A fan-favorite novel by internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen

For attorney David Ransom, it begins as an open-and-shut case: malpractice. Then Dr. Kate Chesne storms into his office, daring him to seek out the truth—that she’s being framed. When another patient turns up dead, David starts to believe her. Somewhere in the Honolulu hospital, a killer walks freely. And now David finds himself asking the same questions Kate is desperate to have answered.

Who is next—and why?

Rave reviews for the novels of Tess Gerritsen

VANISH

“Gerritsen’s latest novel is a tense, taut thriller that grabs readers from the get-go and never lets up.”

—Booklist

BODY DOUBLE

“An electric series of startling twists, the revelation of ghoulishly practical motives and a nail-biting finale make this Gerritsen’s best to date.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The story zips along…. A delightfully bizarro plot twist.”

—Entertainment Weekly

THE APPRENTICE

”Well-drawn characters and a compelling story will grab readers’ interest and earn Gerritsen more admirers.”

—Booklist

“Leave the lights on, check the closets, and lock the doors before cracking [The Apprentice].”

—People

THE SURGEON

“Gliding as smoothly as a scalpel in a confident surgeon’s hand, this tale proves that Gerritsen…has morphed into a…suspense novelist whose growing popularity is keeping pace with her ever-finer writing skills.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Gerritsen fans know by now what to expect from her: a fascinating story with a gripping plot and believably human characters. Such is The Surgeon, and, in places, then some. Let new readers learn what the fans delight in.”

—Booklist

THE SINNER

“Gerritsen gives atmospheric depth to her tale… satisfyingly gritty.”

—Publishers Weekly

Under the Knife

Tess Gerritsen

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To my mother and father

CONTENTS

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Endpage

Copyright

PROLOGUE

DEAR GOD, HOW the past comes back to haunt us.

From his office window, Dr. Henry Tanaka stared out at the rain battering the parking lot and wondered why, after all these years, the death of one poor soul had come back to destroy him.

Outside, a nurse, her uniform spotty with rain, dashed to her car. Another one caught without an umbrella, he thought. That morning, like most Honolulu mornings, had dawned bright and sunny. But at three o’clock the clouds had slithered over the Koolau range and now, as the last clinic employees headed for home, the rain became a torrent, flooding the streets with a river of dirty water.

Tanaka turned and stared down at the letter on his desk. It had been mailed a week ago; but like so much of his correspondence, it had been lost in the piles of obstetrical journals and supply catalogs that always littered his office. When his receptionist had finally called it to his attention this morning, he’d been alarmed by the name on the return address: Joseph Kahanu, Attorney at Law.

He had opened it immediately.

Now he sank into his chair and read the letter once again.

Dear Dr. Tanaka,

As the attorney representing Mr. Charles Decker, I hereby request any and all medical records pertaining to the obstetrical care of Ms. Jennifer Brook, who was your patient at the time of her death….

Jennifer Brook. A name he’d hoped to forget.

A profound weariness came over him—the exhaustion of a man who has discovered he cannot outrun his own shadow. He tried to muster the energy to go home, to slog outside and climb into his car, but he could only sit and stare at the four walls of his office. His sanctuary. His gaze traveled past the framed diplomas, the medical certificates, the photographs. Everywhere there were snapshots of wrinkled newborns, of beaming mothers and fathers. How many babies had he brought into the world? He’d lost count years ago….

It was a sound in the outer office that finally drew him out of his chair: the click of a door shutting. He rose and went to peer out at the reception area. “Peggy? Are you still here?”

The waiting room was deserted. Slowly his gaze moved past the flowered couch and chairs, past the magazines neatly stacked on the coffee table, and finally settled on the outer door. It was unlocked.

Through the silence, he heard the muted clang of metal. It came from one of the exam rooms.

“Peggy?” Tanaka moved down the hall and glanced into the first room. Flicking on the light, he saw the hard gleam of the stainless-steel sink, the gynecologic table, the supply cabinet. He turned off the light and went to the next room. Again, everything was as it should be: the instruments lined up neatly on the counter, the sink wiped dry, the table stirrups folded up for the night.

Crossing the hall, he moved toward the third and last exam room. But just as he reached for the light switch, some instinct made him freeze: a sudden awareness of a presence—something malevolent—waiting for him in the darkness.

In terror, he backed out of the room. Only as he spun around to flee did he realize that the intruder was standing behind him.

A blade slashed across his neck.

Tanaka staggered backward into the exam room and toppled an instrument stand. Stumbling to the floor, he found the linoleum was already slick with his blood. Even as he felt his life drain away, a coldly rational pocket of his brain forced him to assess his own wound, to analyze his own chances. Severed artery. Exsanguination within minutes. Have to stop the bleeding…. Numbness was already creeping up his legs.

So little time. On his hands and knees, he crawled toward the cabinet where the gauze was stored. To his half-senseless mind, the feeble light reflecting off those glass doors became his guiding beacon, his only hope of survival.

A shadow blotted out the glow from the hall. He knew the intruder was standing in the doorway, watching him. Still he kept moving.

In his last seconds of consciousness, Tanaka managed to drag himself to his feet and wrench open the cabinet door. Sterile packets rained down from the shelf. Blindly he ripped one apart, withdrew a wad of gauze and clamped it against his neck.

He didn’t see the attacker’s blade trace its final arc.

As it plunged deep into his back, Tanaka tried to scream but the only sound that issued from his throat was a sigh. It was the last breath he took before he slid quietly to the floor.

* * *

CHARLIE DECKER LAY naked in his small hard bed and he was afraid.

Through the window he saw the blood-red glow of a neon sign: The Victory Hotel. Except the t was missing from Hotel. And what was left made him think of Hole, which is what the place really was: The Victory Hole, where every triumph, every joy, sank into some dark pit of no return.

He shut his eyes but the neon seemed to burrow its way through his lids. He turned away from the window and pulled the pillow over his head. The smell of the filthy linen was suffocating. Tossing the pillow aside, he rose and paced over to the window. There he stared down at the street. On the sidewalk below, a stringy-haired blonde in a miniskirt was dickering with a man in a Chevy. Somewhere in the night people laughed and a jukebox was playing “It Don’t Matter Anymore.” A stench rose from the alley, a peculiar mingling of rotting trash and frangipani: the smell of the back streets of paradise. It made him nauseated. But it was too hot to close the window, too hot to sleep, too hot even to breathe.

He went over to the card table and switched on the lamp. The same newspaper headline stared up at him.

Honolulu Physician Found Slain.

He felt the sweat trickle down his chest. He threw the newspaper on the floor. Then he sat down and let his head fall into his hands.

The music from the distant jukebox faded; the next song started, a thrusting of guitars and drums. A singer growled out: “I want it bad, oh yeah, baby, so bad, so bad….”

Slowly he raised his head and his gaze settled on the photograph of Jenny. She was smiling; as always, she was smiling. He touched the picture, trying to remember how her face had felt; but the years had dimmed his memory.

At last he opened his notebook. He turned to a blank page. He began to write.

This is what they told me:

“It takes time…

Time to heal, time to forget.”

This is what I told them:

That healing lies not in forgetfulness

But in remembrance

Of you.

The smell of the sea on your skin;

The small and perfect footprints you leave in the sand.

In remembrance there are no endings.

And so you lie there, now and always, by the sea.

You open your eyes. You touch me.

The sun is in your fingertips.

And I am healed.

I am healed.

CHAPTER ONE

WITH A STEADY HAND, Dr. Kate Chesne injected two hundred milligrams of sodium Pentothal into her patient’s intravenous line. As the column of pale yellow liquid drifted lazily through the plastic tubing, Kate murmured, “You should start to feel sleepy soon, Ellen. Close your eyes. Let go….”

“I don’t feel anything yet.”

“It will take a minute or so.” Kate squeezed Ellen’s shoulder in a silent gesture of reassurance. The small things were what made a patient feel safe. A touch. A quiet voice. “Let yourself float,” Kate whispered. “Think of the sky…clouds….”

Ellen gave her a calm and drowsy smile. Beneath the harsh operating-room lights, every freckle, every flaw stood out cruelly on her face. No one, not even Ellen O’Brien, was beautiful on the operating table. “Funny,” she murmured. “I’m not afraid. Not in the least….”

“You don’t have to be. I’ll take care of everything.”

“I know. I know you will.” Ellen reached out for Kate’s hand. It was only a touch, a brief mingling of fingers. The warmth of Ellen’s skin against hers was one more reminder that not just a body, but a woman, a friend, was lying on this table.

The door swung open and the surgeon walked in. Dr. Guy Santini was as big as a bear and he looked faintly ridiculous in his flowered paper cap. “How we doing in here, Kate?”

“Pentothal’s going in now.”

Guy moved to the table and squeezed the patient’s hand. “Still with us, Ellen?”

She smiled. “For better or worse. But on the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”

Guy laughed. “You’ll get there. But minus your gallbladder.”

“I don’t know…. I was getting kinda…fond of the thing….” Ellen’s eyelids sagged. “Remember, Guy,” she whispered. “You promised. No scar….”

“Did I?”

“Yes…you did…..”

Guy winked at Kate. “Didn’t I tell you? Nurses make the worst patients. Demanding broads!”

“Watch it, Doc!” one of the O.R. nurses snapped. “One of these days we’ll get you up on that table.”

“Now that’s a terrifying thought,” remarked Guy.

Kate watched as her patient’s jaw at last fell slack. She called softly: “Ellen?” She brushed her finger across Ellen’s eyelashes. There was no response. Kate nodded at Guy. “She’s under.”

“Ah, Katie, my darlin’,” he said, “you do such good work for a—”

“For a girl. Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“Well, let’s get this show on the road,” he said, heading out to scrub. “All her labs look okay?”

“Blood work’s perfect.”

“EKG?”

“I ran it last night. Normal.”

Guy gave her an admiring salute from the doorway. “With you around, Kate, a man doesn’t even have to think. Oh, and ladies?” He called to the two O.R. nurses who were laying out the instruments. “A word of warning. Our intern’s a lefty.”

The scrub nurse glanced up with sudden interest. “Is he cute?”

Guy winked. “A real dreamboat, Cindy. I’ll tell him you asked.” Laughing, he vanished out the door.

Cindy sighed. “How does his wife stand him, anyway?”

