“They had ski masks on. But they were dressed as hospital security. Shit, George, maybe they were hospital security, you know? That would mean the hospital is covering it up. Spaulding, the dean, Springer, all those guys . . .” Pia stood up as if she wanted to flee.

“Oh, come on, Pia. This is New York City. In America. Maybe in a movie or some Third World dictatorship they kill off their own doctors and beat up medical students, but not here. I can’t believe you could think that. Get a grip.”

“Well, someone did this!” Pia said, pointing at her face, shaking, partly with rage, partly with fear. “I know what institutions can do, George, what people can do to someone they’re supposed to be looking after. If you grew up in the system I grew up in, maybe you’d be a little more cynical. I know one thing: Everyone has their own agenda. If you’re in the way, things like this happen to you.” Pia sobbed once and her shoulders heaved.

“Okay, Pia.” George stood and reached out to Pia, and she went into his arms. He held her tightly.

“I think we should call the police. You need an ambulance as well—”

“No!” Pia pushed George away. “I need to think about what this means. If we call the police, they’ll call the administration and security here, and for all I know, they were the ones who attacked me. I need to think.” Pia grabbed both sides of her head and shook herself. “The drug, I can’t think straight.”

“Maybe we should go to my room,” George said.

“They know all about you, George. It won’t be any safer there. They won’t do anything now, I’m just sitting in my room.”

George looked around. “You think they’re watching you that closely?”

“Well, think about it. Every time we moved, we got caught. It happened twice in the lab.”

“One time it didn’t.”

“But we didn’t find anything important then, remember? And we were allowed to go through the morgue just fine because there wasn’t anything there to find.”

“I’m having a hard time believing all these people are in on a conspiracy. Bourse, Springer . . . Dr. De Silva, who was treating Rothman. Why, Pia? What are they conspiring about? And there’s no proof the deaths were anything other than accidents.”

“Let me remind you again. You have no idea how much people hated Rothman. I saw it every day I was in his lab. No one liked him—he was rude, disrespectful, mean. And they were all jealous of him, how he got special treatment from the hospital, how he got a Nobel and might well get another. He had a lot of enemies, all sorts of reasons, including people in his own lab.”

“Okay, but you don’t kill someone because you don’t like them. It’s too much, it’s so theatrical!”