Beyond Wilder

by Leigh Tudor

  The doctor appeared momentarily unsettled. Not sparing a glance at Mercy. Finally, he spoke. “That is not . . . an . . . inaccurate statement.”

  “So I’m dying?” Mercy asked, swinging her chair in his direction.

  “I haven’t had the opportunity to update your MRIs, but the chances for the prognosis changing are quite low without corrective surgery.”

  “Was the mistake intentional?” Mercy asked, resuming the annoying movement of her chair. “A slip of the knife while no one was watching, and voila, my days are numbered?”

  “I can assure you; the surgical miscalculation was unintentional. The lesions were inadvertent results from damaged brain tissue at the peri surgical site during the neurosurgical maneuvers. More than likely from an incision, a retraction, or an electro-cauterization that didn’t heal properly.”

  Mercy finally stopped her incessant swaying. “You can tell me the truth,” she said with a rather serious tone. “Did you get your medical license online or from some dude you met in a back alley in Bucharest?”

  Loren closed her eyes as veins began to pop out in Dr. Vielle’s neck. “Ignore her,” she said, glaring at her sister and then returning her gaze to the doctor, desperate to maintain calm at this revelation. “What can be done?”

  Vielle’s right eye noticeably twitched. “I would know more after viewing an updated MRI. In the past, the lesion was found to be inoperable, and we were waiting for it to exacerbate prior to operating for a more . . . successful outcome.”

  “I’m going to need a second opinion,” Mercy piped up, steepling her fingers as if in serious contemplation and swinging her chair toward Loren.

  Loren managed to capture her sister’s sporadic attention giving her the “please stop being such a difficult bitch” look.

  “I’m being totally serious,” Mercy insisted. “This geriatric sorry excuse for a brain surgeon compromised my gray matter, and you think I’m going back under the old Parkinson’s knife for a follow-up? Not gonna happen. I want and expect a second opinion from a surgeon that’s not a hundred and fifty years old, suffering from onset dementia, and having received his medical degree from a calligraphist in the upper wilds of Mongolia.”

  She bounded from her chair until she was inches from Vielle’s enraged face. “Who’s to say he doesn’t give me a lobotomy next time around?”

  “I won’t stand for this,” Vielle said, finally losing his temper. “I refuse to allow my reputation to be held in question by a woman who is clearly unbalanced.”

  “You mean like your hairpiece?” Mercy stuffed one hand in her pocket. “Hold up, I’ve got a few hairpins we can use to batten the hatches of the horsehair sitting precariously on your head.”

  “Don’t you dare lay a finger on me.”

  She hesitated and then gave him a huge smile with a glint in her eye. “Ahh. See? We do understand each other.”

  Loren stood, unable to handle any more of their bickering. “That’s enough.” She had to take control. “Dr. Vielle, please make time this afternoon to record another MRI.”

  Practically shaking with anger, he gave Loren a single nod. Leaving the folder with Mercy’s medical files on the glass desk, he slammed the door on his way out.

  Loren heaved a sigh as she pressed a button on her desk phone. “Louise, will you please show Mercy Ingalls to one of our guest rooms. She’s an old friend of the Center’s and will be staying with us for a few days.”

  Mercy smiled smugly, and Loren wanted to smack the satisfaction from her face. “Let’s see where we stand with your condition and take it from there.”

  Mercy slowly approached Loren’s desk until she was standing directly in front of her. Before Loren could react, Mercy raised her elbow in the air and then, with rapid-fire speed, she thrust downward, piercing the center of the glass desk, sending Loren’s computer screen, notes, and desk phone falling toward the center of the floor amidst the glass shards.

  Loren stared straight ahead at Mercy, refusing to bat an eye. But what she saw wasn’t anger and retribution in Mercy’s eyes but rather an unexpected glimpse of pain.

  Mercy gathered herself and managed a smirk. “That was for lying to me, Ava. And for the record, Loren would never do that.”

