Second Opinion (8 page)

CHAPTER 14

One
A.M.

Thea gave up trying to establish some sort of yes/no code with her father and left the ICU for another walkabout in the hospital. Petros seemed too slow and somnolent to endure a back-and-forth dialogue. His responses to her questions took thirty seconds or even a minute, and she couldn't be certain if they were actually connected to the question or not. She reminded herself that more often than not, the emergence from a coma was gradual—the reduction of brain swelling past a critical point or the slow restoration of normal neurochemistry. The Hollywood version of a sudden reappearance of consciousness, motor ability, and awareness was certainly reported in real life, but more often there was a period of fogginess and even transient recurrent coma.

She warned herself again and again to be patient, and to fight an increasing sense of loneliness and isolation. At the moment, she didn't feel comfortable sharing her thoughts and concerns with the twins, nor with Karsten, Hartnett, or even the energetic, dedicated nursing director, Amy Musgrave. Dimitri felt much more like an ally, but in their life together, he had hardly proven to be reliable. Perhaps Dan, she thought, as she headed through the glassed walkway into the Sperelakis Building.

Throughout the evening, Thea had remained in the ICU except for two breaks—one at eight to wander the wards, and one at eleven thirty through the tunnels to the cafeteria, largely in hopes that she might run into Dan if he happened to be working more than one shift.

Visitors to her father's bedside had included the twins, and later, briefly, Sharon Karsten and Scott Hartnett. Thea didn't mention the mounting evidence that Petros had locked-in syndrome, and Hartnett made no reference to their earlier attempts to get him to respond.

Selene and Niko arrived separately, but at almost the same time. It wasn't surprising that they seemed to function almost as one. They had, after all, been together since they were each a single cell. Nevertheless, Thea had always found their intense connection a little unsettling. Dimitri, as expected, was more vocal and direct about the twins, who both went to the Rivers School, then Harvard College, and finally Harvard Med. He referred to them, at various times, as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dynamic Duo, the Twinkies, and the Twofers.

The fifteen or twenty minutes that the twins were in the ICU with Thea were subdued and somewhat strained. It was as if they felt that she had closed the window for putting the matter of Professor Petros Sperelakis forever to rest, and now they were all in it for the long haul. Thea found herself wondering how much they knew of what Karsten had told her about the size and apportionment of Petros's estate.

'Good evening.'

Completely lost in thought, Thea had nearly passed the doorway of Room 412 when the occupant startled her. The woman was reading in a chair placed just inside the door. An IV was running into her left forearm, draining both saline and, piggybacked through a large-bore needle into the rubber infusion port, a drug that had a yellowish cast. She was forty-five or fifty, Thea guessed, and nothing—not her tortoiseshell glasses or the black fabric elastic holding back her auburn hair; not her plain, quilted robe or the lack of any makeup— could hide the fact that she was a strikingly attractive woman. Her eyes, even through her glasses, were bright and intelligent.

Beyond where the woman sat, Thea could see books piled on the bedside table and also on the mantel of the faux fireplace that decorated every room in the institute. Laid on the throw across her lap was the book she was reading at the moment—Gabriel Garcia Marquez's intense romance,
Love in the Time of Cholera.

'I loved that book,' Thea said, not bothering to mention that she had read it twice in the same week. 'It was one of the first intellectual romances I had read, and it opened the door to my reading many more.'

'Which is more important, being in love or—'

'Suffering for love,' Thea excitedly joined in.

The woman with the IV beamed. 'Yes, exactly. Personally, I believe that every day you can make it through without suffering is another day you made it through without suffering.'

'My brother Dimitri used to have a poster of a blubbery man sitting on top of a beer keg. Underneath the photo was printed: 'no pain, no pain.''

'Exactly.'

Thea added the woman's laugh to things she liked about her.

'So where are you right now in the story?' Thea asked.

'Well, Juventus is dead after falling off the porch. Fermina hates Florentino, but I think she's going to end up with him. Don't tell me, though.' I promise.

