After they’d climbed into the Porsche, Cassi asked Thomas if he felt well enough to drive. Thomas assured her that he was fine. Cassi reached up and pulled down her seat belt. As usual she had the urge to tell Thomas to do the same, but she thought better of it. She had the feeling that his emotions were so volatile, he would explode at the slightest frustration.
Thomas started the car and carefully backed out of the parking lot. After they’d passed through the automatic gate, Cassi asked how Dr. Ballantine had found Thomas so quickly.
“I called him during the night when I couldn’t find you,” said Thomas, stopping for a red light. “I had a feeling you might go to see him. I asked him to call me in my office if he heard from you.”
“Didn’t he think it was a little odd? What exactly did you say?”
The light changed and Thomas accelerated toward Storrow Drive. “I just told him you had another insulin reaction.”
Cassi considered her own behavior. She recognized that her actions would appear irrational, especially signing out of a hospital against medical advice when she had barely been stabilized. Then hiding from everyone.
As usual Thomas drove recklessly, and when they reached Storrow Drive Cassi braced herself against the door for the sharp left turn that would take them toward Weston. Instead Thomas swung the wheel to the right, and Cassi had to grab the dash to keep from falling against him. He must have turned out of habit, thought Cassi.
“Thomas,” she said. “We’re heading home rather than to Vickers.”
Thomas didn’t answer.
Cassi turned to look at him. He seemed to be holding the wheel in a death grip as the speedometer gradually inched upward. Cassi reached over and put her hand on his neck, massaging the tight muscles. She wanted to get him to calm down. She could sense that he was becoming enraged.
“Thomas, what is the matter?” asked Cassi, trying to keep her fear in check.
Thomas did not respond, driving the car as if he were an automaton. They rose up the ramp, banked, and merged into the multiple lanes of Interstate 93. At that time of the morning there was no outbound traffic, and Thomas let the car go.
Cassi turned toward him as much as her seat belt would allow. She let her hand trail down Thomas’s side, at a loss as to what to do. Her fingers hit something sharp in Thomas’s jacket pocket. Before he could react, Cassi reached in and pulled out an opened package of U500 insulin.
Thomas snatched the package away, returning it to his pocket.
Cassi turned and watched the road rush toward her in a bewildering blur. Her mind was racing as she began to understand the cause of her last insulin reaction. There could only be one reason for Thomas to have U500 insulin. It was a rarely used drug. He must have replaced her U100 insulin with the more concentrated drug, forcing her to give herself five times her normal dosage. It would have been easy enough to do, forcing a syringe through the sealed cap in the same way that she drew out her regular dosage. If it had not been for her glucose solution, she’d have been in a coma now, or maybe worse. And the hospital episode? She hadn’t been dreaming when she smelled the Yves St. Laurent cologne. But why?
Because she, like Robert, was analyzing the sudden death data. Suddenly it was clear that Thomas’s performance before they left the hospital had been a trick. With horror she realized that Ballantine must have thought she was the mentally troubled person, not Thomas.
Cassi felt the emergence of a new emotion: anger. For a moment it was directed almost as much at herself as at Thomas. How could she have been so blind?
Turning, she studied Thomas’s sharp profile, seeing it in a different light. His lips looked cruel and his unblinking eyes appeared deranged.
It was as if she were with a stranger … a man whom she intuitively despised.
“You tried to kill me,” hissed Cassi, tightening her hands into fists.