Tom phoned ahead to send Herb scurrying out after a cab. By the time he had gotten some clothes on and Sarah in a coat, a Checker was waiting at the door.

They hurried through Riverside’s main lobby, at this hour empty and quiet. With a wave to the night guard, Tom propelled Sarah to the elevators, jabbed at the eleventh-floor button.

Geoff was waiting, his face sallow and tired. As they entered the lab Phyllis Rockler rose from behind a workbench where she had been preparing the necessary glassware. She took Sarah by the hands. “Let’s get you in a pressure cuff,” she said, her voice urgent.

“Do you live here?” Sarah asked. Tom was reassured to hear strength, even a touch of acerbic humor.

“Geoff and I—”

Sarah smiled softly, looked a moment at Tom. Phyllis pushed up the sleeve of Sarah’s sweater and applied the blood pressure indicator as Geoff examined the other arm. The four of them waited while Phyllis took her reading. “One hundred and twenty over eighty. We should all be so lucky.”

“My pressure’s always been good.”

Tom closed his eyes, felt some of the tension creep out of his neck. The blood pressure would have been abnormal if vascular collapse had been imminent. Phyllis then counted Sarah’s pulse and read her temperature with a digital thermometer. “Here’s something. One hundred and one degrees.”

“There’s a slight subcutaneous infection connected with the lesion,” Geoff remarked. “The fever could be from that.”

Sarah closed her eyes. “Aside from the fever and the lesion, my gross symptoms are psychological. Extreme restlessness. Odd hallucinations.”

“Orientation problems?”

She shook her head. “Consistent with fever and loss of sleep. I’ve been up all night.”

Tom asked a question that had been much on his mind. “How did she do it?” He couldn’t imagine Sarah sitting still for such a thing.

“When I went to her house we had coffee, then I woke up in her bed in a . . . state of confusion. I took a shower and left. But tonight I remembered more—a—a—sort of thing standing over me with a blood pack—quite strange.”

“Hypnosis and drugs.”

“I agree. The combination fits my symptomology.”

“Phyllis, why don’t you draw a couple of hundred ccs and we can get to work.” Phyllis prepared a syringe and withdrew the blood from Sarah’s unwounded arm.

“It looks good.” In gross blood disease there is sometimes a change of color or consistency. Sarah’s blood was a rich purple-red, completely normal. Tom found himself hoping for the first time that nothing was really wrong. So far the symptomology was reassuring, except for those hallucinations. But there was something about Sarah’s tone of voice he didn’t like. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she was holding something back. “What kind of hallucinations?”