For the next ten minutes, everything proceeded like clockwork. Kate went about her tasks with her usual efficiency. She inserted the endotracheal tube and connected the respirator. She adjusted the flow of oxygen and added the proper proportions of forane and nitrous oxide. She was Ellen’s lifeline. Each step, though automatic, required double-checking, even triple-checking. When the patient was someone she knew and liked, being sure of all her moves took on even more urgency. An anesthesiologist’s job is often called ninety-nine percent boredom and one percent sheer terror; it was that one percent that Kate was always anticipating, always guarding against. When complications arose, they could happen in the blink of an eye.

But today she fully expected everything to go smoothly. Ellen O’Brien was only forty-one. Except for a gallstone, she was in perfect health.

Guy returned to the O.R., his freshly scrubbed arms dripping wet. He was followed by the “dreamboat” lefty intern, who appeared to be a staggering five-feet-six in his elevator shoes. They proceeded on to the ritual donning of sterile gowns and gloves, a ceremony punctuated by the brisk snap of latex.

As the team took its place around the operating table, Kate’s gaze traveled the circle of masked faces. Except for the intern, they were all comfortably familiar. There was the circulating nurse, Ann Richter, with her ash blond hair tucked neatly beneath a blue surgical cap. She was a coolheaded professional who never mixed business with pleasure. Crack a joke in the O.R. and she was likely to flash you a look of disapproval.

Next there was Guy, homely and affable, his brown eyes distorted by thick bottle-lens glasses. It was hard to believe anyone so clumsy could be a surgeon. But put a scalpel in his hand and he could work miracles.

Opposite Guy stood the intern with the woeful misfortune of having been born left-handed.

And last there was Cindy, the scrub nurse, a dark-eyed nymph with an easy laugh. Today she was sporting a brilliant new eye shadow called Oriental Malachite, which gave her a look reminiscent of a tropical fish.

“Nice eye shadow, Cindy,” noted Guy as he held his hand out for a scalpel.

“Why thank you, Dr. Santini,” she replied, slapping the instrument into his palm.

“I like it a lot better than that other one, Spanish Slime.”

“Spanish Moss.”

“This one’s really, really striking, don’t you think?” he asked the intern who, wisely, said nothing. “Yeah,” Guy continued. “Reminds me of my favorite color. I think it’s called Comet cleanser.”

The intern giggled. Cindy flashed him a dirty look. So much for the dreamboat’s chances.

Guy made the first incision. As a line of scarlet oozed to the surface of the abdominal wall, the intern automatically dabbed away the blood with a sponge. Their hands worked automatically and in concert, like pianists playing a duet.

From her position at the patient’s head, Kate followed their progress, her ear tuned the whole time to Ellen’s heart rhythm. Everything was going well, with no crises on the horizon. This was when she enjoyed her work most—when she knew she had everything under control. In the midst of all this stainless steel, she felt right at home. For her, the whooshes of the ventilator and the beeps of the cardiac monitor were soothing background music to the performance now unfolding on the table.

Guy made a deeper incision, exposing the glistening layer of fat. “Muscles seem a little tight, Kate,” he observed. “We’re going to have trouble retracting.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Turning to her medication cart, she reached for the tiny drawer labeled Succinylcholine. Given intravenously, the drug would relax the muscles, allowing Guy easier access to the abdominal cavity. Glancing in the drawer, she frowned. “Ann? I’m down to one vial of succinylcholine. Hunt me down some more, will you?”

“That’s funny,” said Cindy. “I’m sure I stocked that cart yesterday afternoon.”

“Well, there’s only one vial left.” Kate drew up 5 cc’s of the crystal-clear solution and injected it into Ellen’s IV line. It would take a minute to work. She sat back and waited.

Guy’s scalpel cleared the fat layer and he began to expose the abdominal muscle sheath. “Still pretty tight, Kate,” he remarked.

She glanced up at the wall clock. “It’s been three minutes. You should notice some effect by now.”

“Not a thing.”

“Okay. I’ll push a little more.” Kate drew up another 3 cc’s and injected it into the IV line. “I’ll need another vial soon, Ann,” she warned. “This one’s just about—”

A buzzer went off on the cardiac monitor. Kate glanced up sharply. What she saw on the screen made her jump to her feet in horror.

Ellen O’Brien’s heart had stopped.

In the next instant the room was in a frenzy. Orders were shouted out, instrument trays shoved aside. The intern clambered onto a footstool and thrust his weight again and again on Ellen’s chest.

This was the proverbial one percent, the moment of terror every anesthesiologist dreads.

It was also the worst moment in Kate Chesne’s life.

As panic swirled around her, she fought to stay in control. She injected vial after vial of adrenaline, first into the IV lines and then directly into Ellen’s heart. I’m losing her, she thought. Dear God, I’m losing her. Then she saw one brief fluttering across the oscilloscope. It was the only hint that some trace of life lingered.

“Let’s cardiovert!” she called out. She glanced at Ann, who was standing by the defibrillator. “Two hundred watt seconds!”

Ann didn’t move. She remained frozen, her face as white as alabaster.

“Ann?” Kate yelled. “Two hundred watt seconds!”

It was Cindy who darted around to the machine and hit the charge button. The needle shot up to two hundred. Guy grabbed the defibrillator paddles, slapped them on Ellen’s chest and released the electrical charge.

Ellen’s body jerked like a puppet whose strings have all been tugged at once.

The fluttering slowed to a ripple. It was the pattern of a dying heart.

Kate tried another drug, then still another in a desperate attempt to flog some life back into the heart. Nothing worked. Through a film of tears, she watched the tracing fade to a line meandering aimlessly across the oscilloscope.

“That’s it,” Guy said softly. He gave the signal to stop cardiac massage. The intern, his face dripping with sweat, backed away from the table.

“No,” Kate insisted, planting her hands on Ellen’s chest. “It’s not over.” She began to pump—fiercely, desperately. “It’s not over.” She threw herself against Ellen, pitting her weight against the stubborn shield of rib and muscles. The heart had to be massaged, the brain nourished. She had to keep Ellen alive. Again and again she pumped, until her arms were weak and trembling. Live, Ellen, she commanded silently. You have to live….

“Kate.” Guy touched her arm.

“We’re not giving up. Not yet….”

“Kate.” Gently, Guy tugged her away from the table. “It’s over,” he whispered.

Someone turned off the sound on the heart monitor. The whine of the alarm gave way to an eerie silence. Slowly, Kate turned and saw that everyone was watching her. She looked up at the oscilloscope.

The line was flat.

* * *

KATE FLINCHED AS an orderly zipped the shroud over Ellen O’Brien’s body. There was a cruel finality to that sound; it struck her as obscene, this convenient packaging of what had once been a living, breathing woman. As the body was wheeled off to the morgue, Kate turned away. Long after the squeak of the gurney wheels had faded down the hall, she was still standing there, alone in the O.R.

Fighting tears, she gazed around at the bloodied gauze and empty vials littering the floor. It was the same sad debris that lingered after every hospital death. Soon it would be swept up and incinerated and there’d be no clue to the tragedy that had just been played out. Nothing except a body in the morgue.

And questions. Oh, yes, there’d be questions. From Ellen’s parents. From the hospital. Questions Kate didn’t know how to answer.

Wearily she tugged off her surgical cap and felt a vague sense of relief as her brown hair tumbled free to her shoulders. She needed time alone—to think, to understand. She turned to leave.

Guy was standing in the doorway. The instant she saw his face, Kate knew something was wrong.

Silently he handed her Ellen O’Brien’s chart.

“The electrocardiogram,” he said. “You told me it was normal.”

“It was.”

“You’d better take another look.”

Puzzled, she opened the chart to the EKG, the electrical tracing of Ellen’s heart. The first detail she noted was her own initials, written at the top, signifying that she’d seen the page. Next she scanned the tracing. For a solid minute she stared at the series of twelve black squiggles, unable to believe what she was seeing. The pattern was unmistakable. Even a third-year medical student could have made the diagnosis.

“That’s why she died, Kate,” Guy said.

“But— This is impossible!” she blurted. “I couldn’t have made a mistake like this!”

Guy didn’t answer. He simply looked away—an act more telling than anything he could have said.

“Guy, you know me,” she protested. “You know I wouldn’t miss something like—”

“It’s right there in black and white. For God’s sake, your initials are on the damn thing!”

They stared at each other, both of them shocked by the harshness of his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized at last. Suddenly agitated, he turned and clawed his fingers through his hair. “Dear God. She’d had a heart attack. A heart attack. And we took her to surgery.” He gave Kate a look of utter misery. “I guess that means we killed her.”

* * *

“IT’S AN OBVIOUS case of malpractice.”

Attorney David Ransom closed the file labeled O’Brien, Ellen, and looked across the broad teak desk at his clients. If he had to choose one word to describe Patrick and Mary O’Brien, it would be gray. Gray hair, gray faces, gray clothes. Patrick was wearing a dull tweed jacket that had long ago sagged into shapelessness. Mary wore a dress in a black-and-white print that seemed to blend together into a drab monochrome.

Patrick kept shaking his head. “She was our only girl, Mr. Ransom. Our only child. She was always so good, you know? Never complained. Even when she was a baby. She’d just lie there in her crib and smile. Like a little angel. Just like a darling little—” He suddenly stopped, his face crumpling.

“Mr. O’Brien,” David said gently, “I know it’s not much of a comfort to you now, but I promise you, I’ll do everything I can.”

Patrick shook his head. “It’s not the money we’re after. Sure, I can’t work. My back, you know. But Ellie, she had a life insurance policy, and—”

“How much was the policy?”

“Fifty thousand,” answered Mary. “That’s the kind of girl she was. Always thinking of us.” Her profile, caught in the window’s light, had an edge of steel. Unlike her husband, Mary O’Brien was done with her crying. She sat very straight, her whole body a rigid testament to grief. David knew exactly what she was feeling. The pain. The anger. Especially the anger. It was there, burning coldly in her eyes.

Patrick was sniffling.

David took a box of tissues from his drawer and quietly placed it in front of his client. “Perhaps we should discuss the case some other time,” he suggested. “When you both feel ready….”

Mary’s chin lifted sharply. “We’re ready, Mr. Ransom. Ask your questions.”

David glanced at Patrick, who managed a feeble nod. “I’m afraid this may strike you as…cold-blooded, the things I have to ask. I’m sorry.”

