The Timer Game. Susan Smith Arnout

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СКАЧАТЬ someone was, out of the blank-faced windows in the high granite building, and that was troubling. A faint wire mesh covered a set of windows on the second floor, and Grace snatched another glance, disquieted. The wire was new, she was certain, and she wondered if that’s where she’d find Jazz. The building rose like a granite monolith under a vivid blue sky with a faint tracing of clouds. A perfect San Diego day, covering what?

      He’s coming for you … He’s the Spikeman.

      She locked up and entered the building under an imposing sign etched in granite: CENTER FOR BIOCHIMERA.

      Next to the sliding glass doors was a smaller sign in black letters: WARNING! THIS IS A LATEX-FREE SITE. ALL LATEX PRODUCTS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN!

      Grace scanned the lobby. A young woman sat reading at the information kiosk in the middle of the room. A small coffee and pastry area lay to the left, most of the tables occupied by interns and nurses, none she recognized. On the walls hung pictures of the groundbreaking, Nobel laureates who did research at the Center, and an unseemly number of photos featuring Warren as the beaming centerpiece, his shock of white hair glowing along with his teeth.

      The V of the building opened into floor-to-ceiling windows, revealing the view. Here the ocean was a churning presence, a gray and blue highway carrying Navy traffic and fishing trawlers out to sea. The skyline of La Jolla glinted in the bright sun, and far to the south, Mexico’s Coronado Islands rose like the purple humps of a prehistoric sea monster.

      On scattered sofas people waited. They waited in the halls, milling around. On chairs by the entrance. They waited in pairs and family groupings and alone. It seemed to Grace as if that waiting defined the essence of the Center. It was saturated with a pain born of that waiting, and a longing so intense it seemed distilled, the longer she was away from it.

      She headed past the information kiosk to the elevators. A family marshaled a boy of about ten out into the hall, his wheelchair sticking as it bumped over the elevator groove. His younger sister hopped next to him in excitement. The mother had a trembly half-smile on her face, as if smiling even that much was too costly.

      Grace rode the elevator alone to three. The joke was, the Center was built on a bluff and run on one, and Grace had heard it repeated more times than she could count by jealous colleagues of Warren’s who didn’t realize they knew each other personally. She never repeated it; it was petty, but it spoke clearly to the empire he had built and the enemies he’d made.

      Damaged adults and children wounded by disorders and limping from attacks leveled against them by their own immune systems flocked to the Center for specialized treatment, hoping for the miracle cure that would stop their bodies from viciously destroying themselves. Warren Pendrell promised nothing, but something in his manner must have communicated hope. People lined up for clinical trials.

      She’d spent part of her residency on loan from Johns Hopkins working in the Center’s sophisticated pediatric heart transplant unit, and Warren had taken her immediately under his wing. Those were the giddy days when she was a rising star and everything was working, but that was a long time ago and when she’d left medicine, part of what she’d jettisoned was the safety of his mentor-ship, the easy way doors opened and the belief that anything professionally was still possible. Now she approached his offices with the caution and respect they deserved.

      The elevator opened and she faced smoked-glass doors with Warren’s name engraved in brass: DR. WARREN PENDRELL, DIRECTOR.

      Another name was inscribed in smaller script underneath: LABS OF DR. LEE ANN BENTLEY.

      Grace felt the beginning of a headache, seeing the name. Lee had been a coldly amoral researcher hungry for grants and recognition when Grace had known her five years before. Now she’d moved up to the major leagues, sharing lab space with Warren himself. Grace had managed to avoid seeing Lee in earlier visits. But today she didn’t feel lucky.

      Grace opened the heavy door leading to the reception area. This smaller lobby glowed in a soft shade of gold, the center of the room dominated by a carved marble statue of an angel and child. A drug salesman looked up incuriously from a trade magazine and went back to reading, his briefcase of samples bulging at his feet.

      Grace went to the counter and waited as the receptionist finished a call. The receptionist was middle-aged, efficient, with a helmet of dyed black hair and a chest that jutted forward like the prow of an immense ship. She put down the telephone and turned to Grace.

      ‘Yes?’ Her face was neutral. She’d missed a spot with her eyebrow pencil, and one of her brows had a small, disconcerting patch of white in the middle of what otherwise was a perfect walnut brown arched wing.

      ‘Cynthia. Could you please alert Warren I’m here.’

      ‘And you are?’

      Cynthia knew exactly who she was. This was a petty humiliation she put Grace through every time. ‘Grace. Descanso.’

      ‘Identification?’

      Grace pulled out her crime lab ID instead of her driver’s license and was heartened to see a quiver of surprise in Cynthia’s eyes before she recovered. Good. Let her think I’m here on official business. Serves her right.

      ‘Do you have an appointment?’ She touched her pearls. The necklace was so long she could hang herself.

      ‘No.’ Grace stared her down and felt a sharp surge of victory when Cynthia turned away first. She really needed to play more board games.

      ‘He’s very busy.’

      ‘He wants to see me.’

      ‘I’ll let him be the judge of that. Sit and wait.’ It was an order.

      Grace smiled thinly and went to the window, looking out. Far away, hang gliders floated over a blue expanse of sea, and clouds threaded the soft sky. Behind her, she heard Cynthia whispering into a phone. The steel door behind the counter slid open.

      ‘Grace!’

      Warren had a forceful way of dominating a room, his energy thrusting itself into the place moments before he spoke, which gave her the unsettled feeling of being constantly in the presence of a sonic boom. He was in his late sixties but tall and fit-looking. His silver-white hair was precision cut, and he wore dark linen trousers and a blue cashmere sweater that matched his eyes.

      He bared his teeth in a smile. The door wickered shut behind him. He stepped into the lobby. ‘Cynthia taking good care of you?’

      Grace shot a smug smile at Cynthia but it was wasted. Cynthia shuffled papers, pretending to be busy.

      Warren didn’t wait for an answer. He gripped Grace’s elbow gently and moved her out of harm’s way as he stood for a moment under the retina scanner. The red light beamed into his eyes. He blinked and the door reopened.

      ‘Quickly, quickly.’

      He led her back into a hallway as the steel door closed behind them. They were in a corridor with laboratories. Grace could hear a synthesizer whirring softly in a lab down the hall, and the muted sound of voices coming from a conference room.

      Warren turned and studied her, and the heartiness in his face fell away and was replaced with anger. ‘He could have killed you, damn it. I’ve left three messages since yesterday. You couldn’t pick up the phone and let me know you were all right?’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