Passage

He would have to go there, which was just as well. If he called, he ran the risk of being told Aspinall was too ill to see him, of having Mrs. Aspinall say, “How would next week be?” He couldn’t wait till next week or even till tomorrow, not when he was this close. He called Kit. He doubted if she’d be able to find someone to watch her uncle on such short notice so she could go with him, but he could at least get Carl’s transcripts from her. He wanted to look at them before he interviewed Carl.

Kit’s line was busy. He looked at his watch. It was after two, and Timberline was a good hour and a half into the mountains. He tried Kit’s number again. Still busy. He’d have to go without the transcripts.

He grabbed his keys and started out the door and then stopped. He was doing just what Joanna had done, taking off without telling anyone where he was going. He called the ER and asked to speak to Vielle. “She can’t come to the phone,” the intern or whoever it was said. “We’ve got a real mess down here. Twenty-car pileup on I-70. Fog.”

You had to take I-70 west to get to Timberline. “Where?” Richard asked.

“Out east by Bennett,” the intern said. “Can I give her a message?”

“Yes,” Richard said. “Tell her I’m on my way to interview Carl Aspinall. Carl,” Richard said. He spelled it and then Aspinall slowly. “Tell her I’ll call her as soon as I get back.”

“Sure thing,” the intern said. “Drive carefully.”

Richard hung up and tried Kit one more time. Mr. Briarley answered the phone. “Who’s calling?” he demanded.

“Richard Wright,” he said. “May I speak to Kit?”

“He’s dead. He was stabbed to death in a tavern in Deptford.”

“It’s for me, Uncle Pat,” Kit’s voice said, and a woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry. He asked me for a cup of tea, and—”

He didn’t hear the rest of it. Kit came on the line and, amazingly, already had someone there to watch her uncle. “I was going to go to the library to see what I could find on a fire on the Titanic,” she said.

“What else would they see?” Richard could hear Mr. Briarley say in the background. “It is the very mirror image.”

“How long can the caregiver stay?” Richard asked.

“Till six,” Kit said. “You found the person Joanna went to see, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I want you to go with me to see him. Can you?”

“Yes!”

“Good. Bring the Coma Carl transcripts.”

“Metaphors are not just figures of speech,” Mr. Briarley said.

“I’d better go,” Kit said and told him her address. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Mr. Briarley said, “They are the essence and pattern of our mind.”

Richard hung up, stuck the cell phone in his pocket, and started for the parking lot. Almost to the elevators a young man in a suit intercepted him. “Dr. Wright?” he said, sticking out his hand. “I’m glad I caught you. I’m Hughes Dutton of Daniels, Dutton, and Walsh, Mrs. Nellis’s lawyer.”

I should have taken the stairs, Richard thought. “I really can’t talk now,” he said. “I’m going—”

“This will only take a minute,” Mr. Dutton said, opening his jacket and pulling out a Palm Pilot. “I’m negotiating approval of this coding treatment you’ve developed and I just need to clarify a few details. Is it classified as a medical procedure or a drug?”

“Neither,” Richard said. “There is no treatment. I tried to explain that to Mrs. Nellis but she wouldn’t listen. My research into the near-death experience is in the very preliminary stages. It’s purely theoretical.”

The lawyer scribbled on his Palm Pilot. “Treatment in predevelopment phase.”

He’s as bad as Maisie’s mother, Richard thought. “It’s not in the predevelopment phase. There is no treatment, and even if there were, it would never be approved for experimental use on a child—”

“In ordinary circumstances, I’d agree with you, but where the treatment involved would be utilized in a postcode situation, there are several options, the least problematical of which is to classify the treatment as a postmortem experimental procedure.”

He’s talking about Maisie, Richard thought, gritting his teeth. “I have to go,” he said, going around the lawyer and toward the elevators. “I was supposed to meet someone—”

“I’ll ride down with you,” the lawyer said, leaning past him to press the “down” button. “Since the patient is technically deceased, the same legal permissions as those required for organ harvesting could be used.” The elevator arrived, and Richard and the lawyer stepped in. “What floor?”

“G,” Richard said.

“Mercy General unfortunately has a policy forbidding experimentation on the just-deceased, though since it was intended to prevent interns practicing such procedures as femoral artery catheterizations, we can argue that your treatment doesn’t fall under the ban. Our second option is an Extreme Measures order, which demands that every possible measure be taken to save the life of the patient.”