Chapter 39
Madison sat up in her bed, her brain thick with sleep and slightly disoriented. Her cell phone was ringing in the back pocket of her jeans on the floor. She managed to turn on the bedside lamp and lunged for it.
It was Sergeant Jenner from the precinct.
“I have a note here saying that you want to be notified in case of any emergency calls from the Walters Institute . . .” he said.
“What happened?”
“Emergency call eleven minutes ago. I don’t know any more than that.”
“Thank you. I’m on my way.”
Madison had had three hours’ sleep since she had left Kevin Brown. She made do with a two-minute cold shower and left the house ten minutes after the phone had rung.
At 3:00 a.m. she met no traffic to speak of, and she hardly touched the brake pedal. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts, none of them good. An emergency call could mean anything from one of the patients having a heart attack to Peter Conway’s crew breaking into the clinic to get to Vincent Foley. She tried to reach Dr. Peterson, but the call went to his voice mail.
Madison drove through the thin drizzle and hoped that someone at the Institute had simply slipped and sprained an ankle.
The journey was brief yet long enough for all the worst scenarios to present themselves to Madison’s mind.
She arrived at the Walters Institute, and through her windshield wipers she saw that the wrought-iron gates were wide open, and inside, lights blinked through the trees. She attempted to drive up the lane that led to the main building but didn’t make it all the way: a number of emergency vehicles were parked there.
One of the Fire Medic One vans sped past with lights flashing and sirens blazing. Okay, so it’s not a sprained ankle. Madison pulled up, parked on the grass, and ran the rest of the way. She smelled it before she saw it: a dark, acrid scent that found its way into her throat and squatted there. Smoke. She reached the end of the lane, and, once out of the canopy of the trees, she saw the beautiful red-brick building. Fire. The building is on fire. Dozens of people had repaired to the lawn: staff in scrubs, patients in their pajamas and bathrobes, some already lying down and strapped to gurneys with IVs connected to their arms.
The firefighters were tackling a blaze that had taken hold of the east wing and was crawling up and down the floors like something alive and angry. It was concentrated on that side of the clinic, but some bricks on the ground floor had been scorched black; the windows were shattered, and the water was dripping where the hoses had waged their war.
Madison tried to remember what Dr. Eli Peterson had said the first time they’d met. Thirty-nine patients who would have been asleep, plus the medical staff who took care of them, the night cleaning team, and the security guards. That was a lot of people to get out of the building in a hurry.
A couple of people dashed out the main door: a firefighter with his arm around a woman in nurse’s scrubs. People were still coming out. Madison swore under her breath and headed toward a group of staffers and patients, hoping to see Peterson among them.
Firefighters hollered instructions at one another as they directed hoses at the blaze; a police officer and the fire chief were trying to get a head count from one of the nurses to know for sure exactly how many people had been in the building at the time. Some patients were wailing, and others sat quietly on the cold ground, hugging their knees.
“Where’s Dr. Peterson?” Madison yelled above the din.
“Over there.” A nurse pointed.
Peterson was kneeling next to a patient and injecting him with something. He looked up and spoke to his deputy, who was with the fire chief: “Thirty-two here, three taken to Harborview, two to the Swedish, one unaccounted for.”
“What about the staff?” the fire chief asked.
“One unaccounted for?” Madison asked Dr. Peterson, dropping to her knees and helping him wrap an elderly lady in a blanket.
“Two staff members are still missing: one orderly, one nurse. Everybody else is out.” Peterson looked pale under the smudges of dirt on his face. He was going from patient to patient, checking heart rate and temperature.
“One patient unaccounted for?” Madison repeated.
“Your staff is all out,” the fire chief said, and he pointed at the front entrance. Two of his men were bringing out two women in scrubs.
“Where’s Vincent Foley?” Madison asked Peterson, looking around at the group gathered on the lawn.
“We have one patient still missing,” the fire chief told one of his team, who started at a trot toward the fire engines that took up most of the parking lot.
“Vincent is missing,” Peterson said to Madison. “He should have been evacuated with all the other residents on the fourth floor, but he’s not with them. They’re all here. The head count said we had everybody when we left the floor . . .”
“Dr. Peterson,” she said, “look at the fire.”
He turned.
“It’s on the opposite side from the patients’ rooms, right? It’s where you have all the offices, right?”
He nodded. Madison pointed at the windows on the opposite corner on the fourth floor.
“Is that the day room?”
He nodded.
“What does Vincent do when he’s scared?” She stood up.
“He hides,” Peterson replied after a beat.
Madison lifted his ID card from around his neck. He didn’t object.
“Officer?” Madison approached the uniformed officer who had been talking to the fire chief. “Detective Madison, Homicide. There’s a real strong chance that this is arson and the men who set the fire are still on the grounds. They’re after one particular patient, and right now he’s missing.”
“What’s going on, Detective?”
“There could be people here who are looking to harm somebody.” She looked at staff members running around, patients, other officers, firefighters. “Watch out for anyone who doesn’t belong, who’s not emergency services.”
She started moving toward the entrance. “Call my boss, Lieutenant Fynn, Homicide. Tell him what’s going on.”
