Chapter 44
IT WAS CLEAR that whatever injuries Ash had sustained from the rebar and the fall hadn’t affected his strength, because Chris couldn’t break his hold. And her arms were pinned at her sides, rendering them useless. She was lying slightly askew on top of him, so she couldn’t even try to head-butt him.
She had to get away from him and somehow get out of there. She squirmed in his grip, but he doggedly held on.
“The more you fight me, the quicker you’ll die,” Ash said, his voice now hoarse from the damage the rebar had done to his larynx.
The bird cage was lying nearby, and Chris saw that the canary had stopped squawking and was now sitting quietly. Ash had obviously brought the bird down here as an indicator that the carbon monoxide was working. Because of its high metabolic rate, it would succumb before either of them.
Chris should have seen the answer to her situation in Ash’s comment about fighting him. But it was the bird that showed her the way.
Drawing on the lessons she’d learned from Gloria Ting, her Chinese classmate in med school, she turned inward and focused on the shining orb that lay at the center of her consciousness. Even as the journey began, her heart slowed by three beats a minute, and she started to breathe more slowly and less deeply.
Like a time-lapse film of a blooming flower running backward, her outward manifestation collapsed and folded, homing in on her spiritual core. And her heart slowed even more.
Soon she was breathing only five times a minute and taking in less than twenty percent of the air normally needed to sustain her. But she went deeper still, spiraling downward to a place most people never know is within them.
Down and deeper she went, each second bringing her closer to her final destination.
Deeper . . .
Calmer . . .
Quieter . . .
Touchdown.
And there she remained, her skin cool to the touch, her pulse barely detectable, seeming not to breathe at all.
Beneath her, Ash was puzzled. Had the carbon monoxide affected her already? Thinking she might be faking, he held on. In the upended cage, the canary toppled onto its side.
One of the tricks in meditating so deeply is to leave a line open to complete consciousness as a protective measure. If your house catches on fire, it would be best to cease meditating and call for help. Gloria had likened this to tying a rope onto your belt before entering an undersea wreck wearing scuba gear. If anything goes wrong on the surface, a signal can be sent by way of the rope.
Twenty-two minutes after Ash had grabbed Chris, she felt a tug on her rope.
Returning to real time and space, she found that Ash was now well under the influence of carbon monoxide, and she was able to disentangle herself from him. Despite the state of self-induced hibernation she’d experienced while enveloped in Ash’s grip, she had not completely escaped the effects of the deadly gas filling the basement. In addition to a vague feeling of nausea, she felt lightheaded and confused. A few seconds later than it should have taken, she remembered where she was and what she needed to do. Moving slowly, she shoved her hand in Ash’s left pocket and got his keys. When she drew her hand out, Ash made a feeble attempt to grab her wrist, but even though she was not herself, she pulled free with little effort.
With nothing now holding her back, Chris hauled herself up the stairs. Below her, Ash rolled onto his side and tried to get up.
It took Chris a few seconds to find the right key, some of that time spent keeping one eye on Ash. Then the door was open, and she was free. Though Ash seemed incapable of climbing the stairs, she shut the door and locked it.
She’d emerged into the kitchen, so she had no trouble finding her way outside. When she went onto the porch, she saw Ash’s truck backed up to the foundation.
She went down the porch steps and shuffled her way to the truck, where she threw the driver’s door open and climbed in.
Standard transmission—no problem. She reached down, picked up the brick lying on the gas pedal, and tossed it aside. Then she sat for a moment, trying to remember how a gear shift actually worked. Clutch . . . With a leaden foot, she pushed the clutch to the floorboard, eventually found first gear, and took off.
The hose that had been sending carbon monoxide into the basement was firmly attached to the truck’s exhaust pipe with a hose clamp, but Ash had merely pushed the other end into the hole he’d made in the foundation and packed the gap around it with toilet paper. So as Chris got the truck moving down the dirt driveway, the hose went along.
At the road out front she hesitated. She had no idea which way to go because she had no idea where she was. Across the road was a farmer’s field with young corn plants stretching along the road for as far as she could see. But on her side of the road, beyond a smaller field of some other kind of crop, she saw a small house. Out now in fresh air, her head had cleared a bit. Realizing she needed a phone and a geography lesson, she headed for the house.
THE DOOR OPENED, and an old man in overalls gave her a puzzled look.
“May I use your phone, please? It’s an emergency. I’ve been kidnapped and held prisoner in that house down the road. The kidnapper is still there, and I need to call the police.”
The old man stepped aside and let her in. “It’s over there,” he said, pointing to a small end table by a well-worn sofa.
Chris went to the phone and picked up the receiver. Thinking much faster now, she asked the old man, “What’s this address?”
“Fifty-five sixteen.”
“And the name of that road out front?”
“Robertson Pike.”
Chris dialed 911.
