She reached for the phone beside her.
"Who's there? Tim, is that you?"
The light went on in the front room and Tim's voice drifted through the open door.
"Just me, Quinn." His voice sounded strange...strained.
She glanced at the radio alarm. The red LED display read 2:34.
"Do you know what time it is?"
He stepped through the door and flicked on the light.
"I'm sorry it's so late, but I couldn't sleep."
Quinn squinted in the sudden glare. "Must you?"
"Yeah. I want to look at you."
When her eyes adjusted, she stared at him and gasped. He looked ghastly—pale, haggard, and...frightened.
"Tim, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just had to see you."
As he finished speaking he held his index finger to his lips and thrust a note pad toward her.
"What—?"
He tapped the finger against his lips insistently and pointed to the pad. Quinn stared at the block printing.
THE ROOM
IS BUGGED!!!!
"What? You've got to be—"
He was frantically jamming his finger against his lips now. She looked at him and shrugged, completely bewildered. Was this one of his gags or had he gone off the deep end completely?
He took the pad and scribbled lengthwise on the next sheet.
MAKE SMALL TALK!
Quinn gaped at him. He appeared to be in genuine distress. She fumbled for something to say.
"Uh...you ready for the anatomy practical?"
He gave her the O-K sign and began writing on a third sheet as he spoke.
"Sure. You know me. I'm a quick study. Nothing to those practicals."
He held up the new note.
MEET ME IN THE
ANATOMY LAB
MY CAR AND I'LL
EXPLAIN EVERYTHING
"Yeah. I wish I had a memory like yours," Quinn said as she grabbed the pen and pad from him and jotted her own note.
ARE YOU FOR
REAL???
His slow, grim nod gave her a chill.
He yawned loudly as he retrieved the pad, scribbling as he spoke.
"Well, I've bothered you long enough. I'll leave you alone and see if I can get some sleep."
He handed the pad back to her.
I'LL WARM
UP THE CAR
She nodded. "Good idea. See you soon."
Tim flashed her another O-K sign, waved, and left her there in her bed, wondering what on earth had come over him. She sat for a moment or two, staring at the pad he'd left with her, flipping through the bizarre series of notes. She decided the only way to find out what was going on was to meet him in his car.
She jumped out of bed and began to get dressed.
*
"Can you hear me, Chief?"
It was Elliot's voice, transmitting via the pick-up in room 125.
Louis Verran stood in the control room with his face all but pressed against the fabric of the speaker.
"You know damn well I'm listening," he said irritably, though he knew just as damn well that Elliot couldn't hear the reply.
"Listen, we're in the bedroom of one-two-five. We couldn't see anything through the window—he almost caught us doing the Peeping Tom thing—so we came inside when he left. I was right, Chief. He's got the whole place torn apart, including the headboard."
"Shit!" Verran said. "Shit, shit, SHIT!"
"We don't know where he is now, but we can guess. We're going to go looking for him. Out."
"Yeah," Verran muttered. "Out."
This was bad. Very bad. Kurt and Elliot would have to find Brown and bring him in before he talked to anyone.
And Louis Verran would have to pick up the phone and call Dr. Arthur Tightass Alston and tell him that the nightmare scenario from two years ago was starting a rerun.
His intestines coiled into a Gordian knot as he reached for the receiver.
*
Tim checked his pockets as he galloped down the stairs, and realized he didn't have his car keys. He'd have to stop off at his room.
When he opened his door, the room was dark. Had he turned the lights out? He didn't remember. As he reached for the switch someone grabbed his arm and yanked him inside. The shock and sudden terror of it stole his voice. He heard the door slam behind him and now he was in complete darkness. He started to yell but someone rammed a fist into one of his kidneys and all that escaped him was an agonized groan. As the pain drove him to his knees, gasping, retching, his arms were pinned behind his back.
Here it comes, he thought. A bullet through the brain.
