First, the name of her father's favorite wine. No. Next, the date of his hole-in-one. Dammit. Again, no luck.
One more strike and she was out.
She racked her brain, trying to think with her father's mind.
What would he choose? What meant something to him that no one else would think of?
The model cars.
She looked down at the Rolls Royce, lying upside down on the sweeping curve of the semicircular desk. Of course. Cars were his passion. Not only that, but he had so many of them that he could update his password any time he felt a change would be prudent.
Well, this .little baby was the cream of his crop, his favorite by a landslide. It was also rare as hell, not in most people's vocabularies, much less their garages. If he'd thought to hide his card here, why wouldn't he use it as his PIN code?
Taking a deep breath, she typed in silverseraph and hit the enter key.
Her heart slammed against her ribs for what seemed like an eternity as she waited for the computer to respond—or to lock her out for good.
She was in.
She had to bite her lip to stifle a cry of exultation. Whooping aloud wouldn't be smart. The last thing she wanted was to be heard. Besides, there was no time for self-congratulation. It was already one-fifteen. She had to hurry.
"Zach.," she murmured quietly, leaning close to the phone. "I did it. It's a normal log-on from here." She pressed-the control-alt-delete keys to log on to Windows NT.
The screen changed, flashing the domain and user name—and the password space. The cursor flashed meaningfully alongside the word "password," instructing her to enter the appropriate keys in order to gain entry.
She paused, fingers hovering above the keyboard.
Her father didn't like complications. He'd go the least cluttered route possible, arrogantly believing no one could get this far.
Again, she typed silverseraph and hit the enter key.
Whirring sounds told her she'd spanned the last hurdle.
A few deft mouse clicks, and a listing of directories appeared.
Rapidly, she scrolled down. There was no Hope Institute. But there was a Hopewell Industries. She clicked on it, and nearly groaned aloud when she saw the number of files listed beneath it.
On a hunch, she snatched up the cell phone. "Zach?"
"I'm here."
"What dates do you have on the Hope Institute?"
"Dates ..." The rustle of papers. "It opened in the fall of 1991—September thirtieth, to be exact. It was sold by Hopewell Industries on August twenty-second, 1997."
"Thanks." She clicked on the date column header and began skimming the list for those dates. She found the 09/30/1991 entry and opened it. Nothing unusual, just papers documenting the clinic's opening. She moved to 1997. There it was—08/22/1997.
She opened the file.
The word "confidential" was written in bold block type across the top of the page—and every successive page she scrolled through.
Each time, she ignored it.
It was a whole group of legal documents, beginning with a contract of sale transferring the Institute to a Swiss holding company. No names of specific buyers were listed. Not a surprise.
After that, the documents were marked "Institute contracts." Intently, she scanned them, one by one.
It took her two minutes to realize what she was looking at, and ten seconds to decide what to do.
She opened her purse, whipped out the floppy disk she'd brought, and shoved it into the drive. Then she furiously clicked the mouse to copy the files to the floppy.
"Zach, I've got something," she said tersely into the phone. "I can't read through all these legal documents now—there are too many of them. It would take me an hour."
"You don't have an hour, Victoria," he bit out. "It's one-twenty-five. Miss Hatterman will be back any minute. I want you out of there."
"I'm copying the files onto a floppy. I'll be gone right after that." She cocked her head, listening for sounds from outside the office. But the walls were too thick to hear anything.
So as not to waste time, she picked up the model Rolls Royce and shut its doors, making sure it looked untouched. Hovering over the computer, she waited, car in hand, ready for the copying function to finish so she could yank out her father's Smart Card and Velcro it back into place.
The disk drive whirred as it did its job.
Damn, these things were slow.
"Victoria." Zach sounded livid. "Get the hell out of there. Now."
The whirring stopped.
"I'm done." She ejected the disk, shoved it in her purse, and began the shut-down process.
