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.Brenda awoke late the next morning – the result of a night tossing and turning.When she wasn’t worrying about Sacrifice she was worrying about Brian or burglars.What if Brian never recovered? What if a burglar broke in and stole all the money, or the car? At one point she had to climb out of bed and creep downstairs – to check on Brian, the car, and to bring the money upstairs and hide it under her bed.So it was a scratchy-eyed Brenda who descended the stairs later that morning.A scratchy-eyed Brenda who froze halfway down.Brian wasn’t where she’d left him.The armchair was empty.She went from half-asleep to wide-awake in an instant.Where.There he was.In the far corner of the room, slumped over her computer keyboard.She ran to him.“Brian! Are you all right?”He didn’t answer.He didn’t move.The three bullet holes were still visible – smaller and less colorful than the night before, but still very much there.She placed her hands on his shoulders and eased him upright, gently propping him against the back of the chair.His head lolled against his chest.And was that a snore?“Are you asleep?”It looked like he was.She could see his chest slowly rising and falling.And that was definitely a snore.She could hear it over the noise from the computer fan.Her attention moved from Brian to her computer.It was on.Brian must have got up in the middle of night to use it.And then fallen asleep at the keyboard.She leaned over Brian and refreshed the computer screen.A website appeared.A medical website discussing advances in cancer treatment.Cancer treatment?She looked at Brian, then back at the screen.He needed to drag his body across the room to read this?She rolled her Brian-laden office chair to one side and fetched a wooden dining chair to sit on.What had he been looking at last night?She saved the current page to disk and pulled up the internet history file.He’d accessed about a dozen sites.Some of them she recognized.She’d accessed the same sites when she’d been searching for Bruno Abbiati.But others were hospitals, news sites, and medical journals.She clicked on the first site.An article about the treatment of neck cancer.Did Abbiati have cancer? She skimmed the article.No mention of Abbiati and no hint why Brian might have found it interesting.She saved the page and clicked to the next.Another cancer site.This time at a hospital listing their various treatments for head and neck cancer.She could see a pattern developing, but not the reason.Why the interest in neck cancer? None of the sites mentioned Abbiati.Could he have found the hospital’s telephone number amongst Abbiati’s papers from the drawer?She saved and moved on to the next page.Another article on neck cancer.But this one had a picture.A photograph of Brian.Brenda stared at the image.It was definitely Brian.It even had his name underneath.Brian Trafford, the first patient to benefit from the revolutionary new treatment for neck cancer.Gene Therapy.Brenda devoured the article.It was from 2004.A gene therapy trial on twelve patients in England.Six of the patients had been cured completely – Brian Trafford had been one of them.She looked at Brian.His face was charred and unrecognizable, but.could he be this Brian Trafford? And if so.what did it mean?She saved the page to disk and clicked on the next site.More gene therapy trials – this time in the US.No mention of Brian or Abbiati.She clicked on the next and the next.More cancer, more gene therapy trials.Her phone rang.Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from the computer and answered it.It was Susan, her sister.“You are coming tonight, aren’t you?”Tonight? Brenda’s brain wobbled into a state of fogged paralysis.“Coming where?”“Ha, ha.Very funny.” Susan was not laughing.Neither was Brenda.She’d just remembered.Her mother’s birthday party! How could she have forgotten?“Consider this your ten hour warning,” continued Susan.“Dinner’s at eight and we’re expecting you at seven.”Brenda shifted her voice a notch or two into the sick register – aiming for weak with a suggestion of hoarse.“I’m not feeling too well.There was a bug going through school last week.I thought I’d escaped it, but.you know what these bugs are like.”“You’re not getting out of this, Brenda.When’s the last time you saw Mom?”“I’m three hours away, Sue.It’s a long drive.”“Emily lives in Hawaii, but she visits Aunt Donna three times a year.”Cousin Emily again.Weren’t their any matricides in Susan’s circle? Where was Lizzie Borden when you needed her?“It’s a long drive, Susan [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]