Mind Bender

by Linsey Lanier

  The second column had only one item. “I think I love him.”

  Oh, Jeez.

  Miranda dropped the pad and ran a hand over her face. If she wasn’t mad enough at Holloway already, this took the cake. He hadn’t taken her advice about being honest with Gen. He was letting her dangle while he was consumed with his ex. It wasn’t fair to the girl. She wanted to shake him and bring him to his senses.

  But she had to find him first.

  She stepped back into the hall and started to head for the gym when her phone buzzed.

  It was a text from Becker. He must be trying to make up for spilling the beans about Iwasaki.

  She read the words with a grim smile.

  Holloway’s at the gun range.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Miranda was so mad, she jogged the mile and a half to Aim-Right Shooting Range, which was just down the street from the Agency.

  She found Holloway in one of the twenty-five yard lanes. In his goggles and earmuffs, with the thick white bandage still wrapped around his upper arm, he stood at an angle firing into a line drawing of a big ugly guy with a pistol.

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  He pressed the switch over his head and waited for the target to slide forward to him. Two hits to the heart area, one to the head.

  “Nice work,” she said over his shoulder.

  He put his gun down on the bench in front of him and turned to glare at her. “Did Becker rat me out?”

  “He told me where you were.”

  He shook his head, replaced his target and sent it back down the alley.

  Miranda stepped into the booth next to him and put up a plain milk bottle target. She remembered practicing here with Holloway and Becker for their exams back when they were IITs. When they were buddies, friends.

  She pressed the button to send it back and took out her Beretta. She placed her trigger finger so it was a little off and fired five shots.

  She brought the target back to examine it.

  Three shots were close to the red circle, two in the center of what would be the milk bottle’s head, none were dead center.

  “You always were better than me,” she said to Holloway.

  For a moment he pretended not to hear. Then he shrugged. “You pulled to the right. Too much trigger finger.”

  He knew what he was doing on the gun range.

  She holstered her Beretta and watched him fire again. Five shots straight to the head. Would have dropped Iwasaki if he could have gotten them off today. But Audrey had been standing in front of the guy.

  “He called me ‘soldier boy’,” Holloway grunted. “I’ll show him what that means.” And he shot off another five rounds.

  “Soldier boy,” no wonder Holloway was pissed. But what that phrase meant to her was that somehow Drew knew Holloway was an ex-Marine. Had Audrey told him? Or did he know that before he met her? Had Iwasaki been researching her detective? Or had he known him a long time ago?

  “You make any enemies while you were in service, Holloway?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Guys who had it in for you. Ever get into a fight in a bar?”

  “You mean you think that gangbanger knows me? Has some kind of grudge against me?”

  “Maybe.”

  He shook his head and reloaded. “I don’t remember anything like that. All I know is next time I see that guy, I’m not going to miss.” He fired again, this time all five shots landed square in the target’s heart.

  Next time. No doubt Iwasaki was somewhere vowing not to miss again, too. But it wasn’t going to happen. Not if she could help it. Miranda wasn’t going to let Holloway near that guy again.

  “More calls are coming in from Crime Stoppers,” she told him.

  “So?”

  “We need your help.”

  “I need more practice.”

  She thought about bringing up Gen, but that would only make him want to shoot more. “They’re responding to the partial tag number and the vehicle description Erskine released today.”

  Ignoring her, Holloway kept firing.

  “Someone has to have seen the jeep those two were in. We might be close to finding them. Don’t you want to help with that?”

  He stopped firing, brought up his target, and holstered his Sig. His shoulders slumped as he turned around. “Okay, Steele you win.”

  It didn’t feel like winning, but she was glad he was being more cooperative.

  She looked at his wounded arm, then touched the other one. “I’m sorry you’re having to go through this. I know it’s tough.”

  He shrugged away from her with a huff. “Let’s just go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Parker sat in his office watching search data for the partial tag number on Iwasaki’s jeep flicker over his laptop screen.

  No matches.

  His head ached with the information Fry had given them about the contents of the amber colored bottle Miranda had found that morning. An antidote for scopolamine. And Fry suspected it had been mixed with hallucinogenics. That could mean only one thing. Audrey Wilson had been drugged and manipulated into trying to shoot her ex-husband.

  But why?

  Was it simply the insane experiment of a psychopath? Someone who decided to use whatever resentments lay buried in a divorcee’s heart toward her former spouse and see how far he could take them for his own amusement?

  Or was there something more to it?

  And Curt Holloway’s attitude toward Miranda disturbed him deeply. He understood the young man was feeling passed over by her promotion to head of the team. But his resistance toward her leadership was uncalled for. He had expected better from him. Parker realized he was distraught under the circumstances. Obviously Curt still had feelings for his ex-wife. That disturbed him, as well.

  He hoped Gen would find the courage to end her relationship with him. It wasn’t healthy. He ached for his daughter.

