With that, she had given Nina a kiss on the forehead and taken the marble stairs down to the first‑floor reception.
It was now time to find Kristen Starr.
The nurse at the desk was a woman named May Gooden. The main floor had returned to normal after all the excitement, with patients passing through as they came back from the cafeteria.
Ally had decided to try a long shot and see if she could pry out any information about Kristen from the patient files. She asked point‑blank.
"I guess Dr. Van de Vliet was not aware of the legal strictures in our NIH agreement," May had said. "No personal information can be released without a patient's signed authorization."
"You do remember her being here, though? Kristen Starr."
"My Lord, that's not something that goes unnoticed. She had an assumed name but everybody knew who she was. A nice girl. Nicer than you'd expect from seeing her on television."
"So when, exactly, did she leave? Surely you can tell me that harmless piece of information? It was several months ago, right?"
May got a strange look in her eyes. "Who told you that?"
"I . . . I was downstairs when her mother showed up. I just got the impression that it was—"