Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

"No one seems to know when Nicholls is coming back from his leave of absence," said Archer.

"What about the other surgeon?" asked Susan. "The guy from Texas?"

"Mapes? I haven't tried calling him yet."

"Someone should."

Parr cut in: "I disagree. I don't think we should be contacting anyone else about this."

"Your reason, Jeremiah?"

"The less we know about it, the less involved we'll be in this mess. We should stay miles away from it. Tell Helen Lewis that it was a directed donation. And that's why it never went through NEOB. Then let's just move on."

"In other words," said Wetfig, 'stick our goddamn heads in the sand."

"See no evil, hear no evil." Parr glanced around the table. He seemed to take the lack of response as a sign of general assent. "Needless to say, we don't talk about it outside this room."

Abby couldn't hold her silence. "The problem is," she said, 'the evil doesn't go away. Whether or not we hear about it or see it, it's still there."

"Bayside's the innocent party," said Parr. "We shouldn't have to suffer. And we certainly shouldn't expose ourselves to unfair scrutiny."

"What about the ethical obligations? This could happen again."

"I really doubt Mrs Voss will be needing another heart any time soon. It's an isolated incident, Dr. DiMatteo. A desperate husband bent the rules to save his wife. It's done with. We just need to install safeguards to ensure it doesn't happen again." Parr looked at Archer. "Can we do that?"

Archer nodded. "We're damn well going to have to."

"What happens to Victor Voss?" said Abby. By the silence that followed, she knew the answer: nothing would happen to him. Nothing ever happened to men like Victor Voss. He could beat the system and buy a heart, buy a surgeon, buy an entire hospital. And they could buy lawyers, too, a whole army of them, enough to turn a lowly surgical resident's dreams into scorched earth.

She said, "He's out to ruin me. I thought it would ease up after his wife's transplant, but it hasn't. He's dumped offal in my car. He's initiated two lawsuits, with more on the way, I'm sure of it. It's hard for me to see no evil, hear no evil, when he's resorting to tactics like those."

"Can you prove it's Voss doing these things?" asked Susan. 'who else would it be?"

"Dr. DiMatteo," said Parr, 'this hospital's reputation is on the line. We need everyone to be on the same team, everyone to pull together. Including you. This is your hospital too."

"What if it all comes out anyway?What if it hits the front page of the Globe? Bayside's going to be accused of a cover-up. And this'll blow up in all your faces."

"That's why it can't leave this room," said Parr.

"It could get out anyway." She lifted her chin. "It probably will." Parr and Susan exchanged nervous glances. Susan said: "That's a risk we'll have to take."

Abby stripped off her OR gown, tossed it in the laundry hamper, and pushed through the double doors. It was nearly midnight. The patient, a stabbing victim, was now in Recovery, the post-op orders were being written by the intern, and the ER had nothing coming down the pike. All was quiet in the trenches.

She wasn't sure she welcomed the lull. It gave her too much time to brood over what had been said at that afternoon meeting.

My one chance to fuck back, she thought, and I can't. Not if I'm going to be a team player. Not if I'm going to keep Bayside's interests at heart.

And her own interests as well. That she was still considered part of the team was a good sign. It meant she had a chance of staying on here, a chance of actually completing her residency. It came down to a deal with the devil. Keep her mouth shut, and hang onto the dream. IfVictorVoss would let her.

If her conscience would let her.

Several times that evening, she'd been on the verge of picking up the phone and calling Helen Lewis. That's all it would take, one phone call, to get NEB into the picture. One phone call to expose VictorVoss. Now, as she headed back to the on-call room, she was still mulling over what she should do. She unlocked the door and stepped inside.

It was the fragrance she noticed first, even before she turned on the lights. The perfume of roses and lilies. She switched on the lamp and stared in wonder at the vase of flowers on the desk.

A rustle of sheets drew her gaze to the bed. "Mark?" she said.

He came awake with a start. For a moment he seemed unsure of where he was. Then he saw her and smiled. "Happy Birthday."

"God. I completely forgot."

"I didn't," he said.

She went to the bed and sat down beside him. He'd fallen asleep in his surgical scrubs and when she bent down to kiss him, she could smell that familiar on-call scent of Betadine and fatigue.

"Ouch. You need a shave."

'! need another kiss."

She smiled and obliged him. "How long have you been here?"

"What time is it?"

"Midnight."

"Two hours."

"You've been waiting here since ten?"

"I didn't actually plan it this way. I guess I just fell asleep." He moved aside to make room for her on the narrow mattress. She pulled off her shoes and lay down beside him. At once she felt comforted by the warmth of the bed, and of the man. She thought of telling him about the meeting this afternoon, about the second lawsuit, but she didn't want to talk about any of it. All she wanted was to be held.

"Sorry I forgot the cake," he said.

"I can't believe I forgot my own birthday. Maybe I wanted to forget it. Twenty-eight already."

Laughing, he wrapped an arm around her. "Such a decrepit old lady."

"I feel old. Especially tonight."

"Yeah, well then, I feel ancient." He kissed her, softly, on the ear. "And I'm not getting any younger. So maybe now's the time."

"Time for what?"

"To do what I should have done months ago."

"Which is?"

He turned her towards him and cupped her face in his hand. "Ask you to marry me."

She stared at him, unable to say a word, but so filled with happiness she knew the answer must be plain in her eyes. She was suddenly, joyfully, aware of his every aspect. His hand warming her cheek. His face, tired and no longer young, but far more dear to her because of that.

"I knew, a couple of nights ago, that this was what I wanted," he said. "You were on call. And there I was at home, eating dinner out of a carton. I went up to bed, and I saw your things on the dresser. Your hairbrush. Jewellery box. That bra that you never seem to put away." Softly he laughed. So did she. "Anyway, that's when I knew. I never want to live anywhere without your stuff lying on my dresser.

I don't think I could. Not any more."

"Oh, Mark."

"The craw thing is, you're hardly ever home. And when you are home, I'm not. We sort of wave to each other in the hallways. Or hold hands in the elevator if we're lucky. What matters to me is knowing that, when I do go home, I see your things on that dresser. I know you've been there, or you will be there. And that's enough."

Through tears, she saw him smile. And she felt his heart thudding as though in fear.

"So what do you think, Dr. D?" he whispered. "Can we fit a wedding into our tight schedules?"

Her answer was half sob, half laughter. "Yes. Yes, yes, yew And rising up, she rolled on top of him, her arms thrown around his neck, her mouth finding his. They were both laughing, kissing, while the mattress springs gave horrible squeaks. The bed was far too small; they'd never be able to sleep in it together.

But for the purpose of lovemaking, it suited just fine.

She had been beautiful once. Sometimes, when Mary Allen looked at her own hands and saw the wrinkles and brown stains of age, she would wonder with a start: whose hands are these?A stranger's, certainly; an old woman's. Not my hands, not pretty Mary Hatcher's. Then the flash of confusion would pass, and she'd look around the hospital room and realize she'd been dreaming again. Not a true dream that came with true sleep, but a sort of mist that drifted through her brain and lingered there, even into wakefulness.