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Whistleblower
Tess Gerritsen
A deadly truth… When Victor Holland comes flying out of the night, he runs straight into the path of Catherine Weaver’s car. Having uncovered a terrifying secret which leads all the way to Washington, Victor is running for his life – and from the men who will go to any lengths to silence him.Victor’s story sounds like the ravings of a madman, but the haunted look in his eyes – and the bullet hole in his shoulder – tell a different story. As each hour brings pursuers ever closer, Cathy has to wonder, is she giving her trust to a man in danger or trusting her life to a dangerous man?


International bestselling author Tess Gerritsen gave up a career as a practising physician to write full time. She draws upon her experiences to bring all the tension and terrors of her thrillers to life. She lives in Camden, Maine, with her physician husband and two sons.

Also available from MIRA BooksandTess Gerritsen
CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT
UNDER THE KNIFE
IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS
PRESUMED GUILTY
NEVER SAY DIE
MURDER & MAYHEM
STOLEN

TESS GERRITSEN

WHISTLE BLOWER

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To Fiens and Frans

PROLOGUE
BRANCHES whipped his face, and his heart was pounding so hard he thought his chest would explode, but he couldn’t stop running. Already, he could hear the man gaining on him, could almost imagine the bullet slicing through the night and slamming into his back. Maybe it already had. Maybe he was trailing a river of blood; he was too numb with terror to feel anything now, except the desperate hunger to live. The rain was pouring down his face, icy, blinding sheets of it, rattling on the dead leaves of winter. He stumbled through a pool of darkness and found himself sprawled flat on his belly in the mud. The sound of his fall was deafening. His pursuer, alerted by the sharp crack of branches, altered course and was now headed straight for him. The thud of a silencer, the zing of a bullet past his cheek, told him he’d been spotted. He forced himself to his feet and made a sharp right, zigzagging back toward the highway. Here in the woods, he was a dead man. But if he could flag down a car, if he could draw someone’s attention, he might have a chance.
A crash of branches, a coarse oath, told him his pursuer had stumbled. He’d gained a few precious seconds. He kept running, moving only by an instinctive sense of direction. There was no light to guide his way, nothing except the dim glow of the clouds in the night sky. The road had to be just ahead. Any second now, his feet would hit pavement.
And then what? What if there’s no car to flag down, no one to help me?
Then, through the trees ahead, he saw a faint flickering, two watery beams of light.
With a desperate burst of speed, he sprinted toward the car. His lungs were on fire, his eyes blinded by the lash of branches and rain. Another bullet whipped past him and thudded into a tree trunk, but the gunman behind him had suddenly lost all importance. All that mattered was those lights, beckoning him through the darkness, taunting him with the promise of salvation.
When his feet suddenly hit the pavement, he was shocked. The lights were still ahead, bobbing somewhere beyond the trees. Had he missed the car? Was it already moving away, around a curve? No, there it was, brighter now. It was coming this way. He ran to meet it, following the bend of the road and knowing all the time that here in the open, he was an easy target. The sound of his shoes slapping the wet road filled his ears. The lights twisted toward him. At that instant, he heard the gun fire a third time. The force of the impact made him stumble to his knees, and he was vaguely aware of the bullet tearing through his shoulder, of the warmth of his own blood dribbling down his arm, but he was oblivious to pain. He could focus only on staying alive. He struggled back to his feet, took a stumbling step forward…
And was blinded by the onrush of headlights. There was no time to throw himself out of the way, no time even to register panic. Tires screamed across the pavement, throwing up a spray of water.
He didn’t feel the impact. All he knew was that he was suddenly lying on the ground and the rain was pouring into his mouth and he was very, very cold.
And that he had something to do, something important.
Feebly, he reached into the pocket of his windbreaker, and his fingers curled around the small plastic cylinder. He couldn’t quite remember why it mattered so much, but it was still there and he was relieved. He clutched it tightly in his palm.
Someone was calling to him. A woman. He couldn’t see her face through the rain, but he could hear her voice, hoarse with panic, floating through the buzz in his head. He tried to speak, tried to warn her that they had to get away, that death was waiting in the woods. But all that came out was a groan.
CHAPTER ONE
THREE miles out of Redwood Valley, a tree had fallen across the road, and with the heavy rains and backed-up cars, it took Catherine Weaver nearly three hours to get past the town of Willits. By then it was already ten o’clock and she knew she wouldn’t reach Garberville till midnight. She hoped Sarah wouldn’t sit up all night waiting for her. But knowing Sarah, there’d be a supper still warm in the oven and a fire blazing in the hearth. She wondered how pregnancy suited her friend. Wonderfully, of course. Sarah had talked about this baby for years, had chosen its name—Sam or Emma—long before it was conceived. The fact she no longer had a husband was a minor point. “You can only wait around so long for the right father,” Sarah had said. “Then you have to take matters into your own hands.”
And she had. With her biological clock furiously ticking its last years away, Sarah had driven down to visit Cathy in San Francisco and had calmly selected a fertility clinic from the yellow pages. A liberal-minded one, of course. One that would understand the desperate longings of a thirty-nine-year-old single woman. The insemination itself had been a coolly clinical affair, she’d said later. Hop on the table, slip your feet into the stirrups, and five minutes later, you were pregnant. Well, almost. But it was a simple procedure, the donors were certifiably healthy, and best of all, a woman could fulfill her maternal instincts without all that foolishness about marriage.
Yes, the old marriage game. They’d both suffered through it. And after their divorces, they’d both carried on, albeit with battle scars.
Brave Sarah, thought Cathy. At least she has thecourage to go through with this on her own.
The old anger washed through her, still potent enough to make her mouth tighten. She could forgive her ex-husband Jack for a lot of things. For his selfishness. His demands. His infidelity. But she could never forgive him for denying her the chance to have a child. Oh, she could have gone against his wishes and had a baby anyway, but she’d wanted him to want one as well. So she’d waited for the time to be right. But during their ten years of marriage, he’d never been “ready,” never felt it was the “right time.”
What he should have told her was the truth: that he was too self-centered to be bothered with a baby.
I’m thirty-seven years old, she thought. I no longer have a husband. I don’t even have a steady boyfriend. But I could be content, if only I could hold my own child in my arms.
At least Sarah would soon be blessed.
Four months to go and then the baby was due. Sarah’s baby. Cathy had to smile at that thought, despite the rain now pouring over her windshield. It was coming down harder now; even with the wipers thrashing at full speed, she could barely make out the road. She glanced at her watch and saw it was already eleven-thirty; there were no other cars in sight. If she had engine trouble out here, she’d probably have to spend the night huddled in the backseat, waiting for help to arrive.
Peering ahead, she tried to make out the road’s dividing line and saw nothing but a solid wall of rain. This was ridiculous. She really should have stopped at that motel in Willits, but she hated the thought of being only fifty miles from her goal, especially when she’d already driven so far.
She spotted a sign ahead: Garberville, 10 Miles. So she was closer than she’d thought. Twenty-five miles more, then there’d be a turnoff and a five-mile drive through dense woods to Sarah’s cedar house. The thought of being so close fueled her impatience. She fed the old Datsun some gas and sped up to forty-five miles an hour. It was a reckless thing to do, especially in these conditions, but the thought of a warm house and hot chocolate was just too tempting.
The road curved unexpectedly; startled, she jerked the wheel to the right and the car slid sideways, tobogganing wildly across the rain-slicked pavement. She knew enough not to slam on the brakes. Instead, she clutched the wheel, fighting to regain control. The tires skidded a few feet, a heart-stopping ride that took her to the very edge of the road. Just as she thought she’d clip the trees, the tires gripped the pavement. The car was still moving twenty miles an hour, but at least it was headed in a straight line. With clammy hands, she managed to negotiate the rest of the curve.
What happened next caught her completely by surprise. One instant she was congratulating herself for averting disaster, the next, she was staring ahead in disbelief.
The man had appeared out of nowhere. He was crouched in the road, captured like a wild animal in the glare of her headlights. Reflexes took over. She slammed on the brakes, but it was already too late. The screech of her tires was punctuated by the thud of the man’s body against the hood of her car.
For what seemed like eternity, she sat frozen and unable to do anything but clutch the steering wheel and stare at the windshield wipers skating back and forth. Then, as the reality of what she’d just done sank in, she shoved the door open and dashed out into the rain.
At first she could see nothing through the downpour, only a glistening strip of blacktop lit by the dim glow of her taillights. Where is he? she thought frantically. With water streaming past her eyes, she traced the road backward, struggling to see in the darkness. Then, through the pounding rain, she heard a low moan. It came from somewhere off to the side, near the trees.
Shifting direction, she plunged into the shadows and sank ankle-deep in mud and pine needles. Again she heard the moan, closer now, almost within reach.
“Where are you?” she screamed. “Help me find you!”
“Here…” The answer was so weak she barely heard it, but it was all she needed. Turning, she took a few steps and practically stumbled over his crumpled body in the darkness. At first, he seemed to be only a confusing jumble of soaked clothes, then she managed to locate his hand and feel for his pulse. It was fast but steady, probably steadier than her own pulse, which was skipping wildly. His fingers suddenly closed over hers in a desperate grip. He rolled against her and struggled to sit up.
“Please! Don’t move!” she said.
“Can’t—can’t stay here—”
“Where are you hurt?”
“No time. Help me. Hurry—”
“Not till you tell me where you’re hurt!”
He reached out and grabbed her shoulder in a clumsy attempt to rise to his feet. To her amazement, he managed to pull himself halfway up. For an instant they wobbled against each other, then his strength seemed to collapse and they both slid to their knees in the mud. His breathing had turned harsh and irregular and she wondered about his injuries. If he was bleeding internally he could die within minutes. She had to get him to a hospital now, even if it meant dragging him back to the car.
