“Murderer! Baby killer!”

Her eyes blazing with rage, the woman with streaming gray hair curled her hands threateningly into claws and flew at them. Reflexively, Anna threw up her arms to protect herself. Then she remembered it was the young woman next to her who was being attacked.

Two burly policemen grabbed the gray-haired woman just as she was about to pounce on Consuelo. They wrestled the woman to the floor, avoiding the sharp fingernails flailing at their eyes, and snapped a pair of handcuffs on her.

Roy Krueger, Consuelo’s lawyer, waddled out of the meeting room from which his client and Anna had just emerged. He shook his head as the officers lifted the woman to a standing position. “Damn! I knew it was a mistake to let that bitch come here! She was being too reasonable, telling me she’d just wait outside and not testify against you to the parole board!”

Krueger turned to Consuelo. “At least now we can lock her up on an assault charge, so she can’t try to hurt you again—”

“No!” Consuelo shouted. She was staring at the now strangely passive woman held by the two officers. Anna noticed Consuelo was trembling. From fear? Anxiety? Hard to say—even for a psychiatrist.

Consuelo pleaded, “Let her go!”

“What?” Krueger stared at her, his pudgy perspiring face flushed in disbelief. “If they hadn’t stopped her she’d have strangled you! If they let her go she’ll try again!”

“No, she won’t. She’d never hurt me. Would you?”

The gray-haired woman glared at Consuelo, and said nothing.

Consuelo turned to Anna. “Please, Dr. Young, make them let her go!”

Anna looked quizzically at Krueger, who shrugged his shoulders. She said to Consuelo, “Do you really want them to let her go? After you’re released, she might try to hurt you again.”

“No, she wouldn’t do that. I’m sure she wouldn’t!” Consuelo’s words and the innocent expression on her face reflected the simple faith of a child.

Krueger frowned. “Well, if that’s what you want, it’s your funeral!” He nodded to the officers. The prisoner stood immobile, glaring at Consuelo, as the policemen cautiously relaxed their grip and removed her handcuffs. Slowly, defiantly, the woman raised her hands to smooth her tangled gray hair. Then, head held high, she silently turned on her heel and left.

Consuelo looked at Anna, her face showing hurt and bewilderment. “Why does she hate me so much?”

You don’t understand, do you? Anna shook her head. Of course you don’t. We made sure of that.

The policemen moved back to Consuelo, who looked small and fragile in her gray prison uniform. At times like this Anna had to force herself to stay emotionally detached and professional. And keep reminding herself what this childlike young woman was capable of. No, Anna corrected herself, she had been capable of doing those things. Now, Consuelo was well. She couldn’t do them anymore.

As the officers led Consuelo away, she smiled at Anna and said, “See you in a few days!”

Krueger moved closer to Anna. His head shook so hard sweat flew off his face onto her crisp white blouse. “Amazing,” he said. “The things you see if you live long enough.”

The lawyer heaved his massive buttocks onto one of the chairs in the now empty waiting room. Anna sat down a few meters away. During her career she’d worked with many lawyers. Contrary to popular opinion, especially among her fellow physicians, most of them seemed like relatively decent human beings. A few, though, made her want to take a long bath after being in the same room with them.

Even after working with him all these months, she still wasn’t sure which category to put Krueger in.

The latter said, “Doc, do you really want to go through with this?”

“That’s what I just told the parole board.”

“Yeah, I know.” The pitch of his voice rose to a sarcastic, singsong falsetto. “ ‘I’m so confident the treatment was successful I’m willing to supervise and take responsibility for Consuelo myself.’ ” Then, in his usual bass, “Have to admit, that was a great performance you gave. Had the parole board eating out of your hand. Couldn’t have done better myself.”

Krueger snorted. “Of course, I’m not the one who might get murdered in my sleep.”

“Consuelo’s not dangerous anymore! She’s cured!”

“Sure. Ain’t modern medicine wonderful.”

Anna frowned at him. “If I didn’t believe it, do you think I’d put myself at risk?”

Krueger shrugged. “I’m sure you think your ‘experiment’ worked. Question is, did you brainwash her—or did she brainwash you?”

“It’s not brainwashing! I wish people would stop using that word!” A voice in Anna’s head whispered, He’s goading you. More calmly, “Consuelo was born with a subtle genetic defect that caused parts of her brain dealing with behavior and feelings to be abnormal. Critical brain cells were either overly sensitive or didn’t react enough to neurotransmitters that modulate anger and aggression. That neuropsychiatric defect gave her a poor capacity to deal with ‘abandonment’ by someone she loved and trusted. Her response in those situations was to lash out violently at the person she perceived as abandoning her.”

Krueger snorted. “Yeah, she was good at ‘lashing out’!”

“The point is, her underlying problem was biological in nature. By using this new treatment, we were able to correct it, and make the serotonergic, noradrenergic, and other systems in her brain work properly. Now, she’s far less likely than the ‘average’ person to be violent with other people.”

Krueger shook his head skeptically. “I’ve been in the criminal justice system for over thirty-five years. Seen too many cases of ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ go into a loony bin for a while, come out after one of you shrinks said they’re ‘cured’—and then bounce back to court after they sliced-and-diced some more innocent people.” “But Consuelo won’t do that! Criminally violent behavior can be due to antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, or other central nervous system abnormalities different from the one she had. The neurological and biochemical reasons for those disorders are still poorly understood. Even with the best available therapy, recidivism is common in those patients. In Consuelo’s case, though, we discovered what biological defect caused her actions—and how to correct it. Her cure is permanent!”

