Chapter Thirteen
“Lucy, this isn’t smart,” Grant growled.
I swallowed hard and ignored him as Sam hacked the security feed where images of the building’s interior popped up on the screen.
“It’s dark. Everyone is gone for the day,” Sam said, turning the monitor for Grant to see.
“I’ll be in and out,” I said. My voice was almost pleading. I gestured to the table. “I saw the connections. We’re on to something. I know it.”
Noah rose from his spot. “We’ll monitor her every move and be nearby if something goes wrong. This way, she’ll have backup. Because if we don’t help her, you know she’s just going to do it by herself anyway.”
I tried to hide the smile from my face and failed. “He’s right. I’m going with or without the rest of the team. This isn’t just about me anymore.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” Grant said with a sigh. He folded his arms across his chest. “Gigi is going to kill me.”
“Not if you have my back and watch out for me as you promised her.”
“Fine,” he growled. “But we’re doing this airtight. In and out. Eyes on you at all times, and you aren’t going in alone.” He raised a brow in challenge.
“Fine.” I smiled. “Happy now?” I asked.
He rounded the desk to stand behind Sam. “Hack the security cameras on the surrounding streets. I want a 360-degree view of that building and what’s nearby.”
Sam grinned, and his fingers flew across the keyboard.
Within two hours, after Grant was satisfied, we stepped out into the parking lot.
Sam was standing next to a van with a plumbing logo on it. Inside on one wall, computer monitors and screens lined the space. This was the undercover unit they’d used when I’d had a serial killer follow me to my car.
“Your chariot awaits,” Sam said and held out his hand to help me climb up. He followed me inside and gestured to a row of seating before he climbed into the passenger seat. The heated air smelled of age-old coffee. Carson was behind the wheel.
Grant stuck his head inside the enclosed space. “We’re right behind you.”
I nodded, and he disappeared. Taking a minute while the van rocked into motion, I pulled out my phone and texted Ford with my intentions and giving him an update on what we’d uncovered. To say that he was pissed about me breaking into the building was an understatement, although I think it had more to do with the fact that he wasn’t here to do it with me.
Exit strategy? His question in the text flashed.
Not needed, no one is home.
Exit strategy!!! he texted back.
I sighed. “Do we have an exit strategy?”
Sam glanced over his shoulder at me. “Yeah, give me a second, and I’ll find you a secondary way out of the building.”
I texted back. Working on it.
Don’t go in without one and be safe. We’ll talk about this little escapade when I get home.
I’ll try my best.
I closed the phone. I didn’t want to lie to him. I’d try to be safe, but nothing ever seemed to work out the way I planned. My head started to throb and not because I was tapping into killer tendencies but with a real live headache. A harmless one that wasn’t strong enough to stop me or knock me on my ass.
“If both doors are locked, and you can’t get out, the windows have bars.” Sam glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t see any other way to get out of the building besides the doors.”
I nodded and shoved the phone into my pocket. No way was I telling Ford that there was no secondary exit strategy. He would have demanded that I not be the one to go in, even though the new ability to see connections might somehow flick back on. I was the one who needed to be inside. I had more to lose than the others. “If something happens, you can ram the door with the van.”
The twenty-minute drive across town seemed to take forever. With every mile, my stomach twisted into tiny knots, pulling even tighter. A sudden chill skirted across my arms. My breath turned icy, and it seemed as if time slowed down.
A woman appeared in front of me, trying to take shape as if drawing the energy out of the air. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear her. Before she could fully solidify like other ghosts I’d dealt with in the past, this woman vanished.
The van stopped and Sam climbed into the back with me. He pulled out an earpiece and handed it to me. “You’ll hear us.” He strapped a microphone to my shirt. “You’ll be able to talk to us.”
Carson stepped into the back and pulled a watch out of his pocket. I held up my wrist. “This is so you don’t get lost.”
“You think that’s necessary? There isn’t far for me to wander. The streets are empty. You’d see me if I left.”
“We’re going to be in and out.”
“You’re coming with me?” I asked.
“Yeah. I’ll be with you, while Noah, Grant, and Sam monitor the feeds.”
The others climbed into the back of the van with us, crowding the space.
Sam was pulling up the security feed when the ghost flashed in the van again. Sam’s monitor flickered as Grant shivered, and Noah rubbed at his neck. None of them were aware of the woman trying to take shape.
“The security feed is on a loop, and I took down the door alarms. You two are ghosts. No one monitoring will even know you’re in the building,” Sam said.
Carson yanked the van door open, and I hopped out with him. He checked the clip in his gun as the door slammed shut behind us. He then pulled another gun out of his leg holster and shoved it into my hands. “If you shoot, make it count.”
I nodded and gripped it tight.
The van was parked across from the building, far enough away so that it would be above suspicion.
“In and out,” Carson reminded me.
I nodded. “When we find the files, we’re gone.”
“Good girl,” he said and started in a jog toward the back of the building with me following him.
“Testing. Testing.” Grant’s voice was crisp in my ear.
