At the end of the room, Ned touched a finger to the door. It swung in, unlatched. He gave Nancy the thumbs-up sign, then disappeared inside.
Nancy chewed on her lower lip. Minutes dragged by. She stole a glance at her watch every thirty seconds. Where was Trevor? Why hadn’t Ned returned?
At the end of fifteen minutes Nancy couldn’t stand it any longer. She left her post and tiptoed hurriedly to the door Ned had pushed open. Another classroom lay beyond, lit by a row of ceiling lights. Nancy’s heartbeat quickened as she moved forward.
She cautiously glanced around that classroom’s door frame. A giant metal door stood at the end of a short hallway. The freezer! Nancy moved toward it and pulled back the latch. It clicked loudly and the door creaked open.
With a glance inside Nancy knew she had found the place where the cadavers were kept. Thick translucent plastic sacks hung from hooks. But Nancy barely noticed. Because directly in her line of vision lay Ned, sprawled on the cold wooden floor. And a pair of hands covered by surgical gloves were pushing his limp body inside a huge plastic sack!
Chapter
Fourteen
NED!” NANCY SCREAMED, racing forward.
The hands jerked back. Then Nancy heard a clatter and running footsteps. She reached Ned as a man dressed in surgical greens slipped behind a tall stack of boxes.
Nancy checked Ned for a pulse and realized he was breathing steadily. Then, quick as a cat, she leapt to her feet and began to chase the assailant. The huge freezer was filled with stacks of hospital supplies. Nancy spotted her quarry at the end of a long row of boxes. “Stop!” she yelled.
The intruder half turned toward her. Nancy charged forward. Now there were barely ten feet between them. In a flash, Nancy grabbed his sleeve before he could slip away. She held his right arm, trying to see his face. His mouth and nose were covered by a surgical mask and he wouldn’t turn her way.
“Nancy!” Trevor’s voice called from the other end of the freezer.
“Over here!” she yelled. At that moment, the man jammed his left elbow into her stomach, knocking the wind from her. He threw her down and zigzagged through the rows of boxes back toward Trevor!
“Trevor,” Nancy called weakly, trying to warn him.
Racing footsteps echoed through the refrigerator. Boxes crashed to the floor.
“What the—” Trevor said, but his words were cut off. Nancy heard a groan; then the footsteps receded through the classrooms. She heard the click of a latch.
The door! Nancy thought with fear, staggering to her feet. All three of them were locked inside the freezer!
She hurried toward Trevor, cold air flooding into her lungs. When Nancy found him, Trevor lay in a heap. Luckily there was a latch on the inside of the door. It turned easily in Nancy’s hand, and she breathed a sigh of relief as the door opened. Far ahead Nancy heard the intruder’s footsteps disappearing. She propped open the door with a box.
“Trevor, are you all right?” Nancy asked anxiously, gently slapping his face.
Trevor shook his head and sat up, looking around dazedly. “Did you see him? He slammed into me before I got a chance to do anything.”
“I didn’t see his face. Come on, we’ve got to help Ned.”
Trevor followed after Nancy. Ned still lay unconscious on the floor. Trevor bent over him. “His eyelids are fluttering. That’s a good sign. Quick, help me carry him out of here. We’ve got to warm him up. Be careful with his neck. I’ll take his shoulders; you take his feet.”
Nancy was glad Trevor was there. He immediately got down to business. By the time they carried Ned to the warm classroom, he had begun to come around. “Nancy,” he mumbled.
“Shhh,” she said.
“Lay him down here,” Trevor said, settling Ned on the floor. He yanked a penlight out of his coat pocket and examined Ned’s eyes. “You look all right, my friend,” he said seriously, running expert fingers around Ned’s head. Ned winced. “But you’ve got a nasty bump at the base of your skull.”
“Where’d he go?” Ned demanded, trying to sit up.
“He’s long gone,” Nancy said. “Are you okay?”
“You’d better get over to the hospital and have a thorough examination,” Trevor told him.
Against his protests, Trevor and Nancy helped Ned toward the door. He assured them he could walk on his own, but Trevor was reluctant to let him make the trek by himself.
