"We haven't much time," urged the driver.
She crossed the street, head bent under the beating rain, and opened the rear door. Blinking water from her eyes, she focused on the backseat passenger. What she saw dismayed her.
In the gloom of the car, Nina Voss looked pale and shrunken. Her skin was a powdery white. "Please get in, Doctor," said Nina.
Abby slid in beside her and shut the door. The limousine pulled away from the kerb and glided noiselessly into the stream of traffic.
Nina was so completely bundled up in a black coat and scarf that her face seemed to be floating, bodyless, in the cat's shadows. This was not the picture of a recovering transplant patient. Abby remembered Josh O" Day's ruddy face, remembered his liveliness, his laughter.
Nina Voss looked like a talking corpse.
"I'm sorry we're late," said Nina. "We had a problem, leaving the house."
"Does your husband know you're meeting me?"
"No." Nina sat back, her face almost swallowed up in all that black wool. "I've learned, over the years, that one doesn't tell Victor certain things. The real secret of a happy marriage, Dr. DiMatteo, is silence."
"That hardly sounds like a happy marriage."
"It is. Strangely enough." Nina smiled and looked out the window. The watery light cast distorted shadows on her face. "Men have to be protected from so many things. Most of all from themselves. That's why they need us, you know. The funny thing is, they'll never admit it. They think they're taking care of us. And all the time, we know the truth." She turned to Abby, and her smile faded.
"Now I need to know. What has Victor done?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"You said it had to do with my heart." Nina touched her hand to her chest. In the gloom of the car, her gesture seemed almost religious. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. "What do you know about it?"
'! know your heart didn't come through normal channels. Almost all transplant organs are matched to recipients through a central registry. Yours wasn't. According to the organ bank, you never got a heart at all."
Nina's hand, still resting on her chest, had squeezed into a tense white ball. "Then where did this one come from?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
The corpselike face stared at her in silence. "I think your husband knows," said Abby. "How would he?"
"He bought it."
"People can't just buy hearts."
"With enough money, people can buy anything."
Nina said nothing. By her silence, she admitted her acceptance of that fundamental truth. Money can buy anything.
The limousine turned onto Embankment Road. They were driving west along the Charles River. Its surface was grey and stippled by falling rain.
Nina asked, "How did you learn about this?"
"Lately I seem to have a lot of free time on my hands. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you find yourself suddenly unemployed. In just the last few days, I've found out a lot of things. Not just about your transplant, but about others as well. And the more I learn, Mrs Voss, the more scared I get."
"Why come to me about this? Why not go to the authorities?"
"Haven't you heard? I have a new nickname these days. Dr. Hemlock. They're saying I kill my patients with kindness. None of it's true, of course, but people are always ready to believe the worst." Wearily Abby gazed out at the river. "I have no job. No credibility. And no proof."
"What do you have?"
Abby looked at her. "I know the truth."
The limousine dipped through a puddle. The spray of water drummed the underside of the car. They had veered away from the river and the road to the Back Bay Fens now curved ahead of them.
"At 10 p.m. on the night of your transplant," said Abby, "Bayside Hospital got a call that a donor had been found in Burlington, Vermont. Three hours later, the heart was delivered to our OR. The harvest was supposedly done at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, by a surgeon named Timothy Nicholls. Your transplant was performed, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. In so many ways, it was like every other transplant done at Bayside." She paused. "With one major difference. No one knows where your donor heart came from."
"You said it came from Burlington."
"I said it supposedly did. But Dr. Nicholls has vanished. He may be hiding. Or he may be dead. And Wilcox Memorial denies any knowledge of a harvest on that night."
Nina had retreated into silence. She seemed to be shrinking away into the woollen coat.
"You weren't the first one," said Abby.
The white face stared back with a numb expression. "There were others?"
"At least four. I've seen the records from the past two years. It always happened the same way. Bayside would get a call from Burlington that there's a donor. The heart is delivered to our OR sometime after midnight. The transplant's done, and it's all routine. But something's wrong with this picture. We're talking about four hearts, four dead people. A friend and I have searched the Burlington obituaries for those dates. None of the donors appear."
"Then where are the hearts coming from?"
Abby paused. Meeting Nina's disbelieving gaze she said, "I don't knOW."
The limousine had looped north and was once again skirting the Charles River. They were heading back towards Beacon Hill.
"I have no proof," said Abby. "I can't get through to New England Organ Bank, or anyone else. They all know I'm under investigation. They think of me as the crazy lady. That's why I came to you. That night we met in the ICU, I thought: There's a woman Il want as a friend." She paused. "I need your help, Mrs Voss."
For a long time, Nina said nothing. She was not looking at Abby, but was staring straight ahead, her face white as bleached bone. At last she seemed to come to a decision. She released a deep breath and said, "I'm going to drop you off now. Would this corner be all right?"
"Mrs Voss, your husband bought that heart. If he did it, so can other people. We don't know who the donors are! We don't know how they're getting them-'
"Here," Nina said to the driver.
The limousine pulled over to the kerb.
"Please get out," said Nina.
Abby didn't move. She sat for a moment, not speaking. The rain tapped monotonously on the roof.
"Please," whispered Nina.
"I thought I could trust you. I thought…" Slowly Abby shook her head. "Goodbye, Mrs Voss."
A hand touched her arm. Abby glanced back, into the other woman's haunted eyes.
"I love my husband," said Nina. "And he loves me."
"Does that make it right?" Nina didn't answer.
Abby climbed out and shut the door. The limousine drove away. As she watched the car glide into the dusk, she thought: I'll never see her again.
Then, shoulders slumped, she turned and walked away through the rain.
"Home now, MrsVoss?" The chauffeur's voice, flat and tinny through the speaker phone, startled Nina from her trance.
"Yes," she said. "Take me home."
She wrapped herself tighter in her cocoon of black wool and stared at the rain streaking across her window. She thought of what she would say to Victor. And what she would not, could not, say. This is what has become of our love, she thought. Secrets upon secrets. And he is keeping the most terrible secret of all.
She lowered her head and began to cry, for Victor, and for what had happened to their marriage. She wept for herself as well, because she knew what had to be done, and she was afraid.
The rain streamed like tears down the window. And the limousine carried her home, to Victor.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Shu-Shu needed a bath. The older boys had been saying this for days, had even threatened to toss Shu-Shu into the sea if Aleksei did not give her a good cleaning. She stinks, they said, and no wonder, with all your snot on her. Aleksei did not think Shu-Shu stank. He liked the way she smelled. She had not been washed, ever, and each scent she wore was like a different memory. The smell of gravy, which he'd spilled on the tail, reminded him of last night's supper, when Nadiya had served him double portions of everything. (And smiled at him, too!) The odour of cigarettes was Uncle Misha's smell, gruff but warm. The sour beet smell was from last Easter morning, when they had laughed and eaten boiled eggs and he had spilled soup on Shu-Shu's head. And if he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, he could sometimes detect another scent, fainter, but still there after all the years. It was not something he could classify as sour or sweet. Rather, he recognized it by the feelings it stirred in him. By the smell it brought to his heart. It was the smell of his babyhood. The smell of being caressed and sung to and loved.