Fertile Ground (26 page)

A minute later she was standing in front of the anteroom. She unlocked the door, switched on the fluorescent light, and stepped inside. The current log was there, on the counter against the wall facing her. She found last year’s log on the shallow shelf beneath the upper cabinet.

She’d performed the embryo transfer on Naomi in late September; September would begin with day 244. She was paging backward through the log when the lights suddenly went out and she was engulfed in blackness.

Her heart stopped for a second, then lurched. She could feel the pounding in her chest, and her mouth was dry. It was probably an electrical outage, she told herself, no reason to be alarmed, but she stood absolutely still, straining to hear. Upstairs, her eyes would adjust to whatever reflected light was coming through the windows. Here in the basement there were no windows, just inky blackness that threatened to smother her.

For a long moment—maybe a minute, maybe more-there was no sound. Then she heard footsteps approaching. She turned toward the door and, in the small, rectangular window, saw a flash of light that illuminated a pair of eyes above a mask.

She muffled a scream with her hand. Though the eyes seemed to be staring directly at her, she realized that whoever was there might not have seen her at all. She dropped silently to the linoleum-riled floor, grateful that she was wearing her Reeboks. The eyes stared through the window for another moment, then disappeared.

She knew he’d be back when he didn’t find her anywhere else. He might still be standing at the door, listening, trying to make her think she was safe. She needed a weapon. The bottom cabinet she was leaning against was filled with beakers, syringes, vials. She held her breath as she opened the cabinet door, praying that a squeak wouldn’t betray her. The door opened soundlessly. She was flooded with relief and allowed herself to breathe.

She ran her trembling fingers across the shelf until they

touched a glass beaker. Grasping the vessel, she removed it gingerly from the shelf, using her other hand to make sure she didn’t topple anything in the beaker’s way.

She set the container down. Reaching higher, she locked her fingers around the drawer pull and slid it open. Inside the drawer her fingers located a wrapped syringe. She took it and wished that the lab had lethal fluids, but everything here was organic, life-promoting.

She heard the rattling of the doorknob.

She inhaled sharply. With the beaker in one hand and the syringe between her teeth, she moved, still crouching, toward the door to the lab. With her free hand she groped the wall, feeling for the doorframe. When she found it, she ran her hand along the edge and grabbed the knob. Twisting it as quietly as she could, she eased the door open and was moving into the lab when she bumped into a chair.

The noise thundered in her ears.

She froze. She looked behind her, and though she could see nothing, she could hear the click of a key turning in the lock and knew he’d heard her, too. She was shaking badly now and had tightened her grip on the beaker. Her heart was racing, and she could feel her pulse pounding in her throat and ears and head, but she couldn’t allow herself to panic, couldn’t allow fear to take over.

Another flash of light.

Move! she ordered herself.

Still crouching, she scurried away before the light flashed again and caught her. When she rounded the corner, she stood upright too quickly, and the blood rushed to her head. She was dizzy and couldn’t see, and she knew the lab was crowded with too much equipment here, all bulky, much of it with sharp angles. There was no place to hide.

She heard the squeak of the door to the hall opening, then footsteps in the anteroom.

Moving faster now, she felt her way around the lab, running her hands from one sterile hood to the other as she inched toward the back of the room.

Another flash of light told her he was in the lab.

She was standing in front of one of the incubators now. Next to it, against the wall, were the tall canisters of carbon dioxide. She slipped into the foot-wide gap between the side of the incubator and the canisters and set the beaker on the floor. She removed the syringe from her mouth and ripped off the wrapper, clenching her teeth and wincing at the raspy noise that split the silence. The syringe, plunger, and needle were already assembled. She held the unit in her left hand and picked up the beaker again in her right.

She waited.

A beam of light pierced the gray darkness and illuminated cabinets, a microscope, a chair. She guessed he was five feet away. She thought she could hear his breathing, or maybe it was her own. Her heart was beating so hard, so fast, that her chest felt as though it would explode.

