Chain Reaction

by Rebecca York

  One thing captivity had made clear: Now that he was in trouble, he needed to know Lily was on his side. He thought about calling her. But he couldn’t explain everything that had happened over the phone. And he needed to feel her arms around him. Needed the pressure of her lips on his. If he could hold her, kiss her, he’d figure out the rest.

  But first he had to get home.

  He was pretty sure the cops were looking for him by now, so maybe he’d better leave this car down by the docks in St. Stephens and not drive across the Bay Bridge. Instead, he’d go by water.

  Boats were different from cars. Unless the owner was an oyster man or a crabber or something like that, he left his boat in the marina during the week and only went out on some weekends. He could borrow a pleasure craft, and nobody would miss it. If he motored up the Miles River and then across the bay, he’d be home faster than if he drove.

  St. Stephens was a tourist town, with art galleries, craft boutiques, real estate offices and T-shirt shops lining Main Street. For the convenience of visitors, large parking lots filled an open area near the harbor.

  After leaving the stolen car in one of the lots, Gage strolled toward the dock. Stopping at a metal container that sold newspapers, he looked at the date on the front page of the Baltimore Sun. It was five days after the accident.

  He’d suspected he’d been out of commission for a while. Still, the news was a shock, and he leaned against a railing, sucking in air. No wonder he was so wobbly. He’d been in bed most of a week.

  When he was feeling better, he strolled onto the dock as though he belonged there, covertly inspecting the boats for something that would suit his purposes. He wanted fast transportation, and a craft that was small enough for him to handle by himself. He also wanted to be able to get out of the wind if the weather turned nasty.

  When he came to a small cabin cruiser called Four Play, he did a double take. What a jerk of a name. He supposed four guys had bought it together. Did they take turns bringing party girls down here on weekends?

  Too bad someone was going to be disappointed Saturday morning, because their little beauty was perfect for his purposes. But he’d leave it where the cops could find it when he got to Baltimore.

  PATROLMAN MAXINE WALLACE took off her cap and ran a hand through her red curls, glad that the sun had finally set.

  Replacing her cap, she trained her blue eyes on the driveway leading toward the Beech Grove Clinic.

  When a late-model Ford pulled toward her, she straightened.

  She’d responded to an emergency call from the clinic. But as a small-town cop, she wasn’t equipped to handle a heavy-duty investigation, so she’d alerted the State Police, as per her standing orders.

  The car doors opened, and two tall, capable-looking men got out. One had dark hair; the other was a blonde. At eight in the evening, they were wearing business suits and wrinkled shirts. It looked like they’d put in a full day, having gotten the call just before they were about to knock off.

  “Maxine Wallace?”

  “Yes.”

  “Randall McClellan,” the dark-haired one said.

  “And Richard Francis. Maryland State Police.”

  They shook hands. She didn’t resent calling in the big guns; her small department simply didn’t have the investigative or lab resources of the state cops.

  “What have we got here?” McClellan asked.

  “An escaped patient and a murdered maintenance man.”

  “The patient is the chief suspect?”

  “Yes. A man named Gage Darnell. Apparently he was in some kind of accident at the Cranesbrook Lab and went berserk. They were trying to stabilize him when he escaped.”

  “He was violent?”

  “Yes. They said he was in restraints.”

  “Then how did he get away?”

  “Good question. They don’t know.”

  “Who’s the vic?”

  “A janitor named Tucker Hillman. Let me show you the supposed murder scene.”

  “Supposed?” Francis asked.

  “Something’s fishy,” she answered as she led them around the building. “It looks to me like it’s been disturbed, at the very least.”

  “Oh, yeah?” the other detective asked.

  “The victim is in a toolshed on the grounds. But I think he was murdered somewhere else and dumped there.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “It just looks wrong to me. I think there are drag marks outside.”

  “Okay.”

  “Also, he died of blunt instrument trauma, and head wounds bleed. But there’s no blood on the ground,” she said over her shoulder as she opened the door of the shed.

  She’d already cordoned off the area with yellow crime scene tape. The dead man lay sprawled on the cement floor, face down, a bloody dent in the back of his head.

  The two detectives made a quick inspection. Then McClellan pulled out his phone. “We need a CSI team at the Beech Grove Clinic. And a meat wagon.”

  Maxie knew the body would be taken to the morgue in Baltimore where all autopsies in the state were handled.

  Snapping the phone closed, the detective turned to her. “I don’t want anyone else messing around with the scene. You stay here and keep the curious away until the lab techs get here. We’ll start questioning the staff.”

  Maxie nodded. She would have liked to be in on the questioning, but she understood the way the system worked. Uniformed cops got the guard duty. Detectives got to ask the questions.

  LILY WAS halfway through the dinner shift, taking a break from the heat and noise and frantic activity of the kitchen. She’d been at her work station since before lunch, but she hadn’t had anything to eat herself. Now she was thinking she’d better grab something or she was going to fall flat on her face into a frying pan.

  But could she choke down anything?