“If you’re so sure your treatment worked, why did you wipe out her memories of what she did?”

“Consuelo ‘knows’ what she did. People keep reminding her of it. She just doesn’t remember doing it. We thought that eliminating those memories and the reactive emotions attached to them would be a good adjunct to her primary treatment. I’m certain she’s no longer a danger to others, that even under the greatest stress she won’t turn her feelings violently outward anymore. However, since she now has a normal capacity for empathy and remorse, she’s still capable of self-destructive acts. If she were to dwell too much on what she did, if she could run over every detail of it in her mind again and again, she might feel so guilty she’d be tempted to harm herself.”

“Well, considering what she did, maybe she should feel guilty!” Krueger shrugged. “But what do I know. I’m just a lawyer. You doctors are the ones with all the answers. Just to be on the safe side, though, I’ll talk with the parole board again next month. If Consuelo hasn’t killed anybody or burned down your neighborhood by then, maybe I can get them to treat her like a standard parolee. Give her to a regular parole officer, who doesn’t have to live with her.”

He shivered. “Living with her. Now that’s a scary thought.”

Krueger lifted himself from the chair and headed for the door, shaking his head. “Serotonergic. Recidivism. Five-dollar words won’t be worth much when Consuelo’s coming at you with murder in her eyes. And a knife in her hand.”

Suddenly Anna remembered the appointment with Krueger she’d made the night before. And realized she’d forgotten to tell Consuelo about it.

The latter’s smile disappeared. “Do you want me to go in with you when you talk to him?”

Anna grimaced, imagining what kind of sensitive and compassionate things Krueger might say to Consuelo. “It might be better if I talked to him alone.”

For someone who was supposed to be on her side, the lawyer was sometimes incredibly hard on Consuelo. Anna had asked Krueger once why he’d even taken her case. He’d shrugged and said, “Everybody’s entitled to legal representation.” Then he’d looked at her strangely. Almost—guiltily. “And I have personal reasons too.”

After parking hurriedly, Anna removed the shopping bag she’d loaded into the trunk last night. Although Consuelo didn’t ask what was in it, Anna knew she could guess what it contained.

Krueger’s office building had seen better days. After riding a rickety elevator to the sixth floor, they walked to a door that desperately needed a new coat of paint. On the translucent pane of glass forming its upper half were the words, “R. F. Krueger, Attorney at Law.” Since the last time Anna was here, a fellow fan of old movies had used a black marker to add “U.” before the lawyer’s name, and “reddy” after his middle initial.

The gum-popping nubile redhead at the secretary’s desk was new, too. Anna wondered what had happened to the bleached blonde. She noted that both the former secretary and her successor had several things in common. Both seemed likely to have had cosmetic surgery involving their pectoral regions. And both favored tight white blouses.

“He’s still with a client. Have a seat.” The secretary pointed at several dilapidated chairs.

The intercom on her desk snapped on. “Crystal, it’s three o’clock. Is anybody out there?”

“Yes.”

“Is one of them a tall woman, natural blonde, late thirties, pleasingly plump, wearing a tight white blouse?”

The secretary squinted at Anna. “Yeah, except it’s a loose pink one.”

The intercom clicked off. Immediately Anna heard shouting from the door behind the secretary. Then it flew open and a small elderly man with glasses askew catapulted out the door. He protested, “But we haven’t finished talking about my—”

“Sorry,” Krueger interrupted, his bulk blocking the entrance to his private office, preventing the man from reentering. “My secretary will give you another appointment for tomorrow.”

“But—”

“Tomorrow!” Krueger motioned Anna to enter, closed the door behind them, then settled down into a swivel chair behind his desk. “Some people,” he said. “Just because you take their money, they think they own you.”

Krueger’s office was filthy. Huge law books were scattered across the floor. His desk was littered with empty snack food bags and carry out containers.

The lawyer gestured at her shopping bag. “Buy anything for me?”

Anna placed the items in the bag on his desk. Krueger examined them carefully. She noticed his fingernails were disgustingly long and sharp.

“Did you call the cops?”

“No.”

Krueger shook his head. “Should have. Not that they’d have done anything with this stuff. But if they filed a report, I could use it as one more piece of evidence if somebody does catch her in the act.”

“Is there any way you can prevent her from doing anything like this again? Maybe a restraining order?”

Krueger shrugged. “Might be able to get one. Won’t do much good, though. There’s no law against giving anyone ‘gifts.’ ”

“But they’re a form of psychological attack!”

“True. And let’s face it. You-know-who is more qualified than anyone else to mess with Consuelo’s mind.” He paused. “Present company excepted, of course.

“But a judge probably won’t see it that way. If it was some innocent young thing being harassed by a drooling thug, getting a restraining order would be no problem. Trouble is, I doubt Consuelo would be the person the judge would sympathize with.”

“But that’s not fair! Now that she’s cured, Consuelo is innocent in the moral sense of the word!”

Krueger grunted. “Maybe. But in the eyes of the law, she’s still as guilty as sin.”

“Then the legal system needs to get rid of that Dark Ages mentality. This is the twenty-first century! All these people have labeled Consuelo as being ‘evil,’ and now they want to keep on punishing her instead of trying to help her! They treat her like she was some kind of monster, instead of a human being who was mentally ill and not fully responsible for her actions!”

