of composure, and introduced her to Smith and the other man, whose title had something to do with overseeing the hospital’s physical plant. Then he sent them on ahead.
“Sarah, in case you hadn’t guessed,” he said, “the ace Colin was talking about is our grant. It’s coming from the McGrath Foundation, and we’ve been courting them for almost three years now. But please, not a word to anyone. As I said before, this is not yet signed, sealed, and delivered. And I have no doubt that if he knew the magnitude of the grant and who it was coming from, that sleaze Mallon would do whatever he could to keep it from happening.”
“It’ll happen,” Sarah said.
“Well, it’s down to the wire now. We get the money, we win; we don’t, Mallon and Everwell win. It’s about as simple as that.”
As they reached the building that housed the auditorium, they heard, then spotted a sleek helicopter, which swooped over the campus and then made a neat landing on the helipad Paris had insisted be built atop the surgical building.
“The person from the CDC?” Sarah asked.
“Doubtful. I don’t even know if they’re sending anyone yet. More likely it’s some network VIP coming to the press conference.”
“Or else one of our patients has some well-off family or friends.”
“Doubtful again. I have every admission checked over by our PR staff. If somebody worth knowing about was a patient here, I promise you I’d be aware of it. Now, then, let’s go in and give them a show.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Sarah said.
• • •
Belted in the copilot’s seat of his Sikorsky S76 jet helicopter, Willis Grayson watched the Medical Center of Boston expand below. What excitement he felt at the prospect of seeing his only child for the first time in five years was virtually consumed by his rage at those who had led her to such a place and such a condition.
Upon his return from restructuring a Silicon Valley company, he had found a detective named Pulasky camped outside the gate to his Long Island estate. The detective had the first new photos Grayson had seen of his daughter since well before she disappeared. The man also had with him copies of both Boston papers. And although the stories in them contained no pictures of Lisa Summer, Pulasky assured him the patient in the Medical Center of Boston and his daughter were one and the same person.
A visit by some of Grayson’s Boston people to Lisa’s Jamaica Plains address confirmed Pulasky’s claim. After paying the man off, Grayson had made two calls. The first was to summon his pilot; the second was to order Ben Harris, his personal physician, to cancel his office patients and clear his schedule for an immediate flight. Within two hours they had touched down on the rooftop heliport of the Medical Center of Boston.
“Keep her warm, Tim,” Grayson said, stepping out onto the tarmac. “If Lisa’s in any condition to travel, we’re getting her the hell out of here and down to our hospital.” He helped his internist out onto the roof. “Now don’t hold anything back from me, Ben,” he ordered. “Remember, your allegiance is to me, not to that inbred medical fraternity I keep reading about. If someone’s fucked up with Lisa’s care, I want to know.”
For nearly all of his fifty-four years, the driving force in Willis Grayson’s life had been anger. As a child, he had drawn strength from the helpless rage of being strapped down on hospital beds while doctors wrestled with his life-threatening attacks of asthma. In his teens, fury at the prolonged absences of his industrialist father and the emotional unavailability of his socialite mother became manifest in repeated aggressive acts, leading to his expulsion from several private schools.
And years later, when he was finally admitted to the inner sanctum of his father’s company, it was his desperate, unbridled need for retribution that drove him to maneuver the man out of power and to rechart the
“Sarah, in case you hadn’t guessed,” he said, “the ace Colin was talking about is our grant. It’s coming from the McGrath Foundation, and we’ve been courting them for almost three years now. But please, not a word to anyone. As I said before, this is not yet signed, sealed, and delivered. And I have no doubt that if he knew the magnitude of the grant and who it was coming from, that sleaze Mallon would do whatever he could to keep it from happening.”
“It’ll happen,” Sarah said.
“Well, it’s down to the wire now. We get the money, we win; we don’t, Mallon and Everwell win. It’s about as simple as that.”
As they reached the building that housed the auditorium, they heard, then spotted a sleek helicopter, which swooped over the campus and then made a neat landing on the helipad Paris had insisted be built atop the surgical building.
“The person from the CDC?” Sarah asked.
“Doubtful. I don’t even know if they’re sending anyone yet. More likely it’s some network VIP coming to the press conference.”
“Or else one of our patients has some well-off family or friends.”
“Doubtful again. I have every admission checked over by our PR staff. If somebody worth knowing about was a patient here, I promise you I’d be aware of it. Now, then, let’s go in and give them a show.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Sarah said.
• • •
Belted in the copilot’s seat of his Sikorsky S76 jet helicopter, Willis Grayson watched the Medical Center of Boston expand below. What excitement he felt at the prospect of seeing his only child for the first time in five years was virtually consumed by his rage at those who had led her to such a place and such a condition.
Upon his return from restructuring a Silicon Valley company, he had found a detective named Pulasky camped outside the gate to his Long Island estate. The detective had the first new photos Grayson had seen of his daughter since well before she disappeared. The man also had with him copies of both Boston papers. And although the stories in them contained no pictures of Lisa Summer, Pulasky assured him the patient in the Medical Center of Boston and his daughter were one and the same person.
A visit by some of Grayson’s Boston people to Lisa’s Jamaica Plains address confirmed Pulasky’s claim. After paying the man off, Grayson had made two calls. The first was to summon his pilot; the second was to order Ben Harris, his personal physician, to cancel his office patients and clear his schedule for an immediate flight. Within two hours they had touched down on the rooftop heliport of the Medical Center of Boston.
“Keep her warm, Tim,” Grayson said, stepping out onto the tarmac. “If Lisa’s in any condition to travel, we’re getting her the hell out of here and down to our hospital.” He helped his internist out onto the roof. “Now don’t hold anything back from me, Ben,” he ordered. “Remember, your allegiance is to me, not to that inbred medical fraternity I keep reading about. If someone’s fucked up with Lisa’s care, I want to know.”
For nearly all of his fifty-four years, the driving force in Willis Grayson’s life had been anger. As a child, he had drawn strength from the helpless rage of being strapped down on hospital beds while doctors wrestled with his life-threatening attacks of asthma. In his teens, fury at the prolonged absences of his industrialist father and the emotional unavailability of his socialite mother became manifest in repeated aggressive acts, leading to his expulsion from several private schools.
And years later, when he was finally admitted to the inner sanctum of his father’s company, it was his desperate, unbridled need for retribution that drove him to maneuver the man out of power and to rechart the
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