“Go on,” prompted Mary.

“I’ll proceed immediately to filing suit. But I’ll need more information before we can make an estimate of damages. Part of that is lost wages—what your daughter would have earned had she lived. You say she was a nurse?”

“In obstetrics. Labor and delivery.”

“Do you know her salary?”

“I’ll have to check her pay stubs.”

“What about dependants? Did she have any?”

“None.”

“She was never married?”

Mary shook her head and sighed. “She was the perfect daughter, Mr. Ransom, in almost every way. Beautiful. And brilliant. But when it came to men, she made… mistakes.”

He frowned. “Mistakes?”

Mary shrugged. “Oh, I suppose it’s just the way things are these days. And when a woman gets to be a—a certain age, she feels, well, lucky to have any man at all….” She looked down at her tightly knotted hands and fell silent.

David sensed they’d strayed into hazardous waters. He wasn’t interested in Ellen O’Brien’s love life, anyway. It was irrelevant to the case.

“Let’s turn to your daughter’s medical history,” he said smoothly, opening the medical chart. “The record states she was forty-one years old and in excellent health. To your knowledge, did she ever have any problems with her heart?”

“Never.”

“She never complained of chest pain? Shortness of breath?”

“Ellie was a long-distance swimmer, Mr. Ransom. She could go all day and never get out of breath. That’s why I don’t believe this story about a—a heart attack.”

“But the EKG was strongly diagnostic, Mrs. O’Brien. If there’d been an autopsy, we could have proved it. But I guess it’s a bit late for that.”

Mary glanced at her husband. “It’s Patrick. He just couldn’t stand the idea—”

“Haven’t they cut her up enough already?” Patrick blurted out.

There was a long silence. Mary said softly, “We’ll be taking her ashes out to sea. She loved the sea. Ever since she was a baby…”

It was a solemn parting. A few last words of condolence, and then the handshakes, the sealing of a pact. The O’Briens turned to leave. But in the doorway, Mary stopped.

“I want you to know it’s not the money,” she declared. “The truth is, I don’t care if we see a dime. But they’ve ruined our lives, Mr. Ransom. They’ve taken our only baby away. And I hope to God they never forget it.”

David nodded. “I’ll see they never do.”

After his clients had left, David turned to the window. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, willing the emotions to drain from his body. But a hard knot seemed to linger in his stomach. All that sadness, all that rage; it clouded his thinking.

Six days ago, a doctor had made a terrible mistake. Now, at the age of forty-one, Ellen O’Brien was dead.

She was only three years older than me.

He sat down at his desk and opened the O’Brien file. Skipping past the hospital record, he turned to the curricula vitae of the two physicians.

Dr. Guy Santini’s record was outstanding. Forty-eight years old, a Harvard-trained surgeon, he was at the peak of his career. His list of publications went on for five pages. Most of his research dealt with hepatic physiology. He’d been sued once, eight years ago; he’d won. Bully for him. Santini wasn’t the target anyway. David had his crosshairs on the anesthesiologist.

He flipped to the three-page summary of Dr. Katharine Chesne’s career.

Her background was impressive. A B.Sc in chemistry from U.C., Berkeley, an M.D. from Johns Hopkins, anesthesia residency and intensive-care fellowship at U.C., San Francisco. Now only thirty years old, she’d already compiled a respectable list of published articles. She’d joined Mid Pac Hospital as a staff anesthesiologist less than a year ago. There was no photograph, but he had no trouble conjuring up a mental picture of the stereotypical female physician: frumpy hair, no figure, and a face like a horse— albeit an extremely intelligent horse.

David sat back, frowning. This was too good a record; it didn’t match the profile of an incompetent physician. How could she have made such an elementary mistake?

He closed the file. Whatever her excuses, the facts were indisputable: Dr. Katharine Chesne had condemned her patient to die under the surgeon’s knife. Now she’d have to face the consequences.

He’d make damn sure she did.

* * *

GEORGE BETTENCOURT DESPISED doctors. It was a personal opinion that made his job as CEO of Mid Pac Hospital all the more difficult, since he had to work so closely with the medical staff. He had both an M.B.A. and a Masters in public health. In his ten years as CEO, he’d achieved what the old doctor-led administration had been unable to do: he’d turned Mid Pac from a comatose institution into a profitable business. Yet all he ever heard from those stupid little surrogate gods in their white coats was criticism. They turned their superior noses up at the very idea that their saintly work could be dictated by profit-and-loss graphs. The cold reality was that saving lives, like selling linoleum, was a business. Bettencourt knew it. The doctors didn’t. They were fools, and fools gave him headaches.

And the two sitting across from him now were giving him a migraine headache the likes of which he hadn’t felt in years.

Dr. Clarence Avery, the white-haired chief of anesthesia, wasn’t the problem. The old man was too timid to stand up to his own shadow, much less to a controversial issue. Ever since his wife’s stroke, Avery had shuffled through his duties like a sleepwalker. Yes, he could be persuaded to cooperate. Especially when the hospital’s reputation was at stake.

No, it was the other one who worried Bettencourt: the woman. She was new to the staff and he didn’t know her very well. But the minute she’d walked into his office, he’d smelled trouble. She had that look in her eye, that crusader’s set of the jaw. She was a pretty enough woman, though her brown hair was in a wild state of anarchy and she probably hadn’t held a tube of lipstick in months. But those intense green eyes of hers were enough to make a man overlook all the flaws of that face. She was, in fact, quite attractive.

Too bad she’d blown it. Now she was a liability. He hoped she wouldn’t make things worse by being a bitch, as well.

* * *

KATE FLINCHED AS BETTENCOURT dropped the papers on the desk in front of her. “The letter arrived in our attorney’s office this morning, Dr. Chesne,” he said. “Hand delivered by personal messenger. I think you’d better read it.”

She took one look at the letterhead and felt her stomach drop away: Uehara and Ransom, Attorneys at Law.

“One of the best firms in town,” explained Bettencourt. Seeing her stunned expression, he went on impatiently, “You and the hospital are being sued, Dr. Chesne. For malpractice. And David Ransom is personally taking on the case.”

Her throat had gone dry. Slowly she looked up. “But how—how can they—”

“All it takes is a lawyer. And a dead patient.”

“I’ve explained what happened!” She turned to Avery. “Remember last week—I told you—”

“Clarence has gone over it with me,” cut in Bettencourt. “That isn’t the issue we’re discussing here.”

“What is the issue?”

He seemed startled by her directness. He let out a sharp breath. “The issue is this: we have what looks like a million-dollar lawsuit on our hands. As your employer, we’re responsible for the damages. But it’s not just the money that concerns us.” He paused. “There’s our reputation.”

The tone of his voice struck her as ominous. She knew what was coming and found herself utterly voiceless. She could only sit there, her stomach roiling, her hands clenched in her lap, and wait for the blow to fall.

“This lawsuit reflects badly on the whole hospital,” he said. “If the case goes to trial, there’ll be publicity. People—patients—will read those newspapers and it’ll scare them.” He looked down at his desk. “I realize your record up till now has been acceptable—”

Her chin shot up. “Acceptable?” she repeated incredulously. She glanced at Avery. The chief of anesthesia knew her record. And it was flawless.

Avery squirmed in his chair, his watery blue eyes avoiding hers. “Well, actually,” he mumbled, “Dr. Chesne’s record has been—up till now, anyway—uh, more than acceptable. That is…”

For God’s sake, man! she wanted to scream. Stand up for me!

“There’ve never been any complaints,” Avery finished lamely.

“Nevertheless,” continued Bettencourt, “you’ve put us in a touchy situation, Dr. Chesne. That’s why we think it’d be best if your name was no longer associated with the hospital.”

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the sound of Dr. Avery’s nervous cough.

“We’re asking for your resignation,” stated Bettencourt.

So there it was. The blow. It washed over her like a giant wave, leaving her limp and exhausted. Quietly she asked, “And if I refuse to resign?”

“Believe me, Doctor, a resignation will look a lot better on your record than a—”

“Dismissal?”

He cocked his head. “We understand each other.”

“No.” She raised her head. Something about his eyes, their cold self-assurance, made her stiffen. She’d never liked Bettencourt. She liked him even less now. “You don’t understand me at all.”

“You’re a bright woman. You can see the options. In any event, we can’t let you back in the O.R.”

“It’s not right,” Avery objected.

“Excuse me?” Bettencourt frowned at the old man.

“You can’t just fire her. She’s a physician. There are channels you have to go through. Committees—”

“I’m well acquainted with the proper channels, Clarence! I was hoping Dr. Chesne would grasp the situation and act appropriately.” He looked at her. “It really is easier, you know. There’d be no blot on your record. Just a notation that you resigned. I can have a letter typed up within the hour. All it takes is your…” His voice trailed off as he saw the look in her eyes.

Kate seldom got angry. She usually managed to keep her emotions under tight control. So the fury she now felt churning to the surface was something new and unfamiliar and almost frightening. With deadly calm she said, “Save yourself the paper, Mr. Bettencourt.”

His jaw clicked shut. “If that’s your decision…” He glanced at Avery. “When is the next Quality Assurance meeting?”

“It’s—uh, next Tuesday, but—”

“Put the O’Brien case on the agenda. We’ll let Dr. Chesne present her record to committee.” He looked at Kate. “A judgment by your peers. I’d say that’s fair. Wouldn’t you?”

She managed to swallow her retort. If she said anything else, if she let fly what she really thought of George Bettencourt, she’d ruin her chances of ever again working at Mid Pac. Or anywhere else, for that matter. All he had to do was slap her with the label Troublemaker; it would blacken her record for the rest of her life.

They parted civilly. For a woman who’d just had her career ripped to shreds, she managed a grand performance. She gave Bettencourt a level look, a cool handshake. She kept her composure all the way out the door and on the long walk down the carpeted hall. But as she rode the elevator down, something inside her seemed to snap. By the time the doors slid open again, she was shaking violently. As she walked blindly through the noise and bustle of the lobby, the realization hit her full force.

Dear God, I’m being sued. Less than a year in practice and I’m being sued….

She’d always thought that lawsuits, like all life’s catastrophes, happened to other people. She’d never dreamed she’d be the one charged with incompetence. Incompetence.