  He hadn’t intended to put Miranda in such a position when he’d put her in charge of the new team. He’d expected cooperation from them.

  It troubled him she had had to deal with insubordination. But she was handling it well, so far.

  He had considered calling Curt into his office and talking to him, but that would only make things worse for her. Besides, if Miranda ever had to run the Agency on her own, she’d have to handle much more than disgruntled employees.

  Switching screens on his monitor, he began to review the calls coming in from the police. He scanned through them, making sure nothing had been overlooked. So far none of them held any promise, but if something did turn up, he would make sure to check on the team before Curt did something rash.

  As for right now, he had a small errand to run. He got to his feet and left his laptop running.

  As he stepped out of his office and went down the hall, he only hoped they could locate Audrey Wilson soon and end this ordeal for all of them.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Back in the lab with Becker, her wandering detective, and her laptop, Miranda worked the calls coming in.

  It was more tedious and nerve-racking than it had been yesterday. Everyone in town seemed to be guilty of the crimes.

  “My brother-in-law has a jeep like that,” a man with a gruff voice told her. “I always thought he was a little touched in the head.”

  “It was my ex-boyfriend. I know it,” said a woman who sounded like a little girl.

  “It was my father-in-law in that jeep,” a woman with a smoker’s cough told her. “He’s got a mean streak.”

  Dutifully she checked out each of the calls, and of course, they all turned out to be duds. The first clue was that none of the accused were named Drew Iwasaki. The second was none of them remotely resembled the photo of the guy. The callers were just mad at someone close to them.

  Who knew there were so many dysfunctional families in Atlanta?

  She got up for a break, got a drink of water, walked around th
e halls, and returned for another hour of fun.

  Someone had seen a camouflage-colored jeep parked at the mall near the office a few days ago. The caller couldn’t remember exactly when.

  Another caller said she’d seen the jeep near the abandoned shopping center Saturday. That could have been them, but the caller didn’t have enough information to tell her anything she didn’t already know.

  Two more hours passed.

  She got up to stretch and stroll around the room. Running her hands through her hair, she was thinking about calling it a night when someone from the OT team rapped on the open lab door.

  She turned around and saw a big meaty guy. He stood six-six and had to weigh two-sixty. All muscle. Probably was a lineman on his high school’s football team. He wore a light blue polo shirt that set off a pair of outstanding pecs and a head full of light sandy curls. Of course, one of Parker’s bodyguards would look like that. But he also had gentle gray eyes and shy crooked smile.

  “Ms. Steele?” he said in a faint southern accent.

  “If you’re asking to go home, I was just about to shut things down for the night.”

  He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I think I’ve got something.”

  “You mean a lead?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alex Witherby.”

  Miranda seemed to recall Gen mentioning him once. “Okay, Witherby. What have you got?”

  He pointed to the paper in his hand. “This guy says he and his girlfriend saw the jeep in the park today.”

  “Let me see that.” Miranda took the paper from Witherby’s hand and read the transcript of the call aloud, while Holloway and Becker gathered around.

  “My girlfriend and I were hiking in the park this morning and a camouflage-colored jeep roared past us, nearly knocking us over. I took down the license plate because I wanted to report it. Then we saw it turn off the road near the old ruined mill. We thought it was surveyors looking to restore the place, but then my girlfriend said there was a woman in the jeep who was dressed like a zombie. I thought they might be having some kind of Halloween party in the woods.”

  “Was that Sweet Water Creek?” It was Parker’s low somber voice that uttered the question.

  Miranda looked up, glad to see him standing in the doorway.

  “I heard we’d gotten a lead. This is it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Witherby said, straightening his back as if coming to attention.

  Holloway and Becker straightened, too.

  “It’s right here. I asked him for the name of the park, and that’s what he said.” Witherby took the paper and handed it to Parker.

  He read it over. “He’s talking about the ruins of the old Manchester Mill.”

  Miranda didn’t know the place. “Doesn’t sound like a very good spot to hide.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Parker said.

  She turned to Becker. “Can you pull up the location on your map?”

  “Sure can.” Becker went over to the counter and swiped and pecked at his tablet for a moment. Then he set it down again. “Here it is.” He pointed to the spot.

  Miranda studied the digital map with the red dots marking the locations they knew Drew and Audrey had been, and the new dot marking the place the caller had reported.

  She pointed at the screen. “The park is ten miles east of the perimeter. Almost twenty miles east of the quarry where the movie’s being shot.”

  “In other words, nowhere near the places we’ve been looking,” Parker said grimly.

  Iwasaki had been playing them again.

  “Clever of you to plot those points on the map,” Parker said to Becker.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Miranda took the paper back from Parker. “We need to call Erskine and let him know what we’ve found.”

  He frowned. “He’ll want to take a SWAT team out there tonight.”

  It was late, but maybe that would give them the element of surprise.

  “We should go with them,” she said to Parker.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll take my car,” Holloway said.

  Miranda spun around to him. “No.”

