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  “The first?”

  “Yes. We’ve been trying to connect the murders to the most recent patient who died in the OR. But the real link to the murders is the accidental death that occurred six months ago.” Eli pointed at the screen. “This program will match any operation with the personnel assigned to work the case. I’m betting each of these hospital employees was involved in that first, fatal procedure.”

  When Meg finished entering all the names, an operative report appeared on the screen. It was red-flagged like the other, with a central gray box that warned:

  This patient is dead.

  Do you wish to continue?

  Yes we do, thank you very much.

  As Eli predicted, all four names were listed, plus the surgeon, Liza French.

  Meg leaned back in the chair, kept staring at the screen. “But the three murder victims were all listed as part of the operating team during the most recent OR death, including your nurse friend.”

  “That’s correct,” Eli said. “These three personnel were part of the operating team when both deaths occurred. But the fourth name didn’t fit. That’s because all the murder victims were involved in the first operating room death that occurred six months ago.”

  Meg nodded once to Eli. “I’m impressed.”

  “By what?” Eli asked. “Four people have been killed and I can’t seem to stop it.”

  These words pulled them back to the list of six Gates’s employees and the four murders.

  The anesthetist in the cotton warehouse with a bone cut from his foot.

  The scrub nurse without her tongue at the wrestling arena.

  The anesthesiologist missing his stomach in Tunica.

  And the circulating nurse at the Zante Repository without a heart.

  The next name that appeared on the computer screen was that of an OB/GYN resident, Thomas Greenway.

  Eli said his name out loud.

  “What about your Dr. French?” Meg asked. “Could she be the next victim?”

  The way Meg said French, her head tilted, her lips pursed, Eli sensed a definite attitude. He wondered if Meg somehow knew about his and Liza’s past. He had no time to go there.

  “Liza’s out of town, oddly enough,” Eli said. “I don’t know what’s going on with her. Maybe she is behind the whole thing.” He thought that was good cover.

  “How could that be?” Meg made a face and wagged her head clearly rejecting that theory.

  “I don’t know, but someone is killing these medical personnel.” Eli pointed at the screen. “And it’s all related, somehow, to this operation.”

  Eli recalled the order of Vesalius’s Epitome. The fifth book focused on the brain. Through a hungover fog, Eli tried to remember the conversation with Salyer the night before. Salyer predicted that the next organ to be removed would be the brain. A male brain. Eli read the resident’s name from the screen. Thomas Greenway. Definitely male.

  Eli grabbed Meg’s phone, started punching numbers. Meg knew exactly who he was calling. “Is Detective Lipsky buying all this?”

  Eli nodded. “He’d better. This is all he’s got.”

  Meg stood and arched her back in an early morning stretch. “We’re all he’s got.” She spoke in a sarcastic, self-important tone.

  On the second ring, Eli heard a voice answer, “Who loves you, baby.”

  “Lipsky? It’s Eli.”

  “Top of the morning to you, doc.”

  “Listen, I’ve got a name for you. We need to find this guy before it’s too late. Put some police protection on him.”

  Complete silence on Lipsky’s end.

  A wave of dread passed through Eli. “The name’s Thomas Green-way.”

  More silence.

  Then Lipsky said, “Oddly enough, I’m looking at someone with that same name.”

  “Damn it!” Eli drew out the words.

  Meg placed the autopsy knife on the table and mouthed, “What?”

  “Question for you,” Lipsky said. “In that old bastard’s book, you know, the one who cuts people open and draws pictures of them, what’s the next body organ? I’m just curious.”

  “The brain, Lipsky. It’s the brain.”

  That old saying, about how silence is deafening—

  “I’ll hand it to you, doc, you’re a smart one.”

  “Where are you, Lipsky?”

  “I’m over at Shelby Farms. Got your Tom Greenway with me. You know, it’s true what they say about the brain. It does look like a big, shelled pecan.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  “When did you last talk to her?”

  Lipsky drove in the outside lane of Poplar Avenue toward downtown. He was tempted to put the blue light on the roof, to take on some real speed, but he didn’t yet know where he was going, only that they needed to find Liza French.

  Eli rode shotgun in the detective’s car. “A few days ago,” he answered. “Liza seemed more concerned with the malpractice suit than the fact that two members of her medical team had been murdered.”

  “Now that number is up to five.” Lipsky stopped at a red light. “Maybe she just wanted to change the subject.”

  “You think she’s responsible for all this?”

  “Most everyone involved in that botched operation is dead, right? Don’t you doctors always cover your tracks?”

  Lipsky was correct. Five of the seven personnel from the first botched operation were dead. Eli stared at him, waited for Lipsky to retract that statement. He didn’t.

  “By killing her surgical team? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Lipsky accelerated through the intersection. “Somebody’s killing these people. And that someone has got to have a reason. In the homicide business, we call that motive.”

  “Thanks for the lesson.”

  “And we’ve got to consider all possibilities.”

  “Like?”

  “Like someone connected to the surgical deaths. Family, friends, business associates who may have lost income or power because of the deaths.”

