The Fever

by Diane Hoh

  Duffy Quinn couldn’t breathe.

  Chapter 21

  AS THE PILLOW PRESSED down cruelly over Duffy’s nose and mouth, she began flailing about wildly with her arms, the only limbs not pinioned by the weight on her legs and stomach. But her hands, searching the air desperately for help, grasped only empty, useless space.

  Frantic, she sent her hands to the pillow covering her face. She clawed at the worn fabric…pulled…tugged…while her entire body bucked and heaved in an effort to dislodge the weight pinning her down.

  But it was no use. Weakened from her illness, her reflexes slowed by the sedative, Duffy had no more strength than a small child.

  Guttural sounds of panic stuck in her throat, held prisoner there by the pillow viciously shoving her lips back against her teeth. Her upper lip felt as if it were being cut to ribbons.

  Air…air…there was no air…

  No no no no…this couldn’t happen …she couldn’t die now…not now…not yet…

  Her hands abandoned their futile tug-of-war with the pillow and again searched the air for aid.

  Her right hand slammed into the bedside table. The table…the hand rose tentatively to the table surface, the fingers scrambled across the Formica, feeling, searching…

  Something cold and hard…the carafe, the heavy metal jug that held her water.

  Red and purple spots danced before her eyes, the lids pressed harshly into the sockets. The pain in her chest was unbearable. Her lungs were going to explode …

  Her fingers closed around the handle of the metal carafe, gripped it tightly.

  But her arm…her arm had no strength. Weak and drugged, her muscles refused what her brain in desperation, willed them to do.

  The spots increased, a cloud of red and purple and now yellow, bright yellow…she was going to pass out.

  Move, she screamed to the arm holding the carafe, move, dammit!

  Her arm moved. It moved across the space from the table to the bed, it moved up, up, up and, as Duffy felt herself beginning to fade away into the cloud of red and purple and yellow, the arm slammed the carafe blindly downward.

  There was a sickening thud as the carafe smacked into a skull. A surprised grunt of pain echoed in the room, and the weight on Duffy’s legs and stomach shifted slightly as her captor swayed, stunned, above her. The suffocating grip on the pillow eased.

  Duffy gulped for air. She knew she had only seconds—her attacker hadn’t been knocked unconscious. In another second or two, the smothering attack would be renewed with angry vigor. The time to move was now.

  Duffy shoved upward on the pillow, knocking it away from her. She could see nothing but the dim shadow of a figure sitting, tilted sideways, above her.

  Still gasping, her chest heaving in pain, Duffy brought her drug-heavy legs upward, her knees lifting her attacker further off balance. The precariously tilted figure uttered an oath and went flying up and sideways, off the bed in an arc. It landed on the tile floor with a muttered “Oosh!” There was a sharp crack, and the room fell silent.

  Free at last, Duffy threw herself out of the bed, landing on the floor in a heap. Lurching, she scrambled upward, clutching the bed for support. Then she staggered to the doorway.

  A moan from behind her sent her reeling outward, into the dimly lit hall. Clutching the wall for support, her drug-dulled eyes searched the corridor for signs of life.

  Nothing. Quiet as a…tomb.…

  Dizzy and dazed, Duffy stumbled down the hall, the wall her only source of support. She tried to hurry. That moan had meant her attacker was regaining consciousness. Any second now, someone would be pursuing her, and she was moving so slowly …so slowly…

  If she could just make it to the stairs, open the heavy door, close it behind her before anyone saw her…

  There would be no support as she crossed from the wall to the door. What if she fell? A fall now would destroy any chance of escape.

  I won’t fall, she told herself, biting her already sore lower lip.

  She didn’t fall. But for one awful, terrible minute when she reached the door, she thought she wasn’t going to be able to open it. It was so heavy. And she was so very, very tired. Her arms and legs seemed to weigh a ton.

  Somehow, she managed to pull the door open and stumble into the landing, watching in terror as the door took forever to close, so slowly, after her. When it had, she clung to the iron railing and allowed herself a tiny sigh of relief. She was hidden from view now. If her attacker had revived enough to venture out into the hallway, there would be no sign of Duffy.

