Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story Book 2)

by Chris Patchell

  “It’s no big deal. I can drive you home.”

  “No, really, just drop me off.”

  A heavy silence settled between them on the way over to the Smith Tower, every second alone an excruciating reminder that he was not hers.

  Jesse pulled the truck up to the curb, and Brooke unbuckled her seatbelt.

  “I’ll hop out here.”

  “Hang on. I’ll walk you in.”

  “No need.”

  She was out of the truck before Jesse could protest. Her head bent, she entered the lobby. Surrounded by strangers, Brooke fought the panic welling up inside her. She locked her gaze on the elevator doors and focused on her breathing. The ride up to the Holt Foundation was one of the longest of her life.

  Brooke paused in front of the frosted glass doors and read the inscription: “Strength comes from within. Small steps. Everyday.”

  It was something her therapist might have said. The truth of it wrapped around her like a warm cloak as she stepped inside.

  “Dammit.” The sudden vehement curse startled Brooke. “Marissa!”

  A man strode through a doorway and out into the hall. Brooke flattened herself against the wall, a scream caught in her throat. Tall, with dark hair and broad shoulders, he looked like Andrew Bowman. But that couldn’t be. Bowman was dead.

  The guy spotted Brooke. Stopped short.

  “Oh.” He looked as shocked as she felt. “Welcome to the Holt Foundation. How can I help you?”

  Brooke struggled to find her voice. “I’m here to see Marissa Rooney.”

  He smiled then. Brooke drew in a shaky breath.

  “I was looking for her too. Right this way.” He gestured down the hallway, and Brooke trailed a few feet behind him. “Sorry about the outburst. We’ve been having trouble with the printer, and Marissa seems to be the only one who can get the stupid thing working. I didn’t catch your name.”

  He cast a friendly look over his shoulder.

  “Brooke Parker.”

  He stopped and looked at her. “You’re Marissa’s daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Evan Holt.” He extended his hand. Brooke’s icy fingers were enveloped in his warm grasp.

  “Holt, as in the Holt Foundation?”

  He gave a humble nod. “Aunt Elizabeth started this place.”

  “She died, didn’t she? I’m so sorry.”

  A fleeting look of sadness crossed his face.

  “She did, and thank you.” He continued down the hallway and paused at the first door on the left. “This is your mother’s office.”

  Her mother wasn’t there. An open laptop sat in the center of the desk, flanked by neat stacks of paperwork. Evan’s expression clouded.

  “Wasn’t she supposed to take you to an appointment today?”

  “She texted me saying she wouldn’t make it in time. I had a friend take me. I assumed she’d be here.”

  “Maybe Seth knows where she is.”

  They walked farther down the hall, but Seth’s office was empty too.

  “I don’t suppose you’re looking for a job,” Evan joked. “I seem to be in need of some staff.”

  Brooke barely heard him. Her gaze was locked on the pictures of two missing women taped to the whiteboard. A list of questions was scrawled alongside the photos in green marker.

  A chill ran up her spine as she realized that her picture had once been posted on this very board alongside Kim Covey’s and her roommate Tess. The foundation spent weeks looking for her. She would have died had Seth not found her.

  “Are you okay?” Evan asked, concern filling his voice.

  “Yeah.” She tore her gaze away from the whiteboard. “Those women are pregnant.”

  “They are.”

  “Do you think you’ll find them?”

  “We found you,” he said.

  “What you do here . . . it’s important.”

  “It is. These are people’s lives we’re dealing with. Lizzie said that helping other people overcome their problems helps you forget about your own. The foundation was her dream. Now it’s mine.”

  Brooke absorbed the enormity of Evan’s statement. Running a place like this, having so many people relying on him was a huge responsibility. In a way, she envied him. He was doing something that mattered. The foundation changed people’s lives. It had changed hers.

  “Maybe we should give your mom a call,” he suggested.

  They called from Evan’s office, but her mother wasn’t answering her phone. They tried the home number too. A tremor of panic ran through her.

