The Select (37 page)

"Well, yes."

"Do you love him?"

"I...I think so." Quinn knew so, but
couldn't go into that now with her mother. She missed Tim
desperately, and if she began talking about her feelings for him,
she'd break down completely. "He's very special."

Her mother's voice suddenly turned
plaintive. "Come home, Quinn. Come home now before the same thing
happens to you."

The change in tone startled her as
much as the words.

"Mom, what are you talking
about?"

"Something terrible's happened to your
friend, Quinn. Can't you feel it?"

"Don't say that, Mom. You can't know
that. You're scaring me."

But what was truly
frightening was that Quinn
did
feel it, a deep, slow, leaden certainty in the
base of her neck that something unimaginable had befallen Tim. She
couldn't tell her mother that, couldn't let her think that she too
might be experiencing "the Sheedy thing." Not after disparaging it
for so long.

"I'm already scared, Quinn. I've been
living in constant fear since you left for that awful
place."

It was almost as if her mother knew
about the incident in the An-Lab last night. But how could she?
Quinn hadn't mentioned it. And this was why.

"But it's
not
an awful place, Mom.
It's one of the most highly respected medical schools in the world.
How can you say that?"

"It's just a feeling I
have."

"I've got to go, Mom. I didn't get
much sleep last night. I'll call you if Tim shows up."

"Call me anyway, Quinn. Call me every
day. Please."

"Mom—"

"
Please?
"

The naked anxiety warbling her
mother's words forced Quinn to relent. "Sure, Mom. Every day. I'll
do my best."

She hung up feeling more worried and
fearful than before. She checked to see if her door was locked,
then she angled the back of a chair under the knob. Without
undressing, she crawled into bed and pulled the covers over her
head. She cried for a while. Eventually, she slept.

*

An insistent pounding on her door
yanked Quinn from her sleep. The room was bright. She glanced at
her clock: after nine. She'd slept almost twelve hours. Rubbing and
slapping her face to rouse herself, she stumbled to the door, moved
the chair away, and pulled it open.

She almost screamed, she almost
fainted, she almost threw herself into his arms, but then she
realized it wasn't really Tim, so she leaned her trembling body
against the door jam and gaped at him.

"Quinn Cleary?"

She recognized the voice through the
pounding in her ears.

"You must be Mr. Brown."

Tim's father was young, or at least
young looking. He had Tim's lean body and dark brown hair and eyes.
On a good day he might have passed for Tim's older brother. But
this obviously was not a good day. He looked haggard and worn, like
he'd been driving all night. And he looked wound too tight, as if
he were barely holding himself in check, barely restraining himself
from exploding and flying off in all directions. Mr. Verran stood
behind him in the hall like a watchful mastiff.

"Yes," Mr. Brown said, extending his
hand. "Have you heard anything from..."

"No. Nothing." His palm was moist
against hers as she shook his hand. "I keep hoping the phone will
ring, but..."

"I know." He released her. "Mr. Verran
has graciously agreed to drive me to the sheriff's office to make
out a missing-person's report on Tim. Since you were the last one
to see him, I was hoping—"

"Of course." She knew she should wash
up, change the wrinkled clothes she'd slept in, but that would mean
more time before people began looking for Tim, and too much time
had been wasted already. "Just let me grab my purse."

*

Quinn sat with her cold hands clamped
between her thighs, watching and listening and thinking this
couldn't be really happening as Deputy Southworth of the Frederick
County Sheriffs' Department sat before them filling out forms. The
three of them clustered around his desk, one of four in a large
open area. Quinn yearned for an enclosure. This was private. This
was about Tim. But the deputy was cool, professional, and
appropriately sympathetic as he quizzed Mr. Brown on what his
department considered useful and relevant about Tim: Vital
statistics, physical characteristics, scars, medical history,
Social Security, driver license, and credit card numbers, hobbies,
vices, a list of close friends, and on and on. Quinn noticed that
Mr. Brown did not mention gambling. Perhaps he didn't
know.

Most of all, the deputy needed
pictures. Mr. Brown had come prepared with an envelope full of
wallet-size graduation photos.

Next the deputy asked Mr. Verran if he
could add anything. Quinn sensed a strained atmosphere between the
two. The Ingraham security chief shrugged.

"Not much. I checked his record before
coming down. He gets good grades and seems to be well liked by
everyone who knows him. He does stay out all night rather
frequently, though. More than any other student in The
Ingraham."

Quinn felt the flush creep into her
face and hoped nobody noticed. She knew exactly where Tim went on
those overnights, what he did, and with whom. She hoped no one else
knew. And she wondered how Mr. Verran managed to keep such close
tabs on Tim's comings and goings.

His father apparently wondered the
same thing.

"Really?" Mr. Brown seemed genuinely
surprised. "That's news to me. How do you know?"

"The gate in and out of the student
parking lot. Every kid with a car gets a card to work it. The card
is coded with his name. The gate records the date and time and card
owner every time it opens."

"Do you know if he goes alone or with
somebody?"

"The gate doesn't tell us
that."

Which isn't an answer, Quinn thought.
She had a feeling Mr. Verran knew she'd been in the car with him
most of those times— at least the times since Atlantic City—but was
glad he hadn't mentioned it.

Wanting to swing the talk away from
overnight jaunts, Quinn said, "Do you think Tim's disappearance
could have anything to do with the break-in at the anatomy lab last
night?"

"A break-in?" Deputy Southworth said,
looking sharply at Mr. Verran. "I hadn't heard about
that."

