Killer Move - Michael Marshall [121]
I did a fast tour around the floor and came up empty. Toward the end it occurred to me that she might have gone down to the exit on the ground floor and be waiting there. It occurred to me that this might even be the most likely explanation—Steph was sharp, good at cutting to what-happens-next—and that I was a total moron for not having thought of this in the first place.
I didn’t want to take the elevator down into the middle of the cop zone, so I went back to the far stairwell and clattered down that instead. I knew Steph hadn’t been at the north doors—or at least that she hadn’t been there ten minutes ago, because that’s the way I’d come in. Within a few minutes I’d established she wasn’t at the east doors, either.
Which left only the main entrance. I was going to have to go that way regardless.
I drifted quickly past the corridor that led to it. This area was less hectic now, though there remained a knot of people down at the end, including at least one person who looked like a reporter. I didn’t know whether Steph would have thought being surrounded by people was a good or a bad thing. She’d been very foggy when I saw her that morning, and I doubted the intervening time would have been enough to clear her head. I should have given her a better idea of what I’d been afraid of. I should have laid it out for her. It would have been easier to predict what she might do if I knew she understood.
I tried calling her cell again. As it rang I realized I was close to hyperventilating and tried to calm myself down.
Suddenly I heard her voice in my ear, querulous, dislocated. “Bill?”
“Steph? Where are you?”
“Cafeteria. Are . . . are you here yet?”
“Yes, I’m here at the hospital,” I said. “I’m here. It’s all good. Why . . . are you in the cafeteria?”
“I want everything to be right. And now is the time, yes? You always say that. Now is always the best time for action. Tomorrow starts now.”
“Steph—what are you talking about?” I was in movement again, searching the walls for signs, trying to find a map of the hospital. “Wanted what to be right?”
“Everything.” She sounded confused but determined, as if trying to piece complex matters together in a mind that wasn’t up to it. “He called, five minutes after you. And I thought it didn’t mean anything. It was just dumb. I was mad at you, that’s all. So sort it out.”
“Who called, honey?” I finally found a map and located the cafeteria on it—it was at the other end of the hospital. I got my bearings and started to hurry in that direction. “Who are you talking about?”
“You know,” she said reluctantly. “He said we should meet, talk. And I thought, yes, get it done. Wasn’t anything, anyway. I’m so sorry.”
And then I got it. “Nick’s here?”
Nick—a man who’d started working at her office six weeks before, around about the time this whole thing had started to be put in motion. Who’d just happened to run into my wife last night downtown. Who’d now called her to arrange a meeting, just a few minutes after I’d run from my house, and from Barclay, who doubtless had a phone and could have made a call.
“Yes.”
“Is he there with you now?”
“Getting coffees. He wanted to go somewhere else, but I said no way, my husband’s coming to see me. I’m staying right here in the hospital. I said that.”
“That’s right. That was a good thing to say. Stay there, Steph. Don’t move. Don’t drink anything he gives you. Do not go anywhere with him.”
I started to run.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
When I banged through the cafeteria