nurse’s desk and willing herself not to react to the look of suspicion that immediately came into the other woman’s eyes. “This one’s Chocolate Mocha, and the other’s French Vanilla Bean.”
“Which one’s your favorite?” the nurse asked.
“I think maybe the vanilla.”
“Maybe I’ll try that one.”
Picking up the other mug, Katharine took it into Michael’s room. Though he appeared still to be asleep, she was almost certain he was pretending. Grateful for his pretense, which removed the need to make up conversation that would undoubtedly sound as false to whoever might be listening as it would to them, she turned off the light. The room was plunged into near blackness, save for the glow of the monitors that still displayed Michael’s vital signs, and the chemical makeup of the atmosphere inside the plastic box.
Even the darkness has eyes, Katharine thought, remembering the cameras at the gate. She settled down to wait, hoping that by four in the morning the darkness and silence of the room would have lulled the watchers into sufficient inattentiveness to let her make the final move in the game she’d planned.
Moving surreptitiously, she fished the cellular phone from her pocket and switched it over so that instead of ringing it would vibrate silently.
Forty minutes later, playing out the script she’d devised while packing her suitcase a few hours earlier, she got both herself and the nurse a second cup of coffee. This time, though, she lingered at the desk in the anteroom long enough to find out that LuAnne’s last name was Jensen, that she had no family, lived alone, and seemed to take no interest in any subject on which Katharine tried to engage her.
But she accepted the second cup of coffee, which she finished in less than ten minutes.
The same thing happened with the third.
On none of the trips to the kitchen did Katharine hear or see anyone else. Nor was there any sign of a security guard, if she didn’t count LuAnne Jensen.
Which meant one of two things: either they thought she’d bought Takeo Yoshihara’s story, or they were so supremely confident of their security that they simply weren’t worried.
When Katharine finally saw the minute hand on her watch creep toward five minutes past three, she picked up her empty cup and stepped out into the anteroom one more time.
LuAnne Jensen actually smiled at her. “I was just about to come in and see if you wanted me to fix it this time.”
“Not a problem,” Katharine replied, picking up the empty mug from the desk. “Michael’s still sound asleep, and I’m tired of sitting in the dark. Any particular flavor this time?”
“Maybe another Chocolate Mocha?”
“Coming right up.”
Heading for the kitchen for the fourth time, Katharine once again set about making two mugs of coffee. But this time she removed one more tinfoil packet from the Ziploc bag.
This one, though, contained more than coffee, for before she left her house, she’d carefully slit it open and added to the original contents three of the Halcion tablets that her doctor had prescribed for her more than a year ago. That had been during one of Michael’s bad periods, when she’d worried so constantly about his asthma that she couldn’t sleep. Though she’d never taken the pills, she’d kept them, superstitiously, as though their mere possession would act as a charm against needing to use them.
“Does it ever seem like the nights will never end?” she asked now as she set one of the coffee mugs on LuAnne Jensen’s desk.
“Every one of them gets longer,” the nurse agreed, picking up the mug, blowing on the steam for a moment, then taking the first sip. “You have no idea how much this helps.”
“Have as much as you want,” Katharine replied. “I brought plenty.” Leaving with her own mug of coffee, Katharine went back into Michael’s room.
In the darkness, she stripped off the clothes she’d been wearing all day and put on the jeans and shirt she’d brought from home. The cellular phone went into one of the front pockets of the jeans, where she’d feel its vibration if Rob tried to call her.
At three-forty she cracked the door to the anteroom open just wide enough to allow her a glimpse of the desk. LuAnne Jensen was still in her chair, but her head had rolled forward so her chin nearly touched her chest, and a rhythmic snoring was emanating from her open mouth. Katharine silently closed the door.
At three forty-five she felt the cellular phone vibrate in her pocket. Slipping it out, she flipped it open and was about to utter Rob’s name when she thought better of it. “Michael?” she asked. “Are you awake?”
Instantly, her son’s voice crackled from the speaker. “Uh-huh.”
At the same time, she heard Rob’s voice coming through the telephone: “If you don’t say anything, we’ll pick you up in exactly fifteen minutes. If there’s a problem, speak to Michael again.”
Katharine hesitated. She had a plan, but she had no idea whether it would work. If it didn’t … But what choice did she have?
Silently, she pressed the End button on the cellular phone, closed it, and returned it to her pocket. Then she went over to the bed. In the dim light emanating from the monitor, she could barely make out Michael’s face. But he was staring at her, his eyes wide open, and she no longer had any doubt that he’d been as wide-awake as she through the long hours of the night.
She held a finger to her lips, then took the bundle of clothes she’d brought for him out of the suitcase and pushed them into the air lock. He immediately began wriggling into them, staying under the covers and doing his best to move as little as possible. When he was done, she signaled him to pull the covers up and pretend to go back to sleep. Then she stepped out into the anteroom.
“Are you ready for—” she began, then cut herself off. “LuAnne? LuAnne, what’s wrong?” Moving around behind the desk, she shook the nurse, who slid off the chair onto the floor. Straightening, she looked wildly around the anteroom as if uncertain what to do, then picked up the telephone and pressed the button that was labeled “Lobby Desk.” Someone picked it up in the middle of the second ring.
“Jensen?” a voice asked.
“It’s Dr. Sundquist,” Katharine said. “Something’s happened to LuAnne. I just came out to make us some more coffee, and I thought she’d fallen asleep. But when I tried to wake her up, she slid off the chair.”
“Oh, Jesus,” the guard swore. “I’ll be right there.”
Katharine darted back into Michael’s room and took three more items out of the suitcase.
Two of them were large plastic garbage bags.
The other was the fossilized femur of an anthropoid that had become extinct several million years ago.
Shoving the garbage bags into the air lock, Katharine finally risked speaking to Michael out loud. “Hold these up to the intake tube,” she said. “Get them as full as you can.” Then, taking the femur with her, she went back to the anteroom and once again pressed the Lobby Desk button on the phone. When there was no answer by the second ring, she hung up, left the anteroom, and went to stand by the elevator door, her back pressed against the wall.
As she counted the passing seconds, she prayed that the camera above her was being monitored only by the guard who should be stepping out of the elevator in five more seconds.
In at least partial answer to her prayers, the doors slid open exactly five seconds later and the guard stepped out.
As the second hand of Katharine’s watch ticked one more time, she raised the femur high, then brought it down on the back of the guard’s neck as hard as she could.
Grunting, he dropped to his knees.
Katharine smashed the fossilized bone down one more time.
The guard sprawled out on the floor, facedown, and lay still.
Grabbing both his hands, Katharine dragged him down the hall and into the anteroom. Closing the door, she tied his hands behind him with the telephone cord, then pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
If the elevator card stolen from Jameson didn’t work, the guard’s would.
Rising to her feet, she looked once more at her watch.
Seven minutes had gone by.
Going back into Michael’s room, she finally turned the lights on. Inside the plastic box, one of the garbage bags was inflated, and Michael was pulling its drawstrings tight.
