“What kind of thing?”
“Plans of some sort. Something of value to Evans, but I don’t know what.”
“I think you’re jumping to conclusions.” Betty picked up her cup and finished the coffee. “I have to go.”
“Can I borrow your car?”
“Sure.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the keys. “It’s around back, a blue Tercel.” Fear danced in her eyes. “Be careful, Peter. This Evans character, he must be a real SOB.”
“He is,” Peter agreed. “You don’t even know him and you suspect what type of person he is.”
“Yeah,” she said, putting a bill onto the counter as she walked away.
Peter sat a moment longer, watching the night outside the cafe window. Each moment that passed might bring additional danger to Eleanor. His gut instinct was that Evans had her and planned to use her in some way. But how? And where? If only he could lay hands on Familiar. The more he thought about it, the more he believed the cat held all the answers. Or at least a lot of them.
If Evans had Eleanor, then the most logical place would be at his lab. Peter bolted from the table. The lab! Cold fear nearly locked his knees as he paid for the coffee and ran out of the café into the night. What was Evans doing to Eleanor if he had her in the lab?
He found Betty’s Tercel and roared out of the parking lot. He had a clear memory of where Eleanor told him the Behavioral Institute was located. It was about five miles from her campus, tucked back on a dead-end road that looked deserted. Eleanor! She had to be safe. She had to be!
By the time he arrived at the institute, his head was clearer. The race of fear and emotion had calmed, giving him time to plan. He parked the car half a mile down the road, wondering how, in a city as crowded as Washington, Evans had found a place so isolated and remote. But then, the work Evans did wouldn’t bear the close scrutiny of neighbors.
No cars were parked in front of the brick building, and there was no sign of life. Peter hugged the surrounding growth of small shrubs and wild bushes as he made his way toward the front door. He saw the small wires of the electric alarm that were glued to the windows. It would be like Evans to have a highly sophisticated burglary system.
At the front door he peered through the tiny square of reinforced glass. The hallway that came into view was empty. The interior walls were a dull institutional green. Gloom and depression seemed to swell from the dirty, brownish floor.
It was the same scenario he remembered so well. Evans was oblivious to his most basic surroundings. As a young researcher, he’d often worn the same clothes for days at a time. He’d never seemed to notice the need to wash or change. He could work in a hole in the ground and never feel the dirt or damp.
The Behavioral Institute wasn’t quite that bad, but there was a pervasive atmosphere of hopelessness. Peter had a sudden urge to destroy the building, brick by brick. He wanted to put an irrevocable end to Evans’s work.
He moved from the front window to the east side of the building. The windows were high slits, further protected by thick iron bars. Jumping, he grabbed two bars and pulled himself up. He could see a large, empty room. He spotted the empty cages where Familiar and the other felines had obviously been contained.
“Where is that damn cat?” he asked.
“Meow!”
The sound at his elbow was like a jolt of electricity. His body tensed, he dropped to the ground and rolled.
“Me-ow!”
Looking up at the next window, Peter couldn’t believe his eyes. The inky silhouette of a black cat could barely be detected there.
“Familiar!” he exclaimed, the word coming out on a big sigh of relief. “We’ve been worried sick about you.”
“Meow!” The cat jumped to the ground beside him and rubbed against his leg.
WELL, IT'S ABOUT TIME Dudley Do-Right got here. I've been hanging out in that window for the past three hours. Eleanor is fine. She’s sitting on the floor in a corner. At first I was worried about her. I thought maybe Dr. Frankenstein had given her something. But now, she’s okay, just furious. She looks up at me, and those brown eyes of her are blazing. I’d like to be a witness, if she could lay her hands on Dr. Frankenstein’s neck!
It’s Zelda I’m worried about. I can barely catch a glimpse of her, and she’s almost in a state of shock. Sometimes she shakes uncontrollably. Whatever he’s done to her, it’s hurt her bad!
Now I’ve got to get old Dr. Doolittle-Dudley Do-Right up and going in the right direction. I’ve checked this place out pretty thoroughly, and there's only one way he could get in. And then, I don’t know, it’s going to be a tight squeeze.