  “It’s getting late. Where could she be?” Brooke asked.

  “Maybe her cell phone ran out of juice.”

  Brooke nodded, but she didn’t buy it. Her mother was never out of touch.

  “I could drive you home if you need a lift.”

  The last time she’d gotten a ride with a stranger, it had almost cost Brooke her life. But what choice did she have? She could call her sister, Kelly, but it would take her at least an hour to get here. And there was no way she was calling Jesse again.

  As far as risks went, Evan was a safe bet. He was her mother’s boss. He hadn’t done a single thing to make her nervous, quite the contrary. But then, she’d thought the psycho who’d kidnapped her was a good guy too.

  She couldn’t live her life thinking everyone was out to get her. Marshalling her fear, she followed Evan out of the office and into the elevator.

  The parking garage smelled like a crypt. Overhead lights buzzed like flies. Deep pockets of shadows nestled between the thick concrete columns.

  Panic fluttered inside Brooke’s chest. She pushed it back. Refused to let it take hold. She wasn’t alone. Evan was here with her. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

  The echo of their footsteps rang in the cavernous space. It was a lonely sound, like they were the only two people on earth.

  Evan pulled a remote from his pocket and clicked. Headlights flashed.

  “Here we are,” he said. He opened the door of the sleek black Mercedes.

  “I thought only superheroes like Tony Stark drove cars like this.”

  Evan grinned. “My aunt gave it to me when I passed the bar.”

  “The bar? You’re a lawyer?”

  “Guilty as charged, although I swear I’ve never chased an ambulance in my life.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve ever had to.”

  Evan didn’t comment. He closed the door softly behind her and rounded the hood of the car to the driver’s side. Brooke clicked the seatbelt as Evan settled into the seat beside hers. She glanced out the windshield.

  “Oh God” Brooke said, her heart hammering so hard she thought that Evan might hear it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There.” Brooke pointed through the windshield toward a row of parked cars. “That’s my mom’s car.”

  “You sure?”

  She scrambled out of the leather seat. Evan followed through the parking lot. Brooke prayed that she was wrong, but as she checked the license plate, she knew she wasn’t.

  “It’s hers.”

  Evan tried the door. “It’s locked.”

  A funnel cloud of fear gathered strength, spinning around in her mind until she could no longer think.

  “Maybe she’s with Seth,” Evan said.

  Brooke wanted to believe that he was right—that everything was fine. But she couldn’t. She knew first-hand that terrible things could happen in the blink of an eye.

  Evan bent. Picked an object off the ground.

  “It’s Marissa’s access badge.”

  Chapter 45

  Tory clipped the oxygen sensor on the Rooney woman’s slack finger and paused. The tip of the gun dug into her side and she shifted it to the back of her waistband. She wasn’t used to the bulky weight of it, but since she’d left the clinic, she couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going off the rails. She felt safer with the gun. She glanced over her shoulder. Xander was hunched
over his microscope on the other side of the lab.

  “Get my journal,” he said. “I need to refresh myself on the collection procedure. It’s been a while.”

  “Your journal? Which one?”

  “The blue, I think. I’m not sure.”

  There had to be at least a dozen hard-backed journals on the shelf. She crossed the room and ran her finger along the stack until she found the blue one. Tory yanked it from the pile. Xander’s neat handwriting filled the pages. Notes on procedures along with some carefully drawn diagrams. She flipped through it to see if this was the one he needed, but the deeper she delved into the journal, the more she realized that there was something very wrong.

  Eyes wide, she devoured the pages, not wanting to believe what she saw.

  The clean, elegant script covering the first few dozen pages broke down into an indecipherable scrawl. Dread stirred like an unseen monster in the pit of Tory’s gut. She skipped to the back of the journal and stifled a sob. Garbage. Absolute garbage.

  Tory grabbed the next book. And the next. Hoping that she was wrong. Hoping that there was some explanation for what she was seeing. An anomaly. A momentary lapse soon righted.