But then something—a rag of some sort—was forced into his mouth. He heard the scritch of tape being pulled from a roll and then a piece was pressed over his mouth. He had to breath through his nose. Air whistled in and out of his nostrils. He fought panic as he listened to another piece of tape being torn from the roll. If they covered his nose he'd suffocate. But this piece went across his eyes. And then he felt metal bands tighten around his wrists.
Handcuffs. His panic ebbed toward mere terror. They weren't going to kill him.
At least not yet.
*
Quinn knew something was wrong before she reached the parking lot. As she hurried down the slope she spotted Tim's car in its usual spot, but the motor wasn't running. She approached Griffin cautiously and peered within.
Empty.
She touched the hood and found it cold.
What's going on, Tim? What are you up to?
She shivered in the chill breeze. She'd thrown on a sweatsuit and a jacket but still she was cold. She'd just got out of a warm bed from a dead sleep and her body wasn't ready to handle this drop in temperature.
She heard a creak as one of the dorm's outer doors opened and closed.
Finally!
She looked toward the darkened dorm, expecting Tim to appear on the slope, heading her way. She heard the squeak of wheels, like someone rolling a wagon along the walk up there, thought she saw a shadow or two move across the space between the dorm and the caf, but they were gone before she could focus. She waited, but still no Tim.
Who else would be wandering around the campus at this hour?
Meet me in the car. That was what the note had said. Tim had said he was going to warm it up.
That gave Quinn an idea. She pulled out her key ring and picked out Tim's car keys. She opened the door and got inside. The cold of the vinyl raced through the fabric of her sweats, chilling her rear and the backs of her thighs. She started the car and pushed the thermostat up to the maximum.
If Tim wasn't going to heat up the car for her, she'd heat it up for him. But she wished he'd hurry. It was creepy out here.
She pushed down the door lock and rubbed her hands together, waiting for the heat.
Come on, Tim. Come out, come out, wherever you are.
*
Tim tried to keep the encroaching panic at bay by cataloging what he knew.
First off, he was still alive. That was a good start.
Second, he was unharmed—relatively. His left flank still ached and throbbed from that one, nasty kidney punch—which he now assumed had been dealt to shut him up—but after that he'd been handled roughly but without any evidence of malice. His abductors didn't seem to have anything personal against him. It was all pretty businesslike. Tim wasn't sure whether or not he should take heart from that.
Third, he was still on campus—where, he wasn't sure. After binding and gagging him, they'd dumped him into one of the laundry hampers the maids used for dirty linen and wheeled him out of the dorm—just the way convicts used to break out of prison in the old B movies. He'd bumped and rattled along a series of fairly level concrete walks, so he'd assumed he was traveling among the buildings of the campus. Then he'd been pushed uphill a short distance, into a building, into an elevator for a short trip down, along a hallway and into this room where he'd been strapped into a padded a
rmchair that creaked like wood when he shifted his weight.
His best guess: He was in the basement of the Science Center.
Suddenly the tape was ripped away from his mouth. Tim spit out the gag and gulped air. He waited for the blindfold tape to be removed but it remained untouched.
"Who are you?" he heard someone ask him.
The tantalizingly familiar voice startled him with its matter-of-fact tone.
"What?" Tim's tongue was dry from the cloth gag and he sounded like a frog who'd been singing all night. He worked up some saliva to moisten it.
The question came again. "Who are you?"
Now he pegged the voice: Louis Verran's. He found a certain grim satisfaction—if no comfort—in realizing that his suspicions were now proved correct.
"You know damn well who I am—" He almost added Verran's name but caught himself. Maybe the blindfold had been left on for a reason. Maybe he'd be endangering himself by revealing that he recognized his interrogator.
"I want you to say it. Say your name."
Okay. He'd cooperate. No harm in that.
"Timothy Brown."
"From what college did you graduate, Mr. Brown?"
"Dartmouth."
"And which is your room here on campus?"
"Room one-twenty-five."
"All right," Verran's voice said, moving closer. "He's all yours."