Suddenly feeling sick, she swayed against the lobby telephones. As she struggled to calm her stomach, her gaze fell on the local directory, hanging by a chain from the shelf. If only they knew the facts, she thought. If I could explain to them…

It took only seconds to find the listing: Uehara and Ransom, Attorneys at Law. Their office was on Bishop Street.

She wrenched out the page. Then, driven by a new and desperate hope, she hurried out the door.

CHAPTER TWO

“MR. RANSOM IS unavailable.”

The gray-haired receptionist had eyes of pure cast iron and a face straight out of American Gothic. All she needed was the pitchfork. Crossing her arms, she silently dared the intruder to try—just try—to talk her way in.

“But I have to see him!” Kate insisted. “It’s about the case—”

“Of course it is,” the woman said dryly.

“I only want to explain to him—”

“I’ve just told you, Doctor. He’s in a meeting with the associates. He can’t see you.”

Kate’s impatience was simmering close to the danger point. She leaned forward on the woman’s desk and managed to say with polite fury, “Meetings don’t last forever.”

The receptionist smiled. “This one will.”

Kate smiled back. “Then so can I.”

“Doctor, you’re wasting your time! Mr. Ransom never meets with defendants. Now, if you need an escort to find your way out, I’ll be happy to—” She glanced around in annoyance as the telephone rang. Grabbing the receiver, she snapped, “Uehara and Ransom! Yes? Oh, yes, Mr. Matheson!” She pointedly turned her back on Kate. “Let’s see, I have those files right here…”

In frustration, Kate glanced around at the waiting room, noting the leather couch, the Ikebana of willow and proteus, the Murashige print hanging on the wall. All exquisitely tasteful and undoubtedly expensive. Obviously, Uehara and Ransom was doing a booming business. All off the blood and sweat of doctors, she thought in disgust.

The sound of voices suddenly drew Kate’s attention. She turned and saw, just down the hall, a small army of young men and women emerging from a conference room. Which one was Ransom? She scanned the faces but none of the men looked old enough to be a senior partner in the firm. She glanced back at the desk and saw that the receptionist still had her back turned. It was now or never.

It took Kate only a split-second to make her decision. Swiftly, deliberately, she moved toward the conference room. But in the doorway she came to a halt, her eyes suddenly dazzled by the light.

A long teak table stretched out before her. Along either side, a row of leather chairs stood like soldiers at attention. Blinding sunshine poured in through the southerly windows, spilling across the head and shoulders of a lone man seated at the far end of the table. The light streaked his fair hair with gold. He didn’t notice her; all his attention was focused on a sheaf of papers lying in front of him. Except for the rustle of a page being turned, the room was absolutely silent.

Kate swallowed hard and drew herself up straight. “Mr. Ransom?”

The man looked up and regarded her with a neutral expression. “Yes? Who are you?”

“I’m—”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ransom!” cut in the receptionist’s outraged voice. Hauling Kate by the arm, the woman muttered through her teeth, “I told you he was unavailable. Now if you’ll come with me—”

“I only want to talk to him!”

“Do you want me to call security and have you thrown out?”

Kate wrenched her arm free. “Go ahead.”

“Don’t tempt me, you—”

“What the hell is going on here?” The roar of Ransom’s voice echoed in the vast room, shocking both women into silence. He aimed a long and withering look at Kate. “Just who are you?”

“Kate—” She paused and dropped her voice to what she hoped was a more dignified tone. “Doctor Kate Chesne.”

A pause. “I see.” He looked right back down at his papers and said flatly, “Show her out, Mrs. Pierce.”

“I just want to tell you the facts!” Kate persisted. She tried to hold her ground but the receptionist herded her toward the door with all the skill of a sheepdog. “Or would you rather not hear the facts, is that it? Is that how you lawyers operate?” He studiously ignored her. “You don’t give a damn about the truth, do you? You don’t want to hear what really happened to Ellen O’Brien!”

That made him look up sharply. His gaze fastened long and hard on her face. “Hold on, Mrs. Pierce. I’ve just changed my mind. Let Dr. Chesne stay.”

Mrs. Pierce was incredulous. “But—she could be violent!”

David’s gaze lingered a moment longer on Kate’s flushed face. “I think I can handle her. You can leave us, Mrs. Pierce.”

Mrs. Pierce muttered as she walked out. The door closed behind her. There was a very long silence.

“Well, Dr. Chesne,” David said. “Now that you’ve managed the rather miraculous feat of getting past Mrs. Pierce, are you just going to stand there?” He gestured to a chair. “Have a seat. Unless you’d rather scream at me from across the room.”

His cold flippancy, rather than easing her tension, made him seem all the more unapproachable. She forced herself to move toward him, feeling his gaze every step of the way. For a man with his highly regarded reputation, he was younger than she’d expected, not yet in his forties. Establishment was stamped all over his clothes, from his gray pinstripe suit to his Yale tie clip. But a tan that deep and hair that sun-streaked didn’t go along with an Ivy League type. He’s just a surfer boy, grown up, she thought derisively. He certainly had a surfer’s build, with those long, ropy limbs and shoulders that were just broad enough to be called impressive. A slab of a nose and a blunt chin saved him from being pretty. But it was his eyes she found herself focusing on. They were a frigid, penetrating blue; the sort of eyes that missed absolutely nothing. Right now those eyes were boring straight through her and she felt an almost irresistible urge to cross her arms protectively across her chest.

“I’m here to tell you the facts, Mr. Ransom,” she said.

“The facts as you see them?”

“The facts as they are.”

“Don’t bother.” Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out Ellen O’Brien’s file and slapped it down conclusively on the table. “I have all the facts right here. Everything I need.” Everything I need to hang you, was what he meant.

“Not everything.”

“And now you’re going to supply me with the missing details. Right?” He smiled and she recognized immediately the unmistakable threat in his expression. He had such perfect, sharp white teeth. She had the distinct feeling she was staring into the jaws of a shark.

She leaned forward, planting her hands squarely on the table. “What I’m going to supply you with is the truth.”

“Oh, naturally.” He slouched back in his chair and regarded her with a look of terminal boredom. “Tell me something,” he asked offhandedly. “Does your attorney know you’re here?”

“Attorney? I—I haven’t talked to any attorney—”

“Then you’d better get one on the phone. Fast. Because, Doctor, you’re damn well going to need one.”

“Not necessarily. This is nothing but a big misunderstanding, Mr. Ransom. If you’ll just listen to the facts, I’m sure—”

“Hold on.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a cassette recorder.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.

He turned on the recorder and slid it in front of her. “I wouldn’t want to miss some vital detail. Go on with your story. I’m all ears.”

Furious, she reached over and flicked the Off button. “This isn’t a deposition! Put the damn thing away!”

For a few tense seconds they sized each other up. She felt a distinct sense of triumph when he put the recorder back in his briefcase.

“Now, where were we?” he asked with extravagant politeness. “Oh, yes. You were about to tell me what really happened.” He settled back, obviously expecting some grand entertainment.

She hesitated. Now that she finally had his full attention, she didn’t know quite how to start.

“I’m a very…careful person, Mr. Ransom,” she said at last. “I take my time with things. I may not be brilliant, but I’m thorough. And I don’t make stupid mistakes.”

His raised eyebrow told her exactly what he thought of that statement. She ignored his look and went on.

“The night Ellen O’Brien came into the hospital, Guy Santini admitted her. But I wrote the anesthesia orders. I checked the lab results. And I read her EKG. It was a Sunday night and the technician was busy somewhere so I even ran the strip myself. I wasn’t rushed. I took all the time I needed. In fact, more than I needed, because Ellen was a member of our staff. She was one of us. She was also a friend. I remember sitting in her room, going over her lab tests. She wanted to know if everything was normal.”

“And you told her everything was.”

“Yes. Including the EKG.”

“Then you obviously made a mistake.”

“I just told you, Mr. Ransom. I don’t make stupid mistakes. And I didn’t make one that night.”

“But the record shows—”

“The record’s wrong.”

“I have the tracing right here in black and white. And it plainly shows a heart attack.”

“That’s not the EKG I saw!”

He looked as if he hadn’t heard her quite right.

“The EKG I saw that night was normal,” she insisted.

“Then how did this abnormal one pop into the chart?”

“Someone put it there, of course.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see.” Turning away, he said under his breath: “I can’t wait to see how this plays in court.”

“Mr. Ransom, if I made a mistake, I’d be the first to admit it!”

“Then you’d be amazingly honest.”

“Do you really think I’d make up a story as—as stupid as this?”

His response was an immediate burst of laughter that left her cheeks burning. “No,” he answered. “I’m sure you’d come up with something much more believable.” He gave her an inviting nod. In a voice thick with sarcasm, he jeered, “Please, I’m dying to know how this extraordinary mix-up happened. How did the wrong EKG get in the chart?”

“How should I know?”

“You must have a theory.”

“I don’t.”

“Come on, Doctor, don’t disappoint me.”

“I said I don’t.”

“Then make a guess!”

“Maybe someone beamed it there from the Starship Enterprise!” she yelled in frustration.

“Nice theory,” he said, deadpan. “But let’s get back to reality. Which, in this case, happens to be a particular sheet of wood by-product, otherwise known as paper.” He flipped the chart open to the damning EKG. “Explain that away.”

“I told you, I can’t! I’ve gone crazy trying to figure it out! We do dozens of EKGs every day at Mid Pac. It could have been a clerical error. A mislabeled tracing. Somehow, that page was filed in the wrong chart.”

“But you’ve written your initials on this page.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Is there some other K.C., M.D.?”

“Those are my initials. But I didn’t write them.”

“What are you saying? That this is a forgery?”

“It—it has to be. I mean, yes, I guess it is….” Suddenly confused, she shoved back a rebellious strand of hair off her face. His utterly calm expression rattled her. Why didn’t the man react, for God’s sake? Why did he just sit there, regarding her with that infuriatingly bland expression?

“Well,” he said at last.

“Well what?”

“How long have you had this little problem with people forging your name?”

“Don’t make me sound paranoid!”

“I don’t have to. You’re doing fine on your own.”

Now he was silently laughing at her; she could see it in his eyes. The worst part was that she couldn’t blame him. Her story did sound like a lunatic’s ravings.

“All right,” he relented. “Let’s assume for the moment you’re telling the truth.”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Please do!”

“I can think of only two explanations for why the EKG would be intentionally switched. Either someone’s trying to destroy your career—”

“That’s absurd. I don’t have any enemies.”

