THE JACK REACHER FILES: THE GIRL FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF CORDIAL (with Bonus Thriller THE BLOOD NOTEBOOKS)

by Jude Hardin

  Thrasher walked over to the bed.

  “Anna, can you hear me?”

  No response. He put his hand on her shoulder, nudged her gently, said her name again. Still nothing. He opened some drawers and dug around and found something and pulled it out and tore off the paper wrapping. It was a wooden stick about seven inches long and about as big around as a toothpick. There was a cotton swab on one end, bare wood on the other.

  Thrasher pulled the bed sheet back and started poking around on the bottom of Anna’s feet with the bare end of the stick. She didn’t move. Not even a twitch. He covered her back up and held a button on the side rail and raised the bed as far as it would go. Then he grabbed a pair of gloves from the dispenser on the wall and started removing the gauze that had been wrapped around the top of her head.

  “Want me to do anything?” I said.

  “See what’s in that refrigerator over there.”

  I walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door and looked inside. There was a tray of glass vials. Something like the ones they use for blood specimens, only bigger. I picked up several of the vials and examined the labels on them, and then I pulled the whole tray out and set it on the countertop.

  “It looks like every one of these is from a different patient,” I said.

  “Do they have names on them?”

  “No. Just numbers.”

  Thrasher looked down at Anna’s hands. I figured he was checking to see if she had an ID bracelet, something to match her up with one of the numbers on one of the vials. But she didn’t. No Bracelet.

  “Bring the gurney in here,” Thrasher said. “We have to know which one of those vials belongs to Anna.”

  “You think Dr. Penworth memorized all those numbers?” I said.

  “Probably not. But she must have had some method of identifying the patients. Maybe there’s a log somewhere matching names to the numbers.”

  “All right. I’ll bring her in here. But I don’t think you should let her perform the procedure, or even assist with it.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let her get anywhere near Anna.”

  Thrasher was still working on getting the bandage unwrapped. I opened the door and stepped out of the room. The gurney was right there.

  But Dr. Bailey Penworth wasn’t on it.

  15

  I bolted back into the room.

  “She got away,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Dr. Penworth. She’s gone.”

  There was a pile of gauze on the floor by the bed. Anna’s head was exposed now, and I could see the area where they’d shaved her hair off. There was a hole about the size of a pencil lead just above her right ear.

  “I’m not leaving Anna alone,” Thrasher said.

  “Give me the gun. I’ll go by myself.”

  He handed me the gun.

  “We need Dr. Penworth alive,” he said. “I can’t do this without knowing which one of those vials belongs to Anna.”

  I gave the pistol a quick check. Full magazine, one round in the chamber. I clicked the safety off and opened the door and started trotting back toward the cage. I didn’t know for sure that Bailey had gone back there, but I figured she had. I figured she would want to cut Stottolini loose. Not necessarily out of loyalty. More for her own sake. Strength in numbers. Stottolini’s right arm was severely injured, but there was nothing wrong with his left arm, and there was nothing wrong with his legs. Bailey could give him a shot for his pain, and then he could help her take Thrasher and me down. He probably had another gun somewhere. Maybe other weapons. I had no idea, but I knew from experience that the situation demanded extreme caution. Carlo Stottolini and Bailey Penworth wouldn’t be interested in keeping us around for their experiments anymore. They would be out for blood. They would want to get rid of us immediately.

  The warehouse had gotten even darker. Definitely evening approaching. It was probably about five-thirty. Soon it would be completely dark. A huge disadvantage for me. Bailey and Stottolini knew their way around the warehouse. I didn’t. I knew my way to the cage, and I knew my way back to Anna’s room. And that was it. I didn’t know where any of the other hallways went, and I didn’t know what any of the other spaces were for. The doors with the numbers on them. I tried a couple of the knobs as I walked by, but they were locked. I could have tried Stottolini’s keys, but I didn’t want to take the time. I needed to find Bailey. Anna’s life depended on it. If Thrasher couldn’t identify the vial of cells that belonged to her, she would probably remain in her current state until she died. I needed to find Bailey, and I needed to find her before it got dark. I figured I had about fifteen minutes. Any longer than that and I probably wouldn’t even be able to find my way back to Anna’s room.

  I made it to the clearing where the cage had been built, crept along in the shadows until I got about twenty feet away, close enough to get a look inside, far enough away that I wouldn’t be easily spotted. Stottolini was still on the floor. His right arm was still bent the wrong way, and there was still a bulbous knot where his elbow used to be. The knot was still purple, contrasting sharply with the skin on the rest of his arm and the skin on his face, which was approximately the same color as the pizza dough he’d made his fortune with.

  I could see that Stottolini was dead. I could see it clearly. Even from twenty feet away. Even in the dim light. I thought that maybe a blood clot had traveled from his arm to his brain, but when I got closer I saw that the gate had been opened. Bailey must have had a spare key hidden somewhere.

  I walked into the cage. There was a single incision about two inches long on the left side of Stottolini’s neck. Bailey must have severed his carotid artery on that side. There was a lot of blood, and I could see that it had sprayed out and splattered a few feet from where Stottolini was lying.

