At the exit he paused and peeked out. There was a wide concrete
driveway. An ambulance was parked there. No one was in sight.
He opened the door boldly and stepped out. He started along the
driveway with an appearance of casual unconcern, as though he were a
visitor taking a shortcut.
"Not so fast, Lin!"
He turned quickly. Dorothy was half running to catch up with him. He
felt his pulse leap and somehow couldn't feel anger.
Dorothy smiled knowingly at him. "I figured you'd try to escape alone,"
she said. "So I hurried."
"Well, it was an idea," Lin said. "Come on. We've got to put distance
between us and Fairchild before he discovers we're gone."
They reached the driveway exit. It was on a sidestreet from the main
entrance. Fairchild wasn't in sight.
"Where'll we go?" Dorothy asked nervously.
"How about my apartment?" Lin said. "We can stay there months at a time
without going outside."
* * * * *
She gasped, then saw that he was laughing at her with his eyes. "I'll
have you know ..." she said angrily.
"Know what?" Lin prompted.
"Let's go _some_ place," she said. "We can't just stand here."
"There's a taxi," Lin said, taking her hand and pulling her after him
into the street. In the taxi he gave the driver directions. "First
National Bank down on Center Street," he said. "Wait there. We're going
to the airport from the bank." And to Dorothy in a lower voice, "We'll
put some real distance between us and Fairchild. After that you can go
your way and I'll go mine."
"If that's what you want," she said. She broke suddenly. "Oh, Lin. I
don't know what I want. I don't want to leave you. I'm afraid. Or maybe
I'm not. I don't know. It's all a rotten mess. Why couldn't we have met
normally so that if--" She bit her lip and turned away.
The taxi hummed along for several blocks while they were silent. When
Lin spoke his voice was low and serious. "Maybe I feel that way too,"
he said. "But--you know what's wrong with it? We're running away. It's
like being an escaped criminal with a death sentence hanging over you."
"But it needn't be!" she said, laying her hand on his arm. "The police
aren't after us or anything like that. We've given this Fairchild the
slip now. All we have to do is go away somewhere and he'll never find
us."
"He'll be looking," Lin said, "and we'll wake up every morning with the
knowledge that this may be the day he finds us." He turned and looked
through the rear window of the taxi. "Actually I'm surprised we gave
him the slip. I can't understand it."
"You feel that way?" Dorothy said with a shaky laugh. "I do too. He
found us in the hospital. I keep thinking he just knows things. You
know what I mean."
"He didn't know which one of us took that paper," Lin said. He frowned.
"But he knew it was one of us. He must know what's on it. He has
supernatural powers, too. Look how he fixed us up."
He looked through the back window again. When he straightened he fixed
his eyes on Dorothy's face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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