Tim grimaced with pain as the tape was ripped from across his eyes, taking some of his eyebrows with it. He squinted in the unaccustomed glare, but gradually the light and shadows began to take form.
"Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown," said a tired voice he recognized instantly. "Whatever are we going to do with you, Mr. Brown?"
Tim blinked to bring the figure standing before him into focus.
"Dr. Alston!"
"Yes, Mr. Brown."
"You're in on this?"
Dr. Alston pulled up a chair and seated himself facing Tim. He looked utterly relaxed, completely in control.
"In on what, Mr. Brown? Just what is it you think is going on here?"
Tim glanced around. He could have been in an electronics hobbyist's heaven—or hell. Monitors, speakers, computers, equalizers, oscilloscopes, white, red, and green blinking lights, wires, cables, and an array of other equipment he couldn't identify. Louis Verran was off to the right, watching a monitor. Tim tried to pull his arms free but they were securely bound—wrists, forearms, and biceps—to the armchair. He noticed wires connected by clamps to his fingertips. Were they going to shock him? He wiggled his fingers, trying to shake off the clamps, but they held firm.
He looked at Alston who smiled.
"No, Mr. Brown. We have no intention of torturing you. But we do want to make sure you stay put until we are through with you."
No question about staying put. He was trapped. Caged like a lab animal. The realization was a sick, sinking sensation in his chest. But at least Dr. Alston was a safe, sane, respected physician, researcher, and academician.
Wasn't he?
Alston said, "Again: What do you think is going on?"
"I don't know," Tim said. "But I do know you've got The Ingraham bugged six ways from Sunday."
Dr. Alston smiled that thin, cold smile of his as he lounged in his chair. "'Six ways from Sunday.' How quaint. I assure you we do not have The Ingraham bugged."
"The dorm, then."
"The dorm, yes. And you've discovered that, haven't you? What else have you discovered, Mr. Brown?"
Tim saw no use in lying about dismantling the headboard. The two goons who'd mugged him must have seen it.
"Something in the headboard."
"What in the headboard?"
"I don't know."
"You're the brainy medical student, Mr. Brown. What do you think?"
Might as well let it all hang out, Tim thought.
"I think you're brainwashing us."
Tim saw Dr. Alston stiffen and straighten in his chair. He was no longer lounging.
Bingo.
"What on earth could lead you to such a farfetched conclusion?"
"You really want to know or are we just killing time?"
"I quite sincerely want to know, Mr. Brown. It's important to me."
Tim believed him. Briefly he ran down the suspicions he'd developed about the stick pin/bug, the change he'd perceived in his own attitudes, his search of his room, and what he'd discovered.
Dr. Alston listened with visibly growing agitation, glancing frequently at Verran who was partially insulated in the earphones of his headset and seemed absorbed in his read-outs.
"So am I to understand it that if you hadn't stepped on that misplaced bug you would still be a model student here at The Ingraham?"
"Not quite," he said. "One of the other students at the bull sessions hasn't shown any change in attitudes." Tim didn't want to bring Quinn into this so he changed her sex. "His unchanged opinions made me aware of the change in mine."
"He's not talking about a 'he'," Verran said in a low voice. "He means Cleary, the girl in two-five-two."
"Ah, the redoubtable Miss Quinn Cleary. Her name keeps popping up. By the way, why isn't she here?"
For the first time since the tape had been pulled from Tim's eyes, he saw Louis Verran look up from his read-outs.
"She's not supposed to be here."
"I wanted her brought here," Dr. Alston said.
"Kurt and Elliot are too busy with damage control right now to play footsie with her."
"I specifically told Kurt I wanted her brought in."
Verran swiveled in his chair and stared at Dr. Alston.
"Kurt? You told Kurt to bring her in? He's a fucking animal!"
Tim clenched his fists as a ball of lead dropped into his stomach. Kurt? Who was Kurt?
Dr. Alston sniffed. "He won't do anything rash when he's operating on my direct orders."
"Don't be too fucking sure of that."
Dr. Alston waved Verran off. "Never mind."