The lawyer nodded vigorously. “You’re so right. How could anyone hate her or think she should be locked up? Everybody makes mistakes. If she says she’s sorry and promises never to kill any more people, we should let bygones be bygones.”

Anna struggled to control herself. The man’s sarcasm was so irritating! “Don’t misunderstand me. What Consuelo did was terrible and wrong. And I remember very well what she was like before the treatment. At that time, she needed to be in prison, so she couldn’t hurt anyone else, or herself. But that’s no longer necessary. She’s cured now, and to punish her for things she did when she was sick is cruel!”

Krueger put his feet on the desk. “Tell me, Doc. How do you know she’s cured? Maybe this sugar-and-spice-and-everything-nice stuff is just an Oscar-winning act. How do you know she isn’t laughing inside, at how she’s fooled all you high-powered doctors and the parole board?”

Yes, how do you know?

“All of Consuelo’s post-treatment test results were perfectly normal. Not just the psychological profile tests either, but ones she couldn’t possibly fake. Like the microaveraged EEG, her 5-HIAA levels, the ultra-resolution PET scans—”

Krueger interrupted her. “Spare me the jargon. The bottom line is, until you docs come up with some way to read minds, the only way to judge if she’s really ‘cured,’ like you claim, is to see how she acts. And that’s still a lousy way to judge people. If you’re dealing with somebody who’s smart and sick enough, you can really get fooled.

“I remember one client in particular. Middle-aged, distinguished-looking. Great sense of humor. Pillar of the community. He had busloads of character witnesses at his trial. Not the kind of person who rapes teenage girls and tortures them to death. ‘A clear case of mistaken identity,’ I said. ‘DNA evidence isn’t infallible.’ The jury wasn’t gone long enough for me to go take a leak before they found him ‘not guilty.’ ”

His eyes seemed to sadden. “A month later, the cops caught him red-handed hacking up the body of his latest victim.”

Krueger’s usual cynical look returned. “When something like that happens, it’s time for Plan B. You try to show why your client isn’t fully responsible for what they did. What you doctors have done is hand defense lawyers the perfect excuse. ‘It’s not my client’s fault. He just has bad genes!’ ”

“But that’s not necessarily true! An individual’s personality and actions are influenced by their biological makeup. Rarely, with diseases like schizophrenia, or more subtle defects like the one Consuelo had, genetic influences are so strong they practically make a person act a certain way. But usually non-biological factors, such as what a person’s been taught is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ ‘right’ or wrong,’ are stronger.”

Krueger nodded. “The old question of ‘nature versus nurture.’ But don’t people also act the way they do simply because they want to? Because they decide to do something?”

“Well—of course. Within the biological limits Nature gave them, and what they’ve learned from interactions with their environment, especially other people, a ‘normal’ adult also makes conscious choices.”

“In other words, how people act is based partly on things they have little or no control over, like how their brains are ‘wired,’ or what they’re taught—and what they deliberately choose to do.”

Anna nodded. “Yes. But it may be very difficult to say how much each of those factors contributes to a particular individual’s actions.”

“That is a problem, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the legal system has to deal with it all the time. Prosecutors tend to argue a person should be held completely responsible for their actions, and downplay mitigating circumstances. They try to keep justice simple. ‘Just the facts, ma’am.’ ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Black and white, with maybe a few shades of gray.” He waved his hand at the items on his desk. “Just like Consuelo’s gift-giving ‘nemesis’ seems to be doing.

“When you’re defending somebody, though, it’s just the opposite. If it’s obvious your client did what they’re accused of, the fallback position is to come up with plausible reasons for what they did. Like, ‘My client had a rotten childhood.’ Or, better yet, accusing the victim of the crime, or ‘society’ of being responsible instead. With some of my clients, I’ve had to come up with really creative excuses. Funny thing is, the more outrageous they are, the more juries are inclined to swallow them. The old ‘big lie’ theory, I guess.”

Krueger frowned. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s not all b.s. If you or I had been abused or neglected when we were kids, or grew up in a neighborhood where the most lucrative career choices were pusher or hooker, maybe we wouldn’t have grown up to be the fine, upstanding citizens we are either. ‘There but for the grace of God go I.’ ”

He slid his feet off the desk. “And whether you think it’s fair or not, I and every other defense lawyer will have to exaggerate this bad genes’ excuse if we don’t want to get sued for legal malpractice!” A mock-sincere look came to his face. “ ‘Distinguished members of the jury, it’s now been scientifically proven that a person can kill other people, not because they chose to do it, but because of the way their brain is made.’ Then I’ll talk about the ‘neuropsychiatric defect’ Consuelo had, and how you turned her into a model member of society by treating it. ‘My client couldn’t help himself. It’s not his fault doctors don’t know yet what kind of brain disease made him kill those people! It’s not his fault they don’t have a cure for it, like they found for Ms. Lopez!’

“Or maybe, with a conservative jury, I’ll use that old Sunday School idea of ‘original sin.’ You told the parole board all of us have—what was it?—‘neurobiologically-mediated personality traits.’ That the difference between a psychopath and somebody normal like you or me is just what particular traits and tendencies each person’s brain is preprogrammed to have.”