  Now…to get down the stairs and find a door leading to the outside…and freedom.

  She was on the fourth floor…one, two, three flights of gray stone steps to the first floor.

  No…she shouldn’t leave the stairway at the first floor. That was the lobby. There would be a security guard at the door, another person who wouldn’t believe her and would send her back to her room—and into the hands of her attacker.

  Better to continue down one more flight and sneak out through the basement. There had to be a door down there somewhere. She would find one.

  If she could get that far without falling on her face…

  Hurry! She’d forgotten, for a moment, the need to hurry.

  Down the steps…not enough light…only a small yellow light at the top of the landing…maybe on each of the landings…she needed more light, but at least it wasn’t pitch-black.

  Hard to see each step…dizzy, so dizzy, so headachey, chest hurts, but…hurry, hurry…

  She was stumbling around the corner of the second landing when she heard the unmistakable sound of the heavy steel door above her opening.

  Duffy froze.

  Light from the hallway on the fourth floor bathed the staircase in a pale yellow glow as the door was held open.

  Duffy shrank back against the wall in an effort to hide.

  The pale glow disappeared slowly as the door swung shut.

  And the sound of soft footsteps moving quickly downward echoed in the silence of the stairway.

  Her pursuer had arrived.

  Duffy, her heart pounding dangerously, swallowed a sob of terror and lurched away from the wall and down the stairs, her legs heavy and unsteady. She slammed against the steel railing more than once, banging an elbow or a wrist, but she kept going, her breath coming unevenly in harsh gasps.

  And behind her the soft, threatening steps continued.

  Chapter 22

  DUFFY STEPPED TOO HARD as she reached the last step leading to the basement, jarring her body and nearly falling to her knees. Regaining her balance, she spied a door at the end of a long, narrow corridor of smooth cement walls. One small fluorescent ceiling fixture did a poor job of illuminating the entire length, and the space was unheated. It was very cold.

  The door beckoned to her. Although Duffy shivered from the chill as she moved in a jerky run, the damp, cold air helped pull her further from her drugged fog. She was going to make it. She was.

  The slap-slap on the stairs behind her moved closer. And there was a new sound now…a cheerful humming…her pursuer was humming!

  What kind of person hummed on his way to kill someone?

  Was he that sure that he would catch her?

  That made her angry and fired her movements, speeding them up slightly.

  The door had to be open. It had to!

  It was. She reached it just as the padded footsteps behind her left the stairs and hit the cement floor. The difference in the sound was unmistakable. That put him at one end of the corridor, which he could cross far more quickly than she had, and her at the opposite end.

  But the door was hers now. In one more second, she’d be outside.

  Would her pursuer follow her outside?

  Would he feel, as she did, that if she made it to the outside, she’d won? Would he then give up?

  Or would he find some way to kill her out there, too?

  The humming behind her increased in volume, the
footsteps slap-slapped closer. “Dorothy,” a voice whispered, “give up. You can’t get away from me. Give up now.”

  Give up? Never!

  She closed her hand around the doorknob and yanked, hard. It opened easily.

  But…not to the outside.

  Bitter disappointment washed over her as she yanked the door closed behind her and stared at a cold white room: white tiled floor, white walls, white ceiling. There was only one light, high on the far wall, casting yellowish shadows over all that white. The space in the center of the wide, square room was taken up with three tables on wheels. The wall nearest Duffy was filled, ceiling to floor, with small metal doors with latches.

  And then Duffy, with a sharp gasp of horror, realized where she was.

  She was in the morgue.

  She was in the room where they brought the patients who had died. There, Dylan had told her, the patients were kept, until other arrangements could be made, on tables that slid in and out of the small steel cabinets.

  “Oh, no,” she sobbed softly, her hands covering her face, “oh, God, I don’t want to be here!”

  But when she turned to retreat, the doorknob was already turning. A second later, the door swung open.

  Cynthia Boon stood on the threshold.