  Eli looked at Lipsky with pure skepticism. “Business associates?”

  “Sometimes people crack, Eli. Normal, sane, well-meaning people just go off. It’s not only postal workers. Respected businessmen, housewives. Take your Dr. French Kiss, for example. She’s had two patient deaths in the OR within six months. She’s in deep shit. Her career’s in jeopardy and she’s facing criminal charges. She’s thinking her medical team will say she’s at fault, the one to blame, negligent.” Lipsky turned to Eli. “She’s found a way to keep them from talking. Permanently.”

  As Lipsky said this, Eli shook his head. “She’s five foot five, maybe a hundred twenty pounds. Sound like someone who could string a body from a chain?”

  Lipsky spoke after a moment. “Had a granny in a wheelchair once. Son-in-law assaulted her granddaughter. You know what I mean?”

  Eli lay his head back against the seat. Closed his eyes. He wished he could close his ears.

  “She found him, held him at gunpoint, and cut his balls off with a hedge clipper.”

  Lipsky waited for that to sink in.

  “So don’t tell me how small your doctor friend is.”

  Eli had nothing to say to that. He could think only about his testicles and sharp garden tools.

  “Besides,” Lipsky continued. “I didn’t say how she could have done it. Maybe she had help. Maybe she used some of that big doctor money and paid someone.”

  Lipsky was enjoying this. Eli let him roll on.

  “Hell, for all I know, she’s got you sucked into this.”

  “Yeah, Lipsky, I’m sneaking around at night killing my colleagues and helping you during the day.”

  “I’ve done my research,” Lipsky said. “I know you two were an item a few years back.” He slapped the dashboard. “Old love dies hard.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Alex’s Tavern is a small bar on Jackson Avenue in Midtown. Known for late-night entertainment and friendly bar service, it’s
a popular hang spot for students from the medical school and undergrads from nearby Rhodes College. Liza French didn’t care much for the beer, but she had a deep appreciation for the young male patrons. She scooted her stool closer to the bar. No longer did she have to request a glass of Chardonnay. Joe, the bartender, had it waiting for her on a little square white napkin.

  At nine o’clock, it was a little early yet for the late crowd. The musician for the night plugged in his amp and started an awful rendition of guitar tuning that didn’t bode well for the music to come.

  One couple sat off by themselves near a corner. A booth held three guys wearing team softball jerseys laughing over a pitcher of beer.

  How boring, Liza thought. She took a sip of wine and replaced the glass in the exact center of the napkin. A man sat down on the bar stool next to her. Older than the average student, he was in his early thirties maybe, black hair cut short under a baseball cap. Even in the dim light, Liza caught a glimpse of a few gray strands. He ordered a draft beer, and Liza watched bartender Joe fill a mug, cap off the foamy head.

  She waited to see if Joe knew him. Joe, of course, knew anyone and everyone who frequented the bar. He pushed the beer to the man and asked if he wanted to start a tab. Definitely not a regular.

  “That depends,” he said.

  Liza felt his gaze upon her.

  “On how long this takes.”

  He raised the mug and took a long gulp. He had a sturdy build and Liza watched the flex of a tattoo on his arm, three cute little animals in a column. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

  Nice. Liza took a sip of wine, handed her napkin to him, and sat her glass down on the bar top.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  Liza raised her glass. “You should try wine. Not quite as messy.” Then she ran her tongue across her lips.

  After a few minutes of small talk, the man told Joe, “No tab, I’ll just pay for these two and we’ll be on our way.”

  Liza watched the headlights of his black Trans Am in her rearview mirror as he followed her into Victorian Village. She hadn’t seen a Trans Am in years, the type of car driven by bad boys. She thought the make had disappeared in the early eighties. She remembered now that she liked them. Especially black ones.

  She drove around to the back of her house into the garage. He parked on the street. Layla met him at the front door and let him in.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  Lipsky parked on Adams Street several houses away from Liza’s. He leaned low across the seat to see her house through Eli’s window. A Japanese lantern burned in the uppermost dormer.

  “I didn’t know anyone actually lived over here,” Lipsky said. “In all this Victorian crap.” He was still stretched across the seat, too close to Eli. “Used to be a bunch of museums you had to pay to see.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s crap,” Eli said, pushing Lipsky back to the driver’s seat. “All that about Liza being involved. If anything, she’s in danger herself. Hell, for all we know, she’s already dead.”

  The car was smothering hot. Lipsky opened the door to get out.

  “We’re just asking her some questions,” he said. “If I like her answers, I’ll get police protection all over her. I’m sure she’ll like that.”

  Layla escorted Liza’s guest up the spiral staircase. He watched her miniskirt climb above him and lagged behind just enough to see that she wasn’t wearing underwear. Halfway up the stairs, he stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Where’s—you know?”

  Layla smiled at him. “You don’t even know her name, do you?” She continued to climb and didn’t wait for an answer. He followed her without stopping again.

