Last Breath (18 page)

Ann.

Ann had been doing these things to her, making her feel like she’d fallen through the looking glass, and pretending all along that she was concerned?

Why? Why would Ann do this?

The telephone rang in the outer office.

“Be right back,” Dr. Mandini said. “Don’t go anywhere,” she added, and laughed.

But I have to, Cassidy thought, struggling to sit up. I can’t stay here, in this bed, when I have things to do. Important things. I have to find my dear friend and roommate and find out why she’s making me crazy.

What was more important than finding out why someone was stealing your sanity? Your precious, valuable, absolutely essential mind?

When she slid off the table and tried to stand up, her legs folded underneath her as if they were made of paper. But she forced herself upright again, clinging to the edge of the bed. Grateful that she was still fully dressed, but wishing they’d left her boots on, she grabbed her purse from a chair beside the bed, let go of the table and struck out across the cold white tile in her bare feet, weaving unsteadily as she went.

The infirmary was so quiet, so deserted, except for the doctor, standing at the telephone with her back to Cassidy’s cubicle. There was no sign of the other doctor.

I’m not insane, I’m not insane, Cassidy singsonged jubilantly under her breath as she padded quietly, drunkenly, out of the room, down the hall, and out a side door. I’m as sane as anyone. It’s a miracle, a miracle!

No, it’s not, you silly twit, she reminded herself. You were never insane in the first place, so it’s not a miracle at all.

Well, it felt like one.

The sidewalk outside the infirmary was icy-cold on her bare feet. Won’t do to catch a cold now, she thought giddily, can’t get sick, have things to do. Big things. Unmasking a criminal. Ann
was
a criminal. A mind is a terrible thing to steal.

It seemed to her as she slowly, unsteadily, made her way toward the Quad, looming in the distance, that campus had never looked more beautiful. The old-fashioned globes on poles lining the walkways provided a warm, soft glow, and there were enough leaves left on the huge old trees to give her some shelter from a thin, chilly drizzle that had begun to fall.

She wrapped her arms around her chest for warmth and murmured softly, “Now that I know my brain isn’t rotting, I guess I love campus again. I guess I love just about everything again.” Then she added angrily, clutching at a park bench for support as she passed it, “Except Ann. I don’t love Ann. Not anymore.”

It seemed to her that there was something more she was supposed to figure out, but she couldn’t think what it was. Oh, yes…the why of it. Why would Ann, who had been her friend since day one on campus, do this terrible thing to her? Travis? Was it because of Travis?

But that was very confusing, because Travis had kissed off Cassidy Kirk for good, hadn’t he? So what was Ann worried about?

Idon’tknowIdon’tknowIdon’tknow, Cassidy thought as she stumbled over a fire hydrant and nearly fell to her knees.

“Watch where you’re going!” she told the hydrant, and was thinking how far away the Quad still seemed to be when a car pulled up a few feet from her and parked. A tall figure in white jumped out and began running toward her.

“There you are!” a voice called, and Cassidy halted, curious. Of course here I am, she thought, watching as the figure approached, where else would I be? “Dr. Mandini has been looking all over for you! What in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing, young lady?”

Cassidy tried to focus her fuzzy vision. Someone tall, all dressed in white, was running up to her. White mask over the lower half of its face, a white surgical cap over its hair. A doctor, coming toward her.

Cassidy peered at the white jacket when it arrived at her side. A plastic tag pinned there read,
“Dr. Robert Caswell, M.D.”

“
You are
Cassidy Kirk, are you not?” a deep voice said in annoyance.

Cassidy nodded. The tone of voice told her she should probably feel guilty, but she wasn’t sure why. Why was he mad at her?

“I want you to know, young lady,” the doctor said, “that I was about to stitch up a severely lacerated forearm when Dr. Mandini came running in and told me you’d taken off on us. You’ve been medicated, and you have no business roaming around campus. Now, come with me.”

“I’m not roaming,” Cassidy said indignantly. “I’m going back to my room. To find Ann. If you ask me,
she’s
the one you should be yelling at, not me. I haven’t done anything wrong, but
she
has.”

