So, he thought, clearing his head, she's running a design business now. He wondered how that had happened. The last time he saw her, she was a single-minded student of architecture. Intensely focused.
No message. Don't leave a message. It probably would freak her out. Actually, it might freak them both out.
Assuming she was the new patient, how the hell did Ally get involved with Winston Bartlett? It probably would have something to do with that heart condition she didn't like to talk about.
He clicked off the phone and settled it onto the desk. Then he glanced again at the computer screen and decided to go back to the NIH files. The other woman, Nina, he would look up later. Ally's Brit mum must be getting on by now, but still it was hard to imagine anything being wrong with her; as he remembered Nina, the woman was well nigh indestructible
When he got back to the NIH Web site and went to the "sunshine" page, it was again blank. The two new names, Nina Hampton and Alexa Hampton, were not there anymore. They must have been entered immediately into the clinical trials. But why now? If Van de Vliet kept to the original schedule, the trials would be over in a matter of days.
Maybe, he thought, this was a momentary screw-up. I just happened to be at the right place at the right fleeting moment, when somebody, somewhere, was entering those names. Maybe some NIH bureaucrat hit the wrong key on a keyboard someplace in Maryland.
But it was the break he'd been waiting for.
He turned off the IBM and headed for the fridge and another Brooklyn Lager. Ally, Ally, Ally. Can it be you? This is so weird.
Worse than that, it was painful. There was that immortal line from Casablanca: "Of all the gin joints in all... she walks into mine."
Coming back, he sat down, took a long hit on the icy bottle, and reached for the phone.
As she hung up, Ally wondered again what she was getting into. But she did want to meet this miracle worker. The kind of thing Van de Vliet was talking about sounded as much like science fiction as anything she'd ever heard. Still, his voice was reassuring, even mesmerizing, and there seemed no reason not to at least check out the Dorian Institute firsthand. But then what? Help!