“Okay. Let’s try again,” she said, grabbing his left arm and draping it around her neck. She was startled by his gasp of agony. Immediately she released him. His arm left a sticky trail of warmth around her neck. Blood.
“My other side’s okay,” he grunted. “Try again.”
She shifted to his right side and pulled his arm over her neck. If she weren’t so frantic, it would have struck her as a comical scene, the two of them struggling like drunkards to stand up. When at last he was on his feet and they stood swaying together in the mud, she wondered if he even had the strength to put one foot in front of the other. She certainly couldn’t move them both. Though he was slender, he was also a great deal taller than she’d expected, and much more than her five-foot-five frame could support.
But something seemed to compel him forward, a kindling of some hidden reserves. Even through their soaked clothes, she could feel the heat of his body and could sense the urgency driving him onward. A dozen questions formed in her head, but she was breathing too hard to voice them. Her every effort had to be concentrated on getting him to the car, and then to a hospital.
Gripping him around the waist, she latched her fingers through his belt. Painfully they made their way to the road, struggling step by step. His arm felt taut as wire over her neck. It seemed everything about him was wound up tight. There was something desperate about the way his muscles strained to move forward. His urgency penetrated right through to her skin. It was a panic as palpable as the warmth of his body, and she was suddenly infected with his need to flee, a need made more desperate by the fact they could move no faster than they already were. Every few feet she had to stop and shove back her dripping hair just to see where she was going. And all around them, the rain and darkness closed off all view of whatever danger pursued.
The taillights of her car glowed ahead like ruby eyes winking in the night. With every step the man grew heavier and her legs felt so rubbery she thought they’d both topple in the road. If they did, she wouldn’t have the strength to haul him back up again. Already, his head was sagging against her cheek and water trickled from his rain-matted hair down her neck. The simple act of putting one foot in front of the other was so automatic that she never even considered dropping him on the road and backing the car to him instead. And the taillights were already so close, just beyond the next veil of rain.
By the time she’d guided him to the passenger side, her arm felt ready to fall off. With the man on the verge of sliding from her grasp, she barely managed to wrench the door open. She had no strength left to be gentle; she simply shoved him inside.
He flopped onto the front seat with his legs still hanging out. She bent down, grabbed his ankles, and heaved them one by one into the car, noting with a sense of detachment that no man with feet this big could possibly be graceful.
As she slid into the driver’s seat, he made a feeble attempt to raise his head, then let it sink back again. “Hurry,” he whispered.
At the first turn of the key in the ignition, the engine sputtered and died. Dear God, she pleaded. Start. Start! She switched the key off, counted slowly to three, and tried again. This time the engine caught. Almost shouting with relief, she jammed it into gear and made a tire-screeching takeoff toward Garberville. Even a town that small must have a hospital or, at the very least, an emergency clinic. The question was: could she find it in this downpour? And what if she was wrong? What if the nearest medical help was in Willits, the other direction? She might be wasting precious minutes on the road while the man bled to death.
Suddenly panicked by that thought, she glanced at her passenger. By the glow of the dashboard, she saw that his head was still flopped back against the seat. He wasn’t moving.
“Hey! Are you all right?” she cried.
The answer came back in a whisper. “I’m still here.”
“Dear God. For a minute I thought…” She looked back at the road, her heart pounding. “There’s got to be a clinic somewhere—”
“Near Garberville—there’s a hospital—”
“Do you know how to find it?”
“I drove past it—fifteen miles…”
If he drove here, where’s his car? she thought. “What happened?” she asked. “Did you have an accident?”
He started to speak but his answer was cut off by a sudden flicker of light. Struggling to sit up, he turned and stared at the headlights of another car far behind them. His whispered oath made her look sideways in alarm.
“What is it?”
“That car.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror. “What about it?”
“How long’s it been following us?”
“I don’t know. A few miles. Why?”
The effort of keeping his head up suddenly seemed too much for him, and he let it sink back down with a groan. “Can’t think,” he whispered. “Christ, I can’t think…”
He’s lost too much blood, she thought. In a panic, she shoved hard on the gas pedal. The car seemed to leap through the rain, the steering wheel vibrating wildly as sheets of spray flew up from the tires. Darkness flew at dizzying speed against their windshield. Slow down, Slow down! Or I’ll get us both killed.
Easing back on the gas, she let the speedometer fall to a more manageable forty-five miles per hour. The man was struggling to sit up again.
“Please, keep your head down!” she pleaded.
“That car—”
“It’s not there anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
She looked at the rearview mirror. Through the rain, she saw only a faint twinkling of light, but nothing as definite as headlights. “I’m sure,” she lied and was relieved to see him slowly settle back again. How muchfarther? she thought. Five miles? Ten? And then the next thought forced its way into her mind: He might diebefore we get there.
His silence terrified her. She needed to hear his voice, needed to be reassured that he hadn’t slipped into oblivion. “Talk to me,” she urged. “Please.”
“I’m tired….”
“Don’t stop. Keep talking. What—what’s your name?”
The answer was a mere whisper: “Victor.”
“Victor. That’s a great name. I like that name. What do you do, Victor?”
His silence told her he was too weak to carry on any conversation. She couldn’t let him lose consciousness! For some reason it suddenly seemed crucial to keep him awake, to keep him in touch with a living voice. If that fragile connection was broken, she feared he might slip away entirely.
“All right,” she said, forcing her voice to remain low and steady. “Then I’ll talk. You don’t have to say a thing. Just listen. Keep listening. My name is Catherine. Cathy Weaver. I live in San Francisco, the Richmond district. Do you know the city?” There was no answer, but she sensed some movement in his head, a silent acknowledgement of her words. “Okay,” she went on, mindlessly filling the silence. “Maybe you don’t know the city. It really doesn’t matter. I work with an independent film company. Actually, it’s Jack’s company. My ex-husband. We make horror films. Grade B, really, but they turn a profit. Our last one was Reptilian. I did the special-effects makeup. Really gruesome stuff. Lots of green scales and slime…” She laughed—it was a strange, panicked sound. It had an unmistakable note of hysteria.
She had to fight to regain control.
A wink of light made her glance up sharply at the rearview mirror. A pair of headlights was barely discernible through the rain. For a few seconds she watched them, debating whether to say anything to Victor. Then, like phantoms, the lights flickered off and vanished.
“Victor?” she called softly. He responded with an unintelligible grunt, but it was all she needed to be reassured that he was still alive. That he was listening. I’ve got to keep him awake, she thought, her mind scrambling for some new topic of conversation. She’d never been good at the glib sort of chitchat so highly valued at filmmakers’ cocktail parties. What she needed was a joke, however stupid, as long as it was vaguely funny. Laughter heals. Hadn’t she read it somewhere? That a steady barrage of comedy could shrink tumors? Oh sure, she chided herself. Just make him laugh andthe bleeding will miraculously stop….
But she couldn’t think of a joke, anyway, not a single damn one. So she returned to the topic that had first come to mind: her work.
“Our next project’s slated for January. Ghouls. We’ll be filming in Mexico, which I hate, because the damn heat always melts the makeup….”
She looked at Victor but saw no response, not even a flicker of movement. Terrified that she was losing him, she reached out to feel for his pulse and discovered that his hand was buried deep in the pocket of his windbreaker. She tried to tug it free, and to her amazement he reacted to her invasion with immediate and savage resistance. Lurching awake, he blindly lashed at her, trying to force her away.
“Victor, it’s all right!” she cried, fighting to steer the car and protect herself at the same time. “It’s all right! It’s me, Cathy. I’m only trying to help!”
At the sound of her voice, his struggles weakened. As the tension eased from his body, she felt his head settle slowly against her shoulder. “Cathy,” he whispered. It was a sound of wonder, of relief. “Cathy…”
“That’s right. It’s only me.” Gently, she reached up and brushed back the tendrils of his wet hair. She wondered what color it was, a concern that struck her as totally irrelevant but nonetheless compelling. He reached for her hand. His fingers closed around hers in a grip that was surprisingly strong and steadying. I’mstill here, it said. I’m warm and alive and breathing. He pressed her palm to his lips. So tender was the gesture, she was startled by the roughness of his unshaven jaw against her skin. It was a caress between strangers, and it left her shaken and trembling.
She returned her grip to the steering wheel and shifted her full attention back to the road. He had fallen silent again, but she couldn’t ignore the weight of his head on her shoulder or the heat of his breath in her hair.
The torrent eased to a slow but steady rain, and she coaxed the car to fifty. The Sunnyside Up cafe whipped past, a drab little box beneath a single streetlight, and she caught a glimpse of Victor’s face in the brief glow of light. She saw him only in profile: a high forehead, sharp nose, a jutting chin, and then the light was gone and he was only a shadow breathing softly against her. But she’d seen enough to know she’d never forget that face. Even as she peered through the darkness, his profile floated before her like an image burned into her memory.
“We have to be getting close,” she said, as much to reassure herself as him. “Where a cafe appears, a town is sure to follow.” There was no response. “Victor?” Still no response. Swallowing her panic, she sped up to fifty-five.
Though they’d passed the Sunnyside Up over a mile ago, she could still make out the streetlight winking on and off in her mirror. It took her a few seconds to realize it wasn’t just one light she was watching but two, and that they were moving—a pair of headlights, winding along the highway. Was it the same car she’d spotted earlier?