“What do you want to do?” Trevor asked Nancy.
“Get Ned to an examining room, then find Dr. Shaw’s body.”
“You guys go and look for the body,” Ned ordered, leaning against the doorjamb. “I’ll be okay.”
Trevor glanced at him. “I could make a quick check and meet you both at the hospital.”
“I don’t want to leave you here alone, Trevor,” Nancy said, worried.
“Go, Trevor,” Ned insisted. “I can wait.”
“Okay, I’ll be right back.” Trevor went back inside the freezer. Nancy waited with Ned, glad to see color slowly return to his cheeks.
“Stop looking at me as if I’m an invalid. I’m fine, I tell you. Who was that guy? All I saw was a green mask.”
“Well, it wasn’t David Baines, but it was a man. Our mysterious Mr. X. I’ll bet he’s the same person who ran David down in the ambulance. And I’ll bet David was blackmailing him—that would explain David’s hefty bank balance.”
“Blackmailing him for what?”
Nancy shook her head. “I don’t know. If it has to do with Anna Treadway, then it’s got to be someone who—” Nancy sucked in a breath. “Oh, I’ve been so blind! Ned, I think I know who’s behind this!”
“Who?” Ned asked, just as Trevor came striding toward them.
“It’s there!” Trevor said excitedly. “Dr. Shaw’s body is there under another name. I recognized it because the name on the body was that of a patient who died here months ago. There’s no way they’d still have the cadaver.”
“I think our mysterious Mr. X was trying to move the body,” Nancy said.
“Then we’ve got to call security,” Trevor said. “There’s a phone at the end of the hall. I’ll stay here while you make the call. When the security guards get here, I’ll tell them to take Dr. Shaw’s body to the pathology lab in the basement of the hospital building. You take Ned to the emergency room. I’ll meet you there later.”
“I tell you I’m fine!” Ned said again, but Nancy steered him out of the room.
Just as they were disappearing into the hallway, Trevor called out, “Would you phone April? Let her know her father’s body’s been found.”
“Sure,” Nancy yelled back. Spying a telephone in the hallway, she and Ned quickened their steps.
“Okay, Nancy, spill it,” Ned said. “Who do you think stole Dr. Shaw’s body?”
She grinned. “How does Dr. Rayburn grab you?”
“Rayburn! Why Rayburn?”
They had reached the phone, so Nancy shook her head and dialed the reception hub. She asked for several security guards to be sent to the anatomy lab at Dr. Trevor Callahan’s request. Ned waited impatiently for her to finish.
“All right, give,” he said when they reached the first floor and headed back across the gloomy campus to the hospital.
“Rayburn was a doctor at the Saint Louis medical school. He was also partially responsible for David getting expelled.”
“But what has that got to do with killing Dr. Shaw?”
“I’m not sure—yet. After all, Shaw and Rayburn were on the same side. But I think Rayburn’s the connection. He knows something. Maybe something he wants buried.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Go to Rayburn’s office,” Nancy said determinedly as they walked into the emergency room. “There’s something I have to check out.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No way.” She half pushed him down the hallway. “This man needs a doctor,” she said, as one of the emergency room nurses looked up in
quiringly. “I’ll be back,” she whispered to Ned as another candy striper came toward him with a warm smile on her face and a clipboard in hand.
Trapped, Ned muttered, “Traitor,” out of the side of his mouth.
Nancy headed straight for Dr. Rayburn’s office. When she found the door locked, she wasn’t surprised. With her lock pick, Nancy let herself into the secretary’s front office and then into Rayburn’s inner office.
Inside, the blinds were drawn, but she didn’t dare turn on a light. Instead she pulled her penlight from her purse and flicked on the small beam of light.
Rayburn’s mahogany desk was an antique. Rows of locked drawers ran along the front. Nancy painstakingly jimmied the lock on each one and searched quickly through the sheaves of paper within. Finally she unlocked a slim drawer near the top and found a medical file inside it. She placed the folder on the smooth desktop and began thumbing through the papers. Nothing.
