The Midnight Effect

by Pamela Fryer

  He isn’t going to let me leave.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The room spreading before her was as big as a football field and reminded her of an aerospace hangar. They stood on an elevated walkway circling the entire coliseum-like theater.

  Stretching to her left and right were lab suites, all with glass fronts looking over the immense laboratory floor. Inside, white-clad workers moved about, none of them taking notice of her or Colton.

  At the floor level, rows and rows of silver metal chambers stretched to the far end. They looked like tiny space shuttles right out of a bad science fiction movie.

  Lily stepped forward and gripped the railing as Annie’s strange declaration slid over her with chilling understanding.

  They make me sleep in the water.

  Sensory deprivation chambers. There is a child in each and every one of them.

  Her legs began to buckle. Lily gripped the railing until her fingers hurt. She willed away the black spots swirling across her vision. Annie, where are you?

  “This is our main research hall,” Colton said. He looked at her casually, but Lily was sure he saw her distress. The point to his tour was to strike fear in her heart.

  It worked.

  “Project Midnight is our most successful trial, and Annie is one of our most capable subjects. She has displayed telekinetic powers exceeding anything ever documented before. But of course, Meiling already told you as much.”

  “Where is Annie? I want to see her.” Lily cursed her quaking voice and her inability to find something different to say. She was coming off like a mouse.

  Colton was already on the curved, metal stairway leading down. His expensive Italian loafers made shrill tapping sounds on their grated surfaces. As though confident she would follow, he didn’t wait or glance behind.

  One of the scientists at the floor level looked up from the notes he was writing on a clipboard. His gaze landed on her and stuck as she descended the stairway.

  “This is Dr. Shapiro,” Colton said. “He’s the lead scientist on Project Midnight and has been Annie’s primary researcher her whole life.”

  Tears stung the back of her eyes. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. This is a circus and you’re nothing but a zookeeper!

  He extended his hand. “It is nice to meet you, Ms. Brent. I was a good friend of your sister’s. You look just like her, except for the hair, of course.”

  She stared back at the man. “Did you have anything to do with her murder?”

  He withdrew his hand and glanced nervously at Colton.

  “Your sister was hit by a car in a dangerous intersection,” Colton said gently. Mockery swam in his voice. “According to the police, she was holding Annie’s hand at the time. Do you truly believe I would take such a terrible risk, regardless of how I felt about Cassandra for abandoning us?”

  She threw a piercing gaze at him. “Where is Annie?”

  “She’s right here, Ms. Brent,” Dr. Shapiro said. He hurried to the third isolation chamber and unhooked the clipboard hanging beside the sealed hatch.

  Her panic skyrocketed. “Get her out of there.”

  “She’s in the middle of a trial,” Colton said. His voice had lost all amiability. The coldness in it was frightening.

  She stalked over and looked for a handle. She couldn’t see how it opened. Lily placed her hand on the dark metal. It was warm against her palm.

  I’m here, Annie. I’m going to get you out of here and take you home. I won’t leave without you.

  “You’re talking to her, aren’t you?” Colton said excitedly. His eyes glistened with a crazed gleam. “I’m psychic, I can tell.”

  He was nothing but insane. She was certain of it.

  Mommy.

  Lily jumped. Tingling ripples coursed through her hand. She choked as she fought to hide the sobs welling in her chest. Annie. I love you.

  She swallowed and composed herself. “Get her out of there, please.”

  “She’s in the middle of a study,” Colton repeated. For his claim of psychic powers, he gave no indication he’d heard Annie’s communication. “She’ll be finished in twelve hours, and you and she can go back to your apartment.”

  Lily nearly collapsed. “You can’t keep me here against my will.”

  Dr. Shapiro turned away and pretended to look at his clipboard. Lily detected fear in him as well. Was everyone here afraid of Colton Reilly? She realized her sister deserved more credit than Lily had given her. He may have turned her into a mouse, but Cassandra had still found the courage to try and escape.

  “You may leave any time you wish.” Colton resumed his oily grin. Lily wanted to slap it off him. “But I don’t think you’ll want to. I have a business arrangement to discuss with you that I think you will find advantageous. For you and Annie both.” He lifted his hand to urge her ahead of him. She shrank back.

  “I have no desire to enter any arrangement with you. Let us go, now.”

  He sighed and fixed his mouth in a firm line. “You may not take Annie with you.”

  “She’s legally in my custody. You know it.”

  “Temporary custody,” he corrected. “A paternity test is all it would take for me to win a lawsuit and you know it.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He stepped toward her. “Come, let us discuss this in a more appropriate place.”

  Lily shrank back. “No.”

  He snatched her wrist. For such a willowy man he was surprisingly strong. He dragged her back toward the stairway. She struggled, but her canvas shoes slipped on the polished floor.

  “Help me!” she screamed over her shoulder at Dr. Shapiro. When he glanced up at them, his wide eyes betrayed his calm demeanor, yet he didn’t move.

  “If you don’t help me, you’re an accessory!”

  “Calm yourself.” Colton jerked her onto the stairway. “You have a flair for the dramatic, don’t you? Just like Cassandra.”