Mesmerized, she watched the lights dance like twin wraiths among the trees, then, suddenly, they vanished and she saw only darkness. A ghost? she wondered irrationally. Any instant she expected the lights to rematerialize, to resume their phantom twinkling in the woods. She was watching the mirror so intently that she almost missed the road sign:
Garberville, Pop, 5,750
Gas—Food—Lodging
A half mile later streetlights appeared, glowing a hazy yellow in the drizzle; a flatbed truck splashed by, headed in the other direction. Though the speed limit had dropped to thirty-five, she kept her foot firmly on the gas pedal and for once in her life prayed for a police car to give chase.
The Hospital road sign seemed to leap out at her from nowhere. She braked and swerved onto the turnoff. A quarter mile away, a red Emergency sign directed her up a driveway to a side entrance. Leaving Victor in the front seat, she ran inside, through a deserted waiting room, and cried to a nurse sitting at her desk: “Please, help me! I’ve got a man in my car….”
The nurse responded instantly. She followed Cathy outside, took one look at the man slumped in the front seat, and yelled for assistance.
Even with the help of a burly ER physician, they had difficulty pulling Victor out of the car. He had slid sideways, and his arm was wedged under the emergency hand brake.
“Hey, Miss!” the doctor barked at Cathy. “Climb in the other side and free up his arm!”
Cathy scrambled to the driver’s seat. There she hesitated. She would have to manipulate his injured arm. She took his elbow and tried to unhook it from around the brake, but discovered his wristwatch was snagged in the pocket of his windbreaker. After unsnapping the watchband, she took hold of his arm and lifted it over the brake. He responded with a groan of pure agony. The arm slid limply toward the floor.
“Okay!” said the doctor. “Arm’s free! Now, just ease him toward me and we’ll take it from there.”
Gingerly, she guided Victor’s head and shoulders safely past the emergency brake. Then she scrambled back outside to help load him onto the wheeled stretcher. Three straps were buckled into place. Everything became a blur of noise and motion as the stretcher was wheeled through the open double doors into the building.
“What happened?” the doctor barked over his shoulder at Cathy.
“I hit him—on the road—”
“When?”
“Fifteen—twenty minutes ago.”
“How fast were you driving?”
“About thirty-five.”
“Was he conscious when you found him?”
“For about ten minutes—then he sort of faded—”
A nurse said: “Shirt’s soaked with blood. He’s got broken glass in his shoulder.”
In that mad dash beneath harsh fluorescent lights, Cathy had her first clear look at Victor, and she saw a lean, mud-streaked face, a jaw tightly squared in pain, a broad forehead matted damply with light brown hair. He reached out to her, grasping for her hand.
“Cathy—”
“I’m here, Victor.”
He held on tightly, refusing to break contact. The pressure of his fingers in her flesh was almost painful. Squinting through the pain, he focused on her face. “I have to—have to tell you—”
“Later!” snapped the doctor.
“No, wait!” Victor was fighting to keep her in view, to hold her beside him. He struggled to speak, agony etching lines on his face.
Cathy bent close, drawn by the desperation of his gaze. “Yes, Victor,” she whispered, stroking his hair, longing to ease his pain. This link between their hands, their gazes, felt forged in timeless steel. “Tell me.”
“We can’t delay!” barked the doctor. “Get him in the room.”
All at once, Victor’s hand was wrenched away from her as they whisked him into the trauma suite, a nightmarish room of stainless steel and blindingly bright lights. He was lifted onto the surgical table.
“Pulse 110,” said a nurse. “Blood pressure eight-five over fifty!”
The doctor ordered, “Let’s get two IVs in. Type and cross six units of blood. And get hold of a surgeon. We’re going to need help….”
The machine-gun fire of voices, the metallic clang of cabinets and IV poles and instruments was deafening. No one seemed to notice Cathy standing in the doorway, watching in horrified fascination as a nurse pulled out a knife and began to tear off Victor’s bloody clothing. With each rip, more and more flesh was exposed, until the shirt and windbreaker were shredded off, revealing a broad chest thickly matted with tawny hair. To the doctors and nurses, this was just another body to labor over, another patient to be saved. To Cathy, this was a living, breathing man, a man she cared about, if only because they had shared those last harrowing moments. The nurse shifted her attention to his belt, which she quickly unbuckled. With a few firm tugs, she peeled off his trousers and shorts and threw them into a pile with the other soiled clothing. Cathy scarcely noticed the man’s nakedness, or the nurses and technicians shoving past her into the room. Her shocked gaze had focused on Victor’s left shoulder, which was oozing fresh blood onto the table. She remembered how his whole body had resonated with pain when she’d grabbed that shoulder; only now did she understand how much he must have suffered.
A sour taste flooded her throat. She was going to be sick.
Struggling against the nausea, she somehow managed to stumble away and sink into a nearby chair. There she sat for a few minutes, oblivious to the chaos whirling around her. Looking down, she noted with instinctive horror the blood on her hands.
“There you are,” someone said. A nurse had just emerged from the trauma room, carrying a bundle of the patient’s belongings. She motioned Cathy over to a desk. “We’ll need your name and address in case the doctors have any more questions. And the police will have to be notified. Have you called them?”
Cathy shook her head numbly. “I—I guess I should…”
“You can use this phone.”
“Thank you.”
It rang eight times before anyone answered. The voice that greeted her was raspy with sleep. Obviously, Garberville provided little late-night stimulation, even for the local police. The desk officer took down Cathy’s report and told her he’d be in touch with her later, after they’d checked the accident scene.
The nurse had opened Victor’s wallet and was flipping through the various ID cards for information. Cathy watched her fill in the blanks on a patient admission form: Name: Victor Holland. Age: 41. Occupation:Biochemist. Next of kin: Unknown.
So that was his full name. Victor Holland. Cathy stared down at the stack of ID cards and focused on what appeared to be a security pass for some company called Viratek. A color photograph showed Victor’s quietly sober face, its green eyes gazing straight into the camera. Even if she had never seen his face, this was exactly how she would have pictured him, his expression unyielding, his gaze unflinchingly direct. She touched her palm, where he had kissed her. She could still recall how his beard had stung her flesh.
Softly, she asked, “Is he going to be all right?”
The nurse continued writing. “He’s lost a lot of blood. But he looks like a pretty tough guy….”
Cathy nodded, remembering how, even in his agony, Victor had somehow dredged up the strength to keep moving through the rain. Yes, she knew just how tough a man he was.
The nurse handed her a pen and the information sheet. “If you could write your name and address at the bottom. In case the doctor has any more questions.”
Cathy fished out Sarah’s address and phone number from her purse and copied them onto the form. “My name’s Cathy Weaver. You can get hold of me at this number.”
“You’re staying in Garberville?”
“For three weeks. I’m just visiting.”
“Oh. Terrific way to start a vacation, huh?”
Cathy sighed as she rose to leave. “Yeah. Terrific.”
She paused outside the trauma room, wondering what was happening inside, knowing that Victor was fighting for his life. She wondered if he was still conscious, if he would remember her. It seemed important that he did remember her.
Cathy turned to the nurse. “You will call me, won’t you? I mean, you’ll let me know if he…”
The nurse nodded. “We’ll keep you informed.”
Outside, the rain had finally stopped and a belt of stars twinkled through a parting in the clouds. To Cathy’s weary eyes, it was an exhilarating sight, that first glimpse of the storm’s end. As she drove out of the hospital parking lot, she was shaking from fatigue. She never noticed the car parked across the street or the brief glow of the cigarette before it was snuffed out.
CHAPTER TWO
BARELY a minute after Cathy left the hospital, a man walked into the emergency room, sweeping the smells of a stormy night in with him through the double doors. The nurse on duty was busy with the new patient’s admission papers. At the sudden rush of cold air, she looked up to see a man approach her desk. He was about thirty-five, gaunt-faced, silent, his dark hair lightly feathered by gray. Droplets of water sparkled on his tan Burberry raincoat.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, focusing on his eyes, which were as black and polished as pebbles in a pond.
Nodding, he said quietly, “Was there a man brought in a short time ago? Victor Holland?”
The nurse glanced down at the papers on her desk. That was the name. Victor Holland. “Yes,” she said. “Are you a relative?”
“I’m his brother. How is he?”
“He just arrived, sir. They’re working on him now. If you’ll wait, I can check on how he’s doing—” She stopped to answer the ringing telephone. It was a technician calling with the new patient’s laboratory results. As she jotted down the numbers, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the man had turned and was gazing at the closed door to the trauma room. It suddenly swung open as an orderly emerged carrying a bulging plastic bag streaked with blood. The clamor of voices spilled from the room:
“Pressure up to 110 over 70!”
“OR says they’re ready to go.”
“Where’s that surgeon?”
“On his way. He had car trouble.”
“Ready for X rays! Everyone back!”
Slowly the door closed, muffling the voices. The nurse hung up just as the orderly deposited the plastic bag on her desk. “What’s this?” she asked.
“Patient’s clothes. They’re a mess. Should I just toss ’em?”
“I’ll take them home,” the man in the raincoat cut in. “Is everything here?”
The orderly flashed the nurse an uncomfortable glance. “I’m not sure he’d want to…I mean, they’re kind of…uh, dirty….”
The nurse said quickly, “Mr. Holland, why don’t you let us dispose of the clothes for you? There’s nothing worth keeping in there. I’ve already collected his valuables.” She unlocked a drawer and pulled out a sealed manila envelope labeled: Holland, Victor. Contents: Wallet, Wristwatch. “You can take these home. Just sign this receipt.”
The man nodded and signed his name: David Holland. “Tell me,” he said, sliding the envelope in his pocket. “Is Victor awake? Has he said anything?”
“I’m afraid not. He was semiconscious when he arrived.”
