Sisterhood (27 page)

“That would be wonderful,” David said wistfully. “Tell me, who’s the nurse?”

“Oh, she said she’s met you. Her name’s Beall. Christine Beall.”

At the mention of her name David felt another momentary surge. “Ben, that’s what I was trying to think of in your office. Remember? When something popped in and out of my head?”

“I remember.”

“Well it was something
she
said. Christine Beall. Right after I shot my mouth off to Charlotte’s husband. She whispered to me that she was proud of the way I stood up to Huttner, and … and then she said, ‘Don’t worry. Things have a way of working out.’ Then all of a sudden she was gone. Ben, do you think …?”

“Listen, pal, do us both a favor if you can. Try not to project. A few hours, then we’ll know. Okay?”

“Okay,” David said. “But you know I will anyway, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know,” Ben said. “Nine thirty.”

“Right.” David checked his watch. “Will you at least
synchronize with me so I don’t go too nuts waiting for you?”

Ben laughed. “Five of five, pal. I have five of five.”

“Four fifty-five it is,” David sang. He set down the receiver.

His elation was brief. Over the past few days, conscious thoughts of Christine had been submerged in the nightmare. At that moment David realized they had never been far from the surface.

“It wasn’t you, was it?” he said softly. “You know who did it, but it wasn’t you.”

His concern for Christine faded quickly as the impact of Ben’s call settled in. He clenched his fists and pumped them up and down. A grin spread over his face, then a giggle, then a laugh. He rushed to his record collection. Seconds later he was bouncing through the living room, throwing jabs and uppercuts at the air. The music from
Rocky
filled the apartment.

Fanfare still in his ears, he walked down the hall and into the bathroom. He stood before the medicine cabinet and looked at himself. “You made it, buddy,” he said to his reflection. “Stronger than ever now. I’m proud of you. Really.”

Out of curiosity, not need, he reached up and pulled open the door.

The shelves were empty.

A shower and long-overdue letters to his brothers killed an hour and a half. Feasting on spaghetti with Ragu sauce did in another thirty minutes. The seven o’clock news made it two hours until Ben.

David paced impatiently for a while, then pulled his chess set from the closet along with his copy of
Chess Openings Made Simple
. Within a short time he gave up. Renewed thoughts of Christine made it impossible to concentrate. Somehow, in the short time they had talked, in their brief contacts, she had touched him
deeply. There was a disarming, innocent intensity about her—an energy he had seldom seen survive the years in medical or nursing school. Then, too, there were her eyes—wide and warm, inviting and exploring one moment, flashing with anger the next. More and more, he found himself hoping, even praying, that she had no direct involvement in the death of Charlotte Thomas. By nine o’clock he had convinced himself that there was no way she could have.

For a time he entertained himself by measuring what he knew of the woman against Lauren. Quickly he realized that, as typically happened, he was attributing qualities to Christine that he
wanted
to be there. “When are you going to learn, Shelton?” He chastised himself loudly, then returned to the chessboard.

By nine fifteen he was pacing again. Once he heard the elevator gears engage and raced out into the hall. Then he remembered that he would have to buzz Ben through the downstairs foyer door. Still, he waited out there just in case. The elevator stopped one floor below.

He returned to the apartment and spent five minutes playing out a conversation with Wallace Huttner in which the surgical chief apologized for jumping to such misguided conclusions and suggested that they might explore the possibilities of a partnership. David practiced a refusal speech, then, in case Huttner was truly contrite, one of acceptance.

At precisely nine thirty the downstairs buzzer sounded. David leaped to the intercom.

“Yes?”

“David, it’s me.” The excitement in Ben’s voice was apparent despite the barely functional intercom. “The woman is for real. Sad, but very much for real. It’s over, pal, it’s over.”

The word
sad
stood out from all the others. “Come on up,” David said as he pressed the door release. His voice held surprisingly little enthusiasm.

Thirty seconds later the elevator clattered into use. Shit, David thought, it
was
her. He stood in the open doorway and listened to the groaning cables. Turning his nightmare over to Christine Beall was not the way he had wanted it to end, no matter what her actions had put him through. He was halfway to the elevator when the car light appeared in the diamond-shaped window of the outside door. A second later, the car crunched to a halt. The automatic inside gate rattled open.

