Somebody, please, I beg you. Make this stop.
He folded into the corner on the floor, still clutching the mouse, his eyes pressed shut, his own whimpers humming in his head.
“Jack, you’re having a dream. Can you open your eyes for me?”
He opened his eyes and the window at the top of the door flashed down at him with a blue-green light.
“He’s saying something.”
Safe. The thing with the big head has gone away.
Jack got up from the floor and put his hand on the doorknob. Cold metal. He turned it …
“Jack, wake up. Come on, you can do it. Just push.”
… and he pushed.
Instantly the wind sucked open the door with a bang. His heart nearly exploded. The thing with the pointy head stood before him, its arm raised, the shiny club glinting in the light.
“Close the goddamn door.”
He closed the door.
“What did he say? I didn’t catch it.”
“I think, ‘Nice Mookie’?”
“Who’s Mookie?”
“I haven’t got a clue.”
15
“DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THESE MEMORINE trials?”
Nick looked over his glasses at her. “Yes.”
“It seems as if everybody does but me.” She could barely disguise the emotion crackling in her words.
“Then someone should have told you, of course.”
“Dr. Carr was going on as if it was the medical breakthrough of the millennium.”
“From what I understand, the results are quite promising, but it’s too early to call a press conference.”
She nodded, feeling a swirl of hot emotions.
It was Thursday afternoon and they were sitting in the control room of the new MRI imaging suite at MGH. Glass windows separated the bank of computers from the huge scanner, the ring-shaped apparatus with an attached patient table, in the next room. Behind them were three technicians working at their own monitors. Nick was a regular here because he had helped pioneer new imaging techniques for studying Alzheimer’s—techniques that aimed at detecting the disease in the presymptomatic phase and diagnosing its progress.
“So, you had a pleasant evening with him?”
“It was interesting.” She knew how evasive that sounded.
“He’s a very bright and capable physician.”
“And very charming, and I’m not interested.” There was an awkward silence. Her relationship with Nick was warm and mutually gratifying. He was the older mentor-cum-father-figure and she the pretty former student who made him feel young and charming. She had always sensed that he regarded her with an admiration that exceeded the professor-and-student relationship. It was evident in the way he lit up when he looked upon her, or touched her arm when he was explaining something. He was also intent on seeing her find a boyfriend.
“Okay,” he said. “Did he show you the Palm Pilot images of Clara Devine’s tests? It’s all right, I’ve seen them. All these years and all the research, and this is the first time that anything out of a lab is showing promise of a cure. Quite remarkable, wouldn’t you say?”
“If it is, I was three years too late.” Tears filled her eyes.
Nick looked at her, and in a moment realization clicked in his eyes. “Ahh. You mean your father.” He took her hand. “Good God, woman, there was no way for you to know. How could you? Besides, he could not have lasted this long.”
“He was still strong.”
“Maybe physically, but there was nothing left of him inside, and you know that. I would have done the same thing if it were Thalia. I would have wanted the same thing if it were me.” He squeezed her hand with assurance.
“I did it for me.”
“No! You did it for him. It’s what he wanted.”
But if I had only waited …
“Listen to me. The first dementia patients were not enrolled in these trials until eight or nine months ago. That’s two and a half years after he died. You know as well as I what could have happened in that time. He would have continued to waste away, kept alive by machines and tubes and IV drips. Was that something you’d want? Of course not, and neither did he. And who’s to say this stuff would have worked for him? Or if he would have lived so long even full-coded. No, you did the right thing. So put it away for good.”
She nodded and gave Nick a hug. He was also the one person for whom she had unguarded respect and not a little affection. If it weren’t for him, she would have dropped out of pharmacy school and would probably be wiping counters at Starbucks. It was also Nick who had held her hand during her father’s demise.
Nick got up and poured her a cup of coffee from the small machine sitting on a back table. René took a few sips and let his consolation take effect.
“So, back to reality. You’re having some problems with administrative procedures, right?”
“I think I’ll feel better when I see Clara Devine’s records.”
“Dreadful story. I read the paper.”
“Nick, she was sexually abused as a young girl by some creep neighbor.” And she told him what Cassie Gould had said.
Nick’s face clouded over. “So, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that in her head, Clara Devine may have been defending herself against the guy who raped her seventy years ago.”
“A flashback seizure.”
Flashback. The term lit up in her mind as if it were an established syndrome. “Yeah, exactly. A flashback.”
“It’s a Peter Habib term,” Nick said. “I guess it’s possible. We’re talking about axon connections rethreading the hippocampus. What does Dr. Carr say?”
“He says it’s the dementia, not an adverse drug reaction.”
“Because post-traumatic stress hallucinations can plague dementia victims. I suppose that will have to be determined. In the meantime, what are you thinking of doing?”
“Nick, for nearly two months I’ve been up against some clinical code of omertà while secret trials were going on right under my nose.”
“So you’re thinking of filing a formal complaint against the record-taking procedures of a senior clinician working on a potential cure for Alzheimer’s disease.”
“Not when you put it that way.”
“Then let it go. You’ll get the charts. Look through them, check the nurses’ reports, and if anything looks irregular, then write your letters. In the meantime, visit some of the trial patients. I think you may be impressed with what’s happening.”
“And what’s that?”
“Maybe medical history.”
“Wait a second. Are you part of this?”
“GEM’s made some recent inquiries.”
“How long have you known about the stuff?”
Nick must have heard her words skid because he narrowed his eyes. “I’m telling you it was not an option for your father. They hadn’t even begun phase one trials on animals yet. Nobody had any idea if it would work with AD patients. And had I known, you would have been the first to hear.”
She nodded. “I know.” She had scoured the journals and the Internet looking for every experimental drug in clinical trials, and nothing had held any promise for her father’s condition. Memorine was still deep in GEM’s pipeline.
“And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t committed myself.”
“Maybe you should. Given how they’ve been operating, they could use some ethical standards.”
“That’s very kind, but what do you think that’d do to my retirement plans?”