  She stumbled behind him. He didn’t slow as she tripped on a step and nearly went down.

  Out in the hall, he yanked her around to face him. He narrowed his eyes menacingly.

  Lily leaned away, loathe to be near him. “If I refuse you, will you kill me like you did her?”

  As Miles gunned the rental truck through the trees he thought of the airbag as casually as if he suddenly remembered he needed to pick up milk at the grocery store. He shut his eyes a split second before hitting the pole supporting the length of cyclone fence. He heard a loud crack and was smacked in the face. The truck lurched over the fence and Miles blinked his vision clear as he barreled down a slope toward a small ravine. He stomped on the brakes and went sliding across the wet grass. The truck careened over the edge and planted itself in the narrow arroyo with a crunch of the right front fender.

  It was just as well. He couldn’t simply drive up to the parking lot and announce himself.

  The door wouldn’t open. He rolled down the window and climbed out. The sky had clouded over, but the day was still bright enough to make Miles worry. He hunkered low as he trotted across the five hundred yards of lush meadow separating the main building from the fence. Despite the recent snowfall, the grass still stood tall, but there wasn’t a tree or shrub anywhere to conceal his approach.

  A paved service road surrounded the building with widely-spaced exits leading to garbage receptacles, generator cages and air compressors. It looked like the backside of a strip mall. Unfortunately, there was no way inside unless he shot off one of the handles, and Miles wasn’t ready to announce himself with gunfire yet.

  He jogged around the immense building, bitterly aware of the security cameras halfway up the tall building’s side. He rounded the corner and surprised a man in a lab coat stepping out of a golf cart.

  Miles raised his weapon. “Hold it.”

  “Don’t shoot, please.” The man froze, hands in the air.

  Miles waved him close. “Come here.”

  “Whatever you say. Please don’t hurt me.
”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. Give me your coat.” He stepped behind the man and looked around. There was no one else in sight. “I want inside. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but if I have to I’m going to make a big noise.”

  “Who are you?”

  Miles would swear he heard hope bristling in the man’s voice.

  “Seattle PD.”

  His shoulders sagged. “Oh.”

  “That’s disappointing to you?”

  He shrugged out of the coat and handed it backward to Miles. “If the FBI couldn’t shut this place down, Seattle PD can’t, either.”

  Miles slipped into the coat. The photo ID read Thomas Lusardi, M.D. “Trust me. This place is going down if I have to take it down all by myself.”

  Dr. Lusardi turned around. “What’s your interest, if I may ask?”

  “A little girl named Annie.”

  He snorted. “Good luck. He’ll never give her up.”

  “He doesn’t have any choice.” Miles eyed him. “And neither do you.”

  Dr. Lusardi frowned. “Hit me.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Hard enough to look convincing. Please, don’t let him think I helped you willingly.”

  The man was scared. He wore the same frightened look in his eyes Meiling Wong had.

  Miles clubbed him with the butt of his .38 before the man could change his mind. He fell to his knees and pressed his hand to his head.

  “Ouch.”

  Miles helped him up. “You okay?”

  Dr. Lusardi nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get me to the lab where the children are kept in sensory deprivation chambers.”

  “I can get you inside, but I’m not involved in Project Midnight. I don’t have access to that area. You should know, it’s the hottest place in the whole building. You won’t get near it.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Dr. Lusardi plugged his code into the keypad beside the door. Three four two two. “Is my family safe?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  He sighed. “My daughter is only three and my wife is six months pregnant with our second. She’s… She wants to leave.”

  “And you?” The doors swung open with a break in suction and Miles followed him into a brightly lit hallway.

  “And me,” Dr. Lusardi confirmed. “A lot of us do. Helen and I were planning to leave during the move, when it would be easier to slip away.”

  “The move?” Miles followed him down the sterile white hall. With its smooth walls and bizarrely shaped wall sconces, it looked like a breezeway on the Enterprise. Far at the end a man in a white lab coat crossed the hall without looking up from his paperwork.

  “Colton is moving his main facility to Canada. He thinks the government there will be more lenient.” Lusardi stopped and pointed out their location on a basic map. “You’re here. The main lab for Project Midnight is here. Exits are marked with an ‘E’ like this. You can’t go out or get back in without an access code. Mine will activate all external doors and the roof access.”

  There are no cameras on the roof…

  Miles kept his voice low as another scientist passed at the end of the hall. “What about the apartments?” He had a good idea where Annie was, but Colton could be keeping Lily anywhere.

  He shook his head. “All the apartments have private codes. Colton is the only one with a master override.”

  “Where’s the security office?”

  Dr. Lusardi pointed it out on the map.

  “Is there a clothing room where we can get another lab coat?”

  The doctor nodded.

  “Okay, let’s take a walk. Just be casual. Don’t stop to talk to anyone.”

  Miles had to gamble Lusardi was right about more employees wanting to defect, and if anyone found them suspicious they would keep it to themselves. The cloak room wasn’t far, and Miles breathed easier when Lusardi was back in a lab coat.

  “There are cameras all over the place like this one?” He tilted his head down as they passed through its range.

  “Yes.”

