Touched by Fire (20 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

L
ilah returned to the lab from her .encounter with Merrick to find a sleep-deprived Cardenas and several hundred autorads waiting for her. She wasted no time turning her simmering rage into productive energy. For the last hour, she’d been hovering over a light table evaluating patterns of lanes and bands in search of the telltale shift—the threefold increase in base pairs—that would signal the presence of a defective MAOA gene. She handed another autorad to Serena, who was entering the data in the computer log, and pronounced it “Positive.”

Serena glanced briefly at the pattern of gray oval smudges and nodded in confirmation, then drew the light pen across the bar code. The corresponding number immediately appeared on the monitor. She positioned the cursor next to the subject’s name and broke into an insidious smile as she entered the result with a click of the mouse. “Well . . . who would have thought it?”

“Thought what?” Lilah prompted, taking the bait.

“That your latest boy-toy would be positive.”

Kauffman? Kauffman has the MAOA mute? Lilah wondered with chagrin and amusement.

“My God, Lilah,” Serena went on, pretending she was horrified. “He might be a sexual thrill killer!”

“Can you think of a better way to go?”

Serena grinned. “I imagine you’ve been conducting a relentless search for his environmental trigger.”

“Relentless, in depth and exhaustive,” Lilah replied with a girlish giggle, enjoying the exchange, which brightened her mood.

Cardenas poked a forefinger into his mouth in protest. “Give me the barf bag, man.”

“Pardon me?” Serena challenged haughtily.

“No way,” he said, feigning that he was offended. “This is sexual harassment. I mean, if a couple of guys said stuff like that, they’d be outta here in a minute.”

“Don’t be a sod, Ruben,” Serena scolded. “We were paying you a compliment, weren’t we, Lilah?”

“Right,” Lilah replied. ‘We think of you as—just one of the girls.”

The two women erupted with laughter.

“Can we get on with this?” Cardenas pleaded when it subsided, placing the next group of autorads on the light table.

They had gone through dozens of them when Serena drew her light pen across the bar code of yet another—one Lilah had pronounced negative—then smiled at the data. “Ah yes, the mysterious Mr. Blank . . .”

Lilah knew that one of the autorads in this group had been processed from her blood sample; and since OX-A—a men-only protocol—didn’t screen for gender, she also knew a given autorad wouldn’t reveal a subject’s sex. However, because women have two X chromosomes, and men but one, a trained eye could detect subtle differences in their X bands. Lilah routinely spotted them, but between the banter and endless flow of autorads, this one had gotten past her.

“Mr. Blank.” Lilah repeated. She seemed shaken, more crestfallen than threatened or angry. “May I see that again?” She took the autorad and scrutinized it as if a more intensive examination might change the outcome; but there was no telltale shift to be found, nothing to indicate a genetic defect. No, everything was right where it was supposed to be. She didn’t have the mutant MAOA gene. She was undeniably negative.

Her vulnerability swiftly gave way to a visceral anger that rose from deep inside her, an anger she didn’t fully understand. “Son of a bitch,” Lilah exclaimed, tossing the autorad aside.

“What is it, boss?” Cardenas asked. “I screw up or something?”

Lilah ignored him, fetched her briefcase, and bolted from the lab with a petulant stride.

“What’s her problem?” Cardenas wondered.

“Ten past. She’s late for class.”

Cardenas rolled his eyes. “You know, I thought I had this figured out. She’s usually later in the month, isn’t she? And you’re usually more—”

“Don’t say it, Ruben,” Serena warned sharply.

“See?” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “Girls can be sexist, guys can’t.”

Serena forced a smile, then retrieved the autorad. Her upswept eyes flickered knowingly as they scanned the X band. “Perhaps it has something to do with Mr. Blank being transformed into
Mrs.
Blank.”

“
Mrs
. Blank? You saying it’s a woman’s sample?”

Serena nodded, pursing her lips in thought. “I’ve a nasty feeling she tested herself.”

“Why would she do that?” Cardenas challenged. “No women allowed in this protocol.”

“I’d look to the most rudimentary precepts of our trade, if I were you, Ruben.”

“Try speaking English once in a while, will you?”

“Oh, come on,” Serena coaxed impatiently. “Who else can one screen by screening one’s own blood?”

“
One’s
parents,” he replied, mimicking her.

“Precisely. The MAOA defect is found on the X chromosome, and women have two X chromos, don’t they?”

“Last time I checked. One from Mom, one from Dad.”

“Well, keeping in mind a negative result means neither harbors a mutant MAOA gene; and since, as you so astutely pointed out, we haven’t included women in this protocol, an intelligent person might conclude . . .?”

“She was testing her father.”

“Quite incisive of you, Ruben,” Serena said giving her sarcasm full rein.

“But why test her own blood when she’s been taking his every month anyway?”

“He’d be required to sign a consent form, wouldn’t he? Perhaps she wanted to protect him, or perhaps . . .” She let it trail off mysteriously. “Perhaps she preferred he not know what she was about.”

“She didn’t sign one either, Serena,” Cardenas said pointedly.

“Ah, but what the boss, as you so fondly call her, does with her own blood, is her business, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I still don’t see what ticked her off. I mean, her father’s negative, right?”

