by Joel Shulkin
He sent an encrypted text: Operative compromised. Terminate.
As Cristina rode the bus to work, she regretted not taking the day off. The more she had told Andrea the previous night, the more terrified Cristina had become. She glanced at the other passengers. Despite yesterday’s storm, the bus was full. No Santos, no Cristiano Ronaldo look-alikes, but any one of them could be a Zero Dark assassin.
Cristina shrugged off her paranoia. She had to. She couldn’t afford to keep taking taxis. Anyway, if Zero Dark wanted to kill her, they wouldn’t do it in a public place. She was safer in crowds than empty subway stations and bridges. And the police were keeping tabs on her, probably to ensure she didn’t shoot anyone, but all the same it was good knowing they were there.
A yawn escaped. It had taken most of the night to convince Andrea that Cristina wasn’t crazy, and even longer to regain her trust. By the time they’d pulled into the parking lot next to their apartment building, Andrea seemed ready to explode.
“So, all these memories you’ve regained were because of a drug?” she had asked. “And you never told me?”
Avoiding her friend’s gaze as she unbuckled her seatbelt, Cristina said, “Recovering my life has always been my top priority. I had to keep the study secret. Only subjects can know about it until Recognate is approved for public use.”
“So, you’re also a subject?”
Cristina’s cheeks flushed. “Not exactly. The researchers at ReMind don’t know I’m taking it. For my prescription, I used the name Catherine Silvers. And if they find out and cut me out of the study, I could lose my memories all over again.”
Andrea continued to grip the steering wheel. “You get what you want, and the hell with everyone else.”
Cristina stared at the dashboard. “Can we get out of this car? Please?”
“Fine,” Andrea said as she opened her door. “Follow me. This conversation isn’t over.”
They didn’t speak again until they entered Andrea’s apartment. Andrea broke the silence.
“I need a drink and so do you. Take a seat.”
After flopping onto the sofa and hugging a pillow, Cristina said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I’m telling you now because if I am losing my mind, it might be Recognate’s fault. I need to talk to someone I trust.”
Andrea carried two full glasses from the bar and handed one to Cristina. Andrea then opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. Instead, she sat on an ottoman opposite Cristina, took a swig, and said, “Okay, but now you need to tell me everything.”
“I will.”
It took an hour and two more mojitos for Cristina to explain how Recognate regulated emotions and memory consolidation, as well as the referral process, how the pills arrived by courier, and Cristina’s role in monitoring their response. Then Cristina summarized her conversation with Julius Simmons, everything Santos had told her about Zero Dark, and what Stacey Peterman had told her about Jerry.
“Honey, I know you believe all of this, but bear with me. All of this started when Santos appeared. What if Santos is Quinn? Maybe this drug is poisoning your mind, and all the paranoid crap he’s feeding you has taken on its own life.”
Tears welled in Cristina’s eyes. She turned before Andrea could see them and wiped them away. “You think I’m going crazy.”
“That’s not it at all, sweetie.” Andrea moved closer and put her arm around Cristina’s shoulder. “Don’t lose sight of what we know is real. You remember the car crash, right?”
Cristina nodded.
“How could you remember so clearly if you weren’t there? Has Santos given you any proof?”
Her stomach tensed. All she had was Santos’s word and a photograph of someone who looked like her. “What about those memories of Rio?”
“Maybe your parents took you there and you don’t remember. If the holes in your memory are big enough, you wouldn’t know what you don’t know.”
“Perhaps.” Cristina pressed her fingertips against her lips. Andrea had a point. “What about the way I handled a gun today? Where did I learn that?”
“Maybe you finally paid attention to my self-defense lessons.” Andrea had grinned and had given Cristina a hug. “All I know is, we’ll figure this out together. But no more secrets, okay?”
“Short Street,” announced the bus driver, startling Cristina from her reverie. She looked out the window. Her office building stood less than half a block away. Well, at least no one had tried to kill her. What a way to qualify a successful Monday morning.
When Cristina entered her practice, Devi already had a chart waiting for her. “Mrs. Watterson is here with her son.”
“How about I get settled in and then I’ll talk to them?” Cristina hung up her coat.
“Um, they’re waiting in your office.”
Cristina froze in the middle of doffing her hat. “Devi, it’s not even eight thirty.”
“Under the circumstances, I thought you’d want to see them right away.”
“What circumstances?”
Devi shifted papers on her desk. “Mr. Watterson says his mother is getting worse, and he claims it’s your fault.”
“It’s my fault she has Alzheimer’s?”
Devi chewed her lower lip. “Maybe you should talk to him yourself.”
Stomach fluttering, Cristina ripped off her hat and entered her office. Mrs. Watterson and her son looked up from their magazines. The woman smiled. Her son’s pale, doughy face remained stoic.
“Hello, Martha, David.” Cristina closed the door behind her and approached them, holding out her hand. “I wasn’t expecting you so early.”
“Hello, my dear.” Martha beamed as she wrapped her hands around Cristina’s. “I hope you’re ready for your big day.”
“Big day?”
“Why, your wedding, of course. To David.”
