Endorphin Conspiracy, The (16 page)

Chapter 27

Geoff lifted his heavy head off the pillow, reached over, and squelched the shrill buzz of the alarm clock. He managed to open his puffy lids just a slit, gazed at the time, the red glow of the numbers forcing his eyes to squint. Five-thirty a.m.
One glass of wine too many had given him a hangover. He wasn’t a big drinker and rarely had more than a couple of glasses, so the bottle of wine he had last night with Suzanne just about put him under the table, or on top of the counter, in this case.

His head throbbed and his thickened tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He felt strangely uncomfortable this morning. It was something more than the hangover, more than a restless night of tossing and turning in bed. He felt as though he had betrayed Sarah, though he had no real reason to feel that way. He liked Suzanne, enjoyed working with her, was attracted to her. There was a sultry sensuality smoldering beneath her cool, intellectual façade. He needed her help, at least until the assays were run. Maybe the relationship would go somewhere, or maybe sleeping with her was part of breaking away from the past.

Geoff stared blankly at the ceiling, tried to replay his conversation with Suzanne. She had succeeded in planting seeds of doubt, warned him he was becoming too involved, suggested his conspiracy theory needed more proof. He thought about backing off, but quitting was something he hated more than anything. It was one of the few childhood lessons from his father, the renowned surgeon, that had stuck with him: never give up, even when the odds are stacked against you.

Geoff had been sucked into the vortex of the violent storm swirling around him. His involvement was beyond neutralizing, whether or not he stopped now, even if he returned the endorphins. He knew too much. Whomever was behind it all was clearly aware of that. He had to beat them to the punch, but first he had to root out the key players, and his plan to do that was already in motion.

All he had to do now was wait and watch—carefully.
Very carefully
. These people played for keeps. They had proven that with Kapinsky.

“Geoff, what are you doing up so early?” Suzanne said sleepily, as she reached over and gently stroked his inner thigh.

“I’m going to go for a run before heading down to the hospital to clean out my locker.”

Suzanne snuggled up close to Geoff, her hand continuing to roam between his legs. “I could give you a better workout here.”

He reached over and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then threw off the covers and sat up. “I really need to get back to my apartment. I need you to tuck the scans away some place safe for the day. Will you do that?”

“You’re no fun.” Suzanne frowned and pulled the covers up over her firm breasts.

“I had a really strange dream last night,” Geoff said.

“Oh?”

“I dreamed we had wild sex on the bathroom counter.” Geoff leaned over, his hand caressing her back through the sheets and kissed the back of her neck.

“That was great, wasn’t it?” she purred with a satisfied smile. “I guess I’ll let you go now, but you had better be prepared for tonight.”

“Tonight?” Geoff wondered what he had gotten himself into. “What’s it going to be tonight, the kitchen table?”

“Sounds exciting.” Suzanne’s smile faded as she reached out to grab Geoff’s arm. She pulled him close. “You
did
have a strange dream last night, Geoff, but it wasn’t about us.”

Geoff noted the seriousness behind Suzanne’s eyes. “Tell me about it.”

“You kept repeating Sarah’s name in your sleep. I’ve got a secure ego, Geoff, but I have to tell you, a woman doesn’t like this sort of thing, especially after a passionate night of lovemaking.”

Geoff looked away, tried to remember such a dream from last night, but he drew a blank. Was it his drunkenness that put him into such a deep sleep he couldn’t recall it? He had felt uncomfortable when he woke up, feeling he had slept in the wrong bed with the wrong woman, but he had convinced himself it was just a hangover making him feel so down. He was at a loss for words. “I’m—”

Suzanne pulled Geoff down on top of her, kissed him full on the mouth. “It’s okay, Geoff, I forgive you. Besides, I’m the one who did the seducing, not you.”

“How can I redeem myself?”

“Two ways,” Suzanne said. “Drop the vials by my lab this morning...”

“And...”

“Meet me on the kitchen table tonight. We still have those scans to review. And, yes, I’ll keep them secure for you.”

Chapter 28

The rays of the early morning sun barely burning through the dense smog cast a surreal purple glow in the sky above. Temperature inversions were quite common in the city in mid-July, and this morning, New York was socked-in in a bad way.

Geoff climbed up the steps on 181st Street that lead to his apartment building, his mind filled with thoughts of Sarah. His conversation with Suzanne last night had stirred up the past. The day her anguish ended. The day his began. Intellectually, Geoff knew he had simply carried out her wishes and had done what was right, what she had wanted him to do, but he had never reconciled it with his heart nor his instincts as a physician.

It was climbing these very steps as Geoff returned from the hospital that day a year and a half ago that the realization of what he had done overwhelmed him. It
was
a mercy killing, the response to a dying person’s last request, but murder was murder, plain and simple. He had done more than just put Sarah out of her misery.

It was one of those frigid January nights in New York when the icy wind howled and sheets of hail pelted the window of Sarah’s hospital room like fistfuls of pebbles. Geoff had sat by the bedside, reading the
New York Times
, waiting patiently for Sarah’s gynecologist, Carl Rosenberg, to return from the operating room. He had brought her into the ER early that evening after Sarah had complained of abdominal cramping, then doubled over in pain and began hemorrhaging.