"Nothing was really broken into," Mr.
Verran said quickly. "Nothing stolen. More of a trespasser than
anything else. I filed the incident report with the Sheriff's
secretary yesterday. It would have been completely minor except
that Miss Cleary wandered into the building when he was there and
he frightened her." His voice lowered to a growl. "I don't take
kindly to trespassers frightening students at The Ingraham. He'd
better pray I don't catch him on campus."

The deputy turned to her. "Well, we
haven't heard from you yet, Miss Cleary. What were you doing out at
that hour?"

"I was looking for Tim."

Suddenly she was the center of
attention.

Quinn had been dreading this moment
since Mr. Brown had asked her to accompany him here. How much
should she tell them? Certainly not about their relationship, their
intimacy. That was none of their business, had nothing to do with
Tim's disappearance. At least, God, she hoped it didn't. She didn't
know if she could be sure of anything anymore.

But what about the last time she'd
seen Tim, that bizarre scene in the wee hours of yesterday morning
when they'd sat there saying one thing while writing other things
on the note pad passing back and forth between them because Tim
thought the room was bugged? She didn't want to repeat it, any of
it. It made him sound deranged. And he wasn't.

But Tim certainly hadn't been himself
that night. Had he broken with reality? Was he crouched in the dark
somewhere, cold and hungry, hiding from some army of imagined
enemies.

The thought of it brought her to the
verge of tears.

She had to tell them. It might offer
some clue into Tim's state of mind at the time, and that might lead
them to where he'd gone.

Deputy Southworth said, "When was the
last time you saw your friend Timothy Brown, Miss
Cleary?"

Quinn told them all about it—the
scribbled notes, waiting in the car, going to the anatomy lab, the
intruder, Dr. Emerson. Everything.

The office was tomb silent when she
finished.

"Bugged?" Mr. Brown said
finally. "He told you he thought the room was
bugged?
"

"He wrote it," she said, her mouth dry
from telling her story. "On the note pad."

"Do you still have those notes?" the
deputy asked.

She shook her head. "That's the weird
thing. I went back to my room to look for them but couldn't find
them. I was sure I'd left them on my bed."

"
Bugged?
" Mr. Brown said again. He
turned to Mr. Verran "Where on earth would he get an idea like
that?"

The security chief shrugged. "I
couldn't tell you."

The deputy said, "Did your son have
any history of mental illness, Mr. Brown? Has he ever been under a
psychiatrist's care?"

"No, never." He seemed
offended.

"They're under a lot of pressure at
The Ingraham," Mr. Verran said. "Every once in a while one of the
kids cracks."

"This isn't the first time this has
happened," the deputy said.

"It isn't?" Mr. Brown
straightened in his chair. He turned to the security chief. "You
mean
other
students have disappeared without a trace?"

Mr. Verran looked acutely
uncomfortable. "Two years ago we had a second-year student run off
before finals."

"Proctor, wasn't it?" Deputy
Southworth said.

"Prosser." Mr. Verran pressed his hand
against his lips and stifled a belch. "Anthony Prosser."

"Did he ever turn up?"

"I'd heard that he did," Mr. Verran
said. His eyes were watching the scuffed tile floor and Quinn
wondered what was so interesting there. "The family doesn't keep in
touch with me, so I couldn't swear to it, but I believe I'd heard
something to the effect that he'd returned home." He cleared his
throat. "So you see—"

"Listen to me, both of you," Mr. Brown
said. Quinn saw angry fire flashing in his eyes. "We just had Tim
home a few weeks ago at Thanksgiving. He was as sane and relaxed as
could be, and happier and more content than I've ever seen him. My
wife and I both noticed it and even mentioned it to each other. And
one thing that young man has never felt is academic pressure. He's
always been able to stand toe-to-toe with any course and take
whatever it could dish out. Nothing like that was going to send him
wandering off in some sort of fugue state. If he said a room was
bugged, you can bet he had damn good reason to think
so."

"I'm sure you're right," Deputy
Southworth said. He rose and extended his hand across the desk.
"Mr. Brown, I'm going to get this missing person report out
immediately. We'll put out an APB on his car and run a check on his
credit card. I'll file it with the Feds because in a state this
size it's a good bet he's already crossed the state line. I have
the number of your hotel and I'll be in touch as soon as I hear
anything."

"Come on." Mr. Verran rose from his
own chair, speaking sorrowfully. "We've done what we can here. I'll
drive you both back."

Mr. Brown didn't move. He stood by the
desk like a statue. Quinn saw his throat working, his eyes blinking
back tears. She fought the urge to throw her arms around him and
tell him he had the greatest son in the world and not to worry
because everything would be okay, that nothing bad could happen to
Tim because she wouldn't let it.

But she allowed herself to touch only
his elbow, and to say, "Let's go, Mr. Brown. You never know. Maybe
Tim's waiting for us back at the dorm."

He gave her a weak, grateful smile.
"Yeah. Maybe he is."

Neither of them believed
it.

*

Quinn was sitting, staring out the
window at the afternoon sky but seeing nothing, when someone
knocked on her door. It was Mr. Brown. With him is Mr. Verran and
another man she'd never seen before.

"Quinn?" Mr. Brown said. "Could I
trouble you to let this man"—he nodded toward the stranger—"check
your room for bugs?"

He said it with the same tone one of
the supers might have mentioned checking her bathtub for
leaks.

She stifled a gasp. A queasy sensation
settled in her stomach. Tim had said something about the room being
bugged, and now here was his father, actually looking to prove it.
She gave Mr. Brown a closer look. His face seemed to have been
turned to slate. In the hall behind him stood Mr. Verran, and he
did not look too happy.