  I wondered why she’d killed him. Maybe she thought he was more of a liability than an asset at this point. He was extremely wealthy. He could afford to hire any attorney he wanted to. Maybe Bailey was concerned about him copping a plea and testifying against her in a court of law. Maybe she was planning to kill everyone who could possibly hurt her.

  Now that Carlo Stottolini and Brighton Penworth were dead, Kei Thrasher and I were probably the only people in the world who knew about the experiments being conducted at the warehouse. Along with Anna Parks, of course. She was no threat in her current condition, but she might be if she ever woke up.

  I was thinking about all that when a shot rang out and the floor exploded a few inches in front of my bare toes, pelting me with sharp little chips of concrete. I’d seen the muzzle flash out of the corner of my eye. The shooter was to my left, over by the shelves and the jugs on pallets. I dropped to the floor and rolled behind Stottolini’s dead body and aimed that way and fired three times.

  And missed three times.

  I knew that I’d missed, because a couple of seconds later a pair of headlights switched on and started moving toward the cage.

  Quickly.

  Brightly.

  Dr. Penworth. It had to be her. She was on the forklift, and she was coming right at me. I squeezed off a few more rounds, sparks flying as the bullets ricocheted off the heavy steel loading mechanism, which Bailey had raised to use as a shield. It was protecting her, but it was also blocking her line of sight. At least partially. Maybe totally. I stopped firing. The gun was useless to me now. Bailey was going to plow into the cage and run me over. Then she was going to go take care of Kei Thrasher and Anna Parks. Then she was going to head on back to Washington and resume her special assignment duties. Pretend none of this ever happened.

  Not a bad plan, but she was going to have to get past me first.

  I stood and darted toward the gate, slipping on Stottolini’s blood, almost falling, regaining my balance and grabbing the gate post and pulling myself out of the cage a split second before Bailey rammed into it. She didn’t stop the lift and start shooting at me, because she didn’t see me. Because of the loading mechan
ism. She hit the cage full-throttle and the forks broke through the chain-link mesh and there was screeching and clanging and crunching as the powerful machine scooted the fencing and the framework and everything inside it toward the plywood partitions.

  I was behind the forklift now. I took aim at Dr. Penworth’s back. Just to the left of center. The bullet would pass through her ribcage, tear a fat hole in her heart on the way out. I’d come very close to being crushed to death. I was jacked on adrenaline, and I almost took the shot. I almost pulled the trigger. Then I remembered. We needed her alive.

  I fired a shot toward the ceiling. The forklift came to an abrupt stop. Bailey just sat there for a few seconds. Thinking. Wondering who else was in this part of the warehouse. Wondering who else had a gun. Then it came to her. She realized I must have gotten out of the cage before she crashed into it. She jumped off the forklift and started shooting wildly in every direction. The warehouse was almost dark now. She couldn’t see me. But I could see her. Because of the headlights on the forklift. They were shining toward the plywood partitions, bouncing off and allowing me to see her silhouette. Plus, I could see the muzzle flash every time she fired her weapon. I could have drilled two rounds into her chest right then, and it would have been over. Instead, I waited until she ran out of ammunition, and then I fired another shot at the ceiling.

  “Hands behind your head,” I shouted.

  She turned toward me. Now we were facing each other. Nothing but empty space between us. Forty feet. Fifty at the most. She still couldn’t see me, but she knew my general location. She’d narrowed it down from the sound of my voice. She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t try to run away. Maybe she knew that I didn’t want to kill her, that Thrasher and I still needed her help. Maybe she thought there was still a chance for her to escape. Whatever the case, she did something totally unexpected then. Something I hadn’t anticipated, but should have. She did it as quickly as anyone I’d ever seen. Smoothly. Rhythmically. Like a dancer. It was a practiced move. Not something they teach you in medical school. She’d obviously gotten some supplemental training somewhere along the way.

  She ejected the magazine from her pistol and jammed in a fresh one from her lab coat pocket and started pumping out rounds as fast as she could pull the trigger. Precise. Measured. Like something she’d done a million times before.

  Now I didn’t have a choice. I rolled to the floor and leveled the sights and fired once.

  And once was all it took.

  Bailey Penworth dropped to the floor. I got up and started walking toward her. Slowly. Cautiously. Shoulders squared, arms outstretched, both hands wrapped tightly around the pistol grips, both ears ringing from the echoing blasts. I leaned down and checked her neck for a pulse. She was gone. There was a hole the size of a quarter in the center of her chest. She must have died instantly. There wasn’t much blood. There never is when the heart stops abruptly.

  I pulled out the cell phone I’d taken from Stottolini and called 911. There was no point in putting it off anymore. Thrasher wasn’t going to be able to help Anna Parks. He wasn’t going to be able to perform the procedure now that Bailey was dead.

  I asked the dispatcher to forward the call to Detective Hollinger.

  He answered on the second ring.

  “This is Hollinger,” he said.

  “You told me that you needed some concrete evidence that a crime was committed,” I said. “I think I have some now.”

