Harmful Intent

by Robin Cook

  Jeffrey heard the men coming down Pinckney Street. The sounds of their feet slapping against the pavement echoed off the façades of the elegant brick buildings. One of them soon appeared, running into the square. Having lost sight of his quarry, the man immediately slowed, then stopped. The other joined him moments later. They spoke briefly between gasping breaths.

  In the light of the gas lamps that surrounded the square, Jeffrey caught a glimpse of the two men as they split up. One went to the left, the other to the right. Jeffrey recognized the man on the upper roadway from the Hatch Shell stage. The other man was a stranger, and he was holding a pistol.

  The men methodically searched entranceways and stairwells as well as under cars as they moved down the square. Jeffrey didn’t stir even after the two had disappeared from view. He was afraid any movement might catch their attention.

  When he guessed the men were near to the opposite end of the square, he thought briefly of scaling the fence and running back to Kelly. But he decided against it. He was afraid he’d be too easily seen going over the fence.

  The nearby meow of a cat made Jeffrey jump. Two feet from his face was a gray tabby. Its tail stood ramrod straight in the air. The cat meowed again and moved closer to rub itself against Jeffrey’s head. It began to purr loudly. Jeffrey remembered the fright Delilah had given him in Kelly’s pantry. Cats had never paid much attention to him before; now they seemed to appear every time he tried to hide!

  Turning his head and peering through the shrubbery, Jeffrey could see the two men conferring at the Mount Vernon end of the square. A lone pedestrian was walking along the sidewalk. Jeffrey thought about screaming for help, but the pedestrian entered one of the houses and rapidly disappeared. Jeffrey then thought about screaming for help anyway but decided against it, thinking it would probably do little but bring on a few lights. Even if someone had the presence of mind to call 911, it would take ten, fifteen minutes for the police to arrive under the best of circumstances. Besides, Jeffrey wasn’t sure he wanted the police.

  The two men split up again, coming back toward Pinckney Street. As they walked, they were now peering into the grassy area. Jeffrey felt his panic returning. Especially with the cat still persisting in its demands for attention, Jeffrey realized he couldn’t stay put. He had to move.

  Getting his feet under him, Jeffrey sprinted to the fence. He climbed over as quickly as before, but when he landed on the cobblestones on the other side, his right ankle twisted. A stab of pain went up Jeffrey’s spine.

  Mindless of his ankle, Jeffrey hurled himself down Pinckney Street. Behind him he heard one of the men yell to the other. Soon their footsteps filled Pinckney Street. Jeffrey passed West Cedar and raced down to Charles. Desperate for aid, he ran directly into the street and tried to hail a passing motorist, but the drivers coming by wouldn’t stop.

  With his pursuers coming rapidly down Pinckney Street, Jeffrey crossed Charles and continued down to Brimmer, where he turned left. He ran to the end of the block. Unfortunately, the faster of the two men was gaining considerably.

  Desperately Jeffrey turned into the Church of the Advent, hoping he could hide somewhere inside. Reaching the thick door in its gothic archway, he grasped the heavy handle and yanked. The door wouldn’t budge. It was locked. Jeffrey turned back to the street just as one of the men appeared—the man with the gun. A few moments later, the other man arrived, more winded than the first. He was the one Jeffrey had seen before. Together they slowly advanced toward him.

  Jeffrey turned back to the door of the church and pounded on it in frustration. Then he felt the barrel of a gun pressed to his head. He heard the more winded man say, “Good-bye, Doctor!”

  Kelly slapped her hand against the dash. “I don’t believe this!” she said aloud. What could be taking him so long? She looked up at Trent’s window for what felt like the hundredth time. There was still no sign of Jeffrey.

  Getting out of the car, she leaned on the roof and thought about what she could do. She could use the car-horn signal, but she was reluctant to interrupt him just because she was anxious and apprehensive. For him to be taking this long, he had to be on to something. She had half a mind to go up to the apartment herself, but was afraid that her knock at the door might scare Jeffrey into fleeing.