Serena nodded and thought about the inmates they’d tested, about their sexually abusive behavior, about the controversial, if unproven, implications of the OX-A study—implications that sex offenders who had the mutant gene had no choice but to engage in such lurid activity,
while those who didn’t have the mute engaged in it of their own free will. She concluded, “Maybe that’s her problem.”

Cardenas looked baffled. “You lost me.”

“Well, as you Americans say, this may be a bit of a stretch, but I suspect it would be somewhat easier to forgive incestuous behavior in a parent who couldn’t help himself, than in one who had made a conscious choice, wouldn’t you?”

“If you’re right,” Cardenas said apprehensively, “I’d sure hate to be the guy she takes it out on.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“S
orry I’m late,” Lilah said as she blew through the door of the lecture hall. She dropped her briefcase next to the podium and shot a glance in Kauffman’s direction. “Where one ends up in medicine often has a lot to do with one’s personality,” she began, sending knots of chattering students to their seats. “And since personality is arguably related to genotype, I thought we’d spend some time talking about specialization.”

The students yawned and settled in as she turned to the blackboard and, chalk clacking loudly, listed the areas of medicine in her barely legible scrawl.

“Okay,” Lilah exclaimed, her lab smock billowing as she whirled to face them. “For openers, the action-oriented types with uncanny hand-eye coordination tend to slice and dice their way to fame and fortune by—”

“Becoming surgeons!” one of the students called out before she could finish.

“Obviously I should’ve included rude and impatient in that profile,” Lilah said, circling the word
Surgery
on the board. “Next come the methodical, analytical types who most often calculate their way into . . . ?”

“Radiology,” someone replied.

“And diagnostic procedures,” Lilah added. ‘The aerobics
freaks make a mad dash for the cardiopulmonary areas. The bedside manner folks talk their way into internal medicine, family practice, and pediatrics. The hopheads turn into drug pushers and gas passers. Those with an aptitude for plumbing tinker with gastro and gyneco; and last but not least, the neurotics seek refuge in neuro and psycho.”

“I thought they went into research,” Kauffman called out.

Lilah forced a smile and waited for the laughter to subside, then asked, “Anyone have a focus yet?” A number of hands went up. Kauffman’s wasn’t among them, but he’d been Lilah’s target from the outset, and now her eyes locked on to his; “What about
you
, Mr. Kauffman? What areas do you think you might have a flair for?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied. ‘That’s why I didn’t raise my hand.”

“Proctology,” one of the students called out.

“Cashectomy,” another muttered behind her hand.

“Veterinary medicine,” a third shouted.

“Okay, okay,” Kauffman finally said, goaded into a reply. “The way things have been going lately”—he let it trail off and broke into a smug grin—"I think I’ve got a real flair for fornicology.”

The classroom rocked with laughter.

Lilah’s eyes narrowed to vengeful slits and locked on to Kauffman’s. “You’re all wondering what this is all about, aren’t you?” she taunted. “Well, thanks to a study I’ve been conducting, I just happen to know that—”

Kauffman stiffened with apprehension. Her rhetorical question-and-answer combined with the deepening ugliness of her mood left no doubt his wisecracks had been a serious mistake.
He
knew what it was all about now, and his eyes held Lilah’s, pleading with her to spare him.

Despite her chaotic state, she saw the terror in them and paused as a particle of empathy pierced the darkness. “I just—I just happen to know that . . . one of you . . . has a serious genetic defect,” she resumed, unable to embarrass him as she’d planned, “and would do the rest of humanity a huge favor by staying the hell out of—” She whirled to the blackboard and circled
Gynecology
and
Pediatrics
.

The uneasy murmur that rose from the students drowned out Kauffman’s sigh of relief.

“And you all thought you were perfect, didn’t you?” Lilah taunted, her voice taking on a derisive growl as the thin fabric of her reality began tearing away. “No, no, no, no! There’s a nasty little marker lurking in one of your genomes. A biological time bomb that could detonate at any moment, claiming innocent women and children as its victims.”

The class squirmed in discomfort.

“Oh, come on,” Lilah chastised, her lip curling with disdain, her eyes taking on a manic glaze as she continued to unravel. “Don’t look so shocked. You know what I’m talking about. You all know those nasty little D words.” She whirled to the board and began writing frantically, chalk clacking, lab smock rustling, voice breaking with emotion as the pressure rose and the safety valves failed and the last few threads snapped and she began shouting: “You know about—deviant—degenerate—despicable—demented—disgusting behavior, don’t you?”

The students sat in stunned silence. Any hope that this would turn out to be some sort of practical joke had been destroyed by her tone and loss of control.

Lilah finished writing the last words and threw the piece of chalk with a ferocious snap of her wrist. It hit the floor and shattered, emitting a little puff of white dust, the
broken pieces radiating from the point of impact like debris from a meteorite. “Deviant, degenerate, despicable, demented, disgusting behavior!” she shrieked, repeating it over and over in an angry rhythm as she bolted from the lecture hall: “Deviant, degenerate, despicable, demented, disgusting behavior!” The door slammed with surprising force, which sent a crack streaking across the glass.