When the dispatcher answered, Chris identified herself and recited her home address and phone number. “There’s a man locked in the basement of the two-story farmhouse just down the road from fifty-five sixteen Robertson Pike. That man is Dr. Eric Ash, and he’s being sought for the murders of half a dozen people including”—still suffering carbon monoxide after effects, she hesitated, trying to remember—“Dr. Sam Fairborn and his wife. Fairborn . . .” She spelled the name. “For details of this case, contact Detective Lenihan at the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office . . . Lenihan . . .” She spelled that name.
“No, I’m not at the scene. I’m calling from the Robertson address I mentioned. But I’m not staying here, I’m going home. If anyone wants to talk to me, that’s where I’ll be.”
The dispatcher started to tell her she needed to stay where she was, but Chris hung up. She got directions to the expressway from the old man, thanked him, and left. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that she realized she still had the keys to the farmhouse basement. But there was no way she was going back there. The cops and medics would just have to improvise like she had.
WHEN THE COUNTY sheriff’s car arrived at the farmhouse a short while later, the officer driving didn’t have to improvise at all, for the basement door was standing open, and there was no one in the house. From the burn marks on the door where the lock had been and the welding torch on the steps inside, it sure looked as though somebody who’d been locked in had cut their way out.
Chapter 45
THE EMERGENCY CASE Michael had worked on the day before was a car accident victim with so much abdominal damage it had pushed his skills to their limits and beyond. As a result, he was very apprehensive about the girl’s chances and had been hovering around Intensive Care ever since. But there was something else that also worried him, and this sent him once again to the phone.
“Wayne, this is Michael Boyer. Is Chris there?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we don’t spend much time together.”
“I know. It’s just that I can’t locate her. I’ve called her home, her office, her cell phone, and I’ve paged her. It’s not like her to be out of reach like that. After some of the things s
he’s been through, I’m worried.”
“Now so am I. When’s the last time you saw her?”
“I talked to her on the phone last night around eight o’clock. She had to hang up because someone called from the lobby of her apartment building and said they’d backed into her car.”
“I think we should go over to her apartment and look around. I’ve still got the key she gave me when I stayed with her.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“HER CAR’S IN the parking lot,” Wayne said, coming up to Michael in the lobby of the Ethridge.
“I know, I saw it, too. It’s got some new damage, but could still be driven. So where is she?”
“Let’s go up.”
Both of them deeply concerned, they went through the card reader, using the key card Chris had obtained for Wayne, and headed for the elevators.
At Chris’s apartment door, Wayne knocked, waited a few seconds for a response, then slipped his key in the lock and let them in.
“The lights are on,” Wayne said. “Chris, are you home? Chris?”
Michael headed for the hall bedrooms.
Wayne went to the French doors leading to the balcony, opened them, and walked outside. Unable to see the entire balcony for all the trees and shrubs, he called out again. “Chris, are you out here?”
Less than a minute later, the two men met in the front room.
“Where could she be?” Wayne said.
Then Michael had a horrible thought. “Have you heard anything on the news about Ash being caught?”
“No. Has he?”
“That’s why Chris called me last night, to say that Lenihan’s office told her he had, but there was nothing about it on the news last night or in the papers this morning.”
“You think it was a setup, and that it was Ash who called from the lobby about her car?”
“God, I hope not.” He went to the phone on the English secretary and dialed Information. “Would you connect me with the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office, please?”
A pause . . . one ring, and a woman answered.
“Detective Lenihan, please.”
Another pause, then an automated woman’s voice said, “Detective Lenihan is on the phone. If you would like his voice mail, press one.” Michael didn’t want the guy’s voice mail, he wanted Lenihan. He thought about calling again and telling the woman who answered the last time just to interrupt Lenihan, but then, hoping the detective would be available in a minute or two, he pressed 1.
“This is Michael Boyer. It’s urgent that I talk to you. Please call me at . . .” He gave the number of Chris’s phone. “As soon as possible.”
He hung up and looked at Wayne. “He’s got another call.”
“So we just stand around here and wait?”
“Not for long. If he doesn’t call back in the next few minutes, I’ll try again, and next time, I won’t be so cooperative.”
DOWNSTAIRS, A MATRONLY woman carrying a cat in a cardboard travel box slid her entry card through the reader by the glass security door, changing the red light over the door to green. Across the lobby, Eric Ash pretended to be looking for a name on the mailboxes. Cupped in his left hand he carried a folded copy of the Wall Street Journal. Nestled inside the paper was the automatic he’d used to kill Sam and Ann Fairborn. After he’d cut his way out of the basement with the welding equipment that was still down there, he’d fumbled around for a few minutes, looking for his gun. Finally remembering where he’d put it, he retrieved it, stuffed it into the waistband of his pants, and left the house. He’d then started slogging his way across the field of soybeans behind the barn. Emerging onto a county road about a quarter mile away, he’d waved down the first car he’d seen and hijacked it, caring not at all that he’d had to kill the driver, who was now in the car’s trunk.
The carbon monoxide he’d inhaled had made him weak and disoriented, and he shouldn’t have been able to accomplish all that he’d done already, but he was being driven by hatred.
Chris Collins . . .
How he detested that name . . . that nosy, meddling, double x chromosome cunt. She was harder to kill than a cockroach.