She was replacing the file when she noticed that the back of the drawer moved slightly. Pushing against the wooden slat, she realized it was a drawer divider. Elated, she removed the slat and found another file behind it. When she opened it, a single piece of paper fluttered onto the desktop.
It was a typewritten demand for ten thousand dollars, and a threat. The words jumped out at her.
Pay by Thursday unless you want to face a very messy malpractice suit. You know who I mean. I’ve got a Porsche to pay for, remember?
The note was unsigned, but Nancy knew it must have been from David Baines. Blackmail! she realized excitedly. That explained David’s fat bank balance. But Rayburn involved in a malpractice suit? What did David have on the man?
Nancy quickly replaced the file and relocked the drawer. She sat for a moment in utter silence, thinking hard. Through the blinds, the outdoor security lights glinted in streaks on Dr. Rayburn’s framed certificates. With sudden insight, Nancy jumped to her feet and ran the beam of her flashlight over Dr. Rayburn’s Boston medical diploma.
“So that’s it!” she murmured, focusing on Dr. Rayburn’s printed name.
Nancy quickly closed the door to Rayburn’s office behind her, crept through the secretary’s room to check the hall, then slipped into the hallway and softly locked the outer door behind her. Now she had all the facts!
She was on her way back to the emergency room to meet Ned and Trevor when she thought about Dr. Shaw’s body. She hurried to the elevator and punched the button for the basement. Once she made certain that Dr. Shaw’s body had been moved and was now secure and safe in the pathology lab, she could rejoin Ned.
The basement was deserted. The overhead fluorescent lights buzzed faintly as she walked down the corridor. Nancy’s heartbeat fluttered. Her every nerve was on edge.
The door to the pathology lab was standing wide open. As Nancy glanced inside, her heart jumped to her throat. Slumped on the floor were the bodies of two security guards—the guards who had just brought the body here! She rushed forward, stunned, then stooped to check their pulses. They were alive, but out cold.
Through another door she saw a man in a white coat sprawled across a counter. Nancy ran forward. He, too, was breathing but unconscious. His sleeves were rolled up, and she could see a small red mark on his forearm. So that was how the intruder had knocked them out so easily. They’d been jabbed with a hypodermic needle!
Hearing a familiar squeaking, Nancy spun around in time to see a draped gurney being pulled through a low door at the far end of the room. Nancy raced toward it. Ahead was a long narrow hallway. The tunnel, she realized. Dr. Shaw’s body was being stolen again!
Chapter
Fifteen
STOP!” NANCY SCREAMED. “Stop!”
A man in green surgical gear glanced backward. The same man who had attacked her in the anatomy lab! Nancy caught a glimpse of familiar scowling black eyebrows just as he thrust the gurney toward her with a mighty shove.
Nancy dodged, but the gurney hit her hip, knocking her against the wall. The sheet slipped to reveal a body. It must be Shaw. Her quarry took off at a run. Without further hesitation Nancy raced after him into the old tunnel.
The ceiling grew lower. The floor sloped down beneath her feet. The lighting was weak and shadowy. As she progressed farther, the tunnel grew narrower and less well tended. Though the walls and floor were concrete, Nancy could smell the faint dank scent of earth. She wished she’d told Ned and Trevor she was going to the pathology lab. She could use a little backup.
She was certain now that she was following Dr. Rayburn. Should she just give up and go for help? Though the eerie tunnel made her a little nervous, she wasn’t willing to turn back. Who knew what Rayburn would do next? She had to stop him.
As a precaution, she tore off some of the hem from her lab coat. She tied a thin strip to one of the metal light protectors and pinned Dr. Marcia Smythe’s nametag on it. If Ned came down this tunnel, he’d know she’d been here.
Thirty feet later, the tunnel forked in two. Nancy paused. Kneeling down, she pressed her ear to the cold concrete. Faintly, down the tunnel to her right, she heard the impact of hurried footfalls. She tore off another strip from the coat, marking the passage.
