Doing Harm (29 page)

Her background, gleaned by way of (surreptitiously performed) background checks, social media pages, and GG’s own computer files, isn’t all that remarkable. A lot of people mistakenly think that psychopaths are made, not born: all of them the products of broken homes or predatory priests or some other kind of brutal childhood trauma that molded them, like innocent lumps of clay, into pitiless monsters.

But that’s a misconception. The truth, experts will tell you, is more complicated. And a lot more boring. Most psychopaths come from completely normal families and totally unremarkable upbringings. Sure, there are a few who certainly caught bad breaks as kids. But for most, there’s no smoking gun, no sentinel event in their lives to which deviant behavior can be traced, no discernible
reason
why they should be psychopaths.

So it is with GG. I can’t find anything that might have even remotely provoked her murderous obsession with patient safety. She’s the middle of three successful kids, with an older brother who graduated from Yale Law and is now a corporate attorney, and a younger sister studying biochemistry at UCLA. She has no trace of a criminal record, not even so much as a speeding ticket; hell, not even a
parking
ticket, from what I can tell. Granted, that’s a little unusual for a garden-variety psychopath: By the time most are GG’s age, they’ll have left more of a trail of social misery in their wakes, beginning in childhood. Behavior problems. Poor grades. Run-ins with the law. Trouble holding down a job. A string of failed relationships.

GG, apparently, is a brilliant, higher-functioning psychopath who has managed to play it close to the vest. Granted, she seems to be a bit of a loner, with few friends, acquaintances, or activities outside the hospital, which at least partly explains her work ethic. But certainly not someone you’d otherwise worry is suddenly going to snap and shoot up a school bus full of kids or anything.

While all of this psych stuff hasn’t really helped me predict her next victim, it has driven home one very important point for me, which if it wasn’t completely clear before, certainly is now: Nothing I can say or do will ever turn her away from her current objective. GG is what she is. I can’t reason with her to stop killing people. I can’t appeal to the better part of her nature because there isn’t any. It’s either play along with her game, or beat her at it.

I click on her résumé next, which by now I’ve practically memorized. As I scroll through it, her singular achievements once again parade before me: the innumerable academic awards; the engineering degree from MIT with highest honors; a black belt in tae kwon do—where the hell did she find time for
that
?

More recently, she’s done a lot of research on a type of heart device called an implantable cardiac defibrillator (or ICD for short), on which she’s published several scientific papers in very prestigious medical journals. It’s not unusual for med students of GG’s intelligence and motivation to publish scientific research under the guidance of more senior scientists. In fact, I even published a few back when I was a med student.

From what I know about ICDs, it makes sense that GG would be interested in them, given her engineering background. An ICD is a miniature device surgically implanted directly into the heart muscles of patients with certain heart problems. The job of an ICD is to automatically deploy a miniature electric shock to the heart in case it enters into a life-threatening arrhythmia. But GG’s research papers, all of which I’ve gathered and read, then read again, are dense, technical, and—as far as I can tell—offer no real clues. And neither do the files she downloaded from her smartphone and computer onto the server I hacked.

I sigh and close the file.

That’s when Luis’s cell phone, set on vibrate, starts jerking around in my front pocket. It startles me; it’s the first time it’s rung. I fish it out and peer at the screen. Just as Luis promised, a series of five numbers appears: the number two, followed by a space, followed by the numbers 2-0-0-0. I concentrate for a moment, retrieving the address from my memory: 100 Charles Street was the address that corresponded to the number two on the sheet he handed me Monday night at the Old Crow. So, according to the code, Luis wants to meet me at 100 Charles Street at 7:30
P.M.
—a mere thirty minutes from now. I hastily gather up my things and leave.

As I’m walking through the parking garage, a strange sensation seizes hold of me, like I’m being watched. I stop and spin around 360 degrees. Nothing. I’m completely alone. I shrug the feeling off and head for my car.

Twenty-nine minutes later, I’m walking into another bar, this one just off the lobby of an upscale hotel near Boston Commons. The inside is dark and adorned with swanky fixtures and well-heeled patrons sipping stylish cocktails. Just like the last time we met, I have a hard time spotting him at first.

