The Select (38 page)

"Sure," she said. "I guess
so."

"All right, Don," he said to the
stranger. "Do it."

The man stepped past Quinn produced a
wand of some sort. It was black and had a loop at the end,
reminding her of the electric contraption her father used to start
the briquettes in their charcoal grill. He began waving it about
the room, along the walls, all around the fixtures. There was
something ritualistic, almost shamanistic about the
procedure.

"What's he doing?"

"Sweeping the room, looking for
electronic pulsations, microwave transmissions."

The feeling of unreality swept over
Quinn again as she watched. Almost in a trance, she followed him
into the bedroom and watched as he scanned every object in the
room. She wished she'd thought to pick up the place. But you so
quickly get used to a maid, and the maid had the weekends
off.

He did a visual search, and even
disassembled the telephone.

When he was finished he nodded
pleasantly to her and returned to the front room where Tim's father
waited. Mr. Verran was still outside the door in the hall,
hovering, watching.

"Not a blip," the man called Don said.
"The place is clean, just like your son's."

Mr. Brown nodded. He seemed neither
pleased nor displeased. He turned to Mr. Verran.

"I had to know. You understand that,
don't you? I had to know for sure."

"Of course I understand," Mr. Verran
said. "A hundred percent. I'd've done the same thing
myself."

As Don slipped past him into the hall,
Mr. Brown turned back to Quinn. "Thank you, Quinn."

"Has there been any word? Any word at
all?" She felt foolish asking—they'd only completed the report a
few hours ago—but it was a compulsion she could not
deny.

"No." His eyes were bleak, his mouth a
thin, grim line. "Not a word."

"Will you...?"

"I'll let you know if I hear
anything." He touched her arm and managed a smile that was
heartbreakingly close to Tim's. "Thanks for caring."

As soon as the door closed behind him,
she broke down and cried.

*

Quinn had dozed only sporadically
through the night, so she was already up and showered when someone
knocked on her door Sunday morning. She ran to it, hoping,
praying...

It was Mr. Brown. He wasn't smiling,
but he didn't look quite so grim.

"I think we've found him," he
said.

Quinn's knees were suddenly weak. Her
heart began pounding in her ears. As the room threatened to tilt,
she reached behind her, found a chair and sat down.

"He's...he's all right?"

"We don't know. They found his car at
the airport south of Baltimore."

"BWI."

"Right. It's in the long-term lot.
They checked with the airlines and learned that he purchased a
one-way ticket to Las Vegas Friday morning."

Visions scuttled across Quinn's brain:
Tim in his dark glasses, sitting at a blackjack table, drink in
hand, lights strobing all around him as he grinned and flashed her
his Hawaiian hang-loose signal.

"And a further check of his credit
card shows he arrived and rented a car from Avis. Signed for a
week's rental."

"Vegas," Quinn said softly, still
trying to comprehend.

"Yes. I don't understand any of it,
but I'm so relieved to know he's alive. For days now I've had these
visions of Tim lying in a ditch somewhere."

Quinn said nothing. She was too numb
with relief to speak.

"We learned something else," Mr. Brown
said with a sidelong glance in her direction. "A report from the
Atlantic City police department."

Quinn closed her eyes. Her name was on
that report as well. She supposed she should have known that would
come to light eventually.

"Maybe I should have said something
before," she said. "But I didn't see that it had anything to do
with—"

"Does Tim have a gambling
problem?"

She looked at Tim's father and found
his eyes intent upon her. The answer was important to
him.

"I don't know if I'm fit to judge
that, but—"

"Was he getting in with the wrong kind
of people?"

"No. Why do you say that?"

"Well, he's been staying out all night
a lot, and he got beat up outside a casino."

"We were mugged. If I hadn't wanted to
go down on the sand, it never would have happened. And truthfully,
Mr. Brown, Tim isn't really interested in gambling. He's never once
mentioned going back since then. He's more interested in beating
the system with his memory than in gambling itself."

Mr. Brown smiled for the first time.
"That memory of his. He was always playing games, doing tricks with
it." He extended his hand. "I'm glad I stopped by, Quinn. Even
though there's still a lot of questions left to be answered, you've
eased my mind some."

"Where are you going?"

"To Las Vegas. I can't sit back and
wait. I've got to go looking for him."

Take me with you! Quinn wanted to say.
She'd go herself if she had the money.

"You'll call me as soon as you find
him?"

He nodded. "Better yet, I'll have him
call you himself." He waved and let himself out.

Quinn remained in the chair, staring
at her trembling hands. Las Vegas...what on earth...?

At least she knew he was still
alive.

Why didn't she feel better?

She sat there for she didn't know how
long, her mind almost blank. Finally she stood and shook off the
torpor. She couldn't give in to this. She had to keep
moving.

A walk. That was what she needed.
Fresh air to clear her head and help her think straight. As soon as
she stepped outside she headed for the student lot. It had become a
habit now, a compulsion: Whenever you're outside, check the lot.
Maybe you'll see Griffin easing through the gate.

She checked. No Cierra.

Quinn followed the walk around the
pond and found herself nearing the Science Center. She checked the
pocket of her coat for her wallet. Her security card was in it. She
thought: Why not? She needed a distraction, something to do with
her mind besides worry about Tim. Sorting, filing, setting up the
data on 9574 for analysis might distract her, make the time go
faster. Trying to study now would be nothing but wasted
effort.