He wasn’t so confused that he believed his final attempt to end her life was without flaws. He didn’t even know where she was. She’d taken his truck, but it wasn’t in the parking lot. Would the cops she’d have called let her drive it home? Probably not. And they’d surely keep her busy for a while telling them what had happened.
So it seemed likely she wasn’t home, which was good. He could get in and wait for her. And if she showed up with someone, Michael Boyer for instance, there were enough rounds in the gun for everybody.
Believing that sufficient time had passed for the woman with the cat to have caught an elevator, Ash produced the key card he’d found in Chris’s handbag and walked to the security door.
UPSTAIRS, MICHAEL FELT his pager vibrate. He took it from his pocket and checked the number displayed.
Intensive Care.
“No, not now,” he moaned.
He looked at Chris’s phone. He didn’t want to tie up the line and block the call from Lenihan, but his new cell phone was in his car. He looked at Wayne. “I have to do this, but I’ll make it quick.”
He picked up the receiver and dialed Intensive Care. “This is Dr. Boyer.”
His face darkened as the caller informed him that his patient from yesterday was bleeding internally. “Okay, I’ll be right there. Wayne, I have to go to the hospital. If Lenihan doesn’t call back in the next few minutes, you call him. If Ash hasn’t been caught, tell him about Chris.”
Because he was so worried about Chris, Wayne let Michael get away with talking to him like he couldn’t have figured all that out for himself.
Michael pulled out his wallet, got one of his business cards, and began writing on it with one of the two pens he always carried. “This is my cell phone number. When you talk to Lenihan, call me and let me know what he says.”
AS MICHAEL WAITED for an elevator less than a minute later, Ash was four floors away, riding up.
The indicator light over the middle elevator of the trio facing Michael blinked on, and the doors swooshed open. He stepped on and punched L. Barely after the doors on his elevator closed, they opened on elevator number one, and Ash stepped into the hallway.
Chapter 46
ASH WENT DOWN the carpeted hallway to Chris’s apartment, checked in both directions to make sure no one else was around, then drew the gun from the folded paper. Gripping the weapon tightly in his right hand and holding it in front of him where it couldn’t be seen by anyone who might come along, he dropped the paper and slid that hand into his pants pocket for Chris’s key ring.
He tried one of the three keys that looked like an apartment key . . .
No good.
The next one slid neatly into the lock.
INSIDE THE APARTMENT, Wayne was about to draw himself a glass of water from the kitchen tap when he heard someone at the door. From where he was standing, he didn’t have a direct sight line to the entrance, but he could see its reflection in a mirrored screen to the right of the TV cabinet. In that reflection, he saw Ash and what was in his hand. Thinking that if he could see Ash, Ash could also see him, Wayne dropped to the kitchen floor.
Then the phone rang.
Ash closed the door and stood motionless, waiting to see if the Collins woman would come into the room and answer the phone. It rang a second time and then a third, and a fourth.
The answering machine came on. “This is Chris. I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.”
“This is Detective Lenihan returning your call. It’s now eleven-twenty. I’ll be here for another thirty minutes.”
Ash didn’t understand the content of that call, but he t
ook it as proof Chris wasn’t there. He went over to a chair in front of the TV and sat down, grateful for the chance to rest.
BEHIND THE KITCHEN cabinets, Wayne was scared. If Ash decided to check out the apartment, he’d see Wayne right away, for there was just no place to hide. Wayne looked across the kitchen at the hall leading to the other rooms. If he could get back there, he could use the phone in Chris’s study to call for help. But he couldn’t risk moving.
With his body tingling like a high-tension wire, he listened hard for any sound that would tell him what Ash was doing or where he was. But he heard nothing.
WHEN MICHAEL REACHED the exit of the apartment parking lot, he turned right. Three minutes later, Chris appeared from the other direction, still driving Ash’s truck. Even before she was halfway home, she’d realized she left the farmhouse without looking for the handbag she’d been carrying when Ash abducted her. She’d then stopped and looked in the tarp-covered truck bed, hoping it might be there, but it wasn’t. So in addition to losing her wallet, she had no key to her apartment.
She pulled into the parking lot and dumped the truck into the first space she found near the Ethridge’s main entrance. Looking forward to being safe again in her own home and getting the grime washed off her, she hurried inside and pushed the intercom button over the manager’s mailbox.
“Yes, may I help you?”
“This is Chris Collins. I’ve lost my key and my security card.”
“Come on down. I’ll give you replacements.”
The security door buzzed, and the light over it changed from red to green.
BEHIND THE KITCHEN cabinets, Wayne felt as though he was breathing so hard Ash had to hear him. But so far, nothing had happened. What was the guy up to?
There was no doubt in Wayne’s mind that if Ash saw him, Wayne was a dead man. Surely his life had not been saved just so he could be killed by this lunatic. When he’d learned from Chris that he wasn’t responsible for any of the deaths they’d all thought had been caused by the transplant virus, he’d felt reborn for the second time in a month. He’d even started working on a new novel. And it was going to be terrific.
The Judas Virus Page 36