Three minutes later, she turned off the computer. She pressed the Smart Card back in its spot beneath the model Rolls Royce and set the car in its original spot on the desk.
Finished.
She scanned the office once, making sure she'd forgotten nothing.
Reassured, she snatched up her file and the cell phone, then headed for the door.
"I'm going to hang up now," she told Zach. "I've got an acquisition file with me that I was reviewing with Ian for my father. I'll pretend I'm looking it over as I walk back to my office—just in case Miss Hatterman's back at her desk. I'll call you later."
"Be careful."
"I will." She clicked off the phone, stuffed it back in her purse.
When she emerged from the office & minute later, she was engrossed in the contents of the file, her brow creased in thought.
Head bent, she walked by Miss Hatterman's desk.
It was still empty.
She'd reached the open area near the secretaries and receptionist and was about to turn down the corridor that led to her office when Miss Hatterman hurried by. "Ms. Kensington," she acknowledged with a nod.
"Hello, Miss Hatterman." A cordial smile, an unruffled demeanor.
After which, Victoria headed straight for her office. She crossed the threshold, shut the door, and collapsed behind her desk.
A minute longer and she would have been caught.
She pressed her fingers to her temples. Well, she hadn't been caught. But that was little cause for celebration. Because if what she had seen in her brief glimpse of the documents was anything close to what she thought it was, her father had more invested in the Hope Institute than even Zach realized.
6:30 p.m.
"Hi." Zach was waiting right outside 280 Park Avenue when Victoria stepped out of the building that evening.
Without the slightest hesitation or regard for the streams of commuters pounding the sidewalk on their way to Grand Central Station, he drew her against him and kissed her—a slow, lingering kiss that left her breathless.
"What was that?" she managed, when he finally lifted his head.
A corner of Zach's mouth lifted. "That was a loud-and-clear message to Mr. Cigar about your plans for the evening," he murmured. "It was also an I-missed-you kiss from the man you're going to marry and who worried himself sick about you all day." His smile faded when he saw the strained look on her face. "Are you all right?"
"Ask me that after you've seen what's on the disk."
He didn't ask any more questions, just nodded, steering her toward the curb. "The traffic's let up. We'll catch a cab. We can send out for something to eat."
"Instead of my apartment, can we go to your hotel?" Victoria surprised him by asking. "It's closer. We can have dinner there—in your suite." She glanced around, checking out the swarms of people and wondering how far away Mr. Cigar was and whether he was within hearing range. "Room service will send up food whenever we're ready."
Zach understood she was speaking cryptically, although he was clearly puzzled by her choice of destinations—puzzled, but not the least bit unhappy. "Sounds great."
He signaled for the next taxi.
They limited their choice of topics while they rode— which, fortunately, wasn't too long. Traffic had eased as the rush hour wound down, and their driver was a cowboy who weaved past eve
ry car and pedestrian on the street.
Fifteen minutes later they were in Zach's suite.
Victoria went straight over and poured herself a glass of wine.
"That bad?" Zach asked.
"I hope not. But I think so."
"Okay, pour one for me. I'm ordering you some dinner."
"I'm not hungry"
He paused halfway to the phone, eyes narrowed. "Victoria, you look like hell. You're eating, if I have to force-feed you."
Despite her tension, Victoria couldn't help but smile. "You're still as overbearing as ever. You're lucky I love you."
An intimate look that singed her to her toes. "Yes, I know I am. And later I plan to show you how grateful I am, until I have you convinced."
"Grateful?" Victoria's brows arched «i amused disbelief. "You're not the grateful type. That kind of convincing might take hours."
"I'm selfless. I'll suffer."
Unexpected laughter rippled through Victoria, and she gave a hard, amazed shake of her head. "Only you could make me laugh right now." She broke off, regarding him soberly. "Thank you."
"My pleasure."