  Still in her blue uniform, her hair neatly fastened behind her ears, her thin face pale and tired-looking, she stared at Duffy with concern in her eyes. Her arms embraced a thick pile of grayish-white towels.

  “Duffy, what on earth are you doing down here?” she cried.

  Weak with relief, Duffy sagged against the wall. “I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life!” she said. Then, glancing nervously around Cynthia toward the door, she whispered, “Didn’t you run into anyone out there?”

  Cynthia looked at the door. “Out where?”

  “Out in the hall. Wasn’t there anyone out there?”

  “Duffy, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning. No one in his right mind would be wandering the basement halls. What are you doing down here?”

  She can take me home, Duffy thought, her brain working more quickly as the drug wore off. She can drive me to my house where I’ll be safe.

  ‘Take me home and I’ll tell you. I know it will sound crazy, but every word is the truth and you have to believe me.” Duffy’s words rushed together in her effort to convince Cynthia to drive her home. “Just take me home, please, Cynthia.…”

  Cynthia raised her hands in a gesture of defeat. “Okay, I give up. The whole hospital gives up! We’re all tired of trying to make you well when you have all these crazy notions in your head that someone is out to get you. You might just as well go home. I’m through here for the night, so I’ll—? She stopped. “Duffy? What’s the matter?”

  Duffy, frozen in place against the square metal doors, was staring, white-faced, at Cynthia’s left wrist.

  Just above where the sleeve of her blue blouse ended, there was a two-inch ugly, jagged cut, fresh enough not to be healed.

  “Cynthia?” Duffy asked through numbed lips. “Where did you get that cut?”

  And Cynthia sighed and smiled, a smile that never went near her suddenly cold, empty eyes.

  “I got it in the shower,” she said lightly. Her smile widened. “I don’t know why they call them safety razors, Duffy, do you? There certainly wasn’t anything safe about that razor.”

  And she began moving slowly toward Duffy, a look of cold purpose on her pale, thin face.

  Chapter 23

  “YOU?” DUFFY CROAKED, SHRINKING back against the wall of metal drawers. “You were the one who…in the shower…no…” She shook her head. Her cinnamon-colored hair seemed to stand on end. “No…we’re friends, Cynthia. I’ve never done anything to you. Why…?”

  “Because of Kit, of course.” Cynthia slipped one hand into a pocket of her blue uniform.

  “Kit?” Duffy’s fever-flushed face registered complete bewilderment. “What about Kit?”

  Cynthia’s hand moved within the pocket, as if she were fingering something. “You’re the only one who knows what really happened to him.” She shrugged. “You can’t really figure it out right now, of course. But you will. Probably when your fever goes down for good, you’ll figure out what you heard and saw in your room that night.” Another shrug. “I can’t take that chance.”

  Duffy licked her lips nervously. “Cynthia, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing happened to Kit. He’s fine. He called here, to talk to me.”

  Cynthia’s mouth curved in a sly smile. “Don’t be ridiculous. He didn’t do any such thing. That was just a rumor. And guess who started it?” She beamed proudly. “All I had to do was say he’d called from California, and it was all over the hospital in no time. And you believed it, like everyone else.”

  Duffy’s stomach heaved. The room was so white…so white…and so cold…nothing but cold whiteness everywhere. And Cynthia, her face a pale, icy mask, seemed to belong in this room.

  “Kit never called?” Duffy whispered.

  Cynthia shook her head. “Of course not. How could he?”

  Duffy recoiled against the wall of metal. She didn’t want to know why Kit couldn’t have called. Didn’t want to know…didn’t want to hear…

  “You switched the elevator signs? You sent my wheelchair down that hill and attacked me in the shower? It was you the whole time?”

  “Took you long enough to figure it out,” Cynthia said. “Maybe that fever has lowered your IQ, Duffy. What did you think all those weird sounds in your room that night meant? I tried to be quiet, but Kit was…uncooperative.”

  Her voice was completely cold, matter-of-fact, unfeeling. Cynthia…so kind, so helpful, so dedicated…Cynthia…not Dylan, not Smith, not Amy…it had been Cynthia who had tried to kill her.