“Yes, but—”

“But that means some poor souls, just by bad luck and no fault of their own, are born with brains more susceptible to doing ‘evil.’ And isn’t it only fair those of us who were ‘luckier’ and got ‘healthier’ brains should feel compassion for our less fortunate brethren?”

Krueger glared at her. “Let me tell you what this ‘treatment’ you doctors have come up with is going to do. Other lawyers are going to twist the facts about it too, and dream up even more imaginative excuses to help their clients shirk responsibility for what they did. For every person like Consuelo you help, a lot more people will get less justice than they deserve because of what you’ve done.

“Hell, you’ve given a ‘scientific’ excuse for anarchy! Now anybody can say, ‘I can do what I want, when I want to do it. But nobody can hold me accountable if anything I do hurts me or anybody else, because it’s just the way my brain is made.’ And you can’t have much of a society, or anything approaching justice, if people’s freedom isn’t coupled with a strong sense of personal responsibility!”

Anna blinked. “But that’s not what we intended to do! We just wanted to help Consuelo and others like her! What you’re talking about is a perversion of the truth and what we tried to do!”

“Good intentions don’t mean anything. The only thing that matters is what actually happens after you do something, and not what you wanted to happen.”

Krueger looked at her contemptuously. “You ivory tower science types think truth is something objective. That it’s just waiting to be discovered, then everybody will agree what it is. But in the real world—like with juries—what is true is less important than what you can convince people is the truth. Maybe that’s not the way it should be. But that’s how it is.”

He snorted. “If your treatment really did work, I guess Consuelo is now the only good’ person in the world. The only one free of ‘original sin’—if you believe in that crap. Problem is, you doctors still haven’t come up with a magic pill to ‘save’ the rest of us sinners, and make us into little angels too. When you do, we can all beat our swords into plowshares, and the meek will inherit the Earth.”

His eyes bored into hers. “But until you do it, there’s going to be hell to pay!”

Anna tried to think of an answer. Before she could, Krueger grunted, “But hell, what am I doing, telling you that people are complicated.”

Anna looked at him, very confused. “Yes, they are.”

The lawyer motioned toward his desktop, “i’ll keep this junk you brought. Maybe I’ll figure out some way to use it to keep her from harassing Consuelo. In the meantime—both of you better be careful. She’s probably just out to get Consuelo. But she might figure ‘The friend of my enemy is my enemy too’—and also try to get you.”

Anna nodded. As she got up to leave Krueger said, “One more thing.”

The eyes in his pudgy face lingered lasciviously on her chest. “That pink blouse you’re wearing is my second-favorite.”

Consuelo woke up slowly, and looked at the alarm clock. Almost noon. Dr. Young—Anna, she corrected herself—must have known how bad she felt, and let her sleep. She forced herself to sit up on the side of the bed, carelessly threw on a bathrobe, and shuffled with eyes still half-closed toward the bathroom. As she passed the desk in her bedroom the edge of her robe brushed against a crisply folded piece of paper. The note fluttered behind the desk and fell to the floor, unnoticed.

After freshening up, Consuelo put on a clean white dress and went downstairs. She searched every room, puzzled. Where was Anna? Didn’t she say she’d be staying home with her today? Maybe she’d been called out on an emergency. After all, the doctor had other patients besides her. Still, she couldn’t help but feel—abandoned.

Consuelo ate lunch, then decided to clean the bedrooms. Returning upstairs, she noticed that the door to one of the two rooms that were always locked was open just a crack. She hesitated, wondering if it was right for her to look inside. Finally, curiosity won out.

It was a nursery. Blue wallpaper with a pattern of brightly colored balloons covered the walls. A large wooden crib dominated the room. It was filled with small toys and stuffed animals. One of the latter looked vaguely familiar. She picked up the smiling purple dinosaur with a green chest, trying hard to remember something. Then she squeezed the toy’s left paw—but nothing happened. Wasn’t it supposed to play a song?

On a chest of drawers was the picture of a baby boy, perhaps one year old. He smiled out at her from the frame with big blue eyes. As Consuelo stared at the photograph his face seemed to blur, the skin turning a little darker, the eyes a deep black. Then the illusion was gone.

Carefully replacing the stuffed dinosaur where she’d found it, as Consuelo started to leave she saw a key on the floor. It unlocked the door of the adjacent room.

This one was almost a duplicate of the bedroom she was using. Except the furniture was smaller, just the right size for a little girl. It too held stuffed animals and toys. Mostly dolls, but there was a child’s plastic doctor’s kit too. And another photograph. At first Consuelo thought the little girl had black hair, long and straight.

But her eyes were playing tricks with her again. The girl in the picture had blonde hair, short and curly.

Consuelo walked pensively down the stairs to the family room. For many minutes she sat on the couch in the deathly quiet house, trying to dredge up memories. And deal with the terrible feeling of loss and guilt deep within her.

The clock on the mantle chimed two o’clock, startling her out of her trance. Hoping more sound would distract her from her thoughts, she walked to the entertainment center and turned on the radio.

A voice said, “—Now hear Haydn’s oratorio, The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross.” Then an orchestra began to play dark, foreboding music. Its mood of hopeless grief and impending tragedy fitted her own perfectly.