  She was still trying to decide what to do when her cell phone rang. On edge, she snatched the instrument from her pocket and pressed the Talk button.

  “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Darnell?

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad I reached you.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Dr. Morton from the Beech Grove Clinic.”

  She dragged in a breath, then let it out in a rush. The man had avoided her since the accident. Now he was contacting her? Apparently, something had happened. Maybe he was calling to say that Gage was on his way home.

  Her mouth had turned dry, but she managed to ask, “Yes?”

  “I’m afraid we have some bad news.”

  Her hand clenched around the receiver. Oh Lord, was he going to tell her Gage was dead?

  Barely able to breathe, she waited for the doctor’s next words. When they came, her brain could hardly interpret what she was hearing.

  “Your husband killed a maintenance worker and broke out of the hospital.”

  “What?”

  He repeated the terrible news.

  “No!” Her knees buckled, and she dropped into a chair.

  “Mrs. Darnell.”

  “Yes,” she answered, her voice sounding as though it was coming from a long way off.

  “If he tries to contact you, you need to inform the police. He’s a danger to himself and to others if he’s at large.”

  “I don’t believe it.

  “I’m afraid it’s true.”

  “How?” she managed.

  “Mr. Darnell escaped from his room and attacked the man. The back of his head was bashed in.”

  The vivid picture that leaped into her mind made her suck in a strangled breath. Was that why he was giving her the gory details—so she’d believe him?

  “The Maryland State police are on the way to your house.”

  “Oh,” was all she could manage.

  “Mr. Darnell is in the grip of paranoid delusions. It’s not safe for you to be in your house, in case your husband is heading for home.”

  “I…I have to get some things,” she mumbled,
thinking that she could go to Pam’s.

  And quit in the middle of the dinner shift?

  Well, if she got fired that was the least of her worries.

  Chapter Four

  Gage was feeling better by the time he reached Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. He’d enjoyed steering the sweet little craft across the bay. Maybe the guys who’d bought Four Play were jerks, but they sure knew how to pick a boat. And piloting their baby had helped him decompress.

  Now he was ready to explain to his wife where he’d been for the past few days and ask her to help him hide out.

  He backtracked that thought a couple of notches. He’d try to explain as much as he knew. He still hadn’t figured out why Dr. Morton had been holding him captive, but he had come to one interesting conclusion. Morton had been talking about a lab accident. So did he think some experiment had gone wrong, as opposed to an explosive device planted in the closet?

  He docked Four Play in a conveniently vacant slip, secured the line and strolled up the dock whistling a nautical tune.

  Adjacent to the dock was a long-term parking lot for boat owners where he borrowed a car, using the same method he’d employed outside St. Stephens.

  He’d get home, tell Lily he’d busted out of the loony bin and apologize for being such a jerk lately. When he’d gotten that out of the way, they could decide on his next step.

  What time was it, anyway? Would she be home from work? He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was just nine. She wouldn’t be there yet, but he could get showered while he was waiting.

  The radio was tuned to a classical station playing some kind of jangly modern piece that set his nerves on edge.

  He started twisting the knob, looking for an oldies station when an announcer’s urgent voice stopped him.

  “…Special news bulletin. A dangerous mental patient has escaped from a facility on the Eastern Shore and may be on the way to the Baltimore area.”

  Gage’s breath froze in his lungs. He almost plowed through a red light, then managed to stop in the middle of the crosswalk.

  A pedestrian glared at him, but he kept his eyes straight ahead as he listened to the bulletin.

  “Gage Darnell, a former security guard at Cranesbrook Associates, escaped from the Beech Grove Clinic this afternoon. Darnell is suspected of attacking and killing a maintenance worker in a toolshed on the grounds of the private sanatorium, before fleeing the facility. He is five feet eleven inches tall. One hundred and seventy pounds. Dark hair worn short in a military cut. Dark brown eyes. Early thirties. He is dangerous. Do not approach him. Call the police if you see him.”

  Incredulous, Gage stared at the radio receiver, hoping he’d heard that wrong. When a horn sounded behind him, he glanced at the light and saw it had turned green. Jerking his foot onto the accelerator, he lurched across the intersection.

  An angry driver sped around him, shouting an obscenity. But he had bigger problems than someone’s road rage.

  Murder.

  His curse rang out inside the empty car. The last time he’d seen Tucker, the guy had been glaring at him and struggling to get free of his bonds. So what the hell had happened between then and now?

  Gage drove for a few blocks on automatic pilot, trying to make sense of the news report. He’d left the guy alive! At least that’s how he remembered it. The man hadn’t been seriously hurt, had he?

  Suddenly, he couldn’t be sure of his own memory. Maybe he had killed the janitor.

  Maybe this was like that book by Stephen King. What was it called? The Dead Zone. A guy had been in an accident, then a coma for almost five years. When he’d woken up, he’d had special powers. But he’d also had something bad, too. A brain tumor that was going to kill him.

  Gage had awakened with special powers. Had he also gotten a dose of something bad? Like, for example, were his memories all scrambled up?