  Kelly was at her wits’ end when the shiny black Lincoln returned. Not ten minutes earlier, Kelly had seen one of the men come back to get the car. But he’d come from down the street, not from Trent’s apartment building. Kelly watched the car double-park in the same spot it had before. Then the same two individuals got out of the car and went back inside Trent’s building.

  With her curiosity piqued, Kelly straightened up from leaning on her car and strolled over to the Lincoln to take a better look. She put her hands in her pockets as she approached the car, hoping to appear like a casual passer-by in case either of the men should suddenly reappear. When she got alongside the Lincoln, she looked up and down the street as though she were doing something wrong by indulging her curiosity. She bent over and looked in at the dash. The car had a mobile phone, but otherwise looked normal. Taking two more steps, she looked in the back, wondering why the car had so many antennas.

  Kelly quickly straightened up. Someone was curled up, sleeping in the backseat. Leaning forward slowly, she looked again. One of the man’s hands was twisted unnaturally behind his back. My God, thought Kelly, it was Jeffrey!

  In a frenzy, she tried the door. It was locked. She ran around to the other doors. They all were secured. Desperate, she looked for something heavy, like a rock. She pried one of the bricks from the sidewalk. Running back to the Lincoln, she dashed the brick against the window on the back door. She had to smash it several times before it finally shattered in a million pieces of gravel-sized pieces of glass. Reaching in, she unlocked the door.

  As she bent in and tried to rouse Jeffrey, she heard someone yell from above. She assumed it was one of the men who’d gotten out of the car. They must have heard the window break.

  “Jeffrey, Jeffrey!” she cried. She had to get him out of the car. Hearing his name, he began to stir. He tried to speak but his voice was slurred. His eyelids rose slightly as he wrinkled his forehead in effort.

  Kelly knew she had little time. Grasping him by his wrists, she pulled him toward her. His limp legs drooped to the ground. His body was a dead weight. He seemed to be passed out. Letting go of his wrists, she grabbed him around the chest in a bear hug and dragged him from the car.

  “Try to stand, Jeffrey!” she pleaded. He was like a rag doll. She knew that if she let him go he’d slump to the pavement. It was as if they’d drugged him.

  “Jeffrey!” she cried. “Walk! Try to walk!”

  Summoning all her strength, Kelly dragged Jeffrey down the pavement. He tried to help, but it was as if he was a quadriplegic. He couldn’t seem to put any weight on his legs, much less stand.

  By the time she was abreast of her car, Jeffrey was able to support himself to some degree, but he was still too groggy to grasp their situation. Kelly leaned him against the car, bracing him with her body. She got the back door open, then she managed to push him in. Kelly made sure he was all the way in before she slammed the door.

  Opening the driver’s door, she jumped in. She heard the door to Trent’s building burst open and smash against its doorstop. Kelly started her engine, turned the wheel sharply to the left, and accelerated. She hit the car in front of her with enough force to throw Jeffrey to the floor in the backseat.

  Putting the car in reverse, Kelly backed up, smashing the car behind her. One of the men had reached her car. He had her car door open before she could think to lock it. He seized her left arm roughly. “Not so fast, lady,” he snarled in her ear.

  With her free hand Kelly put the car in drive and floored the accelerator. She clutched the steering wheel as she felt herself being dragged sideways by the brute at her door. Her car shot forward, missing the car directly in front by inches. Kelly threw the steering wh
eel to the left, grazing her open door on the parked cars on the opposite side of the street. The man who’d had her by the arm only moments before shouted in pain as he was crushed between a parked automobile and Kelly’s flailing door.

  Kelly kept the accelerator floored. She plummeted down Garden Street with her door still open. She stomped on the brake just in time to avoid a half dozen pedestrians crossing at the busy intersection of Garden and Cambridge streets. The people scattered as Kelly’s car careened sideways with a screech of rubber, missing a few by inches.

  Kelly closed her eyes, expecting the worst. When she opened them, she’d stopped, but the car had swung in a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn. She was pointed the wrong way up Cambridge Street, facing a line of angry motorists. Some had already gotten out of their cars and were approaching. Kelly put her car in reverse and, arcing around, was able to turn back in the right direction. It was then she saw the black Lincoln flying down Garden Street, to fall in directly behind her. The car was on her tail, inches from her rear bumper.

