by Diane Hoh
All she had to do was locate Intensive Care, where they were keeping Milo, and hobble there to see if he was awake.
She found ICU easily enough, but once there, she hit a snag. Only immediate relatives were allowed to see the patients. How was she going to get in to see him?
There he was, right there behind a large glass window. She could see him clearly. He didn’t look conscious. He didn’t even look alive. Much of his head was swathed in a thick white bandage. Even from a distance, Rachel could see how badly he’d been injured. His face was swollen and purple, with traces of dried blood zigzagging his chin and cheekbones.
For a unit filled with critically ill patients, there didn’t seem to be that many nurses. One behind the high white desk off to Rachel’s right, another moving briskly in and out of the room where Milo lay, still another further down the hall, where there had to be other rooms. Rachel waited until the nurse at the desk had turned her back and the nurse in Milo’s area left his room and disappeared down the hall. Certain the nurse wouldn’t be gone long, Rachel made her move.
It was easy. She simply opened the door and went into the unit, where she moved quickly into Milo’s room and hurried to his bedside. Sooner or later, someone would notice her, but by then, maybe she’d already have her answer.
“Milo?” she whispered when she was at his bedside. Both eyes, the area around them swollen and black and blue, were closed. She imagined his head bouncing down the iron fire escape steps, and winced. His face looked so awful, it was hard to believe he’d ever appear normal again. “Milo, are you awake? Can you hear me?”
His eyes remained closed, the lids bluish, but he turned his head toward her when she spoke.
“Milo, it’s Rachel Seaver. Someone’s going to come and drag me out of here any second now, so if you can hear me, please tell me why you fell down that fire escape, okay? I need to know. It’s important, Milo. A matter of life and death.”
Milo forced one eyelid open slightly. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, the faintest of whispers. And he uttered only one word.
But Rachel heard it.
“Pushed,” Milo said. “Pushed.”
Rachel sagged against the bed. Milo couldn’t know how much that one, simple word meant to her. True, she couldn’t do much about it tonight. He was in no shape to talk to the police. But by tomorrow, he might be better. She could take the threatening calendar page to campus security now and tell them that Milo hadn’t fallen accidentally. She could tell them he’d been deliberately attacked, and she could tell them that the patient himself could verify that fact.
That had to be enough to get them to listen to her. She had no idea where she would go from there, but it was a start.
Milo opened one eye again, and murmured something.
Rachel didn’t catch what he’d said. She leaned down, close to his face. “What did you say, Milo? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said,” he whispered foggily, “are you Rachel the troublemaker?”
Confused, Rachel decided he was probably on heavy drugs to help him sleep in spite of the pain. She shouldn’t be keeping him awake.
But when she moved to leave, he reached out with a bruised arm and weakly grasped her wrist. “Rachel?” he said huskily. And added, with great effort, the words coming slowly, painfully, “After I was pushed, while I was still falling, I heard someone say, ‘Perfect. Now I have to deal with that troublemaker, Rachel.’ That’s what I heard someone say.”
Rachel’s knees threatened to give. She had to clutch the metal bed rail tightly. “Oh, man,” she murmured, shaken to the core by Milo’s words.
He took a deep, difficult breath and let it out. “Is that you? Is your name Rachel?”
Her face slate-gray, Rachel nodded silently. “Yes.”
“You’d better be careful,” Milo whispered. Then his swollen eyes closed.
Rachel stood beside his bed for a few seconds more. “You’re right, Milo,” she said quietly, gently picking up his arm and slipping it beneath the white sheet. “I’d better be careful.”
Chapter 15
RACHEL SPLURGED ON A taxi ride back to campus. Sitting in the back of the cab, she thought about what Milo had told her.
Why had Milo’s attacker said, “And now for that troublemaker Rachel”? She wasn’t making any trouble.
The only thing she’d done lately was see images that no one else saw in paintings at the exhibit. And no one had believed that she’d seen them, so how could that make trouble for anyone?
Besides, if the artist didn’t want anyone seeing the images, why put them in there in the first place?
That couldn’t be it. She hadn’t even told anyone that she’d seen something unusual in the still life. Although she had stared at it for a long time.
And the only people who even knew she’d seen the watercolor painting were Aidan and his friends.
Rachel sat up straighter in the back seat of the cab. Her friends … Aidan’s friends … they’d been in the room when she pulled that painting from her purse, and someone, she couldn’t remember who, had asked her why she was staring at it for so long.
Still, that didn’t mean that the artist who had painted his cruel acts into his art was Aidan or one of his friends, she thought as she leaned her head back against the seat. One of them might have innocently mentioned to someone in the art department that she was seeing things that weren’t there in some of the paintings. Might have said, “It’s the weirdest thing. We looked and looked, but we didn’t see what she saw.”
The calendar page had come from the art building. But the art department had many, many students. Any one of them could be determined, for whatever reason, to keep Rachel from living.
If only Milo had seen his attacker’s face before he went spiraling down those metal stairs.