And maybe Dr. Emerson would be there.
It was a good possibility. 9574 had become his life. You never knew
when you'd find him in the lab. She hoped he'd come in today. His
presence alone had a soothing effect on her. He was a deep-set rock
to cling to in all this chaos.

Up on the fifth floor, she passed Ward
C with her usual quick glance through the window to make sure all
was well within, then continued down the hall.

She stopped. Something had changed in
Ward C. She couldn't say what, but there was
something...

She walked back and looked again.
Immediately she knew what was different. There were eight patients
in Ward C today. A new burn victim had arrived since she'd last
been up here.

Quinn continued down the hall toward
the lab, wondering what catastrophe had befallen that poor
soul.

MONITORING

"I wish the hell I knew what they
talked about in there," Louis Verran said as he watched Timothy
Brown's father leave the dorm on the video monitor.

"Well," Kurt said, stretching
languidly after his flight back from Vegas, "you're the one who
wanted the bugs pulled from those two rooms."

"And a damn good thing I did, too! You
two guys have any idea how I felt when Brown's old man showed up
with that industrial espionage consultant? I damn near blew
lunch."

"Why? The rooms were clean. Nothing to
worry about."

"Oh, really? You two guys haven't
exactly been models of efficiency lately. You had to put Brown's
SLI back together and replace the headboard, cut the power to his
roommate's SLI, clean out all our bugs, and make like maids and
neaten everything up. That's a lot of stuff. You could've missed
something."

"But we didn't. And don't forget whose
idea it was to check out the girl's room."

"Okay, okay. I admit it. That was a
good thought."

A
damn
good thought. Verran rubbed a
hand across his queasy stomach. If Elliot hadn't checked Cleary's
room, they wouldn't have found the notes. And then when Brown's
father had shown up with that sweeper, Verran had quickly ordered
the power cut to
all
the SLI units in the building.

Not that the sweep would have picked
up the bugs anyway. The electrets were non-radiating. Plus, the
dorm phone taps were all off-premises.

Altogether a bad weekend, though,
spent worrying all night about who else the Brown kid might have
told. But nobody new had made any noise about it yet, so it was
pretty safe to assume that they'd managed to keep the lid on
everything.

The only ongoing risk would be Deputy
Ted Southworth. Verran knew the Ingraham's security measures rubbed
the Sheriff's department the wrong way—they saw Verran's crew as
some sort of vigilante force—but Southworth had had a special
hard-on for The Ingraham since the Prosser thing two years ago.
He'd asked an awful lot of pointed questions when Prosser had
disappeared and he'd made it clear he wasn't satisfied with the
answers.

He turned to Kurt. "You ditch the
rental good in Vegas?"

"Just like you said: Wiped clean as a
whistle and sitting smack dab in the middle of the MGM Grand
parking lot."

Verran nodded. Hide in plain sight.
That was the best way. The Vegas hotel lots were always loaded with
rented cars. It would be a long time before that one was picked up.
And when it was, no one would suspect a damn thing.

"All right then," he said, leaning
back. "I think we've got everything under control again. They all
think the kid has a gambling problem and is still alive and making
the scene in Vegas. The father's off our backs, looking for him out
in Nevada."

Kurt yawned and said, "All we've got
left to worry about is the girl. What do we do about
her?"

"We don't chase her around the anatomy
lab again," Verran said sharply. "That's for sure."

"Hey, Alston wanted me to bring her
in."

"Yeah, well, it's just as well you
flubbed it."

"I'd've had her if Emerson hadn't
wandered by."

The door to the control center opened
then, and Doc Alston walked in. He looked pale as he dropped
heavily into his usual seat.

"I've just been on the phone with
Senator Whitney and two of the board members."

"All at once?"

"A conference call." His
hand shook as he rubbed his high forehead. "And they are
not
happy—with either of
us. Not happy at all."

Verran felt his heart begin to hammer.
Two board members and the senator on the phone at once. Someone was
majorly pissed. And that someone could only be Johann Kleederman
himself.

As much as he disliked Alston, Verran
could not help feeling a twinge of sympathy for him.

"Did you explain?"

Alston nodded. "I explained my heart
out. Believe me, it's not easy explaining away two near disasters
in two years."

"Will they be...calling me next?" His
mouth went dry at the thought.

"I don't think so. I think I settled
everything."

If that was true,
he
owed
Alston.
But...

"They always want to blame someone,"
Verran said, watching Alston closely. "Who's getting the
blame?"

"I managed to spread it around. I told
them this has to be expected. If they want only the cream of the
intellectual crop, it's inevitable that every so often one member
of that crop is going to spot an inconsistency and follow it
up."

"And they bought it?"

"Of course. It's true, and the logic
is inescapable. They were somewhat mollified when I told them that
we intercepted Brown before he told his girlfriend much of
anything. I hope that is still true, Louis."

"Yeah. Truth is, I don't think we ever
had a real worry there. Turns out Cleary doesn't know squat. And it
also turns out a good thing Brown's father brought in his
electronics man yesterday. Cleary stood right there in that room
and heard him say there were no bugs. So even she's convinced her
boyfriend's cuckoo."

"Do we replace the bugs?" Elliot
said.

"Not yet. She's alone in the room, so
she doesn't do any talking anyway. And we've got the off-premises
tap on her phone. So I say we leave things as they are for the
moment." He looked at Alston. "You agree?"