So engrossed was she in the music that it took her a few seconds to realize the doorbell was ringing. Half way to the front door Consuelo stopped, hesitating. Anna wouldn’t want her to answer the door, concerned that it might be someone who wanted to hurt her. But, she told herself, I can’t hide and live in fear the rest of my life. Head held resolutely high, she turned off the security system and unlocked the door—

There was no one there. No sign anyone had been there—except for the small brown envelope atop the “Welcome” mat. Consuelo picked it up, closed the door, and walked back to the family room.

The envelope was addressed to her. Inside was a silver disc, with two words written on it in black.

PLAY IT.

Consuelo turned down the radio, turned on the television, inserted the DVD into the player, and pressed the “Start” button. Returning to the couch, she waited.

Suddenly pulsating synthesizer music filled the room, accompanied by the applause of an unseen audience. The TV showed a brightly colored studio set with two smartly-dressed young people sitting on plastic chairs. The amply-endowed woman on the left exposed a pearly grin to her male co-host, then looked at the camera. “Thank you for joining us on ‘America’s Most Hated Criminals!’ ”

The woman’s face turned serious. “Our first story tonight is about motherly love gone horribly wrong.”

The scene switched to a picture of a chubby, laughing baby girl in a high-chair. “Consuelo Lopez should have been destined for a happy life. The only child of two well-to-do physicians, she grew up in a fashionable suburb near Chicago.”

A montage of photographs flashed on the screen. A shy seven-year-old standing straight and tall in her crisp white First Communion dress and veil. A gangly raven-tressed girl, blossoming into young womanhood, at her Confirmation. A confident teenager, sitting at a long table captaining her high school debate team.

The narrator said, “Consuelo was raised with all the advantages a pair of loving, doting parents could give her. She was a favorite of the nuns who taught her in high school. A model student. Senior class president. Editor of the school newspaper. Valedictorian. A devout, religious girl who even considered entering a convent.

“Then it was on to college for Consuelo, with new achievements and honors.” More photos. In one she was in her dorm room, with her smiling parents on either side of her. “Phi Beta Kappa. Summa cum laude. A straight-A student, graduating with a degree in biology.

“Then, medical school.” Stock footage of earnest young people in white lab coats working in a laboratory. “In her first three years, Consuelo again excelled in her work and studies. A bright future as a healer of human suffering seemed assured for her.”

Suddenly the perky music on the TV took on a sinister tone. “But then, tragedy struck.” The picture in her dorm room with her parents returned. “Her father, a prominent heart specialist, suddenly died himself of a heart attack.”

A computer-animated black “X” superimposed itself on Papa.

“Consuelo had been very close to him, and took his death hard. Her grades plummeted. She became unreliable and apathetic, even hostile to those who tried to help her. Finally, after she made a careless mistake that nearly caused a patient’s death, she dropped out of medical school a few months before she was due to graduate.”

The camera showed the studio set again. The grinning young man with blow-dried hair asked his co-host, “What happened next, Peggy Sue?”

“Well, Todd, Consuelo’s life fell apart.” The TV showed a filmed sequence in a dingy smoke-filled tavern. Seated on a stool at the bar was a young Hispanic woman who didn’t really look like her at all. Her scarlet lipstick was smeared, and she was wearing too much mascara. The word “Reenactment” flashed briefly at the bottom of the screen.

“We interviewed some of those who saw first-hand what kind of ‘career’ Consuelo now began. They all said the woman who once considered becoming a nun plunged into a cesspool of alcohol and promiscuity.”

The actress drained a glass of dark-colored liquor, then added it to the other empty glasses scattered in front of her. A fat, sweating man in his late fifties sat on the stool next to hers. The eyes in his pudgy, familiar-looking face lingered lasciviously on the firm breasts beneath her tight white blouse. Then he whispered something in her ear. The actress shrugged apathetically. The man placed some money on the counter, winked at the bartender, and led the woman out the door.

There was a close-up of Peggy Sue’s painted face. “But after a year of this sordid behavior, Consuelo seemed to get her life back together. She renewed her acquaintance with a former medical school classmate, a promising young doctor training to become a surgeon. He and Consuelo rented a house and moved in together. A year later their daughter Maria was born.”

The picture of a plump, giggling baby girl in a highchair filled the screen, “Now the woman who had almost become an M.D. settled into the role of ‘housewife,’ tending to the domestic needs of her lover and their child. A few years later their family had a new addition.” The next photo showed a two-year-old girl with long black hair gamely struggling to prop up her six-month-old brother for their portrait.

“But this happiness was not destined to last.”

More stock footage. A night scene of police officers outside a small white house, the red lights of their cars flashing. “Shortly after that picture of their children was taken, Consuelo’s lover told her he’d fallen in love with another doctor at the hospital where he worked. She was the daughter of a prominent local surgeon, and he was planning to marry her after they finished their training. A neighbor, alarmed by the violent arguing and threats Consuelo was screaming, called the police. They arrived just as the door of the house burst open and her boyfriend ran out, pursued by Consuelo—a long, sharp butcher knife held high in her hand.

“Perhaps loving her daughter ‘not wisely but too well,’ Consuelo’s mother used her influence and money to bail her out of jail. But as soon as she was free, Consuelo betrayed that trust—and ran away. No one knows where she went for the next year and a half, or what she did.

“After Consuelo disappeared—a fugitive from the law—her lover abandoned their two children, relinquishing custody of them to her mother. For the next seventeen months that woman lovingly raised the children in her own home. Then, with his new wife insisting that it was the right thing to do, the children’s father changed his mind. Telling Consuelo’s mother that he and his wife loved the children, that it would better for them to have two parents, he finally convinced her to give them back to him.”