“Or someone’s trying to cover up a murder.”

At her stunned expression, he gave her a maddeningly superior smile. “Since the second explanation obviously strikes both of us as equally absurd, I have no choice but to conclude you’re lying.” He leaned forward and his voice was suddenly soft, almost intimate. The shark was getting chummy; that had to be dangerous. “Come on, Doctor,” he prodded. “Level with me. Tell me what really happened in the O.R. Was there a slip of the knife? A mistake in anesthesia?”

“There was nothing of the kind!”

“Too much laughing gas and not enough oxygen?”

“I told you, there were no mistakes!”

“Then why is Ellen O’Brien dead?”

She stared at him, stunned by the violence in his voice. And the blueness of his eyes. A spark seemed to fly between them, ignited by something entirely unexpected. With a shock, she realized he was an attractive man. Too attractive. And that her response to him was dangerous. She could already feel the blush creeping into her face, could feel a flood of heat rising inside her.

“No answer?” he challenged smoothly. He settled back, obviously enjoying the advantage he held over her. “Then why don’t I tell you what happened? On April 2, a Sunday night, Ellen O’Brien checked into Mid Pac Hospital for routine gallbladder surgery. As her anesthesiologist, you ordered routine pre-op tests, including an EKG, which you checked before leaving the hospital that night. Maybe you were rushed. Maybe you had a hot date waiting. Whatever the reason, you got careless and you made a fatal error. You missed those vital clues in the EKG: the elevated ST waves, the inverted T waves. You pronounced it normal and signed your initials. Then you left for the night—never realizing your patient had just had a heart attack.”

“She never had any symptoms! No chest pain—”

“But it says right here in the nurses’ notes—let me quote—” he flipped through the chart “—‘Patient complaining of abdominal discomfort.’”

“That was her gallstone—”

“Or was it her heart? Anyway, the next events are indisputable. You and Dr. Santini took Ms. O’Brien to surgery. A few whiffs of anesthesia and the stress was too much for her weakened heart. So it stopped. And you couldn’t restart it.” He paused dramatically, his eyes as hard as diamonds. “There, Dr. Chesne. You’ve just lost your patient.”

“That’s not how it happened! I remember that EKG. It was normal!”

“Maybe you’d better review your textbook on EKGs.”

“I don’t need a textbook. I know what’s normal!” She scarcely recognized her own voice, echoing shrilly through the vast room.

He looked unimpressed. Bored, even. “Really—” he sighed “—wouldn’t it be easier just to admit you made a mistake?”

“Easier for whom?”

“For everyone involved. Consider an out-of-court settlement. It’d be fast, easy and relatively painless.”

“A settlement? But that’s admitting a mistake I never made!”

What little patience he had left finally snapped. “You want to go to trial?” he shot back. “Fine. But let me tell you something about the way I work. When I try a case, I don’t do it halfway. If I have to tear you apart in court, I’ll do it. And when I’m finished, you’ll wish you’d never turned this into some ridiculous fight for your honor. Because let’s face it, Doctor. You don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell.”

She wanted to grab him by those pinstriped lapels. She wanted to scream out that in all this talk about settlements and courtrooms, her own anguish over Ellen O’Brien’s death had been ignored. But suddenly all her rage, all her strength, seemed to drain away, leaving her exhausted. Wearily she slumped back in her chair. “I wish I could admit I made a mistake,” she said quietly. “I wish I could just say, ‘I know I’m guilty and I’ll pay for it.’ I wish to God I could say that. I’ve spent the last week wondering about my memory. Wondering how this could have happened. Ellen trusted me and I let her die. It makes me wish I’d never become a doctor, that I’d been a clerk or a waitress—anything else. I love my work. You have no idea how hard it’s been—how much I’ve given up—just to get to where I am. And now it looks as if I’ll lose my job….” She swallowed and her head drooped in defeat. “And I wonder if I’ll ever be able to work again….”

David regarded her bowed head in silence and fought to ignore the emotions stirring inside him. He’d always considered himself a good judge of character. He could usually look a man in the eyes and tell if he was lying. All during Kate Chesne’s little speech, he’d been watching her eyes, searching for some inconsistent blip, some betraying flicker that would tell him she was lying through her teeth.

But her eyes had been absolutely steady and forthright and as beautiful as a pair of emeralds.

The last thought startled him, popping out as it did, almost against his will. As much as he might try to suppress it, he was all at once aware that she was a beautiful woman. She was wearing a simple green dress, gathered loosely at the waist, and it took just one glance to see that there were feminine curves beneath that silky fabric. The face that went along with those very nice curves had its flaws. She had a prizefighter’s square jaw. Her shoulder-length mahogany hair was a riot of waves, obviously untamable. The curly bangs softened a forehead that was far too prominent. No, it wasn’t a classically beautiful face. But then he’d never been attracted to classically beautiful women.

Suddenly he was annoyed not only at himself but at her, at her effect on him. He wasn’t a dumb kid fresh out of law school. He was too old and too smart to be entertaining the peculiarly male thoughts now dancing in his head.

In a deliberately rude gesture, he looked down at his watch. Then, snapping his briefcase shut, he stood up. “I have a deposition to take and I’m already late. So if you’ll excuse me…”

He was halfway across the room when her voice called out to him softly: “Mr. Ransom?”

He glanced back at her in irritation. “What?”

“I know my story sounds crazy. And I guess there’s no reason on earth you should believe me. But I swear to you: it’s the truth.”

He sensed her desperate need for validation. She was searching for a sign that she’d gotten through to him; that she’d penetrated his hard shell of skepticism. The fact was, he didn’t know if he believed her, and it bothered the hell out of him that his usual instinct for the truth had gone haywire, and all because of a pair of emerald-green eyes.

“Whether I believe you or not is irrelevant,” he said. “So don’t waste your time on me, Doctor. Save it for the jury.” The words came out colder than he’d intended and he saw, from the quick flinch of her head, that she’d been stung.

“Then there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say—”

“Not a thing.”

“I thought you’d listen. I thought somehow I could change your mind—”

“Then you’ve got a lot to learn about lawyers. Good-day, Dr. Chesne.” Turning, he headed briskly for the door. “I’ll see you in court.”

CHAPTER THREE

YOU DON’T HAVE a snowball’s chance in hell.

That was the phrase Kate kept hearing over and over as she sat alone at a table in the hospital cafeteria. And just how long did it take for a snowball to melt, anyway? Or would it simply disintegrate in the heat of the flames?

How much heat could she take before she fell apart on the witness stand?

She’d always been so adept at dealing with matters of life and death. When a medical crisis arose, she didn’t wring her hands over what needed to be done; she just did it, automatically. Inside the safe and sterile walls of the operating room, she was in control.

But a courtroom was a different world entirely. That was David Ransom’s territory. He’d be the one in control; she’d be as vulnerable as a patient on the operating table. How could she possibly fend off an attack by the very man who’d built his reputation on the scorched careers of doctors?

She’d never felt threatened by men before. After all, she’d trained with them, worked with them. David Ransom was the first man who’d ever intimidated her, and he’d done it effortlessly. If only he was short or fat or bald. If only she could think of him as human and therefore vulnerable. But just the thought of facing those cold blue eyes in court made her stomach do a panicky flip-flop.

“Looks like you could use some company,” said a familiar voice.

Glancing up, she saw Guy Santini, rumpled as always, peering down at her through those ridiculously thick glasses.

She gave him a listless nod. “Hi.”

Clucking, he pulled up a chair and sat down. “How’re you doing, Kate?”

“You mean except for being unemployed?” She managed a sour laugh. “Just terrific.”

“I heard the old man pulled you out of the O.R. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t really blame it on old Avery. He was just following orders.”

“Bettencourt’s?”

“Who else? He’s labeled me a financial liability.”

Guy snorted. “That’s what happens when the damned M.B.A.’s take over. All they can talk about is profits and losses! I swear, if George Bettencourt could make a buck selling the gold out of patients’ teeth, he’d be roaming the wards with pliers.”

“And then he’d send them a bill for oral surgery,” Kate added morosely.

Neither of them laughed. The joke was too close to the truth to be funny.

“If it makes you feel any better, Kate, you’ll have some company in the courtroom. I’ve been named, too.”

She looked up sharply. “Oh, Guy! I’m sorry….”

He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’ve been sued before. Believe me, it’s that first time that really hurts.”

“What happened?”

“Trauma case. Man came in with a ruptured spleen and I couldn’t save him.” He shook his head. “When I saw that letter from the attorney, I was so depressed I wanted to leap out the nearest window. Susan was ready to drag me off to the psych ward. But you know what? I survived. So will you, as long as you remember they’re not attacking you. They’re attacking the job you did.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“And that’s your problem, Kate. You haven’t learned to separate yourself from the job. We both know the hours you put in. Hell, sometimes I think you practically live here. I’m not saying dedication’s a character flaw. But you can overdo it.”

What really hurt was that she knew it was true. She did work long hours. Maybe she needed to; it kept her mind off the wasteland of her personal life.

“I’m not completely buried in my job,” she said. “I’ve started dating again.”

“It’s about time. Who’s the man?”

“Last week I went out with Elliot.”

“That guy from computer programming?” He sighed. Elliot was six-foot-two and one hundred and twenty pounds, and he bore a distinct resemblance to Pee-Wee Herman. “I bet that was a barrel of laughs.”

“Well it was sort of…fun. He asked me up to his apartment.”

“He did?”

“So I went.”

“You did?”

“He wanted to show me his latest electronic gear.”

Guy leaned forward eagerly. “What happened?”

“We listened to his new CDs. Played a few computer games.”

“And?”

She sighed. “After eight rounds of Zork I went home.”

Groaning, Guy sank back in his chair. “Elliot Lafferty, last of the red-hot lovers. Kate, what you need is one of these dating services. Hey, I’ll even write the ad for you. ‘Bright, attractive female seeks—’”

“Daddy!” The happy squeal cut straight through the cafeteria’s hubbub.

Guy turned as running feet pattered toward him. “There’s my Will!” Laughing, he rose to his feet and scooped up his son. It took only a sweep of his arms to send the spindly five-year-old boy flying into the air. Little Will was so light he seemed to float for a moment like a frail bird. He fell to a very soft, very safe landing in his father’s arms. “I’ve been waiting for you, kid,” Guy said. “What took you so long?”

