Shock by Robin Cook Page A

doesn't feel that bad," Joanna said. "Let's go to the car."
    "Are you sure?"
    Joanna nodded again, gently extracted her arm from Deborah's grip, and started down the steps. At first it felt decidedly better to walk slightly bent over, but after a half dozen steps she was able to straighten up and walk relatively normally.
    "How does it feel now?" Deborah questioned.
    "Pretty good," Joanna asserted.
    "Don't you think it would be a better idea to go back in and see Dr. Donaldson, just to be on the safe side?"
    "I want to get home," Joanna said. "Besides, Dr. Smith specifically warned me about having the kind of pain I'm experiencing, so it's not as if it's unexpected."
    "He warned you about pain?" Deborah asked with surprise.
    Joanna nodded. "He wasn't sure which side I would feel it on, but he said I'd have a deep ache with some stabs of sharp pain which is right on the money. The surprise for me is that I didn't feel it until now."
    "Did he have any suggestions for what to do for it?"
    "He thought ibuprofen would suffice, but he said that if it didn't, I could have a pharmacist call him through the clinic's telephone number. He said he's available twenty-four hours a day."
    "That's strange they gave you a warning about pain," Deborah said. "Nobody warned me, and I haven't had any. I think maybe you should have insisted on local anesthesia like I did."
    "Very funny," Joanna said. "I liked being asleep through the ordeal. It was worth a bit of pain and the mild inconvenience of having to get three stitches removed."
    "Where did you have stitches?"
    "At the peephole sites."
    "Are you going to have to come back here to get them removed?" Deborah asked.
    "They told me any medical person could do it," Joanna said. "If Carlton and I are talking by then, he can do it for me. Otherwise I'll just stop in the health service."
    They reached the car and Deborah went around to the passenger side to open the door for her roommate. She even supported Joanna's arm as Joanna climbed in. "I still think you should have had local anesthesia," she said.
    "You're never going to convince me," Joanna said with conviction. Of that, she felt sure.

    FIVE
    MAY 7, 2OO1 1:5O P.M.
    A SHUDDER RIPPLED THROUGH the plane signaling the start of a period of mild, clear air turbulence. Joanna lifted her eyes from the paperback book she was reading to glance around the cabin to make sure no one else was concerned. She didn't like turbulence. It reminded her that she was suspended far above the earth, and not being of a scientific mind, she didn't mink it was reasonable that an object as heavy as a plane could actually fly.
    No one had paid the few bumps and thuds any notice, least of all Deborah sitting next to her, who was enviably asleep. Her roommate hardly looked her best. Her now shoulder-length mane of almost-black hair was tousled and her mouth was slightly agape. Knowing Deborah as well as she did, Joanna knew she'd be mortified if she could see herself. Although the thought of awakening her passed through Joanna's mind, she didn't. Instead she found herself marveling at the transposition of their respective hairstyles. Deborah's was now long while Joanna had spent the last six months with her hair short, even shorter than Deborah's had been back when they had lived in Cambridge.
    Switching her attention to the window, Joanna pressed her nose up against the glass. By doing so, she could see the ground thousands upon thousands of feet below, and just as it had been fifteen or twenty minutes ago, it was featureless tundra interspersed with lakes. Having consulted the map in the airline magazine, Joanna knew they were flying over Labrador en route to Boston's Logan Airport. The trip had seemed interminable, and Joanna was antsy and looking forward to their arrival. It had been almost a year and a half since they'd left, and Joanna was eager to set foot in the good old USA. She had resisted coming back to the States for the duration, despite her mother's