Geoff was convinced it was a tubal pregnancy. They had been trying to conceive for months, and her period was late. Geoff remembered the look on Rosenberg’s face as he entered the room. His expression was drawn, and his saddened eyes shifted nervously. Geoff knew right away something was terribly wrong.

“Geoff, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Sarah has an ovarian tumor. It’s pretty large and must have been there for quite a while.” The words came tumbling down, buried him like an avalanche.

“It can’t be.”

“We double-checked Geoff. It’s cancer.”

Cancer.

Months of radiation treatments and chemotherapy followed and the residual tumor at first appeared to shrink. They were hopeful until the next body scan was done. The tumor had seeded like dandelions scattered by the wind and was growing relentlessly throughout her pelvis. They tried to contain it with chemotherapy, what seemed like endless rounds of intravenous poison that slowly devoured both her body and her spirit, her thick, blonde hair falling out little by little.

Over the next few months, the vicious synergy of the advancing tumor and the chemical poisons insidiously zapped her vitality, despite her strong constitution and will. Jaundiced, gaunt, and in constant pain from the galloping cancer, Sarah began pleading with her nurses for her pain cocktails hours before her next dose was due. At first they gave her relief for a couple of hours, but after a while, the medication no longer worked. The cancer had spread too quickly.

The doctors suggested a trial of an experimental chemotherapy protocol from the National Cancer Institute, and Geoff tried to convince her to go ahead with it. Sarah refused. She knew the end was near, and she was ready to move on. She pleaded with Geoff to help her end her waning, pain-filled life. Geoff resisted at first. He thought she was delirious from her treatments.

One day, after a particularly rough round of chemo, he stared into her still beautiful, green eyes and saw what he had tried to deny for months. Her spark was gone, the flame doused; he could see the depths of her agony. She pleaded for him to end her pain and give her peace.

Geoff thought of his father, his agonizing battle with lung cancer a few years earlier. The proud and brilliant surgeon had wasted away, become a frail ghost of what he once was in a matter of months. Geoff had felt helpless watching him suffer, knew he couldn’t stand by now and allow Sarah to suffer that way.

“It’s time for you to keep your promise, Geoff,” she said.

Geoff knew what he had to do as tears streamed down both their cheeks. Later that night he returned to her bedside and with a final kiss delivered the fatal injection of morphine he had spirited from the pharmacy by forging the medication log. He sat by her side and watched as she drifted away peacefully.

Sarah was gone.

His best friend, his lifeline to humanity had been taken away and a piece of him had died with her. Her death sent him into a deep depression. Distraught and distracted after Sarah’s funeral, Dr. Pederson suggested Geoff take a leave of absence from the neurosurgery program for a year and do research in Dr. Balassi’s lab, away from clinical responsibilities.

He kept busy in the lab during the day, but alone each night, the guilt of Sarah’s death weighted heavily on his soul. His loneliness created a void in his heart he could not fill. Even his brother, Stefan could not break through. At least he wasn’t a drinker—alcohol or drugs were never things he had turned to in his life.

Geoff’s despair reached its nadir one rainy April night.

He sat down on the side of the bed and opened a small wooden chest he hadn’t looked at in years. After removing a stack of commendations, ribbons and medals he had earned in the navy, he retrieved a few photos from a much earlier, happier time in his life. He flipped through them, one by one. Geoff and his navy buddies after graduating from the academy. Geoff and Sarah when they first met, so young, fresh and in love, sitting on the beach in Maui on their first trip together. A bittersweet smile came to Geoff’s face, but only for a moment.

Geoff reached deeper into the bottom of the chest for his service weapon, an M11 recoil-operated, semi-automatic pistol. Taking the pistol in hand he retrieved the clip, snapped it in place with a loud click. Never in a million years did he think he would contemplate suicide. It just wasn’t in his DNA, or so he thought. His pain and loneliness could end tonight, he thought. He stared at the pistol for a long moment, set it down on the nightstand by his wedding picture with Sarah, stared at her image, her warm, happy smile. Geoff sniffed back tears. He grabbed the pistol in his hand once again, released the safety, his eyes staring blankly into space. His mind ticked off the path of the projectile. Tearing through the brainstem, his respirations and heart beat would cease almost immediately, his parietal and occipital cortices would be obliterated, a hole the size of a baseball would be blown out the back of his skull…..

Sarah would not want this!

Sarah’s voice in his head jolted him back to reality. Slowly, he reengaged the safety, removed the clip, put the pistol back in the chest, and placed it back on the top of his closet shelf.

Geoff had tried to slam the door shut on that part of his life as well on that painful day. As he reached the top of the steps, he paused and closed his eyes briefly. He felt light-headed, short of breath. Then he remembered the report on the morning news about the inversion. It took his mind off Sarah.

