Dreamfall by Amy Plum

Author:Amy Plum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

JAIME

TRIAL SUBJECT FOUR, SINCLAIR HARTFORD, SEVENTEEN, lives on the Upper East Side of New York City with his ob-gyn father and work-from-home mother. He’s a senior at one of Manhattan’s most prestigious private high schools, and his therapist is one even I’ve heard of: she’s always on CNN giving her opinion on mental-health-related news stories.

Sinclair’s summary is brief: chronic insomnia that affects his schoolwork and extracurricular activities (tennis, boating, lacrosse). There is a list of pharmaceuticals that he has tried, but all have had negative side effects. There is even one account of him taking Ambien, and then commandeering a waiting taxi and driving across town without knowing what he was doing.

He has been in therapy since a young age, but all files from the last five years are sealed by a court order. There’s a police file, but only the barest of details are listed: underage gambling, bookmaking, blank checks, and other things that don’t seem very exceptional for a superrich kid. The footnote, “Additional files accessible by warrant only through the NYPD,” mystifies me.

What could this privileged white boy have gotten mixed up in that would call for sealed records? Could whatever it is be a clue to the source of his insomnia? He doesn’t have narcolepsy or PTSD or depression like the other subjects I’ve read about. There isn’t a good explanation of what is stopping him from sleeping. Maybe the missing court file contains more information on his mental health.

I look up from the file and Google his parents. Hundreds of pages about charity work, museum sponsorships, and club memberships pop up. There are photos of Sinclair and his parents posing in formal clothes, arms draped casually around politicians and celebrities, champagne glasses raised.

I take a look at the subject four window on my screen, and there he is, looking similar enough to the rich kid in the photos to recognize. But in a hospital gown, and with sensors attached all over his body, he could be the poster boy for Money doesn’t buy happiness.

Zhu and Osterman burst into the lab. “What the hell happened?” Zhu cries.

With a pained expression, Vesper responds. “Subject three went into cardiac arrest, no warning.”

“Did any of the others show signs of cardiac stress?” Zhu asks.

Vesper shakes his head.

Osterman combs his fingers through his nonexistent hair. “For fuck’s sake, this is all we need right now. And a minor as well.”

“She was nineteen,” Vesper mumbles.

“Well, thank fuck for that!” the director roars.

Zhu steps down into the testing area and walks over to BethAnn. As she checks the sensors, she detaches them one by one, peeling off the electrodes and pulling out the IVs until the girl is just a body lying on a bed in a white hospital gown. She looks more pitifully fragile than before.

Zhu tests everything manually, feeling the girl’s pulse on her throat and her wrist and pressing her ear to her chest to listen to her nonexistent heartbeat. “Okay,” she says finally, turning to Vesper. “You can call the morgue.

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