The evil had begun when Kristen Starr's mother arrived looking for her and declaring that she'd been kidnapped. Then after Dr. Vee categorically denied he knew anything about her (a blatant lie), Kristen was brought back to the institute from wherever she'd been moved to, and she was visibly changed. She was whisked down to the subbasement the moment she arrived and immediately sealed off in intensive care, but it was clear she had no idea who she was or where she was. Something horrible had happened to her. And maybe it was imagination, but she no longer even looked like a grown woman.
Then this morning, Bartlett and his Japanese bodyguard brought in the young man who had accompanied Alexa
Hampton, but he wasn't put through the admissions formalities. Instead he was taken directly downstairs.
May at the front desk said she thought he was a newspaper reporter she’d met once when they were on a public‑health panel together. That was when Ellen realized he was Stone Aimes, that feisty medical columnist for the New York Sentinel.
Now Stone Aimes might be able to save Alexa Hampton.
Dr. Van de Vliet and Debra had carried out a special stem‑ cell procedure for her aortic stenosis, the first that they had attempted for that particular condition. The results, as shown by her file, were nothing short of astonishing. She’d begun responding in a matter of hours.
She should be in a room upstairs, so why was she still down in the subbasement?
Now Ellen O'Hara knew the reason.
She had seen in the file that they were going to perform the Beta procedure on Alexa Hampton. When they'd performed it on Kristen Starr, the result was a horrific side effect. And now they were going to do it again. Tonight.
The criminality that started with Kristen Starr and Katherine Starr was going to be compounded. She was about to become part of a criminal conspiracy. She had to put a stop to it.