  Again with the glaring standoff, but for Loren with less narrowed eyes and more deep gulps.

  Louise opened the door and stood open-mouthed, staring at the mound of glass between the two women.

  Finally, Mercy turned, and on her way out, she said, “Here’s a safety tip. Deal with your fucking self-inflicted identity crisis.”

  Chapter Six

  “I think a lot of psychopaths are just geniuses who drove so fast that they lost control.”

  ― Criss Jami

  “A 2010 Kia Soul?” Trevor gaped at the offensive lime-green vehicle.

  Alec stood with his hands on his hips. “Trust me, I’m no happier about this than you are. But it was the only car the rental company had on such short notice.”

  “Do you know the shit I’m going to get from my colleagues if they find out I drove a neon-green hamster hauler while working a high-profile criminal case?”

  Alec shrugged. “Well then, I’ll drive. Problem solved.”

  Trevor breathed deep and slid into the passenger seat while Alec sat in the driver’s. The two men hunched over to give themselves headspace and sat nearly shoulder to shoulder.

  “It could be worse. Our other option was to rent a couple Vespas.”

  “Just fucking go.”

  Less than thirty minutes later, they parked a mile up the road from the Center's location. They jogged to the south side of the compound where the main building was to have an employee’s entrance with a sign over the door indicating as much.

  “I don’t see a door with a sign, do you?” Trevor asked, standing behind the compound’s fence in a wooded area.

  Alec grimaced. “That’s because there isn’t one.”

  The second entry point was the same. On the east side, there was supposed to be a delivery entrance with a large overhanging door.

  “Nothing,” Trevor said. “How can that be?”

  “I’ll tell you how. She lied. Mercy lied about every goddamn piece of information she shared about the Center. Our entire plan was based on structural facts that she conjured in her head.”

  They moved as far to the east and west as they could without being seen by security guards.

  To their surprise, there weren’t any. The Center was to be an ironclad vault of security, but they had yet to see a single guard outside the one at the front gate.

  “Where’s the security?” Trevor asked as he viewed the main entrance through the low-grade binoculars they picked up at a hardware store on the way over. “You think she lied about that too?”

  “Don’t know why we’d think otherwise.”

  Trevor leaned against a tree. “Yeah, but it doesn’t match up with the intel we gathered on the compound. The reports indicated armed guards surrounding the perimeter and on the roof.”

  Trevor rubbed his forefinger and thumb over his eyes. Was it a setup? Was security beefed up and waiting on the inside?

  He lifted the binoculars and looked to the left of the compound. “Check out the parking lot outside the main entrance,” Trevor said with a head nod toward the lot. “I bet there aren’t thirty cars out there. According to past stakeouts, the number count was in the hundreds.”

  “Forrest.” Trevor felt Alec tapping his arm while looking toward the opposite end of the parking area. “Give me those a minute.” Trevor handed over the binoculars, and Alec aimed them toward a small fenced-in area with a grassy yard.

  He slowly lowered them and handed them over to Trevor. “Check out the fenced-in area at the far end of the parking lot.”

  Trevor aimed the binoculars in the direction specified by Alec and saw the grassy area with a picnic table. Must’ve been near a cafeteria where employees could go outside to eat their lunch.

  And then he saw th
em.

  Children.

  Must’ve been four of them, ages three to ten maybe.

  They were exiting a door in coats and mittens, running around and chasing one another. He attempted to adjust the diopter ring and then tried to zoom in farther, but the power of the binoculars was just short of being a kid’s toy.

  Trevor lowered them, staring straight ahead. “I can’t zoom in close enough to make out any faces.” His heart rate began to rise as he lifted them back up. There was a girl, he could tell by the long dark brown hair that sprouted from beneath her knit beanie. “There’s a little girl who looks to be about five, Haley’s age. She could be Haley.”

  He lowered them, his heart racing, and leaned one hand against the tree next to him for support.

  Alec lifted the binoculars from Trevor’s hand and brought them to his face. “You’re right. The zoom on this is for shit.” He kept moving the focus wheel back and forth as Trevor did his best to catch his breath.

