Robin Cook - Shock

The directions turned out to be simple. They involved merely turning left on Main Street, heading into town, and then taking the first left after the RiteSmart pharmacy. The house was a sixties-style split-level with its faux brick disengaging from its front facade and its trim sorely in need of a paint job. In contrast a brand-new child's swing set stood gleaming in the afternoon sun at the side of the modest house.

Deborah pulled into the driveway behind a vintage Ford pickup. She spotted the swings. "A new swing set for a six-month-old! I'd wager that means an eager dad!”

"The woman did say they've been wanting a child for some time."

"It doesn't look like a house belonging to people able to pay the money the Wingate requires."

Joanna nodded. "It makes you wonder where they found the money. Infertility makes couples desperate. They often remortgage the house or just borrow the money, but looking at this house doesn't suggest either of those avenues as possibilities."

Deborah turned to Joanna. "Which means they've probably ended up with little money for the financial burden of raising a child. Are you sure you want to go through with this? I mean, it might be rather bleak in there, and upsetting. My advice is we just turn around and leave, no harm done."

"I want to see the child," Joanna said. "Trust me! I can handle it." She opened the door and got out. Deborah did the same on her side, and the two women headed up the front walk. With her high heels Deborah had to walk with particular care to avoid the many cracks in the concrete. Even so she lost her shoe, requiring her to bend over to extricate it.

"Do me a favor and bend your knees when you do that,' Joanna said. "I can see why you caught Randy's attention back at the water fountain."

"Your jealousy has no bounds," Deborah teased back.

The two women climbed the front steps.

"Are you ready for this?" Deborah asked with her finger poised over the doorbell.

"Ring the darn bell!" Joanna said. "You're making this into such a big deal!"

Deborah rang the bell. It could be heard chiming within. The chiming went on for several seconds as if playing a tune.

"That's a nice touch," Deborah said sarcastically.

"Don't be so judgmental!" Joanna complained.

The door opened and through the dirty glass of the storm door the women could make out a moderately obese woman in a house dress carrying a baby with a shock of black hair. When the storm door opened to provide an unencumbered view, both women's mouths dropped in astonished dismay. Deborah even staggered back in her high heels, and only by grabbing onto the railing was she able to maintain her balance.

PAUL SAUNDERS HAD MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO than meet with Kurt Hermann. He'd even had to postpone the autopsy he was going to do with Greg Lynch on the sow's newborns down. in. the farm autopsy room. But Kurt had said it was crucial they speak right away, and Paul had reluctantly agreed, especially when Kurt had insisted they meet in the gatehouse away from other ears. Paul knew that meant trouble, but he wasn't concerned. He was confident in Kurt's abilities and discretion for which he was paid a lot of money… a very lot of money1.

As Paul neared the squat structure he recalled the last time he'd been there. It had been well over a year before when there'd been the anesthetic disaster. He couldn't help but remember how efficiently and with what aplomb Kurt had handled that crisis, and the memory contributed to Paul's composure.

At the door Paul kicked off the mud his shoes had picked up on his walk down the moist lawn that was still recovering from the previous snowy winter. Once inside, he found his security chief at his desk in his ascetic office. Paul grabbed a chair and sat.

"We have a major security problem," Kurt said with his characteristic equanimity. He had his elbows on the desktop with his clasped hands in the air. He pointed his steepled index fingers at Paul to emphasize his point but otherwise there was no sign of emotion or panic.

"I'm listening," Paul said.

"Two new employees started today," Kurt said. "A Georgina Marks and Prudence Heatherly. I assume you interviewed them as you normally do."

"Absolutely," Paul said. In his mind's eye he immediately pictured Georgina and her curvaceous body.

"I've been doing some investigating. They are not who they said they are."

"Explain!."

"They've used assumed names," Kurt said. "Georgina Marks and Prudence Heatherly were from the Boston area, but they are both recently deceased."

Paul swallowed in an attempt to relieve a suddenly dry mouth. "Who are they?" he asked. He cleared his throat. "Do we have any idea?"

"We know the name of one of them,' Kurt said. "It's Deborah Cochrane. The car they were driving is registered to her. The other name is as of yet unknown, but that will soon change. The address they gave is incorrect, but we have a real address, at least for Deborah Cochrane, and at this point I'm assuming it's the correct address for both."

"Congratulations on finding this out so soon," Paul said.

"I don't think congratulations are in order just yet,' Kurt said. "There's more."

"I'm still listening," Paul said. He fidgeted. He was momentarily concerned that as good as Kurt was, perhaps he'd discovered that Paul had asked the woman using the Georgina alias out to dinner and had been turned down.

"Randy Porter has discovered that the woman calling herself Prudence Heatherly has managed to download and print out one of your sensitive files. It's a file called Donor."

"Good God!" Paul blurted. "How could that have happened? I was assured by that computer prick that my files were secure."

"I'm not as computer-savvy as I ought to be,' Kurt said. "But Randy implied that she had help from Dr. Spencer Wingate, who I believe they seduced."

Paul had to steady himself by grabbing the sides of the chair. He knew Spencer was disgruntled, but this was going too far. "How did he help her?"

"By adding her name as a user of the file," Kurt said. "I had to practically beat that information out of Randy, but that was what he said."

"All right," Paul snapped, feeling his cheeks redden. "I'll talk to Spencer and get to the bottom of it from his end, although I might need your help with him, too. In the meantime, you handle the women and be as thorough as you were with that unfortunate anesthetic death, if you catch my drift. I don't want those women to leave the premises under their own power and preferably not at all. And I want the file that was printed out." By the time he was finished he was practically yelling.

"Unfortunately the women are gone already," Kurt said, maintaining his calmness despite Paul's mounting fervor. "As soon as I learned all this I immediately tried to track them down to detain them. Apparently, once they got the file, they left."

"I want you to find them and get rid of them!" Paul barked while repeatedly stabbing a finger at Kurt. "I don't want to know how you get rid of them, just do it! And do it in a way that does not implicate the Wingate. We've got to contain this!"

"That goes without saying," Kurt said. "And since I've already given it some thought, I'm pleased to say that I believe it will be rather easy. First, we have an address, which means we'll have quick access to the women. And second, the women had to know their behavior was felonious, meaning they wouldn't have been inclined to tell people what they were up to. Also, at least one of them was a donor here, which makes the motive for wanting the file personal rather than for some social crusade. All this means is that although there's been a major security breach, it is containable if we act quickly."

"Then by all means act quickly," Paul shouted. "I want this taken care of by tonight at the latest. These women could cause us a major goddamn headache."