Dead Hunt

into going to the hospital? This was absurd. She didn’t even have her purse with her.
I can stay at the museum, she thought. Her office suite had a bathroom, a shower, and a comfortable couch. She had stayed there many times. She even had a change of clothes there. She would go look for a phone. That meant walking around with absolutely nothing on but an open-backed thin cotton gown. Diane slipped down from the table and looked around the white curtain for a nurse.
She was in a large room lined on two sides with a row of cubicles like the one she was in. Some were probably occupied. She padded across the room, holding the back of her gown closed with a hand behind her back. The floor was cold on her bare feet. Just down at the other end of the room was an empty nurses station. No nurse? What if there is an emergency in one of the cubicles? she thought.
She walked toward the station. She passed a stack of neatly folded gowns on a trolley. She swiped one and put it on backwards. At least now she didn’t have to hold the back closed. At the nurses’ station she looked for a bell to ring. There wasn’t one. She walked around the counter and reached for the phone. Her hand touched the receiver just as she was grabbed around the waist and mouth and pulled into one of the cubicles.

Chapter 18
    Diane kicked at her assailant but her bare feet had little effect. She bit the gloved hand covering her mouth and tried to squirm out of his grasp. His fingers and palm were well protected with leather and padding thicker than necessary for the season of the year. She bit down hard.
    ‘‘Stop it, or I’ll break your neck.’’ His voice was a hoarse whisper.
This is isn’t going to happen, she thought. I won’t let it .
She bit harder and elbowed him in the ribs but felt the blow slide off. She reached over her head searching for eyes to poke or hair to grab. Her fingers found thick, taut material. A ski mask covering his face. She clawed at it and he jerked his head backward, sending them both against the vital signs monitor, tearing off feeds and cables as it fell to the floor. Her mouth now free, she screamed. In her peripheral vision, she saw a knife. This definitely is not going to happen.
She entangled her leg in his to trip him. It almost worked. He fell against the bed, pushing it against the curtain. Diane reached down and grabbed one of his ankles and pulled up hard while she pushed away from him with all the strength she had in her legs. He fell but dragged her with him, twisted her over, pushed her to the floor, and pressed a knee in the small of her back. With his powerful hand on the back of her head he pressed her face into the floor.
‘‘You’re a dirty dealer,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Everybody thinks you’re so good, but you’re dirty.’’
Diane reached and yanked a cable dangling from the monitor, hoping it would fall on him or distract him enough for her to free herself. She heard a voice several cubicles away calling for a nurse. She shouted for help as the monitor she was jerking at slammed against her attacker. He got up and ran as abruptly as he had come. Diane struggled to her feet to follow him.
A door near the nurses’ station was partially ajar where he had gone through, and she headed for it. It opened into a large storage room with a door on the other end. Diane ran for it. A hallway lay beyond. She looked both ways up and down the hallway and saw nothing. She had been too slow. She hurried back to the examination room. A nurse was there, or maybe a nurse’s aide. It was hard to tell.
‘‘You aren’t supposed to be back there,’’ she said. The blond woman was about Diane’s age and dressed in scrubs with cartoon prints all over them that looked more like she should be in pediatrics. She stood looking at Diane in confusion.
‘‘There aren’t supposed to be maniacs running around the hospital either. I was just attacked in here. Get security.’’
The nurse just stood there smiling kindly in a confused sort of way.
‘‘What’s wrong with you? Alert hospital security before he gets away,’’ said Diane.
‘‘If you sit down, I’ll get a doctor,’’ said the nurse.
‘‘Dammit, I know one loses a lot of credibility in these idiotic hospital gowns, but I’m telling you I was attacked in that examination room—as you can see by the disarray inside. Call security—now.’’
‘‘I think if you just sit back down.’’ The nurse looked at the tossed examining