The Cure Read Online Free Page A

to a school. Her first visit to the University of Arizona. Her first visit to Arizona, period.
    The school was an oasis, about a square mile in area, in the middle of Tucson’s Sonoran Desert, at the foot of a barren mountain range, one of five minor mountain ranges surrounding the city. A significant portion of the main campus had been designated an arboretum, and plants from around the world were labeled along a self-guided walking tour, which naturally included plenty of cacti. While it wasn’t Princeton or the University of Chicago, both of which she had been accepted to, it was highly regarded academically, especially in her field of interest, and it formed a thriving social community of forty thousand students. Yes, it was as hot as the surface of the sun in the summer, but during most of the academic year it was sunny and pleasant, and she had been assured that the school took its air-conditioning very seriously.
    After touring the campus and grabbing a quick lunch, she made her way over to Dr. Apagar’s office for her scheduled meeting. He shook her hand and motioned for her to take a chair sitting in front of a desk so cluttered with stacks of scholarly papers and miscellaneous items that he had to rearrange several tall stacks so they could have an unobstructed view of one another.
    “Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with me, Dr. Apgar. I really appreciate it.”
    “Not at all,” he replied. “And please, call me Jason.”
    She acknowledged this request and he continued. “I understand we’ve accepted you into the department, but you haven’t committed yet.”
    “That’s right. I wanted to meet with you in person before making any decisions.”
    “So I take it you have interest in my work, then?”
    “Very much so,” replied Erin. “I’ve read all of your papers with great interest. Your work with prison inmates is fascinating. More than that,” she amended. “It’s groundbreaking .”
    Apgar couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I would wholeheartedly agree with you on that, but my modesty prevents me.”
    Erin laughed.
    Apgar raised his eyebrows. “The school is very keen to get you here, Erin. They sent me your records, and I can see why. Top GRE scores, top grades, a course load that was very broad, lots of neuroscience to go along with psychology, even molecular biology. You took on a course load that would break the backs of most students, and performed extremely well. Very impressive.”
    She nodded in acknowledgement.
    “So what questions can I answer for you?” he said. “I can tell you about the graduate program’s course requirements, research requirements, teaching requirements—whatever you want. I can talk about the culture here. The climate. Anything I can do to help you make your decision.”
    “Thank you, um … Jason,” she said awkwardly. “But what I’d really like to do is learn more about your research with prison inmates. Your methodology and conclusions were fairly straightforward—and very profound. But I had some questions about the nuts and bolts of what you did.”
    “Okay.”
    “So I know you conducted MRIs on prisoners. And I know what you found. But how did you do it? In practice? Did you actually go into a prison? Or were the prisoners brought to a medical facility?”
    “The entire study was done on prison grounds,” he replied.
    She nodded slowly. “Yeah, that makes sense for security reasons. But I never would have guessed they’re set up to do MRIs in a maximum security prison.”
    Apgar smiled. “They aren’t. But it turns out there are a number of companies that have mobile MRIs for rent or lease. The rental units are quite nice. It’s like they’ve put a doctor’s office inside the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler. You just order one up. A driver brings it to the prison, is screened, drives through the gates, sets up the trailer in the prison yard, and then drives off in the cab. The trailer is parked there for