No one came near me for the rest of the night. It was sheer torture lying there bound and helping with Dekim’s words playing and replaying in my head. There had to be something I could do. If only I could talk him into releasing me, then I could find another weapon… even if it WAS another bedpan

Impossible. He’d never release me. Why would he? He was just taking his time in making me suffer.

The door opened and a man stood in the doorway, his dark profile outlined against the bright lights in the corridor. He was carrying a canvas bag. Not Dekim. Not the Orderly. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew who it was. Heero.

He closed the door and came toward me, stopping near enough for me to be able to make out his face. It was no more reassuring than the first time I had seen laid eyes on him in Tenajo. Why as it so frightening? Maybe because he looked as cold as ice, but whatever it was I couldn’t take me eyes off him, and the more I looked, the more terrified I became.

“Do you know why I am here?”

“Dekim sent you to do his dirty work… Right?”

“Dekim sent me to kill you.”

I open my mouth to scream, but he quickly covered it.

“I didn’t say I was going to do it.”

I bit him HARD.

“Kuso.” He jerked his hand away.

I could taste the copper of his blood in my mouth as I once again opened my mouth to scream. This time he hit me. The room began spinning around me.

“I could have just as well have knocked you out, but I don’t want to carry you. You’ve caused me enough trouble.”

I realized vaguely that he was unbuckling the straps. Why…?

He unzipped the canvas bag, pulled out jeans, shirt, tennis shoes, and tossed them beside me. “No disturbance. Everything must go smoothly. Get dressed.”

I slowly sat up, “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting you out of here.

“Why?”

“Do you want me to strap you back down?”

“I don’t know why I should go anywhere with a guy who just hit me.”

“Because you don’t have much of a choice. And if you cause me too much trouble, I’ll drop you by the wayside.”

Reassuring. I thought bitterly. But he was right, I am better off now than I was a few moments ago. I started pulling on the jeans. I was so weak I could barely stand. “What make you think that you can get me out of here?”

“I told him that I’d take care of you somewhere away from here.”

“What about Quatre? He said he killed him.” I looked up holding my breath. “Did he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You HAVE to know! You work for that bastard, you were at Tenajo!”

Heero shrugged. “Dekim doesn’t want his left hand knowing what his right hand is doing. I only knew about you because I was the one who brought you in. I didn’t see your friend, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t brought in later.”

I fought my panic and despair. Heero could be lying too. “How about Iris?”

“Who?”

“There was a baby girl. She was alive.”

“She was brought in a few hours after you.”

My gaze flew to him. “Where? Is she still alive?”

He nodded. “Three doors down.”

My initial joy immediately changed to fear. Quatre wouldn’t have left Iris if he could possibly help it.

“Then Quatre must have been with her.”

He shook his head.

“He wouldn’t have left her!”

“He wasn’t brought in with the kid. Now hurry up.”

“Who are you?”

“Heero Yuy.”

“I know that. Who… why would you want to help me?”

“You’re in my way.” The words were said with such indifference that I felt a chill go through me.

“He trusts you that much to let us walk out of here like this?”

“He doesn’t trust me at all. But he knows I’m efficient in what I do.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what skills Heero excelled in. I pulled on and buttoned the shirt and slipped on the shoes. “Then its reasonable he’d talk about Quatre to you.”

“No, it’s not.”

“He said he was dead.”

”Then he might be.”

“You must know-“

“We’re out of here.” He headed for the door. “Keep your mouth shut and stay close to me.”

I didn’t move.

“Would you rather stay here and wait for Dekim?”

As he said that, I knew I didn’t have a choice. I’d go along until I could find a way to escape.

I blinked as I stepped into the bright corridor. It was after midnight and the corridor was empty. Three nurses were gathered at a nurses’ station by a bank of elevators. “Won’t they stop us?” I whispered.

“They know that you’ve been checked out of here. They won’t argue.”

