"OK," she said, after a pause. "OK. We'll go together. Could you come and get me? I'm freezing. And I'm scared."
"Where are you?"
She glanced out the phone booth window. Two blocks away, the lights of the hospital towers seemed to pulsate in the blowing darkness. "I'm in a phone booth. I don't know which street it's on.
I'm a few blocks west of Bayside."
"I'll find you."
"Dr. Tarasoff?"
"Yes?"
"Please," she whispered. "Hurry."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As Vivian Chao's plane touched down at Logan International, she felt her anxiety tighten another notch. It wasn't the flight that had rattled her. Vivian was a fearless flyer, able to sleep soundly through even the worst turbulence. No, what was worrying her now, as the plane pulled up at the gate and as she gathered her carry-on from the overhead bin, was that last phone conversation with Abby. The abrupt disconnection. The fact that Abby had never called back.
Vivian had tried calling Abby at home, but there'd been no answer. Thinking about it during the flight, she'd realized that she didn't know where Abby had been calling from. Their connection had been severed too quickly for her to find out.
Lugging her carry-on, she walked off the plane and into the terminal. She was startled to find a huge crowd waiting at the gate. There was a forest of bright balloons and mobs of teenagers holding up signs which read: Welcome home, Dave.t and Atta Boy.t and Local Herof Whoever Dave was, he had an adoring public. She heard cheers, and glancing back, she saw a grinning young man stride out of the elevated walkway right behind her. The crowd surged forward, practically swallowing up Vivian in their eagerness to greet Dave, the local hero. Vivian had to navigate through a crush of squealing kids.
Kids, hell. They all towered over her by at least a head.
It took good old quarterback drive to shove her way through. By the time she emerged from the mob, she was pushing ahead with so much momentum, she practically bowled over a man standing on the periphery. She muttered a quick apology and kept walking. It took her a few paces to realize he hadn't said a word in exchange.
Her first stop was the restroom. All this anxiety was putting the squeeze on her bladder. She ducked inside to use the toilet and came back out.
That's when she saw the man again - the one she'd bumped into only moments ago. He was standing by the gift shop across from the women's restroom. He appeared to be reading a newspaper.
She knew it was him, because the collar of his raincoat was turned under. When she'd collided with him earlier, that tucked-in flap was what her eyes had focused on.
She continued walking, towards baggage claim.
It was during that long hike past an endless succession of airline gates that her brain finally clicked on. Why was the man waiting at her gate unless he was there to meet someone? And if he had met a passenger, why was he now by himself?.
She stopped at a newsstand shop, randomly picked up a magazine, and took it to the cashier. As the woman rang up the purchase, Vivian shifted just enough to cast a furtive glance around her.
The man was standing by a do-it-yourself flight insurance counter. He seemed to be reading the instructions.
OK, Chao, so he's following you. Maybe it's a case of love at first sight. Maybe he took one look at you and decided he couldn't let you walk out of his life.
As she paid for the magazine, she could feel her heart hammering. Think. Why is he following you?
That one was easy. The phone call from Abby. If anyone had been listening in, they'd know that Vivian was arriving at Logan on a 6 p.m. flight from Burlington. Just before the call was disconnected, she'd heard clicks on the line.
She decided to hang around the newsstand shop for a while. She browsed among the paperbacks, her eyes scanning the covers, her mind racing. The man probably didn't have a weapon on him; he would have had to bring it through the security check. As long as she didn't leave the airport's secured area, she should be safe. Cautiously she peered over the paperback shelf. The man wasn't there.
She came out of the shop and glanced around. There was no sign of him anywhere.
You are such an idiot. No one's following you.
She continued walking, past the security check and down the steps to baggage claim.
The suitcases from the Burlington flight were just rolling onto the carousel. She spotted her red Samsonite sliding down the ramp. She was about to push closer when she spotted the man in the raincoat. He was standing near the terminal exit, reading his newspaper.
At once she looked away, her pulse battering her throat. He was waiting for her to pick up her luggage. To walk past him out that exit, into the night.