Well, he’s off the ground now and following me. Good! That’s progress. He keeps calling me that ridiculous “Kitty! Kitty!’’ and acting as if I should come to him. Those veterinarians. They are certainly slow to catch on to the order of things. Cats don’t obey anyone! Well, I’ll give him a lesson in feline-human etiquette at a later date. I want to get the girl, get the ape and get out of here. Yaba-daba-doo! Come on, Dr. Doolittle, there’s a back door just over here, and I think I’ve been able to work the latch up a little. Being small, sleek, agile and brilliant does have its tremendous assets. We have to work fast, while Dr. Frankenstein is distracted.
“Hey!” Eleanor whispered. “Hey, little monkey!” She waved her hand and tried to attract the ape’s attention. The orangutan was completely lethargic. She sat in a corner of her cage and looked at Eleanor, then her entire body began to tremble as if she had a fit of the ague.
“It’s okay,” Eleanor said. A surge of compassion for the creature touched her. “If I had my way, I’d get us both out of here.”
She talked to the ape to pass the time and to keep her own nerves from snapping. She was afraid, and there was nothing she could do about it. No one knew where she was, except for the people who held her prisoner. Sam Nottingham! The man had set her up perfectly. And Evans! He was a monster, and now she knew why Magdalena Caruso felt no qualms about attacking him.
“I’d give a lot to see Magdalena walk through that door,” she said aloud, hearing the note of wistfulness in her voice. She looked at the window again. The cat had vanished. “At least Familiar is free.”
She studied her prison for the hundredth time. The room was small with bars on two sides, a wall with a mirror on the third, and the entrance on the fourth. There was a simple cot and nothing else. As far as she could see, the ape was confined in a similar cage.
Glancing back at the ape, she saw that it was standing by the bars, staring at her.
“Hey, girl,” she said. “You’re going to get out of here soon. You’re going to be free, a pet of a nice man. Thank goodness for you.” She sat down on her cot. “But what’s going to happen to me?”
“You’re going to help me.” Evans’s voice came to her through the speaker by the mirror. “Make friends with the ape. You’ll be working together, and she could use a little support.”
“I wouldn’t help you across a busy street if you were blind,” she said hotly. All of her self-imposed restraints suddenly burst. “You’re sick, Evans, and you belong in this cage.”
“I warned you once about those outbursts of temper.” His voice was soft, its tone gleeful. “Must I come back in there and make you behave?”
Eleanor’s hand involuntarily went to her leg. The shock had hurt!
“Answer me!”
“No,” she said more carefully. Temper was great, but at this time she couldn’t afford to exercise hers. Silently she vowed that when she had the chance, Evans would feel the full power of her wrath.
“Tomorrow is a big day for us at this lab,” Evans said. His disembodied voice sounded eerie. “Tomorrow we present the orangutan to her new owner.”
“I’m glad for her,” Eleanor answered, unable to completely hide her sarcasm.
“With her impressive repertoire of behavior, she will demonstrate that an ape can be trained to follow a series of very complex orders.” He laug
hed. “I’m coming in to show you.”
Remembering the ape’s terror, Eleanor jumped up. “That’s okay. I’ll take your word for it I’m sure she’s perfectly trained to carry out the most explicit social orders.”
“It’s a little more than than, Dr. Duncan. You’ll see.”
She heard the click of the lock, the turn of the bolt, and Evans entered the room. To her surprise he was dressed in a tuxedo, though his hair was still damp and glistening from a shower.
He opened the cage, and the monkey reluctantly walked up to him. “This is your final dress rehearsal, Zelda. Do it right tonight and then tomorrow, and you’ll never be hurt again." An edge of softness had crept into his voice. “Most animals aren’t violent, and to train one to commit violence on command is often one of the most difficult obedience challenges.”
“What are you talking about?” Eleanor was intrigued despite herself.
“Zelda here is going to perform an assassination tomorrow at a frill state banquet. And you, Dr. Duncan, are going to be holding her leash when she does.”