“Hey . . . where the hell . . .”
“Seattle PD.” She waved her badge to the firefighters, but they were too far away to stop her, and in seconds she had entered the building. It was eerily intact, just dark and empty, and the carpet felt soaking wet under her boots—the odd drop of water still dripped from the sprinklers. The air held the bitter tinge of smoke. It would have to do.
The blaze was well contained in the east wing; someone had made sure of that. How much did they know about Vincent Foley? Did they know where his room was?
Madison crossed the reception area—no young woman to smile politely this time—and reached a door to the stairs. The light was blinking green on the magnetic box: when the fire had been discovered, the locks had been released, which was great if you needed to rush out and even better if you were trying to break in. She pushed the door, and she was in the stairway: the emergency lights were on, bathing everything in pale orange. Madison looked up—a quick peek and then back against the wall: no one there.
She flicked the safety latch and unholstered her piece. The sounds from outside were dulled by a series of walls and doors. She heard nothing from the inside of the building except the muted ticking of the lights’ emergency batteries on the stairs.
She had to start from the fourth floor. She climbed the stairs at a run, stopping dead at each corner to make sure the course was clear and then moving on. The higher she climbed, the warmer the air became. She passed the entrance to the second-floor corridor and glanced through the glass door as she went past. No one there.
Her heart was drumming fast as she reached the third floor and peeked. No one there. Madison paused. If Vincent was anywhere, he would be on the fourth floor. If the killers were anywhere, they would be on the fourth floor. She climbed the stairs with her weapon held at eye level and made a swift mental inventory of the contents of
her jacket pockets: she had a small flashlight and a penknife—the police radio was back in the car, forgotten on the seat. On her ankle she had her backup piece.
A window shattered on the other side of the building, and Madison froze. She was four steps away from the door to the fourth-floor corridor; the sound had come from the east wing. She wiped her right hand on her jeans and resumed the grip. She tried not to think about the whimsy of shooting paper targets only hours earlier, when in minutes she might have to shoot a human being.
Madison glanced through the window’s reinforced glass; her eyes skimmed the corridor and saw no movement, only the flicker of overhead fluorescent strips trying to come on.
Madison had been there in daylight and was grateful for that tiny bit of luck. She leaned on the door, her gun hand ahead of her, and stepped through it. The doors to the patients’ rooms were wide open, and the floor was littered with the debris of a quick evacuation.
It would have been nice to call out to Vincent; however, that was probably not the best way to go about it. Madison crouched behind a medicine cart, flat against a wall. She reviewed the situation, and it didn’t look promising: Vincent was missing; he could still be on the fourth floor, or he could be anywhere on the grounds. They suspected that Conway’s crew was a four-man unit; it meant two on the outside checking faces and two on the inside checking rooms. At least that’s what she would have done.
Madison stood up: there were four rooms between her and Vincent’s. The first was empty; the bedcovers had been strewn on the floor. The second was also empty. The door of the third was ajar, and she pushed gently with her left hand: it had been left in hurry—a drawer had been half pulled out.
Madison paused by Vincent’s door; it was nearly closed. The search beam of light from the firefighters outside swept the corridor’s ceiling, and the building creaked under the pressure of the fire and the water from the hoses, but in her wing there was only silence.
Madison pushed Vincent’s door open with the tip of one finger and immediately saw the person curled up on the floor by the bed. She dropped to her knees by the unmoving shape.
“Vincent.”
The person faced away from her, and in the gloom she could only see that it was a man wearing scrubs.
“Vincent?”
Madison felt for signs of life and found none. She turned the body delicately and looked into the face of Thomas Reed, Vincent’s nurse. His eyes were open, and his chest was a vast red slick.
Madison resisted the impulse to close his eyes; her fingers went to the place where the carotid pulse should have been to make sure. One shot to the chest had spun him almost under the bed. Under the bed. Madison leaned in and peered. A blanket was bunched up under the springs. Vincent might have slept there, but he wasn’t there now. She heard it too late, a soft footstep in the corridor and the click of the door locking her inside.
Shit.
Madison was on her feet, slamming her shoulder against the door a fraction of a second too late.
Shit.
She squinted through the small window in the door as shadows shifted in the corridor and the search beam made another slow pass. The spike of adrenaline in her chest was a stabbing pain. She grabbed the door handle and turned, knowing that nothing would happen and yet not being able to help herself.
Calm yourself. Calm down and think, breathe; just breathe.
Madison backed away from the door without turning her back to it until she reached the opposite wall and leaned against it.
Calm down and think.
It was a locking system created for people’s safety—this wasn’t a jail. Madison looked at the full clip in the Glock: she’d have to shoot her way out. She had to hit the lock in exactly the right place. She tried to remember if there were sliding bolts on the outside.
