by Diane Hoh
That couldn’t happen. She had to get out of here.
Her skin, hot and dry to the touch, felt too tight. It squeezed against her, a bodysuit one size too small. The hands on her watch crawled slowly, slowly, as if struggling through glue. Seven o’clock, eight…
When her parents came, she asked once more if they would take her home. She knew they wouldn’t. They trusted the hospital completely, or they wouldn’t have brought her here in the first place.
“If you would just relax, Duffy,” her mother scolded lightly, “you’d get better so much faster. Dr. Morgan says it’s nothing serious, but that you’re impeding your own recovery.”
Impeding her own recovery? She wasn’t the one doing the impeding!
Knowing she would just upset her parents if she kept insisting that she wasn’t safe in the hospital, Duffy gave up. She’d get out of this place on her own if it was the last thing she ever did.
Jane never arrived. When Cynthia came in later that evening to bring Duffy fresh water, she said Jane had called the nurses’ station to say she wasn’t feeling well.
“Didn’t you get her message?” Cynthia asked when Duffy’s face registered distress. Jane, ill? Duffy thought. She’d been perfectly fine that afternoon.
“People around here don’t seem to be very good about delivering messages,” Duffy said dourly. “I almost never found out that Kit had called, either. Did Jane say what’s wrong with her? I hope I didn’t give her my bug.”
Cynthia shook her head. “Maybe she was just tired. All that running around she did for you today. I saw her come in and go back out and then come in again. Did she bring you goodies?”
Hardly, Duffy thought. She brought me the news that someone is out to get me. Aloud, she said, “No. Just shampoo.”
Cynthia nodded, said she was going home soon and she’d see Duffy in the morning, and then she left.
You won’t see me in the morning, Duffy thought to herself, because I’ll be long gone. I hope.
When the last visitor had left, the eerie silence she was waiting for crept, foglike, across the fourth floor until the last soft murmur had been swallowed up. Duffy tiptoed to her closet and slipped inside, dressing in the dark, narrow space: jeans, a sweater, socks, sneakers. Leaving her gown on the floor of the closet, she hurried back to the bed and slid under the covers to wait for the perfect moment.
She had no plan. There was no way to plan without knowing exactly where everyone might be at every second. She would wait and be very careful and do a lot of praying and hoping. If she could make it to the elevator without being seen.…
“You still awake?” a voice said from the doorway.
Duffy jumped, startled, and quickly yanked the blanket up to hide the telltale sweater. “Smith? What are you doing here?”
He came into the room, moving toward the bed. In the weak glow of the night-light beside the door, she could see his grin. “Checking up on you,” he answered. Noticing the blanket tucked up underneath her chin, he frowned. “You cold? Doesn’t seem that bad in here to me.”
“You don’t have a fever,” she pointed out. “One minute I’m burning up, the next I’m freezing. Right now, I’m freezing.” She could hear the tension in her voice. Would Smith pick up on it? What if he got suspicious?
She had left the closet door open. Jerk! If he glanced in and noticed that her clothes weren’t hanging on the hangers…
He wasn’t looking at the closet. He was looking down at her.
What if he decided to check her pulse? He did that sometimes—showing off, playing “doctor.” If he did that now, he’d be surprised to find her wrist encased in a sweater cuff.
She’d just have to say she’d been so cold, she’d thrown a sweater on over her hospital gown.
“How come you’re not asleep?” he asked.
“It’s hard to sleep when someone’s standing over your bed talking to you,” Duffy said sarcastically. And was surprised to see Smith recoil, as if she’d struck him. Had she hurt his feelings? Did it matter?
Maybe some other time it would. But not now, not when her life was on the line. The only thing that mattered was getting away from here, and she couldn’t do that with Smith Lewis standing over her bed. If it took hurting his feelings to get rid of him, so be it.
“Sorry,” he said stiffly. “Didn’t mean to bother you. Thought you might need something.” He hesitated and then added, “I…I wanted to make sure you knew I did check the brake on your wheelchair. I’ve thought about it, and I’m sure of it.”
