"Sherri!"Cathy staggered backward as Sherri Collins forced her way past her and slammed the door.
"Lock it," Sherri said. When Cathy didn't move, the woman pulled a snub-nosed revolver from the purse slung over her shoulder. "Lock it, I said. Then move back to your office."
Cathy did as she was told. Where did Sherri fit into the picture? Was she here on Jacob's behalf? Had Jacob reacted to Cathy's letter by doing something rash? Suicide, perhaps? Was that why Sherri was so angry?
Cathy started to sit behind her desk, but Sherri waved her to one of the patient chairs, then stood over her, the gun steady in her hand.
"Why are you here?" Cathy asked.
"If you were married, you'd know that marking a letter 'private' won't keep a spouse from opening it. I intercepted your little blackmail letter to Jacob." Sherri pulled the other patient chair out and sat, careful to stay out of Cathy's reach."I'm not here to pay you a dime. I'm here to kill you. And I have lots of reasons."
"I don't understand."
"You should. I've hated you since high school." Sherri's eyes narrowed. "Didn't you think I'd find out about the rumors you spread just so you could be Homecoming Queen? Without that I would have won fair and square. And my boyfriend wouldn't have dumped me. The only boy who would date me after that was Jacob."
"But I-"
Sherri brandished the gun. "I would have done anything to get out of this hick town. Jacob told me he planned to apply to medical school. I thought I'd spend the rest of my life as a doctor's wife with no worries."
"But Jacob's a successful pharmacist. Surely, you have a good life."
"I wish," Sherri said. "Our house is mortgaged to the hilt. The same goes for this professional building Jacob built. I know that he hated to lease the space to you, but he's so deeply in debt he needed the money. Of course, if your father hadn't refused to help him get into medical school, he'd be a doctor, making lots of money, and I wouldn't have to scrimp to get by and keep up appearances."
Cathy wasn't sure she could reason with this woman, but she had to try. "Sherri, my father wouldn't write a letter of recommendation for Jacob because his grades weren't good enough for medical school. His MCAT score was borderline at best. He never would have made it beyond the first interview."
"Don't blame it on Jacob's Medical College Admissions Test. He told me how he figured that test was rigged. Your father probably had some of his cronies falsify Jacob's grades because he didn't want too many doctors coming back to Dainger. There might not be room for his precious daughter to practice here."
"Are you the one who tried to kill me with a black SUV?" Cathy recalled the closed doors of the three-car garage at the Collins house.
Sherri cackled. "Thought I had you a couple of times."
"But there's no black SUV registered in your name."
"Of course not. It belonged to my father, Frank Clawson. He died six months ago, and the registration's still in his name."
Cathy couldn't believe this. "Did you change that prescription so I'd get sued for malpractice? Did you want me to fail-want me to leave Dainger?"
Sherri laughed again, just like the patients Cathy had heard on the psychiatric ward during her training. "What I wanted to do was get Milton Nix out of the way. Then your prescription gave me the opportunity to throw suspicion on you at the same time. I mean, you ruined my life. Why shouldn't I ruin yours? If he died, you might be charged with manslaughter."
"How did you make the change?"
"Good timing and good luck," Sherri said. "I saw the prescription on the counter, waiting to be filled. I laid my purse down next to it, and when I picked up my purse, I had the prescription too. A little work with the copier in the office, put the new prescription back, and no one was the wiser."
"How did you know how to change it?"
"You don't think Jacob got through pharmacy school on his own, did you? I helped him study. Every night. Every subject. I could pass every test before he could. It was easy."
Cathy tried to make sense of it all, but the pieces wouldn't fall into place. "But why would you want to harm Milton Nix?"
"Nix's bank holds the mortgages on our house and the professional building. Three weeks ago, Nix called both the notes. He insisted we pay down the indebtedness before he'd renew them. Jacob showed me the letters. If we didn't comply, the bank would foreclose. We'd lose everything. I knew we couldn't meet the deadline, but I figured if Nix were sick or dead, the bank would back offin all the chaos. I hoped it would buy us the time we needed to get the money together."She looked at the gun in her hand. "Funny. I couldn't bring myself to shoot Nix, but I don't think I'll have any trouble shooting you."
"Wait. I've got to know. Did you set fire to my apartment?"
"Of course. Apparently, I didn't do a great job with the fire, though. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."
"And is Jacob in on this? Does he know you changed the prescription?"
Sherri shook her head. "No, he wouldn't have the guts. If it weren't for me, he'd just whine about the past. I'm the one who has the courage to strike back at you and your father."
"Why are you so bent on revenge? My father's dead. Isn't that enough?"
"Oh, I had some revenge on your father even before he died. Remember those old tools displayed on the shelf in the pharmacy? The mortar and pestle, the scales, the pill press?"
An idea formed in Cathy's mind. Could anyone be so cruel? "Yes."
"They're not just for decoration. Your mother's gynecologist put her on hormones. I volunteered to be a good neighbor and drop offthe prescription on my way home. The first month, I gave her the medication just as Jacob had poured it out from the stock bottle. But after that, each month I discarded about half the pills and substituted some I made myself. So she wasn't getting estrogen and progesterone every day. Half the time it was my own little gift to her."