  Kelly decided her only hope was to lose the big Lincoln in the tiny streets of Beacon Hill, where her little Honda would be more maneuverable. She took the next left off Cambridge Street. In making the turn, she inadvertently cut across the curb, hitting a refuse container. Her door swung open widely, then slammed shut. Kelly accelerated up the hill. At the top she braked enough to make a left-hand turn onto narrow Myrtle Street. Looking in her rearview mirror, she could tell that her ploy was already working. The Lincoln had dropped behind. It was too big to negotiate so sharp a turn at so high a speed.

  Having lived in Beacon Hill for a number of years before she was married, Kelly was well acquainted with the labyrinth of narrow one-way streets. Turning right against the traffic on one-way Joy Street, Kelly took a gamble that she could reach Mount Vernon. At Mount Vernon, she took another right and headed down the hill toward Charles. Kelly’s plan was to shoot through Louisburg Square, then disappear against traffic up Pinckney. But after braking for the square, she saw that both roadways were temporarily blocked, one with a taxi, the other with a car discharging a passenger.

  Changing her mind, Kelly continued down Mount Vernon. But the pause had cost her. In her rearview mirror, she saw that the Lincoln was back on her tail. Looking ahead, Kelly saw she would not make the green at Charles Street. She turned left at West Cedar instead.

  Turning right on Chestnut Street, Kelly accelerated. The light ahead at Charles turned yellow, but she didn’t slow. Shooting out into the intersection, she saw a taxi coming at her from her right. The driver was running the lights. Kelly braked and threw the wheel to her left, sending her car into another skid. Instead of a direct collision, Kelly was jolted by a mere glancing blow. Her engine didn’t even stall.

  Kelly didn’t stop even as the cabbie leaped from his vehicle, waving an angry fist and screaming at her. Continuing down Chestnut, she got to Brimmer and turned left. As she was turning she caught a glimpse of the Lincoln detouring around the stalled taxi.

  Kelly felt a stab of panic. Her ploy wasn’t working as she’d hoped. The Lincoln was staying with her. The driver seemed to know Beacon Hill.

  Kelly realized she had to think of something out of the ordinary. She turned left onto Byron Street, then left again into the Brimmer Street parking garage. She drove past the attendant’s glass booth, veered sharply to the right, and drove directly onto an auto elevator.

  The two attendants who’d stood and watched dumbfounded as she drove by came running onto the elevator. Before they could speak, she yelled: “I’m being chased by a man in a black Lincoln. You’ve got to help me! He wants to kill me!”

  The two attendants looked blankly at each other. One raised his eyebrows, the other shrugged and got off the elevator. The one who stayed on reached up and pulled the cord. The elevator doors scraped together like the upper and lower jaws of a huge mouth. The elevator rose with a groan.

  The attendant walked back and bent down at Kelly’s window. “How come somebody wants to kill you?” he asked calmly.

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” Kelly said. “What about your friend? Will he put the man off if he comes into the garage?”

  “I guess so,” the attendant said. “It’s not every night we get to rescue a lady in distress.”

  Kelly closed her eyes in relief, leaning her forehead on the steering wheel.

  “What’s wrong with the guy on the floor of the backseat?” the attendant asked.

  Kelly didn’t open her eyes. “Drunk,” she said simply. “Too many margaritas.”

  When Frank called the second time, he had to wait while Matt went through the same rigmarole of changing phones. Frank was sitting in his own home at the time and the line was considerably better than when he’d called from the car phone.

  “More trouble?” Matt asked. “You’re not impressing me, Frank.”

  “There’s no way we could have anticipated what happened,” Frank said. “When Nicky and I got to Trent’s apartment, the doctor was in there.”

  “What about the stuff in the cabinet?” Matt demanded.

  “No problem,” Frank said. “It was there, not disturbed.”

  “Did you get the doctor?”