Cristina glanced at Mr. Watterson. “What’s she talking about?”
“She thinks we’re getting married.” David Watterson kept his gaze level through his horn-rimmed glasses. “She also thinks she’s the daughter of Charles Lindbergh Jr.”
“Everyone thought he died as a baby.” Martha’s eyes twinkled. “Not true. Not only did he survive, he fathered me and my twin sister, Isabella. Such a shame he died a few years ago. He would have so loved to have met you, my dear.”
Cristina felt her body heat rising. “She wasn’t like this before. What happened?”
“I think you know very well, Dr. Silva. You did this to her.” He held up a bottle of green capsules. “And it has something to do with these.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cristina’s heart thumped as she stared at the pill bottle. She sat and folded her hands. “We’ve discussed your mother’s condition at length. This behavior could be a symptom of advanced Alzheimer’s.”
Anger smoldered in David Watterson’s eyes. He twisted the bottle between his fingers. “Ma, when did you say you started taking these?”
“Oh, they’re lovely, aren’t they?” Martha Watterson winked at Cristina. “The color of emeralds, like my grandmother’s necklace. Dr. Silva, you’ll wear it for the wedding.”
“Ma.” He shook the bottle. “When did you start taking them?”
“Oh, yes. Two weeks ago.”
“That’s how long she’s been like this and getting worse. You think it’s a coincidence? The damned things aren’t even approved by the FDA. I checked online.”
Cristina’s ears burned. Even if she thought Recognate might be dangerous, disclosing that to the Wattersons before discussing it with the researchers could be disastrous.
“Yes,” she said, “Recognate is still being studied, but this has never been reported as an adverse effect. I would’ve kept your mother carefully monitored for it if it had been.”
He slammed the pill bottle onto the desk. Cristin
a recoiled in surprise. “What gives you the right to experiment on my mother?”
“Now, wait a minute. I counseled her on all the risks and benefits of enrolling. She signed a consent form.”
“She’s not in her right mind. How can she give consent?”
“Your mother was lucid enough when she came to me, begging me for something, anything, to help her remember.” Cristina leaned forward, knuckles white as she gripped the armrests. No more accusations of incompetence. Not today. “She knew what she was doing. And do you know why she was so desperate? She wanted to remember you. Her son. You told me you would do anything for your mother. That’s what she did for you.”
David Watterson stared at the floor. Had she been too defensive?
“You’re right, Dr. Silva.” Martha rummaged through her purse. “Those pills have helped me so much. I never would’ve remembered Isabella without you. As soon as I found this picture, I remembered everything.”
She handed Cristina a crumpled photo.
A sinking feeling grew in Cristina’s stomach as she unfolded the paper and recognized the raven-haired woman in the picture. “This is Isabella Rossellini.”
“Yes, my sister.”
“She’s a famous actress. Her mother was Ingrid Bergman.”
Martha’s smile broadened. “Oh, you knew my mother?”
“You see?” The son spread his hands, his face sagging. “Every time she sees a picture in a magazine or on TV, she makes up a story about how it fits into her life. Yesterday, she claimed she babysat Tiger Woods.”
“What a nice boy.” Martha clucked her tongue. “But he could be a rascal, yes, he could.”
Cristina gathered her thoughts as she set down the photo. False memories. But the woman had only been taking Recognate for two weeks, and her other subjects had exhibited no such behavior, even after taking it for months. There had to be another explanation.
“Confabulation. That’s the fabrication of false memories. We see it with alcoholics suffering from thiamine deficiency.” She turned to Martha. “You said you drink a glass of wine each night with dinner. Have you been drinking more than that?”
“Goodness, no. Too much red wine makes my head spin.”
“Okay, so we can rule that out.”
“Maybe just two or three tumblers of whiskey now and then . . .”
“Ma!” The son gasped.
“All right. Stop.” Cristina waved as if she could magically restore order. “Martha, please hold out your hands.”
The old woman did so. “I had my nails done. Do you like them?”
Cristina glanced at the haphazard streaks of nail polish.
“Yes, very nice.” She focused on Martha’s fingers, watching for erratic movements. “No tremor. Speech is fine. It’s unlikely she’s been drinking enough to affect her thiamine uptake.”
“I always take my vitamins.” Martha grinned, still stretching out her hands.
“You can put your hands down.” As she complied, Cristina sighed. Looking at the son, she said, “When you told me about her obsession with horseback riding, I thought it might be a mild symptom, but it’s clearly gotten worse.”
“Can Alzheimer’s cause this?” The anger in David’s eyes was gone, replaced by fear.
“To some extent, yes, but confabulation suggests damage to the frontal lobes and forebrain.” The heat drained from Cristina’s face as she ran through a frightening differential diagnosis. “I’ll need to order neuroimaging right away. Your mother could’ve suffered an injury to the anterior communicating artery. That could explain her behavior.”
David wiped his hand over his face. “Is she going to be okay?”
“It would have to be a slow bleed, but it could already have caused irreparable damage. Did she hit her head recently? Complain of headaches?”
“No, she’s been healthy as the horse she tried to ride.”