The flashlight’s beam was dancing up and down and from side to side. It lit on the canisters. She pressed herself against the wall of the incubator and clutched the syringe just as she was impaled within the cone of light. She could see from the rebounding illumination that the intruder was wearing a surgical mask and gown.

She would have run, but he was blocking her exit. She smashed the beaker’s neck on the corner of the incubator. She held both arms tightly at her side.

The flashlight went off, plunging the room into darkness.

She heard a footstep. A moment later a gloved hand grabbed hers and wrested the jagged-edged beaker from her clenched fingers. The beaker dropped to the floor and shattered.

Air injected into a vein could be lethal, but she couldn’t even see, let alone pin down his arm. And his face was protected with a mask. She raised her left hand and lunged blindly with the syringe at where she thought his neck would be, hoping to stun him and gain a few seconds, but she was stabbing at air.

His hands circled her neck and squeezed. She tried to scream, but no sound emerged from her constricted throat. Gagging, she raised her hand again and jabbed wildly in

front of her with the syringe. This time she punctured something.

He grunted. She pulled her hand back and plunged the syringe. Again she punctured flesh. His grip loosened. She slipped her hands inside the circle of his arms and, with an abrupt movement, shoved upward and sideways, forcing his arms apart and easing the pressure on her neck, which was throbbing madly.

She groped upward, searching for his mask. When she touched it, she clawed at it. His hands pushed hers away, and he stepped backward. She shoved with all her might against his chest and knocked him off balance. She heard the thud of his fall, then an enraged cry.

Trying to slip past him, she stumbled over his legs and fell to her knees. She dropped the syringe and groped for it, but she couldn’t waste time searching for it. She jumped up and half ran along the aisle between the equipment. She was using her arms as antennae, trying to visualize with the aid of memory where everything was in the room, but she felt as though she was wading through a sea of darkness. When she slammed her hip into a counter, she cried out but didn’t stop.

She didn’t hear movement behind her and wondered if he was unconscious. After what seemed like an eternity, she was at the door that exited the anteroom. She jerked it open and ran out to her left, hugging the wall, running her hand along it to find the door to the staircase. Finally, she was there.

Inside the stairwell, she clutched the banister and climbed the stairs. The creaking of the door to the lower floor told her it was being opened. A second later she heard footsteps pounding on the linoleum stairs. She climbed faster, gasping for breath. Her throat was raw, aching.

She was near the top step when a hand grabbed her ankle. She yanked her leg free, then kicked swiftly and viciously behind her and made contact with something. She heard a moan.

She was on the ground floor. There was no electricity here, either, but to Lisa, the pale gray moonlight coming

through the glass doors in the lobby shone as bright as daylight. She ran into the nearest room, where the embryo transfers were performed. Looking around, she eyed the lamp sitting on the nightstand. She yanked the plug out of the socket and hurled the lamp at the window.

The glass splintered.

The alarm blared in her ears.

She ran across the hall to’ another staircase and climbed to the second floor and the operating rooms. Entering one of them, she tore open a sterile surgical pack, grabbed a scalpel, and crouched under the hospital bed in the middle of the room.

Minutes later the siren was still clanging in her ears. She didn’t hear the door opening, didn’t see him until he was standing in the doorway, playing the flashlight in the corners of the room. Come out, come out, wherever you are. She hugged her knees tightly to her chest and held her breath, as if that would make her invisible.

He was in the center of the room now, shining the light around the bed and under it. He stood there for a moment, then suddenly squatted, but she’d scrambled out from under the bed and was running toward the door.

She was halfway there when he caught her. She twisted free and whirled to face him, ready to plunge the scalpel into his chest. He screamed.

“Don’t, Lisa!”

She stared at Sam and dropped her hand to her side.

“I thought you were dead,” he said, his voice breaking. “I saw this guy in a surgical gown and mask running in the lobby. I thought—” He took a breath. “You’re all right?”

She nodded.

Gently, he loosened her fingers, which were still gripping the scalpel. He set it down on a table, then drew her close, and they stood for a moment without talking. The alarm was assaulting her ears, but when he took her hand and said, “Let’s wait outside,” she pulled back.

