ALEX RUN
Sam was staring at those words written in blood when a hand latched onto her forearm and squeezed tightly. She jerked her arm away, nearly lost her balance and snapped her other hand to the floor to keep herself from falling. She felt An Chin’s blood, still warm, soak her palm and swung toward Alex’s mother, whose hand was grasping for her anew.
Mrs. Chin’s eyes were open. She pleaded silently with Sam. She was moving her lips, struggling for the breath she needed to form words.
Alex …
“It’s okay,” Sam heard herself say, in what sounded like someone else’s voice. “You’re going to be okay.” Her gaze locked on a cordless phone lying atop a nearby table. “I’ll call the police.”
But An Chin’s grasp tightened on her before Sam could move.
No police, Mrs. Chin mouthed.
Then her trembling fingers dropped down and began scrawling a final word in blood to complete the message:
GET ALEX RUN
22
ESCAPE
THE FOOTSTEPS SEEMED TO slow as they approached the door to Dr. Payne’s office, but continued on harmlessly. Alex thought fast, at least as fast as the steady dull throb in his head would allow.
Couldn’t go back to his room.
Couldn’t stay here.
Had to get out of the hospital.
Alex could have called the police on Dr. Payne’s phone now, but what was he going to tell them? That his doctor was dead and he was in some kind of crazy danger? Sounded simple enough to say. Make the call and then leave the building. Anonymous. If nothing else, he could wait for the cops to arrive in force and then use their presence as a distraction to flee. They’d know who he was. They’d protect him.
The harder he thought, the more his head throbbed. He willed himself to be calm, to think one thing at a time. The cops first.
Alex reached down for Payne’s office phone and lifted the receiver from its cradle.
Nothing. No dial tone.
He hit a bunch of keys and still got nothing but dead air for his effort. Now what?
Cell phone!
Payne must have had one somewhere, but none was in evidence on the desk. So it must be in a pocket.
Alex checked his lab coat pockets first, then held his breath while he felt around the outlines of the doctor’s other pockets in search of his smart phone’s shape. Nothing in any of those, either, but one of the pants pockets was turned inside out, as if someone had gotten there ahead of Alex with the same idea in mind.
Calling the police was no longer the goal, with no means to do so. And he couldn’t venture back out into the halls dressed in hospital garb with whoever had killed Payne and whoever was down in his room still out there.
So Alex moved to the office closet, freezing when he saw it was already open just a crack, a pair of red eyes staring at him from within it.
23
GET ALEX
GET ALEX RUN
Sam had indeed run after An Chin finished her message in blood. She burst out through the back door, dashing through a line of neighboring backyards to avoid being spotted by whoever had attacked the Chins. Those men whose voices …
… didn’t sound like voices at all.
She peeled back for the street when she hit a fence, trying to get her bearings and realizing she’d overshot the place where she’d parked. She couldn’t see the Chins’ front porch until she was almost to her car and then everything looked normal. No sign of the intruders or of anything amiss. But she didn’t let herself think what she’d just seen was the product of her imagination. It was real, and the Chins needed help. Desperately.
The flickering streetlights splayed shadows about the streets and yards. Trees twisting in the breeze coming to life. Rustling bushes blown up to monstrous proportions and sprouting tentacle-like limbs. Cars with dark shapes flashing shiny eyes hidden behind windows misted over with condensation.
An Chin’s message returned to the forefront of Sam’s mind.
GET ALEX RUN
Run from what, from who? And why no police?
It felt like she’d been dropped into some scene from one of the science fiction tales in which she was so fond of losing herself. Heinlen gone to hell, and now she really had become his stranger in a strange land. The night air that had been cool and comfortable suddenly felt hot and steamy. The moonless sky had clouded over and she realized the streetlights illuminating swatches of the dark world around her were buzzing, flickering, while stubbornly pouring out light Sam sought because suddenly she felt like a little girl again, afraid of the dark. She thought of her own parents, terrified something had happened to them as well. She needed to call them, she needed to go home, settle her thoughts, make sure they were safe.
Sam checked her phone, found it was working again, with a signal to boot. Then dialed, breath caught in her throat.
“Dude!” her dad greeted.
Tonight it was the happiest word she could ever hear. “Dad!”
“That’s me.”
“Is everything all right? Are you and Mom okay?”
“I’m trimming, she’s bagging. So, yes, we’re okay.”
“Because—”
Sam stopped when the phone vibrated and beeped to signal another call coming in, from a number she didn’t recognize.
Alex, she thought.
“I have to take this other call,” she told her father.
24
THE CLOSET
ALEX PULLED DR. PAYNE’S closet door open with enough force to rattle the hinges. The red eyes he thought he’d glimpsed a moment before turned out to be an old-fashioned pager, twin red lights flashing to signal a dead battery or something.