Tim said, "If anything happens to her—"
"What?" Dr. Alston said, turning to him. "You'll do what? I'll tell you what you'll do, young man. You'll do nothing but sit here and listen as I explain to you what's really happening here at The Ingraham. And once you've heard the whole story, I'm sure you'll feel quite differently about it."
But Tim couldn't listen. All he could think about was Quinn and what this Kurt animal might do to her.
*
Quinn flicked on the courtesy lights and checked the dashboard clock. 3:02 a.m. The car heater was going, she was warm, but still no Tim.
Her concern was mounting with every passing minute, like a knot, tightening in her chest. Tim...he'd looked so strange, so frightened. And those notes about the room being bugged. Was he having some sort of breakdown?
And where was he? He'd said to meet him here. She'd read the note correctly, hadn't she? She wished she'd brought those notes with her, but she'd left them on her bed.
She thought back, trying to picture the note about meeting him in the car. He'd had something else written first and then crossed out. The anatomy lab. That was it. He'd wanted to meet her in the anatomy lab first but had changed his mind.
Maybe he'd changed it back. Quinn saw no use in sitting in Griffin any longer. She turned off the engine, stepped out into the cold air, and trotted up the slope to the center of the campus. She passed through the darker shadows between the caf and the administration building, skirted the pond with its newly formed skin of ice, and made a beeline for the lighted doors of the class building. They were unlocked, as usual. She hurried down the lighted hall.
She found one of the double doors to the An Lab open when she got there. Her spirits lifted. They normally were kept closed. That could only mean Tim was already here.
But the lights were out.
"Tim? Tim, are you in here?"
Silence replied. She flipped on the lights.
"Tim?"
The An Lab was empty except for the rows of sheet-c
overed cadavers on their tables.
Quinn moved forward, hesitantly. She'd grown accustomed to the place during the day, but at this time of night—morning, rather—it was creepy.
"Tim?"
The lab was empty, no question about it. She made her way toward their table in the far corner of the room. Someone had been here and left the door open. Maybe it was Tim. Maybe he'd left her a message at their table.
But no, Dorothy lay just as they'd left her. No note pinned to her sheet.
Tired, baffled, worried, Quinn sighed and leaned against the table. Where could—?
The lights went out.
Quinn spun in the sudden darkness and saw the entry doors swinging closed. A human-shaped shadow flitted across the rapidly narrowing wedge of light flowing between them from the hall.
It wasn't Tim. Tim liked jokes but he wasn't cruel. This was not Tim.
She wanted to scream but suppressed it. What good would screaming do? There was no help within earshot, and it would only give away her position.
With her heart punching against the base of her throat, she ducked and fumbled her shoes off. The concrete floor was cold through the socks on her gliding feet as she moved to her left, away from Dorothy, using the rear wall of the lab as her guide.
Whoever was in here with her hadn't removed his shoes. She could hear him scuffing along the floor, moving at a diagonal from her, heading directly for Dorothy.
She thought, Oh, God, Dorothy, I wish you were alive. I wish you could sit up and take a poke at this creep, whoever he is.
As the scraping steps continued to move away from the entry doors, Quinn edged back and around, gradually circling closer to the front of the lab, using the sliver of light leaking between the doors as a beacon to guide her. A few more minutes and she'd be able to make a break for those doors.
The lab went silent. The whispered scraping from the intruder's shoes died and Quinn froze, hovering in the darkness, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe for fear of giving herself away.
Shoes in hand, she dropped into a crouch, listening
Where was he? Why had he stopped? Had he found the area around Dorothy deserted and was deciding which way to go next? Or had he taken off his own shoes and was at this instant slipping toward her?
Suddenly a flashlight beam lanced through the darkness, ranging back and forth above the tables, coming her way, moving closer. It was gliding down the aisle on the far side of the table she was crouched behind, approaching, coming even, then passing by. Quinn was about to exhale with relief when the intruder suddenly roared in triumph and swung the light around, shining it directly in her face.