Chapter Sixteen
Peter leaned against the back door of the laboratory and stretched. He’d worried a small hole in a rotted portion of the door, about two feet from an ancient slide bolt that held the door shut. If he could only force it up, he could get inside. His fingers almost reached the lock. He pressed his face against the wood and stretched harder. The tip of his forefinger touched the metal, but he couldn’t reach far enough to move it.
“Meow,” Familiar said, pressing against the door.
“You open it if you can,” Peter said in disgust. Withdrawing his arm, he sat back on his heels.
The door was of solid wood. It would take a stout fireman’s axe to chop through, and he didn’t have one. The old slide bolt tantalized him.
The cat had crept into a hole and was moving silently inside what was apparently a storage room. Peter got up and began to check the ground for a flexible stick. Maybe he could rig some type of lever so that he could exert pressure on the lock.
He found a maple tree and twisted off a low-hanging limb. Walking back to the door, he almost fell over the cat. Familiar was next to invisible in the darkness.
“Watch it,” he cautioned, lifting his leg high to step over the cat.
“Meow!”
Familiar’s claws dug into his leg.
Peter jumped backward, but Familiar clung to him. The cat was literally dragging him away from the door. Familiar stopped near the window and leaped onto the ledge.
“I feel like a fool,” Peter said softly. “Dogs are supposed to do this kind of thing, not cats.”
“Meow,” Familiar said softly, then turned to look into the building.
Jumping for the window bars, Peter grabbed hold and pulled himself up. Through the narrow glass pane he saw Eleanor, the ape and Arnold Evans. While he’d been trying to break down the back door, Evans had returned. Peter’s anger was so intense, he felt as if he could pull the bars loose and hurl himself through the window. As he watched, he saw Eleanor shake her head vehemently. The ape clutched its head and doubled over, apparently in great pain. Eleanor bent to the ape, then her hand lashed out to Evans’s face. Peter looked on in helpless horror as Evans slapped her so hard that she stumbled backward.
He shook the bars, but they held steady. Enraged, he dropped to the ground again. In desperation he found another stick and went back to the wooden door. He had to get inside before Evans did anything worse. He was going to get inside, if he had to take the door down splinter by splinter.
Reaching through the small opening, he struggled to place the stick on the lock. To open the door he had to raise the lever of the lock, and then push it away from himself. The stick gave him the extra leverage he needed, but it kept slipping. The lock required a delicate touch. Gritting his teeth, he replaced the stick and started to lift the lock.
Sweat collected on his forehead as he worked. When he heard the crack of a branch only inches from his back, he tried to pull his arm out of the opening and turn around, but before he could see who was behind him, he felt a blow. Thunder echoed in his head, then there was nothing.
“I didn’t really want to do that,” Joey Knight said. He knelt over Peter’s body and felt for a pulse for the tenth time. “Are you sure he’s okay?”
“Perfectly,” Betty Gillette answered. “Thanks for coming with me, Joey. He was going to try and hurt Dr. Duncan. You were the only person I knew I could call.”
“Where is she?” he asked, rising and shifting anxiously from one foot to the other. “Let’s get her and get out of here. This place is creepy.”
“Meow!” Familiar came through the hole in the back door. Wide green eyes held Betty.
“So, here’s the elusive black cat,” Betty said with a note of satisfaction. “We can get Eleanor and the cat. Sort of kill two birds with one stone.”
“Let’s do it.” Joey looked around. “This place is awful. What do they do here?”
“Animal experiments. Basically whatever they feel like doing. Let’s tie him up before we go.”
“I don’t know,” Joey said. “He may be hurt. Why don’t we leave him, get Dr. Duncan and then call an ambulance? I might have hit him too hard.”
“He’s fine,” Betty said. “Here.” She handed the student a length of rope she had wound around her waist. “I thought this might come in handy. Tie him good. I promise you, he isn’t hurt. He’ll come around in a few minutes, and I want him tied and gagged so he doesn’t interfere.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Joey reluctantly took the rope. He bent to tie Peter’s hands behind his back.