David stopped several feet away and waited for Ben. Five seconds passed. Then another five. He took a tentative step forward. The door remained closed. Finally he peered through the grimy window. Ben stood to one side, leaning calmly against the wall.

“Hey, what’s going on?” David asked, swinging open the heavy door. The lawyer’s eyes stared at him, moist and vacant. His face was bone white. Suddenly the corners of his mouth crinkled upward in a half-smile.

“Ben, not funny,” David said. “Now cut the crap and come on out of there. I wanna hear.”

Ben’s lips parted as he took a single step forward. Crimson gushed from his mouth and down his chin. David caught him halfway to the floor. The back of Ben’s tan raincoat was an expanding circle of blood. Protruding from the center was the carved white handle of a knife.

Sticky, warm life poured over David’s hands and clothes as he dragged his friend from the elevator.

“Help!” he screamed. “Someone, please help me!”

He pulled the knife free and threw it on the carpet, then rolled Ben’s body face up. The lawyer’s dark eyes stared unblinkingly at the ceiling. David checked for a carotid pulse, but knew that the blood, now oozing from one corner of Ben’s mouth, was the sign of a fatal wound to the heart or a main artery.

“Please help.” David’s plea was a whimper. “Please?”

The stairway door at the far end of the hall burst open. Leonard Vincent stood there, his massive frame darkened by the light behind him. Almost casually, he reached to his waistband and withdrew a revolver. The ugly silhouette of a silencer protruded from one end.

“It’s your turn, Dr. Shelton,” Vincent rasped, certain he was facing the man Dahlia had described. He had followed Christine Beall to a coffee shop and recognized the criminal lawyer with whom she was meeting. Dahlia’s response to his call was immediate: Glass first, then Shelton, and later the girl. Now, thanks to the lawyer, he could handle the first two almost at once.

David stumbled backward and tried to straighten up, but his hand, covered with blood, slid off the wall and he spun to the carpet. Inches away was the knife. He grabbed it by the tip and hurled it at the advancing figure. It fell two yards short. Vincent picked it up and calmly wiped the blade on his pants. He was less than fifty feet away. Between them, Ben’s lifeless body stretched across the corridor. Light from an overhead bulb caught the huge man’s face. He was smiling. His smile broadened as he raised the silenced revolver.

David scrambled backward, his mouth open in a soundless scream. His mind registered a spark from the tip of the silencer at the instant the doorjamb beside his ear exploded.

He dove head first into his apartment, flailing with his feet to close the solid wood door. The latch clicked shut moments before a soft crunch and the instantaneous appearance of two dime-sized holes by the knob.

David looked wildly about, then clawed himself upright. He raced to the living room. The fire escape! Opening the window, he looked down at his stockinged feet. For a moment he thought about the closet and his running shoes. No chance, he decided. With a groan of resignation, he stepped out onto the metal landing. There was a crash from inside the apartment as the
front door burst open. An instant later David was racing down toward the alley, four flights below.

The night was tar black and cold. The metal steps, slippery in the driving downpour, hurt his feet, but the discomfort barely registered. Just beyond the third floor, his heel caught the edge of a step and shot out from under him. He fell hard, tumbling down half a flight. Several inches of skin ripped from his right forearm. Above him, there was a loud clank as Leonard Vincent stepped onto the fourth-floor landing. At that moment David had the absurd notion that he should have opened the window to the fire escape, then hidden in the closet.

I’ll bet it would’ve worked, he thought, as he scrambled, panting, toward the second-floor landing. He slipped again, electricity pulsing up his spine as he slid the final few stairs. Through the metal slats overhead, he saw the man, a faint dark shadow moving against the night sky.

On his hands and knees, David struggled to release the ladder from the second-floor landing to the alley. Through his soaked shirt needles of rain stung his back. The metal slats dug into his knees. The ladder release would not budge.

With a glance above him, David grabbed the side of the landing and rolled off. He hung there for a moment, trying to judge the distance to the pavement, then dropped. He felt and heard the crunch in his left ankle as he hit. The leg gave way instantly. He screamed, then bit down on the edge of a finger so hard that he drew blood.

Lying on the wet pavement, he heard the clanging footsteps and grunting breaths of the man overhead. The killer was nearing the second landing.