  But why?

  Kit…something to do with Kit, who was in California now.

  How could it have anything to do with Kit?

  Duffy’s eyes searched frantically for a way out of the white room. But the only means of escape was the door through which she had entered.

  And Cynthia was barring the way.

  “Duffy,” Cynthia said softly, leaning closer to her prisoner as she withdrew her hand from her pocket, “don’t you want me to refresh your memory about Kit?”

  Duffy’s eyes, wide with alarm, were on Cynthia’s emerging hand. Teeth clenched tightly to keep them from biting her tongue in half, she shook her head vigorously…no. No!

  “Shame on you, Duffy. Kit was one of your best friends. I would think you’d be more concerned about him than that.”

  The hand wasn’t empty, as Duffy had known it wouldn’t be. Her terrified eyes remained fastened on it as it slipped from the edge of the pocket.

  Cynthia’s fingers were wrapped around a long, nasty-looking hypodermic needle.

  Holding the wicked-looking needle high in the air, Cynthia smiled and said, “Well, I’m going to tell you about Kit, anyway.” She glanced around the room. “I think it’s very appropriate that I tell you in this room.” Her cold smile widened.

  “Because this is where I brought him after I killed him.”

  Chapter 24

  “I KILLED HIM, DUFFY,” Cynthia repeated when Duffy made no sound. “And I brought him here.”

  Duffy had made no sound because sound wasn’t possible. Her voice had abandoned her, left her body the second that Cynthia’s flat, emotionless statement registered.

  Killed him? Killed Kit?

  No. No, that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

  But Duffy saw the look on Cynthia’s face—cruel and sharp and mean.

  Kit…Kit wasn’t in California, registering for film school? He wasn’t thinking about calling her, writing her a long letter telling her all about his coast-to-coast trip?

  Kit was…

  Kit was…dead?

  Duffy’s mouth opened wide and her piercing, anguished scream split the air.

  “No,” she cried, facing Cynthia, tears pooling in he
r eyes. “No, you couldn’t have. You wouldn’t. Why would you? Why?”

  Cynthia had flinched at Duffy’s scream and taken an involuntary step backward. Now, she pressed closer again. “Because he knew,” she said calmly.

  Duffy couldn’t stop crying. Kit…Kit dead? “Knew what? What did he know?”

  “He knew it was my fault Latham died.”

  Duffy shook her head, trying to clear it. “Latham? Victor Latham?” The newspaper article. “You killed him, too?”

  Cynthia’s voice lowered to a nasal whine. “I didn’t kill him, Duffy. It was an accident. But that wouldn’t have made any difference to the hospital board.” Her thin lips twisted angrily. “They’d have seen to it that I never saw the inside of a medical school. Never mind that I’ve studied my head off, that I’m a good worker. All they would have focused on was that their precious benefactor was dead and it was all my fault. My whole life would have been ruined. Forever!”

  “What did you do to Victor Latham, Cynthia?” Duffy forced the words out. Dizzy and sick, she couldn’t bear to hear another word. But she had to know.

  “Nothing. I swear, nothing!” The whine droned on: “I was just reading his chart one day. I know we’re absolutely forbidden to touch them, but I knew how important Latham was to the hospital. I thought his chart might give me a clue about getting close to him, getting on his good side. I knew if I did that, he’d put in a good word for me at any medical school in the country.” The voice became sullen. “And it would have worked, too, because a note on his chart said he wasn’t allowed to smoke. I’d heard him complaining about how he missed his cigars, so I figured I’d buy some and sneak them into his room. That would have made me his friend for life.”

  The pale blue eyes filled with rage. “But just then Kit came along. He was delivering a pair of nurse’s shoes to that twit with the ponytail. He made some comment about me being too nosey for my own good, and I tossed the chart back into place. But not before Kit saw the name on it.”

  “ ‘Latham?’ ” he said. “ ‘Isn’t that the big shot who has that mansion out on River Road?’ ”