CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“I hope you don’t mind me dropping by unannounced,” said Haines. “I was just having a little unofficial walkabout and thought I’d see if you had a moment.” Jack accepted the handshake warily. “I’m hooking up with my team shortly and we’re meeting with Jan Cummings on the other side of the campus, so I can’t linger long,” Haines went on. “And you’ve got some kind of unexpected visitor waiting. I wanted mainly to say that your board’s decision to show you the exit had no input from me. I think it’s a stupid waste of talent. With your permission, I’ll ask them to reverse course. I’d like you to stay.”

There was something about Haines’s enunciation of stay that brought visions of dog training to Jack’s mind.

Haines continued. “I know you wanted to prevent this transition. That simply tells me you’ve got qualities my organization needs—independent thinking and creativity, not to mention experience.” Haines laid a hand on his shoulder, gently. “I don’t need an immediate answer. Take your time.” Giving the shoulder an almost imperceptible squeeze, Haines smiled. “This isn’t selling your soul to the devil, Jack. You and I are on the same side. Quality health care and service to our patients.” Haines dropped his hand. “And—not that it should or would influence your decision, my friend—by national standards, you’re underpaid. We will fix that. Let’s make a time to talk more.” His smile grew charmingly crooked. “We’ll even get you a proper receptionist, so strangers like me and the lady waiting out there don’t just walk in on you.”

The ember of anger that had begun glowing in Jack’s chest broke into an open flame. He looked out the window, his face burning. The workforce here was about to be decimated, and this man had just offered him a raise to help wield the scythe.

“I’ve already submitted my resignation. I’m not rescinding it.”

Haines nodded indulgently. “I expected that to be your first reaction. You’re still upset. That must have stung like hell. But your colleagues would certainly be relieved to know you’re staying. Think of it from their angle.”

“There’s no chance I would stay,” Jack said flatly.

“Sleep on it, at least,” Haines said, extending his hand to shake. “For what it’s worth, Jack . . . we did a deep dive on your background and found a little skeleton in your closet.”

Jack cocked his head.

“Yes,” Haines pushed on. “You’ve got a police file. You’re lucky to have risen this far.”

Jack drew in a breath sharply. “That was expunged a long time ago.”

Haines smiled. “As I’m sure you’re aware, that kind of blemish will make it hard for you to find an equivalent position elsewhere in the country. But for me and HWA, what you’ve done since is all that matters.”

Jack met the tall man’s stare, his throat tightening.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Jack, what would you do otherwise?”

“Practice emergency medicine somewhere,” he shot back.

Haines grinned broadly. “Reminds me of a story. The president of a coal mine, you see, got fed up with paperwork and meetings, so he decided to don a helmet and work up a sweat with his old friends down one of the shafts. But after an hour working the seam, he came back up into the light and never went underground again. With us, Jack, you could rise as high as you’d want. Maybe you’ll have my job someday.”

Jack kept his eyes locked on Haines and said nothing.

Haines was undeterred. “Well, if you change your mind, reach out. At the rate we’re acquiring hospitals, you may have no choice but to work for us someday somewhere. Get in now while the getting’s good.” He turned and strode out the door, ducking to miss the lintel.

Tré stepped in a moment later and found Jack standing where Haines had left him. “Is everything okay, sir?”

Jack nodded, his heart still pounding.

“Do you want some more time, or should I send in that lady now?” Tré asked.

“Tell me again what it’s about.”

“Like I said, she wouldn’t tell me. It was weird, but she reminded me of that journalist. Her accent. I don’t want us to get burned again.”

“That makes two of us. What was her name?”

“Vlada Marina.”

“Let me see her.” Jack strode out into the reception area. The woman was sitting on the couch, a magazine on her lap. He noticed the bleary expression of someone who’d been up all night with a sick family member. She had short black hair, was attractive in a sharp-edged way.

“Ms. Marina?” Jack called.

She sprang to her feet. Of medium height, she had an unusually long neck.

“I know who you are,” she said, hesitantly. “I am very grateful for your time.” Her small Adam’s apple moved as she swallowed. Her lips looked dry.

“Have we met before?” he questioned.

“No, but I have seen you on the website. I have come a long way. I must talk with you, please. Something very important.”

Jack saw her glance at Tré, who was puttering a few feet away at a cabinet, obviously eavesdropping.

“Is this about a patient?” he said.

“May we talk in privacy?” She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “I beg you, please. It’s about the woman from Ukraine who came to see you.”

A strong tingle crawled up his spine. He stared at her for a long moment. “What do you know about that?”

“Please, Doctor. Privacy.”

He took a deep breath. “Tré,” he said over his shoulder. “We’ll be in my office for a moment.”

Inside, she gazed around then strode to the middle of the room, turning to face the windows. Jack closed the door and watched her set down her valise, her back to him. Then she leaned her head forward and brought her hands to her face. Her shoulders shuddered.

“I am sorry, Dr. Forester.” She straightened. I am not usually a person who shows emotion. It is such a relief to be here. A miracle.”

“No need to apologize. Your coat?”