  He didn’t think so. But then he didn’t think he was crazy either. Maybe Dr. Morton was right. Maybe he was dangerous.

  As he struggled with his own doubts, his stomach clenched into a painful knot.

  “Calm down,” he told himself. “You’re a logical guy. Tucker is dead. And…and you left him alive and kicking in a closet, not a shed on the grounds.”

  He clung to that small but important detail like a shipwreck survivor clinging to wooden plank floating in the ocean.

  He had to believe in himself, otherwise he was nowhere. He knew he was in trouble, but he’d get himself out of it. He couldn’t trust anyone else to do it. His plans had changed abruptly, though. He couldn’t hook up with Lily, because the last thing he wanted to do was drag her into his mess.

  He pressed down on the accelerator, knowing that he needed to go home and get some clothing and equipment. And he had to get there fast—before Lily got home.

  As he drove, his mind sifted through the facts and tried to come up with a scenario that made sense.

  Someone else had killed Tucker. Morton? Nurse Ratched? Someone else on the staff? Riddell?

  He didn’t know who it was. And he didn’t know why Tucker had been offed. To shut him up? To give the cops a reason for going after an escaped criminal?

  He couldn’t figure out the motivation, but whatever had gone down, the Maryland State Police had Gage Darnell pegged as a murder suspect. That was going to make it a hell of a lot harder to find out what had happened at the Beech Grove Clinic. He wasn’t just a mental patient on the run. Now he was a murder suspect.

  As he turned onto his street, the clock on the dashboard told him it was nine-thirty. He still had time to get in and out before Lily came home from work.

  He could grab some clothes and equipment he needed, then get out of there before she heard the escaped-mental-patient report.

  He intended to zip up his driveway till he decided it would make more sense if nobody knew he was home. So instead he kept going to the property next door. The elderly Winslows had owned the house until, after her husband died, Mrs. Winslow had sold out to a younger couple.

  The neighbors had been appalled when the new owners had torn down the structure with the intention of putting up a McMansion that was bigger than anything else on the street. So far new construction hadn’t started, so the lot sat empty. And presented a hazard in the dark, Gage decided as he climbed out of his stolen car, then waited for his eyes to adjust to the low light conditions.

  Cautiously, he started forward, then stopped short to avoid tumbling into the gaping hole that had been the basement. Cursing silently, he picked his way around the obstacle course. When he finally made it onto his own property, he went directly to the detached garage, where he started throwing equipment into a couple of cardboard boxes.

  He hated to waste the time, going back and forth through the woods, but he figured it was better not to make two trips at the end of his visit. So he carried the boxes back to his stolen car, then dashed to the back door of the house, where they’d hidden a key under a fake rock near the stoop.

  After disconnecting the alarm system, he stopped short, fighting a wrenching feeling as he looked around the living room. It was all so familiar. So normal. His leather chair sat in the corner facing the large-screen television. The stained-glass lamp Lily had inherited from her grandmother was on the marble-topped chest under the window.

  And his throat clogged when he saw that she’d left her apron draped over the back of a kitchen chair.

  He crossed the room and opened the refrigerator where he found a pot of chili. So she had made one of his favorites.

  She must have fixed it for the weekend, when she’d thought he was coming home. It was full. She hadn’t eaten any.

  He couldn’t stop himself from spooning some into a small bowl, then putting the bowl in the microwave.

  He ate a spoonful, savoring the taste. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine what would have happened if he’d left the security detail to one of his hired hands and come home.

  His whole life would be different now. He would have
eaten dinner with Lily. No, he would have made love with Lily then enjoyed a leisurely dinner, probably on trays in bed.

  He grinned as he imagined the two of them upstairs warm and intimate like in the old days.

  The old days?

  That would be nine months ago, before he’d started putting in so many hours at Cranesbrook. He’d thought it was worth it because he and Bray were establishing a reputation with Five Star.

  Yeah, right. He’d acquired a reputation as a mental patient and murderer. And Bray was missing. Where the hell was he? Hiding out, letting Gage take the heat? Or had they carted him off to some other mental hospital? Or was he dead? The hairs on the back of Gage’s neck prickled. Yeah, Bray could be dead, and somebody was covering it up.

  Gage clenched his hands in frustration. He was just guessing about Bray. But he knew his own life would never be normal again until he found out what had really happened at the Cranesbrook lab and cleared himself of the murder charge. And even when he did, the taint of scandal would always hang over him. Who was going to hire a security expert who had been a murder suspect? They’d remember the charge, not the acquittal.

  He indulged in another curse. When he realized he was still holding the bowl of chili, he set it down on the counter with a clunk and ran upstairs to get some clothes, some money and a weapon.

  He thought about writing Lily a note. Maybe he’d be able to do that, if he had the time.

  He was just crossing the kitchen with a duffel bag when the back door opened and his wife stepped in.

  He wanted to rush to her, fold her close and hang on tight the way he’d dreamed of doing. But the look on her face stopped him in his tracks.