It seemed impossible that in a matter of minutes I would be out of here. I glanced down the hall. Only three doors away from Iris. It was only a matter of yards, but yet the idea of crossing that distance scared me to death.

“Chotto matte!”

“Wait? Hell…” he said through clenched teeth as he grabbed my elbow, “Come on.”

“Do you think I want to stay here?” I spat. “But I’m not going to leave Iris. If you can get me out you can get her out.”

“I’m not going to risk-“

“I’m not going without her.” I started quickly down the hall, and to my surprise he followed.

I opened to door to Iris’s room. It was dark inside, but I was still able to make out the showy outline of a crib. Heero closed the door and turned on the light.

I gasped. Iris, sound asleep, was hooked up to an IV bottle and looked too pale.

“I thought you said she was alright.” I whispered.

“She’s healthy enough.” Heero disconnected the IV. “Dekim didn’t trust any of the hospital personnel to take care of her, so he warned them that she was contagious. He didn’t want anyone becoming too attached to her.”

Clearly there was no danger of that happening with Heero. “So he stuck tubes in her. Just look at her. The son of a bitch drugged her.”

“Good. Maybe we’ll be able to get out of here without getting our heads blown off. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He left the room and returned seconds later with the canvas bag that had held the clothes he gave me.

“Give her to me.”

“I’ll do it.” I carefully laid her in the bag and stuffed some diapers and a blanket in with her. It was a tight fit. “Do we have to zip it?”

“Hai.” He was already zipping the bag. “Let’s go.”

“But what if there’s not enough air for her-“

“Go.” He pushed me through the door and down the hall, carrying the bag as if it weighed nothing swinging it slightly. “Go straight for the elevators. Don’t even look at the nurses. Things have been going on that worry them, and I make them uneasy. They’ll probably try to ignore me.”

He was right. The nurses immediately became very busy as Heero and I approached the desk. When we were finally in the elevators I unzipped the bag a few inches. “She might not be able to breathe.”

He shook his head but didn’t stop me. He punched the lobby button. “I have a jeep parked in the front. We may be challenged at the gate, but I have credentials and I made sure the guards at the gates know me. It should go smoothly.”

Smoothly. He had used that word before. Everything had to be neat and tidy.

The door opened, and Heero took my elbow, nudging me forward into the deserted lobby. We passed the emergency fire stairs. We walked out the door and climbed into the jeep.

Four floors down.

He’s dead.

Heero turned on the ignition.

No!

I jumped out of the jeep. “I can’t leave yet. I have to go to the morgue. Quatre might be there.”

“Oh no. NOT again.” His hand closed on my arm. “You don’t go anywhere but out that gate.”

“I have to find out if he lied to me!”

“The hell you do. The morgue is a sensitive area and its guarded.”

“Don’t you understand? I have to know.” I jerked away from him, darted back into the lobby, and ran toward the fire stairs. I heard him cursing behind me as I ran down the concrete steps and threw open the basement door. Around the curve at the end of the corridor a soldier stood in front of the double doors to the morgue. He raised his rifle.

Heero knocked me aside and dove for the soldier’s knees. He went down and Heero straddled him. He struck downward with the edge of his hand, and the soldier went limp.

Heero glared at me. “Damn you to hell.”

He was angry. Things weren’t going smoothly for him any longer. “I have to know.” I stood up and moved toward the doors.

“Wait.” He got to his feet and pushed me aside again. He went in ahead of me.

A gangly white-coated attendant jumped up from behind the reception desk. “Who are you? No one is allowed-“

“Shut up.” Heero ordered. “Get down on the floor.”

Heero’s hand chopped down on the side of his neck and the attendant slumped forward.

“Come on,” Heero said as he headed for the door next to the desk. “Let’s finish this and get out of here.”

I followed him into a room of stainless steel and glass-fronted cabinets full of instruments. An autopsy room. I could feel the chill begin to run through me already.

“No bodies.” Heero said. “Can we get out of here now?”