  She dropped the last book back on the shelf. It landed with a thud.

  When he had shown up at her apartment building disoriented, she’d realized that he was changing. How had she not realized how far his disease had progressed?

  “Tory?” Impatience pulsed in his voice.

  “Just a second.”

  Tory gathered herself. Hands trembling, she picked up the blue journal and crossed the lab. Each step brought her closer to a devastating realization—that this was the end of everything they had worked for.

  Xander snatched the book from her grasp. Flipped it open. She watched for some indication that he saw what she had—that it was over. His eyebrows contracted as he focused on the chicken scratch. Then he nodded and turned back toward the workspace with the microscope and petri dishes, like everything was fine.

  Tory stood there, speechless. Xander looked up.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “Prep the patient.”

  Tory backed away slowly, her head spinning with the enormity of what she now knew. Her shoes squeaked on the white tile as she crossed the room to the woman on the gurney. Marissa Rooney looked as trusting as a sleeping child in her drug-induced state, oblivious about what was going to happen to her. How Xander planned to cut her open and harvest her unborn baby. How she would be left to bleed out on the table and then disposed of.

  Like all those other girls.

  But this woman wasn’t like the others. She was grown up, responsible, with two daughters who needed her. She wasn’t going to ruin anyone’s life.

  Tory glanced over at Xander. He was fully absorbed in his work. She wondered what was going through his mind at that moment. Coherent thoughts? A jumble of misfiring neurons like a nest of tangled wires.

  If she could save this woman . . .

  A dull rumble penetrated the thick walls. The overhead lights swayed and flickered as a tremor ran through the lab. Tory gripped the bedrail and glanced toward the surveillance monitors.

  A flash of headlights. A car leaving the farmhouse. The sight of it knocked the air from her chest.

  “Xander, there’s someone here.”

  “What now?”

  With an exasperated sigh, he left his perch and marched across the room. Hands on hips, he glared at the screen, but the headlights were gone. Xander tossed his hand in the air and gestured toward the display.

  “See? It’s nothing. No one is there.”

  “The light is on.”

  Xander shook his head like she was an idiot. “So? You left it on.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Without a word, he dismissed her denial and went back to work. Tory stood transfixed in front of the monitors. She hadn’t left the light on.

  The coppery tang of fear filled her throat. If someone was at the farmhouse, they were out of time. Her mother had died in prison like a caged animal, drained of life.

  Tory couldn’t live like that. She wouldn’t.

  And Xander. If he was arrested, who would take care of him?

  “We need to get out of here,” she said.

  Anger sparked in his eyes, but he said nothing. He returned to his task. Calm. Methodical. Plodding.

  “Do you even hear me?” Tory yelled. Grabbed him. Tried to shake some sense into him. Her sharp nails bit through the thin fabric of his shirt, and Xander flung her off.

  “Get your head back into the game. There’s nobody out there, and even if there was, they won’t be able to find us. Now, are you going to help me, or do I need to call someone who will?”

  “Help you what? Murder this woman? Kill her baby?”

  He wasn’t a real doctor saving lives anymore, and if she helped him with this, knowing what she did, then she was a monster.

  “What is wrong with you?” he barked. Eyes wild. Madness blazing like a house on fire. “Get back to work.”

  “Please, Xander. Listen to me.” She approached him slowly, carefully, in case he lashed out at her again.

  It was a sign, she knew. He would grow more combative as the disease progressed. As his mind continued to betray him and frustration bubbled over, he might become violent.

  “Let’s get out of here before it’s too late,” she said. “We’ve got enough money to disappear.”

  “Go? Where would we go? And for what?” he bellowed. “I can still do this. I have to do this.”

  Xander took her face in his hands with such unexpected gentleness, it broke her heart. This brilliant man who was losing everything so dear to him, not so far gone that he didn’t know what would happen. What would come next.