  Liza waited for them in her study on the third floor, having climbed the fire escape that zigzagged along the back wall of the house to this room. She took a deep calming breath after scurrying up the three flights of metal stairs. She stood still, admiring all the robotic surgery equipment she’d accumulated, and thought how this was a perfect room for entertaining. This would be the last escapade. Then she and Layla would stop. She would get her life in order. They would move far away and maybe the investigation wouldn’t follow her. The possibility of freedom excited her. The door to the study opened and Layla escorted the Trans Am man into the room.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Liza took both of his hands and walked backward, pulling him into the study.

  “I wondered where you went,” he told her.

  “I wanted to get things tidied up for you,” she said.

  He looked back at Layla. Two beautiful women in the same room. “You’re coming, too, aren’t you?”

  Layla stepped closer. “Dr. French and I always work as a team.”

  He pulled back against Liza and stopped her. “You’re a doctor?”

  “Yes. And I’m going to show you things you never knew about yourself.”

  Layla brushed up behind him. He didn’t seem the least bit intimidated. “Would you like to play doctor with us?”

  He looked at the equipment in the room, especially the table, with its sturdy leather straps and steel arms attached like a kind of new-age exercise equipment.

  “Are we going to use all this?”

  Liza began unbuttoning his shirt. “We just might.”

  Layla massaged his neck. When Liza released the last button, she pulled his shirt off, noticed the bulk of muscle around his shoulders. Layla ran her fingers over the tattoos on his arm.

  He kept his hands at his side, in submission to whatever they chose to do next.

  Layla had reached around his waist and unclasped the top button of his jeans when the doorbell rang.

  She stopped and looked at Liza.

  Then the doorbell rang again.

  “Is there another one of you?” he asked, hopefully.

  Neither Liza nor Layla said anything, waiting for whoever was at the door to go away.

  “I thought maybe there were three of you.” He flicked his eyebrows. “You know, triplets.”

  By the third chime, it was obvious the visitor wasn’t leaving. Liza sent Layla to answer the door and send whoever it was away.

  With only the two of them in the room now, the man appeared uncomfortable. “That beer’s catching up with me,” he told Liza. “Where’s your bathroom?”

  The bathroom was on the second floor, next to a guest bedroom. Liza pulled him toward the door, still distracted by the interruption. “Come, I’ll show you.”

  “No,” he said, stopping her. He ran a finger down the front of Liza’s blouse. “I don’t want you going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  What’s keeping Layla?

  Liza looked out of her small third-floor window. The black Trans Am was the only car parked on the street. Whoever came to the door must have walked up. Probably a street person. Layla had the habit of giving the homeless handouts so they would leave. But she would have sent them away and been back by now. And where was their guest? Men can pee in twenty seconds. They don’t have to wipe or wash or anything. She had not even heard the toilet. Apparently, they don’t flush either.

  Liza began to regret bringing this man to her house. The thrill of the chase had faded. What began as a welcome escape from the troubles of the investigation and lawsuit, the loss of her robotic surgery program and her career, now seemed most irresponsible.

  That’s what these flings with Layla and the next-available-and-willing male were all about. Total escape. Whenever she and Layla were entertaining, feeling the anticipation in this room and seeing a touch of fear in the eyes of the next conquest made her own problems seem a universe away.

  She and Layla did have a great setup, she had to admit. And the game was always the same. Layla would admit their male guest through the front door while Liza waited upstairs. It all fit with the Victorian pattern of secrecy. Layla would lead the man up the stairs to the hidden chamber. There, they would seduce him. It never took much effort, what with Layla dres
sing and acting like a nymph and Liza controlling the action. Then the surgical equipment came in to play. The table, leather straps, stainless steel.

  Tonight, however, her moment of passion had been killed by the doorbell. This was the last time she would bring a stranger home. And she would tell the medical students, those impressionable young men, that she could no longer serve as their extracurricular advisor. It was all too risky.

  Liza heard two sets of footsteps coming up the stairs. She tried to feel sexy again. It wasn’t happening. The man opened the door and stood there, smiling.

  “Did you miss me?”

  Something about him had changed. The way he looked at her. He was no longer wanting her or needy. Not in that way. He was confident, as though he was now in charge.

  “Look who I found.”

  He moved from the doorway so that Layla could enter. Except it wasn’t Layla.

  Cate Canavan walked into the room.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Cate’s sudden appearance shocked Liza. She tried to rationalize what was happening. She had invited Cate, as her student, to come to her house and practice on the robotic equipment whenever she wanted. But tonight? At this hour? And where the hell was Layla? Of most concern was the manner in which Cate and this man spoke to each other. It was unmistakable. They knew each other.

  “Is it okay if we practice on your equipment?” Cate asked.

  The way he and Cate walked slowly toward her made Liza’s skin crawl. Did Cate ask can we practice?

  “I really appreciate your letting me come over like this,” Cate said. “Opening up your home.”

  Liza listened to Cate, but she kept watching this man, who came closer and closer. A few minutes ago she had wanted him. Now, all Liza wanted was for him to get the hell out of her house.

  Cate too, for that matter. Something was very different about her. Her language was polite, but her eyes betrayed her. She kept cutting glances at the man, then at Liza, back and forth.