Part 2 (1/2)
”And where is that, exactly?”
”Bas.e.m.e.nt, at the back.”
”How many exits are there from the bas.e.m.e.nt?”
”Only one, the staircase up to the main lobby, right here.”
A maintenance man standing nearby contradicted him. ”There's a ladder in the pool machine room that leads up to an access hatch at the back of the building.”
Jeannie caught the officer's attention and said: ”I think my friend may still be inside there.”
”Man or woman?”
”Woman of twenty-four, short, blond.”
”If she's there, we'll find her.”
For a moment Jeannie felt rea.s.sured. Then she realized he had not promised to find her alive.
The security man who had been in the locker room was nowhere to be seen. Jeannie said to the fire officer: ”There was another guard down there, I don't see him anywhere. Tall guy.”
The lobby guard said: ”Ain't no other security personnel in the building.”
”Well, he had a hat with ”Security' written on it, and he was telling people to evacuate the building.”
”I don't care what he had on his hat-”
”Oh, for Pete's sake, stop arguing!” Jeannie snapped. ”Maybe I imagined him, but if not his life could be in danger!”
Standing listening to them was a girl wearing a man's khaki pants rolled up at the cuffs. ”I saw that guy, he's a real creep,” she said. ”He felt me up.”
The fire officer said: ”Keep calm, we'll find everyone. Thank you for your cooperation.” He walked off.
Jeannie glared at the lobby guard for a moment. She felt the fire officer had dismissed her as a hysterical woman because she had yelled at the guard. She turned away in disgust. What was she going to do now? The firemen ran inside in their helmets and boots. She was barefoot and wearing a T-s.h.i.+rt. If she tried to go in with them they would throw her out. She clenched her fists, distraught. Think, think! Where else could Lisa be? Think, think! Where else could Lisa be?
The gymnasium was next door to the Ruth W. Acorn Psychology Building, named after the wife of a benefactor but known, even to faculty, as Nut House. Could Lisa have gone in there? The doors would be locked on Sunday, but she probably had a key. She might have run inside to find a laboratory coat to cover herself or just to sit at her desk and recover. Jeannie decided to check. Anything was better than standing here doing nothing.
She dashed across the lawn to the main entrance of Nut House and looked through the gla.s.s doors. There was no one in the lobby. She took from her pocket the plastic card that served as a key and swiped it through the card reader. The door opened. She ran up the stairs, calling: ”Lisa! Are you there?” The laboratory was deserted. Lisa's chair was tucked neatly under her desk, and her computer screen was a gray blank. Jeannie tried the women's rest room at the end of the corridor. Nothing. ”d.a.m.n!” she said frantically. ”Where the h.e.l.l are you?”
Panting, she hurried back outside. She decided to make a tour of the gymnasium building, in case Lisa was just sitting on the ground somewhere catching her breath. She ran around the side of the building, pa.s.sing through a yard full of giant garbage cans. At the back was a small parking lot. She saw a figure jogging along the footpath, heading away. It was too tall to be Lisa, and she was pretty sure it was a man. She thought it might be the missing security guard, but he disappeared around the corner of the Student Union before she could be sure.
She continued around the building. At the far side was the running track, deserted now. Coming full circle, she arrived at the front of the gym.
The crowd was bigger, and there were more fire engines and police cars, but she still could not see Lisa. It seemed almost certain that she was still in the burning building. A sense of doom crept over Jeannie, and she fought it. You can't just let this happen! You can't just let this happen!
She spotted the fire officer she had spoken to earlier. She grabbed his arm. ”I'm almost certain Lisa Hoxton is in there,” she said urgently. ”I've looked everywhere for her.”
He gave her a hard look and seemed to decide she was reliable. Without answering her, he put a two-way radio to his mouth. ”Look out for a young white female believed to be inside the building, named Lisa, repeat Lisa.”
”Thank you,” Jeannie said.
He nodded curtly and strode away.
Jeannie was glad he had listened to her, but still she could not rest. Lisa might be stuck in there, locked in a toilet or trapped by flames, screaming for help unheard; or she might have fallen and struck her head and knocked herself out or succ.u.mbed to the fumes and be lying unconscious with the fire creeping closer by the second.
Jeannie remembered the maintenance man saying there was another entrance to the bas.e.m.e.nt. She had not seen it as she ran around the outside of the gym. She decided to look again. She returned to the back of the building.
She saw it immediately. The hatch was set into the ground close to the building, partly hidden by a gray Chrysler New Yorker. The steel trapdoor was open, leaning against the building wall. Jeannie knelt by the square hole and leaned down to look inside.
A ladder led down to a dirty room lit by fluorescent tubes. She could see machinery and lots of pipes. There were wisps of smoke in the air, but not thick clouds: it must be closed off from the rest of the bas.e.m.e.nt. Nevertheless the smell of the smoke reminded her of how she had coughed and choked as she had searched blindly for the staircase, and she felt her heart beat faster at the memory.
”Is anybody there?” she called.
She thought she heard a sound but she could not be sure. She shouted louder. ”h.e.l.lo?” There was no reply.
She hesitated. The sensible thing to do would be to return to the front of the building and grab a fireman, but that could take too long, especially if the fireman decided to question her. The alternative was to go down the ladder and take a look.
The thought of reentering the building made her legs weak. Her chest still hurt from the violent spasms of coughing caused by the smoke. But Lisa might be down there, hurt and unable to move, or trapped by a fallen timber, or just pa.s.sed out. She had to look.
She steeled her nerve and put a foot on the ladder. Her knees felt weak and she almost fell. She hesitated. After a moment she felt stronger, and she took a step down. Then a breath of smoke caught in her throat, making her cough, and she climbed out again.
When she had stopped coughing, she tried again.
She went down one rung, then two. If the smoke makes me cough, I'll just come right out again, she told herself. The third step was easier, and after that she went down quickly, jumping off the last rung onto the concrete floor.
She found herself in a big room full of pumps and filters, presumably for the swimming pool. The smell of smoke was strong, but she could breathe normally.
She saw Lisa right away, and the sight made her gasp.
She was lying on her side, curled up in the fetal position, naked. There was a smear of what looked like blood on her thigh. She was not moving.
For a moment Jeannie was rigid with fear.
She tried to get hold of herself. ”Lisa!” she shouted. She heard the shrill overtone of hysteria in her own voice and took a breath to keep calm. Please, G.o.d, let her be all right. Please, G.o.d, let her be all right. She made her way across the room, through the tangle of pipework, and knelt beside her friend. ”Lisa?” She made her way across the room, through the tangle of pipework, and knelt beside her friend. ”Lisa?”
Lisa opened her eyes.
”Thank G.o.d,” Jeannie said. ”I thought you were dead.”
Slowly Lisa sat up. She would not look at Jeannie. Her lips were bruised. ”He...he raped me,” she said.
Jeannie's relief at finding her alive was replaced by a sick feeling of horror that gripped her heart. ”My G.o.d. Here?”
Lisa nodded. ”He said this was the way out.”
Jeannie closed her eyes. She felt Lisa's pain and humiliation, the sense of being invaded and violated and soiled. Tears came to her eyes, and she held them back fiercely. For a moment she was too weak and nauseated to say anything.
Then she tried to pull herself together. ”Who was he?”
”A security guy.”