Shock (23 page)

"So how is our new employee doing?" Paul asked, reverting with surprising agility to his usual condescending manner.

"She's doing terrific," Mare said. "She's a natural. She's ready to be on her own as far as I'm concerned."

"That's good news," Paul said. He then asked Mare if he could have a word with her in private. Mare agreed and the two withdrew several lab benches to be out of Deborah's earshot.

Deborah pretended to be interested in the fresh petri dish but watched Paul and Mare converse out of the corner of her eye. Paul did all the talking. He was obviously agitated as evidenced by his emphatic gesticulations.

The monologue lasted less than a minute after which they returned to Deborah.

"I will talk to you later, Miss Marks," Paul said stiffly prior to leaving. "In the meantime, carry on!"

"I'll get you started with this new group," Mare said, taking the seat opposite Deborah.

Deborah put her eyes to the microscope, and for the next few minutes the women worked in tandem organizing the oocytes for Deborah to begin extracting the DNA. Moving all the eggs to one side had been the way they'd begun with the first group. Earlier Mare had explained it was to avoid missing any. When it was finished, Mare leaned back.

"There you go," Mare said, uttering the first words since Paul's departure. "Good luck! If you have any questions just yell. I'll be over on the next bench doing another batch."

Deborah couldn't help but notice the new coolness in the way Mare treated her. As the lab tech stood up to leave, Deborah cleared her throat: "Excuse me. I don't know how best to say this . . ."

"Then maybe you shouldn't," Mare said. "I've got to get to work." She started for the neighboring lab bench.

"Have I somehow put you in an awkward position?" Deborah called after her. "Because if I have, I'm sorry."

Mare turned around. Her face softened to a degree. "It's not your fault. I was just wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"These eggs," Mare said. "They're pig oocytes."

"Oh, right," Deborah said. "Dr. Saunders already told me."

"Good! Well, I've got to get to work." Mare pointed toward the other microscope she'd set up earlier. She smiled weakly, then continued on.

Deborah watched the woman for a moment as she settled herself in preparation for work. Deborah then leaned her face forward to her own microscope's eyepieces. She peered in at the field, whose left side was chock-full of tiny, granular circles each containing a fluorescing clump of DNA, but for the moment her mind wasn't on the task at hand. Instead she was thinking about the eggs' species. Despite Paul and Mare's allegations to the contrary, Deborah believed she was looking at a mass of human oocytes.

A half hour later Deborah had enucleated more than half the eggs beneath her microscope's objective. Needing a rest from the intensity of the work, she leaned back and rubbed her eyes forcibly. When she opened them, she started. With her degree of concentration she'd not heard anyone approach and was surprised to find herself staring up into the contrite face of Spencer Wingate. In the background she could see that Mare had looked up as well, and her face registered similar surprise.

"Good morning, Miss Marks," Spencer said. His voice was more gravelly than it had been the day before. He was dressed in a professorial long white doctor's coat, a crisp white dress shirt, and a demure silk tie. The only outward evidence of the previous night's inebriation was red, road-map eyes.

"Could I speak with you for a moment?" Spencer asked. "Certainly," Deborah said with a degree of uneasiness. Her first concern was that he'd come to ask about his blue card, but she instantly dismissed the idea as unlikely. She slid off the stool, assuming that Spencer meant for them to step away. A glance in Mare's direction revealed the woman was watching them with rapt attention.

Spencer pointed toward one of the windows, and Deborah walked over to it. Spencer followed.

"I want to apologize for last night," Spencer said. "I hope I wasn't too much of a bore. I'm afraid I don't remember too much after we got to my home."

"You certainly weren't a bore," Deborah said with a forced laugh, trying to make light of the situation. "You were very entertaining."

"I'm not sure that's a compliment," Spencer said. "Of course, the worst part from my perspective is the lost opportunity." "I'm not sure I follow."

"You know," Spencer said lowering his voice even more, "with you and your roommate, Penelope." He winked suggestively.

"Oh, right!" Deborah said, realizing he was making reference to the ridiculous menage a trois fantasy. All at once she felt as put-off with Spencer as she'd felt earlier with Paul, but she held her tongue. Instead she said: "Her name is Prudence."

