The Select (33 page)

She touched the hood and found it
cold.

What's going on, Tim? What
are you up to?

She shivered in the chill breeze.
She'd thrown on a sweatsuit and a jacket but still she was cold.
She'd just got out of a warm bed from a dead sleep and her body
wasn't ready to handle this drop in temperature.

She heard a creak as one of the dorm's
outer doors opened and closed.

Finally!

She looked toward the darkened dorm,
expecting Tim to appear on the slope, heading her way. She heard
the squeak of wheels, like someone rolling a wagon along the walk
up there, thought she saw a shadow or two move across the space
between the dorm and the caf, but they were gone before she could
focus. She waited, but still no Tim.

Who else would be wandering around the
campus at this hour?

Meet me in the car.
That was what the note had said. Tim had said he
was going to warm it up.

That gave Quinn an idea. She pulled
out her key ring and picked out Tim's car keys. She opened the door
and got inside. The cold of the vinyl raced through the fabric of
her sweats, chilling her rear and the backs of her thighs. She
started the car and pushed the thermostat up to the
maximum.

If Tim wasn't going to heat up the car
for her, she'd heat it up for him. But she wished he'd hurry. It
was creepy out here.

She pushed down the door lock and
rubbed her hands together, waiting for the heat.

Come on, Tim. Come out,
come out, wherever you are.

*

Tim tried to keep the encroaching
panic at bay by cataloging what he knew.

First off, he was still alive. That
was a good start.

Second, he was unharmed—relatively.
His left flank still ached and throbbed from that one, nasty kidney
punch—which he now assumed had been dealt to shut him up—but after
that he'd been handled roughly but without any evidence of malice.
His abductors didn't seem to have anything personal against him. It
was all pretty businesslike. Tim wasn't sure whether or not he
should take heart from that.

Third, he was still on campus—where,
he wasn't sure. After binding and gagging him, they'd dumped him
into one of the laundry hampers the maids used for dirty linen and
wheeled him out of the dorm—just the way convicts used to break out
of prison in the old B movies. He'd bumped and rattled along a
series of fairly level concrete walks, so he'd assumed he was
traveling among the buildings of the campus. Then he'd been pushed
uphill a short distance, into a building, into an elevator for a
short trip down, along a hallway and into this room where he'd been
strapped into a padded armchair that creaked like wood when he
shifted his weight.

His best guess: He was in the basement
of the Science Center.

Suddenly the tape was ripped away from
his mouth. Tim spit out the gag and gulped air. He waited for the
blindfold tape to be removed but it remained untouched.

"Who are you?" he heard someone ask
him.

The tantalizingly familiar voice
startled him with its matter-of-fact tone.

"What?" Tim's tongue was dry from the
cloth gag and he sounded like a frog who'd been singing all night.
He worked up some saliva to moisten it.

The question came again. "Who are
you?"

Now he pegged the voice: Louis
Verran's. He found a certain grim satisfaction—if no comfort—in
realizing that his suspicions were now proved correct.

"You know damn well who I am—" He
almost added Verran's name but caught himself. Maybe the blindfold
had been left on for a reason. Maybe he'd be endangering himself by
revealing that he recognized his interrogator.

"I want you to say it. Say your
name."

Okay. He'd cooperate. No harm in
that.

"Timothy Brown."

"From what college did you graduate,
Mr. Brown?"

"Dartmouth."

"And which is your room here on
campus?"

"Room one-twenty-five."

"All right," Verran's voice said,
moving closer. "He's all yours."

Tim grimaced with pain as the tape was
ripped from across his eyes, taking some of his eyebrows with it.
He squinted in the unaccustomed glare, but gradually the light and
shadows began to take form.

"Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown,"
said a tired voice he recognized instantly. "Whatever are we going
to do with you, Mr. Brown?"

Tim blinked to bring the figure
standing before him into focus.

"Dr. Alston!"

"Yes, Mr. Brown."

"You're in on this?"

Dr. Alston pulled up a chair and
seated himself facing Tim. He looked utterly relaxed, completely in
control.

"In on what, Mr. Brown? Just what is
it you think is going on here?"

Tim glanced around. He could have been
in an electronics hobbyist's heaven—or hell. Monitors, speakers,
computers, equalizers, oscilloscopes, white, red, and green
blinking lights, wires, cables, and an array of other equipment he
couldn't identify. Louis Verran was off to the right, watching a
monitor. Tim tried to pull his arms free but they were securely
bound—wrists, forearms, and biceps—to the armchair. He noticed
wires connected by clamps to his fingertips. Were they going to
shock him? He wiggled his fingers, trying to shake off the clamps,
but they held firm.

He looked at Alston who
smiled.

"No, Mr. Brown. We have no intention
of torturing you. But we do want to make sure you stay put until we
are through with you."

No question about staying put. He was
trapped. Caged like a lab animal. The realization was a sick,
sinking sensation in his chest. But at least Dr. Alston was a safe,
sane, respected physician, researcher, and academician.

Wasn't he?

Alston said, "Again: What do you think
is going on?"

"I don't know," Tim said. "But I do
know you've got The Ingraham bugged six ways from
Sunday."

Dr. Alston smiled that thin, cold
smile of his as he lounged in his chair. "'Six ways from Sunday.'
How quaint. I assure you we do not have The Ingraham
bugged."

"The dorm, then."

"The dorm, yes. And you've discovered
that, haven't you? What else have you discovered, Mr.
Brown?"

