A slow, cold chill shuddered through me despite the heat and extra clothing, and I broke into a clammy sweat.

Shit! If only I'd never started. Or quit at the first death. No one would have known. But instead I pushed on, certain that Algreave had been a fluke, that I could still pull the rest through their sessions. Now I'd no choice but to continue, just to stay clear of the living death of being buried in a prison cell forever or, worse, awaiting execution.

Through half-closed eyes I watched Garnet lounging in a seat nearby, and a surge of resentment grabbed me by the throat. Leave it to old Goody Two-shoes Earl, making this into a roof garden for staff and patients. Rumor had it that he'd arranged for the greenery to be on permanent loan, or at least until the snow flew in the fall. What a fucking god he'd become around here!

My bitterness toward him and his good works surprised me. But why should it? After all, I'd condemned myself to seeing him across a moral divide, the man's inherent decency a luxury I would never again enjoy. Little wonder I envied and hated him for it.

The warmth of my mask and gown grew sweltering, my skin hot and sticky. Nevertheless, I stayed put, glancing around the rest of the area.

A gaunt-eyed woman whose few remaining wisps of hair floated on the breeze like gossamer sat nearby in a wheelchair parked under one of the potted trees. Perfect place for her, I thought.

From a distance of ten yards I could make out the telltale red stripe on her wristband that Palliative Care attached to signal a DNR case. She also had the necessary IV, probably because chemo or radiotherapy had left her unable to drink and eat adequately. Yet she didn't seem gorked. Now and then a nurse or orderly paused to say hello and chat for a while.

That's the kind I would have to select from now on. People who still had their marbles, but for whom there'd be no code when the nurses found them after I'd finished the session. I could no longer allow my subjects to survive and spread tales of near-death experiences. They might recall one detail too many and give me away. At least DNRs meant there'd be no resuscitation team to raise suspicious questions about too many people dying before their time. I doubted their doctors would raise questions either. That would entail an admission their prognoses had been wrong. Or maybe they'd be so grateful for the empty beds they wouldn't entertain many second thoughts about how they had become available.

I continued to study her.

At one point I overheard a snatch of a person's greeting.

"Hello, Sadie…"

I'd need at least a dozen more subjects. Out of them I might get a couple of usable tapes- so many had turned out garbled. But added to the few other good ones I'd managed to record, that could finally be enough to convince everyone. Just the same, the added risks of being discovered scared me shitless. I still had no idea whom I'd seen prowling around Friday night or why the person had been there. No telling when that one might show up again. And since Garnet had decided to stick his nose into the business of that ward, he posed the biggest obstacle of all to my pulling off more undetected sessions.

So how would I get around him?

Until now Palliative Care had been a place where no one thought twice when a person died. Doctors hardly ever ordered autopsies, and family, in their heart of hearts, were secretly relieved at their loved one's passing. In other words, my perfect hunting ground.

And it still could be, despite talk of audits and the bad luck that Earl had taken a particular interest in the place. Because the new VP, medical, fastidious as he might be, had also created his own problems. With a little help, those difficulties might prove useful in several ways. At the very least they should keep him distracted. If they didn't…

I looked at Janet, who lay sprawled on a lawn chair nearby, her protective wear outlining the swell of her stomach.

I dreaded what it might be necessary to do. But a personal tragedy to anguish over- that would sidetrack Garnet.

My own loss once more exerted its iron grip on me, stirring a rage that wouldn't die, not since all those years ago when my world fell apart. The hesitation I'd felt vanished.

I would make it appear accidental. After all, pregnancy could still be a risky business.

1:07 p.m.

Not too bad, Earl thought, surveying the inner corridors of his department.

The line of stretchers in the hallway, once a temporary measure to handle the occasional overflow but now an all too permanent fixture, stood empty, and the modest volume of chatter told him that his staff had the rest of the place under control.

He ducked into the nursing station, and J.S. looked up from where she leaned against the counter riffling through a magazine. "Hi, Dr. G."

"Finally, a bit of rest for the wicked, I see."

"It's about time," she said with a wink, and returned to flipping pages.

He spotted Thomas huddled in a corner with the rest of the residents conducting an impromptu Q &A session. The man had the knack of all good ER teachers, knowing to seize spare moments whenever he could and turn them into mini seminars.

Earl waited for a pause in the proceedings, then signaled him to one side. "If you need me, I'll be in pathology. They're doing a case I want to see."

Thomas's eyes seemed to draw a bead on him. "The Matthews woman?"

Earl nodded. "I saw in the chart you answered the resus call. If it's not too busy here, you could join me-"

"Thanks, Dr. Garnet, but this bunch is pretty green." Thomas gestured with an extended thumb toward the members of his group as they continued an animated and somewhat misinformed discussion about the proper technique for pelvic exams. The corners of his eyes crinkled. "As you can hear, I'd better stay with them." He chuckled, hesitated a second, then glanced right and left, as if making sure no one stood within earshot.

Inadvertently Earl did the same.

All clear, apart from J.S.

"There's something you should know about Palliative Care that might help," Thomas said in an only slightly hushed voice. Her presence didn't seem to bother him.

"Oh?"

The resident proceeded to tell him about a pattern, a concentration of codes that occurred on that ward just before dawn.

Earl didn't find it all that surprising. Even on nonterminal floors overnight supervision could be notoriously lax, and patients were occasionally found dead in bed having obviously died hours before. Sometimes it got so bad that residents referred to morning rounds as a body search. He nevertheless thanked Thomas for the information, touched by his concern, and headed downstairs to the pathology department.

He approached the autopsy suite and pushed through a door marked ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. The thin, high-pitched whine of a rotary bone saw set his back teeth on edge, and Len Gardner, a man of medium build even when swathed in full protective gear, looked up as the steel blade bit into one of Elizabeth Matthews's ribs. He'd already made a sweeping Y cut of her overlying skin, having sliced it open with a scalpel from beneath her collarbones down the sternum and all the way to her pubis.

"Hi, Earl," he greeted him, as casually as if they were meeting to have lunch. "I thought I'd better do this one myself."

At St. Paul's Len had a reputation as the man who would not be chief. One of the most gifted pathologists in Buffalo, yet having no time for the political niceties that accompanied such appointments, he'd steadfastly refused the honor of heading his department. He also, more than anyone, knew all the dirty secrets about who got it wrong when it came to diagnostic and therapeutic mistakes at St. Paul's. Since Len made it his personal mission to bluntly confront doctors with their errors, Earl suspected he went out of his way to remain unpopular as added insurance against ever getting stuck with an administrative title. Maybe he should have taken Len for a role model. "Thanks. I'm glad you're here," Earl told him, and meant it. Above all, Len would be scrupulously honest.