The students were traumatized. Their fists clenched and lips sealed, all of them stared in disbelief at the door—all except Kauffman, who was staring, awestruck, at the blackboard.

Moments later Lilah came charging out the main entrance of the medical school and hurried across the pedestrian bridge toward the parking structure. The blistering winds were whistling through the concrete grillwork as she got in her car and drove off, smoking the Jaguar’s tires in her haste and anger.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

A
t about the same time Lilah stormed out of the lecture hall, Merrick exited the Neuropsychiatric Institute and started walking in the direction of Mac-Med. After his session with Schaefer, he’d spent some time on a conference call with Logan and an assistant district attorney who would secure the necessary search and arrest warrants. Confronting Marge Graham with several counts of arson and the attempted murder of her daughter wasn’t something he relished, and he intended to notify Lilah in person and ask her to accompany him. He was approaching the broad staircase that led to the plaza when his cellphone started chirping. “Yeah, Merrick.”

“Danny-boy, glad I got you,” Gonzalez enthused. “You know a guy named Kauffman? Joel Kauffman?”

“Uh-huh. He’s a med student at UCLA.”

“That’s him. This is going to sound real crazy; but he just called and said to tell you Dr. Graham sent those incendiaries to herself.”

“That sounds real crazy, Gonzo,” Merrick said with an exasperated sigh. “It was her mother.”

“Her mother?”

“Yeah, I’m heading over there now.”

“Hey, it’s your call, Lieutenant,” the dispatcher conceded
“But I pushed this guy pretty hard and he kept insisting he had proof.”

“Like what?”

“Like he said he’d show you when you got there. Lecture hall twelve. He said he’d wait.”

“Shit,” Merrick grunted. It seemed every time he had the puzzle assembled, something came out of nowhere and scrambled the pieces. He holstered the phone, reversed direction, and hurried toward the medical school.

The lecture hall had emptied by the time Kauffman returned from making the call to Dispatch. He was slouched dispiritedly in the front row, toying with the latches on his backpack, when the door flew open.

“Okay, where is it?” Merrick challenged, skipping the preliminaries. “Where’s the proof?”

Kauffman pointed to the blackboard. “That’s how she always writes,” he said, indicating the areas of medical specialization listed in Lilah’s barely legible scrawl. “And today, right in the middle of class, she goes ballistic and starts writing like that.” He pointed to the words—deviant, degenerate, despicable, demented, disgusting—that had been printed in the bold angry strokes he’d seen before. “It’s the same writing that was on the box.”

“The one you carried from the mail room to her car.”

Kauffman nodded glumly.

Merrick’s eyes shifted from one end of the board to the other and back. The Lilah Graham he knew was on one side, the Lilah Graham he’d never met—the one who had made and sent the incendiaries—was on the other. This was the last piece to the puzzle, the piece that tied her directly to the fire bombs, the keystone that could lock all the others into place. “You’re positive?”

Kauffman nodded again.

“Don’t bullshit me now,” Merrick said, provoking him because he had to be certain.

The kid bolted from the seat “Fuck you!” he snapped, still unnerved by Lilah’s behavior. “I said it’s the same, didn’t I?”

Merrick nodded, bemused by his outburst.

“Well, it is!”

Merrick cocked his head with a thought: Marge Graham said the pager was Lilah’s idea, but it had to be more than that. Lilah must have
bought
it for her too. As a matter of fact, she must have bought four pagers, registered them all in Marge Graham’s name, then gave her one and kept the others. “You have any idea where she’s at?”

“Nope. I mean, she blew out of here in the middle of class,” Kauffman explained, his arms gesticulating wildly. “Really went bonkers. Weird. Like she was somebody else.”

“She was,” Merrick said, darkening with concern as he reached for his phone. He called the lab in search of her, then the hotel. The switchboard operator at the Westwood Marquis explained that Lilah had checked out last night, leaving instructions that callers be informed she could be reached at home.

A short time later the Spanish-style condominiums stood in silhouette against the fading light as Merrick parked the Blazer and hurried to Lilah’s unit. He rang the buzzer, rang it again, waited a few moments, then bashed a heel into the latch. After several tries the wood splintered with a sharp crack, and he shouldered the door open, calling out, “Lilah? Doc? Dr. Graham? Lilah, you here?”

There was no reply as he charged in, no sign of her in the entry or main living area, no sound to suggest her presence.

He crossed the room and leaned into the kitchen with the same result, then made his way to the bedroom, calling out tentatively, “Doc? Lilah?”

He pushed through the door, took a few steps into the room, and froze at an astounding sight. It wasn’t Lilah’s face that he saw, nor was it dozens of his own. No, the room didn’t come alive with startling images as it did the last time, and as he had expected this time. His every movement wasn’t being reflected in perfect synchronization on every wall, surface, and shelf.

The ornate frames, gilded frames, carved wooden frames, frames of sleek chrome, colorful plastic, and stained glass, were still there, as were the frames hanging on walls, standing on dressers, and perched atop pedestals. No, none of Lilah’s incredible collection had been removed; and the visual impact was still as powerful, if not even more so, because every mirror had been smashed.