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to her and she suggested we run some specialized blood tests on Rick. We did and discovered he has abnormally high levels of a certain neurotransmitter, serotonin, in his bloodstream plus some other compounds that we are still analyzing. She suggested that we inject Rick with adrenaline to see if that might lower the serotonin levels. It’s certainly a long shot but she thinks it has an outside chance of shocking Mr. Shannon out the coma. I thought it was worth a try.” Ryan was only half listening, still thinking about Dr. Tyback. “We were going to transfer him over to Johns Hopkins for the treatment. The problem is that this is very experimental and there may be unknown risks involved, so we need to get informed consent from the family.” “What did Alana say?” There was a long hesitation. “Don’t you know?” “Know what?” “She’s gone. She disappeared about a week ago. Nobody knows where she is. I thought Officer DeNardo would have told you by now.” Ryan felt faint, the room was spinning. “I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly. “Thanks for calling—I’ll get back to you.” He hung up and immediately dialed Officer DeNardo. DeNardo had the day off and the man at the switchboard wouldn’t release his home telephone number. Ryan persisted and finally the man agreed to call DeNardo at home and tell him that Ryan was desperately trying to contact him. About five long minutes later DeNardo called. “What’s happened to Alana?” Ryan asked, his voice sounding desperate. “We don’t know. Nobody’s seen her since last Saturday. She usually comes to the hospital every day to see Rick but she suddenly stopped showing last Sunday. I called her a few times but there was no answer. Finally, I drove out to her house on Tuesday. Nobody was there but her car