Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

“Lucy, okay, okay. Just calm down. Just try to calm down,” he says.

I always hate it when people say things like “Don’t worry.” Oh really? I shouldn’t worry? Thanks. I hadn’t thought of that. But when Troy tells me to calm down, well, for some reason I actually do calm down a little. Don’t misunderstand me; I’m still scared, but not as scared as I could be, maybe not even as scared as I should be.

CHAPTER 72

TROY STARTS HIS WALK down toward the river, and I push through the big, and unwashed, glass doors of the main GIH entrance.

Okay, I’ve got it. They purposely designed this place to look like a piece of crap.

Stained, worn gray linoleum, and I know it’s real linoleum because the same stuff was on the floor of every kitchen in Walkers Pasture. Two sofas face each other, covered in a dirty beige-and-brown tweed, perfect for showing off spills and stains. Yep, these two couches have more stains on them than a menu at a greasy diner. Jesus. This dump is a pharma company. If this were the only place that manufactured aspirin, I’d just as soon keep my headache.

Behind a long metal table—not unlike the metal dining tables in the residents’ cafeteria at GUH that the NYPD used—sit two classic “big guys.” They wear identical white short-sleeved shirts with black clip-on ties.

“Yes, ma’am?” the larger of the two says to me. His attitude is neither pleasant nor rude, merely robotic.

Nervously, of course, I say, “Is this GIH Pharma and Research?”

He ignores my question. He looks at his colleague. They both smile as if they just heard a lame joke. Maybe they have.

After the very uncomfortable pause the second guy finally says, “How can we help you?”

“Like I asked your friend, is this GIH Pharma?”

The first guy speaks. “Are you here to see someone?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Eagleburg.” My mouth is so dry that I’m amazed I can even speak.

“Eagleburg?” the guy says. “Did you mean Eagleton?”

Oh, Mom. I wish you would’ve remembered the right name. This could get me thrown out before I even begin. But there’s no going back now.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m exhausted from all the driving to get here. Yes, Mr. Eagleton.”

Another pause, and the second guy taps something into his laptop. After a few moments, he says, “They’re expecting you.”

I can’t help myself for spitting out, “They’re expecting me?”

“Ms. Ryuan?” the guy says.

“Uh, yes.”

Now my mind and heart are truly flooded with worry and confusion. I should have listened to Troy. I should have called Blumenthal. I should have stayed home today. I should have gone to law school. I should have …

The second guy comes out from behind the table. He gently takes me by the elbow. “Come along, Ms. Ryuan. General Infant Health extends to you a warm and hearty welcome. Keep calm.”

“I am calm,” I say, not at all convincingly.

To him. To myself.

“Good,” the guy says. “Now I’ll take you back.”

CHAPTER 73

THE SECURITY ESCORT AND I stand at a metal door that leads out of the reception area. He punches a very long code into the electronic lock near the doorknob. Then urges me forward again by my elbow as he opens the door. It was hardly worth the time or trouble for him to touch my elbow. As soon as the door opens, we take two steps, and we are then standing in a room about the size of a small walk-in closet, no larger than four feet by four feet, with another door on the opposite wall.

My escort and I practically fill the entire space. There is a very creepy sense of intimacy. It is at once frightening. I could be killed here—he could molest me, abuse me, rape me. All of those things, some of those things.

Within a few seconds I realize there is a small window in the little room, too. A pretty young blond woman is looking at us. She smiles at the guard; he smiles at her. Then she nods and mouths the word okay . The guard holds a small plastic card up to a minuscule black dot on the new door. As expected, the door opens. A tall, dark-haired woman stands in a slightly larger room.

She speaks to the guard. “Thank you, Carl.”

“She’s all yours now, Nina,” the guard says.

Nina—I am stunned. I try to get a closer look at this woman. Of course this is not the Nina from the video or the cemetery or the surveillance photos.

I think for a nanosecond that perhaps the original Nina has been transformed by plastic surgery and hair coloring, or … Oh, what the hell is wrong with you, Lucy?

The guard leaves, and New Nina opens another door behind her. There’s no electronic code or card needed to open it.

When the door opens, our little space is flooded with light, pouring in from the new room. We step into that room, which is big and so stunningly bright that my eyes require some blinking and rubbing in order to adjust. Within a few seconds I see that everything is painted a traditional office color—a soft pale blue. The ceilings have industrial white cork. The floors are black-and-gray spattered white tiles. Of course it looks just like a hospital. In fact, with a few minor adjustments of space and color it could be the maternity floor of GUH.

New Nina and I stand in front of a huge glass viewing window. Behind the window, at the far wall are two women and a man. Their backs are to us. The three of them are wearing blue hospital scrubs, and all three are bent over a PC that seems to be fascinating them. Of even more intense interest to me are the many other human beings in the room. The babies. Babies and babies and babies.

I estimate roughly fifty high-tech-type cribs. It looks as if each crib holds a baby.

Even more fascinating and frightening are the wires and tubes and electronic monitors that run in and out of all these cribs. These wires seem to feed into some wall monitors displaying charts and numbers and letters and graphs.

New Nina suddenly raps hard with her knuckles on the vast glass nursery window. One of the women—a doctor, nurse, biochemist?—turns toward New Nina and nods, a wisp of annoyance on her face. That annoyance immediately disappears when New Nina gestures in my direction. The woman says something to her colleagues. I think at first she is walking toward the door to meet me, but instead she stops at one of the cribs near the window. With her back to me she removes a syringe from her pocket. It looks like she’s about to thrust it into the infant’s stomach. Then she hesitates and seems to change her mind. She looks flustered, nervous.

The second woman turns and looks at her colleague. In a voice loud enough that I can hear it through the window, she says, “Oh, for Chrissake, Bobbie. I’ll get the sample myself,” and she marches sternly toward the first woman. This tough-acting woman grabs the syringe from Bobbie.

I look away from the scene, and New Nina seems to sense my discomfort. “You obviously find watching this very upsetting,” she says. “We have a room where you can wait for your host. You’ll be better off there.”

In what seems to be a standard GIH technique, she takes my elbow to lead me. Her grip is a bit stronger than the guard who brought me in.

“Not so tight,” I say.

“I apologize, but I want you to go quickly. For your own sake. It will only be a moment,” she says.

I turn a bit and look back through the nursery window. Now all three of the people in blue scrubs—the two women and the man—are leaning over the crib. The first woman, Bobbie, who failed to take the sample, lifts the infant from the crib. She holds the infant while the other woman pierces the baby’s little belly with the syringe. I turn away again. When I look back, the woman with the loaded syringe is walking toward one of the doors, which she opens. In a moment the first woman places the screaming baby back into the crib and rushes to the door herself.