Already tense as usual, when Veena had walked into Cal’s office that afternoon, he had magnified her anxiety by ordering her to close the door behind her and sit down on the couch. Fearful of another seduction scene, she’d done as she was asked, but he shocked her with something else entirely. He had told her that he’d learned that day the whole story about her father and how he was extorting her. Stunned and humiliated, Veena was also furious at her best friend, Samira Patel, because she knew instantly it had to have been she who’d revealed Veena’s darkest secret. Samira was a nurse who’d trained with Veena and who’d joined Nurses International along with her. She too wanted to emigrate to the United States, but for a more generic reason. Familiar with the freedoms of the West from images on the Internet, she despised what she considered the restrictions life in India placed on her. She was what she liked to describe as a free spirit.

After Cal had revealed what he knew, Veena had stood up with the idea of fleeing without even thinking of where she would go, but Cal had grabbed her arm and urged her to sit back down. To her surprise, in lieu of blaming her and condemning her as she had always feared, he’d convincingly sympathized with her, and had been angry that she thought she was somehow responsible for her father’s behavior. He’d then gone on to persuade her that he could help her if she’d help him. He’d guaranteed that her father would never again lay a hand on her, her sisters, or her mother. And if he did, he would disappear.

Convinced Cal was being deadly serious, Veena had asked what she was to do for him. Cal had then gone on to explain that the surgical-outcome data they were amassing was proving to be disappointing. The data was too good, and they had come to realize they needed to create some of their own bad data, and he’d told her how they envisioned doing it using succinylcholine. At first Veena had been shocked by the plan, especially since she had no idea why they needed this “bad data,” but the more Cal talked, saying that she would have to do it only once, and that she would be free from her father and able to emigrate without the guilt of putting her sisters and mother at risk, and the more she recognized she would never get such an offer again, she had impulsively decided to cooperate. And not only did she agree to cooperate, she wanted to do it immediately, that very night, lest she think too much about what she was actually doing.

With a renewed sense of determination to get the business over with and a clear idea of the sequence of events she needed to follow, Veena took a deep breath. She then straightened up from where she was leaning against the stairwell wall, opened her eyes, and checked again to be sure the corridor beyond was empty. With tension quickening the pulses in her temples, she started toward the Hernandez room at a brisk walk. No sooner had she taken several steps when one of the evening nurses emerged from the room directly opposite Hernandez’s, bringing Veena to a sudden halt. Luckily for Veena, the nurse was unaware of her presence. Concentrating on the medication tray in her hands, she headed farther down the corridor, away from the nurses’ station. As suddenly as she had appeared, she disappeared into another patient room.