Syndrome

by Thomas Hoover

  "What did you have for lunch?"

  My God, she realized she hadn't actually had any. After the disaster with Kristen, she'd been in such turmoil that she hadn't even thought about food.

  On the other hand, she knew what food deprivation felt like. This was something else.

  "I didn't have all that much lunch, but that's not the problem. Now will you please put me through?"

  "Let me see what I can do," she said. "I'll call down and ask him. He might be able to see you."

  Ally listened as the line went blank.

  That was when she remembered she had some smoked turkey in the office fridge. Maybe a quick sandwich was called for.

  While she waited, Stone was looking around the offices, taking everything in. Carrying the phone, she walked out and followed him. What, she wondered, was the place telling him about her? The meager furniture was low-slung and utilitarian, with lots of beige and dark brown. And there were several huge storage files for blueprints and designs. There also was a comfortable easy chair and lamp near a bookcase in the corner. On the table next to the chair were two British mysteries and a thick, recently written history of New York City.

  He walked over and picked it up. It was 760 pages long.

  “This your idea of reading for relaxation?" he asked, waving it at her. "I tried to get through it, but I only got up to the 1930s and then I started having a bout of acute sleeping sickness every time I picked it up."

  "Hey, the history of this city is a mental hobby of mine. It's always renewing itself." She smiled. "Think about it. When developers convert industrial space to residential, we end up getting a lot of work."

  Then she heard the phone crackle alive. It was Van de Vliet. "Alexa, what seems to be the problem?"

  She told him.

  "Then I think it's important that you come back out here as soon as you can. I can't say anything until I've seen you. This could be something that could affect your procedure."

  "But what do you think-"

  "I don't diagnose over the phone. I was about to go home, but I'll wait for you."

  She listened as he clicked off.

  "Shit."

  "What did he say?" Stone asked.

  "He said I've got to come out."

  "Do you really want to do that?"

  "I don't know. But what's the point of going to a doctor here? They wouldn't know-"

  "Then at least let me drive you," Stone declared. "And I'll make damned sure they don't pull something funny."

  "Ally," Jennifer said,"you look absolutely wiped out. Before you do anything, at least let me fix you a sandwich. I think there's some turkey in the fridge."

  "I was thinking about that." She glanced at Stone. "You want something?"

  "Sure. I'll have whatever you're having."

  "Don't be so sure. Jen can tell you I take mayo and mustard both. I know it's weird but that's the way I am."

  "Then I'll give it a try. I want to get to know you all over again."

  "Also, I hate to say it, but I think maybe I ought to swing by the apartment and get some things. Just in case."

  She listened to her own voice and wondered, would whatever happened to Kristen happen to me too?

  Maybe, she thought, what I really ought to take with me is a gun.Maybe Katherine Starr had the right idea.

  Jennifer finished the sandwiches and was wrapping them. "Ally, I'll go with you to your place and pick up Knickers. She can stay with me till you know what's going on."

  "Thanks, Jen. I was hoping you'd volunteer." She knew she could have dropped a hint and made it happen anyway, but this was nicer.

  She then went around and had a few last words. It felt like a good-bye and she didn't want it to. But it did.

  Ten minutes later, while Stone waited in her double-parked car, she and Jennifer took the elevator up to her Barrow Street apartment.

  "Where did you find that man?" Jennifer asked as soon as they got on. "He seems nice. Interesting. He's not a client, is he? And, pardon me for noticing, no wedding ring."

  "He actually found me," Ally declared, punching her floor. "It's a long story, but he was a guy I was deeply in love with for about fifteen minutes back around college. The old flame I told you about, remember? Then we started getting on each other's nerves. We're both going easy on the personal details right now, but I've got a hunch he's got nobody else percolating. Which, incidentally, goes for me too, or hadn't you noticed."

  They stepped off the elevator and she unlocked the door to her apartment. Knickers exploded with delight.

  "Hi, baby." She reached down and ruffled the sheepdog's ears.

  "I really love her," Jennifer said as she reached down to pet her too.

  Knickers began a dance of joy, then ran to search for her rubber ball behind the couch, hoping for a game of fetch with Jennifer.

  "By the way, I can't tell you how I appreciate your taking her. She's going to love being at your place awhile. I'm sure she gets bored crazy being here all the time. I probably should get a puppy or something to keep her company, but then she'd be jealous. And I'm not about to get a stupid cat."

  "She loves me because she knows I love her," Jennifer said. "I always play with her when you bring her into the office. At least I think she loves me. This may turn out to be the test."

  Ally headed into the bedroom, opened a drawer, and took out some black sweatshirts. Those and black jeans were her favorite things to wear around the house. She slept in a T-shirt and panties, so it wasn't hard to put together her evening ensemble. Besides, if something went wrong with the experimental stem cell procedure, it wouldn't matter a damn what she was wearing.