'It looked like you were lost in thought. Sorry if I interrupted.

You passed by here late last night, then again earlier this evening. I started feeling like we were becoming friends, so I thought I'd say hello. My name's Hayley. Hayley Long.'

'Pleased to meet you, Hayley,' Thea replied precisely as she had done in countless exercises in pragmatics group. 'I'm Thea Sperelakis.'

'Petros's daughter?'

'One of them, yes.'

'I'm so sorry for what's happened to your father. He was supposed to be my doctor before his accident. Now I have Dr. Hartnett, he's the internist, and Dr. Thibideau, she's my cancer specialist.'

Dr. Carpenter had spent many hours working with Thea on trying to see through spoken words and into the tone and manner in which they were spoken—one of the most difficult tasks for any Aspie. Hayley Long, Thea felt, had said the word
cancer
with strength and dignity.

'I don't know her well,' Thea said, 'but I have heard that Dr. Thibideau is a wonderful doctor.'

Unfortunately, she was thinking, Thibideau's area of expertise was cancer of the pancreas—an extremely knotty medical problem because by the time symptoms developed, most often pain, the disease was usually far advanced. In all likelihood, the yellowish medication draining into the IV was part of some sort of experimental FDA protocol.

'You want to know what I like the most about her?' Hayley said. 'She actually looks at me when she talks to me, and not at her computer screen—at least not every second. My doctor in Atlanta, Dr. Bibby, is a sweet and caring guy. There was a time when he would actually interact with me when I came to see him, but all of a sudden, things changed. His group practice went to all-electronic records.'

'HIPAA,' Thea said. 'Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It spells out the form a doctor's records and office notes must take.'

'That's right. I forgot that you're a doctor, too. Dr. Hartnett told me that all of Dr. Sperelakis's children were doctors.'

'Almost all.'

'Well, needless to say, even with a doctor like Lydia Thibideau, I'm scared out of my wits over all this—especially when the drug I'm getting is so experimental. I chose it over the standard treatment because the survival figures for those drugs are so dismal, and the side effects are so debilitating. I could have gotten both the standard treatment and the new drug, but my husband David and I both felt that was more than I could handle.'

'I'm so sorry you have to go through this, but that's the way these protocols work.'

'I understand. Dr. Hartnett tells me your father is still in a coma. I'm sorry to hear that.'

'His coma may be improving.'

'I hope so. Say, I know it's late—make that early—but if it's like the past few nights, the sleeping pill they gave me isn't going to work, and you seem pretty wide awake. Do you feel like hanging out here for a little while?'

Thea's knee-jerk reaction was to say no and retreat into her concerns about her father. But there was something about this woman— something wise and genuine.

'I suppose I could do that for just a little while,' she said.

THE TWO
women talked about Proust and the Brontes. They discussed Asperger syndrome and alternative therapies for cancer. They laughed about men and families. They analyzed locked-in syndrome and what Thea's next move should be and the challenges faced by women operating in the world of high finance. They shared stories of Atlanta and the Congo, of being brought up in privilege and in poverty, of what it was like to have a child die in one's arms, and how much a billion dollars was.

Thea awoke in her chair at five, vaguely remembering nodding off. Hayley Long was wide awake and reading.

'With the Damocles sword of cancer hanging over my head, losing time to sleep doesn't seem like a wise choice,' Hayley said. 'Reading does.'

'So does friendship,' Thea said. 'Thanks for not waking me. I needed the nap.'

She brought two cups of coffee in from the small kitchen down the hall, and they drank largely in silence, each enjoying the connection that had formed between them. Finally, with an uncharacteristically warm embrace, and the promise to come back soon, Thea headed back to the ICU, determined to find a way to probe the secrets locked in her father's brain.

She was also determined to leave no fact undiscovered in understanding Hayley Long's inoperable pancreatic cancer.

