by Rebecca York
“You moved me while I was sleeping?”
“Yes. Like I said, the patient facility is a wreck. And it’s safer here.”
He started to say that they were keeping five armed men on hand at all times in case the guy who had gotten away came back. But he stopped himself just in time.
“I’ll take a shower,” she said. Probably she felt grungy after her escape from the VR. But probably she also wanted to postpone the meeting with the Decorah staff.
“We’re down the hall. Turn right and keep walking. You can’t miss it.”
“I’ll hurry,” she said, then scooted into the bathroom and locked the door. To give her some privacy, he went back to the others.
“Well?” Mack asked.
“Nightmare.”
“Figures.”
“How long will she be?”
“She doesn’t want to come out here. But on the other hand, she probably wants to get the questions over with. I did get something out of her. The guy who sent the goons is called Rambo.”
“That’s good because Seaver was a real dead end.”
“We can hardly look up Rambo,” Teddy Granada from the IT department put in.
“Try it by state. Maybe it’s a nickname for an underworld character.”
“And maybe it will turn out to be someone more accessible.”
oOo
After she heard a door close, Jenny poked her head out of the bathroom. When she saw that Grant was gone, she crossed the room and turned the lock.
She felt strange doing it, and yet she didn’t feel safe either. The nightmare proved it. And to be truthful, she wasn’t feeling so great about Grant. He said that everyone was waiting to talk to her. She could imagine they had been thinking of questions to ask while she was sleeping.
She wished she had a watch. Lily had said she was going to sleep for six hours, but somehow it felt longer than that.
And then there was Grant’s admission that they’d moved her to a different place while she was sedated. The Decorah headquarters building, he’d said. She’d never been there, but she assumed it wasn’t that far away from the place where they kept the stiffs.
She laughed. The stiffs. Nice way to put it. Until a few hours ago, she’d been one of them.
Before returning to the bathroom, she went to the closet. She found underwear on shelves, along with a selection of shirts and slacks. She took a bra and panties, jeans and a dark-blue knit top into the bathroom. After using the facilities she brushed her teeth, took a shower and dried her hair—all the while trying to plan out what she was going to say.
She peered at herself in the mirror. When she’d first come out of the VR, she’d felt and looked a lot worse than when she’d been inside. Now she was feeling more like herself—and looking better, too.
Would that make her feel more confident when facing a whole bunch of people who wanted answers to questions she wasn’t prepared to give them?
Chapter Fourteen
Jenny had never liked being the center of attention. It had usually meant trouble, not praise. When she walked down the hall to the lounge, and six pairs of eyes looked up at her, she struggled not to cringe.
Her gaze swung around the group of men—and one woman, Lily Wardman. They were sitting on comfortable couches and in easy chairs that all were angled to face a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall at one side of the room. In addition to Lily, she also recognized Grant and Mack.
An older man stood up. He had salt and pepper hair and a lined face, but he was slim and fit. It must be Frank Decorah, and he looked like he was the equal of his agents. Grant had told her he’d been injured in Vietnam, but he didn’t look old enough to have fought in that war.
“I’m Frank Decorah,” he said, confirming her guess about his identity.
She nodded at him, then said quickly, “I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.”
“Not your fault,” he said. “You were unconscious when you got to the Hamilton Lab. Actually, Dr. Hamilton didn’t ask for permission to get you into his program. So everything that’s happened since has been out of your control.”
She licked her lips. “Except running away.”
“There is that.”
A plump, messy-looking guy put down a plate with a couple of sandwiches. “I’m Teddy Granada. I’m on the IT staff.”
She nodded in acknowledgment.
“And I’m Brand Marshall,” another man said. “I’m one of the Decorah agents.”
“You were one of the guys at the patient facility last night?”
“Yes.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, although it was far from the truth.
“There are sandwiches and salads on the buffet,” Frank Decorah said. “You’re probably hungry.”
Probably she should be, but her stomach was in knots. She went to the buffet and turned her back on the group while she got herself a tuna sandwich and a bottle of unsweetened iced tea.
When she came back, she took a seat in one of the easy chairs and put her sandwich and drink on the table to her right, wondering if she’d chosen the spot to isolate herself. She shot a quick glance toward Grant, but he was talking to Teddy Granada.
Nobody spoke while she took a few bites of her sandwich and sipped some of the iced tea.
Then Frank Decorah said, “There are surveillance cameras in the patient facility. We’d like you to take a look and tell us if you recognize the men who mounted the attack.”
“What happened to them?”
“They’re dead,” Frank said in a flat voice.
“Okay.”
“Some of the footage is disturbing,” the Decorah director added.
“Actually, most of it,” Lily warned.
“I understand,” she said, wondering how bad it was going to be. Well, watching was part of her punishment for pulling the running-away stunt.
She pushed her sandwich to the side when the television picture flickered.
“This is what happened during the attack,” Frank said.