  “A woman was brought here this morning. She’s about five seven, reddish brown hair, pretty.” With gentle brown eyes and a smile that lights up a room.

  Please God, let her be all right.

  “Her sister used to live here. Maybe you knew her.” Miles kept his voice level as they walked in step through a maze of halls. “Cassandra Brent.”

  “I haven’t seen her, but I knew Cassandra. What happened to her?”

  “What do you think happened to her?” he snapped.

  Dr. Lusardi made a low sound in his throat. “When Annie came back alone we assumed the worst. Jesus, she was one of Helen’s best friends. My wife’s been a wreck this past week.”

  “Trust me, pal. You’ve had it easy.”

  They stopped outside the security doors. Dr. Lusardi entered his code and the door lock released. Miles shoved him inside. They surprised an African-American security guard the size of a linebacker. The man jumped from his chair with a radio in one hand, the other reaching for the gun at his hip.

  Miles was faster. “Don’t.”

  The security guard froze.

  “You, sit.” He shoved Dr. Lusardi toward a chair.

  “I’m sorry, he forced me.”

  The security guard slowly eased back into his seat. “Listen, man—”

  “No, you listen, and don’t even think about touching that panel. A woman was brought in here this morning. Where is she?”

  The guard hesitated.

  “Try anything and you’ll never play football again.”

  He held up his hands. “Take it easy, buddy. We’re all friends here.”

  Miles glared. “Not likely.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Seattle PD.”

  The security guard frowned. “Not a good day for a tour, Seattle PD.”

  One of the cameras passed over a hallway where a man in a suit walked with a woman in green scrubs. Lily, alive.

  Thank God.

  “Where is that?” Miles demanded.

  The security guard turned to the screen.

  “They’re on their way to the main lab,” Lusardi volunteered.

  “I need a code to get in there,” he told the guard. “Lusardi, take those cuffs off his belt.”

  The guard turned around, hands still raised. “Wait—wait, you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m with the FBI. There’s a team outside ready to raid this place.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” Miles growled. “Move. Away. From. The. Panel.”

  The door burst open. Four agents in the same uniforms stormed the small room. Each assumed a shooter’s stance aimed at Miles.

  “Drop the weapon!” With nylon masks concealing their faces, they made an imposing sight.

  Miles put his hands up. The security guard behind him took the revolver out of his hand.

  A single man in a Kevlar vest without a mask entered behind the agents. The FBI badge hanging around his neck identified him as Special Agent Marc Brower.

  “Colton’s doctors carrying guns now?” he asked the security guard.

  “He says he’s with Seattle PD.”

  The man chuckled, shaking his head. “You picked the wrong day to play Lone Ranger.”

  “Colton Reilly kidnapped my fiancé,” Miles said. It wasn’t a lie. If—when—they got out of this, he was going to ask Lily to marry him. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  “You can put your hands down. Why don’t you have a seat and let us handle things from here.”

  “That suits me fine,” Miles said. “Believe it or not, I’m happy you’re here.”

  The agent at the console flipped cameras. He found Lily and the man in the suit again. He looked so slimy he had to be Colton Reilly.

  Their body language had changed. Now Colton was dragging her along and Lily was fighting him.

  “Do you have ID?” Brower asked, but Miles bare
ly heard him. Instead, the sound of Lily’s terrified voice rose as the agent at the console turned up the volume. It was tinny and static-filled with background noise, but the words were unmistakable.

  “And if I refuse you, will you kill me like you did her?”

  “Your sister became a liability,” Colton said viciously. “She threatened everything I built, all for the sake of a lab animal. I won’t let you or anyone else destroy my legacy.”

  “You’ve already tried to kill me once. I’ll never believe anything you say.”

  “It wasn’t you I was trying to kill.”

  Lily’s horror multiplied a thousand fold. Colton killed everyone she’d come into contact with. Even far away from her, the man she loved was in mortal danger.

  Miles…please be safe.

  “You’re insane!”

  Colton dragged her down the hall, digging his fingers painfully into the underside of her arm. “And what are you? Will you leave Annie here just to save yourself?”

  He shoved her into the clinical room where she’d awakened and pulled the door shut behind them. Lily turned and searched the small room for a route of escape. There wasn’t even a window. Nor was there anything that would serve as a weapon. She backed into the corner.

  “Do you love her enough to change your life for her? I’m offering you the chance to stay here and raise her as your own.”

  “You can’t keep either of us here. She’s my niece. Her mother named me as her guardian. I think I’ll have a pretty good chance against you in court.” That last statement was a risk, but he’d upset her when he intimated he had tried to kill Miles. Since he’d said the words, each thundering beat of her heart was a painful strike against her ribs.

  He laughed as he loosened his tie. “Annie is not your niece.”

  He tossed his tie aside and began working the buttons on his collar.

  Lily stood frozen, horror struck. Could it be true? Did Cassandra steal a child that wasn’t hers?

  She shook her head, refusing to believe it.

  It didn’t matter. She loved Annie just the same and would do anything to get her out of here. Even if it meant running away with her like Cassie had done, at the risk of her own life.

  “And if I say yes…” She almost couldn’t believe her ears. “You’ll let me stay here and raise her? Just as simple as that?”