  Holloway looked stunned. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean I want you to stay here.”

  “What?”

  She couldn’t help thinking about what happened to him on that movie set today. If Drew or Audrey got another chance at him, they just might kill him. Besides, he was in no shape to go on a stakeout.

  “I need clear heads,” she said to him. “There will be enough police there.”

  Holloway’s face took on a desperate look. “You’re shutting me out? Some crazy gangbanger is giving my ex-wife mind-control drugs, and I can’t help find him?”

  Miranda folded her arms and set her jaw. “You heard me, Holloway. Besides, this might turn out to be another dead end. Stay here and keep monitoring the calls. Or better yet, go home and get some sleep.” He’d been going since early morning.

  He stared at her as if she’d just set herself on fire. “Like hell, I will.”

  And he brushed past her and out the door.

  “Holloway!” She rushed after him, racing down the hall toward the back, until she caught up. “Stop for a minute.”

  He halted and turned to her, his face flushed, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “This is my ex. My life!”

  That was the point. “I gave you a direct order, Holloway.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m supposed to be in charge, here.”

  His whole body stiffened. He glared at her with an expression she’d never seen on him before. “You can’t order me around anymore, Steele. I quit.”

  And he yanked open the door to the back staircase and disappeared through it.

  Giving up on him, Miranda started back to the lab and met Parker halfway.

  She buried her face in his chest, not caring if anyone saw her. “I don’t know what to do, Parker. I can’t stop him. He won’t listen to me.”

  He ran a comforting hand over her back. “I’ll deal with him later. For now we know where he’s going. And we’re going there, too.”

  “Right.” She raised her head and took a deep breath. “I’ll make the call to Erskine on the way there.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Drew burst into the lab and ran down the ramp, his head spinning. Strange blurry colors were forming at the edges of his vision.

  He slammed himself over the counter. “You’ve got to help me, Phin. I’ve lost the antidote.”

  Phineas sat with his back toward him, his spine board straight, staring at his computer screen. Through the haze Drew could see he didn’t have his ear buds in, so he knew he’d heard him.

  That morning after returning from the movie set and locking Audrey in her cell, Drew had gone straight to his room and fallen into bed, exhausted. He’d slept for hours—all through the day and into the night—unable to wake, tossing and turning with bizarre, sickening dreams. When he finally did wake up, he barely knew where he was.

  Then he remembered he hadn’t taken his “medicine.”

  He reached for the bottle of the stuff on the nightstand and realized it was gone. He had no idea where it was. But he knew where he could get more of it. He’d forced himself up and staggered to the lift and through the maze of halls, wondering if he’d make it to the lab in time.

  And now this kid was ignoring him?

  “Phin!” he shouted.

  Slowly Phineas turned around in his chair. “You screwed up—again.”

  Drew put a hand against his pounding forehead. “Okay. I know. It didn’t go exactly as planned, but—”

  “You’re on the news again. The police are after us. They saw your jeep leaving the movie set.” He jumped up and slammed his hands on the countertop. “How could you be such an imbecile?”

  Hot rage surged through Drew’s whole being. The colors began to swirl around in his head. He grabbed Phineas
by the lapels of his damn lab coat and dragged him across the counter until they were nose-to-nose.

  “What did you call me?”

  Fear on his face, Phineas struggled and gurgled a little. “Drew, you’re choking me.”

  Drew twisted the cloth tighter. “Get me the antidote.”

  “You can’t have mine.”

  “Give it to me now.”

  It wasn’t in his lab coat pocket. Where did he keep it? He’d beat it out of him if he had to.

  As if he were reading his mind, Phineas squeaked, “There’s an extra bottle, but it’s the only one.”

  He’d settle for that. “Give it to me.”

  Drew let him go and watched him straighten his coat as he moved to the fridge. He opened the door and took out the familiar small brown bottle.

  Drew could see the dozen or so similar bottles of the elixir stacked neatly on the shelf above it. He came around the counter and snatched the bottle out of Phin’s hands. He twisted off the small cap.

  “Not too much,” Phineas warned. “Just two drops.”

  “Three.” Drew pulled out the dropper, slung back his head and counted them off. One. Two. Three.

  “That’s enough.”

  He was right. The stuff was toxic. Drew closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He waited a few minutes. Slowly the dizziness and the colors faded away.

  But his anger remained. He glared down at Phineas. “I think you owe me an apology.”

  “We don’t have time for apologies. We’ve got to make an escape plan.”

  “Escape plan?”

  “The police are looking for us. They released a description of your jeep and a partial tag number to the reporters. Everyone in the area is looking for us.”

  “We’re safe here. No one can find us.”

  Phineas began to pace back and forth between the cages. “We should dump the girl and make a run for it. We might be able to get into the mountains and cross into Tennessee without the cops spotting us. We can’t risk stealing another car. Can we get another tag somewhere?”

  “Phin.”

  “It would only take a few more hours for us to get back to the commune from there.”