“Mommy came home late.”

“Again?”

Will leaned forward and whispered confidentially. “Adele was really mad. Her boyfriend was s’posed to take her to the movies.”

“Uh-oh. We certainly don’t want Adele to be mad at us, do we?” Guy flashed an inquiring look at his wife Susan, who was threading her way toward them. “Hey, are we wearing out the nanny already?”

“I swear, it’s that full moon!” Susan laughed and shoved back a frizzy strand of red hair. “All my patients have gone absolutely loony. I couldn’t get them out of my office.”

Guy muttered grumpily to Kate, “And she swore it’d be a part-time practice. Ha! Guess who gets called to the E.R. practically every night?”

“Oh, you just miss having your shirts ironed!” Susan reached up and gave her husband an affectionate pat on the cheek. It was the sort of maternal gesture one expected of Susan Santini. “My mother hen,” Guy had once called his wife. He’d meant it as a term of endearment and it had fit. Susan’s beauty wasn’t in her face, which was plain and freckled, or in her figure, which was as stout as a farm wife’s. Her beauty lay in that serenely patient smile that she was now beaming at her son.

“Daddy!” William was prancing like an elf around Guy’s legs. “Make me fly again!”

“What am I, a launching pad?”

“Up! One more time!”

“Later, Will,” said Susan. “We have to pick up Daddy’s car before the garage closes.”

“Please!”

“Did you hear that?” Guy gasped. “He said the magic word.” With a lion’s roar, Guy pounced on the shrieking boy and threw him into the air.

Susan gave Kate a long-suffering look. “Two children. That’s what I have. And one of them weighs two hundred and forty pounds.”

“I heard that.” Guy reached over and slung a possessive arm around his wife. “Just for that, lady, you have to drive me home.”

“Big bully. Feel like McDonald’s?”

“Humph. I know someone who doesn’t want to cook tonight.”

Guy gave Kate a wave as he nudged his family toward the door. “So what’ll it be, kid?” Kate heard him say to William. “Cheeseburger?”

“Ice cream.”

“Ice cream. Now that’s an alternative I hadn’t thought of….”

Wistfully Kate watched the Santinis make their way across the cafeteria. She could picture how the rest of their evening would go. She imagined them sitting in McDonald’s, the two parents teasing, coaxing another bite of food into Will’s reluctant mouth. Then there’d be the drive home, the pajamas, the bedtime story. And finally, there’d be those skinny arms, curling around Daddy’s neck for a kiss.

What do I have to go home to? she thought.

Guy turned and gave her one last wave. Then he and his family vanished out the door. Kate sighed enviously. Lucky man.

* * *

AFTER HE LEFT his office that afternoon, David drove up Nuuanu Avenue and turned onto the dirt lane that wound through the old cemetery. He parked his car in the shade of a banyan tree and walked across the freshly mown lawn, past the marble headstones with their grotesque angels, past the final resting places of the Doles and the Binghams and the Cookes. He came to a section where there were only bronze plaques set flush in the ground, a sad concession to modern graveskeeping. Beneath a monkeypod tree, he stopped and gazed down at the marker by his feet.

Noah Ransom

Seven Years Old

It was a fine spot, gently sloping, with a view of the city. Here a breeze was always blowing, sometimes from the sea, sometimes from the valley. If he closed his eyes, he could tell where the wind was coming from, just by its smell.

David hadn’t chosen this spot. He couldn’t remember who had decided the grave should be here. Perhaps it had simply been a matter of which plot was available at the time. When your only child dies, who cares about views or breezes or monkeypod trees?

Bending down, he gently brushed the leaves that had fallen on the plaque. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet and stood in silence beside his son. He scarcely registered the rustle of the long skirt or the sound of the cane thumping across the grass.

“So here you are, David,” called a voice.

Turning, he saw the tall, silver-haired woman hobbling toward him. “You shouldn’t be out here, Mother. Not with that sprained foot.”

She pointed her cane at the white clapboard house sitting near the edge of the cemetery. “I saw you through my kitchen window. Thought I’d better come out and say hello. Can’t wait around forever for you to come visit me.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry. I’ve been busy. But I really was on my way to see you.”

“Oh, naturally.” Her blue eyes shifted and focused on the grave. It was one of the many things Jinx Ransom shared with her son, that peculiar shade of blue of her eyes. Even at sixty-eight, her gaze was piercing. “Some anniversaries are better left forgotten,” she said softly.

He didn’t answer.

“You know, David, Noah always wanted a brother. Maybe it’s time you gave him one.”

David smiled faintly. “What are you suggesting, Mother?”

“Only what comes naturally to us all.”

“Maybe I should get married first?”

“Oh, of course, of course.” She paused, then asked hopefully: “Anyone in mind?”

“Not a soul.”

Sighing, she laced her arm through his. “That’s what I thought. Well, come along. Since there’s no gorgeous female waiting for you, you might as well have a cup of coffee with your old mother.”

Together they crossed the lawn toward the house. The grass was uneven and Jinx moved slowly, stubbornly refusing to lean on her son’s shoulder. She wasn’t supposed to be on her feet at all, but she’d never been one to follow doctors’ orders. A woman who’d sprained her ankle in a savage game of tennis certainly wouldn’t sit around twiddling her thumbs.

They passed through a gap in the mock-orange hedge and climbed the steps to the kitchen porch. Gracie, Jinx’s middle-aged companion, met them at the screen door.

“There you are!” Gracie sighed. She turned her mouse-brown eyes to David. “I have absolutely no control over this woman. None at all.”

He shrugged. “Who does?”

Jinx and David settled down at the breakfast table. The kitchen was a dense jungle of hanging plants: asparagus fern and baby’s tears and wandering Jew. Valley breezes swept in from the porch, and through the large window, there was a view of the cemetery.

“What a shame they’ve trimmed back the monkeypod,” Jinx remarked, gazing out.

“They had to,” said Gracie as she poured coffee. “Grass can’t grow right in the shade.”

“But the view’s just not the same.”

David batted away a stray fern. “I never cared for that view anyway. I don’t see how you can look at a cemetery all day.”

“I like my view,” Jinx declared. “When I look out, I see my old friends. Mrs. Goto, buried there by the hedge. Mr. Carvalho, by the shower tree. And on the slope, there’s our Noah. I think of them all as sleeping.”

“Good Lord, Mother.”

“Your problem, David, is that you haven’t resolved your fear of death. Until you do, you’ll never come to terms with life.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Take another stab at immortality. Have another child.”

“I’m not getting married again, Mother. So let’s just drop the subject.”

Jinx responded as she always did when her son made a ridiculous request. She ignored it. “There was that young woman you met in Maui last year. Whatever happened to her?”

“She got married. To someone else.”

“What a shame.”

“Yeah, the poor guy.”

“Oh, David!” cried Jinx, exasperated. “When are you going to grow up?”

David smiled and took a sip of Gracie’s tar-black coffee, on which he promptly gagged. Another reason he avoided these visits to his mother. Not only did Jinx stir up a lot of bad memories, she also forced him to drink Gracie’s god-awful coffee.

“So how was your day, Mother?” he asked politely.

“Getting worse by the minute.”

“More coffee, David?” urged Gracie, tipping the pot threateningly toward his cup.

“No!” David gasped, clapping his hand protectively over the cup. The women stared at him in surprise. “I mean, er, no, thank you, Gracie.”

“So touchy,” observed Jinx. “Is something wrong? I mean, besides your sex life.”

“I’m just a little busier than usual. Hiro’s still laid up with that bad back.”

“Humph. Well, you don’t seem to like your work much anymore. I think you were much happier in the prosecutor’s office. Now you take the job so damned seriously.”

“It’s a serious business.”

“Suing doctors? Ha! It’s just another way to make a fast buck.”

“My doctor was sued once,” Gracie remarked. “I thought it was terrible, all those things they said about him. Such a saint…”

“Nobody’s a saint, Gracie,” David said darkly. “Least of all, doctors.” His gaze wandered out the window and he suddenly thought of the O’Brien case. It had been on his mind all afternoon. Or rather, she’d been on his mind, that green-eyed, perjuring Kate Chesne. He’d finally decided she was lying. This case was going to be even easier than he’d thought. She’d be a sitting duck on that witness stand and he knew just how he’d handle her in court. First the easy questions: name, education, postgraduate training. He had a habit of pacing in the courtroom, stalking circles around the defendant. The tougher the questions, the tighter the circles. By the time he came in for the kill, they’d be face-to-face. He felt an unexpected thump of dread in his chest, knowing what he’d have to do to finish it. Expose her. Destroy her. That was his job, and he’d always prided himself on a job well done.

He forced down a last sip of coffee and rose to his feet. “I have to be going,” he announced, ducking past a lethally placed hanging fern. “I’ll call you later, Mother.”

Jinx snorted. “When? Next year?”

He gave Gracie a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and muttered in her ear, “Good luck. Don’t let her drive you nuts.”

“I? Drive her nuts?” Jinx snorted. “Ha!”

Gracie followed him to the porch door where she stood and waved. “Goodbye, David!” she called sweetly.

* * *

FOR A MOMENT, Gracie paused in the doorway and watched David walk through the cemetery to his car. Then she turned sadly to Jinx.

“He’s so unhappy!” she said. “If only he could forget.”

“He won’t forget.” Jinx sighed. “David’s just like his father that way. He’ll carry it around inside him till the day he dies.”

CHAPTER FOUR

TEN-KNOT WINDS WERE blowing in from the northeast as the launch bearing Ellen O’Brien’s last remains headed out to sea. It was such a clean, such a natural resolution to life: the strewing of ashes into the sunset waters, the rejoining of flesh and blood with their elements. The minister tossed a lei of yellow flowers off the old pier. The blossoms drifted away on the current, a slow and symbolic parting that brought Patrick O’Brien to tears.

The sound of his crying floated on the wind, over the crowded dock, to the distant spot where Kate was standing. Alone and ignored, she lingered by the row of tethered fishing boats and wondered why she was here. Was it some cruel and self-imposed form of penance? A feeble attempt to tell the world she was sorry? She only knew that some inner voice, begging for forgiveness, had compelled her to come.

