"Then could you at least keep your voice down," Debra Connolly said, her composure hard as ice. The jab had bounced right off. Underneath the beauty pageant exterior she was all steel and sinew. "There are patients upstairs...."
The hapless security man who'd been trailing behind the woman had gone over to the positive‑pressure door of the laboratory and was desperately banging on the glass and waving for Dr. Van de Vliet. A moment later, he strode out, still wearing his white lab jacket.
"You," the woman hissed, turning to meet him. "You're the one who has her. You and that bastard Bartlett."
"Madam, I must ask you to leave," he said warily as he came up to her. "Immediately." He glanced down at the pistol. "Otherwise I'll have to call the police."
Although he was giving the impression that the woman was just an anonymous annoyance, Ally was sure she caught a glimmer of recognition, and a patina of poorly disguised panic, in his eyes.
"I want to see Kristen, damn you. I want to know what you've done with her. To her. You and that bastard Winston Bartlett who got her into—"
"Kristen?" He seemed puzzled. Then he appeared to remember. "There was a patient here briefly a while back, who I believe was named—"
"Kristen Starr. That's right, you fucker. And you damned well do remember her. And me. She's my daughter. Where is she?"
My God, Ally thought, could she mean that Kristen Starr, the one who had an interview show on cable. The world around this institute just keeps getting smaller.
Ally had actually done an interior‑design project for Kristen