The first thing Rachel did when she returned to her room was go to her dresser to retrieve the calendar page. No point in bothering with the watercolor. The police would never see what she saw in that painting. But the painted message on the calendar page was clear enough. That, combined with Milo’s testimony when the police talked to him, should convince the authorities that she was in danger.
It wasn’t her job to say from whom. It was their job to figure that out. All she had to do was get them to listen to her.
She yanked open the top dresser drawer, where Bibi had said she would put the two items, and reached inside.
They weren’t there.
There was only a jumble of socks and headbands and T-shirts and scarves and panty hose and belts.
And although Rachel burrowed deep into the drawer with shaking fingers, tossing items this way and that, there was no sign of the threatening note or the pastel watercolor.
They were gone.
She wouldn’t be going to the police for help, after all. Not without any proof.
Shoulders slumped, she slowly closed the drawer. She was turning away from the dresser, disappointment etched across her face, when she heard a sound outside her door. It wasn’t the ordinary, everyday sound of footsteps announcing someone’s arrival. This sound was softer, almost furtive, the whispering footsteps of someone who preferred not to be announced.
The doorknob turned.
Rachel dove into the closet and hid behind the wall of hangered clothes.
She couldn’t see, but she could hear. The door opened. Someone came in, very quietly. Walked into the middle of the room. Rachel wanted fiercely to push the clothes aside and peer out, but she was terrified that she’d be seen. Her heart was thudding so loudly in her chest, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the intruder had heard it.
She stood in the darkness of the closet, her breath coming in short, panicky little gasps.
What would she do if the stealthy footsteps began approaching the closet? There was no back door, no way out. She would be trapped.
Afraid her erratic breathing was making too much noise in the silent room, Rachel tried to hold her breath. But all that did was
make her dizzy.
No footsteps approached her hiding place. After what seemed like hours, she heard movement toward the door. But even after it had opened and closed, Rachel stayed in the closet, afraid it was a trick, afraid he hadn’t actually left but was trying to make her think that he had.
It wasn’t until her head felt as if she might explode with curiosity that she tentatively pushed the two dresses aside and peered out into the room. It looked empty, and she heard no sound beyond her own breathing.
Still, she came out from behind the clothes very slowly, as quietly as possible. And it wasn’t until she peeked around the edge of the folding door and saw for herself that the room was completely empty, that she allowed herself a gigantic sigh of relief.
She raced over to the door and locked it.
The telephone rang.
Rachel stared at it as if she expected it to leap off the table and attack her.
It rang again, and a third time.
She answered it.
Aidan’s voice said angrily, “I thought you were going to call us to come pick you up at the hospital. I called there, and they said you’d left. You came home by yourself? Why?”
Because right now, I don’t know who I can trust, Rachel answered silently. “I caught a cab,” she said. “It seemed faster than waiting for someone to drive in from campus. And I know you guys are busy, cleaning up over there.”
“Not that busy. I sent Samantha to find you. She there yet?”
If he wasn’t “that busy,” why hadn’t he come himself instead of sending Sam? “No. Haven’t seen her.”
“I want you to come over here. To the art building. Bibi’s here, with Rudy, so I know you’re alone. That’s not a good idea, Rachel. Wait there for Sam, and then the two of you come back here. You’ll be safe here, with us.”
So he really did believe that the flowerpot hadn’t taken a header off the terrace on its own. It was true, she would be safer at the art building, surrounded by friends.
But she wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Sam.
Rachel quickly changed from her dirt-spattered jeans and sweatshirt into clean clothes, and left the room. Instead of taking the elevator, which suddenly seemed a perfect place to become trapped, she decided to take the fire stairs.
No one was in the hall when she pulled the heavy door open, no one behind her when she started down the stairs, her sneakers making little plopping sounds as she descended from one step to the next. The lighting was dim, the stairway cool, the silence comforting because it meant that she was alone. Safely alone.
She had just reached the sixth-floor landing, two floors down, when she heard the first sound. A door opening, somewhere above her. Not far, perhaps two floors up. Someone else had decided against the elevator. Using the stairs for exercise?
Maybe. Rachel continued her descent. The stitches on her anklebone pulled as she stepped down, but the wound itself was still numb from the local anesthetic she’d been given.
Only a second or two later, something struck her about the footsteps above her. They were muffled, much quieter than her own. Like the footsteps that had approached her room. Furtive. Stealthy. Footsteps that didn’t want to be heard.
Rachel stopped, lifted her head, looked up. She could see nothing on the landings above her. But when she stopped, the footsteps stopped, too.
Testing, she ran down half a dozen more steps, her ears straining for sound.
The footsteps ran, too.
She stopped again.
They stopped.
No question now. The runner above her knew she was in the stairwell. Had probably seen her from one of the higher landings. Didn’t want her to know he was there. And intended to catch up with her.
She had to get off this staircase.
She was on the fifth-floor landing. She whirled, reached out for a doorknob on the heavy metal door, grasped it. It didn’t turn. Didn’t move.
Locked.