CHAPTER 15

When he joined the Boston police force, Dan Cotton knew there was the possibility that at some point he would have to kill, but no one ever said it would be a kid. No one ever said it would be a fourteen-year-old eighth grader with caring parents and no criminal record. No one ever said he would kill a boy just a few years older than his own son.

The boards and a community hearing had met and cleared him. His partner, who was reaching for his own gun when Dan fired, had testified that Dan had no choice; that lives were in danger; that Patrick Suggs had tired of being beaten and bullied by a gang and had simply snapped, stealing a gun from an uncle, shooting one of the bullies in the face and one in the leg, and turning the gun on two others.

Dan and his partner were giving a gun safety presentation in the school auditorium when the shooting began outside. Wrong place, wrong time, unless you happened to have been one of the dropout punks whose life was saved.

Dan went to bed with the memory every night. He woke up with it every morning. He thought about it during his weekends and Wednesday dinners with Josh. He had tried therapy and meds, yoga and self-help books, a desk job, and finally, resignation. It was a painful way to discover that he wasn't cut out to kill, but it was the hand he had been dealt, and with each passing day, the memories had seemed to be getting less vivid.

The job as a security guard at Beaumont was a comedown for a man who had a degree in criminology from Northeastern, and who finished high in his class at the police academy, but for the time being, Dan was relieved to have it—routine, low stress, a chance to interact with people, decent pay, reasonable benefits, and some responsibility. For now, he was where he was supposed to be. And yesterday, he had met still another perk of working in the prestigious Beaumont Clinic—Thea Sperelakis.

Dan was thinking about her as he clocked in at the security checkpoint on the first floor of the Blaylock Building, and headed across to the Clark Pavilion, which housed, among other facilities, the medical ICU. It had been four years since his divorce, three since the shooting. Over that time, he had dated a few women—several that friends had fixed him up with, two that he could remember meeting on his own. None of the relationships had lasted very long, three months at the most, but he had recently been feeling that his recovery from the killing had progressed enough to be more optimistic about his ability not to be constantly morose.

Thea Sperelakis was quirky and smart, with a peacefulness in her face and a lithe figure, both of which he found totally appealing. He had no desire to play policeman regarding her father's accident, but if that's what it took to get to know her better, that's how it would be.

Dan was lost enough in thoughts of the woman that he almost walked right past an orderly with a swarthy complexion, thick, black-framed glasses, and a dark mustache, pushing a cart of linens toward the entrance to the unit. But several months before, a man wearing hospital scrubs and apparently looking like he knew what he was about had strolled boldly into a patient's private room in the early-morning hours and chloroformed her. Then he duct-taped her mouth closed and her wrists to the bed, cut her gown off, allowed her to wake up, and molested her. When he was done, she reported, he kissed her on each breast and calmly left the hospital.

Since then, word had gone out to the security force that all those in hospital uniforms were to have their ID badges checked, and further, that paid 'intruders' would be walking through the wards to check on the implementation of the policy. In addition, all visitors after 9 p.
M
. would be required to pick up temporary badges at the security desk by the main entrance. Failure to check a badge would be grounds for immediate termination.

'Excuse me, my friend,' Dan said, looking more, he would realize after the fact, at the badge than at the man, 'but as you've probably heard, every hospital employee who passes any of us security types needs to have his ID checked. Okay if I take a look?'

What happened next was a painful blur.

Clutching something wrapped in a sheet, the orderly shoved his cart aside and kicked Dan viciously in the groin, dropping him to his knees. A second kick, perfectly aimed and delivered with dizzying force, caught him underneath the chin, snapping his teeth together like a Castanet, and sending him sprawling backward, his head slamming against the linoleum floor. Moments later, dazed and in excruciating pain from the first kick, Dan vomited all over the front of his starched blue uniform and onto the floor.

By the time he was able to fumble out his badly soiled radio and make a distress call, his assailant was long gone. The security camera trained on the door to the ICU recorded most of the assault and the reappearance of Dan's breakfast, but little of the face of the man with the steel-toed shoes.