“What if he’s still here?” she whispered urgently.

“He’s not, I promise. He ran out the door into the street.”

She believed him, but she clung to him as he led her down the stairs to the lobby. She waited while he shut off the alarm, then went outside with him.

“I got your message and drove right over here,” he said. “Your car was in the lot, and the building was dark, and I heard the alarm—I knew something was wrong.”

She couldn’t stop shaking.

He tightened his arms around her. “I grabbed a flashlight from my glove compartment and entered the lobby.

That’s when I saw this guy. I tried to stop him, but he got away.” Sam’s shirt placket was torn. His hair was disheveled, his cheekbone scratched an angry red. “Thank God you’re okay,” he murmured.

She did thank God. She wondered whether her heartbeat would ever return to normal, whether she would ever stop trembling.

Sam said, “It happened” so fast, I couldn’t even tell whether he’s tall or short, heavy or slim. Nothing. What about you? Do you have any idea who attacked you?”

She shook her head and exclaimed at the pain that stabbed her skull. The back of her head was tender to her touch. She remembered being slammed against the side of the incubator. Her hip was throbbing, too. Her larynx was swollen. She probably had other bruises she wasn’t aware of. But she was alive.

“I was in the lab anteroom when all the lights went out. It was pitch black.” Her voice emerged like a croak. She could still feel the assailant’s hands around her neck, squeezing.

“Don’t talk.” Sam drew her closer. “Wait till the police come.” He winced, then rubbed his neck and looked at his hand. “I guess he roughed me up more than I realized. He stabbed me with something thin and sharp.”

She saw blood on his fingers. Rising on tiptoe, she noticed puncture marks on the left side of his neck. “He must have picked up the syringe I dropped,” she rasped. “Does it hurt a lot?”

“My ego, more than anything.” He smiled wanly, then nodded toward the parking-lot entrance. “The cops are here.”

She heard a siren wailing faintly in the distance, then louder. A minute later a black-and-white police vehicle pulled into the lot. Two uniformed male policemen exited the car and, with their hands on their weapons, approached Lisa and Sam.

“I’m Officer Reynaldo,” the taller of the two said, sounding cautious. He was slim and muscular and had long, dark sideburns. “This is Officer Morgan. We’re responding to an alarm.”

Sam introduced himself and Lisa. “We both work here at this clinic,” he began and told them what had happened.

She was grateful to have Sam do the talking. She watched as the two policemen, both of whom looked to be in their thirties, listened and took notes. Reynaldo asked for identification. Sam presented his driver’s license and a business card. Lisa told him her purse was in the lab. She’d forgotten all about it.

“Do you need medical assistance?” Reynaldo asked her.

She shook her head, setting off splinters of razor-sharp pain, and thanked him for asking.

The circuit breakers were in the basement, Sam told the officer. He led the way. He was using his flashlight, and the two policemen were using their high-powered ones, but Lisa still felt anxious and had to force herself to go down the dark staircase.

In the small control room, the policemen focused their flashlights on the control box while Sam examined the circuit breakers. A minute later, light was restored, and they all walked down the hall to the lab. Sam unlocked the door.

Her purse was where she’d left it, on the floor of the anteroom. She showed the policemen identification, then waited with Sam while they checked inside the lab.

“Not much to see,” Reynaldo said when he returned. “Some broken glass at the far end of the room.”

“I broke a beaker to make a weapon,” Lisa said. “He grabbed it from me.”

“If it was dark, how’d he see it?” Morgan asked. It was the first time he’d spoken.

“He had a flashlight. He tried to choke me.” Her hand went unconsciously to her neck. “I stabbed him with a syringe until he loosened his grip. Then I broke away.” She explained in detail what had taken place.

Reynaldo was nodding. “But neither you nor Dr. Davidson here can identify this guy ‘cause he was wearing a mask. Could you tell anything from his voice?” he asked Lisa.

“He never spoke.”

“What about his height?”

“I couldn’t tell. But he wasn’t short, judging from where his face was when I pulled at his mask.”