“What is it about you and bars?” I settle onto a thick, plush chair across from Luis. He’s facing the door I came in through—as best as I can tell, the only one into and out of the place. I can barely make out his face, which is shrouded almost completely in shadow. He’s drinking mineral water. “Shouldn’t we be meeting, I don’t know, in an abandoned garage or burned-out factory or something?”

“Hollywood bullshit.” Luis scowls, and his downturned jawline emerges from the semidarkness. “The last thing we want to do is draw attention by trekking to some out-of-the-way, isolated shit hole. That’d be sure to raise red flags. Best to meet in crowded, public places.”

A waitress materializes to take our order. In keeping with the décor of the place, she’s drop-dead gorgeous: green eyes, dark brown skin, and glossy black hair. Luis orders another mineral water. He and the waitress look at me expectantly. “Gin and tonic.”

“So. What have you got?” he asks, as he and I watch the waitress glide away on her long legs.

I tell him about the keystroke logger, and clinic, and what I’ve learned about GG.

“Good for you, man,” he says, as the waitress delivers our drinks, then waits until she leaves before continuing. “Nicely done.” He frowns. “Although I’m not so sure about being so angry with her, Steve. Maybe not such a good idea. I’d have tamped it down a little. Not yelled at her so much. You don’t want to provoke her.”

“Into doing what?”

“I don’t know,” he says, thoughtfully rubbing the top of his head. “Remember—she’s a psychopath. We really don’t know
what
she’s capable of.”

“She seems to have bought into it.”

“Maybe.” He sounds unconvinced. “Okay, well, what’s done is done. So. What do we know so far?” He ticks the points off on his fingers. “She’s smart. She’s an electrical engineer with first-rate technical training and an interest in medical hardware. She’s obsessed with patient safety. She’s been working with the Safety Committee since she was a first-year med student. Clerical stuff, mostly, it seems. But I don’t know for sure.”

“You mean, her work may be more than just clerical?”

“Exactly. We can only speculate as to how she was able to manipulate things behind the scenes with Mr. Bernard’s investigation. I imagine she did everything she could to make you the fall guy. Anyway. A good place to start may be medical hardware and patient safety.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with.” I take another sip of my drink. “What about you? Any progress?”

“Some,” he answers evasively. “I think I’ve discovered something important. I’m chasing down a pretty good lead right now that could be the key to bringing her down. Once and for all.”

“Really? What? Let’s hear it.”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Compartmentalization. Basic rule of intel. The idea is to keep vital information separate—compartmentalized—in case one or both of us is somehow compromised by the hostile. You, obviously, are in much more danger of being compromised than I am. She won’t be able to extract information from you if I don’t give it to you.”

He lifts his wrist and glances at his watch, which is reversed, so that it’s facing in the same direction as his palm. It’s one of those fancy diver’s watches. “I have to go. Same drill as last time. After I’m gone, wait at least fifteen minutes before you leave.”

“Okay.”

He hands me a twenty. “This should cover the cost of my water.” He smirks. “Barely. Wait until you see the price of that gin. You’re going to have a heart attack.”

I tuck the twenty in my pocket. “When will I hear from you again?”

“Soon.” To my surprise, he heads not for the entrance I walked through but in the opposite direction, toward the bar. He and the bartender exchange friendly nods as he steals through an unmarked door behind the bar—an entrance to the kitchen, by the looks of it—that’s partially obscured by liquor and wine bottles.

I slowly empty my gin for fifteen minutes, then pay a bill that, as Luis implied, will likely cut into my kids’ college fund.

As I’m walking to my car, I’m overcome, again, by an odd sense that I’m being watched. I try to dismiss it as harmless paranoia brought on by spending too much time with Luis. But the feeling persists.

I spin to my right. Nothing.

I turn to my left.

And there she is.

Her back is to me. But I know it’s her. I can make out her ponytail flipping jauntily up and down as she speeds away, around a corner of a building down the street.

What the hell?
I’m too angry to be surprised, or to wonder how she followed me, or to worry if she spotted Luis and me talking in the bar. Who the hell does she think she is? Furious, I sprint down the block after her. I round the corner, grab her by the shoulder, and spin her roughly around.

