Michael Palmer - Side Effects

"That is a lot of money, Doctor."

"The amazing thing is that until I overheard your conversation with my father, I had not fully appreciated the valuable potential of the hormone." Zimmermann could barely keep from laughing out loud at his good fortune. "Are you a biochemist, Doctor?"

"No. Not really."

"In that case, I should like to reserve my final offer until my own biochemist has had the chance to review the material, to see the laboratory, and to take himself through the process of synthesizing the hormone."

"When?"

"Why not tomorrow? Dr. Paquette, whom you know, will meet you at your office at, say, seven o'clock tomorrow night. My man Nunes will accompany him and will have the authority and the money to consummate our agreement if Dr. Paquette is totally satisfied with what he sees."

"Sounds fine. I'll make certain the side door to the Omnicenter is left open."

"That won't be necessary, Dr. Zimmermann. Paquette has keys."

"All right, then, seven o'clock… Was there something else? "

"As a matter of fact, Dr. Zimmermann, there is. It's this whole business with the Omnicenter and that pathologist."

"You mean Bennett?"

"She has proven a very resilient young woman. Do you believe she was convinced by her conversation with our man at the Ashburton Foundation?"

"No. Not completely. She said she was going to continue investigating.

The woman currently hospitalized here with complications from Estronate treatment is a close friend of hers."

"I see. You know, Doctor, none of this would have happened if you and your father hadn't conducted your work so recklessly and independently. by His voice had a chilling edge. "Don't you feel a responsibility to this company for what you have done?"

"Responsibility?"

"If we are to have a partnership, I should like to know that the millions I have spent on the Omnicenter will not be lost because we were unable to neutralize one woman."

"But she has been neutralized. A serious mistake on a pathology specimen. She's been put on leave by her department head. Isn't that enough to discredit her?"

"I am no longer speaking of discrediting her, my friend. I am speaking of stopping her. You heard my conversation with your father. You know the importance of keeping Estronate a secret. It has been bad enough that Dr. Bennett is threatening, by her doggedness, to bring the Omnicenter tumbling down about our ears. If she uncovers Estronate, we stand to lose much, much more."

"I'll see to it that won't happen."

"Excellent. But remember, I don't handle disappointment well. Until tomorrow, then, Doctor."

"Yes, tomorrow."

William Zimmermann made a final inspection of the house, taking pains to wipe off anything he had touched. The precaution was, in all likelihood, unnecessary. The houseboy was due in at eight in the morning, and the death he would discover upstairs would certainly appear due to natural causes. As he slipped out the back door of his father's house, a fortune in notebooks and computer printouts under his arm, Zimmermann was thinking about Kate Bennett. The nightmare was a juggernaut, more pervasive, more oppressive it seemed with each passing hour. Its setting had changed from the clutter of her office to the deep-piled, fire-warmed opulence of Win Samuels's study, but for Kate Bennett, the change meant only more confusion, more humiliation, more doubt. I know what it looks like, I know what it sounds like. But it isn't true… I don't know who did it… I don't know… Dammit all, I just don't know. Jared's return earlier in the evening had started on a positive note — an emotional hug and their first kiss in nearly a week. For a time, as they weaved their way through the crowds to the baggage area, he seemed unable to keep his hands or his lips off her. It seemed he was reveling in the freedom of at last truly acknowledging his love for her.

I accept you, regardless of what you are involved in, regardless of what the impact might be on me. I accept you because I believe in you. I accept you because I love you. But as she shared her nightmare with him, she could feel him pulling back, sense his enthusiasm erode. It showed first in his eyes, then in his voice, and finally in his touch. He was trying, Kate knew, perhaps even trying his best. But she also knew that confusion and doubt were taking their toll. Why would a company as large as Redding Pharmaceuticals do the things of which she was accusing them?

The Ashburton Foundation had an impeccable reputation. What evidence was there that they were frauds? Why would anyone do something as horrible as switching biopsies? How did they do it? Weren't there any records of the tests she had run at the state lab? How did the letter about Bobby Geary fit in with all this?

I know what it looks like. I know what it sounds like. But it isn't true. With each why, with each I don't know, Kate felt Jared drifting further and further into her nightmare. By the time the subject of his father and sister came up, she was feeling isolated, as stifled as before, perhaps more so. They were nearly halfway home to Essex. "That is absolutely incredible, " Jared had said, swinging sharply into the breakdown lane and jamming to a stop. "I… I don't believe it." It was the first time since his return that he had said those words. "After all these years, why wouldn't he tell me my sister was alive?"

"I don't know." The phrase reverberated in her mind. "Perhaps he was trying to spare you the ugliness."

"That makes no sense. You say he took you to this insititution to convince you to turn down the position at Metro and concentrate on having babies?"

"That's what he said."

Jared shook his head. "Let me be sure I have this straight. My father, who has never communicated all that well with my wife to begin with, sends me out of town so that he can take her to an institution in the middle of nowhere and introduce her to the sister he had led me to believe died thirty-odd years ago. Does that make sense to you9"

"Jared, " she said, her voice beginning to quaver, "nothing has made sense to me for days. All I can do is tell the truth."

"Well, if that's the case, " he said finally, "I think I'd like to find out first hand why my father has been holding out on me."

"Couldn't we at least wait until-"

"No! I can't think of a damn thing to do about Bobby Geary or the Omnicenter or the Ashburton Foundation or the runaway technician or the goddamn breast biopsies, but I sure as hell can do something about my father."

Without waiting for a reply, he had swung off and under the highway and had screeched back onto the southbound lane, headed for Boston. Now, in the uncomfortably warm study, Kate sat by a hundred-and thirty-year-old leaded glass window, watching the fairyland Christmas tights of Louisburg Square and listening to her husband and her fatherm-law argue over whether she was a liar, a woman in desperate need of professional help, or some combination of the two. Jared, in all fairness, was doing his best to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it had, purely and simply, come down to her word against his father's. When taken with the other issues, the other confusions she had regaled him with since his landing at Logan, it was not hard to understand why he was having difficulty taking her side. "Once again, Jared, " Win Samuels said with authoritative calm, "we dined together-Jocelyn's special duck. After dinner we talked. Then we went for a long drive in the country. I hadn't been out of the house all day and was getting a severe case of cabin fever. We did stop at the Stonefield School, I'm on the board of trustees there. But I assure you, Son, our visit was quite spur of the moment. We were only a few miles from the school when I remembered a set of papers in the back seat that I was planning on mailing off tomorrow to Gus Leggatt, the school administrator. While we were there, we did look in on some of the children. Largely because of our visit, on the way home I was able to share my fears with Kate about what happens to the rate of birth defects in children of older mothers. Kate explained the advances in amniocentesis to me, facts, I might add, that I found quite reassuring. I mentioned your sister, certainly, but I never implied she was alive. I'm sorry, Jared. And I am sorry for you, too, Kate." He looked at her levelly. "You've been under a great deal of pressure. Perhaps… a rest, some time off."