  “You don’t understand the first thing about research. You never have. It takes patience. Time. You have to control the environment. Refine the process. Endure a million failures before you succeed.”

  “There is no more time. Don’t you get it? There are people on the property. They’re coming.”

  “If you want to go, then just go.”

  Xander dropped his hands to his sides, and Tory knew she had lost. He was beyond reason. Hope.

  She could leave, save herself, but how could she abandon him? He was all she had. Without him, she was nothing. Scared, desperate, Tory did the only thing she could do. She pulled a revolver from the waistband of her jeans and pointed it at Xander.

  “We’re leaving here. Now.”

  Tory pulled the hammer back and pointed the pistol at Xander’s head. He raised his palms in the air.

  “Put the gun down.”

  “I’m not going to stay here and let you get caught. We’re getting out of here. Both of us.”

  She jerked the barrel of the gun toward the door.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Xander snapped.

  “Do you want to go to jail? Do you know what will happen if they catch us?”

  The gun shook in Tory’s trembling hands. Tears streaked down her cheeks. It was hopeless. He didn’t understand. She had to save him from himself—save them both while she still could.

  Tory raised her other hand to steady her aim. Xander’s eyes never left hers.

  “I’ve believed in you. I’ve loved you. I’ve helped you do unspeakable things. Horrible things because I believed that we were doing good.”

  “We are doing good.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” Xander’s gaze bore into her. His hand clamped down on top of hers, calling her bluff. “Get back to work.”

  Tory’s face convulsed in pain. He would never stop, and she would not do this anymore. She was done. She couldn’t shoot him. Couldn’t leave him.

  It was her ruin.

  Tory lowered the gun. Xander pried it from her grasp and shook his head.

  She had failed. Tory turned away from him and trudged toward the hospital bed. She removed the IV from the patient’s arm and
pressed a cotton swab to stop the flow of blood.

  “What are you doing?” Xander demanded.

  Ignoring him, she went about her work. Tory fiddled with the buckle lashing Rooney’s right arm to the bed. Her hands were shaking, making even the simplest tasks hard. The buckles rattled as she loosened the restraint.

  “Don’t be stupid, Tory.” Anger cracked in Xander’s voice.

  “I told you. I’m not going to let you kill her.” Tory stepped in front of the patient. “She’s getting out of here. We all are.”

  “Not all of us,” Xander said.

  Tory’s heart jolted. Xander pointed the gun at her with a look on his face she’d never seen before. A scream caught in her throat.

  He pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 46

  The wet air was filled with smoke and the coppery scent of blood. Seth fell to his knees in the mud and debris beside Henry’s prone form.

  “Henry,” Seth shouted, but Henry didn’t move. He pressed his fingers to Henry’s throat, trying to find a pulse. “Come on.”

  Henry moaned.

  He was alive.

  None of the training he’d received on dealing with emergency situations equipped him to deal with this kind of traumatic injury, but if he didn’t do something, quick, Henry was going to die.

  The bleeding. He had to control the bleeding.

  Hands shaking, Seth fumbled with his belt buckle. He tore the belt free from his jeans and hovered over his friend. He fed the end of the belt through the buckle and looped it around the stump of Henry’s leg. Flesh and bone and blood were everywhere. Seth swallowed hard as he pulled the leather strap tight.

  A primal scream of agony wrenched from Henry’s throat. The dull roar penetrated the ringing in Seth’s ears. Henry thrashed, and Seth pinned him to the ground, trying to keep him still.

  Think. He had to think.

  He could call for help, but by the time the ambulance got here, Henry would have bled out. He’d call on the way.

  A car.

  His car was dead on the side of the highway. He frisked Henry’s pockets until he found the Prius keys.

  Securing the tourniquet, as best he could, Seth lurched to his feet in the mud. He ran down the driveway and skidded to a halt beside Henry’s car. Sticky blood was caked to his fingers as he thrust the key into the ignition and cranked the Prius to life.