“I hear you loud and clear,” I whispered.
As we neared the door, the electronic locks clicked, and I grinned.
“What fun is it if I can’t break in?”
“Just think of me as the wizard behind the curtain.” Sam chuckled in my ear. “Most everything in the building is electronic, and if there’s one thing I excel at, it’s hacking things.”
“Remind me to return all my locks back to the old school way of doing things,” I whispered, stepping into the building. I glanced up at the security camera hanging in the hallway. No blaring alarms, no angry red blinking lights. The building was nothing like it had been earlier with people hurrying around, nor like it had been during the chaos when Sebastian Elliot had abducted Nurse Betty. The darkened space was eerily calm.
Carson nudged my arm and pointed toward the camera.
“We see you, but no one else does,” Sam said into the earpiece.
“Where to?” Carson whispered.
I led him into the nursing area. Several exam room doors lined the walls. I’d been in several for checkups and blood withdrawals. The nurses’ station had three computers similar to the ones at the front desk.
“Sam, we need to see what’s on these computers,” I whispered.
“Copy that. I’m coming in.”
I glanced at Carson. “Just one big party.”
He stepped behind a wall that separated the nurses’ station, and I followed him. Shelves of manilla files lined the space, each color coded with letters.
The exit door opened, and Sam called out, “It’s just me, don’t shoot.”
I peered out from the file room and nodded as he hurried to the nurses’ station. “I need three minutes, and I’m out.”
I nodded and returned to Carson. “Look specifically for those pregnant women’s files. Grab anyone’s file ending in Taylor, Hubbard, or Priestley.”
I had turned to leave when he gra
bbed my arm. “We need to stick together. Where are you going?”
I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. “I’m going to look in the filing cabinets in Cline’s office. If we split up, we’ll cover more territory. In and out faster.”
His eyes flashed in concern, but he knew I was right. He nodded and went back to searching the files.
I hurried down the darkened hall with only the dim light from my flashlight illuminating my way. I didn’t need to read the bronze plate with Dr. Cline’s name to know which door was his. I eased the door open and stepped inside. The streams of light bounced directly on the filing cabinet as I repeated the names in my head. Taylor, Hubbard, Priestley.
The drawers were alphabetized, but none held the files I was looking for.
I sighed and plopped down in the doctor’s chair and began rifling through his desk. Only one drawer was locked. I pulled my lock kit out of my back pocket, and within seconds, I had the drawer unlocked and open.
“Bingo,” I whispered and grabbed the three files out of the drawer. There were several more with names I didn’t recognize. I’d grabbed the ones we were after and had picked up another when the earpiece crackled, making me cringe.
“Repeat,” I whispered.
It crackled again as if we had a bad connection.
The office door opened, and Carson stepped inside, slowly closing the door behind him. “We have company.”
I grabbed the files and eased the desk drawer shut as Carson opened the door to the adjoining bathroom. We both stepped inside and moved to where the door would block us from view should anyone try to open it.
Carson cradled his gun as I slid the files beneath my shirt at my back and stuffed them into the waistband of my jeans.
The light flicked on in the office and shined beneath the bathroom door. Carson lifted a finger to his lips.
My heartbeat quickened, and my racing pulse was loud in my ears.
Dr. Cline’s voice was muffled, but we could still hear his words. “I don’t understand why I have to leave. It was your men who lost the girl.”
“It was unavoidable. Her guardian was trained,” another man answered. “She’s more gifted than even you could know.”
“That’s why I need her. They feed off each other,” Dr. Cline said. His voice was dark and determined, unlike the absent-minded doctor I’d visited earlier in the day.
“We’ll get her, but we have to go. Now,” the unfamiliar voice insisted.
“Let me grab my files.”
“There is no time,” the man yelled. “You’ve made a mess out of this. Why couldn’t you be happy with the kids you have? Why did you need one more?”
“Dr. Bray has been taking the medicine I’ve been giving her. She’s clueless about how it’s affecting her child. If everything goes as planned, we won’t need to experiment on other children. The Bray baby will give us what we need.”
Every bone in my body stiffened at the words, and I forgot to breathe.
“I hope she’s ingested enough of the pills. You won’t see her again until she gives birth.”
“She has, but she’ll become suspicious if I just vanish and I don’t call with her bloodwork. She’s the one who found Nurse Betty and caught that killer.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry about Sebastian Elliot blabbing about Dr. Bray’s secret blood bonds. We took care of that loose end. Now let’s go.”
I reached for the door. Carson stepped in front of me holding up his hand.
My brows drew together as I lifted the gun, aiming it at the ceiling, in a sign he’d understand. I was going to kill the doctor.
He shook his head before tipping it to the door. As far as nonverbal signs went, I understood Carson. He didn’t want to give away our position. There might be more people in the building. If we killed Cline, I would never know what the hell he’d done to my child and me.
I lowered my gun and sighed, stepping back. I waved my arm in a gesture he’d understand as fine. For now, I wouldn’t kill Dr. Cline, but that didn’t mean after we got out of the building, I wouldn’t track his ass down and break every bone in his body until he told me the truth.