Beneath the shelf on which the pager rested hung several changes of clothes on hangers. Plastic covered the shirts and even a pair of jeans he quickly stripped free of the covering, along with a pullover short-sleeve shirt. The shirt was a tight squeeze but the jeans fit him well enough. He realized only in donning them that he had nothing for footwear. Another check of Payne’s closet revealed a pair of sneakers a full size too small for him, but Alex squeezed into them nevertheless and loosened the laces as much as he could. He could feel his toes pressed up flush against the toe box, no room for give. They were all he had, though, and better than nothing.
There was an extra lab coat hanging in the closet as well, and Alex plucked it from its hanger. It was a worse fit than the sneakers, the sleeves climbing well past his wrists and so tight around his chest and shoulders he doubted he could have buttoned it if he had to.
Before leaving he pressed his ear against the door to listen for anyone possibly lying in wait. All he heard was the creaky, squeaking sound of a cart being wheeled along the tile floor. Alex waited for it to pass, eased the door open, and slipped out into the hall.
He was halfway to the stairwell before he realized he was holding his breath and that Dr. Payne’s sneakers were an even worse fit than he’d thought. Forcing himself to breathe normally, Alex never broke stride or looked back, just moved straight through the door into the stairwell. His heart seemed to lurch forward in his chest when the echo of the door sealing behind him seemed to go on forever. But he kept moving, taking the stairs as fast as Dr. Payne’s sneakers would allow.
The stairwell spilled out into the lobby, awash in light and people milling about. Knowing as a kid he must’ve looked ridiculous in a doctor’s lab coat, labeled PAYNE, no less, Alex quickly shed the garment, squeezed it into a ball, and grasped it in a single hand as if it were a football. At that point, the exit felt very much like the goal line, promising at least temporary respite until he could get his parents on the phone.
The same parents who’d forbade him to play football. The same parents who’d secretly researched prep schools for a possible fifth year of high school. He’d been so angry at them over that. Now it seemed so small and petty.
Eighteen years old and all I can think of is calling my parents.…
There was a c
afé called Rigolo just up the street from the hospital he’d eaten at a few times with them. So, pinched by Dr. Payne’s clothes and sneakers, Alex headed there in search of a phone.
25
911
“I’LL CALL YOU BACK,” Sam said to her father.
“Take your time. The trimming waits for no man.”
“But you’re telling me the truth, right? Everything’s really okay?”
“What’s gotten into you?”
Her “call waiting” buzzed in again. “Gotta go. Call you back.” She switched to the new call. “Hello?”
“Sam!” Alex’s voice screeched. “Sam!”
“Alex, what—”
“I need you. I need you to pick me up. Now! Please!”
Thoughts coursed through her mind, so many and so fast she couldn’t keep track.
“At the hospital?” she managed.
“No, not there. I can’t reach my parents!”
“This number, I don’t recog—”
“I’m at a restaurant called Rigolo down the street from the hospital. I’ve got to stay out of sight.”
Sam felt something sink in her stomach, thinking of the men with the strange voices who’d attacked the Chins. “Out of sight from what?”
“Never mind. I just need to get home, think this through, talk to my mom and dad.”
She swallowed hard. “Alex…”
“Not now. Whatever it is can wait. Too easy to see me from the street where I’m standing. You know the place?”
“Yes. Sure. But—”
“Hurry, Sam, please.”
Sam thought she might pass out, by the time she reached the old Volkswagen Beetle’s door.
“Sam!”
“I’m here. Sorry, I—”
“You’ve got to hurry! I can’t stay here. Something’s—”
Alex’s voice cut off suddenly. Sam looked down at her phone, which felt oddly cold in her hand, figuring the battery had died for real this time. But the icon was almost all filled in.
“Alex,” Sam managed. “Alex!”
“Hurry,” he responded, his voice returned. “Please.”
“Alex, listen. I really need to tell you—”
A click sounded before Sam could say another word.
26
RIGOLO
HIS CALL TO SAM on the old-fashioned pay phone completed, Alex might have called the police then and there, if he hadn’t seen the men enter. All dressed in identical dark suits, which seemed odd for a Saturday night. Looking dapper, polished but focused. One of them spoke to the hostess while the others seemed to be glancing about the restaurant.
He stopped peering around the alcove wall for fear of being spotted. Whoever these men were, they didn’t look right for the surroundings, totally out of place. He figured it would take Sam at least fifteen minutes to get here and once he left the restaurant, he’d have no way to reach her by phone.
Leaving Rigolo was the problem now. From the alcove of the bright and cheery café that catered to families as well as CPMC doctors and nurses, he glimpsed the four black-suited men being seated at a corner table on the far left offering a complete view of the floor. No way he could reach any of the exits without them spotting him. The only thing preventing that now was the slight angle that kept him from their view when he pressed his shoulders against the wall. Move just a few inches and he’d be in their sights.
Alex had no choice but to wait, taking several deep breaths to calm himself. No clock was in view and he had neither a cell phone nor a watch to check the time until Sam’s expected arrival.
Where were his parents?
And something else: Why hadn’t he called Cara when he couldn’t reach them? Why had he called Sam instead?