  How long had it been since he’d seen his daughter? Did she even remember him? And if she did, was she angry that he hadn’t come for her? Did she hate him? He had spent his military career fighting for others, hell, rescuing them. But he couldn’t even save his own daughter.

  Alec lowered the binoculars. “Do you think those kids were all snatched and belong to people like yourself? Or maybe, it’s just a daycare for the staff?”

  Trevor straightened and took a deep breath. “I don’t have any intel on kids being at the Center. But I do know they don’t offer daycare services. Either way, we need to act quickly,” he said, taking another look at the surrounding area for guards. “For whatever reason, they’re lacking manpower. But we need a plan now that we know what we’re dealing with. Not to mention better tools and weapons.”

  Trevor shook his head at the near-worthless binoculars.

  After making some last-minute drawings and notes on the compound, they jogged back to the Kia and slid in, their shoulders bent over.

  They got to the hotel and parked the car, sighing with relief as they cracked their backs, stretched their legs, and cricked their necks left and right.

  Back in the hotel room, they went over their revised plan and then located a local guns and ammo retailer online. Just as they were about to leave with their supplies list, they heard a knock on the door.

  Trevor instantly moved toward the far side of the window to see if he could make out who was at the door without being in the line of fire. Alec stood at the side in case someone on the other side hoped to tag an unsuspecting target.

  Trevor’s eyes narrowed and then squinted more. “There’s an old man and woman outside.” The woman was partially blocked by the older gentleman but looked familiar to Trevor.

  “Are they with the hotel?” asked Alec.

  “I don’t think so. They have what looks like overnight bags.”

  “Wha . . . ?” Alec asked and then began to scrub his face with his hand. “What are they driving?”

  Trevor pulled the curtain back more for a better view of the parking area. “Looks to be a vintage truck.”

  Trevor watched Alec’s shoulders fall, and continued, “A restored F1 Ford pickup truck? Bright red?”

  “You know them?” Trevor watched as the elderly man knocked again.

  Alec shook his head and chuckled and then raised his eyes to the ceiling, “What else could possibly go wrong?”

  He opened the door, and Trevor remained in the corner with his weapon ready for anything unexpected.

  Alec stood in front of the door. “What are you doing here, Levi?”

  “We’ve come to help.”

  Trevor then heard the woman and froze, instantly recognizing her voice.

  Madame G.

  “That is no way to welcome your field backup, Alec Wilder. Now step aside and let us in.”

  The elderly couple barged their way inside, Alec having no choice but to give them space as the older man pulled a rolling travel case behind him.

  Trevor stood transfixed, as the undercover agent, alias Madame Garmond, or Madame G as she was reverently referred to in the Bureau, strode into the room as if she smelled something rotting beneath the beds.

  “Oh no, this place will not do. Pas du tout.”

  Trevor smiled as the voice he’d overheard during a number of clandestine updates sauntered into the room. He would recognize that voice anywhere. One that exuded an odd English persona but sometimes spoke with an atrocious French dialect. He had never met the agent in person, only seen photos, but knew the icon well after years of communications with little to no progress.

  Certainly, not without a valiant effort on her part.

  Halstead ran a tight ship, nothing like the lackluster security evidenced today, and Madame G’s efforts were relegated to keeping the youngest sister safe and keeping tabs on the older ones and reporting back.

  “Kinda working on a shoestring budget here, Madame,” Alec said.

  “Well then, it’s a good thing we got here when we did.” She pulled out her phone. “Let me see if I can locate a hotel that hasn’t been taped off for a murder scene.”

  Alec clapped his hands together. “That’s a wonderful idea. Why don’t you and Levi find a decent hotel while we run some errands, and I’ll let you know when something eventful happens.”

  “Um, Alec,” Trevor interrupted, lowering his weapon and waiting for an introduction.

