Jack jumped into the car and quickly dialed Latasha's number. As he'd done with his call to Alexis, he put his phone on speaker and placed it on the passenger seat. By the time he was driving out of the hospital parking lot, Latasha answered.

"Where are you?" she asked. "I'm here in my office. I got two hot pizzas and two large Cokes. Where are you at?"

"I'm just leaving the hospital. I'm sorry it has taken as long as it has, but I learned something possibly important. Patience Stanhope's biomarker test was negative when it was read by the hospital analyzer."

"But you told me it was positive."

"That was from a bedside biomarker kit," Jack said. He carefully explained what he'd learned from the lab supervisor.

"What it all comes down to," Latasha said when Jack was finished, "is that now we're not sure she had a heart attack, which would be consistent with what we found during the post."

"Precisely, and if that is the case, the toxicology is going to be key."

"I already dropped the samples off at the toxicology lab with a note for Allan to give me a call."

"Perfect," Jack said. He couldn't help but marvel at how lucky he was to have Latasha helping him. If it hadn't been for her, he might have given up after finding nothing in the heart.

"I guess this puts the mourning husband in the crosshairs," Latasha added.

"There are still some inconsistencies," Jack said, remembering Alexis's points against Jordan 's being the bad guy "but generally I agree, as trite and venal as it sounds."

"When will you be here?"

"As soon as I can. I'm coming up to Route Nine. You're probably a better judge than I. Why don't you start on the pizza while it's hot."

"I'll wait," Latasha said. "I've got myself busy making us some frozen sections of the heart."

"I'm not sure I'll be eating much," Jack said. "I've gotten myself psyched. I feel like I've had ten cups of coffee."

When Jack flipped his phone shut, he checked the time. It was almost ten thirty, which meant Latasha's friend would soon be arriving at the toxicology lab. Jack hoped he'd have a lot of free time, since Jack could imagine keeping him busy most of the night. Jack had no illusions about the power of toxicology to detect poisons. It was not as easy a process as it was often portrayed in the popular media. For large concentrations of the usual drugs there usually was no problem, but for trace amounts of more toxic and lethal compounds that could kill a person in very small dosages, it was like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Jack stopped at a traffic light and impatiently drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The warm, soft, humid June air wafted in through the missing window. He was glad he'd taken the time to visit the hospital, although he now felt embarrassed about the idea of a hospital cover-up. Nonetheless he rationalized that the idea had indirectly led to his questioning whether Patience Stanhope had suffered a heart attack.

The light turned green, and he moved on. The problem was she still might have had a heart attack. Wayne had admitted that even with his vaunted absorbance analyzer, the rate of false negatives was higher than false positives. Jack sighed. There was nothing about this case that was simple and straightforward. Patience Stanhope was proving to be a problem patient even in death, which reminded him of his favorite lawyer joke: What's the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute? The prostitute stops screwing you when you die. From Jack's perspective, Patience was assuming some annoying lawyer-like qualities.

As Jack drove, he mulled over his promise to check in on Craig, who was probably at that time already in a deep, drug-and-alcohol-induced slumber. Jack wasn't excited about the idea and thought it unnecessary since, in his estimation, Craig was not suicidal in the slightest, and, as an intelligent physician, Craig was well aware of the power of the medications he was taking. On the other hand, the good side of making such a visit would be a chance for Jack to check what kind of biomarker kit Craig used and whether it was outdated. Until he had that information, he couldn't intelligently decide whether or not there was a higher than usual chance the result had been a false positive.

For almost five minutes Jack had watched the hands of the institutional wall clock as they implacably jumped staccato-fashion toward one thirty a.m. With the final leap of the minute hand, Jack took a breath. He hadn't realized he'd not been breathing for the final seconds, since the time was a mini-milestone. Exactly twelve hours hence he would be married, and all the years he'd avoided the issue would be history. It seemed inconceivable. Except for the relatively recent past, he'd practically institutionalized being by himself. Was he capable of marriage and thinking of two people instead of one? He didn't really know.

"Are you all right?" Latasha asked, yanking Jack back to reality by reaching out and briefly gripping his forearm.

"Fine. I'm fine!" Jack blurted. She'd startled him.

"I thought you were having an absence seizure. You didn't move a muscle for the last few minutes. You didn't even blink. What on earth were you thinking that had you so mesmerized?"

Despite being an intensely private person, Jack almost told Latasha what had been on his mind to get a fresh viewpoint. Such a reaction surprised him, even though he acknowledged having developed a strong affinity toward the woman. Except for his detour to the Newton Memorial Hospital, they had been closely working together for some six hours and had fallen into a natural familiarity. When Jack had arrived at the Boston medical examiner's office, they'd taken over what was supposed to be the library, but the shelves were mostly empty, in hope of future funding. The room's major asset was a large library table, onto which Jack had spread the contents of Craig's malpractice file and organized them so he'd be able to find anything in particular if there was a need. At the far end of the table were several open pizza boxes, paper plates, and large cups. Neither had eaten much. Both had been consumed by the conundrum of Patience Stanhope.

They had also carried in the dual-headed stereo-dissecting microscope and, sitting on opposite sides of the table, had spent several hours opening and tracing all the coronary arteries. Like their larger and more proximal brethren, all the distal vessels were normal and clear. Jack and Latasha had paid particular attention to those branches serving the heart's conduction system.

The last stage of examining the heart was to be the microscopic. They'd taken specimens from all areas of the heart but again concentrated in and around the conduction system. Before Jack had arrived, Latasha had made a series of frozen sections from a small sampling, and the very first thing they had done on his arrival was to stain them and then put them out to dry. At the moment, they were in the wings waiting for their cue.

Just after they'd finished staining the slides, Allan Smitham had called. He apparently had been pleased to hear from Latasha, at least it seemed so to Jack from the side of the rather personal conversation he was forced to hear even though he was trying not to. He felt uncomfortable that he was intruding, but the good news was that Allan was eager to help and would run the toxicology screen immediately.

"I didn't come up with any new ideas," Jack said in response to Latasha's question about what was on his mind. Back when his eyes had strayed to the clock and its staccato movement had hypnotized him into thoughts of his intimidatingly imminent marriage, he was supposed to have been trying to think up new theories about Patience. He'd related to Latasha all his old theories by essentially repeating what he'd told Alexis on the phone en route to the hospital. Throwing all pretenses of self-respect to the wind, he included the drug overdose/wrong drug idea even though in hindsight it sounded inane, almost dim-witted, and Latasha had responded appropriately.