But he had already taken her elbow and was leading her back to his car. She didn’t have the strength to resist. Maybe, once they were in the car, she could talk him into just dropping her off at the Quad. She was awfully sleepy. Maybe she’d have to wait until tomorrow to do whatever it was she was supposed to be doing. Something about Ann…Ann Ataska, her dear friend and roommate…what was it?

“You young people!” the doctor said in an exasperated voice, “never a thought for anyone but yourselves. Upsetting the whole infirmary, taking me away from my patient, it’s disgraceful.”

“You’re not as nice as the other doctor,” Cassidy announced loudly. “I like her better.”

And then they were at the parked car and Cassidy looked over at it and there was something about it, something that chilled her blood, something really, really wrong…

Black, tinted windows, and there they were, the two dangling hearts on the door.

Couldn’t be, couldn’t, couldn’t. Because there was something in her cottony mind about the doctor who owned the TransAm being dead, dead for a whole year, and didn’t she already know that there wasn’t another car like it anywhere on campus? This car was supposed to be safely parked in a garage.

“This is
not
your car!” she said in a haughty voice, pulling away from the hand on her elbow, “and I’m
not
riding in a stolen car!”

Then it was too late, because the rough voice said, “Oh, yes, you are!” and grabbed her elbow more tightly and pushed her not into the front seat or the backseat, but around to the back of the car. A hand reached out and lifted the open trunk lid, another hand pushed hard on the small of Cassidy’s back, shoving her into the yawning space. She cried out, but she was already toppling forward, into the trunk. She landed, facedown, on rough, moldy-smelling carpet.

She cried out again as the lid slammed shut. And then she was alone in the closed trunk of the TransAm.

S
TUNNED, CASSIDY LAY WITH
her cheek against the rough carpet as the car began moving. She fought fiercely to think, but her head was spinning. Not a doctor, he wasn’t a doctor, he couldn’t be, he had only pretended to be. And this wasn’t his car. How had he taken it from Professor Benham’s garage?

Where were they going? Was the car leaving campus? It seemed to be moving very slowly.

Probably doesn’t want to get a ticket, Cassidy thought, trying desperately to clear her head. I am a prisoner in the trunk of a car being driven by a fine, upstanding citizen who avoids traffic tickets…but has nothing against kidnapping.

Prisoner. She was a prisoner? And the smell in her prison was beginning to get to her. Moldy. Airless. Not good for her. Not good at all.

Think, think! she urged her brain. Now that you know you haven’t lost your mind, never
were
losing it, you can figure a way out of this mess. But you have to think!

Her chest was already beginning to ache. Reaching down beside her for her shoulder bag, she felt nothing. Her fingers clutched, searched, but it wasn’t there. Oh, no! He must have grabbed it from her before he closed the trunk lid. The purse, and her precious inhaler, were gone.

She couldn’t see a thing, but she began feeling around with her hands. There, a pile of something soft and damp, with a strong mildewy smell. Towels? Wet towels?

Cassidy sagged back against the spare tire well. Those towels weren’t the result of a gym workout. Someone who knew her well, knew she was severely allergic to mold and mildew, had deliberately put those towels in the trunk. In only minutes, she would be wheezing and coughing. And she didn’t have her inhaler.

She struggled upward again and used her hands to search the trunk. There had to be something…her fingers touched something small and wooden. A handle? Smooth, worn. Her hand moved along its short surface, touching metal when it reached the end. A metal plate…a garden tool…something to dig with? Beside it, a cylindrical metal can…insecticide?…and a half-empty bag of what felt like dirt.

Garden supplies.

Cassidy struggled to remember what Dr. Mandini had said about the owner of the car. “He grows the most beautiful roses in this county.”

There were other things in the trunk, rope, a small pile of newspapers, an old jacket that Cassidy wrapped around her for warmth. But she kept one hand on the garden tool with the short wooden handle, and the other on the can of what she hoped was insecticide.

She had already started to wheeze. The wet towels were getting to her. and there had to be a ton of dust, another allergen that gave her serious problems, in the trunk of a seldom-used car.

She had to get out of this trunk.

The car came to an abrupt halt.

Cassidy waited, gripping the garden tool and the can, for the trunk to open.

It didn’t. It remained closed. But a moment later, a muffled voice called, “Cassidy? You in there?” and laughed softly. “Like, where else would you be, right?”