There were others here from the hospital: a group of nurses, huddled in a quiet sisterhood of mourning; a pair of obstetricians, looking stiffly uneasy in their street clothes; Clarence Avery, his white hair blowing like dandelion fuzz in the wind. Even George Bettencourt had made an appearance. He stood apart, his face arranged in an impenetrable mask. For these people, a hospital was more than just a place of work; it was another home, another family. Doctors and nurses delivered each other’s babies, presided over each other’s deaths. Ellen O’Brien had helped bring many of their children into the world; now they were here to usher her out of it.

The far-off glint of sunlight on fair hair made Kate focus on the end of the pier where David Ransom stood, towering above the others. Carelessly he pushed a lock of windblown hair into place. He was dressed in appropriately mournful attire—a charcoal suit, a somber tie—but in the midst of all this grief, he displayed the emotions of a stone wall. She wondered if there was anything human about him. Do you ever laugh or cry? Do you ever hurt? Do you ever make love?

That last thought had careened into her mind without warning. Love? Yes, she could imagine how it would be to make love with David Ransom: not a sharing but a claiming. He’d demand total surrender, the way he demanded surrender in the courtroom. The fading sunlight seemed to knight him with a mantle of unconquerability. What chance did she stand against such a man?

Wind gusted in from the sea, whipping sailboat halyards against masts, drowning out the minister’s final words. When at last it was over, Kate found she didn’t have the strength to move. She watched the other mourners pass by. Clarence Avery stopped, started to say something, then awkwardly moved on. Mary and Patrick O’Brien didn’t even look at her. As David approached, his eyes registered a flicker of recognition, which was just as quickly suppressed. Without breaking stride, he continued past her. She might have been invisible.

By the time she finally found the energy to move, the pier was empty. Sailboat masts stood out like a row of dead trees against the sunset. Her footsteps sounded hollow against the wooden planks. When she finally reached her car, she felt utterly weary, as though her legs had carried her for miles. She fumbled for her keys and felt a strange sense of inevitability as her purse slipped out of her grasp, scattering its contents across the pavement. She could only stand there, paralyzed by defeat, as the wind blew her tissues across the ground. She had the absurd image of herself standing here all night, all week, frozen to this spot. She wondered if anyone would notice.

David noticed. Even as he waved goodbye and watched his clients drive away, he was intensely aware that Kate Chesne was somewhere on the pier behind him. He’d been startled to see her here. He’d thought it a rather clever move on her part, this public display of penitence, obviously designed to impress the O’Briens. But as he turned and watched her solitary walk along the pier, he noticed the droop of her shoulders, the downcast face, and he realized how much courage it had taken for her to show up today.

Then he reminded himself that some doctors would do anything to head off a lawsuit.

Suddenly disinterested, he started toward his car. Halfway across the parking lot, he heard something clatter against the pavement and he saw that Kate had dropped her purse. For what seemed like forever, she just stood there, the car keys dangling from her hand, looking for all the world like a bewildered child. Then, slowly, wearily, she bent down and began to gather her belongings.

Almost against his will, he was drawn toward her. She didn’t notice his approach. He crouched beside her, scooped a few errant pennies from the ground, and held them out to her. Suddenly she focused on his face and then froze.

“Looks like you need some help,” he said.

“Oh.”

“I think you’ve got everything now.”

They both rose to their feet. He was still holding out the loose change, of which she seemed oblivious. Only after he’d deposited the money in her hand did she finally manage a weak “Thank you.”

For a moment they stared at each other.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he remarked. “Why did you come?”

“It was—” she shrugged “—a mistake, I think.”

“Did your lawyer suggest it?”

She looked puzzled. “Why would he?”

“To show the O’Briens you care.”

Her cheeks suddenly flushed with anger. “Is that what you think? That this is some sort of—of strategy?”

“It’s not unheard of.”

“Why are you here, Mr. Ransom? Is this part of your strategy? To prove to your clients you care?”

“I do care.”

“And you think I don’t.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

“Don’t take everything I say personally.”

“I take everything you say personally.”

“You shouldn’t. It’s just a job to me.”

Angrily, she shoved back a tangled lock of hair. “And what is your job? Hatchet man?”

“I don’t attack people. I attack their mistakes. And even the best doctors make mistakes.”

“You don’t need to tell me that!” Turning, she looked off to sea, where Ellen O’Brien’s ashes were newly drifting. “I live with it, Mr. Ransom. Every day in that O.R. I know that if I reach for the wrong vial or flip the wrong lever, it’s someone’s life. Oh, we find ways to deal with it. We have our black jokes, our gallows humor. It’s terrible, the things we laugh about, and all in the name of survival. Emotional survival. You have no idea, you lawyers. You and your whole damned profession. You don’t know what it’s like when everything goes wrong. When we lose someone.”

“I know what it’s like for the family. Every time you make a mistake, someone suffers.”

“I suppose you never make mistakes.”

“Everyone does. The difference is, you bury yours.”

“You’ll never let me forget it, will you?”

She turned to him. Sunset had painted the sky orange, and the glow seemed to burn in her hair and in her cheeks. Suddenly he wondered how it would feel to run his fingers through those wind-tumbled strands, wondered what that face would feel like against his lips. The thought had popped out of nowhere and now that it was out, he couldn’t get rid of it. Certainly it was the last thing he ought to be thinking. But she was standing so dangerously close that he’d either have to back away or kiss her.

He managed to hold his ground. Barely. “As I said, Dr. Chesne, I’m only doing my job.”

She shook her head and her hair, that sun-streaked, mahogany hair, flew violently in the wind. “No, it’s more than that. I think you have some sort of vendetta. You’re out to hang the whole medical profession. Aren’t you?”

David was taken aback by her accusation. Even as he started to deny it, he knew she’d hit too close to home. Somehow she’d found his old wound, had reopened it with the verbal equivalent of a surgeon’s scalpel. “Out to hang the whole profession, am I?” he managed to say. “Well, let me tell you something, Doctor. It’s incompetents like you that make my job so easy.”

Rage flared in her eyes, as sudden and brilliant as two coals igniting. For an instant he thought she was going to slap him. Instead she whirled around, slid into her car and slammed the door. The Audi screeched out of the stall so sharply he had to flinch aside.

As he watched her car roar away, he couldn’t help regretting those unnecessarily brutal words. But he’d said them in self-defense. That perverse attraction he’d felt to her had grown too compelling; he knew it had to be severed, right there and then.

As he turned to leave, something caught his eye, a thin shaft of reflected light. Glittering on the pavement was a silver pen; it had rolled under her car when she’d dropped her purse. He picked it up and studied the engraved name: Katharine Chesne, M.D.

For a moment he stood there, weighing the pen, thinking about its owner. Wondering if she, too, had no one to go home to. And it suddenly struck him, as he stood alone on the windy pier, just how empty he felt.

Once, he’d been grateful for the emptiness. It had meant the blessed absence of pain. Now he longed to feel something—anything—if only to reassure himself that he was alive. He knew the emotions were still there, locked up somewhere inside him. He’d felt them stirring faintly when he’d looked into Kate Chesne’s burning eyes. Not a full-blown emotion, perhaps, but a flicker. A blip on the tracing of a terminally ill heart.

The patient wasn’t dead. Not yet.

He felt himself smiling. He tossed the pen up in the air and caught it smartly. Then he slipped it into his breast pocket and walked to his car.

* * *

THE DOG WAS deeply anesthetized, its legs spread-eagled, its belly shaved and prepped with iodine. It was a German shepherd, obviously well-bred and just as obviously unloved.

Guy Santini hated to see such a handsome creature end up on his research table, but lab animals were scarce these days and he had to use whatever the supplier sent him. He consoled himself with the knowledge that the animals suffered no pain. They slept blissfully through the entire surgical procedure and when it was over, the ventilator was turned off and they were injected with a lethal dose of Pentothal. Death came peacefully; it was a far better end than the animals would have faced on the streets. And each sacrifice yielded data for his research, a few more dots on a graph, a few more clues to the mysteries of hepatic physiology.

He glanced at the instruments neatly laid out on the tray: the scalpel, the clamps, the catheters. Above the table, a pressure monitor awaited final hookup. Everything was ready. He reached for the scalpel.

The whine of the door swinging closed made him pause. Footsteps clipped toward him across the polished lab floor. Glancing across the table, he saw Ann Richter standing there. They looked at each other in silence.

“I see you didn’t go to Ellen’s services, either,” he said.

“I wanted to. But I was afraid.”

“Afraid?” He frowned. “Of what?”

“I’m sorry, Guy. I no longer have a choice.” Silently, she held out a letter. “It’s from Charlie Decker’s lawyer. They’re asking questions about Jenny Brook.”

“What?” Guy stripped off his gloves and snatched the paper from her hand. What he read there made him look up at her in alarm. “You’re not going to tell them, are you? Ann, you can’t—”

“It’s a subpoena, Guy.”

“Lie to them, for God’s sake!”

“Decker’s out, Guy. You didn’t know that, did you? He was released from the state hospital a month ago. He’s been calling me. Leaving little notes at my apartment. Sometimes I even think he’s following me….”

“He can’t hurt you.”

“Can’t he?” She nodded at the paper he was holding. “Henry got one, just like it. So did Ellen. Just before she…” Ann stopped, as if voicing her worst fears somehow would turn them to reality. Only now did Guy notice how haggard she was. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and the ash-blond hair, of which she’d always been so proud, looked as if it hadn’t been combed in days. “It has to end, Guy,” she said softly. “I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for Charlie Decker.”

He crumpled the paper in his fist. He began to pace back and forth, his agitation escalating to panic. “You could leave the islands—you could go away for a while—”

“How long, Guy? A month? A year?”

“As long as it takes for this to settle down. Look, I’ll give you the money—” He fumbled for his wallet and took out fifty dollars, all the cash he had. “Here. I promise I’ll send you more—”

“I’m not asking for your money.”

“Go on, take it.”

“I told you, I—”

“For God’s sake, take it!” His voice, harsh with desperation, echoed off the stark white walls. “Please, Ann,” he urged quietly. “I’m asking you, as a friend. Please.”

She looked down at the money he was holding. Slowly, she reached out and took it. As her fingers closed around the bills she announced, “I’m leaving tonight. For San Francisco. I have a brother—”

“Call me when you get there. I’ll send you all the money you need.” She didn’t seem to hear him. “Ann? You’ll do this for me. Won’t you?”

