Now that they were both dead and buried, there was no way to check. I asked Harvey about the possibility, but he just shrugged it off, which was not like him. I tried to press the issue, but the more I did, the more hostile Harvey became.

"Whose side are you on anyway?" he would ask.

"If you think the cure isn't working, go re-test Krutzer, Leander, and Singer."

I did. I was relieved to see that they were all still HFV negative.

But then again, they had not been treated as long as Trian or Whitherson. That bothered me. I was going to confront Harvey again but decided against it.

He was all worked up over the latest round of proposed budget cuts. The members of the medical budget committee were preparing to pounce upon us like so many vultures on a wounded animal. The competition for funds is incredible. We spend more time agonizing over budget cuts than on curing patients a shame but that is reality.

I decided to sneak behind Harvey's back and draw blood from Riccardo Martino (you will find his chart enclosed in the packet). Then I had his blood tested.

When the results of his Western blot and ELISA came back, I wanted to scream. Martino was HFV positive.

He had ADDS. I panicked and ran toward Harvey's office to tell him the awful news. But something made me stop. Harvey's blind dedication has always intimidated me, but for the first time I was actually afraid of him.

Our funding was about to be cut off, and I knew Harvey would do anything to keep us operating. But how far had he gone?

I walked into his office calmly and asked him when he planned on testing Martino again. He informed me that a result should be ready tomorrrow. I, of course, did not sleep that night. When I awoke in the morning, I sprinted into the lab, checked Martino's code number, and looked at the blood sample for myself. Imagine my surprise to find both the Western blot and ELISA test showed that Martino was HIV negative, not positive.

How could it be? Had one of the tests been wrong? Did SRI work? Was it a permanent cure or merely a temporary one? And how did the murders of Scott Trian and Bill Whitherson fit in? Were the murders a plot to destroy the clinic? A terrible coincidence? Or was there something else going on?

On the other hand, I had tested Krutzer, Leander, and Singer myself, and they were all cured. There was no question about it. So what exactly was I afraid Harvey had done? Tampered with some patients and not others? That would make no sense. Besides, Winston O'Connor ran most of the tests. Sometimes Eric. Very rarely did Harvey do any lab work.

It took me a while, Susan, but eventually I figured out what he was up to. The proof of Harvey's crimes is in this packet.

My plane is landing so I will have to wrap this up now.

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I do not know what will happen once I land. For that reason I will save the long explanations and give you some specific instructions. Enclosed are my private journals on each patient. I picked up the blood samples from our storage house in Bangkok. As per the clinic's rules, all tested specimens were packaged after each test by either Eric Blake or Winston O'Connor. You will notice that there are two blood samples for each patient, labeled A and B. Sample A was taken from the patient when he was admitted (hence HFV positive). Sample B was taken when he was cured (hence HFV negative). Have someone you can trust run DMA tests on the two blood samples. When they don't match, it will become clear what has been done.

The plane is on the ground now. I do not know if Harvey is acting alone or with some help. I cannot imagine he slaughtered Trian and Whitherson on his own so I assume he has accomplices. I am sure that he is on to me. So tonight I will hide someplace.

Tomorrow morning I will confront him in the clinic where I know there will be a lot of witnesses and I will be safe. Since you are reading this letter, I guess I screwed up someplace. Know that I love you, Susan, and I am sorry for all the pain I caused. Please let Tommy know that his father will always love him and somehow I will always be with him.

Good- bye, Susan.

Bruce She did not move. She just sat for a very long time. There was no need to reread the note.

"Susanr She turned toward her sister.

"Bruce mentioned a package." "I mailed it to Harvey yesterday. He thought it might be important."

Susan sat up.

"Does anyone else know about this?"

"Just Sara. She's with Harvey now."

"I'm really sorry, Sara," Harvey said, moving the gun from his left hand into his right.

"I never wanted to hurt you."

Sara stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and horror.

"Your

"Yes."

"You murdered your own patients?"

"Not murdered," he corrected.

"Sacrificed. I'm not a monster, Sara."

She glanced at the still body behind her.

"Tell that to Eric." He smiled his weary smile.

"You don't understand." She said nothing.

"It was an impossible struggle from the beginning," he continued.

"Powerful people tried to squash us. You can't imagine what we went through to get the initial funding for this place."

Her voice, when it finally came, sounded hollow.

"You killed your own patients?"

"They were already dying."

"From what?"

"AIDS."

Pause.

"I thought they were cured."

"No." He smiled sadly.

"Please, Sara, you have known me for a long time. I am not an evil man. I want you to understand before... "Before, what?"

"I'm sorry. I wish there was another way, but there isn't. As soon as Jennifer told you about the package, the decision was out of my hands.

"I'll have no problem convincing her that Brace's package had nothing to do with the Gay Slasher. But you would have insisted on the DNA tests."

"You're going to kill me." It was not a question.

"You will have to be sacrificed, yes."

"And you're going to kill our baby."

He winced.

"I wish I didn't have to. You see, Sara, AIDS is a disease unlike any other. One minute the world is focused on it. The next, no one cares.

I needed a way to maintain focus."

"SRI doesn't work, does it? It never did. It was all a lie." "It worked perfectly in the animal tests," he said.

"Even the PDA agreed with that. The problem is we have not been able to get it to work on humans. But it's just a matter of time until "

"Then Michael is doomed."

He shook his head.

"I'm so close, Sara, so damn close. All I needed was a little more time to perfect the formula. But our grant was not going to be extended. Sanders and his fellow conspirators would have seen to that.

Our funds were about to be cut off. I needed something, Sara. Some way of keeping the funds."

"So you faked a cure?" "It was easy really," he said.

"I was the one who drew the blood from Trian, Whitherson, and Martino.

All I had to do was switch test tubes replace their blood specimens with someone's who was HIV negative. It went perfectly."

"Then why did you murder them?" "Because they were dying," he said.

"SRI had managed to put the HIV into a sort of remission for a while, but eventually the treatment accelerated their deterioration. I could only dismiss their worsening condition as a drug side effect for so long. I had to get rid of the evidence. The AIDS virus would have killed them anyway in another month or two."

"So you had them murdered."

He shook his head.

"I didn't have George 'murder' anybody.

I had him speed up the inevitable."

"I can't believe this."

"I did it for them, Sara, not for me."

"For them?" she repeated incredulously.

"You took away their last precious months of life for them?"

"I did not want them to die in vain. I wanted their deaths to mean something, to benefit the AIDS movement."