I tried to swallow to ease the tension from my throat. “He said…. He was in a drawer.” I walked slowly toward the white metal door at the far end of the room. Heero got there before me. He pushed open the door. I saw two refrigerated drawers set in the far wall. Drawing a deep breath, I forced myself to walk toward them.

“Only two. Good. At least, that will save time.” Heero stood beside the drawer on the left. “I think you should know that Dekim received an autopsy report this morning.”

My gaze flew to his face. “You said you didn’t know whether-“

“I don’t know who the report was on. I don’t ask Dekim questions.” His face was expressionless. “Have you ever seen a body after an autopsy?” I shook my head. “It’s not pleasant. I don’t want you fainting and forcing me to carry you out of here.”

Oh no, that would cause a ripple in his plans.

He reached for the drawer pull. “I’ll look for you.”

I stopped him. “I don’t trust you.”

He shrugged and stepped back. “Suit yourself.”

I drew another deep breath and reached for the pull. The door slid open easily.

Empty.

Relief poured through me. I shut the drawer then moved to the next one. Please God, let this be empty too, I prayed desperately. I could feel Heero’s gaze on me as I reached for the pull.

Let it be a lie.

Please…

The drawer slid out as easily as the first one.

But it was not empty.

My stomach heaved as I whirled away from the drawer. I barely missed the sink in the next room before I threw up.

“I told you it wasn’t pretty.” Heero stood beside me, his hand on my waist supporting me. “If you’d listened to me, you wouldn’t have had-“

“Shut up.”

“Was it your friend?”

I shook my head.

He turned away. “Wash your face. I want you looking normal when we go through those gates.”

I automatically turned on the water and started splashing water on my face.

“Open the door.” Heero was dragging the guard from the outside through the autopsy room.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t want him found right away.” He shouldered the door open himself and pulled the guard toward the refrigerated drawers.

“Is he dead?”

Heero nodded.

“Did you have to kill him?”

“No, but it was surer.” He pulled out the empty drawer, fitted the guard inside and slammed it shut. “Dead men don’t get in the way.”

Cold, calm, without expression or feeling. “What about the morgue attendant?”

“He’s alive. I tied him up and put him in the broom closet down the hall.”

“Why didn’t you kill him too?”

Heero shrugged. “He’s only a scared rabbit. No threat.” He took a towel from beside the sink. “Stand still.”

“What are-“ He was rubbing my left cheek with the towel. I knocked his hand aside and stepped back. “Stop that.”

He tossed me the towel. “Do the other cheek. You need color. You’re too pale.

And everything must look normal everything must go smoothly. Nevermind the dead body stuffed in the drawer. Nevermind all the lives that had been snuffed out.

“Do it. We have to get out of here. I left your Iris in the jeep and there’s a chance that she might wake up and start howling.”

Iris. Yes, I had to think of Iris.

I scrubbed my right cheek with the towel then threw it on the counter.

He picked it up and hung it neatly on the rack. “Let’s go.”

Within a few minutes we had climbed into the jeep and reached the guard post at the high gate surrounding the facility.

“Keep your mouth shut.” Heero leaned forward so that the light fell full on his face as the guard came out of the booth. “Open the gates.”

The guard hesitated.

“What are you waiting for? You know me,” Heero said. “Open the gates.”

The guard gazed uneasily past him at me and then at the canvas bag at my feet. “I’ve no instructions about a woman leaving the facility.”

“I’m giving them to you now. Open the gates.” Heero smiled. “Or better still, let’s call Dekim. Of course, waking him will make him very angry. Almost as angry as this delay is making me.”

The guard hurriedly stepped back and pushed the lever to open the gates. Heero pressed the accelerator, and the jeep leaped forward. The gates closed behind us.

“Will they call Dekim?” I asked as I reached down for the bag. I unzipped it and lifted Iris into my arms. She was still sleeping deeply.

