Michael Palmer - Side Effects

Time of, Kate sighed. Winfield had no way of knowing Stan Willoughby had already seen to that. She rose slowly, and crossed to Jared. "Stonefield School is listed in information, " she said wearily. "Broderick, Massachusetts. If the snow doesn't get any worse, I can drive us there in forty-five minutes to an hour. That should settle this once and for all."

"Do you want to come with us, Dad? " Jared asked. "There is no reason to go anyplace, " Win Samuels said simply. "Kate, Jared's sister had severe birth defects and died exactly when he thinks she did, thirty years ago.

Perhaps you had a dream of some sort. Strands of fantasy woven into reality. It happens, especially when one has been under an inordinate amount of stress such as you-"

"It is not stress! It is not stress, it is not a dream, it is not the desperate lie of a desperate woman, it is not… insanity." She confronted him, her eyes locked on his. Samuels held his ground, his face an expressionless mask. "It is the truth. The truth! I don't know why you are doing this, I don't know what you hope to accomplish. But I do know one thing. I'm not going to break. You manipulate the people in your life like they were pieces on some some enormous game board.

Jocelyn to king's knight four, Jared to queen three. Not your turn?

Well you'll just throw in a few thousand dollars and make it your turn.

" Samuels moved to speak, but Kate stopped him with raised hands. "I'm not through. I want to tell you something, Win. You've underestimated me. Badly. I've made it through a childhood of total loneliness, an education of total aimlessness, and a marriage to an alcoholic madman who insisted on picking out my pantyhose for me. I've survived and grown in a profession where I am patronized, and discriminated against i've dealt with men who couldn't bring their eyes, let along their minds, above my breasts. I've dealt with them and I've succeeded. "It's been hard. At times, it's been downright horrible. But for the last five years, I've had a secret weapon. He's right there, Win. Right over there." She nodded toward Jared. "When I forget that I'm okay, he reminds me. When I have to face the Norton Reeses and the Arlen Paquettes and, yes, the Winfield Samuelses of this world, he gives me strength. I love him and I have faith in him. Sooner or later, he's going to see the way you toy with the lives of those around you. Sooner or later, you'll go to move him, and he won't be there."

"Are you done? " Samuels said. "Yes, I'm done. And I don't want to hear any more from you unless it's an apology and the truth about the other night. How could you think I wouldn't tell Jared? How could you think I wouldn't remember where we went, what we did? Please, Jared, let's get going. It's late, and we have quite a drive ahead of us."

At that moment, there was a noise, the clearing of a throat, from the doorway. The three of them turned to the sound. Jocelyn Trent stood holding a silver tray with coffee and tea. "How long have you been there? " Samuels demanded. The woman did not answer. "Well?"

She hesitated, then she set the tray on the nearest table and ran from the room. "Stonefield School, " Kate said. "See, I told you I could find it. Only two wrong turns." She swung into the driveway, past the small sign, and up to the front door. "This is almost the exact hour we were here the other night. With any luck, the nurse who was on duty then will be on again. Her name was Bicknell, Sally Bicknell, something like that.

I'll recognize her. She wore about eighty gold bracelets and had rings on three or four fingers of each hand. What a character!"

Her chatter was, she knew, somewhat nervous. Jared had said little during their drive. His pensiveness was certainly understandable, but she found herself wishing he could recapture at least some of the emotion he had shown at the airport. No matter, she consoled herself.

Two nlinutes at Stonehill, and he would know that, in this arena, at least, she was telling the truth. How foolish of Win to think things would not develop the way they had. How unlike the man to miss predicting a person's actions as badly as he had missed hers. The nurse, Bicknell, was working at her desk in a small office just Off the lobby.

Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she was wearing only a single gold chain on one wrist. Hardly the flamboyant eccentric Kate had depicted. It was an observation, Kate noted uneasily, that was not overlooked by her husband. "Are you sure it's the same woman? " he whispered, as they crossed the lobby. "It's her. Hi, Miss Bicknell.

Remember me?"

The woman took only a second. "Of course. You were with Mr. Samuels four-no, no, — three nights ago. Right?"

"Exactly. You have an excellent memory."

"An elephant, " Sally Bicknell said, tapping one finger against her temple. "This is my husband, Jared, Miss Bicknell. Mr. Samuels's son."

"Pleased to meet you." The woman took the hand Jared offered. "We don't get too many evening visitors here at Stonefield. In fact, we don't get too many visitors at other times, either." She looked around. "Sort of a forgotten land, I guess."

"Miss Bicknell, we came to see my husband's sister."

The woman's expression clouded. "I… I'm afraid I don't understand."

Kate felt an ugly apprehension set in. "Lindsey Samuels, " she said, a note of irritation-or was it panic? — in her voice, "the girl we saw Monday night right over there." She pointed to the blue velvet curtain.

Sally Bicknell looked at her queerly and then ushered them over and drew back the curtain. "Her? " The girl was there, lumbering about exactly as she had been before. "Yes, exactly, " Kate said. "That's her, Jared.

That's Lindsey."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Samuels, but you're mistaken. That girl's name 1S Rochelle Coombs. She is sixteen years old and has a genetic disease called Hunter's Syndrome."

Kate stopped herself at the last possible moment from calling the woman a liar. "Could I see her medical records, please?"

The nurse snapped the curtain shut. "Her medical records are confidential. But I assure you, her name is Rochelle Coombs, not-what did you say?"

"Lindsey, " Jared said, "Lindsey Samuels." It was, Kate realized, the first time he had spoken since just after their arrival. "It is not Lindsey Samuels." Sally Bicknell completed her sentence. In that moment, Kate realized what had bothered her so about the girl the first time she had observed her. She was too young to have been Jared's sister. Far too young. Her thick features and other physical distortions added some years, but not twenty of them. The girl's grote. Rnlleness had made her too uncomfortable to look very closely. Had I Win Samuels counted on that? Silently, she cursed her own Stuplulty. Helpless and beaten, she could only shrug and shake her head. "Will there be anything else?"

Bicknell asked. Kate looked over at Jared, who shook his head. "No," she said huskily. "We're… we're sorry for the intrusion."

"In that case, " the woman said, — "I have rounds to make." She turned and, without showing them out, walked away. Kate felt far more ill than angry. As they approached the car, she handed Jared the keys. "You drive, please. I'm not up to it. Your father told me it was Lindsey, Jared. I swear he did. And that woman was right there when he said it."

There was, she realized, no sense in discussing the matter further. Win Samuels had set up a no-lose situation for himself. Either she would be impressed by his demonstration, in which case she might have agreed to back off at the hospital and, as he wished, turn her attention to domestic issues, or she would be angered enough to do exactly what she had done. His son, already in doubt about her, would be drawn further away from their marriage and toward a political future, unencumbered by a wife whose priorities and mental state were so disordered. All that for only the price of a tankful of gas and whatever it cost to buy off Sally Bicknell. Nice going, Win, she thought. Nice goddamn going. She sank into her seat and stared sightlessly into the night.