They moved apart and greeted him. Cheryl Beth stared into the face she had known for so many years and wondered, who can I trust now?
“Is my timing bad?” he asked. “Sorry if I interrupted.”
“Just women stuff,” Lisa said.
Cheryl Beth stuffed the card back in her pocket just as her pager buzzed: the main switchboard.
“You have a call from Detective Dodds, to meet him down in Dr. Lustig’s office, uh, former office.”
“Now?”
“The call just came in.”
Cheryl Beth put the phone back in the cradle. She was excited, but she was also afraid. Why did Dodds suddenly want her? And why there? Maybe she would ignore the page, try to make it home through the ice. Then she would, what? Think it through… Maybe… She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. It wasn’t right. Just then, she saw one of her favorite guards pass on an intersecting hallway.
“Don!”
She ran and caught up with him. “Could I ask a favor? Would you walk me down to the basement?”
“Now?”
She said now, and they headed to the main elevator bank, talking about the ice storm. He said the radio was reporting wrecks and impassable streets all over the city. “We’re pretty much cut off for awhile,” he said. “I guess the ambulances have chains. But I haven’t seen one of those for an hour, either…” She was barely listening. The downward movement of the elevator was making her ill. As it left the fifth floor, as the car deviated from its normal run to the lobby, the lighting seemed to change and darken, the buttons looked filthy and worn, the walls pocked with stains and creases, gravity making her feel heavy, as if her body would crumple in on itself.
The elevator car settled and a deep mechanical thud came from somewhere far above them. Don just shook his head and they stepped into the hallway. The single bank of fluorescent lights was starting to go out. Its insistent flickering made them look like characters in a silent movie. It made the beds and big supply carts parked against the walls cast trembling, diabolical shadows. Her body was wound tight and her lungs felt small and fragile. She finally used the inhaler.
“You sure somebody called you down here?” he asked.
Then they saw the light streaming out of the office. “I guess so.” Twenty more steps and she looked inside to see Dodds and Will. At the sight of Will, she smiled spontaneously.
“It’s okay, Don.”
“You’re sure?”
She said yes and thanked him. Then she watched as her Danskos again crossed the threshold into what had been Christine’s office. Dodds was sitting in Christine’s chair, all but concealing it with his bulk. Will had wheeled himself to the far wall by the desk and they both looked surprised.
“What are you doing here?” Dodds said. “And where’s that guard going?”
“What?” She appraised the expressions of both men. “You called me. I got a page from the switchboard to meet you here.”
“It didn’t come from me,” Dodds said. “We were told to meet the hospital security chief down here. Where the hell is Stan ‘Don’t Call Me David’ Berkowitz?”
Cheryl Beth stepped into the room, feeling an awkward chemistry from the two. Will barely acknowledged her.
“Well, since you’re here, maybe you’ll tell your boyfriend here why you lied to him?”
“I didn’t…” She got the words out, but her insides were tied up with dread.
“We’ve got time until Berkowitz gets here, so tell him, tell us,” Dodds slowed his voice into a falsely friendly tone, “why you were at a bar with Christine Lustig the night she was found murdered.”
“I…oh, shit. I know what you’re thinking. Will, it’s not…” Her eyes stung with tears. She tried to speak, but was wheezing again. She looked at Will, searching for a connection, but his eyes were opaque.
She pulled out the card and handed it to Will. “Look at this.”
“Just tell me the truth, Cheryl Beth.” Will spoke for the first time, and his voice was taut with emotion. His face looked troubled and distracted.
She said, “Look at the back of the card, the handwriting. It’s the same handwriting as on the threatening note to Christine. But it wasn’t written by Judd Mason. It was written by the head of SoftChartZ. He made the threat! What if Christine found out something about the project? Something that could get her killed?” Dodds looked through her, bored. She got angry. “You called me down here, so at least listen to what I’m telling you!”
“I did not call you down here,” Dodds said. “But since you’re here… You were with Lustig in a bar on Main Street the night she was murdered.” He went on to give her the very same warning she had heard in a hundred police shows: silent…used against you…lawyer…do you understand?… She wasn’t really listening. Will looked pale.
“This isn’t right,” Will said suddenly. “We need to get out of this basement right now…”
Will’s premonition was instantly telegraphed to Cheryl Beth and she instinctively reached for him, to wheel him out of the room. In that same second the walls shook with the sharp noise of the door slamming shut. They were closed in.
They were not alone.
Chapter Thirty-two
Bud Chambers leveled the SIG Sauer 228 at them. His hands were encased in latex gloves. The weapon was graphite colored, accurate, and reliable. It could be chambered to nine millimeter or.40 caliber, but what did that matter right then? As Will remembered, it was a favored semiautomatic of the feds and could hold fourteen rounds. Chambers wore green scrubs, a white lab coat, even a hospital ID card clipped to his left pocket. His shoes were covered with the kind of footlets they wore in surgery. The better to avoid tracking blood, perhaps. He had been hiding in the same dead space behind the inward-opening door where Will had stayed that day when he had snuck behind Dodds into the office.
Somehow, deep in the premonitory brain cells that told him something was stalking him long before the tumor came, somehow he always knew it would end this way.
“Ah, ah, ah!” Chambers flexed the semiautomatic at Dodds, holding it in both hands. “Don’t even think about it, fat man. You!” He cocked his head at Cheryl Beth. “Reach in his coat and get his gun, and do it slowly.”
The room was crushed with still silence.
“No,” she said.
“You’d be amazed how soundproof this room is,” Chambers said, pulling his thick eyebrows into a dark overhang above his eyes. “Nobody’s going to hear you. The hospital’s shut down by the ice. Don’t try to be a hero, honey.”
Cheryl Beth spoke in a quavering voice. “Fuck off.”
Chambers took two quick steps and his left hand flashed toward her face, instantly sprawling her over the desk. She let out a cry and Will tried to raise himself out of the chair.
“Sit down, cripple.” He spoke without taking his glance or gun off Dodds. “I’ll take that.” He grabbed Josh Barnett’s card out of Will’s hand, glanced at it, and slid it into his pants pocket. “What a fucking little moron.” His gun arm stiffened and he snarled at Cheryl Beth. “Now get that goddamned gun!”
“Just do what he says,” Dodds said quietly.
She pushed herself up and reached into Dodds holster, pulling out his Smith & Wesson nine. Her left cheek was bright red. “Slow,” Chambers commanded. “Now hold it by the barrel and hand it to me. Thank you.” He stepped back, placing Dodds’ weapon on the bookshelf against the far wall.
“Now get the backup piece on his ankle.”
Will groaned inside. The bastard was too thorough. Cheryl Beth knelt and retrieved the five-round.38 Chief’s Special from the ankle holster on Dodds’ right leg. Chambers repeated his move, placing it on the shelf beside the larger semiauto.
“Stand up. Up!”
Dodds slowly stood. Chambers ordered Cheryl Beth to take the handcuffs from Dodds’ belt and shackle his hands behind him. She did it slowly, glancing at Will. He wished he knew what to telegraph to her. He wished he knew how. The handcuffs clicked into place.