"Of course," Spencer said while tapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. "I don't know why I have so much trouble remembering her name."

"I don't know either," Deborah said. "But thank you for the apology for last night, even though it wasn't necessary. Now, I better get back to work." Deborah took a step back to her seat, but Spencer moved into her path blocking her progress.

"I thought we could try again tonight," he said. "I promise to be more sensible with the wine. How about it?"

Deborah looked up into the man's blue eyes. She sought for an appropriate response, which was difficult to find given the lack of respect she had developed for him. Considering the disagreement she'd witnessed the day before between Spencer and Paul, she had a sudden desire to say she'd just been asked out by his apparent rival in an attempt to fan intramural disord. Under the circumstances she thought it would be the quintessential putdown. But she held herself back. In view of what she and Joanna were trying to do, making an enemy of the founder was hardly prudent.

"No sense in taking two cars," Spencer added when Deborah hesitated responding. "We could all meet in the parking lot around five-fifteen."

"Not tonight, Spencer," Deborah said in as sweet a voice as she could force herself to assume.

"Tomorrow then?" Spencer suggested.

"Let me get back to you on it," Deborah said. "Joanna ... I mean Prudence and I need to catch up on our sleep." Deborah felt a warmth wash over her and knew that she was blushing. It had been her only name slip, but it was a bad one in front of the clinic's founder.

"Maybe on the weekend," Spencer suggested, apparently unaware of Deborah's blunder. "What do you think?"

"That's a distinct possibility," Deborah added quickly, trying to sound positive. "Partying for us is far better on a night when we don't have to get up early the next morning."

"I couldn't agree more," Spencer said. "Then we could all sleep in."

"Sleeping late sounds heavenly," Deborah agreed generically.

"My direct dial number is triple eight," Spencer said with another lascivious wink. "I'll wait to hear from you."

"I'll be in touch," Deborah responded, although she had no intention of actually doing so.

Spencer walked out of the lab. Deborah watched him go, then switching her attention to Mare, noticed the lab technician was still staring at her. Deborah shrugged as if to say there's no accounting for the management's behavior. Reclaiming her stool, she checked her watch. Thank goodness there wasn't long to wait before she'd be meeting up with Joanna, and they could get on with what they were there for.

TWELVE

MAY 1O, 2OO1 10:55 A.M.

AS ELEVEN O'CLOCK neared, Joanna had considerably more respect for people doing office work. Although it was true she'd been working particularly hard to get the maximum amount done, data entry was more tiring than she'd imagined. The concentration necessary to keep from making a mistake was intense, and doing it day in and day out for three hundred sixty-five days a year was difficult to imagine.

At exactly five minutes before eleven, Joanna stood up and stretched. She smiled at her neighbor in the immediately adjacent cubicle to the south who'd stood up when she heard Joanna's chair roll back. The woman proved to be rather nosy and had made it a point to look in on Joanna periodically throughout the morning. Her name - Gale Overlook - seemed fitting to Joanna.

Joanna had given a lot of thought to her plan; she knew what she would do first. With the scheduled rendezvous time with Deborah imminent, Joanna grabbed her purse, which contained the brute-force cracking software, her cell phone, and Wingate's blue card. She headed down the aisle between the cubicles. Her destination was the computer network administrator's work space. Her hope was to find him in his cubicle and for one simple reason: if he was in his cubicle he couldn't be in the server room.

Earlier, in the midst of a minor anxiety attack about being caught in the server room, it had dawned on Joanna that probably the only person who ever went in there was Randy Porter. Consequently, if he was in his cubicle, she'd have little to fear.

A wave of relief spread through her as she passed his cubicle. He was at his keyboard. Turning left, she headed over to the main corridor. Deborah was there, at the designated rendezvous. About twenty feet beyond was the door to the hallway leading to the server room with its cardboard NO ADMITTANCE sign.

"I hope your morning was as interesting as mine," Deborah said as Joanna came up and took a sip from the drinking fountain.

