horrible odor parents have nightmares about—the odor preceded by a certain cough and cries for help, galvanizing the most deeply asleep mother and father to instant action. Faith's own mother was miles away, but Dr. Hubbard was doing his best to substitute.
She'd assumed he would be infuriated, but he was almost tender. He handed her a glass of water to rinse her mouth, helped her off with her spattered coat, and gave her a fresh towel.
“Feeling better?”
She looked at him in astonishment. It was Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy come to life.
“Yes, thank you.'
“Can't use a gag,' he said to himsef—or one of them. 'Come on, then. If you make a sound, I'll use this.' He held up the syringe again. Faith nodded. She had no intention of joining the angels.
They moved out into the corridor after Dr. Hubbard had opened the door and looked cautiously up and down. Everything was dark.
He pushed her along past the elevator and opened a door leading to the second floor of the next house. She walked as slowly as she dared. When Tom arrived and didn't find her in the living room or at the party, he'd come upstairs to look. It was too soon to expect him, but the knowledge that he was on his way was keeping her from total terror. She considered telling Roland shemight be pregnant, but decided to keep this news in case she needed to make a last desperate plea. Total terror began to manifest itself at the thought, and she closed her eyes and took a breath. Tom. Tom would be here soon.
They were near the staircase. Pale streaks of the waning moon caught the pattern of the oriental carpet tread. The chandelier glowed softly, and Dr. Hubbard was guiding her with a sure hand.
Please, Faith prayed, not the guest room.
It wasn't. They descended the stairs.
It was going to be his office.
He opened the door and turned on the light, then reached into his pocket for his keys and locked the deadbolt at the top.
“Sit down,' he said in his normal volume. It sounded so loud, Faith was sure someone must hear it.
He took a seat on the other side on the desk and appeared to be lost in thought. Finally he pulled his chair in and leaned forward, bringing the fingertips of both hands together. She was ready for the prognosis.
“Unfortunately, it is sometimes necessary in life to sacrifice the needs and well-being of one person for the greater good of the community. When it is a young person such as yourself, a decision like this assumes tragic proportions. But you do see that I have no choice.”
Faith didn't see at all.
“I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about, Dr. Hubbard. Or, in fact, what is going on here at all.'
“Faith,' he replied sorrowfully, 'put simply, you know too much.' He should have looked more absurd in his outfit, but the solemn surety in his voice overshadowed all else.
She tried to reassure him. 'I don't know anything. You've been under a great strain, which explains the way you're dressed, but—'
“Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep Hubbard House going, young lady?”
She was more than willing to change the subject—only she wasn't sure this was what was happening. Still, so long as he was on one side of the desk and she on the other, she was safe from that booster shot lying conveniently close to his hand on the desk blotter.
“No, I don't.'
“A great deal of money.' So this wasn't going to be an itemized rundown of all it took to keep Hubbard House going: Q-tips, baked beans, vitamin C pills. Faith was a little disappointed.
“For years we have sought to keep afloat with our fees, private donations, a grant here and there, whatever the government can occasionally spare. It hasn't been easy.'
“I'm sure not,' Faith murmured. Where was Tom?
“Not easy at all. But no one is turned out, and we have not relaxed our standards. Not for a minute.”
Faith thought of the flowers from Winston's. Maybe a few less posies and a few more pennies saved?
“We have established a certain quality of life here, and I intend it to remain that way so long as I'm here. Although Donald, of course, feels as I do and will carry on after me.”
Faith nodded. She didn't feel sick anymore. Just scared. She was pretty sure where this line of thought was going.
“That's why I had to do it.' He stood up, remembering to grab the syringe, and went over to his wife's portrait. 'A wonderful woman. The best wife any man could have had. She would have agreed with me completely.' He swung around and looked Faith squarely in the eye. 'I had no choice, don't you see?'
“Absolutely, whatever you did I'm sure you thought was for the best.'
“It was for the best. I only picked people who were very close to leaving us anyway. In a few instances they were individuals who had expressed a wish to be relieved of their sufferings. And months would go by when I didn't have to make any night visits at all. But this fall has been bad. Contributions down. Expenses up. Of course it's a hard time of year in any case, lots of flu, pneumonia. Nothing odd about a ninety-four-year-old dying peacefully in his sleep.
“Farley thought I was a ghost. He would insist on keeping his window open and then kicking his covers off. I always checked in on him.' He gave an affectionate laugh and reached up to remove his cap and veil. He unbuttoned the uniform, and Faith was obscurely relieved to observe that he hadn't deemed it necessary to wear ladies' undergarments as well. He had his own shirt and trousers on underneath. 'This was Mother's uni- form. In case someone did wake up before the morphine took effect, I wanted them to be comforted and not startled.”
Not startled! At the moment Faith could think of few things less startling than seeing Dr. Hubbard in Florence Nightingale drag with an empty syringe in hand bending over one's bed.
“It was a painless and rapid method, a simple overdose.'
“These then were residents who had left bequests to Hubbard House?' She asked more to keep the conversational ball rolling than from any lack of certainty, since as long as the ball was in play, the game wasn't over. She hadn't watched all those basketball games for nothing.
“Not all of them, of course. That would have been foolhardy. I had to help some on as a little window dressing, so to speak. Though until poor Farley fell into your bouillon, we haven't had an autopsy here for years. It's not the sector of the population that calls for them, you know, especially these days. There's barely money in the state for homicide victims.”
Faith wasn't interested in the always-dismal state of the state's coffers. 'Farley!' She was genuinely indignant. Then there had never been any question of its being her bouillon.
“Oh no, my dear. Completely natural, although the morphine would have been hard to detect if it had been me. No one would have been looking for it, you see. No, Farley was his own doing. Nothing to do with either you or me.' , Faith rubbed her eyes. She was very tired, andsitting with a madman discussing which of them might have killed someone wasn't alleviating her weariness. She suddenly thought of Howard Perkins. The start of this whole business. Had he been visited by this angel of mercy killing too? She had to know—or she'd never be able to face Aunt Chat again. Oh, that she could face her now!
“What about Howard Perkins?'
“Howard Perkins? Did you know him? Charming man and with us for such a short time. He should have moved here years earlier. It's very difficult for me to understand why anyone would want to stay in New York, but then he would go on so about his beloved opera and the museums. What about him?'
“Did you—rather, was he ... ?' Faith searched for some polite equivalent to 'murder him.”
Roland caught her meaning. 'Oh no, he had a very bad heart. Besides, he was leaving everything to some woman in New Jersey, and I certainly wouldn't have used him as camouflage when he had joined us so recently.' Dr. Hubbard sounded offended at the kind of thoughts Faith had been harboring.
Her lassitude increased. She was almost beginning to relax. Tom would arrive, find her, and the good doctor would join his daughter in a nicely furnished padded cell.
Then Roland's next words sent a megadose of adrenaline coursing through her veins and any notion of fatigue disappeared at once.
“But we stray and time is passing quickly. I must put in an appearance at our little party, and this could take
