The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [131]
Christine heard the woman leave. Tweedledum. For a time she wrestled with the name. Then she remembered. Dalrymple! Suddenly bits and pieces of information were swirling about in her head. Dalrymple condemning David. Dalrymple offering a bribe. Her mind, working sluggishly through bruised, swollen tissues, struggled to understand. Deep within her apprehension took hold and fueled the already unbearable pounding in her head. Dalrymple! Could she have been responsible? Nothing made sense. Nothing except that she had to find David. Had to talk to him. She tried to move, to reach the bedside phone. Her free hand touched it, then knocked it, clattering, to the floor.
She searched for the call button. They had pinned it somewhere. Where? Where had they said it was?
From the darkness over her bed drops of intravenous fluid flowed inexorably from the plastic bag, through the tubing, and into her chest.
Christine was fumbling through the bedclothes for the call button when her pain began to lessen. Deep within her an uncomfortable warmth took hold and spread. Thirty seconds alone at the nurses’ station were all Dotty Dalrymple had needed.
David … call David. Christine battled to maintain her resolve. Her eyelids closed, then refused to open again. So much to do, she thought. David … Sisterhood … so much to do. Her head sank back on the pillow. Her hand relaxed and fell to her side. Suddenly nothing seemed to matter. Nothing at all.
She listened for a time to the strange hum that filled the room. Then, with an inaudible sigh, she surrendered to the darkness.
Dalrymple motioned Armstrong to the chair next to David. Her brown eyes flashed hatred at both of them. Her sausagelike finger moved nervously against the trigger.
“Dorothy, please,” Armstrong begged. “We’ve come so far. Shared so much. You’re just overtired. Perhaps …”
“Oh, Peggy, just sit back and shut up,” she snapped.
David looked at Armstrong. “Peggy? You? But you’re a …”
“Doctor?” Armstrong filled in the word. “A few more years of studying, that’s all. Believe me, nursing school was easily as difficult.” She turned back to Dalrymple. “Dorothy, you know I’m on your side.”
“Are you? Are you really on anyone’s side but your own? It wasn’t you who went to see Beall. It’s not your name she associates with The Sisterhood. It’s not you whose life goes down the drain as soon as she talks to the police. I have much too much going for me to sit back and let that happen.”
“Then … then you really did it? You hired a killer?” Dalrymple nodded once. “Dorothy, how could you do a thing like that?”
“Don’t start getting high and mighty with me. Killing’s our game, isn’t it? You taught it to me. Now you draw your line one place and I draw mine another. You were perfectly willing to forge prescriptions and sacrifice Shelton here to save your precious Sisterhood. I’ll bet if you had gone to see Beall—if it had been your neck on the block—you would have done the same things to protect yourself as I did.”
Armstrong started to protest, but Dalrymple silenced her with a flick of the gun. She reached into her pocket and, smiling, withdrew a large syringe, filled to capacity. Then she checked her watch. “Two o’clock,” she said. “If my nurses are as efficient at their jobs as I have trained them to be, the I.V. you ordered on young Miss Beall should be up and running.”
Christine’s death sentence! David stared at Dalrymple with sudden panic. “What did you give her?” He shifted his feet for better leverage and began searching for an opening, however slight.
Dalrymple sensed the change and leveled the revolver at his face. “It would be useless to try anything.” She glanced again at her watch. “Besides, it’s too late.” She set the syringe on the table in front of him. “The two of you will be a murder/suicide,