Crackling noises sounded on the other side of the door.
“Don’t worry, Doctor. You have copies of all the research at the compound. Burning everything here will destroy any of the evidence left behind.”
My eyes widened, as did Carson’s, when smoke started to billow beneath the door. The crackling sounded grew louder beyond the wood.
Chapter Fourteen
A single window with frosted glass in the tiny bathroom wasn’t big enough for either of us to escape.
“We’re stuck,” I whispered, lifting the microphone clipped on my shirt, but my earpiece was met with static.
“No, we’re not,” Carson answered and pulled the door open. The fire flickered from the filing cabinet out into the room as Carson grabbed my hand and used his body to shield mine while skirting me around the walls and knocking things out of our way until we reached the door. He eased the office door open and peeked around the corner into the lit hallways. He ushered me through and was bringing up the rear when he yanked me into one of the darkened patient rooms and eased the door closed, only leaving it open with enough room that he could peek outside. He held his finger to his mouth and peered through the crack. “They set the file room on fire and left.”
My eyes widened. “We won’t be able to get out. That will block the back exit.”
“We’ll use the front door.”
My eyes widened as we headed back in that direction we’d come, only to find that flames were shooting out of the doctor’s office, blocking the door that led to the lobby and our freedom.
“We’re blocked in.” I tried to hide the hysteria in my voice. Both of our exits were now cut off.
Carson shoved the gun back into its holster. Bullets weren’t going to get us out of this mess. Carson’s determined angry eyes flew around the room before landing on the cabinets. He yanked the closest ones open and began working his way around the room. “We aren’t dying in this damn office.”
“Why aren’t the sprinklers working?” I growled and pointed up at the ceiling.
“God only knows. Let’s hope they have a fire extinguisher tucked in a cabinet. Check in all the rooms,” he said.
I hurried into the other room and began opening drawers and cabinets in my search. I was coughing from the smoke when Carson appeared at my side. He had a fire extinguisher in his hands.
“Stay behind me.”
“Lucy.” Grant’s voice was music to my ears. “I’m coming through the front. Try and get to me.”
With Carson spraying the flames so we could hurry past, Grant had just pulled open the lobby door, meeting us halfway. We ran from the building, coughing and bending at the knees.
“What the hell did you two do?” Grant growled.
‘It wasn’t us. It was Dr. Cline and another guy. Why didn’t you warn us?” I asked in an accusatory tone.
“Our feed went out. We had an electrical short or something. We tried to tell you, but the comms weren’t working either. From where we were parked, we didn’t see anyone else enter the building. Are you sure it was Cline?”
I raised a brow and didn’t bother to answer his questions.
“He’s trying to cover his tracks,” I said.
“Fire trucks and ambulance are on the way,” Noah said as he approached. A glint of worry filled his eyes. “You okay?”
“No, she’s not fucking okay.” Carson’s angry, deadly tone filled the night air. “They’ve been drugging her and the baby, and from the sounds of it, they have other kids. Just what the hell did you let her get into?”
I was at a loss for words after what I’d just overheard. I’d trusted Dr. Cline. I’d been seeing him since my initiation into the program. None of this made sense.
“Did you find the files?” Noah asked.
I pulled them out from beneath my shirt and shoved t
hem against his chest as I walked by with my hands on my hips. My mind raced with the implications of what the hell all of this meant.
Noah was the one to appear by my side moments later. “I’m sorry. I should have come clean and told you about Justice and all of it.”
“I trusted that asshole with my life. He’s been drugging me. I have questions, Noah, and I need answers.”
“I know,” Noah said, glancing at the files in his hands. “And I promise we’ll get them. Let me make a call, and I’ll see if we can’t pick him up on arson charges just for starters.”
I nodded and fought the angry tears that were starting to gather. “Noah, he’s going to pay for whatever the hell he’s done.”
“Stand in line, Lucy. If he was the one after Justice, he won’t live to go to trial after I get finished interrogating him.”
I could live with that…for now.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Ford’s number, bypassing the texts. It was late where both of us were concerned. Even later for him, but he answered on the first ring, his voice alert, and sounding wide-awake.
“You get out okay or do you need bail money?”
“We’re out,” I said as the emergency vehicles neared. I turned to face the building. Fire was shooting out of two of the windows. “The doctor is a pyro. Who knew?”
I was met with silence on the other end of the phone. “You joke when you’re upset. What happened?”
“Ford. It’s bad. The doctor has been drugging the baby and me.”
“With what and how?”
“My prenatal vitamins or the stuff for my migraines is my guess. As for the what? I don’t know, but I believe it’s meds they were administering in the secret programs like the one I was administered that allowed me to hunt.”
“Lucy, you thought our child might be like you,” Ford said.
“It’s worse than that, Ford. I think he was giving me all the meds from the program, not just the one that made blood bonds. There were several other groups that did other things.”
Guarding Justice (Fractured Minds Series Book 7) Page 7
