She rolled onto her back and struggled to focus. She could make out Tarasoff's silhouette, standing in the faintly lit doorway. She flinched as one of the men bent down and ripped off the tape.
"Why?" she whispered. It was the only question she could think of. ' Why?"
The silhouette gave a faint shrug, as though her question was irrelevant. The other two men backed out of the room. They were preparing to shut her inside.
"Is it the money?" she cried. "Is it that simple an answer?"
"Money means nothing," Tarasoft said, 'if it can't buy you what you need."
"Like a heart?"
"Like the life of your own child. Or your own wife, your own sister or brother. You, of all people, should understand that, Dr. DiMatteo. We know all about little Pete and his accident. Only ten years old, wasn't he?We know you've lived through your own private tragedy. Think, doctor, what would you have given to have saved your brother's life?"
She said nothing. By her silence, he knew her answer. "Wouldn't you have given anything? Done everything?"
Yes, she thought, and that admission took no reflection at all. Yes. "Imagine what it's like," he said, 'to watch your own child dying. To have all the money in the world and know that she still has to wait her turn in line. Behind the alcoholics and the drug abusers. And the mentally incompetent. And the welfare cheats who haven't worked a single day in their lives." He paused. And said, softly, "Imagine."
The door swung shut. The latch squealed into place.
She was lying in pitch darkness. She heard the rattle of the stairway as the three men climbed back to deck level, heard the faint thud of a hatch closing. Then, for a time, she heard only the wind and the groan of the ship straining at its lines.
Imagine.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Pete. But there he was standing in front of her, proudly dressed in his Cub Scout uniform. She thought of what he'd said when he was five: that Abby was the only girl he wanted to marry. And she thought of how upset he'd been to learn that he could not marry his own sister…
What would I have done to save you? Anything. Everything.
In the darkness, something rustled.
Abby froze. She heard it again, the barest whisper of movement. Rats.
She squirmed away from the sound and managed to rise up onto her knees. She could see nothing, could only imagine giant rodents scurrying on the floor all around her. She struggled to her feet.
There was a soft click.
The sudden flare of light flooded her retinas. She jerked backwards. A bare bulb swung overhead, clinking softly against the dangling pull-chain.
It was not a rat she had heard moving in the darkness. It was a boy.
They stared at each other, neither one of them saying a word. Though he stood very still, she could see the wariness in his eyes. His legs, thin and bare beneath shorts, were tensed for flight. But there was nowhere to run.
He looked about ten, very pale and very blond, his hair almost silver under the swaying lightbulb. She noticed a bluish smudge on his cheek, and realized with a sudden start of outrage that the smudge was not dirt, but a bruise. His deep-set eyes were like two more bruises in his white face.
She took a step towards him. At once he backed away. "I won't hurt you," she said. '! just want to talk to you."
A frown flickered across his forehead. He shook his head.
"I promise. I won't hurt you."
The boy said something, but his answer was incomprehensible to her. Now it was her turn to frown and shake her head.
They looked at each other in shared bewilderment.
Suddenly they both glanced upwards. The ship's engines had just started up.
Abby tensed, listening to the rattle of chain, the squeal of hydraulics. Moments later, she felt the rocking of the hull as it cut through the water. They had left the dock and were now underway.
Even if I get out of these bonds, out of this room, there's nowhere for me to run.
In despair, she looked back at the boy.
He ',was no longer paying any attention to the sound of the engines. Instead, his gaze had dropped to her waist. Slowly he edged sideways and stared at her bound wrists, tucked close to her back. He looked down at his own arm. Only then did Abby see that his left hand was missing, that his forearm ended in a stump. He had held it close to his body, concealing the deformity from her view. Now he seemed to be studying it.
He looked back at her and spoke again.
"I can't understand what you're saying," she said.
He repeated himself, this time with an edge of petulance in his voice. Why couldn't she understand? What was wrong with her?
She simply shook her head.
They regarded each other in mutual frustration. Then the boy lifted his chin. She realized that he had come to some sort of decision. He circled around to her back and tugged at her wrists, trying to loosen the bonds with his one hand. The cord was too tightly knotted. Now he knelt on the floor behind her. She felt the nip of his teeth, the heat of his breath against her skin. As the lightbulb swayed overhead, he began to gnaw, like a small but determined mouse, at her bonds.
"I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over," said a nurse. "Wait, you can't go in there. Stop!"
Katzka and Vivian walked straight past the nurses' desk and pushed into Room 621. "Where's Abby?" demanded Katzka.
Dr. ColinWettig turned to look at them. "Dr. DiMatteo is missing."
"You told me she'd be watched here," said Katzka. "You assured me nothing could happen to her."
"She was watched. No one came in here without my express orders."
"Then what happened to her?"
"That's a question you'll have to ask Dr. DiMatteo."
It was Wettig's flat voice that angered Katzka. That and the emotionless gaze. Here was a man who revealed nothing, a man in control. Staring at Wettig's unreadable face, Katzka suddenly recognized himself, and the revelation was startling.
"She was under your care, doctor. What've you people done with her?"
"I don't like your implications."
Katzka crossed the room, grabbed the lapels of Wettig's lab coat, and shoved him backwards against the wall. "Goddamn you," he said, "Where did you take her?"
Wettig's blue eyes at last betrayed a flicker of fear. "I told you, I don't know where she is! The nurses called me at six-thirty to tell me she was gone. We've alerted Security. They've already searched the hospital but they can't find her."
"You know where she is, don't you?"
Wettig shook his head.
"Don't you?" Katzka gave him another shove.
"I don't know!" gasped Wetfig.
Vivian stepped forward and tried to pull them apart. "Stop it! You're choking him! Katzka, let him go!"
Abruptly Katzka released Wetfig. The older man swayed backwards against the wall, breathing heavily. "I thought, given her delusional state, she'd be safer in the hospital."Wettig straightened and rubbed his neck where the collar of the lab coat had left a bright red strangulation mark. Katzka stared at the mark, shocked by the evidence of his own violence.
"I didn't realize," said Wettig, 'that she might be telling the truth after all."Wettig pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Vivian. "The nurses just gave that to me."
"What is it?" said Katzka.
Vivian frowned. "This is Abby's blood alcohol level. It says here it's zero."
"I had it redrawn this afternoon and sent to an independent lab," Wetfig explained. "She kept insisting she hadn't been intoxicated. I thought, if I could confront her with undeniable evidence, that I could break through her denial…"
"This result is from an outside lab?"
Wetrig nodded. "Completely independent of Bayside."