Blood Debt - By Tanya Huff Page 0,93

the damp dome of his head. "You don't think she knows anything, do you?"

The doctor studied him dispassionately. The ex?change with the reporter had clearly unsettled him. "Knows what?" she asked as though there were, in?deed, nothing to know.

"If she's watching my house and she saw you this morning ..."

"She'd assume, like anyone else, my visit concerned the clinic."

"But... "

"She's making you paranoid."

Swanson visibly pulled himself together. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Mui. Something about that woman invari?ably causes me to overreact."

"Apparently, she has that effect on most people," the doctor allowed. "Do we have a buyer?"

"We do. He'll be here tomorrow afternoon."

"Good. I'll set up the transfusions as soon as he arrives, and if all goes well, we'll perform the surgery the day after." She brushed past him and opened the door. "Shall we?"

"Before we go around, have there been any changes I should know about since last week?" he asked as he followed her into the hall.

"Mathew Singh died this morning."

"Mathew Singh," Swanson repeated. The mix of grief and anger in his voice contrasted sharply with the clinical detachment in the doctor's. "He was only thirty-seven years old."

"He had been on dialysis for some time. He went to status four two days ago."

"It's criminal. Absolutely criminal." As it always did, anger began to overwhelm the grief. "We're talk?ing about an uncomplicated operation with broad pa?rameters for a match, and still people die. What is wrong with our legislators that they can't see pre-sumed consent upon brain death is only the moral option. I mean, look at France-they've had presumed consent since 1976 and their society hasn't crumbled. Well, except for that Jerry Lewis thing, and you can hardly blame that on transplants."

As Swanson continued his familiar diatribe, Dr. Mui worked out a timetable for the next forty-eight hours. Attention to detail had brought them this far unde?tected, and although the odds of their unwilling donor causing any trouble were slim, he was a detail that had to be carefully considered. Live transplants had a ninety-seven percent initial success rate over ninety-two percent for cadavers, and, since the very rich could not only afford the best immunosuppressant drugs but tended to be paranoid about post-op infec-tions, all of their buyers had, thus far, beaten the odds. Perhaps in this particular instance she should forgo that five percent....

Celluci jerked awake out of a dream that involved a great deal of blood and not much else he could remember. He lay quietly for a moment, listening to the pounding of his heart, feeling the sweat pool be?neath the restraints, a little surprised that he'd slept at all. From the change in the pattern of shadow on the opposite wall, he figured it had to be close to four, maybe five in the afternoon. Sunset was at 7:48. By nine at the absolute latest, Vicki would be riding to the rescue.

She'd tear the clinic, and anything that got in her way, apart looking for him. Almost a pity Sullivan won't be there, he thought, amusing himself for a mo?ment or two with a vision of Vicki and Sullivan face-to-face.

If the clinic came up empty, Vicki'd go after Swanson. If Swanson was involved, the calvary would arrive before midnight, and at this point, he'd worry about bringing the police in after his butt was safe and sound. But if Swanson wasn't involved-and there was still no sure indication that he was-Vicki'd have no quick way of finding him.

And she'd only have until dawn.

He had an unpleasant feeling that dawn would be the deadline in more than one respect. The bandage over the puncture in the crease of his elbow itched, suggesting he not wait around to be rescued. If they were taking his blood, what else would they take? Could surgery be far behind? And after surgery...

"Oh, Christ, that's just what I need-an eternity haunting Henry-fucking-Fitzroy.''
Chapter Twelve
THEY were still there. Henry knew it before he opened his eyes. As the day's weight lifted off him, the certainty of their presence settled down to replace it. One of two things had to have happened; either the people who'd grabbed Celluci had evaded arrest, or there were other people involved the police investi?gation hadn't yet uncovered.

There is, of course, the third possibility. He lay si?lently listening to the lives around him, senses skim?ming past the absence of life that waited at the end of his bed. Perhaps due process wasn't good enough. They want a vengeance more evisceral and less... Unfortunately, the only word