Rachel turned and raced down the stairs to the fourth floor. If the anesthetic injected into her ankle wore off, she was going to be in big trouble. She heard the footsteps racing downward, toward her. Tried the door at the fourth floor.
Locked.
What good was a fire door if it was kept locked?
You can open it from the inside, she told herself, in case of fire, but it’s locked on the outside for security.
Great.
The footsteps above her increased their speed, uncaring now if they were heard.
Giving up on the door and any hope of leaving the staircase before she reached the ground floor, Rachel increased her own speed, propelling herself down the stairs as if the heat from a roaring inferno was searing her heels.
Chapter 16
BY THE TIME RACHEL reached the fire door to the lobby, she was drenched in a cold sweat. Her knees were weak from racing down the stairs. And still the footsteps above her persisted, slap, slap, slapping down the stone steps in determined pursuit.
But the lobby door wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, locked. People coming from the basement cafeteria often came up this way and entered the building through this door.
Gasping with relief, Rachel’s fingers closed around the metal doorknob.
It turned.
The door opened a crack. And stopped.
Rachel pushed on it, hard.
It wouldn’t give.
The door was open only a crack, and although Rachel threw her entire weight against it, it would open no further.
Something was in its way. Something heavy. Something that weighed a lot more than Rachel Seaver.
The footsteps above her had stopped when she did. Gambling that they wouldn’t start moving again until she moved, Rachel peered through the opening in the door. Boxes. Stacks of them. She could see tan cardboard boxes, piled high directly in front of the door.
Rachel almost screamed in fury. Who would be stupid enough to bar a fire door?
It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. There had been a delivery to Lester. Supplies of some kind, maybe cleaning supplies or pots and pans for the cafeteria. Whoever had accepted the delivery had carelessly stacked the boxes off to one side, probably not even noticing the fire door was blocked.
The footsteps above her, impatient with the wait, began again on their own. Her pursuer couldn’t know the lobby door was barred. He was probably afraid she’d left the staircase, just as she’d intended to. Now he was rushing down to see if his quarry had escaped.
Giving up on the lobby door, Rachel whirled and ran again.
Down still more steps, only one flight this time, to the basement. The only area of the basement she knew well was the cafeteria. Exhaustion and fear had disoriented her and she couldn’t remember, as she yanked open the unlocked door and burst into the long, dimly lit hallway, which way she should go. Which way … which way? Which way is the cafeteria? she screamed silently, knowing that if she chose incorrectly, she could find herself lost, perhaps trapped, in the basement labyrinth of twisted, turning hallways, boiler and utility rooms, supply and maintenance closets.
There wasn’t time to think about it.
Rachel turned to her right and broke into a run. Please let this be the right way, she prayed. Please!
She didn’t know whether or not her prayer had been answered until she saw, just ahead of her, another door, this one with a glass window. Could be the door to the outside, could be another locked fire door, in which case she’d be trapped, or it could be the door to the cafeteria, which would mean people and safety.
Although she heard no racing footsteps behind her, she prayed fervently, Please, please let it be the cafeteria. Please don’t let it be another locked door. I’m so tired, and my ankle hurts. I can’t run anymore. Please make it the cafeteria this time, okay?
She knew her prayer had been answered even before she opened the door, when she glanced hurriedly through the upper glass and saw people sitting at the long, narrow tables eating.
Rachel sagged agai
nst the door. She’d made it. She’d be safe in the cafeteria.
Her pursuer must have sensed that, because the sound of footsteps behind her had ended.
Rachel pulled the door open and slipped inside.
She knew she looked like a crazy person—her eyes wide with fear, her breath coming hard and fast, her gait unsteady.
Trying to ignore stares from some of the people she passed, Rachel headed for the main door just as Sam, Paloma, and Joseph entered and looked around the room, their eyes searching. When they saw Rachel, they headed straight for her.
“Where on earth have you been?” Paloma cried as they reached Rachel. “Aidan sent us to get you, and we’ve been looking all over for you. We were frantic. Sam went to your room, but you weren’t there and you hadn’t left a note or anything. Rachel, you look terrible!”
Rachel unearthed a tissue from her jeans pocket and swiped at her brow. “You were in my room?” she said to Sam. “When?”
“A few minutes ago. I went in quiet as a mouse because Aidan said you might be sleeping. Rachel, you really should keep your door locked, especially now. I mean, if you really think that someone is after you …”
“Did you take the stairs?”
Sam blinked. “What?”
“Did you take the stairs to get down here just now?”
“Rachel, why would any sane person walk down eight flights of stairs when there’s an elevator?”
Sam went on about the foolishness of taking stairs instead of the elevator, but Rachel was no longer listening. That had been Sam in her room? Sam, coming in quietly for fear of waking Rachel? Her movements across the carpet hadn’t been furtive, after all, but considerate?
I hid in the closet from Sam, she thought in disgust. If I hadn’t been so paranoid, I could have just walked to the art building with Sam, and never had to go near the fire stairs.
The thought brought tears of frustration to her eyes. How was she supposed to know who to trust? She hadn’t learned anything in college so far that had taught her how to behave when she was being terrorized.