Tim saw no use in lying about
dismantling the headboard. The two goons who'd mugged him must have
seen it.

"Something in the
headboard."

"
What
in the headboard?"

"I don't know."

"You're the brainy medical student,
Mr. Brown. What do you think?"

Might as well let it all hang out, Tim
thought.

"I think you're brainwashing
us."

Tim saw Dr. Alston stiffen and
straighten in his chair. He was no longer lounging.

Bingo.

"What on earth could lead you to such
a farfetched conclusion?"

"You really want to know or are we
just killing time?"

"I quite sincerely want to know, Mr.
Brown. It's important to me."

Tim believed him. Briefly he ran down
the suspicions he'd developed about the stick pin/bug, the change
he'd perceived in his own attitudes, his search of his room, and
what he'd discovered.

Dr. Alston listened with visibly
growing agitation, glancing frequently at Verran who was partially
insulated in the earphones of his headset and seemed absorbed in
his read-outs.

"So am I to understand it that if you
hadn't stepped on that misplaced bug you would still be a model
student here at The Ingraham?"

"Not quite," he said. "One of the
other students at the bull sessions hasn't shown any change in
attitudes." Tim didn't want to bring Quinn into this so he changed
her sex. "His unchanged opinions made me aware of the change in
mine."

"He's not talking about a 'he',"
Verran said in a low voice. "He means Cleary, the girl in
two-five-two."

"Ah, the redoubtable Miss Quinn
Cleary. Her name keeps popping up. By the way, why isn't she
here?"

For the first time since the tape had
been pulled from Tim's eyes, he saw Louis Verran look up from his
read-outs.

"She's not supposed to be
here."

"I wanted her brought here," Dr.
Alston said.

"Kurt and Elliot are too busy with
damage control right now to play footsie with her."

"I specifically told Kurt I wanted her
brought in."

Verran swiveled in his chair and
stared at Dr. Alston.

"Kurt? You told
Kurt
to bring her in?
He's a fucking animal!"

Tim clenched his fists as a ball of
lead dropped into his stomach. Kurt? Who was Kurt?

Dr. Alston sniffed. "He won't do
anything rash when he's operating on my direct orders."

"Don't be too fucking sure of
that."

Dr. Alston waved Verran off. "Never
mind."

Tim said, "If anything happens to
her—"

"What?" Dr. Alston said, turning to
him. "You'll do what? I'll tell you what you'll do, young man.
You'll do nothing but sit here and listen as I explain to you
what's really happening here at The Ingraham. And once you've heard
the whole story, I'm sure you'll feel quite differently about
it."

But Tim couldn't listen. All he could
think about was Quinn and what this Kurt animal might do to
her.

*

Quinn flicked on the courtesy lights
and checked the dashboard clock. 3:02 a.m. The car heater was
going, she was warm, but still no Tim.

Her concern was mounting with every
passing minute, like a knot, tightening in her chest. Tim...he'd
looked so strange, so frightened. And those notes about the room
being bugged. Was he having some sort of breakdown?

And where
was
he? He'd said to
meet him here. She'd read the note correctly, hadn't she? She
wished she'd brought those notes with her, but she'd left them on
her bed.

She thought back, trying to picture
the note about meeting him in the car. He'd had something else
written first and then crossed out. The anatomy lab. That was it.
He'd wanted to meet her in the anatomy lab first but had changed
his mind.

Maybe he'd changed it back. Quinn saw
no use in sitting in Griffin any longer. She turned off the engine,
stepped out into the cold air, and trotted up the slope to the
center of the campus. She passed through the darker shadows between
the caf and the administration building, skirted the pond with its
newly formed skin of ice, and made a beeline for the lighted doors
of the class building. They were unlocked, as usual. She hurried
down the lighted hall.

She found one of the double doors to
the An Lab open when she got there. Her spirits lifted. They
normally were kept closed. That could only mean Tim was already
here.

But the lights were out.

"Tim? Tim, are you in
here?"

Silence replied. She flipped on the
lights.

"Tim?"

The An Lab was empty except for the
rows of sheet-covered cadavers on their tables.

Quinn moved forward, hesitantly. She'd
grown accustomed to the place during the day, but at this time of
night—morning, rather—it was creepy.

"Tim?"

The lab was empty, no question about
it. She made her way toward their table in the far corner of the
room. Someone had been here and left the door open. Maybe it was
Tim. Maybe he'd left her a message at their table.

But no, Dorothy lay just as they'd
left her. No note pinned to her sheet.

Tired, baffled, worried, Quinn sighed
and leaned against the table. Where could—?

The lights went out.

Quinn spun in the sudden darkness and
saw the entry doors swinging closed. A human-shaped shadow flitted
across the rapidly narrowing wedge of light flowing between them
from the hall.

It wasn't Tim. Tim liked
jokes but he wasn't cruel. This was
not
Tim.

She wanted to scream but suppressed
it. What good would screaming do? There was no help within earshot,
and it would only give away her position.

With her heart punching against the
base of her throat, she ducked and fumbled her shoes off. The
concrete floor was cold through the socks on her gliding feet as
she moved to her left, away from Dorothy, using the rear wall of
the lab as her guide.

Whoever was in here with her hadn't
removed his shoes. She could hear him scuffing along the floor,
moving at a diagonal from her, heading directly for
Dorothy.

She thought, Oh, God, Dorothy, I wish
you were alive. I wish you could sit up and take a poke at this
creep, whoever he is.