Fatal

'I want to.'

'Well, I say go for it.'

'Rudy?'

'Yes?'

'I… I want you to come with me.'

'Hey, that's very nice of you. When are you going?'

'Today. This afternoon.'

'Oh, shoot. I'm really sorry, El, but I have a class to teach and a private lesson. I'm afraid tomorrow's tight, too. I have this family of Russian immigrants that I teach English grammar and reading to. I might be able to change them to another day if I can get ahold of them, but they don't have a phone and — '

Ellen watched a couple snuggling on a bench across from hers, and felt a knot in her chest.

'No, no. Please don't change your plans,' she managed. 'I'll be fine. I'll fly in and back, and drive out to the cabin late tonight or first thing in the morning.'

'You're right,' Rudy said. 'You will do fine. Who's the woman? Where does she live?'

'She lives in Evanston. Her name's Serwanga. Nattie Serwanga.'

CHAPTER 24

The massive killer moved across the floor with surprising stealth and closed in on Nikki as she slept. Her eyes opened a slit, but it was too late. Before she could make a sound, his huge, fleshy palm clamped over her mouth. His knee ground into the small of her back, increasing pressure on her spine until she knew it was going to crack in two.

Please, no! Please stop! her mind screamed. I don't want to be paralyzed!

Paralyzing her was clearly only part of what the man had in mind. He had tried to kill her before and botched it. He was not going to miss again. His moon face puffed into a lurid smile as he hooked his fingers beneath her chin and pulled her head back. His knee was pressing straight through her body.

Nikki awoke lost and totally disoriented, clawing at her pillow. The air in the strange room felt thick and stagnant. Then, as she was forcing herself to calm down, she heard the steady breathing of the man lying next to her. Startled, she sat up on the side of the bed, trying to ignore the land mines exploding behind her eyes. The sight of Matt Rutledge, sleeping deeply, his face peaceful and un-lined, brushed aside the last of what had been a series of exquisitely vivid and frightening nightmares. A piece at a time, some of the events of the night just past drifted into place. The man lying there, her doctor, had saved her from certain torture and probable death — just rode in on his motorcycle and saved her life. She wondered how much her managed-care insurance carrier allowed for that service.

The postage-stamp room featured a bed that was probably rented out as a queen, but looked smaller, and a fan-back, white wicker chair. In addition, there was a small, three-drawer bureau with some clothes neatly folded on top. Nikki padded to the tiny bathroom, washed her face with cold water, then brushed her teeth and hair with brand-new supplies that seemed to be waiting there for her. Her arms were a mass of bruises from IVs, blood drawing, and God only knew what else. There was a thick, tender scab, an inch or two long, just above her right ear. She felt certain she knew what had caused it, but with her thoughts careening about like bumper cars, she just couldn't seem to get her mind around anything specific.

She returned to the bedroom, settled onto the wicker chair, and dropped her feet heavily onto the bed. The impact was enough to visibly jar Matt, but he lay there undisturbed, his half smile suggesting that whatever his current dream, it was far removed from those that had been tormenting her. He had kicked the sheet aside, and lay there in a pair of sweat pants, naked from the hips up. He had the full waist and broad shoulders of an athlete past his prime, but managing to keep up. She had never been particularly drawn to men who wore their hair in a ponytail, but his seemed to fit his rugged features well. All in all, he was not Hollywood handsome, but he was damn attractive in most of the physical ways that mattered to her — and he had just saved her life. She knelt by the bed and studied the tattoo on his deltoid. It was — what had he said? — a hawthorn tree, about two inches high — beautifully rendered as far as she could tell. Because of her own unusual tattoo, she always paid attention to them on others. A tree was a first. There was a story there, she was certain of that. She brought her face up so that her eyes were just a few inches from his. She felt his breath and expected him to react in some way to her closeness. Nothing. He continued his sleep and, judging from his peaceful expression, his dream as well.

The clock radio on the bureau read seven-thirty, which more or less corresponded to the light filtering through the curtains. It seemed like waking her new roommate was going to take nothing short of a frontal assault, but not just yet. She shifted back onto the chair and sorted through what she could remember of the strange and deadly events since her departure from Boston. One thing, and maybe only one, was clear — Kathy Wilson was at the center of whatever was going on. She was one of at least three people from Belinda with a bizarre, terrifying, inexorably lethal syndrome. Matt was certain that a toxic exposure was responsible for the unusual constellation of signs and symptoms. His theory made as much sense as anything did, especially backed up by his discovery of large-scale toxic waste storage in a cave near the Belinda mine. But what was Kathy's connection with the mine? And why did the chief of police send men to kill Nikki and subsequently become obsessed with finding out whom she had spoken to about Kathy's condition?

At the moment, she didn't have the wisp of an answer to any of her own questions. But knowing Joe Keller as she did, if there was a clue in the anatomy of Kathy's nervous system, he would find it. There was a phone on the bureau with a note taped to it that local calls were free and long-distance calls had to be collect or credit card. Holding her breath, she dialed 1-800-COLLECT and placed a call to what she hoped her disrupted memory had held on to as Joe Keller's direct line. If the clock radio was correct, her boss would have been at the office for an hour already — possibly two — sipping his thick black coffee and working out anatomic and biochemical puzzles.

'Bless you,' she muttered when his voice came on the line and accepted the prompt to say 'yes.'

'Joe, I'm all right,' she said quickly.

'Thank God. People have been very worried about you. We even called the police.'

Nikki started to explain that a chief of police was, in fact, responsible for her trouble, but quickly stopped herself. There would be time.

'I'm on my way home right now. I should be there by late tonight.'

'Excellent.'

'Joe, I've had some trouble in West Virginia related to my friend Kathy — the one you autopsied.'

'What sort of trouble?'

'There are two other cases down here that looked and acted exactly like hers — neurofibromas and progressive paranoid insanity.'

'Well, now, that is something,' Keller said. 'You see, your instincts were absolutely correct in this case. I am looking at the slides of Miss Wilson's brain right now. She has unmistakable spongiform encephalopathy.'

Spongiform encephalopathy. Nikki caught her breath. The degenerative, transmittable, ultimately fatal nervous-system disease had a number of forms, including a syndrome called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; kuru, once found in the brain-eating cannibals of New Guinea; fatal familial insomnia; and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as BSE, or more commonly, Mad Cow disease.

Excitedly, Nikki stretched out and kicked Matt firmly on the sole of his foot. He bunched his pillow beneath his head and pulled his foot away. She kicked him again, even more forcefully, this time with her heel against his calf. He moaned and began to stir.

'Go on, Joe,' she said, knowing better than to ask if he was sure. 'This is quite incredible.'

'You say there are two other cases where you are?'

'In the town where Kathy grew up, yes.'

One final kick and it was clear Matt had at last ascended to a higher plane of wakefulness. If he hadn't taken some sort of drug, he was a candidate for the Guinness Book of Records. Her clients in the coroner's office were easier to rouse.

'And these other cases,' Keller asked, 'they had spongiform encephalopathy also?'

'I don't know. Their brains appeared normal on gross exam, so the microscopic wasn't done.'