Another filmed vignette. The small white house at night again, this time brightly decorated with flashing multicolored lights, a plastic Nativity scene in its snow-dusted front yard.

“Then, on a foggy Christmas Eve, several months after her ex-lover was married, Consuelo returned to the house they’d shared.”

The scene dissolved to the interior of the darkened house. The camera, simulating an eye-level point of view, moved furtively past the tall Christmas tree in the living room. It stopped in front of a door. A woman’s hand reached out and opened it. Illuminated by a lamb-shaped night light, a small dark-haired girl and her little brother slept peacefully in their beds. Both wore smiles of angelic innocence, as visions of what the morning would bring danced in their heads.

The hand pulled the door closed and locked it. The camera moved swiftly to another bedroom. There, a man and woman slept tightly entwined on their bed, unaware.

Then the camera showed the actress from the bar scene. She held a long sharp butcher knife in one hand. Her eyes blazing with rage, she plunged it down again and again, its gleaming blade dripping ever more heavily with blood. After a few muffled screams, the night was again silent.

Nonchalantly dropping the knife, the woman returned to the living room. She piled the gaily-wrapped packages on the floor closer to the Christmas tree, then splashed them with fluid from a can labeled “Gasoline.” A cigarette lighter flashed in her hand. The tree burst into flames—

Video of somber-faced individuals stepping carefully in the charred remains of the house early Christmas morning. One of them picked up a small stuffed dinosaur, a few patches of purple still showing on its singed covering.

The scene dissolved to Peggy Sue’s face. “When the firefighters arrived, they found Consuelo Lopez sitting on the sidewalk outside the burning house, watching it collapse like a funeral pyre. Clutched in her bloodstained hands was this picture.” She held it in front of the camera. It was the photograph they’d shown before of the two smiling children.

A quick shot of Todd’s face. “What happened next, Peggy Sue?”

The picture of a gray-walled prison appeared. “Consuelo’s lawyer tried to get her off by pleading ‘not guilty by reason of insanity.’ But that desperate ploy was undercut by Consuelo’s confession in court that yes, she killed them, and she was glad she did! She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.”

Consuelo’s head jerked up. It sounded like the front door closing. Before she could decide whether it was her imagination or not, the TV program caught her attention again.

Peggy Sue’s face showed outrage. “But it’s possible that, someday soon, Consuelo Lopez will walk free among us again. Recently a group of doctors have tried to reopen her case. They claim she was ‘mentally ill,’ not fully responsible for her actions—and not just someone who deliberately, methodically, cold-bloodedly committed a vicious and senseless crime. No, these doctors say she had a ‘neuropsychiatric defect’—whatever that is—when she brutally murdered her former lover, her rival for his affections—and her own children. And that they have a ‘cure’ for it.”

A familiar face came on the screen. The caption at the bottom said, “A. F. Young, M.D. Psychiatrist.”

Anna said, “Ms. Lopez has always been genetically predisposed to development of a variant of borderline personality disorder. For most of her life, it was like a hidden time bomb, with no sign of its presence—until the right type of stresses set it off. But now we know enough about this kind of mental illness to cure it permanently, so she would never feel compelled to hurt anyone who ‘abandoned’ her again.”

Dr. Young’s voice faded away, replaced by that of Peggy Sue. “But is that really true? Was Consuelo really programmed, like a robot, to kill? Or was it her own evil choice? Let’s hear from a real expert, with more impressive credentials.”

A gray-haired woman appeared on the TV. Her caption read “M. T. Aguilar, M.D., Ph.D. Professor of Psychiatry. Author of many books on personality disorders and criminal psychology.” Reflexively Consuelo looked at the nearby bookcase, and noticed the books she expected to see were missing.

Her face harsh and severe, the gray-haired woman said, “It would be wonderful to think Consuelo could be ‘rehabilitated’ just by giving her the right kind of medicine. There is, I admit, a chance the experimental treatment planned for her could work. But what I’m afraid will happen is the doctors treating her will let their good intentions impair their scientific objectivity. They’ll see only what they hope to see, and pronounce her ‘cured’ when she really isn’t. She’s already demonstrated a conscienceless insensitivity to the suffering of those who loved her. It would not be beyond her capabilities to calculatingly pretend she was ‘well’—until, at a time of her convenience, she was ready to kill again.”

The older woman’s voice turned threatening. “However much one might wish to help her, the first priority must be to make sure Consuelo never hurts anyone else—ever again. If that means she must stay in prison for the rest of her life—or even more drastic measures—then that’s what must be done!”

Peggy Sue said, “And what about Consuelo herself? How does she justify what she did?”

Another video clip. Consuelo recognized the interview room in the prison. She saw herself sitting defiantly in a chair, sneering at someone offscreen. A voice—Dr. Young’s—asked her, “Why did you kill Jason and his wife?”

The woman in the chair took a long drag on a cigarette. “That son of a bitch used me. I did everything I could to make him love me. And what did he do? He dumps me for a ‘nice, respectable girl.’ ‘Somebody I can marry,’ he said.”

She sneered. “A slut who was spreading her legs for him when I couldn’t, because I was having and taking care of his goddamned kids!”

“But why did you kill the children?”

