“You think I’d pass up this chance?” Dick questioned. “Not on your life. I need some lung tissue.”

“Jesus H. Christ!” Ron murmured. “You’d better promise again not to say anything about this ever!”

“I promised already,” Dick said with exasperation. “If I find what I think I’m going to find, it will be for my own collection. Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to know.”

Ron shook his head. “Sometimes I think you’re one weird dude.”

“Let’s get the saw,” Dick said. He handed the flashlight to Ron and started for the entrance.

6:40 P.M.

O’HARE AIRPORT, CHICAGO

Marilyn Stapleton looked at her husband of twelve years and felt torn. She knew that the convulsive changes that had racked their family had impacted most on John, yet she still had to think about the children. She glanced at the two girls who were sitting in the departure lounge and nervously looking in her direction, sensing that their life as they knew it was in the balance. John wanted them to move to Chicago where he was starting a new residency in pathology.

Marilyn redirected her gaze to her husband’s pleading face. He’d changed over the last several years. The confident, reserved man she had married was now bitter and insecure. He had shed twenty-five pounds, and his once ruddy, full cheeks had hollowed, giving him a lean, haggard look consistent with his new personality.

Marilyn shook her head. It was hard to recall that just two years previously they had been the picture of the successful suburban family with his flourishing ophthalmology practice and her tenured position in English literature at the University of Illinois.

But then the huge health-care conglomerate AmeriCare had appeared on the horizon, sweeping through Champaign, Illinois, as well as numerous other towns, gobbling up practices and hospitals with bewildering speed. John had tried to hold out but ultimately lost his patient base. It was either surrender or flee, and John chose to flee. At first he’d looked for another ophthalmology position, but when it became clear there were too many ophthalmologists and that he’d be forced to work for AmeriCare or a similar organization, he’d made the decision to retrain in another medical specialty.