David stumbled to one foot, then hesitated. If the ankle were sprained, there would be discomfort, but he could move. If it was broken, he was about to die.
Teeth clenched, he set his left foot down. Pain seared through the ankle, but it held—once, then again and again. Suddenly he was running.

At the end of the alley he looked back. The man had lowered the ladder and was calmly stepping off the bottom rung.

Clarendon Street was nearly deserted. David paused uncertainly, then decided to try for heavily trafficked Boylston Street. At that instant he saw a figure half a block from him walking in the opposite direction toward the river. Instinctively he ran that way. His gait was awkward. Every other stride was agony. Still, he closed on the figure.

“Help,” he called out. “Please help.” His cry was instantly swallowed by the night storm. “Please help me.”

He was ten feet away when the figure lurched around to face him. It was an old man—toothless, unshaven, and drunk. Water dripped from the brim of his tattered hat. David started to speak, but could only shake his head. Gasping, he supported himself against a parked car. Without sound or warning, the rear window of the car shattered. David spun around. Through the gloom and the rain he saw his pursuer’s shadow, down on one knee in position to fire once more. He was running when flame spit from the silencer. Running when the bullet meant for him slammed into the old man, spinning him to the pavement.

He pushed himself forward, through the pain and the downpour. Pushed himself harder than ever in his life. His heels slammed down on small stones, sending dagger thrusts up each leg. Still he ran—across Marlborough Street, across Beacon Street, and on toward the river. It was his.route, his run—the path he had jogged so many promising sunlit mornings. Now he was running from his death. Behind him, the huge killer gained ground with every stride.

Traffic on Storrow Drive was light. David splashed across without slowing down—onto the stone footbridge and over the reflecting basin. Ahead of him, the lights of Cambridge shimmered through the rain and danced on the pitch-black Charles.

Double back, he thought. Double back and help Ben. Maybe he needs you. Maybe he’s not really dead. For God’s sake,
do something
.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. The man, delayed by several cars on Storrow Drive, had lost some ground, but not enough. David knew the chase was almost over. With fear his only rhythm and flailing strides, he was near collapse. He scanned the deserted esplanade for somewhere to hide. The killer was too close. His only hope was the river. Stones along the bank tore away what was left of his socks as he scrambled over them and plunged into the frigid oily water.

He had little capacity left for more pain, yet icy stilettos found what places remained and bore in. Behind him, Leonard Vincent crossed the footbridge and neared the bank. As deeply as he could manage, David sucked in air and dropped below the surface. He was twenty feet from shore, pushing himself along the muddy bottom. His clothes became leaden, at first helping him stay down, then threatening to hold him there. He broke once for air. Then again. Still he drove himself. The water stung his eyes and made it impossible to see. Its taste, acrid and repugnant despite years of waste- and pollution-control, filled his nose and mouth.

All at once his head struck something solid. Dazed and near blind, he explored the obstacle with his hands. It was a dock—a floating wooden T, laid on the river to tether some of the dozens of small sailboats that spent the warm months darting over reflections of the city.

For a minute, two, all was silent save for the spattering of rain on the dock and on the river. David crouched by the dock in four feet of water, rubbing at the silt in
his eyes. His feet and legs were numb. Then he heard footsteps—careful, measured thumps. The killer was on the dock! David pressed the side of his face against the coarse slimy wood. The footsteps grew louder, closer. He slid his hand under the dock. Did it break water? Was there room enough to breathe? If he ducked under he might be trapped without air. If he didn’t …

He inhaled slowly, deeply, realizing the breath might be his last. Eyes closed tightly, he pulled himself beneath the dock. His head immediately hit wood. Terror shot through him. He was trapped, his lungs near empty. Pawing desperately overhead, his hands struck the side of a beam. An undersupport! He pushed to one side and instantly his face popped free of the water. There were four inches of air. A thin smile tightened across his lips, then vanished. The footsteps were directly over his face. Through the narrow slits between timbers he could have touched the bottoms of the man’s shoes, now inches from his eyes. The pacing stopped. David bent his neck back as far as he could and pressed his forehead against the bottom of the dock. Through pursed lips, he sucked in air slowly, soundlessly.