  “That was the problem,” Frank said. “We chased him all over Beacon Hill. But we got him.”

  “Terrific!” Matt said.

  “Not completely. We lost him again. We drugged him with the stuff you sent in the plane, and it worked like a charm. Then we loaded him into my car while we went up to take care of the apartment and get the stuff you wanted. We thought, why make two trips to Logan? Anyhow, the guy’s girlfriend came along and broke into my car. Smashed the goddamn window with a brick. Naturally, we ran down the stairs to stop her, but the kid’s apartment was on the fifth floor. Nicky, one of my associates, ran out into the street to stop her but she pulled away before he could. Broke Nicky’s arm. I chased her by car, but I lost her.”

  “What about the apartment?”

  “No problem there,” Frank said. “I went back and trashed it, and I put the stuff you wanted on the plane. So everything is done except I don’t have the doctor. But I think I can get him if you use some of your influence. I got the girlfriend’s license number. Think you could get me her name and address?”

  “That shouldn’t be any trouble,” Matt said. “I’ll call you with it tomorrow, first thing.”

  15

  SATURDAY,

  MAY 20, 1989

  8:11 A.M.

  Jeffrey regained consciousness in stages, remembering weird and wild dreams. His throat was so parched it hurt as he breathed, and he found it difficult to swallow. His body felt heavy and stiff. He opened his eyes and began to take a look around to get his bearings. He was in a strange room with blue walls. Then he noticed the IV. With a start, he checked his left hand. Whatever had happened the night before, he’d wound up on intravenous!

  As his mind began to clear, Jeffrey rolled over. Morning sunlight was streaming in through the blinds of his window. Beside him was a bedside table with a pitcher and a glass. Greedily, Jeffrey took a drink.

  Sitting up, he surveyed the room. It was a hospital room, complete with the usual metal bureau, the track for the curtain on the ceiling above the bed, and in the corner, an uncomfortable-looking vinyl-covered armchair. In the chair was Kelly. She was curled up and fast asleep. One arm hung off the chair at an angle. Below her hand was a newspaper on the floor that appeared to have fallen from her grasp.

  Jeffrey swung his legs over the side of the bed, planning on getting up and going to Kelly, but the IV restrained him. Looking behind him, he noticed it was sterile water and barely running.

  With a jolt, Jeffrey suddenly remembered his flight from the men in Beacon Hill. His terror came back with astonishing clarity. He remembered being pressed against the door to the Church of the Advent, a gun pointed to his head. Then he’d been injected in the back of his thigh. That was all he could recall. From that moment on, h
is mind was a total blank.

  “Kelly,” Jeffrey called softly. Kelly murmured but didn’t wake. “Kelly!” Jeffrey called more loudly.

  Kelly’s eyes fluttered open. She blinked a few times, then leaped from her chair and rushed to Jeffrey. She grasped him by both shoulders and stared into his face. “Oh, Jeffrey, thank God you’re all right. How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” Jeffrey said. “I’m fine.”

  “Last night I was terrified. I had no idea what they had given you.”

  “Where am I?” Jeffrey asked.

  “St. Joe’s. I didn’t know what to do. I brought you here to the emergency room. I was afraid something would happen to you, like you’d have trouble breathing.”

  “And they admitted me without asking questions?”

  “I improvised. I said you were my brother from out of town. No one questioned it. I know everybody in the ER, both doctors and nurses. I emptied your pockets, including your wallet. There was no problem, except when the lab said you’d taken ketamine. I had to improvise some more. I had to tell them you’re an anesthesiologist.”

  “What the hell happened last night?” Jeffrey asked. “How did I end up with you?”

  “It was just a bit of luck,” Kelly said. Sitting on the edge of Jeffrey’s bed, Kelly told him everything that had happened from the moment he’d disappeared into Trent’s building until she pulled into St. Joe’s emergency.

  Jeffrey shuddered. “Oh, Kelly, I never should have gotten you involved. I don’t know what possessed me . . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “I got myself involved,” Kelly said. “But that’s not important. The important thing is, we’re both all right. How did you make out in Harding’s apartment?”