Geoff stopped briefly in the marbled lobby of the building to check his mail, something he did regardless of the day. He looked through the window in the brass box, but it was empty. Odd. Yesterday wasn’t a holiday, and his box was almost always crammed with something, at least a medical journal and some junk mail.

Geoff passed the stairs, deciding to take the elevator up to his third floor apartment. The old metal door slid closed with a loud clang, and the elevator departed with enough of a jolt to cause him to lose his balance. Amazing the old lift still worked.

As he walked down the dim hallway towards his apartment, something felt different. Just a feeling, nothing concrete, nothing he could put his finger on. He paused and looked up and down the hall, then looked at his watch. Six a.m. A strange silence enveloped him.

He paused by the door of his next door neighbor, Mrs. Lubka, and leaned close to listen for any sounds. Nothing. She must not be feeling well. Geoff couldn’t remember the last time he entered his apartment without her opening her door and convincing him to come in for a cup of coffee and to check her blood pressure. He made a mental note to check on her later.

Geoff reached into his pocket for his keys, fumbled the keychain, and dropped it on the floor, the noise echoing along the hallway. As he bent down to pick it up, he heard a sound, not from the hallway, but from inside his apartment.

Was it his imagination?

He put his ear to the door and heard the sounds of cabinet doors opening and closing, drawers sliding open and closed, what sounded like things being dumped on the floor. The door showed no signs of being forced open, and he didn’t remember leaving any windows unlocked.

Geoff reached down to his shin, unsheathed his combat knife, and gripped it in his left hand. One swift pass with the blade could easily slit a man’s throat. That would do nicely.

Slowly, he inserted the key into the deadbolt, tumbler by tumbler, unlocked it, turned the doorknob.

The door creaked as it opened. Geoff listened. The activity continued unabated. Whoever was inside hadn’t heard him.

Geoff set his pack down by the door and walked toward the bedroom, from where the sounds were now coming. As he passed through the living room, a glimmer of something resting on the carpet reflected in the light and caught his eye.

Geoff bent down to pick it up. It was an old pair of glasses, frame bent and thick, bloodied lenses smashed as if they had been intentionally stepped on. Geoff bent down and studied them closely. They were cataract glasses. The only one he knew who wore glasses like those was Mrs. Lubka. A trail of dried blood lead to the broom closet.

Geoff’s heart pounded so fiercely he wondered if it could be heard a room away. He tightened his grip on the cold metal weapon as he approached the threshold of the bedroom, peaked around the corner.

A man stood by the window, looking through Geoff’s dresser. Geoff tried to get a better look, but could see the man only from behind. Tall and broad shouldered, he wore a running suit. A black ski mask covered his head and face.

This wouldn’t be easy, but Geoff was trained for hand to hand combat. Geoff heard a murmur of frustration as the man threw down the dresser drawer. The intruder checked his watch, then looked around and paused. His gaze focused on the night stand.

The man bent down and opened the drawer. He removed a small, grey box and picked it open easily with a metal pin. Geoff could see the shadow of a smile as the intruder opened the box and removed two small glass vials.

He had found what he was looking for.

Geoff’s heart pounded more loudly. His pulse raced wildly. He tried to slow his breathing. He shifted his weight, and the floor creaked.

The intruder set down the box after quickly slipping the vials into his pocket. He reached inside his jacket and removed a small, black pistol with a long silencer on the end of the barrel. He scanned the room, cocked the slide. Geoff backpedaled toward the living room.

The intruder reached the threshold of the bedroom, gun leading the way.

Geoff squeezed the knife handle, raised his arm.

Now, man, now or never! Geoff’s knife came crashing down with great force and caught the man by surprise. It missed his neck, slashed his right arm instead.

The man howled, the gun flew out of his hand and bounced onto the carpeted floor with a thud. Quickly, the intruder regained his footing and held his injured arm, blood dripping on the floor. For a few long seconds they locked stares. Geoff examined the frosty eyes of the man behind the mask, his chilling stare hauntingly familiar.

Geoff summoned all his reserves and lunged toward the pistol. He was surprised he got to it first. He stood up ready to confront the intruder and pull off his mask, ready to shoot if he had to, but when he looked up the man was gone.

Geoff heard the front door open and close, then the squeaking sound of rubber soles skidding down the tiled hallway, down the stairs. He ran to the door, gun in one hand, knife in the other, thinking he’d chase him down, but realized the chase would likely be fruitless.

The peas. Check the peas!

Geoff ran to the kitchen and retrieved the bag of peas from the freezer. He ripped open the bag and spilled the contents into the sink, retrieving the two vials of endorphins. He sighed in relief as he clutched them in his hand.

His plan to root out the players had worked almost too well. It had almost cost him his life. Most difficult was the sense of betrayal, no one he could trust. He couldn’t do this alone any longer, not with a professional hit man, or whatever he was, involved.

Geoff made another decision. He set the vials down on the kitchen table, removed a card from his wallet, and dialed the phone.

“Detective O’Malley, please. Tell him it’s Dr. Geoff Davis from the New York Trauma Center. No, tell him it can’t wait.”