The Select

She stood there in the dimness, confused and uncertain: Crushed because it wasn't Tim, which meant he was still among the missing; elated because it wasn't Tim, which meant he wasn't the victim of some grisly plot.

She rearranged the bandages into their original position. How could she have been so terribly wrong? She'd been so sure.

She stepped back from the patient to make sure she was in the right spot. Yes. This was it. This was where she'd seen—

Wait. She flashed her light along his body. This patient was short and heavy. The one who'd signaled her had been long and lean.

Like Tim.

As she turned to survey the darkened ward, she saw a shadow appear at the window in the door. Quinn dropped to the floor. A heartbeat later the door swung open and the overhead lights went on.

*

Kurt stood blinking in the glare of the lights.

'Jesus, Lou. I was sound asleep.'

Verran envied him. He could have used a few solid hours of sleep himself.

'Enjoy the memory. That's the last you're going to have for a while. Our friend Cleary's on the loose.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Don't ask me how, but she suspects we've got Brown. I heard her on the phone. She's on her way here— may be here already.'

'Fuck damn!' Kurt said. 'I knew we should've taken her out with the Brown kid.'

'That's not our decision. Besides, the situation is still salvageable. From what I gathered, she doesn't know Brown's here. If we intercept her, send her back to the dorm, then move Brown out, we can make her look like a nut case and kick her ass back to Connecticut.'

'Why go to all the trouble?' Kurt said. 'Let me handle it. I'll see to it she's found in the woods fifty miles from here—a rape-murder victim. Our worries'll be over.'

Verran stared at the big blond man. Sometimes Kurt really frightened him.

'Just do as you're told. She's not in her room. I called Fifth and they're checking Ward C. She didn't get by the security desk in the lobby, so she's probably on her way.'

'What about the side door?' Kurt said, turning to his console. 'The bitch pulled a fast one like that on me once before.' He tapped away at his keyboard, then pointed to the screen. 'There she is: the west door, ten minutes ago.'

Christ, no!

'Get upstairs! Stop her! If she gets into the ward and finds him our asses will be in a sling!'

*

Tim watched the whole sequence of events, and could do nothing. Real life was reduced to television, and he was a passive, helpless viewer. Couldn't even change the damn channel.

His tingling hands had awakened him but he'd wished they hadn't. He'd been too depressed over the day's events—non events, rather—to work his fingers in much more than a desultory fashion. No hope, no future—what difference did it make how well he could move his fingers? Even when the tingling reached his elbows, the highest yet, so what?

So he lay there in the darkness, staring at the blinking lights around the hall window, but from a different angle this time. They'd moved his bed at the end of the day shift, rotating him to the side of the room farthest from the door. The current shift had propped him up on his right side again.

When he saw a familiar blond head bob past the hall window, he thought he'd fallen back to sleep and was dreaming. But when he saw her slip through the door and begin flashing a penlight, he prayed it was real. It had to be real.

He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to shout with booming joy. There was a God, there was a Santa Claus. Quinn was here! She'd seen! She believed!

Then he wanted to scream at her when she approached the wrong bed.

Over here! Over here! They moved me over here!

He watched her flash her light in the other patient's face, saw her flinch back when she realized it wasn't him. Silently he begged her not to think she'd been seeing things this afternoon and give up. When she started looking around again, he knew there was still hope, but he was bewildered when she suddenly dropped into a crouch.

Then the lights came on and he understood.

Squinting, Tim watched the nurse called Doris step inside the door. She appeared wary as she stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the ward. Tim couldn't remember a night when the overheads had been turned on like this. Had she heard something? Was she looking for Quinn?

Maybe it was his own cardiac monitor that had brought her in. His heart was tripping along at a breakneck pace.

He could see Quinn crouched beside Number Four's bed, statue still, barely breathing.

Jesus, she had guts. How many women—how many men—would brave this place at night to search for him?

Apparently satisfied, Doris turned off the lights and closed the door behind her.

Quinn's shadow popped up almost immediately and she began to flash her penlight at the patients around her.

Over here, dammit!

Maybe she caught the thought. Or maybe she spotted the madly flashing rate light on his cardiac monitor. Whatever the reason, she came directly toward him and shone the light in his face.

She didn't have to pull at his bandages. She seemed to know as soon as she saw his eyes.

'Oh, Tim!' It was a whisper encased in a moan.

She bent and clutched his shoulders and buried her face against his neck, sobbing.

'Oh, Tim, it's you, it's you, I knew you'd never leave me like that.'

He felt his own sobs welling up in his chest with nowhere to go, searching for a voice, an exit. His vision blurred and he was startled to feel the wetness of tears on his cheeks. Sensation was returning to his face.

If only he could speak. Because as wonderful as this was, she had to go now.

Okay. You've found me. Now get out of here, get somewhere safe and call the cops, the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon, just make sure you're safe first!

And then over Quinn's shoulder, through the blur of tears, he saw the other nurse, the one called Ellie, walking past the window in the hallway. She stopped abruptly and stared into the ward. She leaned closer to the window and cupped her hands around her eyes for a second or two, then she jerked away from the window and darted back the way she had come.

But Quinn hadn't seen a thing.

She had to get out of here, had to run! He had to let her know! Tim tried his voice again, knowing he couldn't make a sound, yet he had to try.

'Go.'

The word shocked him. His voice sounded like a tree limb scraping against a stucco wall, but it was his voice.

Quinn straightened and stared at him. 'Tim! Can you speak?'

He tried to tell her that a nurse had seen her but his lips and tongue wouldn't cooperate. He had to keep it simple.

'Go!'

'Not without you. I'm never—'

Then the overheads came on.

*

Quinn whirled in the sudden burst of light and saw two nurses—one heavy and blonde, the other thin and brunette— standing inside the door, gaping at her.

'Now do you believe me?' the thin one said.