  16

  I told Hollinger everything that had happened. It took me a few minutes to go through it all. He wanted the location of the warehouse. I couldn’t tell him, because I didn’t know.

  “We can track the cell phone you’re using,” he said. “It should only take a few minutes.”

  “Just do whatever you have to do to get us out of here.”

  I disconnected. The headlights on the forklift were getting dim. The lift needed to be put back on the charger, but I didn’t want to disturb the crime scene. Not to that extent.

  The inside of the cage was a mess. Stottolini’s corpse had been mangled beyond recognition. It was a ghastly sight. I didn’t want to go in there, but I needed a flashlight. Stottolini’s cell phone might have provided enough light for me to get back to Anna’s room, but I didn’t want to use it. I didn’t want to drain the battery. I figured Hollinger would need an active signal to track the phone. So I needed a flashlight, and I thought there might have been one on the supply cart. Maybe one of those little ones doctors use to check your pupils. I carefully walked through the gate, trying not to step on anything. Which was difficult, because there was debris everywhere. Organic and non-organic. I didn’t see a flashlight anywhere near the overturned cart. Or anywhere else. I looked around until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  I stepped back out of the cage and leaned against one of the plywood partitions and took some deep breaths and noticed something sticking out of one of Bailey’s lab coat pockets. I walked over there and picked it up. It was a small spiral notebook. It hadn’t been there when I’d searched her earlier. She must have gotten it when she got the pistol. And the spare magazine. And the key to the gate. I flipped through the notebook, saw right away that it was a list of names and identification numbers scribbled in black ink. Probably Bailey’s handwriting, which was probably the reason she’d wanted to take it with her. She didn’t want to leave anything lying around that could tie her to the crimes.

  Anna Parks was in there twice. F27000-57, and F27000-58.

  This was the information Thrasher needed.

  And he needed it before the ambulance arrived and carted Anna away.

  Maybe Hollinger hadn’t pinpointed the location of the cell phone yet. I reached into my pocket and pulled it out and switched it off. Now I needed to get the little notebook to Thrasher.

  But I couldn’t do it in the dark.

  I felt sick. From all the carnage surrounding me, and from my error in calling the police too soon. As I swallowed back the bile rising from my stomach, I noticed some electrical conduit running along one of the steel support beams on the ceiling. I followed the line with my eyes over to the other side of the warehouse. It appeared as though it terminated somewhere behind the storage shelves. I walked over there by the light of the dying headlight beams and found the breaker box. There was a padlock on it. A small one. Which meant that there should have been a small key on Stottolini’s key ring. But there wasn’t. All of the keys were way too big to fit into the lock. I didn’t need to try them. I could tell by looking.

  The headlights got very dim for a few seconds, started flickering, and then went completely dark. Now I couldn’t see anything. Stottolini’s cell phone still might have provided enough light for me to get back to Anna’s room, but I still didn’t want to use it. I didn’t want to turn it back on. Turning it back on would give Hollinger the signal he needed to find it. And I didn’t want that. Not yet.

  I tried to bend the door on the breaker box with my fingers, but it was no use. The steel was too heavy. Then I remembered the matches. I reached into my pocket and pulled them out and struck one. The little flame was surprisingly bright, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. Maybe thirty seconds. I cupped my hand around it and started walking back toward the wrecked cage and the plywood partitions. I walked slowly so the breeze from my movement wouldn’t extinguish the flame. It took three matches to get over there. I had five left. I rounded the first row of partitions and started through the maze that led to Anna’s room.

  Then I heard a siren.

  It sounded close.

  17

  I made it back to Anna’s room with one match to spare.

  But I didn’t make it back in time. The EMS guys had already loaded her onto a gurney, and they were already wheeling her down the hallway. Opposite the direction I’d come from. Toward the exit, I supposed.

  I walked into the room. Thrasher was standing at the sink, washing his hands.

  “Bailey Penworth is dead,” I said. “I had to sho
ot her. I had no choice. Then I found this.”

  Thrasher pulled some paper towels from the recessed dispenser on the wall. He dried his hands and then took the little spiral notebook from me and opened it and turned a couple of the pages.

  “This is the information I needed,” he said.

  “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t get it here in time. I tried.”

  He smiled. “Soon after you left, I remembered something. The day after I was discharged from the hospital, a home health nurse brought the antibiotic I’d been prescribed to the storage unit where I was living. Before she hooked it up, she programmed my patient ID number into the IV pump. I wondered if Dr. Penworth might have done the same thing here with the pump she was using to deliver Anna’s fluids. I checked, and sure enough, Anna’s ID number was right there in the pump’s computer.”

  “So you performed the procedure?” I said.

  “Yes. It wasn’t difficult, once I knew which vial to use. Actually, I had to choose from two. One of them had Anna’s number with a dash fifty-seven added on, and the other with a dash fifty-eight. I chose the dash fifty-eight, thinking it was probably the newest version of the formula. I drew the cells from the vial and injected them into Anna’s temporal lobe. The hole in her skull had already been drilled, so all I had to do was estimate the depth of the needle insertion.”