Outbreak by Robin Cook. Part six

He bent down to pick it up, and as he straightened, Marissa grabbed the phone that was swinging on its cord and hit him as hard as she could with the receiver. For a brief instant, she wasn’t sure who

was hurt more. The blow had sent a bolt of pain right up to her shoulder.

For a moment Al stood as if he were frozen. Then his blue eyes rolled upward, and he seemed to fall in slow motion into the bathtub, striking his head on the faucets.

As Marissa watched, half expecting Al to get up and come at her again, a beeping noise snapped her into action. She reached over and hung up the receiver. Glancing back into the tub, she was torn between fear and her medical training. The man had a sizable gash over the bridge of his nose, and the front of his shirt was covered with blood stains. But terror won out, and Marissa grabbed her purse and ran from the room. Remembering the man had not been alone in New York, she knew she had to get away from the hotel as soon as possible.

Descending to the ground floor, Marissa avoided the front entrance. Instead, she went down a flight of stairs and followed arrows to a rear exit. Standing just inside the door, she waited until a cable car came into view. Timing her exit to give herself the least exposure, she ran out of the hotel and jumped onto the trolley.

Marissa forced her way through the crowd to the rear. She looked back at the hotel as the car began to move. No one came out.

George blinked in disbelief. It was the girl. Quickly he dialed Jake’s car.

“She just came out of the hotel,” said George, “and jumped on a cable car.”

“Is Al with her?” asked Jake.

“No,” said George. “She’s by herself. It looked like she was limping a little.”

“Something is weird.”

“You follow her,” said George. “The cable car is just starting. I’ll go into the hotel and check on Al.”

“Right on,” said Jake. He was more than happy to let George deal with Al. When Al found out the girl had flown, he was going to be madder than shit.

Marissa looked back at the hotel for any sign of being followed. No one came out of the door, but as the cable car began to move, she saw a man get out of an auto and run for the hotel’s rear entrance. The timing was suggestive, but as the man didn’t even look in her direction, she dismissed it as a coincidence. She continued to watch until the cable car turned a corner and she could no longer see the Fairmont. She’d made it.

She relaxed until a loud clang almost made her jump out of her skin. She started for the door before she realized it was just the overhead bell that the conductor rang as he collected fares.

A man got off, and Marissa quickly took his seat. She was shaking and suddenly scared she might have blood stains on her clothes. The last thing she wanted was to call attention to herself.

As her fear abated, she became more aware of the pain where her hip had hit the sink, and her neck was exquisitely tender and probably turning black and blue.

“Fare please,” said the conductor.

Without lifting her eyes, Marissa fished around in her purse for some change. That was when she saw the blood caked on the back of her right hand. Quickly, she changed the way she was holding her purse and used her left hand to give the money to the man.

When he moved off, Marissa tried to figure out how they had found her. She’d been so careful . . . Suddenly it dawned on her. They must have been guarding Tieman. It was the only possible explanation.

Her confidence shattered, Marissa began to have second thoughts about having fled the hotel. Perhaps she would have been safer if she had stayed and faced the police. Yet fleeing had become an instinct of late. She felt like a fugitive, and it made her act like one. And to think she’d thought she would be able to outwit her pursuers. Ralph had been right. She never should have gone to New York, let alone San Francisco. He had said she was in serious trouble before she’d visited both cities. Well, it was a lot worse now-for all she knew she’d killed two men. It was all too much. She wasn’t going to Minneapolis. She would go home and turn everything that she knew, such as it was, and everything that she suspected, over to the attorney.

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