The horror of that terrifying ride swept back over Duffy, and she shuddered violently.
“Sorry,” Smith said for a second time. “Shouldn’t have brought it up. Probably still gives you nightmares. No wonder you can’t sleep.”
Even in the darkened room, she could see the guilt in his face. But how could she be sure he was sincere? Of course he would say he’d checked the brake. He certainly wouldn’t admit it if he’d deliberately sent that chair racing down the hill.
“I could sleep,” she said caustically, “if you’d go away and leave me alone.”
“Your tough act doesn’t fool me,” Smith said quietly. “I think you’re scared to death, and I don’t blame you. You’ve had a rough time. Fevers can be nasty things.”
Fever? Duffy thought nastily. It wasn’t my fever that switched the signs on the elevator or sent me down that hill or came after me in the shower. Who is he kidding?
“Say you believe I checked that brake and I’ll get out of here,” he said, bending low over the bed. “I need to know you believe it.”
“Sure. I believe you.” Anything to get rid of him. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw you check the brake.” Actually, she thought now that she had seen him check it. But maybe what she’d really seen was Smith sabotaging the brake so that it would release and send her flying down the hill toward the lake shortly after he was safely away from the scene.
But she must have sounded convincing because Smith heaved a sigh of relief. “Great! Okay, then. You sleep now and I’ll check on you when I come on duty tomorrow.” Then he caught her by surprise by bending quickly and kissing her cheek.
Before she could protest, he was gone. She could hear the soft slap-slap of his rubber-soled shoes as he disappeared down the dim hallway.
Duffy found herself wishing fervently that she could somehow be sure that Smith was on her side. Then she could ask him to help her make her mad dash for freedom and she wouldn’t be so terrified.
But…
Smith had been the only person near the elevator, and he’d been the only person close to her wheelchair. How could she possibly trust him?
No, better to do it alone. She’d be safer that way.
But she didn’t feel safe when, some twenty minutes later, she listened and listened again and then slid out of bed, put on her ski jacket, and tiptoed to the doorway to listen once more.
Nothing. Silence. Not a total silence…she could faintly hear the sound of murmuring voices. Nurses, probably. But they sounded too far away to be at the nurses’ station, where they could see her as she passed. Maybe they were in some patient’s room, and if the door was nearly closed, as hers always was at night, she should be able to slip by unnoticed.
If she could just make it to the elevator.…
Duffy’s skin pinched at her again. What if someone were in the elevator? Maybe she should try for the stairs. They were hidden behind a steel door in the middle of the corridor, closer to her room than the elevator at the end of the hall.
But they’d be dark. Wouldn’t they? And she had no flashlight.
The elevator was faster.
Faster seemed better.
Her heart went on a rampage in her chest, thudding so violently she wouldn’t have been surprised to see it leap out and land on the floor at her feet. Her hands, icy cold in spite of the fever that raged in her body, shook as she pressed her back so close to the wall she seemed almost a part of it, and began moving slowly, sl
owly, down the hall.
Her teeth began to chatter, and she bit her tongue. She felt warm blood on her lower lip. Another step, another…
“You take this side, I’ll take the other,” a voice Duffy recognized said. The ponytailed nurse. The remark came from inside one of the rooms.
Duffy inched her way right up to the door of the room from which the voices came. The door was half open. If they saw her passing…
Slowly, carefully, she peered around the corner of the door frame. Two nurses…their backs turned to the door…
Holding her breath, Duffy skittered past the door and stopped on the opposite side, paralyzed.
She waited for one of them to call out, “Hey, there, you! Duffy Quinn! What are you doing skulking around in the halls? Get back to your room this minute.”
But no one called out.
They hadn’t seen her.
Breathing again, the violent trembling slightly eased, she continued her turtle-pace down the hallway. After what seemed like agonizing hours, she was within two steps of the elevator.