  With hands on his hips and clearly frustrated, Alec raised one hand out toward Trevor. “Madame Garmond, Levi, this is my partner, Trevor Forrest. Trevor, these are friends of mine from Wilder. Friends who are supposed to be in Wilder, taking care of my sister.”

  Trevor gave a nod of his head as a hesitant hello, and Madame ignored him as she searched her phone.

  Levi reached out to shake Trevor’s hand while responding to Alec, “Now, son, don’t you worry about Miss Ally. She’s just fine. Marybell’s watching over her at the homestead along with Amarilla and Cara.”

  “Marybell?” Alec asked with raised eyes. “You put Marybell in charge of three impressionable young girls?”

  Madame continued her hotel search. “Honestly, Alec, now is not the time for melodramatics. We must rally, become an impenetrable team, devise a plan, and rescue Loren from that insufferable jackanape, Jasper Bancroft.” Madame Garmond raised her eyes from her phone to set her eyes on Trevor, not compromising herself in the slightest, although she had to have recognized his name. “Please excuse my poor manners. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Forrest.” She turned her full attention to Alec. “Now, what needs to be done outside of locating a central point of operations that doesn’t require a deceased rodent extraction?”

  Trevor looked at Alec, who appeared on the verge of tearing the door off its hinges. As the lead on this mission, he should intervene as if they didn’t know one another. But before he could respond, Alec took it upon himself to put one of the most elusive and effective undercover agents in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigations in her place. “Madame, this is a criminal case we’re working on, and despite your good intentions, I’m afraid you can’t be involved.”

  Levi looked down at his feet, muttering, “Oh, now you’ve gone and done it.”

  Madame’s eyes turned to razor blades as she glared at Alec. “Master Wilder, if this is such a finely tuned operation, where is the communications and surveillance van with your field crew?”

  “Not sure how you’re aware of all that, but it’s not any concern—”

  “Tell me something,” she interrupted with a haughty glare, “have you ever been inside the Center? Are you fully aware of the inner workings of the security system? Do you know how to disable the security system? Do you know the staff and their despicable natures?”

  “We’ve gathered intel . . .”

  “You’ve gathered intel. Well, I see. I will need the names of these sources and their sworn affidavits in order to verify the accuracy of this so-called intel.”

  Trevo
r looked down to stifle a grin because she was the source of the intel.

  She slowly walked toward Alec. “I am not one to be trifled with, Master Wilder. And if you think for one minute that you can tell me what I can and cannot do in relation to this case and in regard to the safety of my girls, I’m afraid you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Trevor gave Alec a look that he hoped indicated that Alec needed to take care of this shitshow and now. All in an effort to protect Madame’s cover. Despite discussions about transparency, this was one old bird you didn’t dare cross, and without her full permission, he was keeping her identity undercover as she appeared to want it to be kept.

  The message must have gotten through as Alec moved into action, but with a different tack. “You know, I think we could use your assistance.” He gently moved them back toward the door, the travel bag wheeling behind the older gentleman. “We’re going to run some errands and gather some things we need. While we’re doing that, we need you two to find us a better home base. One that is closer to the Center and has better communication capabilities. The Wi-Fi here just isn’t cutting it, and we’ll need to stay in touch.” He opened the door, and they seemed to be open to the prescribed tasks.

  Trevor watched the whole thing with nothing short of amusement. She was toying with Alec, allowing him to “manage” her. Working well under the radar, she gave the impression that she was a formidable yet malleable elderly slip of a woman with good intentions and the protective instincts of a mountain lion with paws the size of manhole covers.

  Despite Alec’s efforts to send them on their way, Madame came to an abrupt stop. “Where’s Mercy?”

  “Mercy?” Alec asked.

  “Yes, she called Cara and told her she was here with you. That she was bringing Loren home. Where is she?”

  Alec rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, well, yes. Mercy is here. She just left to pick up some gear for a night raid. Can’t raid the Center at night without night goggles.”

  As Alec turned his head, she side-eyed Trevor. He looked down to indicate that was not the case.