Nancy picked up her pace. If Rayburn reached the end of the tunnel before she did, she might never find him. He obviously knew these tunnels and buildings intimately.
Straight ahead of her, a wooden door blocked her exit. She strained but was able to pull it open. To one side, a flight of stairs led up. Her sense of direction told her she was beneath the medical classroom building.
Climbing the stairs, Nancy reached a landing and another door. It was warmer here. She cracked the door open and saw she was in an unfamiliar basement with huge, dusty insulated pipes running beneath the ceiling.
Nancy stepped forward cautiously. She heard a sound behind her. She whipped around in time to see those same dark eyebrows and steely eyes. Hands clamped around her arms, but Nancy was quick. She twisted free, snatching off the man’s mask.
“Dr. Rex Rayburn,” she said coolly. “How come I’m not surprised?”
“Because you’re too diligent for your own good,” he said. “Sorry, Ms. Drew.”
Rayburn grabbed her, and a second later she felt the prick of a needle. Panicking, Nancy struggled free of his grasp. “But you underestimated me. I’ve got too much to lose. You must understand.”
Nancy glanced in horror at the tiny puncture mark on her arm.
“Just a sedative,” he told her. “Until I can come up with a better plan. I must admit, you really caught me off guard.” His expression was more concerned than angry. “I really wish things could be different, but I’m afraid you know too much.”
Nancy opened her mouth, hoping to try to reason with him, but her tongue suddenly felt thick and woolly. Dr. Rayburn’s face dissolved into a watery pool.
She felt his hands catch her as she crumpled to the floor.
• • •
The light hurt Nancy’s eyes. She squeezed them shut and turned her head. She raised an arm, only to have it fall back limply.
Memory returned in a cold rush. Dr. Rayburn!
She forced her eyes open. She was lying on some kind of table in a room with cinder-block walls painted a dull beige. Her head ached. Squinting, she saw there was a bright lamp directly above her.
She was lying on an operating table!
A tinkling noise caught her attention. She turned her head in the direction of the sound. Dr. Rayburn was busying himself at a stainless-steel portable table.
Nancy’s heart lurched. What was he planning?
It took all her energy and willpower to force her limbs to move. Fighting back a groan, she rolled onto the floor. Her legs were jelly.
“Oh, no, Ms. Drew.” Rayburn was beside her in two quick steps, grabbing her arm and helping her to her feet. “You can’t leave.”
“Where am I?” Nancy’s tongue slurred.
“This is the operating room beneath the medical classroom building. It isn
’t used much anymore except by students, and generally they don’t work on live subjects. But every once in a while . . .”
Dr. Rayburn put her back on the table. This time he strapped her down, making certain her hands and feet were securely restrained. “The facilities are still quite good,” he went on, “if a bit isolated.”
She saw him connect the tubes that were hanging from the wall into a machine near her head. He flicked a switch, and there was a faint hissing sound. Then he turned back to the table, snapping on a pair of plastic gloves. Nancy’s head was clearing. She twisted against the leather bands. “People know where I am. You’ll never get away with this!”
“Oh, yes. I’m afraid I will.” One hand reached for the gas mask attached to the machine.
Anesthesia! Nancy realized in horror.
“I truly am sorry,” he said again, advancing on her with the mask. In his other hand he held a deadly sharp scalpel!
Nancy’s terrified gaze fell on the surgical knife. It glinted menacingly in the intense light, poised above her head. In another second Dr. Rayburn was going to operate. On her!
Chapter
Sixteen
NANCY THOUGHT QUICKLY. Her only chance of survival was to stall for time. Ned and Trevor would eventually find her. The two security guards and the pathology man would awaken and sound the alarm. Maybe they already had. Then they would follow the trail she had left.
“April told me you used to work in Saint Louis,” Nancy said conversationally, keeping her eyes averted from the knife. She couldn’t show fear. She couldn’t let him know she was buying time. “You knew David Baines and helped get him expelled from medical school.”
Rayburn didn’t answer. But he didn’t continue either.
“Since I’m going to die, do you mind if I make a few guesses as to what really happened?” asked Nancy.