Next were several large rooms lined with workbenches, their silver surfaces also spotlessly shiny. On them stood dozens of microscopes, stacks of flat, wide cases containing rows of glass slides, and innumerable racks loaded with bottles of reagents or stains in colors that rivaled those of Brendan's first-grade art class.

The people who used all these tools to make diseased tissues and cells yield up their secrets had long since left for the day.

She walked up to the door with Len Gardner's name on the opaque glass and knocked.

No answer.

She'd had a pass card to his premises for years, always needing to slip in after hours to pick up path reports. Using it now, Janet entered the anteroom where his secretary normally worked. She had also done what sensible folks did in the evening: gone home to her family. At least Janet presumed so, having delivered all three of the woman's children, two girls and a boy. Their pictures adorned an otherwise empty desk. The sight of them set off a pang for her own son, and for the ten millionth time she grappled with her anxiety over being an absent mother. From the beginning she'd refused to try to rationalize her guilt. The only explanation that mattered she owed to Brendan, and while words might comfort adults, the sole language that soothed his psyche involved the feel of her arms and the sound of her voice as she held him.

She crossed to the inner door and knocked again.

Still no answer.

She opened it a crack and peeked in. Not that she expected to find Len, but he'd promised to leave her a pathology report on one of her patients. The woman waited upstairs with her husband to know if her ovarian cancer had spread beyond what Janet had been able to remove.

Among the clutter of papers she saw an envelope with her name on it propped against a stack of files.

She ripped it open, scanned the contents, and knew that the woman would be dead in six months.

She walked back out to the deserted corridor and slumped against the wall.

Nothing loomed heavier than the task of saying, "I'm sorry, but the news is bad." She steeled herself, preparing to give the support required from her, yet dreaded the moment when, as soon as she walked in the room, the couple's last hopes would shatter against the look in her eye. She'd never learned to mask that dark gaze. It inevitably emerged when it came time to pass a death sentence.

Her unborn son stirred in her and delivered a sharp kick, a reminder of his presence, as if she'd needed any. By this time of day, her belly pulled so heavily on her that she felt it had doubled in weight and size. But such a cherished load to carry and a lifetime of working with thousands of other pregnant women didn't lessen the wonder of it any. She'd pretty well decided to take maternity leave much earlier this time. Why not? She could be with Brendan more, and when he came home from school they could make plans together for his new little brother. They'd also enjoy evenings and weekends uninterrupted like never before in his young life. Hell, why not give him that-

An odd popping noise and the tinkle of falling glass interrupted her thoughts. The sounds had come from the far end of the tunnel, near the elevators. As she looked along the islands of light, she realized that that section of the corridor had fallen into complete darkness.

Had a lightbulb blown down there?

She heard more glass break, but heavier, like that of a jar or bottle, and this smash had some force behind it.

What the hell?

She pushed off from where she'd been leaning. "Hello? Is somebody there?" She peered toward the distant murk but could see no one.

Yet a soft brushing shuffle no louder than a whisper echoed out of the darkness. Paper shoe covers on the floor? She couldn't be sure. "I said, is someone there?"

In the distance the door to a lit stairwell swung open and a silhouetted figure left the basement.

"Hey!"

The door closed behind, leaving her alone once more.

Somebody must have knocked something over in the dark, somebody who shouldn't have been down here in the first place, judging by their quick exit. No matter. She'd advise maintenance to clean up the broken glass before anyone got cut.

She started toward the elevators, hoping there'd be enough light to see her way once she got that far.

She'd walked well past the wooden door to the morgue, her mind focused on what she'd say to her patient, when she noticed a peculiar yet familiar odor that hadn't been there when she came in. Mildly irritating at first, it soon penetrated her nose and seared the back of her throat.

That's awful, she thought, and pressed her mask to her face, hoping to block out the fumes.

But the irritation continued, and her eyes began to burn.

She squinted into the darkness ahead, wondering if she could make the elevator. Probably. She couldn't see it directly, but the soft glow of the button looked to be about fifty feet away. Hold her breath and run for it, she decided.

After a few strides she immediately felt worse. What had that idiot spilled? She knew the storerooms down here contained no end of toxic liquids. The fluids that preserved organs and tissues in death were lethal to them in life, and any woman working down here who got pregnant went on immediate leave.

The button seemed to be only thirty feet away. Should she go back? She sprinted faster. Hell, ten seconds more and she could be out of here. All she had to do was hold her breath a bit longer.

As she ran, her free hand outstretched, she tried to remember where she'd smelled this before. It had a medicinal aroma, so strong she could practically taste it, and a cool, bitter sensation on her tongue. So familiar, yet-

Oh, my God!

Now she remembered it from her med school days- when they'd done basic lab experiments on white rats and anesthetized them with chloroform!

Jesus Christ, she thought, her head rapidly growing woozy. What felt like an ice cream headache began to set itself up in her temples.

She tried to stop and turn back but skidded, no longer finding any traction. At first she thought it must be the paper coverings on her shoes, but then noticed the floor glistening in the half-light, covered with fluid. At the same instant particles of glass crunched under her soles. She'd blundered into the middle of the spill.

Like a cartoon character trying to reverse direction, she ended up running on the spot; then, losing her balance, she fell heavily on her hands and knees. She cried out, and her lungs emptied, but she struggled not to breathe in. A stinging pain pierced her palms, and patterns of crimson spread under the latex of her gloves like petals. My hands! she thought, they being as precious to a surgeon as to a pianist. She instinctively flexed her fingers, verifying no tendons were cut, despite feeling about to faint more from trying to hold her breath than breathing in the anesthetic. The sparkling fragments that had sliced into her skin glittered up at her. She'd pull them out later.

Chloroform, like ether, had extreme volatility, vaporized rapidly, and practically poured into the bloodstream when inhaled into the lungs. Which meant if she didn't get out of this puddle, ground zero for the fumes, she'd be sleeping in it. And so would the baby.

She unsteadily got back on her feet, blood now dripping from the perforations in her gloves, and, in a wide stance as if walking on ice, began to teeter back toward the offices she'd just left.

Once there, the fumes wouldn't be too bad. She'd call for help on the phone. Just don't breathe in. Only a few seconds more.

She feared most for the baby. A single exposure to chloroform, if it reached high enough concentrations in his blood, could harm the kidneys and liver.

She felt a wave of nausea.

Oh, God, no. The stuff had definitely hit her circulation. That meant it would be in his.