Runner Read Free Page B

wheelchair with a man in it who sat very still with his eyes closed. Jane hurried back toward the cafeteria, making her way among the gaggle of confused, frightened people in the hall, when suddenly a hand closed on her wrist.
    She looked at the person who had stopped her. It was a patient. She appeared to be a teenager, a couple of inches shorter than Jane, with brown hair. She was wearing a white hospital bathrobe, and Jane could see at the neckline the tiny flowers of the awful pattern of the standard-issue gown. Her expression was anguished. Jane said, "Are you in pain?"
    The young woman said, "No. I'm okay. Please. Do you know Jane Whitefield? A woman over there said you might. Do you?"
    "Yes," said Jane. "I'm Jane. But look, I—" She was already turning toward the injured people in the cafeteria, but the girl held her arm.
    "Sharon Curtis told me to come to this hospital, and ask for you."
    Jane turned to look at the young woman more closely. There were very few things she could have said that would have kept Jane from shaking her off and going back for more victims. Sharon Curtis was a name that Jane knew well because ten years ago she had invented it. Jane's eyes didn't leave the young woman's face. "Why did Sharon send you here?"
    "She sent me to a house in Deganawida. I waited for a whole night, most of it on the back steps, but nobody ever came. She had said to try the hospital as a last resort. She said it had been a long time, and you might have moved. But the hospital might know where you were."
    Jane's mind was full of conflicting thoughts, and among them was a memory of the day she had left Sharon. She had said then, "If you need me again, you know where to come. If I'm not there, try the hospital where they sewed up your arm."
    Jane said to the girl, "I understand, and we'll talk. But right now we're in the middle of a disaster here. Can you—"
    "This was about me."
    "About you?" Jane put her arm around the girl and pulled her to the side of the hallway so they were against the wall and out of the way. "Why?"
    "I got the doctor to admit me because I'm pregnant and I told her I was having some bleeding. I had to stay off the street, where they could get me. I needed to rest, and I needed time to find you."
    "They? Who are they?"
    "There are six of them—four men and two women. They handle things for a man I used to work for. I ran away and now they've come for me."
    "Why would they set off a bomb in the hospital? What does that have to do with you?"
    "They wanted the hospital evacuated so they could drag me out and take me back to San Diego."
    Jane was frustrated, impatient. "How do you know it's them?"
    "I saw one of them here. He was walking up and down the halls in the upper floors looking for me. He was carrying a little bouquet of flowers he had bought in the gift shop, but he was looking in every door. He saw me, our eyes met, and he turned away. When he was gone I slipped out and hid in the visitors' restroom on the next floor. Then a while later there was the explosion. I looked out, and I could see the nurses and orderlies starting to evacuate patients. I ran so I wouldn't be where the six wanted me to be."
    "Come on," said Jane. She guided the girl down the hall away from the emergency wing, avoided the lobby, and turned toward the new neonatal center that had been bought with the proceeds of the past year's fund drive. It was scheduled to open in a month, and all evening Jane and the rest of the committee had been leading donors through, showing them the facilities.
    When Jane pushed open the door, she was surprised to see that the place had already changed. It was all bright lights and motion. There were hospital staff here, and there were people in bloody evening clothes on gurneys being moved into the rooms. Jane saw that one of the linen closets was open, so she stepped in and took two packaged sets of light green hospital scrubs, then pulled the young woman out through the doors with