“I forgot about the horse. Did she suffer any head injuries?”
“No. I made her wear a helmet, anyway.” He bit his knuckle. “What about the drug? Could it have done something to her brain?”
Though she didn’t want to accept the possibility, Cristina knew she had to consider it. “Has she had any hallucinations? Mentioned hearing voices?”
“No.”
“How about paranoid delusions? Fear of persecution?”
“Just when she claimed I kidnapped her, but that seems to have stopped.” David frowned. “These pills cause all that?”
Heat flushed up the back of Cristina’s neck. He seemed more forgiving now, but how would he react if he knew his unstable mother’s doctor was also cracking up? “I’m trying to rule things out. Anticholinergic drugs can cause confabulation and sometimes psychotic symptoms, but she doesn’t have dry mouth or blurred vision. Anyway, Recognate doesn’t have anticholinergic properties. It would be counterproductive to memory restoration.”
“But there could be different side effects in different people, right?” David glanced at the pill bottle. “I mean, if it’s a new drug maybe it hasn’t been studied in people with Alzheimer’s.”
Cristina opened her mouth to object and closed it again. Many drugs had been pulled a few months or years after entering the market when patients with untested medical illnesses developed life-threatening side effects. Off-label use of medications was always a risk, and if anything happened to this sweet lady . . .
“You’re right.” Cristina switched on her computer and began typing. “I’m ordering metabolic labs and a brain MRI. Don’t let your mother take any more Recognate until we can determine if it’s involved.” A thought hit her, and Cristina stopped typing. “How did you know Recognate hasn’t been studied in Alzheimer’s? That information wouldn’t be available online.”
“No, it’s not.”
Cristina’s chest tightened again. “Then where?”
David licked his lips. “I called the drug company.”
Chapter Thirty
“I was scared,” said David Watterson. “There was no safety information with the bottle, just a contact number. When I called ReMind, they said Ma had been rejected from the study. I told them I had the bottle in my hand. That’s when I noticed you’d misspelled her name. They said you had listed her diagnosis as traumatic amnesia, not Alzheimer’s.”
The walls crumbled around Cristina, pulling down her degrees and accolades with them. “I was sure she’d respond well to the drug and we’d tried everything else available—”
“I understand. You were only trying to help. Look, I’ll call and tell them it wasn’t your fault. I want to help Ma.”
Images poured into Cristina’s mind: the car crash, her psychiatry board exams, a nightmare about monsters in her closet. She squeezed her hands into fists and forced away the memories.
“I appreciate that, Mr. Watterson.” She took a deep breath and finished typing her orders. She snatched the printout from the paper tray and handed it to him. “Please call tomorrow with an update.”
“Now, dear, don’t forget.” Martha Watterson gave Cristina a stern look. “Noon tomorrow. Don’t be late for your own wedding.”
Cristina forced a smile in return. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
After the Wattersons left, Cristina sank her forehead into her palms. How was she going to get out of this mess? If her lie had endangered that sweet old lady, she’d never forgive herself. And even if they didn’t revoke her license, ReMind would kick her out of the study. No more subjects, no more pills, no more memories . . .
She picked up her parents’ photo and traced the outline of Jorge Silva’s face.
“If I’m not your daughter, who am I?”
A buzz from the intercom startled her. “What is it?”
Devi hesitated before answering. “Are you okay? You sound like—”
“I’m fine.” Cristina cleared her
throat. “Is my ten o’clock here already?”
“No, but Dr. Morgan is waiting for you on line two.”
Cristina recalled the tests she had asked the medical examiner to run on Jerry Peterman’s blood. She picked up the receiver and switched to line two. “Hello, Dr. Morgan. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No trouble. And, as I said before, it’s Luke.”
Cristina allowed herself to smile. He was nothing if not persistent. “Okay, Luke, what do you have for me?”
“Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you any of this without the official paperwork, and this is already complicated because of his sister . . .”
“Dr. Morgan, please. I just want to be sure this doesn’t happen to any of my other patients.”
“Okay. Just this once.” He snickered. “Anyway, you made quite a good call. Both norepinephrine and epinephrine levels were elevated.”
“How high?”
“Five times normal.” Luke clucked his tongue. “Wish I could finish the autopsy. His adrenal gland is probably the size of a golf ball from all those hormones.”
“Why can’t you? Didn’t his sister drop the injunction?”
“Yeah, but she disappeared before making it official. Her lawyer refuses to drop it until she does, so I’m stuck in a holding pattern. I swear, I’ve never seen a circus like this.”
A chill ran down Cristina’s back. If Stacey was dead, she wouldn’t be approving anything. And Cristina expected lowered norepinephrine by Recognate, or even a mild rebound elevation, not a massive spike. Adrenal tumors were usually rare and slow growing, but Jerry’s change in behavior had been so rapid. “Is pheochromocytoma the only explanation?”
“Well, amphetamines and alcohol both can elevate norepinephrine. But his tox was negative for amphetamines, and alcohol doesn’t cause that high a spike. Unless Jerry Peterman was smoking two packs a day and guzzling gallons of coffee, I don’t know what stressed out his system like that.”
