F. Wilson - The Select

He hit the rewind button, put on his headphones, and listened.

An incoming call from her friend, Matt. Lots of static. Those two had already talked earlier in the day. Verran relaxed and smiled. Maybe old Matt was trying to move in on the absent Tim. But the smile vanished when he heard Cleary mention Tim.

"It's Tim! I think he's here!"

Acid surged anew into Verran's stomach.

"I don't think he ever went away"..."I think he's here, at the Ingraham. I think they're hiding him"..."I'm going to find out for sure tonight. If something happens to me, call the County Sheriff's office. Ask for Deputy Southworth."

Verran tore off the headphones. Where had she got those ideas? And when had her friend called her? There was no timer on the recorder.

...I'm going to find out for sure tonight...

Christ! She could be upstairs in Ward C right now.

He grabbed the phone and dialed her dorm room. If she picked up, okay—he could sit down and carefully consider his next move. If not...

Half a dozen rings and no answer. He began to sweat. Four more and he slammed down the receiver. If she wasn't already here she was on her way.

He dialed the Ward C nurses station. Doris answered.

"This is Verran. Anybody strange wandering around up there?"

"Strange?" Doris laughed. "There's nobody wandering around up here but us chickens."

"Check Ward C anyway."

"Mr. Verran, there's no way—"

"Check it now , goddammit!" he said through his teeth. "We may have a trespasser."

He could hear her swallow. "Yessir."

He hung up and began shouting for Kurt.

*

Got to make this fast.

The penlight trembled in Quinn's hand, its narrow beam wobbling ahead of her as she moved among the Ward C occupants, weaving her way toward the rear of the room to where she'd seen the patient who'd signaled her.

As she approached the bed, she heard a phone begin to ring out at the nurses station. She flashed the light on the patient's bandaged face. Only the eyes were visible; they were closed in sleep and the lids did not open in response to the light. Holding her breath, Quinn hooked a finger under the facial bandages and pulled down.

The nose came free. It wasn't Tim's.

She pulled farther down, exposing a pale, shiny area of scar tissue. She jerked her hand away. Not Tim.

She stood there in the dimness, confused and uncertain: Crushed because it wasn't Tim, which meant he was still among the missing; elated because it wasn't Tim, which meant he wasn't the victim of some grisly plot.

She rearranged the bandages into their original position. How could she have been so terribly wrong? She'd been so sure .

She stepped back from the patient to make sure she was in the right spot. Yes. This was it. This was where she'd seen—

Wait. She flashed her light along his body. This patient was short and heavy. The one who'd signaled her had been long and lean.

Like Tim.

As she turned to survey the darkened ward, she saw a shadow appear at the window in the door. Quinn dropped to the floor. A heartbeat later the door swung open and the overhead lights went on.

*

Kurt stood blinking in the glare of the lights.

"Jesus, Lou. I was sound asleep."

Verran envied him. He could have used a few solid hours of sleep himself.

"Enjoy the memory. That's the last you're going to have for a while. Our friend Cleary's on the loose."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't ask me how, but she suspects we've got Brown. I heard her on the phone. She's on her way here—may be here already."

"Fuck damn!" Kurt said. "I knew we should've taken her out with the Brown kid."

"That's not our decision. Besides, the situation is still salvageable. From what I gathered, she doesn't know Brown's here. If we intercept her, send her back to the dorm, then move Brown out, we can make her look like a nut case and kick her ass back to Connecticut."

"Why go to all the trouble?" Kurt said. "Let me handle it. I'll see to it she's found in the woods fifty miles from here—a rape-murder victim. Our worries'll be over."

Verran stared at the big blond man. Sometimes Kurt really frightened him.

"Just do as you're told. She's not in her room. I called Fifth and they're checking Ward C. She didn't get by the security desk in the lobby, so she's probably on her way."

"What about the side door?" Kurt said, turning to his console. "The bitch pulled a fast one like that on me once before." He tapped away at his keyboard, then pointed to the screen. "There she is: the west door, ten minutes ago."

Christ, no!

"Get upstairs! Stop her! If she gets into the ward and finds him our asses will be in a sling!"

*

Tim watched the whole sequence of events, and could do nothing. Real life was reduced to television, and he was a passive, helpless viewer. Couldn't even change the damn channel.

His tingling hands had awakened him but he'd wished they hadn't. He'd been too depressed over the day's events— non events, rather—to work his fingers in much more than a desultory fashion. No hope, no future—what difference did it make how well he could move his fingers? Even when the tingling reached his elbows, the highest yet, so what?

So he lay there in the darkness, staring at the blinking lights around the hall window, but from a different angle this time. They'd moved his bed at the end of the day shift, rotating him to the side of the room farthest from the door. The current shift had propped him up on his right side again.

When he saw a familiar blond head bob past the hall window, he thought he'd fallen back to sleep and was dreaming. But when he saw her slip through the door and begin flashing a penlight, he prayed it was real. It had to be real.

He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to shout with booming joy. There was a God, there was a Santa Claus. Quinn was here! She'd seen! She believed!

Then he wanted to scream at her when she approached the wrong bed.

Over here! Over here! They moved me over here!

He watched her flash her light in the other patient's face, saw her flinch back when she realized it wasn't him. Silently he begged her not to think she'd been seeing things this afternoon and give up. When she started looking around again, he knew there was still hope, but he was bewildered when she suddenly dropped into a crouch.

Then the lights came on and he understood.

Squinting, Tim watched the nurse called Doris step inside the door. She appeared wary as she stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the ward. Tim couldn't remember a night when the overheads had been turned on like this. Had she heard something? Was she looking for Quinn?

Maybe it was his own cardiac monitor that had brought her in. His heart was tripping along at a breakneck pace.

He could see Quinn crouched beside Number Four's bed, statue still, barely breathing.

Jesus, she had guts. How many women—how many men —would brave this place at night to search for him?

Apparently satisfied, Doris turned off the lights and closed the door behind her.

Quinn's shadow popped up almost immediately and she began to flash her penlight at the patients around her.

Over here, dammit!

Maybe she caught the thought. Or maybe she spotted the madly flashing rate light on his cardiac monitor. Whatever the reason, she came directly toward him and shone the light in his face.

She didn't have to pull at his bandages. She seemed to know as soon as she saw his eyes.

"Oh, Tim!" It was a whisper encased in a moan.

She bent and clutched his shoulders and buried her face against his neck, sobbing.