Foreign Body by Robin Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

of her granny's progress or, at the very least, to be informed if there happened to be any problems or complications. Before disconnecting, Jennifer slowly and distinctly gave her cell phone number. She wanted to be certain there would be no mistakes because of accent. Jennifer knew she had a strong New York accent.
    Flipping her phone closed, Jennifer started to put it back into the locker but then paused.
    She thought the likelihood of another Maria Hernandez from Queens having surgery at nearly the same time as her grandmother in the same hospital in India was quite small.
    Actually, it seemed completely far-fetched, and the idea of calling CNN and telling them as much crossed her mind. Jennifer was an activist, not a ponderer, and didn't hesitate to speak her mind, which she felt CNN deserved for not adequately vetting their story before putting it on the air. But then a more intelligent, less emotional frame of mind prevailed. Who could she call at CNN, and what were her chances of getting any kind of satisfaction? Besides, she suddenly looked at her watch. Seeing that it was now after eight, a shiver of anxiety descended her spine like a surge of electricity. She was late for her first day of her surgery elective, despite her efforts to the contrary.
    Jennifer slammed the locker closed, and as she ran for the door, she put her phone on vibrate and slipped it into her scrub pants pocket along with the safety pin and the key.
    She was truly worried. Being late was not the way to begin a new rotation, especially with a compulsive surgeon, and from her experience in third-year surgery, they were all compulsive.

Chapter 2
    OCTOBER 15, 2007
    MONDAY, 11:05 A.M.
    NEW YORK, USA
    (SIMULTANEOUS WITH JENNIFER'S BEING CHIDED FOR BEING LATE
    BY HER NEW PRECEPTOR)
    Can you see them?" Dr. Shirley Schoener asked. Dr. Schoener was a gynecologist who had specialized in infertility. Although she'd never admitted it, she'd gone into medicine as a way of superstitiously dealing with her fear of disease, and she went into infertility for fear of suffering it herself. And it had worked on both fronts. She was currently healthy and had two great kids. She also had a thriving practice, as her statistics for successful pregnancies were superb.
    "I suppose," Dr. Laurie Montgomery said. Laurie was a medical examiner who worked at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the city of New York. At forty-three, she was a contemporary of Dr. Schoener's. They'd gone to medical school together and had even been friends and classmates. The difference between them, other than their professional specialties, was that Shirley had married relatively early-at age thirty, just after completing her residency-and kids had come in due course, with Shirley popping out one after the other. Laurie had waited until age forty-one, two years ago, before marrying a fellow medical examiner, Jack Stapleton, and stopping what she'd come to call the "goalie," which was a euphemism for various methods of contraception she'd employed over the years. Without contraception, Laurie had assumed that she would promptly become pregnant with the child she always knew she would have. After all, she had mistakenly become pregnant while relying on the rhythm method by merely cutting things a bit too close. Unfortunately, the pregnancy turned out to be ectopic and had to be terminated. But now that conception was supposed to happen, it hadn't, and after the requisite year of unprotected "goalie"-free sex, she'd come to the unpleasant conclusion that she had to face reality and be proactive. At that point she'd contacted her old friend Shirley and started treatments.
    The first stage had involved finding out if there was something wrong anatomically or physiologically with either Jack or herself. The answer had turned out to be no. It had been the only time in her life that she'd hoped medical tests would find something wrong so it could be fixed. They did find, as was expected, that