Harlan Coben - Miracle Cure

He swallowed in a deep breath, slid the key into the hole, and flung open the door.

The room was dark, the dim hall lights providing only a modicum of illumination. Harvey thought he saw a movement in the corner of his eye. He spun toward it, but there was nothing.

Could have been just his imagination. His hand reached out blindly, finding the light switch and flicking it up. The lights came on, the sudden brightness startling him.

At first he saw nothing unusual. The lab was neat, tidy. No loose papers were visible. The microscopes were covered with plastic. The test tubes sealed. Only one thing looked different and that one thing made Harvey's eyes widen. Suddenly Harvey forgot about things like caution and wariness. Gone were the worries that a dangerous prowler might still be in the lab, hiding, preparing to pounce. He stepped forward, concerned solely for the welfare of what lay beyond the jimmied lock on the other side of the room.

That was a mistake.

Without warning, something heavy slammed against the base of Harvey's neck. His body pitched forward. Sharp slivers of pain and numbness erupted throughout his skull. Harvey grasped his head between both hands as he folded at the waist and fell to the floor. His eyes closed.

Jennifer had a light dinner by herself, caught the latest Woody Alien movie at the Qneplex, one of those movie theaters that seemed to have more screens than clients, and arrived back at the house a little past midnight. She tossed the little airline bag filled with the contents from Bruce's post office box onto the couch and collapsed beside it.

For a few moments she did nothing other than stare at the Sabena World Airways logo on the flight bag.

Her mind traveled back ten years ten years since she and Harvey had flown on Sabena to Brussels to begin a European odyssey through Belgium, France, and Holland. First class. Champagne and caviar on board. What a magnificent trip. Alas, it had been the last vacation she had convinced Harvey to take. He, in truth, had not enjoyed himself. Relaxing, sightseeing, eating gourmet, being pampered in fine hotels that was just not for him.

The stupid fool.

All right, so she was bitter. She had a right to be. She had loved Harvey. Still did. But the man did not know how to live.

Oh sure, he could be funny and seemingly carefree and he was a far cry from some sort of bookworm, but he was obsessed with his work. With saving the world. Yes, she had married a dreamer and that had been great while they were courting. It had been romantic, even gothic. But it had worn on her after a while. His selflessness began to eat away at her lust for life, leaving her with little more than self-pity.

The stupid fool.

Bruce Grey had been dedicated too, but the man understood that there were limits. He was not nearly as naive and foolhardy as Harvey. Bruce saw reality. He knew that the two of them could not stop the mass suffering, only alleviate it a little. That was all a person could be expected to do. For Bruce, that had been enough. But not for Harvey Jennifer sat up suddenly. The manila envelope. The one Bruce had addressed to himself the day he died. She had not yet opened it. She slid over toward the Sabena flight bag, grabbed it, and rummaged through the horde of envelopes. It did not take her long to locate the packet in question. It was the thickest and heaviest by far. She extracted it from the bag and laid it on her lap. Bruce's name and address were clearly written in his own handwriting. So strange.

She walked over to the desk, took hold of the letter opener, and sliced open the envelope. Numerous papers, tubular styrofoam containers, and what looked like files streamed out like candy from a broken pinata.

With a sigh, Jennifer began to read them.

"Owww."

"Harvey?"

"My head," Harvey groaned.

"Harvey, can you hear me?" Sara asked.

Harvey's eyes opened slightly. The lights seemed particularly bright, pricking his eyes. He closed them, shaded them with his hand, and tried again.

"Harvey?"

"Yeah, Sara, I can hear you. Where am I?"

"You're still at the clinic."

"How long have I been out?"

"I found you half an hour ago," Sara replied.

His vision focused in on two faces. One beautiful, the other thin with a mustache and long nose.

"Lieutenant Bernstein?"

Max nodded.

"Sara called me. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Harvey tried to clear his head.

"In the lab," he began slowly.

"Someone was in the lab." Sara said, "I caught a glimpse of someone running down the hall, but I couldn't see the face."

"Whoever it was," Harvey managed, "hit me over the head."

"Why don't we start at the beginning, okay?" Bernstein suggested, taking out his pad and pencil.

"Tell us what happened." Slowly, Harvey told them what had occurred from the moment he heard the noise in the lab until he was knocked unconscious. When he finished, Lieutenant Bernstein stopped pacing and asked, "So what was he after?

What was so precious that you forgot a prowler was in the room?"

"My private files."

"Your what?"

"My private files. I keep them locked in there."

"You don't keep them in your office?"

"No. The lock and security around the lab is supposed to be much tighter than in my office. And the information I keep in those private files is usually derived from lab results. We all kept our private files in the lab."

Bernstein stared at his pad intensely.

"You keep saying 'private' files. What do you mean by that?"

"They contain personal information professional secrets, if you will."

"What kind of secrets?"

"Different things. Results from experiments, stuff like that."

"What kind of experiments?"

Harvey lay back down.

"Personal ones," he replied.

"You see, it pays to work closely with partners and to share all your findings, no question about it, but sometimes you need to work in private alone and without any outside interference and suggestions.

It's often the best way to make headway the one man working in solitude kind of thing. We understood and respected each other's private work."

"Who is 'we'?"

"Bruce, Eric, and myself."

Bernstein nodded, circling to the other side of the bed and then back again.

"Did Bruce Grey have private files?"

"Of course."

"Have you gone through them since his death?"

"Yes."

"Was there anything surprising in them?"

Harvey hesitated.

"Not really."

"What do you mean, not really?"

"I mean there were no major breakthroughs or anything like that. Bruce wasn't very big on independent research..." He paused.

"It might be nothing."

Bernstein leaned over the bed.

"Go on."

"Well, several of his important files were missing."

"What sort of files?"

"Patient files. Trian and Whitherson's, to name two."

"How about Bradley Jenkins'?"

"That one is still there."

Max stood back up, walked to the door, fiddled with the knob.

"I'd like you to give me a complete list of the missing files, and I also want to go through Grey's entire file cabinet as soon as possible."

Harvey nodded.

"I suspected as much. But do me a favor, Lieutenant. Don't let anyone else go through them. The information in those files is confidential and must remain so."

"I don't understand something," Sara interjected.

"Why would routine patient files be locked up with the private files?"

"There is no such thing as routine patient files in here," Harvey explained.

"Everything in here is confidential. We use codes here, never names, so that no one lab technicians, nurses, orderlies knows a patient's name. We often keep patients secluded from one another. Except for roommates, patients never see or get to know one another."