Zach turned, went to the phone to order their food, and Victoria poured his wine, bringing both glasses into the living room and placing them on the table near where Zach had set up his IBM ThinkPad laptop. She settled herself on the sofa. Opening her purse, she pulled out the disk and stared broodingly down at it.
"Dinner will be up in a half hour," Zach announced, coming over to join her. He lowered himself to the cushion, twisting around so he could face her. "Why didn't you want to go to your apartment?"
Victoria's gaze lifted to meet his. "Originally I planned to. Then I started thinking. The FBI verified that someone's tapped into my phones. Maybe that someone's done the same thing to my computer."
Zach's forehead creased in a scowl. He, better than anyone, knew Victoria wasn't one to jump to conclusions—not without a basis. "It's possible. Why? Did something happen to make you suspicious?"
She shrugged. "I didn't think so at the time. Now, I'm not sure." She told Zach about the couple of occasions when her computer had denied her access, insisting that the user was already logged on. "And when I did finally manage to log on, I had an e-mail from the system administrator. It said something about there being a wiring problem on my local network—a problem that might be causing me to get faulty messages that prevented me from logging on."
"It probably also said the problem was in the process of being cleared up, and advised you to try again in a few minutes." Zach's scowl deepened. "That's a classic hacker technique. He'd post that e-mail before breaking into your system just in case you tried getting in when he was already logged on. My guess is he was checking to see if you'd saved anything on your hard drive that related to the Hope Institute, or if you'd really let the matter drop."
"Whoever 'he' is,"Victoria muttered.
"Probably a well-paid hacker hired by whoever hired Mr. Cigar."
Walter Kensington's name hung between them—an ugly but irrefutable possibility.
"Victoria" Zach emphasized quietly. "Don't jump to conclusions."
"I'm trying not to. In any case, my home computer is tied in to my office system, so our hacker managed to check both. Not that there was anything to find." Her gaze returned to the disk, which she turned over in her hands. "Now's another story."
"Bringing that disk here was a smart move ," Zach concurred. "There's no point in taking chances."
"No, there isn't. And while I might not be up on hackers and their methods, that bug on my telephone got my wheels turning. Anyway, here." She handed the disk to Zach.
He stared at it for a moment, and Victoria sensed he had something else to tell her, something she wasn't going to like. "I spoke to Meyer earlier," he said, jumping in with both feet. "He sent a man to your office late last night. There's a bug on the phones there, too."
That fact didn't surprise her—not at this point. But she had a sneaky suspicion why Zach didn't want to get into this. "How did the FBI handle things?"
"They left the phone tap where it was." Without missing a beat, he continued, addressing her anticipated objections before she could raise them. "I know you're going to have issues with that, because you'll feel it violates Paul and Meg's privacy. You're right. It does. But It'll only be for a few days. If the feds remove the bug, it'll undo everything we've worked for, not to mention putting you and Audrey in danger. Your partners will understand when you explain— after the investigation's over. Besides, whoever's bugging the phones isn't interested in anyone's conversations but yours. They're probably not even listening during the hours you spend at your father's firm. So don't fight me on this."
Zach's logic was indisputable, and Victoria gave a weary sigh. "Fine. I'm not sure I have the strength to fight anymore. I'm numb."
"No, you're not. You're just on overdrive." Tenderly, Zach caressed her cheek. "As for having the strength to fight, you'll never lose that. It's too deeply ingrained. And you're too good at it."
She smiled at his gentle teasing. "You're right. I don't know what I was thinking."
He brought her fingers to his lips. "It'll be over soon, sweetheart. I feel it in my gut." He gestured toward his laptop. "Ready to check out this disk?"
"As ready as I'll ever be."
He fired up the ThinkPad and, when the Windows desktop icons appeared, he inserted the disk.
A few minutes later he was looking at the same documents she'd skimmed earlier that day.
There were several of them. A will, a living will, a power-of-attorney, a medical services agreement, and a trust and estate agreement. They all had one thing in common: they gave full control to the Hope Institute and full authority—and every drop of related legal business—to Waters, Kensington, Tatem & Calder.