Cassidy didn’t recognize the voice. She was beginning to wheeze, and calling out to the voice was going to take precious energy.

“Not dead yet?” the voice said. Cassidy could picture a head bent toward the trunk, mouth close to the metal lid. “Talk to me, if you can, so I’ll know if I have to keep driving around. Waste of gas if you’re already done for.”

“Let me out!” Cassidy called, her lungs straining when she spoke. The wheezing was growing worse. She kicked the pile of towels into a far corner, knowing that wouldn’t help.

“Can’t do that. Letting air into your little corner of the world would defeat my purpose. But that awful sound you’re making, trying to breathe, is nice to hear. Honestly, Cassidy, that is just about the worst noise I have ever heard! But it means that it won’t be that long before you take your last breath, right? Maybe I’ll even have time for a quick, healthy jog after I take the car back.”

Cassidy crawled over to the edge of the trunk and slammed the can in her hand against the inside of the lid. “Please,” she croaked, “please, I need my inhaler!”

Then, to her amazement, a key turned in the lock, and the lid lifted, only a few inches, but enough to send a whiff of cool, fresh air drifting into the trunk. Cassidy gulped it in gratefully. It helped a little.

A moment later, the plastic inhaler appeared in front of her, close enough to see, but not close enough to grab. “You mean this?” the voice taunted. “Is this what you need, Cassidy? Well, I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. It would save your life, and that’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

“I…need…that…inhaler!” Cassidy muttered. The trunk lid was only open a few inches. Her captor was obviously holding it in place. But it wasn’t tied and it wasn’t chained. It was now or never, before the trunk lid slammed shut again, this time permanently.

Her lungs ached and the wheezing had grown worse, but Cassidy threw herself onto her back, lifted her legs with great effort and kicked upward with as much force as she could muster, sending the lid flying open all the way.

There was an exclamation of surprise from outside the trunk. In a voice no longer disguised, Cassidy’s tormentor shouted, “You weren’t supposed to have enough energy to do that!”

Even before Cassidy peered out of the trunk, she knew who the voice belonged to. She had heard it often enough.

So, when hands reached up to untie the white mask and let it fall, and slip the white cap off the mass of golden hair that tumbled to the strong, healthy shoulders of an athlete, Cassidy was not the least bit surprised to see Talia Quick’s enraged face staring down at her.

“Y
OU?” CASSIDY ASKED AS
Talia stared down at her. “I thought it was Ann.” But everything that she had thought about Ann applied to Talia, as well, she realized quickly. Except…except for the car. “You were one of the students Professor Benham hired to drive her car? To keep it running?”

“I made a copy of the key the first time I drove the car. And I told her I’d come around and take it for a spin whenever I could. She’s hardly ever home. Doesn’t even know it’s gone half the time.” Talia sat down on the edge of the trunk, shaking her hair back into place. “I’ve kept it overnight twice, and she never said a word. She has her own car.” Her rage gone, Talia talked as if they were having an ordinary, everyday conversation. Cassidy’s painful wheezing deepened, and the sight of the inhaler clutched in Talia’s hand filled her with renewed desperation. It was so close, but she knew if she lunged for it, Talia would slam the trunk lid down. “What did you do with my bike? And where did you get its twin? And why didn’t you pass Travis? Why didn’t he see you?”

“I came back after you trotted off down the road. Put the twin, which I found through the Twin Falls classifieds, and then did make some minor adjustments to, on the road, and stuck yours in the trunk. It’s resting comfortably in the old quarry at the state park. And Travis didn’t see me, because I didn’t pass him. There’s a cutoff just before you get to that second curve.”

Struggling to draw every single breath, Cassidy gasped, “But you were with Sophie at the mall that day…helping her pick out a dress for the dance.”

“No, I wasn’t. If you’d been listening on the shuttle afterward, you’d have heard Sophie boast that she picked out her dress all by herself. She was so pleased, but you didn’t even hear her. We separated right after you left. I’d already parked the car behind the mall that morning and taken the shuttle back to campus. After we played our little game, I drove the car around behind the mall, parked it again, and met Sophie at the sporting-goods store where she thought I’d been shopping. Later that night, when everyone was asleep, I just hopped the shuttle again to the mall and brought the car back to campus.”