The woman’s face softened. “Well, what kind of life would they have had? No father. A mother in prison, or maybe dead in the gas chamber. They’d never be able to escape that shame—abandoned by their own parents. How could they possibly grow up happy? It was better that way. Quick, just a moment of pain and suffering, and not a lifetime.”

Her eyes hardened. “Besides, those two little bastards were half him, too.”

The picture froze on that hate-filled look, then shrank into a corner of the screen, directly over Peggy Sue’s left shoulder. The latter said, “Soon, if the doctors who claim they can brainwash her have their way, Consuelo Lopez will be back on the street. Perhaps she’ll come to live in your neighborhood!”

Consuelo jumped slightly, startled. This time she thought she heard a noise from the kitchen. But, listening carefully, all she heard was more babble from the TV.

“The question is, who is Consuelo Lopez? An innocent victim of fate, as one so-called ‘expert’ thinks?” The picture in the corner changed to that of Anna, then quickly dissolved to that of the gray-haired woman. “Or, as a more qualified authority believes, will she always be nothing more than a ruthless, cunning criminal?”

Peggy Sue looked directly at the camera. “Audience, you decide!”

Then, beaming with self-satisfaction, she continued, “But you know what the ironic thing is, Todd?”

“No, what is it, Peggy Sue?”

The insert of the gray-haired woman expanded to fill the entire screen. “The ironic thing is, Dr. Aguilar is—”

The recording ended. The only sound in the house was the oratorio on the radio, playing faintly in the background. The prayerful words intoned by the chorus, accompanied mournfully by the orchestra, reminded Consuelo of the otherworldly atmosphere of a cathedral.

There it was again! A shuffling noise in the kitchen. It couldn’t be her imagination! Fearfully, not knowing what to expect, Consuelo walked into the kitchen—and stopped, paralyzed with shock.

The gray-haired woman stood by the stove, tall and erect. Her dark eyes bore deeply and unwaveringly into Consuelo. Without saying a word, the very cast of the woman’s face accused and condemned her.

Consuelo stammered, “What do you want? Why are you here?”

The older woman glared at her with disgust. The corners of her lips curled, silently telling Consuelo that those were very foolish questions.

Consuelo pleaded, “I know I did all those terrible things! But I swear, I don’t remember doing them! All those years, from just before Papa died to six months ago, are a blank! I don’t remember being that evil person! I hate her and everything she did, too! Those beautiful children! How could anyone—how could I have done that to them!”

Consuelo’s eyes misted over. “How can I make up for what I did? I’d give up my own life if it would bring them back! How can I convince you how sorry I am? Tell me, how!” Wiping bitter tears from her cheeks, Consuelo sobbed, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

The other woman raised her arm. Consuelo cringed at the accusing index finger pointing at her. Finally the finger drifted down, pointing at the kitchen table. Then the gray-haired woman spoke two words.

“Prove it.”

Consuelo stared uncomprehendingly at the objects on the table—and then suddenly, it was clear to her what two choices the gray-haired woman was offering her. The brown plastic medicine bottle. Or—the gun.

It was a .357 Magnum, just like the one Papa taught her to shoot when she was in college. Consuelo looked wide-eyed at the older woman. It was as if she could hear her accuser’s thoughts.

As long as you live, I will never let you forget what you’ve done. As long as I live, I will never let you rest. There can be no forgiveness for you. The blood you’ve spilled cries out to me, and I will avenge it. The hell you burn in for all eternity will be no worse than the one I will create for you while you still breathe.

A mini-movie flashed through Consuelo’s mind. She saw herself picking up the gun. Pumping bullet after bullet into the jerking, bleeding body of her gray-haired tormentor!

Then the image dissolved—destroyed by a feeling of utter self-revulsion. What kind of person am I? Am I capable of that crime, too?

No, there was only one choice she could make. Of all the people on Earth, the gray-haired woman standing there had the best right to judge her, to decide how responsible she was for her sins—and condemn her to death.

Consuelo read the label of the plastic medicine bottle. “Depresade, 25 mg, QTY 50.” It was filled to the top with green-and-black capsules. Whatever else they’d erased from her mind, she still remembered those pharmacology lectures in medical school. Fifty capsules would be more than enough.

Consuelo picked up the bottle, went to. the kitchen sink, and filled a glass with water. The first capsule tasted bitter. But after a few more, they began to taste almost sweet. Soon it became an unwavering rhythm of two capsules in her mouth, a sip of water to help swallow them, then repeating the cycle.

Clutching the now empty medicine bottle in her hand, Consuelo walked her last steps, back into the family room. As she passed her, from the corner of her eye she saw the face of the gray-haired woman one last time.

It was smiling.

Consuelo lay down on her back on the couch, and waited. Her blurring gaze alighted on a small knickknack sitting on a nearby shelf. The porcelain figurine of the smiling little boy who seemed about the age her son would have been now, if he had lived. She tried desperately to remember holding her little baby boy to her breast, perhaps singing him a lullaby.

She couldn’t. Dr. Young and the others had done their work too well. They’d tried to help her, by destroying all those bad memories from her past. But, even if there were fewer of them, they’d destroyed the good ones too.

No matter. She was a murderer. A suicide. Doubly damned. Soon she would have all eternity in hell to remember everything. She imagined Satan laughing at her, telling her he didn’t believe in “neuropsychiatric defects.” She had sinned, she was responsible for what she’d done. No one, nothing else was to blame except her.