Zach scanned the documents in silence. Then he stopped, selecting all the documents and clicking on the print icon. He turned to Victoria, who'd been reading over his shoulder, her expression grim. "I get the picture," he "said. "I assume you didn't have enough time to analyze the specifics."
"No."
"Okay. We'll do it together now." He reached over, plucked the pages out of the printer, and moved closer to Victoria, settling himself directly beside her so she could see.
She half wished she couldn't.
The power-of-attorney form was straightforward, its purpose clear as day. Walter Kensington was given unconditional power of attorney for each of the Hope Institute's patients. No exceptions.
The trust and estate agreement was similarly binding, naming Waters, Kensington, Tatem & Calder as sole legal administrators of the estates of all Hope Institute patients.
After that, the documents got more disturbing.
The medical services agreement included a confidentiality section that legally required each patient to maintain complete secrecy with respect to all his dealings with the Hope Institute—including everything from doctors' names to the reason for the patient's admission. Next, there was an indemnification section that "saved and held harmless" both the Hope Institute and Waters, Kensington, Tatem & Calder, protecting them from "any and all claims" that might arise as a result of the patient's dealings with or treatment by the Hope Institute. Finally, there was an exclusivity section outlining mandatory outpatient visits for those patients well enough to leave the clinic—visits naming the Hope Institute as sole provider.
The living will provided that all decisions regarding life-support systems, medications to prolong life, and so on, would be determined and administered solely by the Hope Institute, who would be "indemnified and held harmless" with respect to such determinations, as would its legal counsel.
Last and most sobering, both the will and the living will specified that the patient, his or her family, and the estate irrevocably agreed, upon the patient's death, to immediate cremation, with all arrangements made by the Hope Institute.
A painful silence filled the room as Zach turned the last page, the
n placed the documents on the table.
Victoria broke the silence first, malting a harsh sound and dropping back against the sofa. "My God, Zach. What are they doing in that clinic?"
"I don't know." He raked a hand through his hair. "But whatever it is, they've built a goddamned fortress around the place—both legally and physically." He made a steeple with his fingers and rested his chin on it. "Waters, Kensington, Tatem and Calder is making a fortune off this arrangement. That much is clear."
"Yes, but what's not clear is why the Hope Institute patients would agree to sign these documents. It makes no sense. These are affluent, intelligent, worldly people. Yet they're agreeing to sign away their most basic rights, and the rights of their families. Why? What's at stake here isn't just money—it's control over their lives."
"Maybe that's exactly why they're willing to do it. Maybe they're desperate, and they believe this is the only place that can cure them."
"And what's the Hope Institute promising? What is it they're doing that convinces these patients to relinquish every ounce of control for a chance at a normal life? And why such extreme measures—including mandatory cremation, for God's sake?"
"Cremation would certainly explain the high gas bills," Zach deduced tersely.
In a flash, Victoria bolted upright. "You think they're cremating the patients right there at the Institute?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Zach angled his head toward her. "It's the only way to protect themselves and whatever it is they're hiding. No bodies. No autopsies. No death certificates—at least not until they're ready to issue them." A grim look. "Meyer called me a few hours ago. He has no explanation for the size of the Institute's gas bills. According to the permits on file with New York City, they have only limited cooking facilities and no medical equipment that uses gas."
"But you think they have a crematorium. One nobody knows about." Victoria squeezed her eyes shut. "I think I'm going to be sick." She wet her lips. "Zach, I've tried to think like a lawyer. I've managed till now. After this—I can't. My sister's in that... place. I've got to get her out."
This time Zach didn't argue. Instead, he fell silent again—although Victoria knew this silence meant he was thinking. "There's only one way to get Audrey out of there," he said at length. "Also to find out what's really going on— and to get our hands on whoever's running things. I've got to get inside the Hope Institute."