“What the hell are you doing—”

I bite off the words and drop my hand from her shoulder.

The ponytailed teenage girl who gapes back at me, her face frozen in fear, shares GG’s exact height, build, and hair color. But she’s definitely not GG.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I say, lamely, as she slowly backs away from me. “I thought you were someone else.”

Her father, a burly, tattooed man who had been walking a few feet in front of her, is understandably somewhat less solicitous than I am, and as I’m driving home, my hands still shaking from the encounter, I count myself lucky to have escaped with an obscenity-laden diatribe and a mouthful of intact teeth.

For reasons I can’t quite explain, I’m still uneasy about being followed and keep checking my rearview—which is absurd, really, because even if GG were behind me right now, how the hell would I know? I don’t know what kind of car she drives or how I would pick it out from the light traffic flowing smoothly around me. Or even if she has a car. I think she mentioned to me once that she lives in the city, which means she wouldn’t have much use for one. And what would I do even if I spotted her? The closest I’ve ever come to this kind of thing is watching a James Bond movie. It’s not like I’m going to try to lose her, or anything. Or run her off the road into a ditch. Although I certainly wouldn’t mind doing so.

I pull up to our house well after dark. The light is on in the kitchen, but first I tiptoe upstairs to the girls’ room. Katie and Annabelle are asleep. They look beautiful, so still and perfect. Like some kind of painting in a museum. I kiss Katie on the forehead and stroke Annabelle on the cheek. Katie smacks her lips and sighs musically. Annabelle is unmoved by my affection and doesn’t stir. Gazing down on them, gnawing on my lip, I think of what GG and I did in the call room last weekend, and a stabbing pain suddenly shoots down my left chest and arm.
Real
pain, not metaphorical. I mean, it really fucking
hurts,
like a hot knife stripping off my flesh.

I gasp and stagger toward the window, clutching my left pectoralis major muscle, speculating through a haze of agony that the muscles of the coronary artery, the main blood supply to my heart, are spasming shut, squeezing off the blood supply to my heart, a condition called Prinzmetal’s angina.

Great. Now I’m having a heart attack.

And then, as quickly as it appeared, the pain is gone. Catching my breath, I brace myself against the windowsill and peek out through a corner of the closed window blinds in their room. The street below, in front of our house, is quiet.

Massaging my tingling left arm, I trudge downstairs and join Sally, who’s waiting patiently for me at the kitchen table with a warmed-over dinner plate, fresh out of the microwave. I peck her on the cheek, drop wearily into a chair, and pick up a fork.

“Hi,” I say mechanically.

“Hi.” Her elbow rests on the kitchen table, and her chin is propped in her hand. She contemplates me with a mixture of concern and puzzlement, which starts to provoke the knifelike pain in my chest all over again, and I drop my eyes to my plate, so I don’t have to look at her. The pain subsides.

The short length of table separating Sally and me in our cramped kitchen mocks the emotional gulf starting to stretch between us, at least from my perspective.
You know I’d do anything for you, right? And the girls? You guys are my life.
That’s what she had told me at this very table a few weeks ago, offering me a bottle of her favorite wine even though she was pregnant and couldn’t drink; back when we were savoring the simple pleasure of just being together.

With all of the time I’ve been spending at the hospital, Sally and I haven’t spoken much since the BBQ a few days ago, when I temporarily retreated into those beer bottles. Barely even a few perfunctory words exchanged between us. For the past two nights, I’ve arrived home late, exhausted, too tired even to talk, grunting hello before slipping into bed. Each morning, I’ve been out of the house before she wakes up.

Which is, I reflect sadly, the way I prefer things right now.

Why? It’s simple, really: I’m a coward. Although I’ve told Sally about Mr. Bernard’s death and Mrs. Samuelson’s condition, I haven’t told her anything about the Safety Committee report, my banishment from the operating room, or the remedial training. I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m too embarrassed about my temporary demotion, too ashamed of the fact that the job at University Hospital, the one she sweet-talked her way into helping me get, is pretty much out the window at this point.