Part 31 (1/2)

He did.

”I can tell when I'm being blown off,” he went on. ”I have a very sensitive blow-off detector. But why don't you try a test? When you're out at the inst.i.tute, ask Van de Vliet or somebody why that mystery patient was terminated from the clinical trials. See if the question makes them uncomfortable.”

”Why does that matter so much to you?”

”If a patient is dropped for no good reason about the same time they clamp down on information, I think it could be fishy. Beyond that, I cannot speculate. And while you're at it, I'd love the names of some other ex-patients. Anybody. I found a list on the NIH Web site but they're all encoded, so it doesn't do me any good. I just want to ask them if the procedure worked or not. It's information that's going to be made public eventually, no matter what. Come on, Ally, don't you want some testimonials?”

”Okay, look, I'll try to see if anybody there will give me any info.”

She was realizing she was in a comfort zone when she was talking to him. Still, so much about him remained a mystery. He had always said his mother and father were both dead, but it was still suspiciously hard to get him to speak about them. She'd gotten the impression that he didn't actually remember his father. That was the part of his life that he'd always been the most closed off about. Either that or he was repressing some horrible memories.

”Thanks a lot, Ally.” A pause, then, ”Interested in getting together sometime?”

”Let me think about it.”

She put down the phone with her mind in turmoil. She realized she hadn't asked him if he was ”attached” but the next time they spoke, she was going to try to ease it into the conversation.

Chapter 12

_Tuesday, April 7

9:50 A.M.

_Ally steered her Toyota onto the ramp leading to the George Was.h.i.+ngton Bridge, the entryway to northern New Jersey. She was just finis.h.i.+ng a phone call to Jennifer. She wanted her to take a look at the notes and blueprints for Bartlett's Gramercy Park project and scan them into their CAD program. After all the phone calls yesterday, she'd been too sidetracked to do it. Although Bartlett had declared he wasn't in any hurry, he had messengered a certified check to her office Monday afternoon. The project was a go. She wanted to get moving while everything was fresh in her mind.

Before leaving her apartment this morning, she'd downloaded a map from MapQuest and from it she had estimated that the drive up to the Dorian Inst.i.tute would be approximately an hour--give or take. She had begun the trip early because her mother's mind had been lucid the previous evening and she was hoping that interlude might last into this morning.

Unfortunately, it had not.

Nina was sitting next to her now, in full makeup but completely unresponsive, seemingly in another world. When Ally arrived at the Riverside Drive apartment to pick her up, Maria--now silent and uneasy in the backseat, reading a Spanish novel--met her at the door with a troubled look and shook her head sadly.

”Miss Hampton, I know she was all right when you were here last night, but this morning ... she may not recognize you. She'll most likely snap out of it and be okay later on, but right now she's just in a fog. It was all I could do to get her ready.”