The man took this information in silence, a silence that the nurse found suddenly and profoundly disturbing. “Excuse me, Mr. Holland?” she asked. “How did you hear your brother was hurt? I didn’t get a chance to contact any relatives….”
“The police called me. Victor was driving my car. They found it smashed up at the side of the road.”
“Oh. What an awful way to be notified.”
“Yes. The stuff of nightmares.”
“At least someone was able to get in touch with you.” She sifted through the sheaf of papers on her desk. “Can we get your address and phone number? In case we need to reach you?”
“Of course.” The man took the ER papers, which he quickly scanned before scrawling his name and phone number on the blank marked Next of Kin. “Who’s this Catherine Weaver?” he asked, pointing to the name and address at the bottom of the page.
“She’s the woman who brought him in.”
“I’ll have to thank her.” He handed back the papers.
“Nurse?”
She looked around and saw that the doctor was calling to her from the trauma room doorway. “Yes?”
“I want you to call the police. Tell them to get in here as soon as possible.”
“They’ve been called, Doctor. They know about the accident—”
“Call them again. This is no accident.”
“What?”
“We just got the X rays. The man’s got a bullet in his shoulder.”
“A bullet?” A chill went through the nurse’s body, like a cold wind sweeping in from the night. Slowly, she turned toward the man in the raincoat, the man who’d claimed to be Victor Holland’s brother. To her amazement, no one was there. She felt only a cold puff of night air, and then she saw the double doors quietly slide shut.
“Where the hell did he go?” the orderly whispered.
For a few seconds she could only stare at the closed doors. Then her gaze dropped and she focused on the empty spot on her desk. The bag containing Victor Holland’s clothes had vanished.
“WHY DID the police call again?”
Cathy slowly replaced the telephone receiver. Even though she was bundled in a warm terry-cloth robe, she was shivering. She turned and stared across the kitchen at Sarah. “That man on the road—they found a bullet in his shoulder.”
In the midst of pouring tea, Sarah glanced up in surprise. “You mean—someone shot him?”
Cathy sank down at the kitchen table and gazed numbly at the cup of cinnamon tea that Sarah had just slid in front of her. A hot bath and a soothing hour of sitting by the fireplace had made the night’s events seem like nothing more than a bad dream. Here in Sarah’s kitchen, with its chintz curtains and its cinnamon and spice smells, the violence of the real world seemed a million miles away.
Sarah leaned toward her. “Do they know what happened? Has he said anything?”
“He just got out of surgery.” She turned and glanced at the telephone. “I should call the hospital again—”
“No. You shouldn’t. You’ve done everything you possibly can.” Sarah gently touched her arm. “And your tea’s getting cold.”
With a shaking hand, Cathy brushed back a strand of damp hair and settled uneasily in her chair. A bullet in his shoulder, she thought. Why? Had it been a random attack, a highway gunslinger blasting out the car window at a total stranger? She’d read about it in the newspapers, the stories of freeway arguments settled by the pulling of a trigger.
Or had it been a deliberate attack? Had Victor Holland been targeted for death?
Outside, something rattled and clanged against the house. Cathy sat up sharply. “What was that?”
“Believe me, it’s not the bogeyman,” said Sarah, laughing. She went to the kitchen door and reached for the bolt.
“Sarah!” Cathy called in panic as the bold slid open. “Wait!”
“Take a look for yourself.” Sarah opened the door. The kitchen light swung across a cluster of trash cans sitting in the carport. A shadow slid to the ground and scurried away, trailing food wrappers across the driveway. “Raccoons,” said Sarah. “If I don’t tie the lids down, those pests’ll scatter trash all over the yard.” Another shadow popped its head out of a can and stared at her, its eyes glowing in the darkness. Sarah clapped her hands and yelled, “Go on, get lost!” The raccoon didn’t budge. “Don’t you have a home to go to?” At last, the raccoon dropped to the ground and ambled off into the trees. “They get bolder every year,” Sarah sighed, closing the door. She turned and winked at Cathy. “So take it easy. This isn’t the big city.”
“Keep reminding me.” Cathy took a slice of banana bread and began to spread it with sweet butter. “You know, Sarah, I think it’ll be a lot nicer spending Christmas with you than it ever was with old Jack.”
“Uh-oh. Since we’re now speaking of ex-husbands—” Sarah shuffled over to a cabinet “—we might as well get in the right frame of mind. And tea just won’t cut it.” She grinned and waved a bottle of brandy.
“Sarah, you’re not drinking alcohol, are you?”
“It’s not for me.” Sarah set the bottle and a single wine glass in front of Cathy. “But I think you could use a nip. After all, it’s been a cold, traumatic night. And here we are, talking about turkeys of the male variety.”
“Well, since you put it that way…” Cathy poured out a generous shot of brandy. “To the turkeys of the world,” she declared and took a sip. It felt just right going down.
“So how is old Jack?” asked Sarah.
“Same as always.”
“Blondes?”
“He’s moved on to brunettes.”
“It took him only a year to go through the world’s supply of blondes?”
Cathy shrugged. “He might have missed a few.”
They both laughed then, light and easy laughter that told them their wounds were well on the way to healing, that men were now creatures to be discussed without pain, without sorrow.
Cathy regarded her glass of brandy. “Do you suppose there are any good men left in the world? I mean, shouldn’t there be one floating around somewhere? Maybe a mutation or something? One measly decent guy?”
“Sure. Somewhere in Siberia. But he’s a hundred-and-twenty years old.”
“I’ve always liked older men.”
They laughed again, but this time the sound wasn’t as lighthearted. So many years had passed since their college days together, the days when they had known, had never doubted, that Prince Charmings abounded in the world.
Cathy drained her glass of brandy and set it down. “What a lousy friend I am. Keeping a pregnant lady up all night! What time is it, anyway?”
“Only two-thirty in the morning.”
“Oh, Sarah! Go to bed!” Cathy went to the sink and began wetting a handful of paper towels.
“And what are you going to do?” Sarah asked.
“I just want to clean up the car. I didn’t get all the blood off the seat.”
“I already did it.”
“What? When?”
“While you were taking a bath.”
“Sarah, you idiot.”
“Hey, I didn’t have a miscarriage or anything. Oh, I almost forgot.” Sarah pointed to a tiny film canister on the counter. “I found that on the floor of your car.”
Cathy shook her head and sighed. “It’s Hickey’s.”
“Hickey! Now there’s a waste of a man.”
‘He’s also a good friend of mine.”
“That’s all Hickey will ever be to a woman. A friend. So what’s on the roll of film? Naked women, as usual?”
“I don’t even want to know. When I dropped him off at the airport, he handed me a half-dozen rolls and told me he’d pick them up when he got back. Guess he didn’t want to lug ’em all the way to Nairobi.”
“Is that where he went? Nairobi?”
“He’s shooting ‘gorgeous ladies of Africa’ or something.” Cathy slipped the film canister into her bathrobe pocket. “This must’ve dropped out of the glove compartment. Gee. I hope it’s not pornographic.”
“Knowing Hickey, it probably is.”
They both laughed at the irony of it all. Hickman Von Trapp, whose only job it was to photograph naked females in erotic poses, had absolutely no interest in the opposite sex, with the possible exception of his mother.
“A guy like Hickey only goes to prove my point,” Sarah said over her shoulder as she headed up the hall to bed.
“What point is that?”
“There really are no good men left in the world!”
IT WAS the light that dragged Victor up from the depths of unconsciousness, a light brighter than a dozen suns, beating against his closed eyelids. He didn’t want to wake up; he knew, in some dim, scarcely functioning part of his brain, that if he continued to struggle against this blessed oblivion he would feel pain and nausea and something else, something much, much worse: terror. Of what, he couldn’t remember. Of death? No, no, this was death, or as close as one could come to it, and it was warm and black and comfortable. But he had something important to do, something that he couldn’t allow himself to forget. He tried to think, but all he could remember was a hand, gentle but somehow strong, brushing his forehead, and a voice, reaching to him softly in the darkness.
My name is Catherine….
As her touch, her voice, flooded his memory, so too did the fear. Not for himself (he was dead, wasn’t he?) but for her. Strong, gentle Catherine. He’d seen her face only briefly, could scarcely remember it, but somehow he knew she was beautiful, the way a blind man knows, without benefit of vision, that a rainbow or the sky or his own dear child’s face is beautiful. And now he was afraid for her.
Where are you? he wanted to cry out.
“He’s coming around,” said a female voice (not Catherine’s, it was too hard, too crisp) followed by a confusing rush of other voices.
“Watch that IV!”
“Mr. Holland, hold still. Everything’s going to be all right—”
“I said, watch the IV!”
“Hand me that second unit of blood—”
“Don’t move, Mr. Holland—”
Where are you, Catherine? The shout exploded in his head. Fighting the temptation to sink back into unconsciousness, he struggled to lift his eyelids. At first, there was only a blur of light and color, so harsh he felt it stab through his sockets straight to his brain. Gradually the blur took the shape of faces, strangers in blue, frowning down at him. He tried to focus but the effort made his stomach rebel.
“Mr. Holland, take it easy,” said a quietly gruff voice. “You’re in the hospital—the recovery room. They’ve just operated on your shoulder. You just rest and go back to sleep….”
No. No, I can’t, he tried to say.
“Five milligrams of morphine going in,” someone said, and Victor felt a warm flush creep up his arm and spread across his chest.
“That should help,” he heard. “Now, sleep. Everything went just fine….”
You don’t understand, he wanted to scream. I haveto warn her—It was the last conscious thought he had before the lights once again were swallowed by the gentle darkness.