Just two more steps…
“Going somewhere?” a voice said in her ear.
Chapter 20
DUFFY FROZE IN PLACE. Nononono! Not when she was this close…one more step and she’d have reached the elevator button.
But now…
Reluctantly, awash in bitter disappointment, she turned to face the person who had interrupted her flight.
Dylan.
Dylan frowned at her, his square, open face full of concern. “Duffy, I can tell by your eyes that your fever isn’t down. What are you doing out of bed?” He had changed from the green smock into street clothes, a sweater and jeans. Going off duty, like Smith. Could she talk Dylan into taking her with him?
Duffy, her energy sapped by the fever and her disappointment, sagged against the wall.
Dylan reached out and held her around the waist. “Whoa, easy there! How come you’re dressed? Why aren’t you asleep?” Then, “Boy, you’re burning up! Geez, Duffy, are you nuts or what? You should be in bed.”
She had to trust him. She had no choice. If she didn’t tell him what was happening, if she couldn’t convince him that someone was after her, he’d lead her back to her room and she’d belong to the hospital again. And she wouldn’t be safe.
Dylan wouldn’t hurt her. They’d been friends for a long time. How could she have suspected him? He had the nicest face in the world, and he had covered up the truth about his breakup with Amy to protect her feelings. That had been a kind thing to do. Someone like that would certainly help her, wouldn’t he?
So she poured it all out. “Dylan, listen,” she began, clinging desperately to his arm, “I can’t stay here. I have to go home. Please, you have to help me. You can take me there. Then I can tell them about the lab report…”
“What lab report?”
“Jane took my pills to a lab today, and I was right…they had digoxin in them…the missing heart medication. You heard about it, didn’t you? That it was missing?”
Dylan nodded.
“Well, someone took it and put it in my capsules. I said I was getting sicker, but no one believed me. So I asked Jane to get them tested, and she did. And the lab report said just what I knew it would…that there wasn’t any antibiotic in the capsules I was taking. Just digoxin. That’s what was making me sicker.”
“Duffy…” Dylan’s voice registered doubt, but he kept his arm around her waist. She couldn’t have remained standing without it.
“No, listen, please! Someone here, I don’t know why, is trying to kill me. I didn’t imagine the attack in the shower, Dylan, the way everyone thinks I did. It really happened.” Tears of frustration gathered in Duffy’s eyes and spilled down her fever-pinked cheeks. “All of it really happened. Someone switched the out-of-order sign on purpose and someone pushed my chair down the hill on purpose—?
“Duffy, take it easy.” Dylan’s voice was gentle and quiet as he gathered her closer against his chest.
“You have to believe me, Dylan. You’re the only one I can trust.”
Dylan flushed with pleasure. “How about if you show me that lab report? It’s not that I don’t believe you, Duffy, but seeing that would help. I mean, it’s hard to believe that someone would give you the wrong medication.”
“Of course, you’re right. Here…” Duffy gasped as she slid a hand into her jeans pocket. It was empty. “The report…I must have left it on the bed. Dylan, I have to have it. It’s the proof that my capsules were switched.”
A nurse came out of a patient’s room and hurried to the nurses’ station. But Duffy and Dylan were standing in shadow and weren’t seen.
“We’ll just go get the report,” Dylan whispered. “Then you’ll have it to show your folks. I’ll take you home, if you’re sure that’s what you want to do.”
“I’m sure, Dylan, oh, I’m sure! But…I don’t think I can make it back down the hallway again. I’m too tired. Could you just go get the report…it’s on my bed, probably hiding in the covers? I’ll wait here. I’ll hide over there in that corner until you get back. Hurry, okay? I feel like I’m going to pass out any minute.”
The last bit of doubt faded from Dylan’s blue eyes. “Okay. Stay right here, don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
And he hurried off down the hallway as Duffy moved to take refuge behind a tall white column disguising a heating duct.
It was almost over. Dylan would come back with the report, take her home, and her parents would take it from there.