"Mine was about as interesting as watching paint dry," Joanna said. She looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was paying any attention to them. "Nothing happened, but then again I didn't want anything to happen."

"We got asked out to dinner at the Barn twice more," Deborah said proudly.

"Who asked you out this time?"

"Spencer Wingate for one. And he asked us out, not just me."

"Did you see him in person?"

"I most certainly did. He came by the lab to apologize for passing out last night and then pleaded for a rematch. I told him I was busy but you were available."

"Very funny]" Joanna said. "How did he look?"

"Not bad, considering," Deborah said. "I don't think he remembered much."

"That's understandable," Joanna said. "I trust the blue card did not come up in your conversation."

"Not a word."

"Who else was hitting on you?"

"The second invitation was from Paul Saunders! Can you imagine going out with him?"

"Only in a fit of self-loathing," Joanna said. "But I don't believe for a minute I was included in that invitation, not from the way he was looking at you yesterday in his office."

Deborah didn't deny it. She glanced briefly up and down the corridor to make certain no one was paying them any attention. "Let's get down to business," she said, speaking more quietly. "Do you have any particular plan for our server room incursion or what?"

"I do," Joanna said. She, too, lowered her voice and went on to tell Deborah her thoughts about Randy Porter.

"Great idea," Deborah said. "To tell the truth I was concerned about how I was going to stand watch for you. Without a back exit from the server room, even if I let you know someone was coming in, there'd be no way for you to get out."

"Precisely," Joanna said. "Now all you have to do is let me know if Randy Porter leaves his cubicle. The moment he does, press TALK on your cell phone which you'll set up dialed to mine. If my phone rings, I'll get out of the server room right away."

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Deborah said. "Should we try it now?"

"I think so," Joanna said. "If it doesn't work for whatever reason, we can try again at lunch. If that doesn't work, we'll have another chance in the afternoon. Otherwise we'll have to come back tomorrow."

"Let's think positively,' Deborah said. She punched in Joanna's number on her cell phone's keypad. "I'm not wearing this dress another day in a row!"

"I checked on Randy Porter just before I came to meet you," Joanna said. "He was in his cubicle. I think he was on the Internet, which should keep him occupied."

"Do you have what you need?"

Joanna patted her purse. "I've got the software, David's instructions, and Wingate's blue card. Let's hope the card works or we're back to square one."

"It should work," Deborah said. "I'll head down to admin now, and you just hang out right here. If Randy Porter is still sitting on his duff in his office, I'll call you and let it ring twice. That'll be the green light, and you go do your thing."

The two women grasped hands for a moment. Then Deborah set briskly out walking down the corridor. When she reached the entrance to the administration area, she paused and looked back. Joanna was still at the water fountain leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She waved and Deborah returned the gesture.

Deborah couldn't remember exactly where Randy Porter's cubicle was in the gridlike maze that filled the old hospital ward. After a quick search of the area where she thought it would be and not finding it, she began a more systematic search. Eventually she found it and was happy to see Randy still sitting in front of his monitor. Deborah didn't allow herself much of a look, but her impression was that he was playing a video game.

Deborah reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. With Joanna's number already dialed, she pushed the TALK button.

Holding it up to her ear she listened for two complete rings, then pressed END. She replaced the phone in her bag.

Keeping one eye on Randy Porter's cubicle, she made her way over to the main corridor. There was no perfect spot where she could stand and not cause attention. Consequently, she had to keep moving.

JOANNA SWITCHED HER CELL-PHONE MODE FROM RINGER to vibration the moment she'd gotten Deborah's signal. The noise made her jump even though she'd expected it. Clearly she was on edge.

After a furtive, final glance up and down the corridor to make sure no one was watching, she passed as quickly as possible through the NO ADMITTANCE door into the short hall beyond. As the door closed behind her, she found she was breathing heavily, as if she'd run a hundred yards. Her pulse soared. She was a little dizzy. All at once the reality of being an intruder enveloped her in a paralyzing rush. Belatedly Joanna realized she was not cut out for tasks like breaking into computer server rooms; actually doing it was far more psychologically demanding than planning it.