“My coat?”

“It’s warm in here. May I take it for you?”

She opened her mouth as if to refuse, then handed it to him. “Thank you.”

He hung the tan woolen coat by the door. It carried a faint odor of mothballs. “Please have a seat.” He gestured toward the sofa. He sat in the armchair across the coffee table. She folded her hands on her knees.

“So,” he said, “what do you know?”

“I know that last week a woman came to see you who said she was a journalist from Ukrainian Week.”

“That’s correct.”

She hesitated. “She was an impostor. I know because I am Marianna Kovalenko. Not her.”

He stared at her. An urge to laugh passed through him like a shooting star and left in its wake a sense of wonder. How much more insane could life possibly become? Would Haines return dressed as a gangster?

“Wait,” she said. “I see you don’t believe. But please listen to me. If you do nothing else, just listen. I am not lying.”

“Marianna Kovalenko was identified by DNA from a hairbrush,” he said.

“It was not true. They somehow arranged for that to happen, the ones behind this. It is not the truth.”

“They?” Jack said. “Who do you mean by they?”

“The Russian oligarch Mikhail Potemkin, I believe, and his mob. Very big mob. Very powerful. Please, I beg you to listen. There is a way I can show you who I am.”

“And how’s that?”

“They said they would remove my few photographs from the internet. Potemkin is capable of this with the power of his internet skill. But after my escape when I got to Kyiv, my friend Anatoly who was almost beaten to death, he located one picture they didn’t take down. I was in gymnastics club at university in Ukraine for 2005 and 2006. Anatoly was there too. Kyiv Polytechnic. He said our group photo is still on the internet. Please look. I’m not that much different.”

She looked so earnest and beseeching. He went to his desk and opened a search engine, navigating to the website of Kyiv Polytechnic. The text was in Ukrainian. She strode up next to him. “I can do,” she said. He gave her the chair.

A moment later, he was looking at a photo of twenty young men and women. She expanded it and pointed at a slender girl with a short ponytail, leaning against the vaulting horse, one knee drawn up, and looking seriously at the camera. She was identified in the caption as Marianna Kovalenko. Jack studied the image, then looked at her again, back and forth. His neck tingled. It was her. Beyond a doubt.

Her eyes were boring into him. He nodded. “Yes. I believe you are the person in that photo.”

“I will never lie to you like she did.”

He looked away. “Why haven’t you gone to the police?”

“If you would listen to my story, you will understand.”

He looked at his watch. “Listen, I have several appointments coming up. I need to leave here in ten minutes. Tell me your story.”

She took him through a series of events that began one day the previous week when she’d left her office to shop and get a slice of pizza—her being grabbed, the dacha, the little man with the fedora, hearing the news about the actress’s death on Monday morning, her running away through the forest, the idea for witness protection, Anatoly’s help, calling her sister, the flight across the ocean, being brushed aside by the FBI, the clerk in the clothing store taking her to the bus station, and finally mistaking the tall man in Jack’s office for Jack himself.

Though his trust in his own judgment had been shaken, he listened with a growing sense that she was telling the truth. He looked at his watch. She’d been talking for fifteen minutes. He had to leave, but he no longer wondered who she was.

He wondered why the other woman had come in the first place.

She was dry-eyed and calmer now. “So that is why I am here. I somehow must prove that the other woman was not me. Then I can get into the Witness Protection Program. Otherwise, the criminals will find me and get away with this. Whatever was the reason for this deception, I do not know.”

“Ms. Kovalenko, an excellent local detective, is working on the case. We must get her involved.”

She rose. “No!”

“But—”

“Please, no. I’m asking you not to tell anyone. Not police. They will not believe. They will just say I am dead.”

“That’s not rational. This is not Ukraine. I can help.”

“And you do not know how powerful these people are. Please. Not until I can prove beyond doubt who I am. I need to have them take DNA from my apartment in Kyiv and do the comparison again. Not from the consulate. And why did they not check fingerprints?”

“They did. They matched prints from the hairbrush.”

“This only proves it was that woman’s hairbrush. How they got it to them, I do not know, but it is within their power, I am sure. We cannot trust fingerprint records from Ukrainian police. But I studied journalism in Leeds, England, for a year and had to have fingerprints taken at the school. They will be on record.”

“Okay, I hear what you’re saying. But I’m in danger of running late. I’ve got three appointments this afternoon. I’m making the rounds saying goodbye. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Wait for me here.”

“Why are you saying goodbyes?”

“Because I’m leaving this job the day after tomorrow.”

“Leaving?” she said, color draining from her face. “Why?”

He glanced at his watch and briefly summarized the unexpected financial crisis, his plan to avert the HWA takeover, the board losing confidence. “That’s the abridged version of a long story,” he said. “I’ll explain more later.”

“I am very sad to hear this,” she said.

“The important thing is finding out what the devil is going on. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Please, I ask you again,” she said, following him to the door. “Tell no one.”

“Tré is my assistant,” he said. “You can trust him.”

“No,” she said, her face set. “No one, please.”