ALONE IN HER husbandless bed, Sarah lay smiling. No, laughing! Her whole body seemed filled with laughter tonight. She wanted to sing, to dance. To stand at the open window and shout out her joy! It was all hormonal, she’d been told, this chemical pandemonium of pregnancy, dragging her body on a roller coaster of emotions. She knew she should rest, she should work toward serenity, but tonight she wasn’t tired at all. Poor exhausted Cathy had dragged herself up the attic steps to bed. But here was Sarah, still wide awake.
She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts on the child resting in her belly. How are you, my love?Are you asleep? Or are you listening, hearing mythoughts even now?
The baby wiggled in her belly, then fell silent. It was a reply, secret words shared only between them. Sarah was almost glad there was no husband to distract her from this silent conversation, to lie here in jealousy, an outsider. There was only mother and child, the ancient bond, the mystical link.
Poor Cathy, she thought, riding those roller coaster emotions from joy to sadness for her friend. She knew Cathy yearned just as deeply for a child, but eventually time would snatch the chance away from her. Cathy was too much of a romantic to realize that the man, the circumstances, might never be right. Hadn’t it taken Cathy ten long years to finally acknowledge that her marriage was a miserable failure? Not that Cathy hadn’t tried to make it work. She had tried to the point of developing a monumental blind spot to Jack’s faults, primarily his selfishness. It was surprising how a woman so bright, so intuitive, could have let things drag on as long as she did. But that was Cathy. Even at thirty-seven she was open and trusting and loyal to the point of idiocy.
The clatter of gravel outside on the driveway pricked Sarah’s awareness. Lying perfectly still, she listened and for a moment heard only the familiar creak of the trees, the rustle of branches against the shake roof. Then—there it was again. Stones skittering across the road, and then the faint squeal of metal. Those raccoons again. If she didn’t shoo them off now, they’d litter garbage all over the driveway.
Sighing, she sat up and hunted in the darkness for her slippers. Shuffling quietly out of her bedroom, she navigated instinctively down the hallway and into the kitchen. Her eyes found the night too comfortable; she didn’t want to assault them with light. Instead of flipping on the carport switch, she grabbed the flashlight from its usual spot on the kitchen shelf and unlocked the door.
Outside, moonlight glowed dimly through the clouds. She pointed the flashlight at the trash cans, but her beam caught no raccoon eyes, no telltale scattering of garbage, only the dull reflection of stainless steel. Puzzled, she crossed the carport and paused next to the Datsun that Cathy had parked in the driveway.
That was when she noticed the light glowing faintly inside the car. Glancing through the window, she saw that the glove compartment was open. Her first thought was that it had somehow fallen open by itself or that she or Cathy had forgotten to close it. Then she spotted the road maps strewn haphazardly across the front seat.
With fear suddenly hissing in her ear, she backed away, but terror made her legs slow and stiff. Only then did she sense that someone was nearby, waiting in the darkness; she could feel his presence, like a chill wind in the night.
She wheeled around for the house. As she turned, the beam of her flashlight swung around in a wild arc, only to freeze on the face of a man. The eyes that stared down at her were as slick and as black as pebbles. She scarcely focused on the rest of his face: the hawk nose, the thin, bloodless lips. It was only the eyes she saw. They were the eyes of a man without a soul.
“Hello, Catherine,” he whispered, and she heard, in his voice, the greeting of death.
Please, she wanted to cry out as she felt him wrench her hair backward, exposing her neck. Let me live!
But no sound escaped. The words, like his blade, were buried in her throat.
CATHY WOKE UP to the quarreling of blue jays outside her window, a sound that brought a smile to her lips for it struck her as somehow whimsical, this flap and flutter of wings across the panes, this maniacal crackling of feathered enemies. So unlike the morning roar of buses and cars she was accustomed to. The blue jays’ quarrel moved to the rooftop, and she heard their claws scratching across the shakes in a dance of combat. She trailed their progress across the ceiling, up one side of the roof and down the other. Then, tired of the battle, she focused on the window.
Morning sunlight cascaded in, bathing the attic room in a soft haze. Such a perfect room for a nursery! She could see all the changes Sarah had already made here—the Jack-and-Jill curtains, the watercolor animal portraits. The very prospect of a baby sleeping in this room filled her with such joy that she sat up, grinning, and hugged the covers to her knees. Then she glanced at her watch on the nightstand and saw it was already nine-thirty—half the morning gone!
Reluctantly, she left the warmth of her bed and poked around in her suitcase for a sweater and jeans. She dressed to the thrashing of blue jays in the branches, the battle having moved from the roof to the treetops. From the window, she watched them dart from twig to twig until one finally hoisted up the feathered version of a white flag and took off, defeated. The victor, his authority no longer in question, gave one last screech and settled back to preen his feathers.
Only then did Cathy notice the silence of the house, a stillness that magnified her every heartbeat, her every breath.
Leaving the room, she descended the attic steps and confronted the empty living room. Ashes from last night’s fire mounded the grate. A silver garland drooped from the Christmas tree. A cardboard angel with glittery wings winked on the mantelpiece. She followed the hallway to Sarah’s room and frowned at the rumpled bed, the coverlet flung aside. “Sarah?”
Her voice was swallowed up in the stillness. How could a cottage seem so immense? She wandered back through the living room and into the kitchen. Last night’s teacups still sat in the sink. On the windowsill, an asparagus fern trembled, stirred by a breeze through the open door.
Cathy stepped out into the carport where Sarah’s old Dodge was parked. “Sarah?” she called.
Something skittered across the roof. Startled, Cathy looked up and suddenly laughed as she heard the blue jay chattering in the tree above—a victory speech, no doubt. Even the animal kingdom had its conceits.
She started to head back into the house when her gaze swept past a stain on the gravel near the car’s rear tire. For a few seconds she stared at the blot of rust-brown, unable to comprehend its meaning. Slowly, she moved alongside the car, her gaze tracing the stain backward along its meandering course.
As she rounded the rear of the car, the driveway came into full view. The dried rivulet of brown became a crimson lake in which a single swimmer lay open-eyed and still.
The blue jay’s chatter abruptly ceased as another sound rose up and filled the trees. It was Cathy, screaming.
“HEY, MISTER. Hey, mister.”
Victor tried to brush off the sound but it kept buzzing in his ear, like a fly that can’t be shooed away.
“Hey, mister. You awake?”
Victor opened his eyes and focused painfully on a wry little face stubbled with gray whiskers. The apparition grinned, and darkness gaped where teeth should have been. Victor stared into that foul black hole of a mouth and thought: I’ve died and gone to hell.
“Hey, mister, you got a cigarette?”
Victor shook his head and barely managed to whisper: “I don’t think so.”
“Well, you got a dollar I could borrow?”
“Go away,” groaned Victor, shutting his eyes against the daylight. He tried to think, tried to remember where he was, but his head ached and the little man’s voice kept distracting him.
“Can’t get no cigarettes in this place. Like a jail in here. Don’t know why I don’t just get up and walk out. But y’know, streets are cold this time of year. Been rainin’ all night long. Least in here it’s warm….”
Raining all night long… Suddenly Victor remembered. The rain. Running and running through the rain.
Victor’s eyes shot open. “Where am I?”
“Three East. Land o’ the bitches.”
He struggled to sit up and almost gasped from the pain. Dizzily, he focused on the metal pole with its bag of fluid dripping slowly into the plastic intravenous tube, then stared at the bandages on his left shoulder. Through the window, he saw that the day was already drenched in sunshine. “What time is it?”
“Dunno. Nine o’clock, I guess. You missed breakfast.”
“I’ve got to get out of here.” Victor swung his legs out of bed and discovered that, except for a flimsy hospital gown, he was stark naked. “Where’s my clothes? My wallet?”
The old man shrugged. “Nurse’d know. Ask her.”
Victor found the call button buried among the bed sheets. He stabbed it a few times, then turned his attention to peeling off the tape affixing the IV tube to his arm.
The door hissed open and a woman’s voice barked,
“Mr. Holland! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m getting out of here, that’s what I’m doing,” said Victor as he stripped off the last piece of tape. Before he could pull the IV out, the nurse rushed across the room as fast as her stout legs could carry her and slapped a piece of gauze over the catheter.
“Don’t blame me, Miss Redfern!” screeched the little man.
“Lenny, go back to your own bed this instant! And as for you, Mr. Holland,” she said, turning her steel-blue eyes on Victor, “you’ve lost too much blood.” Trapping his arm against her massive biceps, she began to retape the catheter firmly in place.
“Just get me my clothes.”
“Don’t argue, Mr. Holland. You have to stay.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve got an IV, that’s why!” she snapped, as if the plastic tube itself was some sort of irreversible condition.
“I want my clothes.”
“I’d have to check with the ER. Nothing of yours came up to the floor.”
“Then call the ER, damn you!” At Miss Redfern’s disapproving scowl, he added with strained politeness, “If you don’t mind.”
It was another half hour before a woman showed up from the business office to explain what had happened to Victor’s belongings.
“I’m afraid we—well, we seem to have…lost your clothes, Mr. Holland,” she said, fidgeting under his astonished gaze.
“What do you mean, lost?”
“They were—” she cleared her throat “—er, stolen. From the emergency room. Believe me, this has never happened before. We’re really very sorry about this, Mr. Holland, and I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange a purchase of replacement clothing….”
She was too busy trying to make excuses to notice that Victor’s face had frozen in alarm. That his mind was racing as he tried to remember, through the blur of last night’s events, just what had happened to the film canister. He knew he’d had it in his pocket during the endless drive to the hospital. He remembered clutching it there, remembered flailing senselessly at the woman when she’d tried to pull his hand from his pocket. After that, nothing was clear, nothing was certain. Have Ilost it? he thought. Have I lost my only evidence?
