Ashley Bell: A Novel by Dean Koontz Page A

fog outside possessed curiosity about the contents of the houses currently submerged in it.
    Little of the room’s copious contents had been the property of the captain; most belonged to Nancy and Murphy. Bibi had forgotten where in the aisles of stacked boxes the bell and other items had been tucked away.
    Sans bell, in the small soundless exhalations of fog, the silence pooled so deep that Bibi felt as if she were in a cellar rather than an attic. She might have thought that she had imagined the silvery ringing if the ladder and the lights hadn’t been proof of another presence.
    Because the one-inch particleboard had been securely screwed to the joists, rather than nailed, her feet found no creaks in it as she moved along the center line of the attic, looking left and right into the aisles of shelving and free-stacked goods. The captain had provided the labor to replace the old rotting plywood flooring, one of a number of small jobs that he did for free, to prove his value as a tenant, although no one felt it needed to be proved. That was just Captain’s way: always wanting to be useful.
    When she reached the next-to-last aisle at the east end of the attic, Bibi discovered a presence, perhaps the one who for some weeks she had been seeking with both yearning and misgiving. He—or someone—stood at the back of the aisle, ten feet from her, in the shadows past the fall of light.
    The apprehension that she had overcome before, that she felt was unworthy of her, flowered again, a black-petaled fright that severely tested her image of herself. Valiant girl? Or was she just another uncertain and confused kid pretending to be mature and brave, self-deceived by the fake-out she pulled on everyone else?
    “Captain?” she said softly.
    The presence moved toward her, into the light.
    She realized then that madness and sanity were two worlds separated from each other by no more than a single step.

When Nurse Hernandez returned to Bibi’s room, she brought with her the chief of security for the hospital, whom she introduced as Chubb Coy. Whether Chubb was his real name or a nickname, he lived up to it. Pleasantly rounded rather than markedly fat, he moved with the lithe and supple ease of a dancer, which was peculiar to certain amply padded people. His last name was less appropriate than his first, because he was neither taciturn nor shy.
    Mira Hernandez powered the unoccupied first bed to its maximum height, and Mr. Coy opened his laptop on the mattress. Bibi stood with them as Mr. Coy tapped into the hospital’s video files from the night just passed.
    “Aren’t any security cameras in patients’ rooms,” he said, “or in other areas where their privacy has to be protected. Frivolous lawsuits already jack up medical costs. Costs would go through the roof if everybody’s grandma won a million bucks in court because she’d been humiliated being filmed while she used a bedpan.”
    In a gently chastising tone, Nurse Hernandez said, “Of course, maintaining patient privacy is important for much better and more important reasons than defending against legal action.”
    Mr. Coy in no way indicated that he realized he’d been quietly admonished for his frankness. “The stairwells are all monitored. And the public elevators. But not the elevators the staff use to move patients around. We monitor all the hallways. If a patient steps out of a room with his hospital gown untied in back and then wants ten million bucks ’cause Security had to look at his pathetic bare butt, well, so we have to go to court and hope there’s maybe at least a couple sane people on the jury. Not that I’d bet on it.”
    Nurse Hernandez looked past her associate and smiled at Bibi, and Bibi returned the smile reassuringly.
    Mr. Coy said, “Here’s the main east-west fourth-floor hallway, just outside your room. The time’s at the bottom.”
    The digital clock on the screen read 4:01 A.M. As the seconds flashed past and 4:01 turned to 4:02, a