The Select (36 page)

"Can I take that to mean that you will
continue your studies here as if nothing has happened, that you
will never reveal what you know about The Ingraham?"

"You can."

Alston stepped over to where Verran
was concentrating on his console.

"Well, Louis. What do you say? Can we
take Mr. Brown at his word?"

Verran shook his head. "He's
lying."

Tim's stomach plummeted at the words.
They were spoken not as opinion but as fact.

"I'm not!" Tim said. "How can you say
that?"

"The chair's a lie-detector, kid,"
Verran said. "And it says you're lying through your teeth." He
pressed a button and spoke into a microphone. "All right, guys.
Time to move him."

His gut squirming now, Tim began
struggling in the chair, writhing, straining at the straps around
his arms, but they wouldn't budge.

"Damn you!" Alston said. His face was
contorted with genuine anger as he leaned close to Tim. "Why
couldn't you have gone along? Your shortsightedness forces us into
an untenable position. We must now take extreme measures to protect
ourselves."

"L-like what?" Tim had never stuttered
in his life, but he was starting now.

"You'll see."

Alston pulled a syringe and a small
vial of clear fluid from his pocket.

Panic became a rapier-taloned claw,
raking at the lining of Tim's gut.

"What's that? What're you going to
do?"

Alston said nothing as he filled the
syringe and approached him. Tim made a desperate, futile attempt to
squirm away from the needle as Alston plunged it into his deltoid
without bothering to roll up the overlying shirt sleeve. Tim
flinched at the sting of the point, the burn of the fluid emptying
into his muscle from the syringe.

Part of his brain was screaming that
he was going to die, going to die, going to die, while another part
refused to believe it. Then the door opened and two men came in.
Tim recognized both. One was the blond security guard he and Quinn
had seen in the parking lot before going to Atlantic City and the
other had been the phony exterminator in Quinn's room.

The big blond guy stalked forward and
stopped in front of Tim.

"His number's up?" he said to
Verran.

Verran nodded. He didn't look too
happy. "Yeah, Kurt. His number's up and gone."

"Good," Kurt said. "That means no more
Mr. Nice guy."

He cocked his right arm and punched
Tim in the face.

Amid the sudden blaze of pain, Tim
heard Alston say, "Stop that immediately! What's gotten into
you?"

"This is the sonofabitch who broke my
nose."

"That's no excuse to mistreat him,
especially considering what's about to happen to him."

Perhaps it was the injection, perhaps
the punch, perhaps Alston's remark, or perhaps it was a combination
of all three. Tim passed out.

NINETEEN

Quinn watched anxiously as Dr. Emerson
spoke into his phone. She noticed that his tweed jacket was worn at
the elbows, his corduroys were rumpled, and he needed a shave. He
looked tired.

"Very good. I'll tell her. No, that
won't be necessary. Thank you." He hung up and turned to her. "That
was Security. They've combed the anatomy lab and the entire class
building without finding anyone. Whoever it was must have been
scared off."

The news brought Quinn no sense of
relief.

"I'd rather they'd caught him," she
said. "Now they probably think I'm some sort of hysterical
female."

"I'm sure that isn't so. They say they
think it was a thief, sneaking through the building, looking to
steal whatever wasn't nailed down. You just got in his way, that's
all. Security even offered to send over someone to escort you back
to the dorm. I told them not to bother." He began to push himself
up from his chair. "Come. I'll walk you back myself."

"No, please," Quinn said. "I'll be all
right." She glanced out the window at the approaching dawn. "The
sun's almost up. I'll be fine."

"Are you quite sure? It's really no
trouble—"

"You've done enough already," she
said. She drained her teacup as she rose. "Thanks for your
help."

"It was nothing, child. Absolutely
nothing. Any time you need my help, you just call."

Funny thing about Dr. Emerson calling
her "child." She didn't mind.

"I hope that won't be
necessary."

"By the way," he said as she reached
for the doorknob, "Security wants you to stop by as soon as you can
and give them a description of your assailant."

"I don't know what I can tell them.
All I saw was a shadow and a flashlight."

"They need to make a report to the
local authorities, so tell them what you can. You never know what
tiny snippets will lead to an identification."

"Will do."

Quinn waved, stepped out into the
hall, and hurried toward the exit.

The pre-dawn air was cold and clear
and a rime of frost had crystallized on the grass. Quinn broke into
a jog toward the dorm, her breath steaming and streaming around
her. She couldn't help anxious glances left and right at the
shadows tucked behind the shrubs and foundation plantings. Security
had said the intruder was gone, but Security was supposed to keep
intruders from getting on campus in the first place.

Despite her lingering anxiety, it felt
good to move, to run, to inhale cold air and feel it swirl through
her bronchial tree, clearing her lungs and her brain. Last night's
fright seemed remote, almost as if it had happened months ago, to
someone else. All of the night's strange events had taken on a air
of vague unreality.

But what about Tim? What had he been
thinking last night? Such erratic behavior—it gave her the willies,
especially in someone she'd come to care for so much. And where had
he been all this time? Probably back in his bed sound asleep. She
smiled. She'd kill him.

She trotted directly to his room and
raised her fist to pound on the door, but stopped herself when she
realized she'd probably wake Kevin and most of the residents on
this end of the floor. She could wait.

Quinn trotted up the stairs to her own
room. It would be nice to grab a few winks to make up for some of
her lost sleep, but she knew the caffeine in Dr. Emerson's tea
wouldn't let her do that. Maybe she could bone up a little more for
the anatomy practical. But first...