“…While the money’s missing, your credit cards seem to be all there, so I guess that’s something to be thankful for.”
He looked at her blankly. “What?”
“Your valuables, Mr. Holland.” She pointed to the wallet and watch she’d just placed on the bedside table. “The security guard found them in the trash bin outside the hospital. Looks like the thief only wanted your cash.”
“And my clothes. Right.”
The instant the woman left, Victor pressed the button for Miss Redfern. She walked in carrying a breakfast tray. “Eat, Mr. Holland” she said. “Maybe your behavior’s all due to hypoglycemia.”
“A woman brought me to the ER,” he said. “Her first name was Catherine. I have to get hold of her.”
“Oh, look! Eggs and Rice Krispies! Here’s your fork—”
“Miss Redfern, will you forget the damned RiceKrispies!”
Miss Redfern slapped down the cereal box. “There is no need for profanity!”
“I have to find that woman!”
Without a word, Miss Redfern spun around and marched out of the room. A few minutes later she returned and brusquely handed him a slip of paper. On it was written the name Catherine Weaver followed by a local address.
“You’d better eat fast,” she said. “There’s a policeman coming over to talk to you.”
“Fine,” he grunted, stuffing a forkful of cold, rubbery egg in his mouth.
“And some man from the FBI called. He’s on his way, too.”
Victor’s head jerked up in alarm. “The FBI? What was his name?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, how should I know? Something Polish, I think.”
Staring at her, Victor slowly put down his fork. “Polowski,” he said softly.
“That sounds like it. Polowski.” She turned and headed out of the room. “The FBI indeed,” she muttered. “Wonder what he did to get their attention ….”
Before the door had even swung shut behind her, Victor was out of bed and tearing at his IV. He scarcely felt the sting of the tape wrenching the hair off his arm; he had to concentrate on getting the hell out of this hospital before Polowski showed up. He was certain the FBI agent had set him up for that ambush last night, and he wasn’t about to wait around for another attack.
He turned and snapped at his roommate, “Lenny, where are your clothes?”
Lenny’s gaze traveled reluctantly to a cabinet near the sink. “Don’t got no other clothes. Besides, they wouldn’t fit you, mister…”
Victor yanked open the cabinet door and pulled out a frayed cotton shirt and a pair of baggy polyester pants. The pants were too short and about six inches of Victor’s hairy legs stuck out below the cuffs, but he had no trouble fastening the belt. The real trouble was going to be finding a pair of size twelve shoes. To his relief, he discovered that the cabinet also contained a pair of Lenny’s thongs. His heels hung at least an inch over the back edge, but at least he wouldn’t be barefoot.
“Those are mine!” protested Lenny.
“Here. You can have this.” Victor tossed his wristwatch to the old man. “You should be able to hock that for a whole new outfit.”
Suspicious, Lenny put the watch up against his ear. “Piece of junk. It’s not ticking.”
“It’s quartz.”
“Oh. Yeah. I knew that.”
Victor pocketed his wallet and went to the door. Opening it just a crack, he peered down the hall toward the nurses’ station. The coast was clear. He glanced back at Lenny. “So long, buddy. Give my regards to Miss Redfern.”
Slipping out of the room, Victor headed quietly down the hall, away from the nurses’ station. The emergency stairwell door was at the far end, marked by the warning painted in red: Alarm Will Sound If Opened. He walked steadily towards it, willing himself not to run, not to attract attention. But just as he neared the door, a familiar voice echoed in the hall.
“Mr. Holland! You come back here this instant!”
Victor lunged for the door, slammed against the closing bar, and dashed into the stairwell.
His footsteps echoed against the concrete as he pounded down the stairs. By the time he heard Miss Redfern scramble after him into the stairwell, he’d already reached the first floor and was pushing through the last door to freedom.
“Mr. Holland!” yelled Miss Redfern.
Even as he dashed across the parking lot, he could still hear Miss Redfern’s outraged voice echoing in his ears.
Eight blocks away he turned into a K Mart, and within ten minutes had bought a shirt, blue jeans, underwear, socks and a pair of size-twelve tennis shoes, all of which he paid for with his credit card. He tossed Lenny’s old clothes into a trash can.
Before emerging back outside, he peered through the store window at the street. It seemed like a perfectly normal mid-December morning in a small town, shoppers strolling beneath a tacky garland of Christmas decorations, a half-dozen cars waiting patiently at a red light. He was just about to step out the door when he spotted the police car creeping down the road. Immediately he ducked behind an undressed mannequin and watched through the nude plastic limbs as the police car made its way slowly past the K Mart and continued in the direction of the hospital. They were obviously searching for someone. Was he the one they wanted?
He couldn’t afford to risk a stroll down Main Street. There was no way of knowing who else besides Polowski was involved in the double cross.
It took him at least an hour on foot to reach the outskirts of town, and by then he was so weak and wobbly he could barely stand. The surge of adrenaline that had sent him dashing from the hospital was at last petering out. Too tired to take another step, he sank onto a boulder at the side of the highway and halfheartedly held out his thumb. To his immense relief, the next vehicle to come along—a pickup truck loaded with firewood—pulled over. Victor climbed in and collapsed gratefully on the seat.
The driver spat out the window, then squinted at Victor from beneath an Agway Seeds cap. “Goin’ far?”
“Just a few miles. Oak Hill Road.”
“Yep. I go right past it.” The driver pulled back onto the road. The truck spewed black exhaust as they roared down the highway, country music blaring from the radio.
Through the plucked strains of guitar music, Victor heard a sound that made him sit up sharply. A siren. Whipping his head around, he saw a patrol car zooming up fast behind them. That’s it, thought Victor. They’vefound me. They’re going to stop this truck and arrestme….
But for what? For walking away from the hospital? For insulting Miss Redfern? Or had Polowski fabricated some charge against him?
With a sense of impending doom, he waited for the patrol car to overtake them and start flashing its signal to pull over. In fact, he was so certain they would be pulled over that when the police car sped right past them and roared off down the highway, he could only stare ahead in amazement.
“Must be some kinda trouble,” his companion said blandly, nodding at the rapidly vanishing police car.
Victor managed to clear his throat. “Trouble?”
“Yep. Don’t get much of a chance to use that siren of theirs but when they do, boy oh boy, do they go to town with it.”
With his heart hammering against his ribs, Victor sat back and forced himself to calm down. He had nothing to worry about. The police weren’t after him, they were busy with some other concern. He wondered what sort of small-town catastrophe could warrant blaring sirens. Probably nothing more exciting than a few kids out on a joyride.
By the time they reached the turnoff to Oak Hill Road, Victor’s pulse had settled back to normal. He thanked the driver, climbed out, and began the trek to Catherine Weaver’s house. It was a long walk, and the road wound through a forest of pines. Every so often he’d pass a mailbox along the road and, peering through the trees, would spot a house. Catherine’s address was coming up fast.
What on earth should he say to her? Up till now he’d concentrated only on reaching her house. Now that he was almost there, he had to come up with some reasonable explanation for why he’d dragged himself out of a hospital bed and trudged all this way to see her. A simple thanks for saving my life just wouldn’t do it. He had to find out if she had the film canister. But she, of course, would want to know why the damn thing was so important.
You could tell her the truth.
No, forget that. He could imagine her reaction if he were to launch into his wild tale about viruses and dead scientists and double-crossing FBI agents. The FBI is outto get you? I see. And who else is after you, Mr. Holland? It was so absurdly paranoid he almost felt like laughing. No, he couldn’t tell her any of it or he’d end up right back in a hospital, and this time in a ward that would make Miss Redfern’s Three East look like paradise.
She didn’t need to know any of it. In fact, she was better off ignorant. The woman had saved his life, and the last thing he wanted to do was put her in any danger. The film was all he wanted from her. After today, she’d never see him again.
He was so busy debating what to tell her that he didn’t notice the police cars until well after he’d rounded the road’s bend. Suddenly he froze, confronted by three squad cars—probably the entire police fleet of Garberville—parked in front of a rustic cedar house. A half-dozen neighbors lingered in the gravel driveway, shaking their heads in disbelief. Good God, had something happened to Catherine?
Swallowing the urge to turn and flee, Victor propelled himself forward, past the squad cars and through the loose gathering of onlookers, only to be stopped by a uniformed officer.
“I’m sorry, sir. No one’s allowed past this point.”
Dazed, Victor stared down and saw that the police had strung out a perimeter of red tape. Slowly, his gaze moved beyond the tape, to the old Datsun parked near the carport. Was that Catherine’s car? He tried desperately to remember if she’d driven a Datsun, but last night it had been so dark and he’d been in so much pain that he hadn’t bothered to pay attention. All he could remember was that it was a compact model, with scarcely enough room for his legs. Then he noticed the faded parking sticker on the rear bumper: Parking Permit, Studio Lot A.
I work for an independent film company, she’d told him last night.
It was Catherine’s car.
Unwillingly, he focused on the stained gravel just beside the Datsun, and even though the rational part of him knew that that peculiar brick red could only be dried blood, he wanted to deny it. He wanted to believe there was some other explanation for that stain, for this ominous gathering of police.
He tried to speak, but his voice sounded like something dragged up through gravel.
“What did you say, sir?” the police officer asked.
“What—what happened?”
The officer shook his head sadly. “Woman was killed here last night. Our first murder in ten years.”
“Murder?” Victor’s gaze was still fixed in horror on the bloodstained gravel. “But—why?”
The officer shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Maybe robbery, though I don’t think he got much.” He nodded at the Datsun. “Car was the only thing broken into.”
If Victor said anything at that point, he never remembered what it was. He was vaguely aware of his legs carrying him back through the onlookers, past the three police cars, toward the road. The sunshine was so brilliant it hurt his eyes and he could barely see where he was going.