“Maybe.” He pressed the accelerator harder. “Although Dekim wouldn’t be surprised that I took you away from here. He wanted it to be clean. But everything will be blown the minute they discover the kid missing and the guard in the morgue.”

A chill went through me. Very little had been clean and smooth and neat. And the fool that I was, I was driving away from the hospital with a killer. “Where are we going?”

He glanced at me and bared his teeth in a smile. “Scared? Good. You just sit there and think about it. At the moment I can’t think of anyone whose neck I’d like to break as much as yours. I might have gotten around killing that guard but you had to take the damn kid, didn’t you?”

“Yes I did.” For some reason his anger caused some of my fear to ebb. After watching the cool precision with which he had killed the guard, I doubted if threats were part of his modus operandi. If he really intended to kill me, he would just do it.

I hoped.

So I repeated, “Where are we going?”

“Away from San Andreas. Now, go to sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

“You think I’d trust you to enough to go to sleep? You just said you wanted to break my neck.”

”It was only a passing thought. And you decided that I didn’t mean it, didn’t you?”

He read me too well. His perceptiveness made me uneasier than his viciousness. “I believe you are capable of anything.”

“I am. So shut up and don’t provoke me.”

“Why did you help me leave that place?”

His hands clenched the steering wheel. “I’ll make a bargain with you. If you’ll just keep your damn mouth shut and let me think, I’ll answer your questions once we get there.”

“Get where?”

“Tenajo.”

I stared at him in shock. “Why are we going there?”

“After we get there.”

“Now.”

“My God you are stubborn.” He turned and stared directly into my eyes. “I’d think you’d want to go back. The last time you saw your friend was in Tenajo.”

“He can’t still be there.”

“Then maybe he left a message for you. Do you have anywhere else to start looking?”

“I could start with you. What do you know about Quatre?”

“If you don’t shut up I’ll gag you until we get there.”

This was no threat. He meant what he said. “How far are we from Tenajo?”

“Three hours.”

I slowly settled back in the seat and cradled Iris’s small, warm body closer. Three hours and she’d be back in Tenajo. The knowledge swept over me like a dark cloud. Hold on. It would be all right. Don’t start shaking.

Had the dogs stopped howling?

***************

We reached the hill overlooking Tenajo. The same place where Quatre stopped that first day.

No lights.

No movements.

No sound.

“What happened to the dogs?”

“The public health team swept through here yesterday. They rounded up all the pets and are keeping them under observation to make sure they aren’t carriers. When the relatives of the dead are notified, they’ll be given a chance to adopt the pets.” He smiled cynically. ”It’s one of those humane gestures that make politicians look good.”

“The relatives haven’t been notified yet?”

Heero shrugged. “An entire town wiped out isn’t small potatoes. The government wants facts before it exposes itself to the media.”

“They want to cover it up.”

“Probably.”

“What are they covering up? A nuclear waste foul up?”

“No.”

“It wasn’t cholera.”

“No, but that’s what the CDC report will say.”

“How could-“ Then I remembered the man pouring something into the fountain. “You cont

aminated the water yourself.”

He nodded.

“If it wasn’t a waste foul up, what happened at Tenajo?”

“Don’t you want to go looking for your friend.”

He had hit the one objective that was sure to distract me. Smart. Very smart. Every moment I was with him I was becoming more and more aware of the intelligence behind that frightening face.

“Why have you come back?”

“Where do you want me to drop you?”

“Third house on the right.” Where Quatre had found Iris, the little girl who had beaten the odds. My arms tightened around the baby. “Were there any other survivors?”

Heero shook his head. “Just you.”

“I mean any other towns people beside Iris?”

“Not that I know about.” He stopped the jeep. “When you finish searching come to the plaza, I’ll pick you up there.”

I got out. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll run away?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’d find you.”

The absolute certainty in his voice unnerved me. I felt a rush of fear that I tried to smother. “Why are you here? What are you looking for?”

“Money.”

I stared at him in bewilderment. “Money?”

“If you find any don’t touch it. It’s mine.”