She kept her gaze on the screen, seeing men with automatic rifles come into the lobby where she had exited when she stole Lily’s car and drove away. She supposed if they’d wanted to make sure that nobody could identify them, they would have been wearing masks. But none of them had bothered to hide their faces. Probably that meant that they weren’t planning to leave any witnesses.
She made a small sound when she saw the trio.
“You recognize them?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
“They work for a mobster in New Jersey,” she answered.
“Who?”
She glanced toward Grant, then away. “I think they call him Rambo.”
“Okay,” Frank said. “And why do they want you?”
She closed her eyes and dragged in a breath before answering. “I was a teacher—working at a school in New Jersey.”
“What school?” Frank asked.
“I don’t want to get them in trouble.”
“We need the information.”
“Why?”
“Because we want to understand your background.”
That was the crux of the problem. From the first moment she’d woken up with Lily, Grant, and a bunch of other strangers in the VR, she hadn’t wanted to talk about her background. But now she had to cooperate or they were going to think something was weird.
“It’s a private school called Fairview.”
She could see the guy named Teddy typing the information into a tablet.
“What did you teach?” Frank asked.
“Fourth grade.”
Frank nodded, and the guy who was taking notes wrote that down, too.
“Go on,” Frank said.
“At a parent-teacher night, I met the father of one of my students.”
“Who?”
She didn’t want to tell this story, but it looked like she had no choice. Or—what if she refused? What would they do to her? Probably
nothing threatening, but she wouldn’t be able to stand the looks on their faces. Because she’d already put them through a lot, she took a sip of the tea and kept speaking. “He said his name was Gabe Thompson.”
“You think he was lying about his name?”
“There’s no way I can be sure.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“He seemed to like me—and I liked him.”
“Who was his child?”
“A boy named Liam. Gabe was divorced from his son’s mother. They shared custody. The boy lived with his mom during the school year, but Gabe said he wanted to stay in his son’s life. He met me after school several times, and then he asked me out. He seemed nice, so I agreed.” She went on quickly, wanting to get it over with. “He told me a story about how they hadn’t gotten along and agreed to split. I guess I wanted to believe it. We got more and more involved. I thought he was nice. I convinced myself that we were compatible. And when he asked me, I agreed to marry him.”
“Did you love him?”
The question had come from Grant. Turning to him, she saw the intensity on his face. Quietly, she asked, “How is that relevant?”
“I’m trying to get the whole picture.”
“I convinced myself I did,” she said in a low voice. “Or enough to make a life with him. That turned out to be a mistake. I found out that the reason he got divorced was that his wife objected to Liam’s being the son of a mob boss. Well, apparently he’d said he’d left that life behind him and was focusing on a legitimate business. But then he must have slid back into the lifestyle. When he was at his house, he’d get phone calls and excuse himself to talk. Or tough-looking men would show up.”
She stopped, then started again. “When I told him I thought the relationship wasn’t going to work out, he wouldn’t allow me to leave. He kept me captive at his house.”
“How could he do that?” Lily asked.
“I guess he could do anything he wanted.”
“But you had a job. Didn’t they expect you back at school?”
“I think he told them I was sick. I don’t know all the details. All I knew was that he was ruthless, and he’d do whatever it took to get his way. And I knew that if I stayed with him, I’d eventually die inside. So I started looking for an opportunity to disappear. One afternoon, when he was out, I stole the keys to one of the cars on the property and I took off. I was driving recklessly, and you know what happened.”
Lily nodded.
“Let’s continue with the rest of the video,” Grant said.
She gave him a quick glance, then looked away. With every fiber of her being, she wished she could tell him she didn’t want to see it, but she already felt like a total jerk for staying in the car while he crept up on the patient facility to wait for the other Decorah agents.
It was almost impossible for her to keep her eyes on the screen, but she forced herself to watch one of the thugs slap Lily and punch Grant in the stomach. Then Lily was forced to start taking off her clothes. Jenny felt her whole body go cold as she took in the performance, even though she could tell Dr. Wardman was using the striptease to hold the bad guys’ attention.
Then all hell broke loose; she saw two of the gunmen go down. Then there were three bodies lying on the floor, covered by sheets, one of them in the corner away from the entrance to the room.
“You got all of them?” she asked.
“Yes,” Grant answered.
His tone was firm, but she was having trouble believing him.
“I only saw two get shot,” she said, hearing the strained quality of her own voice. “And when you got me from the car, I only saw two bodies.”
Before Grant could answer, Mack jumped in. “That’s because of the camera angles. He was in a blind spot. And he fell far back in the room where you couldn’t see him.”
“Okay,” she answered, wishing she could have seen the third guy go down. He was the one she feared the most, but she wasn’t going to talk about any of that.
“So you don’t have to run away again,” Grant said.
Her head swung toward him, her gaze questioning.
“None of them will be coming back to get you.”
She nodded slowly, still trying to absorb the impact and the implications.