I killed her, he thought. She saved my life and Ikilled her….
Guilt slashed its way to his throat and he could scarcely breathe, could barely take another step for the pain. For a long time he stood there at the side of the road, his head bent in the sunshine, his ears filled with the sound of blue jays, and mourned a woman he’d never known.
When at last he was able to raise his head again, rage fueled the rest of his walk back to the highway, rage against Catherine’s murderer. Rage at himself for having put her in such danger. It was the film the killer had been searching for, and he’d probably found it in the Datsun. If he hadn’t, the house would have been ransacked, as well.
Now what? thought Victor. He dismissed the possibility that his briefcase—with most of the evidence—might still be in his wrecked car. That was the first place the killer would have searched. Without the film, Victor was left with no evidence at all. It would all come down to his word against Viratek’s. The newspapers would dismiss him as nothing more than a disgruntled ex-employee. And after Polowski’s double cross, he couldn’t trust the FBI.
At that last thought, he quickened his pace. The sooner he got out of Garberville, the better. When he got back to the highway, he’d hitch another ride. Once safely out of town, he could take the time to plan his next move.
He decided to head south, to San Francisco.
CHAPTER THREE
FROM THE WINDOW of his office at Viratek, Archibald Black watched the limousine glide up the tree-lined driveway and pull to a stop at the front entrance. Black snorted derisively. The cowboy was back in town, damn him. And after all the man’s fussing about the importance of secrecy, about keeping his little visit discreet, the idiot had the gall to show up in a limousine—with a uniformed driver, no less.
Black turned from the window and paced over to his desk. Despite his contempt for the visitor, he had to acknowledge the man made him uneasy, the way all so-called men of action made him uneasy. Not enough brains behind all that muscle. Too much power in the hands of imbeciles, he thought. Is this an example of who we have running the country?
The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Black?” said his secretary. “A Mr. Tyrone is here to see you.”
“Send him in, please,” said Black, smoothing the scorn from his expression. He was wearing a look of polite deference when the door opened and Matthew Tyrone walked into the office.
They shook hands. Tyrone’s grip was unreasonably firm, as though he was trying to remind Black of their relative positions of power. His bearing had all the spit and polish of an ex-marine, which Tyrone was. Only the thickening waist betrayed the fact that Tyrone’s marine days had been left far behind.
“How was the flight from Washington?” inquired Black as they sat down.
“Terrible service. I tell you, commercial flights aren’t what they used to be. To think the average American pays good money for the privilege.”
“I imagine it can’t compare with Air Force One.”
Tyrone smiled. “Let’s get down to business. Tell me where things stand with this little crisis of yours.”
Black noted Tyrone’s use of the word yours. So nowit’s my problem, he thought. Naturally. That’s what they meant by deniability: When things go wrong, the other guy gets the blame. If any of this leaked out, Black’s head would be the one to fall. But then, that’s why this contract was so lucrative—because he—meaning Viratek—was willing to take that risk.
“We’ve recovered the documents,” said Black. “And the film canisters. The negatives are being developed now.”
“And your two employees?”
Black cleared his throat. “There’s no need to take this any further.”
“They’re a risk to national security.”
“You can’t just kill them off!”
“Can’t we?” Tyrone’s eyes were a cold, gun-metal gray. An appropriate color for someone who called himself “the Cowboy.” You didn’t argue with anyone who had eyes like that. Not if you had an instinct for self-preservation.
Black dipped his head deferentially. “I’m not accustomed to this sort of…business. And I don’t like dealing with your man Savitch.”
“Mr. Savitch has performed well for us before.”
“He killed one of my senior scientists!”
“I assume it was necessary.”
Black looked down unhappily at his desk. Just the thought of that monster Savitch made him shudder.
“Why, exactly, did Martinique go bad?”
Because he had a conscience, thought Black. He looked at Tyrone. “There was no way to predict it. He’d worked in commercial R and D for ten years. He’d never presented a security problem before. We only found out last week that he’d taken classified documents. And then Victor Holland got involved….”
“How much does Holland know?”
“Holland wasn’t involved with the project. But he’s clever. If he looked over those papers, he might have pieced it together.”
Now Tyrone was agitated, his fingers drumming the desktop. “Tell me about Holland. What do you know about him?”
“I’ve gone over his personnel file. He’s forty-one years old, born and raised in San Diego. Entered the seminary but dropped out after a year. Went on to Stanford, then MIT. Doctorate in biochemistry. He was with Viratek for four years. One of our most promising researchers.”
“What about his personal life?”
“His wife died three years ago of leukemia. Keeps pretty much to himself these days. Quiet kind of guy, likes classical jazz. Plays the saxophone in some amateur group.”
Tyrone laughed. “Your typical nerd scientist.” It was just the sort of moronic comment an ex-marine like Tyrone would make. It was an insult that grated on Black. Years ago, before he created Viratek Industries, Black too had been a research biochemist.
“He should be a simple matter to dispose of,” said Tyrone. “Inexperienced. And probably scared.” He reached for his briefcase. “Mr. Savitch is an expert on these matters. I suggest you let him take care of the problem.”
“Of course.” In truth, Black didn’t think he had any choice. Nicholas Savitch was like some evil, frightening force that, once unleashed, could not be controlled.
The intercom buzzed. “Mr. Gregorian’s here from the photo lab,” said the secretary.
“Send him in.” Black glanced at Tyrone. “The film’s been developed. Let’s see just what Martinique managed to photograph.”
Gregorian walked in carrying a bulky envelope. “Here are those contact prints you requested,” he said, handing the bundle across the desk to Black. Then he cupped his hand over his mouth, muffling a sound suspiciously like laughter.
“Yes, Mr. Gregorian?” inquired Black.
“Nothing, sir.”
Tyrone cut in, “Well, let’s see them!”
Black removed the five contact sheets and lay them out on the desk for everyone to see. The men stared.
For a long time, no one spoke. Then Tyrone said, “Is this some sort of joke?”
Gregorian burst out laughing.
Black said, “What the hell is this?”
“Those are the negatives you gave me, sir,” Gregorian insisted. “I processed them myself.”
“These are the photos you got back from Victor Holland?” Tyrone’s voice started soft and rose slowly to a roar. “Five rolls of naked women?”
“There’s been a mistake,” said Black. “It’s the wrong film—”
Gregorian laughed harder.
“Shut up!” yelled Black. He looked at Tyrone. “I don’t know how this happened.”
“Then the roll we want is still out there?”
Black nodded wearily.
Tyrone reached for the phone. “We need to clean things up. Fast.”
“Who are you calling?” asked Black.
“The man who can do the job,” said Tyrone as he punched in the numbers. “Savitch.”
IN HIS motel room on Lombard Street, Victor paced the avocado-green carpet, wracking his brain for a plan. Any plan. His well-organized scientist’s mind had already distilled the situation into the elements of a research project. Identify the problem: someone is out to kill me. State your hypothesis: Jerry Martinique uncovered something dangerous and he was killed for it. Now they think I have the information—and the evidence. Which I don’t. Goal: Stay alive. Method: Anydamn way I can!
For the last two days, his only strategy had consisted of holing up in various cheap motel rooms and pacing the carpets. He couldn’t hide out forever. If the feds were involved, and he had reason to believe they were, they’d soon have his credit card charges traced, would know exactly where to find him.
I need a plan of attack.
Going to the FBI was definitely out. Sam Polowski was the agent Victor had contacted, the one who’d arranged to meet him in Garberville. No one else should have known about that meeting. Sam Polowski had never shown up.
But someone else had. Victor’s aching shoulder was a constant reminder of that near-disastrous rendezvous.
I could go to the newspapers. But how would he convince some skeptical reporter? Who would believe his stories of a project so dangerous it could kill millions? They would think his tale was some fabrication of a paranoid mind.
And I am not paranoid.
He paced over to the TV and switched it on to the five o’clock news. A perfectly coiffed anchorwoman smiled from the screen as she read a piece of fluff about the last day of school, happy children, Christmas vacation. Then her expression sobered. Transition. Victor found himself staring at the TV as the next story came on.
“And in Garberville, California, there have been no new leads in the murder investigation of a woman found slain Wednesday morning. A houseguest found Sarah Boylan, 39, lying in the driveway, dead of stab wounds to the neck. The victim was five months pregnant. Police say they are puzzled by the lack of motive in this terrible tragedy, and at the present time there are no suspects. Moving on to national news…”
No, no, no! Victor thought. She wasn’t pregnant. Her name wasn’t Sarah. It’s a mistake….
Or was it?
My name is Catherine, she had told him.
Catherine Weaver. Yes, he was sure of the name. He’d remember it till the day he died.
He sat on the bed, the facts spinning around in his brain. Sarah. Cathy. A murder in Garberville.
When at last he rose to his feet, it was with a swelling sense of urgency, even panic. He grabbed the hotel room phone book and flipped to the Ws. He understood now. The killer had made a mistake. If Cathy Weaver was still alive, she might have that roll of film—or know where to find it. Victor had to reach her.
Before someone else did.
NOTHING could have prepared Cathy for the indescribable sense of gloom she felt upon returning to her flat in San Francisco. She had thought she’d cried out all her tears that night in the Garberville motel, the night after Sarah’s death. But here she was, still bursting into tears, then sinking into deep, dark meditations. The drive to the city had been temporarily numbing. But as soon as she’d climbed the steps to her door and confronted the deathly silence of her second-story flat, she felt overwhelmed once again by grief. And bewilderment. Of all the people in the world to die, why Sarah?