He stood there pressed against the wall trying to remember the last time he’d had a really good time with Cara. Couldn’t think of a single one, at least not sober, except when they’d had plenty of fun in large groups over the summer, before football camp started in August and then it was all business. This wasn’t a new thought, just one he’d passed off as his own fault, given the demands on his time and energy by the season and a championship run. He thought Cara was leaving him alone because she thought that’s what he wanted.
I’m an idiot, he thought.
Alex glimpsed the hostess lead a pair of men past the alcove toward a nest of tables out of sight from it, uniformed men.
Cops.
He could go to their table and tell them what had happened, tell them about the men in suits who’d come into the restaurant just after he had. Yes, that made sense. Best available choice, assessing the situation the same way he did when approaching the line of scrimmage. Alex steeled himself for the task for several moments and slid out from the alcove, turning left toward where the cops must’ve been seated.
Where one of the black-suited men was standing over their table, smiling and exchanging handshakes.
Were the cops involved in this too, in league with the killer at the hospital and these men as well?
Alex could wait no longer. Had to take his chances they were looking for a kid wearing hospital garb instead of clothes pilfered from a dead doctor’s closet. Swung right toward the main entrance, started walking and didn’t stop, didn’t turn, half expecting a big strong hand to clamp down on his shoulder. But it didn’t and then he was through the door back outside into the cool night.
He looked back only when he was in the darkest part of the Rigolo parking lot, standing beside an older model Lincoln Town Car. Writing stenciled onto the rear window read, WATSON FUNTERAL HOME, followed by an address and phone number. Alex thought of the four men inside wearing identical black suits. They were funeral home workers, coming from a memorial service, probably, and were well acquainted with the complement of local police officers who often provided them a security detail.
Alex started to relax ever so slightly when the screech of car tires snapped him back to reality.
27
LOVE BUG
SAM’S VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE, THE old model from circa 1990 had barely come to a halt when Alex lunged out of the shadows outside of Rigolo and jerked the passenger-side door open.
“Don’t stop!” he ordered when she jammed on the brakes, his eyes checking the street behind him. “Just drive!”
Sam did, screeching off and bleeding more remnants of rubber from her nearly bald tires.
“This car reminds me of the Love Bug,” Alex said, his voice settling. “You know, from those movies we watched as kids.”
“Seems like a long time ago now.”
“Disney, I think,” he continued, running his hand across the plastic over the glove compartment. He cocked his gaze behind him again, out the sloped rear window crusted over with dust and grime. “I think we’re safe. No one’s following us.”
“Who would be following us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who they are, what they are,” Alex said, his eyes dull with shock as he regarded her from the passenger seat.
How was she going to tell him?
“Alex,” Sam started.
He’d turned away, gazing emptily forward. “A funeral home, can you believe it?”
“Believe what?”
“Never mind. Just take me home. My parents aren’t answering the phone. I’m afraid … I think something may be … wrong.” That final word emerging with a mouthful of air. “I just have this feeling.…”
Sam clenched the wheel tighter as she drove on, afraid to let Alex see the fear, the sadness, in her eyes over what she had to tell him. “What happened at the hospital?” she asked instead.
“I don’t know. My doctor’s dead.”
“What?”
“Somebody killed him.”
“Did you call the police?” she said, focusing on the road so as not to meet his stare.
“I couldn’t find a phone. And when I finally did, I called you. Whoever killed him was after me too. That’s why I ran.” His eyes tightened their focus, ch
asing her down. “What’s wrong, Sam? You’re scared, I can tell.”
“Well, you scared me,” she said, without looking at him.
“No, you were already scared when I called,” Alex said, as if realizing that himself for the first time. “I could hear it in your voice.”
She could feel him still staring across the seat at her.
“What’s wrong, Sam?”
She swallowed hard. “I need to tell you something.”
“So tell me.”
“It’s not so easy.” Trying to look at him now. “It’s about your parents.”
“My parents?”
She squeezed the steering wheel so tight, her fingers ached. “You’re right, somebody did hurt them. I was at your house, waiting for you, and I saw…”
Sam’s voice trailed off and she couldn’t get the words back.
“What? What happened?”
“I came in through the back. Your mother, your father…”
He snapped a hand out, fastening on her shoulder so hard she nearly lost control of the Beetle, just managed to hold it straight, its worn tires humming atop the pavement.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling his hand away. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. Things are very far from okay.” Then, locking his unblinking stare upon her: “Aren’t they?”
“I…”
“What happened to my parents?”
“Someone hurt them.”
“Hurt,” Alex repeated. “But they’re okay, right? They’re alive.”
He watched Sam squeeze the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t know. We should go to my house. My parents will—”
“No, get me home. Drive faster,” Alex said, his gaze going blank and fixing forward as he settled stiffly into the passenger seat.
“The men who did…” Sam twisted his way, the spray of oncoming headlights making her face look shiny and reflecting off her glasses. “I think it was about you, Alex.”
“Why?”
“Your mother, something she said.”
“You spoke to her? I thought you said—”