She looked off blankly at the far wall. He longed to reassure her, to tell her that nothing could possibly go wrong; but they’d both know it was a lie. He watched as she walked slowly to the door. Just before she left, he said, “Thank you, Ann.”

She didn’t turn around. She simply paused in the doorway. Then she gave a little shrug, just before she vanished out the door.

* * *

AS ANN HEADED for the bus stop, she was still clutching the money Guy had given her. Fifty dollars! As if that was enough! A thousand, a million dollars wouldn’t be enough.

She boarded the bus for Waikiki. From her window seat she stared out at a numbing succession of city blocks. At Kalakaua, she got off and began to walk quickly toward her apartment building. Buses roared past, choking her with fumes. Her hands turned clammy in the heat. Concrete buildings seemed to press in on all sides and tourists clotted the sidewalks. As she wove her way through them, she felt a growing sense of uneasiness.

She began to walk faster.

Two blocks north of Kalakaua, the crowd thinned out and she found herself at a corner, waiting for a stoplight to change. In that instant, as she stood alone and exposed in the fading sunlight, the feeling suddenly seized her: someone is following me.

She swung around and scanned the street behind her. An old man was shuffling down the sidewalk. A couple was pushing a baby in a stroller. Gaudy shirts fluttered on an outdoor clothing rack. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or so it seemed….

The light changed to green. She dashed across the street and didn’t stop running until she’d reached her apartment.

She began to pack. As she threw her belongings into a suitcase, she was still debating her next move. The plane to San Francisco would take off at midnight; her brother would put her up for a while, no questions asked. He was good that way. He understood that everyone had a secret, everyone was running away from something.

It doesn’t have to be this way, a stray voice whispered in her head. You could go to the police….

And tell them what? The truth about Jenny Brook? Do I tear apart an innocent life?

She began to pace the apartment, thinking, fretting. As she walked past the living-room mirror, she caught sight of her own reflection, her blond hair in disarray, her eyes smudged with mascara. She hardly recognized herself; fear had transformed her face into a stranger’s.

It only takes a single phone call, a confession. A secret, once revealed, is no longer dangerous….

She reached for the telephone. With unsteady hands she dialed Kate Chesne’s home phone number. Her heart sank when, after four rings, a recording answered, followed by the message beep.

She cleared the fear from her throat. “This is Ann Richter,” she said. “Please, I have to talk to you. It’s about Ellen. I know why she died.”

Then she hung up and waited for the phone to ring.

* * *

IT WAS HOURS before Kate heard the message.

After she left the pier that afternoon, she drove aimlessly for a while, avoiding the inevitable return to her empty house. It was Friday night. T.G.I.F. She decided to treat herself to an evening out. So she had supper alone at a trendy little seaside grill where everyone but her seemed to be having a grand old time. The steak she ordered was utterly tasteless and the chocolate mousse so cloying she could barely force it down her throat. She left an extravagant tip, almost as an apology for her lack of appetite.

Next she tried a movie. She found herself wedged between a fidgety eight-year-old boy on one side and a young couple passionately making out on the other.

She walked out halfway through the film. She never did remember the title—only that it was a comedy, and she hadn’t laughed once.

By the time she got home, it was ten o’clock. She was half undressed and sitting listlessly on her bed when she noticed that the telephone message light was blinking. She let the messages play back as she wandered over to the closet.

“Hello, Dr. Chesne, this is Four East calling to tell you Mr. Berg’s blood sugar is ninety-eight…. Hello, this is June from Dr. Avery’s office. Don’t forget the Quality Assurance meeting on Tuesday at four…. Hi, this is Windward Realty. Give us a call back. We have a listing we think you’d like to see….”

She was hanging up her skirt when the last message played back.

“This is Ann Richter. Please, I have to talk to you. It’s about Ellen. I know why she died….”

There was the click of the phone hanging up, and then a soft whir as the tape automatically rewound. Kate scrambled back to the recorder and pressed the replay button. Her heart was racing as she listened again to the agonizingly slow sequence of messages.

“It’s about Ellen. I know why she died….”

Kate grabbed the phone book from her nightstand. Ann’s address and phone number were listed; her line was busy. Again and again Kate dialed but she heard only the drone of the busy signal.

She slammed down the receiver and knew immediately what she had to do next.

She hurried back to the closet and yanked the skirt from its hanger. Quickly, feverishly, she began to dress.

* * *

THE TRAFFIC HEADING into Waikiki was bumper-to-bumper.

As usual, the streets were crowded with a bizarre mix of tourists and off-duty soldiers and street people, all of them moving in the surreal glow of city lights. Palm trees cast their spindly shadows against the buildings. An otherwise distinguished-looking gentleman was flaunting his white legs and Bermuda shorts. Waikiki was where one came to see the ridiculous, the outrageous. But tonight, Kate found the view through her car window frightening—all those faces, drained of color under the glow of streetlamps, and the soldiers, lounging drunkenly in nightclub doorways. A wild-eyed evangelist stood on the corner, waving a Bible as he shouted “The end of the world is near!”

As she pulled up at a red light, he turned and stared at her and for an instant she thought she saw, in his burning eyes, a message meant only for her. The light turned green. She sent the car lurching through the intersection. His shout faded away.

She was still jittery ten minutes later when she climbed the steps to Ann’s apartment building. As she reached the door, a young couple exited, allowing Kate to slip into the lobby.

It took a moment for the elevator to arrive. Leaning back against the wall, she forced herself to breathe deeply and let the silence of the building calm her nerves. By the time she finally stepped into the elevator, her heart had stopped its wild hammering. The doors slid closed. The elevator whined upward. She felt a strange sense of unreality as she watched the lights flash in succession: three, four, five. Except for a faint hydraulic hum, the ride was silent.

On the seventh floor, the doors slid open.

The corridor was deserted. A dull green carpet stretched out before her. As she walked toward number 710, she had the strange sensation that she was moving in a dream, that none of this was real—not the flocked wallpaper or the door looming at the end of the corridor. Only as she reached it did she see it was slightly ajar. “Ann?” she called out.

There was no answer.

She gave the door a little shove. Slowly it swung open and she froze, taking in, but not immediately comprehending, the scene before her: the toppled chair, the scattered magazines, the bright red splatters on the wall. Then her gaze followed the trail of crimson as it zigzagged across the beige carpet, leading inexorably toward its source: Ann’s body, lying facedown in a lake of blood.

Beeps issued faintly from a telephone receiver dangling off an end table. The cold, electronic tone was like an alarm, screaming at her to move, to take action. But she remained paralyzed; her whole body seemed stricken by some merciful numbness.

The first wave of dizziness swept over her. She crouched down, clutching the doorframe for support. All her medical training, all those years of working around blood, couldn’t prevent this totally visceral response. Through the drumbeat of her own heart she became aware of another sound, harsh and irregular. Breathing. But it wasn’t hers.

Someone else was in the room.

A flicker of movement drew her gaze across to the living room mirror. Only then did she see the man’s reflection. He was cowering behind a cabinet, not ten feet away.

They spotted each other in the mirror at the same instant. In that split second, as the reflection of his eyes met hers, she imagined she saw, in those hollows, the darkness beckoning to her. An abyss from which there was no escape.

He opened his mouth as if to speak but no words came out, only an unearthly hiss, like a viper’s warning just before it strikes.

She lurched wildly to her feet. The room spun past her eyes with excruciating slowness as she turned to flee. The corridor stretched out endlessly before her. She heard her own scream echo off the walls; the sound was as unreal as the image of the hallway flying past.

The stairwell door lay at the other end. It was her only feasible escape route. There was no time to wait for elevators.

She hit the opening bar at a run and shoved the door into the concrete stairwell. One flight into her descent, she heard the door above spring open again and slam against the wall. Again she heard the hiss, as terrifying as a demon’s whisper in her ear.

She stumbled to the sixth-floor landing and grappled at the door. It was locked tight. She screamed and pounded. Surely someone would hear her! Someone would answer her cry for help!

Footsteps thudded relentlessly down the stairs. She couldn’t wait; she had to keep running.

She dashed down the next flight and hit the fifth floor landing too hard. Pain shot through her ankle. In tears, she wrenched and pounded at the door. It was locked.

He was right behind her.

She flew down the next flight and the next. Her purse flew off her shoulder but she couldn’t stop to retrieve it. Her ankle was screaming with pain as she hurtled toward the third-floor landing. Was it locked, as well? Were they all locked? Her mind flew ahead to the ground floor, to what lay outside. A parking lot? An alley? Is that where they’d find her body in the morning?

Sheer panic made her wrench with superhuman strength at the next door. To her disbelief, it was unlocked. Stumbling through, she found herself in the parking garage. There was no time to think about her next move; she tore off blindly into the shadows. Just as the stairwell door flew open again, she ducked behind a van.

Crouching by the front wheel, she listened for footsteps but heard nothing except the torrent of her own blood racing in her ears. Seconds passed, then minutes. Where was he? Had he abandoned the chase? Her body was pressed so tightly against the van, the steel bit into her thigh. She felt no pain; every ounce of concentration was focused on survival.

A pebble clattered across the ground, echoing like a pistol shot in the concrete garage.

She tried in vain to locate the source but the explosions seemed to come from a dozen different directions at once. Go away! she wanted to scream. Dear God, make him go away….

The echoes faded, leaving total silence. But she sensed his presence, closing in. She could almost hear his voice whispering to her, I’m coming for you. I’m coming….

She had to know where he was, if he was drawing close.

Clinging to the tire, she slowly inched her head around and peered beneath the van. What she saw made her reel back in horror.

He was on the other side of the van and moving toward the rear. Toward her.

She sprang to her feet and took off like a rabbit. Parked cars melted into one continuous blur. She plunged toward the exit ramp. Her legs, stiff from crouching, refused to move fast enough. She could hear the man right behind her. The ramp seemed endless, spiraling around and around, every curve threatening to send her sprawling to the pavement. His footsteps were gaining. Air rushed in and out of her lungs, burning her throat.

In a last, desperate burst of speed, she tore around the final curve. Too late, she saw the headlights of a car coming up the ramp toward her.

She caught a glimpse of two faces behind the windshield, a man and a woman, their mouths open wide. As she slammed into the hood, there was a brilliant flash of light, like stars exploding in her eyes. Then the light vanished and she saw nothing at all. Not even darkness.

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