"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.
"Sure," she said. "I guess so."
"All right, Don," he said to the stranger. "Do it."
The man stepped past Quinn produced a wand of some sort. It was black and had a loop at the end, reminding her of the electric contraption her father used to start the briquettes in their charcoal grill. He began waving it about the room, along the walls, all around the fixtures. There was something ritualistic, almost shamanistic about the procedure.
"What's he doing?"
"Sweeping the room, looking for electronic pulsations, microwave transmissions."
The feeling of unreality swept over Quinn again as she watched. Almost in a trance, she followed him into the bedroom and watched as he scanned every object in the room. She wished she'd thought to pick up the place. But you so quickly get used to a maid, and the maid had the weekends off.
He did a visual search, and even disassembled the telephone.
When he was finished he nodded pleasantly to her and returned to the front room where Tim's father waited. Mr. Verran was still outside the door in the hall, hovering, watching.
"Not a blip," the man called Don said. "The place is clean, just like your son's."
Mr. Brown nodded. He seemed neither pleased nor displeased. He turned to Mr. Verran.
"I had to know. You understand that, don't you? I had to know for sure."
"Of course I understand," Mr. Verran said. "A hundred percent. I'd've done the same thing myself."
As Don slipped past him into the hall, Mr. Brown turned back to Quinn. "Thank you, Quinn."
"Has there been any word? Any word at all?" She felt foolish asking—they'd only completed the report a few hours ago—but it was a compulsion she could not deny.
"No." His eyes were bleak, his mouth a thin, grim line. "Not a word."
"Will you...?"
"I'll let you know if I hear anything." He touched her arm and managed a smile that was heartbreakingly close to Tim's. "Thanks for caring."
As soon as the door closed behind him, she broke down and cried.
*
Quinn had dozed only sporadically through the night, so she was already up and showered when someone knocked on her door Sunday morning. She ran to it, hoping, praying...
It was Mr. Brown. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look quite so grim.
"I think we've found him," he said.
Quinn's knees were suddenly weak. Her heart began pounding in her ears. As the room threatened to tilt, she reached behind her, found a chair and sat down.
"He's...he's all right?"
"We don't know. They found his car at the airport south of Baltimore."
"BWI."
"Right. It's in the long-term lot. They checked with the airlines and learned that he purchased a one-way ticket to Las Vegas Friday morning."
Visions scuttled across Quinn's brain: Tim in his dark glasses, sitting at a blackjack table, drink in hand, lights strobing all around him as he grinned and flashed her his Hawaiian hang-loose signal.
"And a further check of his credit card shows he arrived and rented a car from Avis. Signed for a week's rental."
"Vegas," Quinn said softly, still trying to comprehend.
"Yes. I don't understand any of it, but I'm so relieved to know he's alive. For days now I've had these visions of Tim lying in a ditch somewhere."
Quinn said nothing. She was too numb with relief to speak.
"We learned something else," Mr. Brown said with a sidelong glance in her direction. "A report from the Atlantic City police department."
Quinn closed her eyes. Her name was on that report as well. She supposed she should have known that would come to light eventually.
"Maybe I should have said something before," she said. "But I didn't see that it had anything to do with—"
"Does Tim have a gambling problem?"
She looked at Tim's father and found his eyes intent upon her. The answer was important to him.
"I don't know if I'm fit to judge that, but—"
"Was he getting in with the wrong kind of people?"
"No. Why do you say that?"
"Well, he's been staying out all night a lot, and he got beat up outside a casino."
"We were mugged. If I hadn't wanted to go down on the sand, it never would have happened. And truthfully, Mr. Brown, Tim isn't really interested in gambling. He's never once mentioned going back since then. He's more interested in beating the system with his memory than in gambling itself."
Mr. Brown smiled for the first time. "That memory of his. He was always playing games, doing tricks with it." He extended his hand. "I'm glad I stopped by, Quinn. Even though there's still a lot of questions left to be answered, you've eased my mind some."
"Where are you going?"
"To Las Vegas. I can't sit back and wait. I've got to go l
ooking for him."
Take me with you! Quinn wanted to say. She'd go herself if she had the money.
"You'll call me as soon as you find him?"
He nodded. "Better yet, I'll have him call you himself." He waved and let himself out.
Quinn remained in the chair, staring at her trembling hands. Las Vegas...what on earth...?
At least she knew he was still alive.
Why didn't she feel better?
She sat there for she didn't know how long, her mind almost blank. Finally she stood and shook off the torpor. She couldn't give in to this. She had to keep moving.
A walk. That was what she needed. Fresh air to clear her head and help her think straight. As soon as she stepped outside she headed for the student lot. It had become a habit now, a compulsion: Whenever you're outside, check the lot. Maybe you'll see Griffin easing through the gate.
She checked. No Cierra.
Quinn followed the walk around the pond and found herself nearing the Science Center. She checked the pocket of her coat for her wallet. Her security card was in it. She thought: Why not? She needed a distraction, something to do with her mind besides worry about Tim. Sorting, filing, setting up the data on 9574 for analysis might distract her, make the time go faster. Trying to study now would be nothing but wasted effort.
And maybe Dr. Emerson would be there. It was a good possibility. 9574 had become his life. You never knew when you'd find him in the lab. She hoped he'd come in today. His presence alone had a soothing effect on her. He was a deep-set rock to cling to in all this chaos.
Up on the fifth floor, she passed Ward C with her usual quick glance through the window to make sure all was well within, then continued down the hall.
She stopped. Something had changed in Ward C. She couldn't say what, but there was something...
She walked back and looked again. Immediately she knew what was different. There were eight patients in Ward C today. A new burn victim had arrived since she'd last been up here.
Quinn continued down the hall toward the lab, wondering what catastrophe had befallen that poor soul.
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