Her red Samsonite made another revolution.
She took a deep breath and edged into the crowd of passengers waiting for their baggage. Her Samsonite was coming past again. She didn't pick it up but casually followed it around as it made its slow circle. When she was standing on the other side of the carousel, the crowd blocked her view of the man in the raincoat.
She dropped her carry-on bag and ran.
There were two carousels ahead of her, both of them unused at the moment. She sprinted past them, then darted out the far exit doors.
She emerged into the windblown night. Off to her left she heard a commotion. The man in the raincoat had just pushed his way out of the other exit. A second man came out a few steps behind him. One of them pointed at Vivian and barked out something incomprehensible.
Vivian took off, fleeing up the sidewalk. She knew the men were chasing her; she could hear the thud of a luggage cart toppling and the angry shouts of a porter.
There was a pop, and she felt something flick through her hair.
A bullet.
Her heart was banging, her lungs gasping in air thick with bus fumes.
She saw a doorway ahead. She ducked in it and raced for the nearest escalator. The moving stairs were going the wrong way. She ran up them two at a time. As she reached the upper level, she heard another pop. This time pain sliced her temple, and she felt a dribble of warmth on her cheek.
The American Airlines ticket counter was straight ahead. It was fully manned, a line of people snaking in front of it.
She heard footsteps pounding on the escalator behind her. Heard one of the men shouting words she couldn't understand.
She sprinted for the ticket counter, bowled over a man and a suitcase dolly, and leaped onto the counter top. Her momentum carried her straight over. She landed on the other side, her body slamming against the luggage loading belt.
Four astonished airline reps were staring down at her.
Her legs were shaking as she rose to her feet. Cautiously she peered across the countertop. She saw only a crowd of stunned bystanders. The men had vanished.
Vivian looked at the reps, who were still frozen in place. "Well aren't you going to call Security?"
Wordlessly, one of the women reached for the phone. "And while you're at it," said Vivian, "Dial 911 ."
A dark Mercedes crawled along the road and came to a stop beside the phone booth. Abby could just make out the driver's profile, backlit by the lights of a passing car. It was Tarasoft.
She ran to the passenger door and climbed inside. "Thank god you're here."
"You must be freezing. Why don't you take my coat? It's on the back seat."
"Please, just go! Let's get out of here."
As Tarasoff pulled away from the kerb, she glanced back to see if anyone was following them. The road behind them was dark. "Do you see any cars?" he asked. "No. I think we're OK."
Tarasoft released a shaky breath. "I'm not very good at this. I don't even like to watch crime shows."
"You're doing fine. Just get us to the police station. We can call Vivian to meet us there."
Tarasoft glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. "I think I just saw a car."
"What?" Abby looked back, but saw nothing. "I'm going to turn here. Let's see what happens."
"Go ahead. I'll keep watching."
As they rounded the corner, Abby kept her gaze focused on the road behind them. She saw no headlights, no other cars at all. Only when they slowed to a stop did she turn and face forward. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Tarasoff cut the headlights. "Why are you..." Abby's words froze in her throat. Tarasoft had just pressed the lock release button.
She glanced right in panic as her door swung open. A gust of wind swept in. Suddenly hands reached in and she was being dragged out into the night. Her hair fell across her eyes, obscuring her vision. She fought blindly against her captors but could not succeed in loosening their grips. Her hands were yanked behind her back and the wrists bound together. Her mouth was taped.
Then she was lifted and thrust into the trunk of a nearby car. The hood slammed shut, trapping her in darkness. They were moving.
She rolled onto her back and kicked upwards. Again and again she slammed her feet against the trunk lid, kicking until her thighs ached, until she could scarcely lift her legs. It was useless; no one could hear her.
Exhausted, she curled up on her side and forced herself to think. Tarasoft. How i Tarasoft involved?
Slowly the puzzle came together, piece by piece. Lying in the cramped darkness, with the road rumbling beneath her, she began to understand. Tarasoft was chief of one of the most respected cardiac transplant teams on the East Coast. His reputation attracted desperately ill patients from around the world, patients with the money and the wherewithal to go to any surgeon they chose. They demanded the best, and they could afford to pay for it.