The clock on the mantle chimed three o’clock. Consuelo felt herself becoming more drowsy. Closing her eyes, she folded her arms on her chest. The medicine bottle in her hand slipped through her fingers and fell to the floor.

From a greater and greater distance she heard the sacred music in the background fade away. Then, with a final soft melody full of prayerful resignation, it was gone…

Anna drove recklessly toward the hospital, fighting traffic and an overwhelming sense of guilt for abandoning Consuelo. The ER physician w’ho’d called her at the office said the drug screens were still pending. But when they’d lavaged Consuelo’s stomach they recovered an ominously large number of Depresade capsule fragments.

At the hospital Anna ignored the sharp pains in her back and ran to the MICU. After identifying herself to the nurses she walked into Consuelo’s room—and froze, horrified at what she saw.

Consuelo lay quiet and unmoving on a bed in the darkened room. Nasal prongs delivered oxygen to her, and a bag of normal saline dripped into a vein. Her body was attached by black cables to monitors that beeped rhythmically and flashed blood-red numbers on their displays.

A part of Anna’s mind felt intense relief that ail the readings on the monitors were perfectly normal. What horrified her was that, beside Consuelo’s bed, sat a gray-haired woman.

Anna hissed, “You! What are you doing here?”

Then the obvious answer came to her. “What did you do to her? Are you responsible for this?”

The gray-haired woman frowned pensively. “Yes, I am responsible. If it weren’t for me, if it weren’t for foolish decisions I made, none of this would have happened. Those two beautiful children would never have died.”

“Did you make her take those capsules?”

“No. It was her own choice.” A strange smile flickered on the woman’s face. “Her choice.”

Anna said furiously, “What kind of person are you? How could you, of all people, do those vicious things to her?” “I had to test her like that. It was the only way to prove she was really cured, and no longer a danger to anyone else. If your treatment hadn’t really worked—if she was pretending to be cured, or if it was only partially successful—she would have tried to kill me with the gun I gave her. After my little performance at the parole board meeting, and the other things I had to do to make her and everyone else think I hated her, she could’ve plausibly claimed I threatened her with it. That she killed me in self-defense. And wouldn’t you have believed her?”

The gray-haired woman saw the horrified look on Anna’s face. “I’m sorry. You didn’t know about the ‘gun’ part of my experiment.” She rattled her heavy purse, and shrugged. “No matter. The important thing is, Consuelo passed my test. Instead of lashing out at me, she showed by what she did that now she could feel guilt and remorse. Faced again with ‘abandonment,’ she turned her pain and loneliness inward, against herself, and not against me. She made the right choice.”

Anna’s face burned with rage. “You call killing herself the right choice? If you were trying to execute her, you were too late! The woman who murdered those people is already dead! I, Nemo and the others—we killed her! When we repaired the parts of her brain that made her turn violent when she felt abandoned—when we wiped out her memories of being that pathological personality—that ‘Consuelo’ died! She paid with her life’ for her crimes! Then, this Consuelo was born.”

Anna pointed at the young woman on the bed. “In every meaningful way, she’s a new person now. It’s not fair to blame and punish her for what that other Consuelo did. This woman is innocent!”

“And now, after what I’ve seen her do, I agree.” The gray-haired woman paused. “But don’t be so naive. I would never deliberately hurt Consuelo. Actually, I’m thankful you’ve misjudged me. I was afraid you would figure out my plan, and prevent me from doing it in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to protect her.”

Reading the bewilderment on Anna’s face, she continued, “Nearly all the capsules in the medicine bottle I gave Consuelo were placebo. Only the top three were Depresade. Just enough to make her sleep soundly. The gun I offered her didn’t have any bullets—just in case she decided to turn it on herself instead of me. And who do you think called the paramedics to bring her here?”

Looking down at the slumbering figure on the bed, the gray-haired woman said, “When Consuelo wakes up, she and I will have a long talk together. Then I’ll call Krueger and tell him to get the parole board to have her transferred from your custody to mine. We can’t undo what’s already happened. But we can help each other rebuild our lives. It’s not too late for that.”

Then the older woman looked at Anna. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you and the others for what you’ve done for Consuelo. It’s like a miracle. She was ‘dead and has come to life,’ she was lost and has been found.’ After everything that’s happened over the past nine years, I’d nearly lost faith that life had any meaning, or in God. As much as my heart wanted it to be so, I didn’t dare even hope that the treatment had worked. Even though it tore me apart inside to do those terrible things to her, I had to be sure Consuelo was cured, beyond any possible doubt. For her sake, for the sake of those she might have hurt if she hadn’t really been cured—and for my own.

“Thank you, Anna. You were the only one who was kind to Consuelo when everyone else was cruel. You’ve been more than just a doctor caring for a patient. When she desperately needed one, you were her friend. But now she needs more than kindness, or even friendship.”

Consuelo Lopez stirred a little, almost ready to awake, reborn, to a new life. Then, like a mask falling from her face, the gray-haired woman’s stern expression changed completely. Anna had never seen one like it before. It was full of pain and anguish, yet also held the most profound joy and happiness.

Her eyes brimming with tears, Dr. Maria Teresa Aguilar Lopez tenderly caressed the hand of her only child, her beloved daughter, and sobbed, “Now she needs someone who loves her.”