“We’re going to go on with business as usual,” Grant said. “The patients will be moved back to the regular-care facility as soon as we get it back in shape.”
Lily turned toward her. “Mack is the only patient before you who came out of the VR. He had to get into reasonable shape quickly because we were under attack. But you have the luxury of easing back into the real world.”
“I guess.”
“I’d like you to stay at a nearby Decorah safe house,” she said.
“Why do I need to be at a safe house?”
“You don’t. Not strictly speaking. But we’re being cautious. Plus it’s got a gym, a running trail, a gourmet kitchen, access to every news and entertainment outlet. Anything you want. It’s a good place for you to get used to regular living. And while you’re there, you may be able to help us find Gabe Thompson.”
Grant stood up, walked down the hall and came back. “It’s dark outside. I’d like to get you settled at the safe house.”
“Okay,” she answered, thinking that he and Lily were very effectively boxing her in.
When he dragged in a breath and let it out, she wondered what he didn’t want to say. “I’m sure that nobody knows you’re here. But I’m not going to take any chances either. We’re going to leave in Mack and Lily’s car. And you’re going to be dressed like Lily. If anyone is watching, they’ll think you’re her—and I’m Mack”
“How could they be watching?” Jenny asked.
“It would have to be from a distance, and I don’t think they are, but I’m not taking any chances,” Grant answered. “I asked Lily to go out earlier and bring back takeout for lunch. She left the clothing she was wearing in a bag in the closet where you were sleeping. Put the outfit on, and also put on the wig I left. You already look a lot like her, but that will clinch it.
“And what happens when Lily really leaves?”
“She’s going to be wheeled out and put into an ambulance,” Frank answered. “Anybody watching will think she’s one of the patients—having some kind of crisis.”
“Okay, yes, but what if they follow the ambulance to the hospital?”
“By that time, it won’t matter,” Mack answered. “Or—if they do, they’ll realize they’ve been tricked. Grant’s going to take my car and drive to the safe house later. Then we’ll switch.”
oOo
Carlos Mardano and another one of Rambo’s security men, a guy named Tino Barcan, had made themselves at home in the parking lot of a strip mall conveniently situated across the highway from the entrance to the industrial park where the Decorah offices were located. They had driven down from New Jersey together. When they’d arrived in the Baltimore-Washington area, they had rented several cars so that they could rotate the vehicles to keep from being too conspicuous in their spy activities.
Carlos was getting tired of eating hamburgers and fries, but from his vantage point across the highway, he was sure he could figure out what was going on with Decorah.
This evening they each sat in a separate car and had taken turns going into the fast-food restaurant in the mall for coffee and sandwiches and to use the john. The arrangement meant that one of them was always monitoring the traffic going in and out of the park.
He had spun the story of the attack at the medical facility to his advantage, and he’d escaped with his life—unlike Danny and Lee, who had been killed in the shoot-out. He’d also told Rambo that he was going to bring Jenny back. And now he had to deliver.
The night after the failed attempt to scoop her up, he’d been able to take a look at the scene of the carnage by going in through the woods that bordered the industrial park. It was clear that the Decorah guys weren’t going to be using the location unti
l it was cleaned up. So he’d abandoned his plans to focus on that place and gone searching for the main Decorah office. It wasn’t hard to find. Decorah was a private security agency located a few miles down the road from the place where they’d housed all the sleepers. It looked like the patients who had been lying there during the search for Jenny were at the other building now. And probably, Jenny, too, if he was right about the doctor lying.
So why was a security agency running a hospital for brain-injured patients? He did some research on the Web and found that Decorah was involved in a fair amount of charity work. Maybe that was why they were housing a bunch of people who might never recover.
But Jenny hadn’t been lying in one of those beds. Either she was ambulatory, or she was dead. And from the way that doctor had acted, he was betting on the former.
oOo
With no choice, Jenny stood up and walked down the hall, wondering what the others were going to say after she left. Or maybe they wouldn’t take a chance on discussing the case until she was out of the building.
Was there a back way out of here? Even if there was, it wouldn’t do her any good. Trying to get away with so many Decorah agents in the building—plus Frank Decorah himself—wouldn’t be smart.
Instead she walked into the room where she’d been asleep and opened the closet. The paper bag she hadn’t noticed before was on the floor. Opening it, she took out a lime-green blouse, navy slacks and a short dark wig.
As she picked up the blouse, she was thinking that it would show up pretty well in the dark. But that must have been what Grant had intended.
After putting on the blouse and slacks, she took the wig into the bathroom, where she tugged it into place and tucked her hair out of sight.
As she put on the blouse, she was thinking about the video the agents had made her view. She’d struggled not to be sick when she’d watched the invaders intimidate Lily and the other Decorah people. But seeing the bad guys dead had been a relief—although she couldn’t push away a feeling of unreality about the takedown. The gruesome thought crossed her mind that she wished she’d seen their faces after they’d been shot. That would have made it real. And now it was too late to see the evidence.