Time had stretched inside her mind as if one minute of thinking was merely one second of action. I’m getting out of here. Madison gathered herself: the shot would be incredibly loud in the small room, and her hearing would be compromised for minutes. No way around that one, she thought, if she wanted out. She lifted the Glock and took aim, but a movement in the door’s window froze her where she stood. A pair of eyes stared at her through the glass: dead eyes, empty eyes, like marbles in a doll’s head. Eyes that held her whole as she raised her weapon above the lock and aimed straight at the window. The eyes didn’t look away but stared at Madison as she stared back and aimed the gun squarely at them. There was no flicker of life or recognition or even a moment of doubt. It was a blank void, and the muzzle of Madison’s piece trembled as she kept it trained on the face she could barely see. One breath, two breaths—heart thumping in her throat. Dead eyes, empty eyes. And then they were gone.
Madison puts three shots into the lock. Loud—so darn loud, she could hardly think. Yet now they knew, the cops on the lawn—now they knew there was trouble for sure. First arson, and now a cop shooting up the clinic. Madison kicked the door hard with the heel of her boot, and it swung open. Those three shots were an alarm bell, and, sweet Jesus, she was glad all those patrol officers downstairs were wearing ballistic vests.
The corridor was empty on both sides, and the ringing in Madison’s ears blanketed every sound. The man had gone, but he couldn’t be far. On her right: the door that led to the stairway down to the reception desk and the main entrance—where cops were probably flooding in, weapons out and tempers rising. On the left: more patients’ rooms, the day lounge, and the door to the back stairwell. Madison ran left. They knew she was out of the cell. Hell, her shots could have been heard across the lake in the quiet of the night. The time for bashful was well and truly gone. She glanced at the day lounge as she went past, but no Vincent there, standing and gazing out at the trees.
Whoever had locked her in wouldn’t want to stay for introductions, and he must know there were officers outside who were on their way in. He’d need to get out fast.
Madison reached the back stairwell door. It was wide open—to stairs going up and down. Up? How had she not realized there was a fifth floor?
Something made her climb up instead of heading downstairs—maybe it was the thought that the man with the dead eyes wouldn’t want to rush into the arms of incoming police officers. She wasn’t sure, exactly; she just found herself flat against the stairwell wall and following the steps that led up. And she would have given anything to hear something other than the flat drone that pounded inside her head.
Cold air brushed her face—a chilly breeze mixed with the tang of the fire nearby. No, she thought, not a fifth floor but roof access, and the door had been kicked open.
From far away she heard sirens approaching, their top notes penetrating the hum. Good. That was good. They needed all the lights and all the people they could throw at the clinic to smoke out Conway’s crew. Even if more people would mean more cover for those who wanted to slip away unnoticed.
A narrow walkway followed the edge of the roof. The way was clear—wherever Dead Eyes was, he must already have turned the corner to the other side. Madison stepped out: beyond the low railing the roof fell away into nothing, and the ground was a long way down.
The angle of the roof meant she couldn’t see the walkway on the other side; then again, he couldn’t see her, either. Madison covered the distance as fast as she could and turned the corner to the back of the building: two dark shapes moving ahead of her, the distance between them nearly the length of the clinic. Two men. Dead Eyes had a friend. Madison flattened herself against the roof and continued; with luck, the gloom would give her some protection. The men stopped, and the unmistakable clanging of metal against metal rang out in the night. Too far for anybody else to have heard from the lawn, but it cut through Madison’s fog like a bell. She leaned on the railing, narrowed her eyes, and saw the outline that stood out like a metal trim on the building. The fire escape. The men were already on it and climbing down. Madison ran fast and low and reached the platform in time to see them edging down between the fourth
and the third floors.
She didn’t like the idea of climbing after them and being a perfect target; however, her options were limited. She swore, stepped onto the platform and then onto the metal stairs, holding the guardrail with her left hand and the Glock with her right, pointing at the fast-moving shadows below her. This was not about calling out and giving notice; this was about catching up.
All their footsteps clanged on the metal, and Madison was sure they’d heard hers. In a few seconds they’d reach the ground. What then? She climbed down as fast as she could, once or twice losing her footing and gripping the rail with all her strength to keep from falling.
Madison didn’t want to shoot blindly at the men below her, and clearly they had decided that taking a shot at her would represent a small gain against the major drawback of attracting the attention of the other cops.
Madison’s feet hit the ground, and she spun around. The men were already heading for the trees.
“Stop!” she yelled. “Seattle Police.” The muzzle of the gun tracked the silhouettes, but Madison didn’t squeeze the trigger. Too dark to know what she’d be hitting. She pointed her piece at the ground a few feet away and let out one shot—just a quick warning to let everyone else know where the action was.
She was about to follow the men into the darkness, when she stopped. Her priority was Vincent Foley. Vincent, who was not in his room, who had been missing from the head count. Madison needed to think clearly, and the chase had scrambled her logic. Vincent. The perspiration was cooling on her skin now that she had stopped; her clothes clung to her with sweat, and her chest rose and fell. Vincent.
Madison had been inside and had seen the rooms. The staff had gotten patients out carefully, likely making head counts every step of the way. What if Vincent had gone wandering once he was already out of the building, once the staffers had relaxed for a moment because the grounds were safe from the fire and help was on its way? And poor Thomas Reed had gone back to look for him. Vincent, Madison thought, with grime under his nails even after his hands had been scrubbed clean.
The Dark Page 24