“Tighter!” Betty said, jerking the rope. “It’s for his own good, Joey. If he gets in the middle of this, he could get us all killed, especially Dr. Duncan.”
Joey pulled the rope tighter, then took the bandanna she offered him and fashioned a gag for Peter’s mouth.
“He’ll be fine,” Betty said. “Let’s get that cat. Here, kitty,” she called, bending and reaching into the dark bushes. “Remember me? I’m your friend. Of all the cats that escaped, you were the one. That’s fate, isn’t it, big, black kitty? Where’d the damn cat go?”
“He was by the bush,” Joey answered. He felt along the dark roots. “But he’s gone now.”
They’d searched for five minutes when Peter’s moans finally drew Betty to his side. Catching the worried look on Joey’s face, she checked Peter’s pulse. “Slow and steady. I promise he isn’t hurt,” she said.
“Forget the cat for now. Let’s get Dr. Duncan,” Joey insisted.
“I guess you’re right.” Betty straightened. “We’ll get him later.”
“What’s so important about an old black cat?” Joey asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. It just seems that a lot of people want to get their hands on him, so that makes me believe he must have something pretty special to offer. We’ll get him later. Can you give me a boost up to the window? I’d better check this out, before we go crashing into the building.”
Using Joey’s leg as a step, Betty forced herself up the wall. Her hands tightened on the bars as she caught sight of the interaction between Eleanor and Arnold Evans.
“Listen, Joey,” she said, sliding to the ground again. “Drive back to the university and call the police. Don’t stop around here, just get back to the campus, okay?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, panic in his voice. “Is Dr. Duncan in trouble?”
“There’s no time to talk about it.” Betty’s voice was terse. “Go call the police. Tell them to get here as quickly as they can. Go!” she pushed him hard. “Run!”
As soon as he had disappeared into the night, she walked to the front door and rapped sharply. “Hey, Vrenner, open up! It’s Betty Gillette.”
In the back room, Evans paused before jerking on the ape’s leash. He cocked his head, listening.
“Someone’s at the front door,” Eleanor said. The pounding of her heart was so loud that she could
barely hear above it. She didn’t know whether to be afraid that it was or wasn’t Peter. Somehow she’d held on to a sliver of hope that he’d be able to figure out where she was and come to her. Part of her wanted him there, and another part feared for his life. Whenever Evans mentioned Peter’s name, all the venom in his soul was exposed. He hated Peter, despised him. Evans wanted Peter dead.
“Wait here,” Evans ordered her as he handed her Zelda’s leash.
He left without a backward glance. Eleanor quickly moved around the door, trying to find a way to escape. The orangutan clung to her side, tentative fingers reaching for her hand.
“It’s okay,’’ Eleanor said, stroking the ape’s coarse hair. “It’s okay.’’ If only Magdalena would come bursting through the door with an army of AK-47’s and the desire to press Evans against the wall.
“I should have listened harder to that woman,” Eleanor said as she continued to soothe the ape. “Magdalena may not be right about everything she does, but in some cases I fully understand how she’s been pushed to the extreme. Under cover of the law, under the guise of medical advancement, Evans has tortured innocent animals." She picked up the ape’s hand. The scars were deep. “One day he’ll pay, Zelda.”
There was some confused noise from the front room, and Eleanor pressed herself against the door to hear. There was the sounds of a struggle, someone falling against a desk or table. Books crashed to the ground, and metal screamed as it was dragged across cement.
“It’s Peter,” she whispered, her hopes rising. “He’ll get us out of this mess.” She held the ape’s hand, amazed at the trusting way the fingers curled around hers. Like a child’s, she thought.
The sound of the struggle drew closer to the door, until a body was thrown against the metal. Eleanor jerked back, just in time. The door opened and Betty Gillette came flying into the small prison. She landed on her back with a thud that knocked the breath from her.
“Betty!” Eleanor was at her side, helping her to sit up. Zelda approached slowly, putting her long fingers into Betty’s red hair.
Fear Familiar Page 20