She searched through her rumpled
sheets and blankets for the notes Tim had written her when he'd
popped in last night. She wasn't going to let him forget how crazy
he'd acted. She'd hold onto them, and perform dramatic readings
whenever the situation warranted.

But where were they? She was sure
she'd left them right here by the pillow. She tore the bed apart.
She looked under the bed. She checked all her pockets.

Gone.

She sat on the edge of the bed,
dumbfounded. Where on earth—?

Unless Tim had come back and taken
them.

She slapped her thighs. That did it.
She reached for the phone. Sorry, Kevin, but you're about to get a
wake-up call. Blame it on your crazy roommate.

Ten rings. No answer.

Uneasy now, Quinn ran back downstairs
and began knocking on Tim's door, calling his name. She wished now
she'd accepted one of his room keys when he'd offered it, but she
hadn't felt right taking it when he had a roommate, even someone as
easygoing as Kevin.

"Hey, Quinn. What's up?"

She turned and gasped.
"Kevin!"

He was coming down the hall dressed in
a T-shirt and boxer shorts, his pillow slung over his
shoulder.

"You two have a fight?"

"Where's Tim?"

He grinned. "Hey, you spent the night
with him, not me."

"What are you talking about? I just
got here. I called a minute ago and there's no answer."

His grin vanished. "You
kidding?"

"No. Open up, will you? He was acting
awfully strange last night."

Kevin already had his key in hand. He
unlocked the door and Quinn pushed ahead of him, rushing through
the front room to the bed room.

"Oh, God."

Neither bed had been slept in. The
room looked just like all the bedrooms looked after the maids were
finished. She ran to the closet and slid the door aside. It wasn't
empty, but there were a lot of unused hangers on the
rod.

"Where is he, Kevin? What did he say
to you last night?"

Kevin told her about Tim asking him to
bunk down the hall so the two of them could have some time alone
together.

With her terrified heart pounding
against the wall of her chest, Quinn pushed past Kevin and ran full
tilt for the parking lot. She slid to a halt on the frosty grass at
the top of the rise. Even from up here, even in the skim-milk light
of pre-dawn, she could see that Griffin was gone. She searched the
rest of the lot for it, but no gray Olds Cierra anywhere. Tim's
invisible car was nowhere to be seen.

"Tim!" she called to the dawn, knowing
there would be no reply but compelled to cry out for an
answer.

Where are you? What's wrong
with you? What have you done?

Her voice rose to a scream that echoed
down the hill.

"
Tim!
"

*

"I warned you there'd be only trouble
if you went to that school. You remember that, don't
you?"

Quinn groaned within. She'd told
herself she'd regret it if she called her mother, but after the way
the day had gone, she needed to talk to someone. She felt as if she
were losing her mind.

She'd stumbled through the day in a
daze, unable to concentrate on her classes. Her mind was on Tim and
where he could be, and how he was, and why he hadn't made any of
his classes and missed the practical. Between every class, when she
wasn't calling Tim's room, praying he'd pick up the phone, she was
out on the slope overlooking the student parking lot, searching for
a glimpse of Griffin.

The thought of eating repelled her, so
she'd used her lunch hour to stop by the Security Office,
ostensibly to make her report on the incident in the anatomy lab,
but mainly to see if they had any idea of where Tim might
be.

Mr. Verran looked exhausted, more
hang-dog than ever. He didn't seem the least bit concerned by Tim's
disappearance.

His attitude was: "So? He's skipped a
few classes and took off on a long weekend. He ain't the first
student to do it, and he won't be the last, I promise
you."

Quinn knew he was wrong. Tim might
have a cavalier attitude about studying, but he didn't miss
tests.

Mr. Verran wouldn't hear of reporting
Tim as a missing person. There was a 24-hour minimum before anyone
would start looking for him. Quinn left the Security Office angry
and frustrated at her inability to convey to anyone the fearful
urgency exploding inside her.

After staggering through the anatomy
practical and realizing she'd barely passed, she'd called Dr.
Emerson and asked to be excused from her research duties for the
afternoon. He told her, by all means stay out—after last night's
ordeal, he wouldn't dream of asking her to come in. He thought she
was still strung out from the incident in the lab. She didn't tell
him about Tim.

After a half-hearted attempt at
dinner, she scanned the parking lot once more, then returned to her
room and called Matt at Yale, praying he'd heard from Tim—or better
yet, that Tim was right there, lounging by the TV, drinking a
beer.

But Matt hadn't heard a
word from his old roommate, and was dumbfounded. She made him
promise to call her the minute he heard anything.
Anything.

The next call had been the toughest:
Tim's folks. Mrs. Brown answered, and quickly passed it to her
husband. Mr. Brown was hostile at first, and why not? He'd never
met Quinn and didn't want to hear what she was telling him. But
something in her voice must have carried her feelings along the
wire—her fear for Tim and genuine bafflement as to his
whereabouts—for he began to soften, to really listen, and ask
questions. By the end of the call he was somber and subdued. He
took Quinn's number and said he would call her if he heard from his
son.

After that she'd sat on her bed in her
darkening room. Despite the voices drifting in from the
hall—someone laughing, someone shouting—the dorm seemed empty. She
felt alone in the universe. She'd had a sudden, irrepressible urge
to call her parents, to make sure they were okay, to reassure
herself they still existed, and to affirm that she herself was
real.

"Yes, Mom," she said. "I
know you warned me. But you said something would happen to
me
. This is a friend of
mine."

Her mother's voice softened. "I've
gathered from how you've spoken of him that Tim is more than just a
friend."