Cathy wanted to ask questions-lots of questions-but she stood there dumbstruck.
Sherri smiled, obviously enjoying herself. "I used some connections I made when Jacob was in pharmacy school to get the raw material, and I turned out some professionallooking pills, I must say. Your mother asked why some of the tablets didn't have a company logo on them, but I told her we were using generics from two different companies."
Cathy dreaded the answer, but she had to ask. "What did you give her?"
"Every time she took one of my little homemade pills, your mother got five hundred milligrams of mescaline."
"No!" Cathy immediately made the connection. Mescaline was a strong hallucinogen, like LSD and peyote. But, instead of giving people pleasant multicolored visions, mescaline had a different psychological effect, a much more dramatic one. The person turned paranoid and lost contact with reality. It was the perfect way to mimic schizophrenia. Cathy balled her hands into fists. She could only imagine the horrors her mother had faced in the grip of that terrible drug-and the torture it had inflicted on her father.
"I see you've figured it out," Sherri said. "No, your mother wasn't psychotic. And your father had to live with a wife with mental illness until the day they both died."
It was almost too much for Cathy to grasp. Her mother wasn't psychotic. There was no history of mental illness in the family. She could think about marriage, about her own family, without the fear of passing on that illness to her children. She didn't have to worry about her future husband having to deal with a psychotic wife.
If Sherri weren't holding a gun on her, she'd probably breathe a sigh of relief. As it was, Cathy could only marvel at the pure evil of this woman's action. "How could you do that? How could you put my parents through such torture?"
Sherri shrugged. "Just imagine. If Jacob had gone to medical school instead of becoming a pharmacist, I'd never have learned how to do it. Talk about poetic justice."
Cathy wanted to jump out of her chair and charge this monster who had ruined so many lives. But first she needed to get control of the gun. She put her arms on the chair and started to push up.
"Don't even think about it," Sherri said.
Could she reason with this madwoman? Doubtful, but she had to try. "Other people know what I've found out. How do you expect to shoot me and get away with it?"
"Cathy? Cathy!" She recognized Will's voice over the loud knocks at the door.
"Let him in, won't you?" It was an order, not a request, and was accompanied by a sharp gesture with the gun.
Cathy eased the door open and started to speak, but before she could say a word the pressure of the gun in her back silenced her. She backed up and Will rushed inside. When he saw Sherri, he stopped dead still.
"Come in and close the door," Sherri said, as casually as she'd invite someone into her home for coffee and cookies.
"What-?"
Sherri moved the gun back and forth between them. "Just go on into the back and I'll explain to both of you." She herded them into the back treatment room and gestured for them to stand together against the far wall.
Sherri closed the door and leaned against it. "Here's what happened, Cathy-I won't call you Dr. Sewell. It's stuck in my throat every time I've said it for three months. I phoned Will and pretended to be the 911 operator. I told him we'd had a call from you. You were in your office getting something from a high shelf when you fell offthe ladder and broke your ankle. I told him you'd asked us to call him, and he said he'd meet us here." She grinned without mirth. "Isn't that sweet?"
Cathy looked at Will. "Sherri's the one who altered the prescription. She-"
"That's enough," Sherri snapped. She leveled the gun at Cathy's chest. "Now here's the way it's going down. First, I'll shoot you in the heart." She turned toward Will. "Then I'll shoot you in the temple. I'll put the gun in your dead hand and fire another shot into Cathy so there'll be powder residue on your hand. I'll arrange the bodies to make it look like a murder-suicide. True love gone bad."
Cathy stepped back, stopping when she bumped into the treatment cabinet. The instruments and equipment it held rattled.
Sherri looked at Cathy, but then swung her gaze and the gun back toward Will. Cathy put her left hand in front of her as though shielding herself, hoping the movement would serve as a distraction while her right hand brushed lightly over the shelf behind her. Where is it? Please, God, let me find it.
"Sherri," Will said, "you know you can't get away with this. Give up. Turn yourself in. I'll help you get a good defense lawyer."
"No sale, you shyster. It will be a pleasure shooting you too. Lawyers are parasites. Matter of fact, I may shoot you first."
Sherri took a step toward Will. Cathy turned her body to follow the action. Sherri spun and waved the gun at her."Don't try to be brave."
"Please, please don't do this." Cathy's foot touched the control pedal. Now if she could only-there it was. Her right hand found what she sought. She grasped it like a pencil-no, like a scalpel. She'd have one chance. "I think I'm about to faint." She swayed slightly.
"Oh, don't pass out. I wanted you to see this coming. I guess I'll have to put a bullet in you first." Sherri shuffled forward until she stood face to face with Cathy.
"Don't," Will said.
Sherri brought the gun up, but before she could level it, Cathy jabbed the needle tip of the Hyfrecator into the woman's arm and stepped on the pedal. A loud buzz and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Sherri screamed, dropped the gun, and grasped her right arm with her left hand.
"Why, you-"
Will scooped up the gun and jammed it into Sherri's ribs. "Watch your mouth. You're lucky she just went for your arm."
Cathy took a deep breath and let the Hyfrecator tip fall from her hand. "Look at it this way, Sherri. If you had any warts on that arm, they're gone now."