Relief washed over her, and her hands finally stopped shaking. It was going to be all right. It was. Whoever was doing this to her would be caught, and put away somewhere where they couldn’t do bad things anymore.
And she’d find out why all of this had happened. But best of all, she’d be safe, the way she used to be. Duffy closed her eyes.
Suddenly, Duffy heard voices approach.
“I’ll take care of her,” a crisp, efficient voice said.
And Duffy looked into the face of the middle-aged head nurse. In her right hand was a hypodermic needle. “You go on home, Rourke. You did the right thing. This poor child shouldn’t even be out of bed. She’ll be fine now, thanks to you.”
Duffy drew in her breath and took a step backward. “No, no,” she murmured, her horrified eyes flying to stare accusingly at Dylan, who lingered behind the nurse. “You—you promised!”
“There wasn’t any report,” he said, his eyes pleading for forgiveness. “Honest, Duffy, I looked and looked. There wasn’t anything! You must have thought there was, but there wasn’t.”
Duffy continued to back away until she ran into the wall. The nurse continued to advance, needle in hand.
“Call Jane!” Duffy begged, her eyes wildly searching for a way out. There was none. “Call Jane, she’ll tell you! She’ll tell you she had the pills analyzed and that Dean said they had heart medication in them.” Her voice rose to a piercing scream. “Dylan, call her!”
“He’s not calling anyone at this hour, Dorothy,” the nurse said briskly, “and you just calm down now. This isn’t doing you any good at all. You quiet down and let us take care of you. You should thank your friend here instead of shouting at him like that. He probably saved your life. Going out on a cold night like this with that fever of yours…why, heavens, child, that’s just crazy!”
And in the next instant, with Duffy safely trapped between the wall and the nurse’s bulk, her sleeve was pushed up and in went the needle. Duffy, devastated by Dylan’s treachery, felt the sharp, piercing sensation and began sobbing, “No, no, oh no.”
The nurse, saying, “There, there, now, there’s no need for this, no need at all,” took one arm, and Dylan, worry in his eyes, took the other, and they began leading Duffy down the hall toward her room.
“Duffy,” Dylan said, “don’t be mad, okay? When I couldn’t find the report, I figured you’d been, well, thinking things had happened again that really hadn’t. I mean, like y
ou did before, remember? Remember, there really wasn’t anyone in your room that night, but you thought there was?”
“I hate you, Dylan!” Duffy spat. “I hate you for this! I trusted you…”
But then the medication from the needle began to kick in, and the lights in the hallway began to spin, and the walls began weaving, and Duffy’s legs gave way. By the time they reached her room, her captors were half carrying, half dragging her.
“Dylan,” she murmured as they carefully deposited her boneless, drugged body on the bed, “I won’t ever…” What was it she wanted to say? It was so hard to think, with her brain all fuzzy and sticky. “Dylan, I won’t ever forgive you. Never, never…”
And, as her voice faded out and a thick, gluey sleep took over, she knew that she meant it.
Even if he hadn’t done the other bad things, even if he had meant to do the right thing, even if he told her a million times how sorry he was…
She would never forgive Dylan.
More asleep than awake, Duffy floated on a thick, dark gray cloud. Fighting to resist the drug, unwilling to give up hope, she lay on her back in the darkened room, her head filled with fog, her arms and legs heavy as cement.
Slap-slap, slap-slap…footsteps whispered toward her bed.
“What…?” Duffy murmured woozily, “what?” Was it Dylan, returning to apologize?
There was a slight rustling noise. The mattress sagged beneath Duffy as an added weight clambered aboard and settled itself across Duffy’s stomach.
“What? What’s happening…”
There was no time to scream, no chance to fight. Without warning, her pillow was yanked out from underneath her head. Duffy grunted in surprise as her head fell backward, flat upon the mattress.
Then something soft and thick and suffocating was pressed down upon her nose and mouth and held there with great force, completely cutting off her air supply.