CHAPTER 16

'I'm sorry if I'm hurting you.'

'No, it's all right. It's all right. Go ahead and look. I'll open my mouth wider.'

The Eisenstein ER at the Beaumont Clinic was, like every aspect of the huge hospital that interfaced with the public, state of the art. Constructed as three circular treatment areas built around a central monitoring/nurses' station, the facility had separate medical and surgical pods, each with satellite nurses' stations, as well as a set of waiting rooms, each with a triage nurse office. The influence of Nursing Director Amy Musgrave was apparent everywhere in the busy ER, including the long waiting list of top-notch RNs anxious to work there.

Hunched over the stretcher in Surgical 8, Thea examined the gash inside of Dan's mouth with Pramjit Thakur, the ER chief.

'It should be stitched,' Thakur said in a clipped Indian accent. 'Usually no, this one, yes. Don't you think, Dr. Sperelakis?'

'I don't need stitches,' Dan insisted.

'So,' Thea said, 'you're a doctor now? That hole inside your cheek is going to heal just like what it is—a hole. You'll be sticking your tongue in it so much that before long the tip will poke out right here.'

'How do you know?'

'Are you trying to pick a fight with me now? Be careful if you do, because like my mother taught me, I use my words, not my fists. Now, let Dr. Thakur do what he knows how to do. After that, assuming your X-rays are negative, you can go home.'

'I don't want to go home. What I want to do is to get my hands on the guy who did this to me.'

'The unit nurse who saw what happened told me you were very brave,' Thea said.

'What she meant was that I was very slow.'

'Unless you still have objections, Officer Cotton, ' Thakur said, 'I am going to get set up to suture your mouth.'

'Okay, okay.'

Thea patted him on the shoulder.

'That's better.'

After leaving Hayley Long's room, she had wandered over to the cafeteria to see if by chance Dan might be there. Her plan for the day was to research locked-in syndrome, and to speak with Scott Hartnett about getting access to Hayley's medical records, which were held tightly by Thor, the Beaumont's superfast, virtually impenetrable electronic records system. In between, she had critical business to attend to with her father—the business of creating a code of some sort so the two of them could communicate. And when they had that code, the first thing she needed to know was why Petros was refusing to allow anyone except for her to know that he was awake and alert.

It was in the cafeteria that she heard a pair of nurses talking about the attack outside the medical ICU. When one of them referred to the tall, good-looking security guard, Thea rushed to the ER.

'I can't believe the bastard got away,' Dan scowled.

'It doesn't exactly sound like it was a fair fight.'

'Some security guard I am. I was right there face-to-face with him and I could hardly tell you anything about what he looked like. Glasses and a mustache, that's what I remember, but the more I think about it, the more I suspect they may have been fake.'

'What do you think he was doing?'

'I don't know what he wanted, but I'm almost positive he was trying to get into the ICU. In fact, I'm sure of it. He had some sort of package or something wrapped in a sheet on top of his cart. He grabbed it before he kicked me, and had it under his arm when he kicked me the second time. Damn, but I feel stupid.'

Thea didn't hear Dan's last few words. Her muscles had tightened, chilled as if she had stepped into a deep freeze. An unpleasant buzzing filled her head. All ten beds in the ICU were occupied, yet somehow she knew that the bogus orderly was after her father. If Dimitri was right, and somebody was trying to kill the man with their car, then this would be a second attempt. But why?

She was the only one who knew that Petros was awake and alert.

What would make anyone take such a chance?

The answer hit like a wrecking ball.

Thea bent down over the stretcher.

'Listen, big Dan,' she whispered, 'I'll explain later, but I've got to get up to the unit. I think whoever did this to you may have been after my father.'

'What?'

'Let the doctor sew up that gash. I'll explain later.' She hastily wrote two numbers on a sheet of paper she tore from a pad on the desk. 'My home number and my father's cell. Call me when you get out of here. I'll explain then.'

Without waiting for a response, she raced from the room.