She made a feeble attempt at unpacking. Then, forcing herself to stay busy, she surveyed the refrigerator and saw that her shelves were practically empty. It was all the excuse she needed to flee her apartment. She pulled a sweater over her jeans and, with a sense of escape, walked the four blocks to the neighborhood grocery store. She bought only the essentials, bread and eggs and fruit. Enough to tide her over for a few days, until she was back on her feet and could think clearly about any sort of menu.
Carrying a sack of groceries in each arm, she walked through the gathering darkness back to her apartment building. The night was chilly, and she regretted not wearing a coat. Through an open window, a woman called, “Time for dinner!” and two children playing kickball in the street turned and scampered for home.
By the time Cathy reached her building, she was shivering and her arms were aching from the weight of the groceries. She trudged up the steps and, balancing one sack on her hip, managed to pull out her keys and unlock the security door. Just as she swung through, she heard footsteps, then glimpsed a blur of movement rushing toward her from the side. She was swept through the doorway, into the building. A grocery bag tumbled from her arms, spilling apples across the floor. She stumbled forward, catching herself on the wood banister. The door slammed shut behind her.
She spun around, ready to fight off her attacker.
It was Victor Holland.
“You!” she whispered in amazement.
He didn’t seem so sure of her identity. He was frantically searching her face, as though trying to confirm he had the right woman. “Cathy Weaver?”
“What do you think you’re—”
“Where’s your apartment?” he cut in.
“What?”
“We can’t stand around out here.”
“It’s—it’s upstairs—”
“Let’s go.” He reached for her arm but she pulled away.
“My groceries,” she said, glancing down at the scattered apples.
He quickly scooped up the fruit, tossed it in one of the bags, and nudged her toward the stairs. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Cathy allowed herself to be herded up the stairs and halfway down the hall before she stopped dead in her tracks. “Wait a minute. You tell me what this is all about, Mr. Holland, and you tell me right now or I don’t move another step!”
“Give me your keys.”
“You can’t just—”
“Give me your keys!”
She stared at him, shocked by the command. Suddenly she realized that what she saw in his eyes was panic. They were the eyes of a hunted man.
Automatically she handed him her keys.
“Wait here,” he said. “Let me check the apartment first.”
She watched in bewilderment as he unlocked her door and cautiously eased his way inside. For a few moments she heard nothing. She pictured him moving through the flat, tried to estimate how many seconds each room would require for inspection. It was a small flat, so why was he taking so long?
Slowly she moved toward the doorway. Just as she reached it, his head popped out. She let out a little squeak of surprise. He barely caught the bag of groceries as it slipped from her grasp.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Come on inside.”
The instant she stepped over the threshold, he had the door locked and bolted behind her. Then he quickly circled the living room, closing the drapes, locking windows.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked, following him around the room.
“We’re in trouble.”
“You mean you’re in trouble.”
“No. I mean we. Both of us.” He turned to her, his gaze clear and steady. “Do you have the film?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, utterly confused by the sudden shift of conversation.
“A roll of film. Thirty-five millimeter. In a black plastic container. Do you have it?”
She didn’t answer. But an image from that last night with Sarah had already taken shape in her mind: a roll of film on the kitchen counter. Film she’d thought belonged to her friend Hickey. Film she’d slipped into her bathrobe pocket and later into her purse. But she wasn’t about to reveal any of this, not until she found out why he wanted it. The gaze she returned to him was purposefully blank and unrevealing.
Frustrated, he forced himself to take a deep breath, and started over. “That night you found me—on the highway—I had it in my pocket. It wasn’t with me when I woke up in the hospital. I might have dropped it in your car.”
“Why do you want this roll of film?”
“I need it. As evidence—”
“For what?”
“It would take too long to explain.”
She shrugged. “I’ve got nothing better to do at the moment—”
“Damn it!” He stalked over to her. Taking her by the shoulders, he forced her to look at him. “Don’t you understand? That’s why your friend was killed! The night they broke into your car, they were looking for that film!”
She stared at him, a look of sudden comprehension and horror. “Sarah…”
“Was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killer must have thought she was you.”
Cathy felt trapped by his unrelenting gaze. And by the inescapable threat of his revelation. Her knees wobbled, gave way. She sank into the nearest chair and sat there in numb silence.
“You have to get out of here,” he said. “Before they find you. Before they figure out you’re the Cathy Weaver they’re looking for.”
She didn’t move. She couldn’t move.
“Come on, Cathy. There isn’t much time!”
“What was on that roll of film?” she asked softly.
“I told you. Evidence. Against a company called Viratek.”
She frowned. “Isn’t—isn’t that the company you work for?”
“Used to work for.”
“What did they do?”
“They’re involved in some sort of illegal research project. I can’t tell you the particulars.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know them. I’m not the one who gathered the evidence. A colleague—a friend—passed it to me, just before he was killed.”
“What do you mean by killed?”
“The police called it an accident. I think otherwise.”
“You’re saying he was murdered over a research project?” She shook her head. “Must have been dangerous stuff he was working on.”
“I know this much. It involves biological weapons. Which makes the research illegal. And incredibly dangerous.”
“Weapons? For what government?”
“Ours.”
“I don’t understand. If this is a federal project, that makes it all legal, right?”
“Not by a long shot. People in high places have been known to break the rules.”
“How high are we talking about?”
“I don’t know. I can’t be sure of anyone. Not the police, not the Justice Department. Not the FBI.”
Her eyes narrowed. The words she was hearing sounded like paranoid ravings. But the voice—and the eyes—were perfectly sane. They were sea-green, those eyes. They held an honesty, a steadiness that should have been all the assurance she needed.
It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
Quietly she said, “So you’re telling me the FBI is after you. Is that correct?”
Sudden anger flared in his eyes, then just as quickly, it was gone. Groaning, he sank onto the couch and ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t blame you for thinking I’m nuts. Sometimes I wonder if I’m all there. I thought if I could trust anyone, it’d be you….”
“Why me?”
He looked at her. “Because you’re the one who saved my life. You’re the one they’ll try to kill next.”
She froze. No, no, this was insane. Now he was pulling her into his delusion, making her believe in his nightmare world of murder and conspiracy. She wouldn’t let him! She stood up and started to walk away, but his voice made her stop again.
“Cathy, think about it. Why was your friend Sarah killed? Because they thought she was you. By now they’ve figured out they killed the wrong woman. They’ll have to come back and do the job right. Just in case you know something. In case you have evidence—”
“This is crazy!” she cried, clapping her hands over her ears. “No one’s going to—”
“They already have!” He whipped out a scrap of newspaper from his shirt pocket. “On my way over here, I happened to pass a newsstand. This was on the front page.” He handed her the piece of paper.
She stared in bewilderment at the photograph of a middle-aged woman, a total stranger. “San Francisco woman shot to death on front doorstep,” read the ac companying headline.
“This has nothing to do with me,” she said.
“Look at her name.”
Cathy’s gaze slid to the third paragraph, which identified the victim.
Her name was Catherine Weaver.
The scrap of newsprint slipped from her grasp and fluttered to the floor.
“There are three Catherine Weavers in the San Francisco phone book,” he said. “That one was shot to death at nine o’clock this morning. I don’t know what’s happened to the second. She might already be dead. Which makes you next on the list. They’ve had enough time to locate you.”
“I’ve been out of town—I only got back an hour ago—”
“Which explains why you’re still alive. Maybe they came here earlier. Maybe they decided to check out the other two women first.”
She shot to her feet, suddenly frantic with the need to flee. “I have to pack my things—”
“No. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
Yes, do what he says! an inner voice screamed at her.
She nodded. Turning, she headed blindly for the door. Halfway there, she halted. “My purse—”
“Where is it?”
She headed back, past a curtained window. “I think I left it by the—”
Her next words were cut off by an explosion of shattering glass. Only the closed curtains kept the shards from piercing her flesh. Pure reflex sent Cathy diving to the floor just as the second gun blast went off. An instant later she found Victor Holland sprawled on top of her, covering her body with his as the third bullet slammed into the far wall, splintering wood and plaster.
The curtains shuddered, then hung still.
For a few seconds Cathy was paralyzed by terror, by the weight of Victor’s body on hers. Then panic took hold. She squirmed free, intent on fleeing the apartment.
“Stay down!” Victor snapped.
“They’re trying to kill us!”
“Don’t make it easy for them!” He dragged her back to the floor. “We’re getting out. But not through the front door.”
“How—”
“Where’s your fire escape?”
“My bedroom window.”
“Does it go to the roof?”
“I’m not sure—I think so—”
“Then let’s move it.”
On hands and knees they crawled down the hall, into Cathy’s unlit bedroom. Beneath the window they paused, listening. Outside, in the darkness, there was no sound. Then, from downstairs in the lobby, came the tinkle of breaking glass.
“He’s already in the building!” hissed Victor. He yanked open the window. “Out, out!”
Cathy didn’t need to be prodded. Hands shaking, she scrambled out and lowered herself onto the fire escape. Victor was right behind her.
“Up,” he whispered. “To the roof.”
And then what? she wondered, climbing the ladder to the third floor, past Mrs. Chang’s flat. Mrs. Chang was out of town this week, visiting her son in New Jersey. The apartment was dark, the windows locked tight. No way in there.
“Keep going,” said Victor, nudging her forward.
Only a few more rungs to go.
At last, she pulled herself up and over the edge and onto the asphalt roof. A second later, Victor dropped down beside her. Potted plants shuddered in the darkness. It was Mrs. Chang’s rooftop garden, a fragrant mélange of Chinese herbs and vegetables.
Together, Victor and Cathy weaved their way through the plants and crossed to the opposite edge of the roof, where the next building abutted theirs.
“All the way?” said Cathy.

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