  She threw the clothes into a blue gym bag and headed for the bathroom to fetch some toiletries. By the time she got back to the living room, Jennifer had a measuring cup and was shoveling Science Diet into a large plastic bag.

  They delivered Jen and Knickers back to the office. After she gave them both a farewell hug, she came around and slipped into the Toyota's driver's seat, moving Stone across.

  "I'm actually feeling better now, so I'll drive as long as I can. And by the way, I'm famished. How about that turkey sandwich?"

  "Thought you'd never remember."

  Five minutes later, they were headed up the West Side, with Ally at the wheel. She checked the gas and was relieved to see that she still had two-thirds of a tank. Stone was leaning back in the seat looking at her.

  "You know, it's easy for me to say, but trying the stem cell procedure on your heart is probably the right thing for you to do. Still, though, it makes me nervous. If there's a medical glitch of some kind then. . I mean, what the hell is going on with Kristen?"

  "I'm going to confront him about that," she said "I damned well want some answersbeforeI just turn myself over to him."

  After they crossed the George Washington Bridge, she began feeling slightly better.Maybe, she thought,whatever it is is going to pass. As they headed north up the tree-shrouded highway, she decided to ask him a question that had been nagging at her mind.

  "Stone, I know you hate to have these talks, but something about you doesn't quite compute for me right now. There's a kind of unnatural intensity about your pursuit of Winston Bartlett and his stem cell work. And the same goes for his reaction to you. Way back when, I never really thought I knew you, and it's still true. I mean, is this all just about a book on stem cell technology? Or is it something more?"

  The question was followed by a long moment of silence as he looked away, into the forest, and appeared to wrestle with his thoughts.

  "You're very intuitive, Ally," he said at last "Maybe I didn't consciously set out to write about stem cells just because I knew Bartlett's Gerex Corporation was a leader in the field. But writing about stem cells automatically meant that I'd have to get close to him at some point. So was it an unconscious choice? If it was, then I wouldn't be aware of it would I?"

  "But why would you want to get close to Winston Bartlett?"

  "I guess
that was your original question, right?"

  "Pretty much."

  "There are things about my past that I never told you. I could never decide exactly how to go about it. And truthfully, right now doesn't seem exactly the right moment either. You've got enough on your mind"

  "Want to give me a hint?" What could he mean? she wondered. It was clear that Stone Aimes and Winston Bartlett had some kind of holy war going on between them.

  "I'll tell you someday soon. But I want us both sitting down in a safe place when I do. It's going to be hard." He looked away again. "Someday soon I've got to tell my daughter, Amy, too. Maybe telling you would be a practice drill."

  "So what I'm learning is that I'm not crazy. This is about more than it's about?" She sighed. "Nobody's leveling with me. With Van de Vliet I have to worry whether he's telling me the truth every time he opens his mouth. And now you're holding out. It’s like that joke about feeling like a mushroom. Everybody keeps me in the dark and feeds me bullshit." She was slowing down, pulling into an open space by the roadside. "Stone, I'm feeling a little dizzy. Maybe it's this conversation, but I think it's time you took the wheel for a while."

  "Hey, don't pass out on me now," he said, snapping into the moment. "I'm not sure I could actually find this place without your help."

  "Don't worry," she said, bringing the car to a stop. "I'm all right. I'm just a little worried about my reflexes."

  He got out and walked around, while she hoisted herself over into the other side.

  The evening commute had begun in earnest, so there was a lot more traffic than there had been that morning. But Stone turned out to be an aggressive driver, right on the edge, as though he were racing the clock. She gave him directions and then closed her eyes, hoping to rest. But all she could think about was Stone's refusal to tell her about something that loomed very large in his life.

  "Tell me if I'm bothering you and I'll shut up," he interjected after a few minutes, "but-not to change the subject-did you actually give anybody permission to stick a needle in you this morning? I mean, are you sure you understood what was going on at the time?"

  She shifted and opened her eyes, looking straight ahead.

  "Truthfully, I assumed I was just giving a blood sample. That's what his assistant said and I took her at her word. I hate needles and I never actually watch when I give blood. This morning I just sort of went along with what was happening. And nothing seemed particularly ominous till Katherine Starr showed up and started blasting away."

  "Well," he said, "do your best to get some rest and I'll try to get you there as soon as legally possible."

  She stared out the window a moment before closing her eyes again. Around them the encroaching greenery of northern New Jersey felt like an ancient forest where magical things could happen. Out here in the forest, was there a magician who had the power literally to save her life?

  And what about Stone? Setting aside the troubling fact that he was harboring some mysterious connection to Winston Bartlett-and that was hard to set aside-she was feeling a sense of togetherness with him that brought back a lot of positive memories. Which was bizarre, because she knew so little about what kind of man he'd become. If people are worth their salt, they change a lot in their late twenties and early thirties. So what was he really like now? What did he love? What did he hate? What were his priorities? Did he believe in the Golden Rule?

