from the entry,
and Lee-Ann was pleased that she had no trouble seeing the driver clearly, even
though he’d put up his window after taking his ticket. To get a feel for how
things would go when Dunn arrived, she moved down the van to where she was
still concealed from anyone entering and watched the car that had just come in.
When it turned at the end of the garage
and started back up the ramp behind her, Lee-Ann realized that her plan was in
major trouble. If Dunn didn’t find a slot on the ramp behind her and had to go
up several floors, it was going to be hell keeping up with her.
Lee-Ann studied the wet retaining wall
behind her. She’d have to scale that wall. Then...
Hearing another car coming in, Lee-Ann
turned to get a look at the driver, praying it wasn’t Dunn. It was too soon.
Her plan needed shaping.
The sharp clang of a ticket issuing
from the dispenser rang through the garage. A pause was followed by the
simultaneous sounds of a power window closing and the car’s engine revving.
The sound came closer, and the front
wheels rolled into view. The hood...
Good God.
It was her.
The first car that had come in had gone
up to a higher level, so Lee-Ann knew there was no slot on the ramp behind her.
Springing into action, she threw her straw bag up to that ramp, stepped onto
the van’s bumper, and grabbed the horizontal steel cable that bisected the
opening above. Receiving a healthy spattering from the indoor waterfall, she
pulled herself onto the cement wall and dropped to the floor between a pickup
and a convertible as Greta Dunn’s car passed, heading toward the elevators.
Lee-Ann scraped her knee going over the
wall but was barely aware of it as she snatched up her bag and hurried after
Dunn’s car, her mind focusing on the fact that if Dunn found a parking spot on
this floor, there’d be no way to get to the elevators before she did. And that
would be disastrous.
But the floor was fully occupied, so
when Dunn reached the elevators, she turned left and went up to the next level.
Afraid she would lose her, Lee-Ann broke into a run.
By the time she reached a point where
the sloping floor on the next level was low enough so she could climb over thatretaining wall, Dunn’s car was turning onto level C. Lee-Ann gave chase,
her throat already raw from all the air she’d taken in through her mouth.
Going over the next wall, the metal
cable snagged her coat. Now Dunn’s car was once again between Lee-Ann and the
elevators. But once more, the floor was full.
Doubting she could keep this up much
longer, Lee-Ann chased Dunn’s car up to the next ramp, where, as before, every
spot was taken. Soon they’d be on the floor where Lee-Ann had parked. She
should have just waited up there.
She wasn’t sure she could climb another
wall. But the thought that she was protecting her man propelled her forward.
Miraculously, a few steps later,
looking through the gap where she could see up to the next ramp, Lee-Ann saw an
empty slot at the far end of the garage. She waited just long enough to be sure
Dunn wasn’t going to do something crazy like pass it up, then she turned and
bolted for the elevators behind her.
There was so little
time...
The elevators she was heading for were
one level below the ramp where Dunn was parking. And Lee-Ann needed to
be on the same level. Elevators or stairs—which would get her there the
quickest?
Sometimes you could wait forever for an
elevator... and she didn’t want Dunn to see her get off one.
So she took the stairs, her footsteps and ragged breathing echoing in the
closed space.
Twenty seconds later she burst into the
lobby a floor above, just as an old man in a green John Deere cap stepped off
one of the elevators.
Damn. Had Dunn seen that the elevators
were working?
Lee-Ann looked through the glass
enclosing the lobby and saw Dunn on her way, the slight incline causing the
woman’s head to tilt slightly down, so her gaze was more on the floor than
straight ahead. There was a chance...
The OUT OF ORDER signs she’d made from
the jumbo Christmas cards were now useless. There was no
time...
Lee-Ann dropped into one of the blue
plastic chairs beside the elevators, put her bag in her lap, and let her chin
fall to her coat, trying to slow her thudding heart and gain control of her
breathing.
If only no one else
gets off the elevator...
Ten seconds later, Greta Dunn stepped
into the lobby, walked to the elevators, and pushed the down button.
"They’re out of order,” Lee-Ann said
without looking up. "You’ll have to use the stairs.”
Lee-Ann watched Dunn’s feet to see what
she’d do.
For a moment, Dunn didn’t move. Then she
headed for the stairs.
As soon as Lee-Ann heard the stairwell
door close, she jumped out of her chair and followed. When Lee-Ann entered the
stairwell, Dunn was halfway down to the first landing. She didn’t look up.
From that point on, everything Lee-Ann
did was instinctual. No weighing of alternatives or consequences, just raw
response. The door behind her was still shutting as her hand found the ice pick
in her bag. A heartbeat later, her feet thudding on the stairs, she closed in.
Hearing the urgency in Lee-Ann’s
approach, Greta Dunn turned and looked up. Without hesitating, Lee-Ann brought
the ice pick down in a looping overhand stroke, burying the pick to the handle
in the top of Greta Dunn’s head.
Eyes wide with surprise, her mouth
open, Dunn stared into Lee-Ann’s face.
Fearing that the pick might not have
done enough damage, Lee-Ann rocked the handle from side to side, horribly
scrambling Greta Dunn’s brain. She then raised her foot and kicked the woman
down the stairs.
When the body came to rest at the door
to the next level, Lee-Ann could tell from the odd angle of the head that Greta
Dunn’s neck was broken.
Lee-Ann’s training told her to make
sure, to check for a pulse. But she’d already pressed her luck too far. Afraid
that at any moment someone might find them, she fled.
Later, driving home through the rain,
Lee-Ann felt so close to Latham. Even though he didn’t know it, they now shared
something very special. The only blemish on the moment was that she’d had to
carry a straw bag out of season.