What they could not buy, what the system would never allow them to buy, was what they needed to stay alive: Hearts. Human hearts.
That's what the Bayside transplant team could provide. She remembered what Tarasoft had once said: "I refer patients to Bayside all the time."
He was Bayside's go-between. He was their matchmaker.
She felt the car brake and turn. The tyres rolled across gravel then stopped. There was a distant roar, a sound she recognized as a jet taking off. She knew exactly where they were.
The trunk hood opened. She was lifted out, into a buffeting wind that smelled of diesel fuel and the sea. They half-carried, half-dragged her down the pier and up the gangplank. Her screams were muffled by the tape over her mouth and lost in the thunder of the jet's take-oft. She caught only a glimpse of the freighter deck, of shifting blackness and geometric shadows, and then she was dragged below, down steps that rattled and clanged. One flight, then another.
A door screeched open and she was thrust inside, into darkness. Her hands were still bound behind her back; she could not break her fall. Her chin slammed to the metal floor and the impact was blinding. She was too stunned to move, to utter even a whimper as pain drove like a stake through her skull.
Another set of footsteps clanged down the stairway. Dimly she heard Tarasoft say: "At least it's not a total waste. Take the tape off her mouth. We can't have her suffocating."
She rolled onto her back and struggled to focus. She could make out Tarasoff's silhouette, standing in the faintly lit doorway. She flinched as one of the men bent down and ripped off the tape.
"Why?" she whispered. It was the only question she could think of. ' Why?"
The silhouette gave a faint shrug, as though her question was irrelevant. The other two men backed out of the room. They were preparing to shut her inside.
"Is it the money?" she cried. "Is it that simple an answer?"
"Money means nothing," Tarasoft said, 'if it can't buy you what you need."
"Like a heart?"
"Like the life of your own child. Or your own wife, your own sister or brother. You, of all people, should understand that, Dr. DiMatteo. We know all about little Pete and his accident. Only ten years old, wasn't he?We know you've lived through your own private tragedy. Think, doctor, what would you have given to have saved your brother's life?"
She said nothing. By her silence, he knew her answer. "Wouldn't you have given anything? Done everything?"
Yes, she thought, and that admission took no reflection at all. Yes. "Imagine what it's like," he said, 'to watch your own child dying. To have all the money in the world and know that she still has to wait her turn in line. Behind the alcoholics and the drug abusers. And the mentally incompetent. And the welfare cheats who haven't worked a single day in their lives." He paused. And said, softly, "Imagine."
The door swung shut. The latch squealed into place.
She was lying in pitch darkness. She heard the rattle of the stairway as the three men climbed back to deck level, heard the faint thud of a hatch closing. Then, for a time, she heard only the wind and the groan of the ship straining at its lines.
Imagine.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Pete. But there he was standing in front of her, proudly dressed in his Cub Scout uniform. She thought of what he'd said when he was five: that Abby was the only girl he wanted to marry. And she thought of how upset he'd been to learn that he could not marry his own sister...
What would I have done to save you? Anything. Everything.
In the darkness, something rustled.
Abby froze. She heard it again, the barest whisper of movement. Rats.
She squirmed away from the sound and managed to rise up onto her knees. She could see nothing, could only imagine giant rodents scurrying on the floor all around her. She struggled to her feet.
There was a soft click.
The sudden flare of light flooded her retinas. She jerked backwards. A bare bulb swung overhead, clinking softly against the dangling pull-chain.
It was not a rat she had heard moving in the darkness. It was a boy.
They stared at each other, neither one of them saying a word. Though he stood very still, she could see the wariness in his eyes. His legs, thin and bare beneath shorts, were tensed for flight. But there was nowhere to run.
He looked about ten, very pale and very blond, his hair almost silver under the swaying lightbulb. She noticed a bluish smudge on his cheek, and realized with a sudden start of outrage that the smudge was not dirt, but a bruise. His deep-set eyes were like two more bruises in his white face.