  Mulling over all this, she slowly drifted away. ..

  Dusk was approaching by the time he pulled to a stop at the gated entrance of the Dorian Institute. Along the way he'd begun getting a sense that they were being followed by a dark-colored Lincoln Town Car, but it could have been his imagination. And he hadn't seen it for the past fifteen minutes, after he pulled onto the leafy lakeside drive leading to the institute.

  "Hey, we're here, Ally. Rise and shine. How're you feeling?"

  There was no response when he touched her.

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday, April 8

  7:20p.m.

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

  Finally she jumped, and then her eyelids fluttered open.

  "Where. .?" She looked around.

  "The sign says this is it. The institute."

  "Oh shit, Stone, I'm feeling really strange," she said after a moment of getting her bearings. "Everything around me seems like it's moving. It's as though the space I'm in has an extra dimension. I don't know. . maybe it was totally stupid to come back out here. Maybe I should have just gone to my doctor in the city."

  "Hey, you've got a seriously deficient sense of timing. We're here now. I've been breaking the speed limit for the last half hour."

  "I know. Shit. I really don't know what to do. I don't trust anybody."

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

  A brass plaque on a redbrick pillar beside the gate bore a two-inch-high inscription,the dorian institute, and just below it was an intercom. She stared at it for a moment, then said, "There, give it a buzz. I think there's a video camera around here somewhere. Last time I was here, they knew I'd arrived."

  He reached out and touched a black button.

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

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

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

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

  "From here, it's pretty classy-looking," Stone declared, sizing it up. "I know his big manufacturing-and-research campus is right down the road. But still, it sure feels godforsaken and lost out here in the middle of these pines. It's like the place is hiding from the world."

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

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

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

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

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

  "I'm… I'm not feeling at all well. Please let me hold-"

  No sooner had she said it than the front door opened and two nurses appeared, their hair backlit from the glow of the reception area. She recognized one as Ellen O'Hara.

  "Here, dear, let us help you," she said as she strode toward them. She was dressed in white and her eyes were flooded with concern. Ally looked through the doorway to see a waiting wheelchair.

  "That's fast," Stone said. "Looks like they were ready for you."

  My God, she thought,did they already know what kind of shape I'd be in?What else do they know? Surely Van de Vliet has heard by now that I'm aware of Kristen.

  Then she saw him standing behind the nurses.

  "Alexa, we need to get you downstairs as soon as possible." He was coming forward to help her settle into the wheelchair. He appeared to take no notice of Stone Aimes.

  "I'm just feeling a little dizzy."

  He smiled reassuringly. "There's always a small percentage chance that there may be side effects from the initial inoculation."

  Huh?

  "What 'initial inoculation'?" She bolted upright in the wheelchair. "I was just supposed to be giving blood."

  "I thought Debra explained," he said, appearing confused. "There's always an initial. . antibiotic dosage, just as a prophylactic." He shook his head in self-blame. "I should have insisted you stay here, but after
that. . incident this morning I was so disoriented I let you talk me out of it. You may be having a reaction to the antibiotic, but it can't be all that serious. I didn't see anything about side effects in your file. We just have to get you horizontal for a while. Everything's going to be all right. In fact, this might be a positive development. With you here now, we can begin fine-tuning your procedure immediately."

  "Dr. Van de Vliet, this is my cousin Stone. He drove me here and I'd-"

  "I'd really like to stay," Stone said reaching to shake Van de Vliet's hand. "It would mean a lot to both of us. To the whole family."

  "Family?" Van de Vliet declared. Ally noticed that he was examining Stone with narrowed eyes and seemed to be debating something with himself. "Well, we'll see." Then he turned back to her. "The first thing is to make sure your. . situation is stabilized. I actually think a good night's rest might do the trick. But I need to run a quick blood test downstairs."

  She felt her dizziness coming and going, but she was determined to stay awake and in control of what was being done to her.

  "By the way, I was wondering how is Katherine Starr doing?"

  His eyes grew somber. "She's a very lucky woman, considering. We've given her some coagulants and stitched her up."

  "Are you going to press charges?"

  He looked at her strangely. "Do you think we should?"

  "I guess it's none of my business."Of course you won't, she told herself. The Kristen matter will not stand the ordinary light of day, let alone a police investigation.

  "Maybe it's time to let her daughter come and see her."

  "I looked at that letter," he said with a matter-of-fact tone. "I suspect it's a hoax. And a very cruel one at that."

  "I don't think so. I talked to her today. The woman formerly known as Kristen. On the phone." She stared at him. "I really think it's time I learned more about what happened to her here at the institute. All I could really find out was that she thinks she's experienced some pretty dramatic memory loss."

  He looked as though this information was new to him. He also looked startled. "You spoke to her? What. . did she say? Is she all right?"