“You don’t remember what it felt like to know you were dying, do you, Penny? Or maybe you do now. It’s terrifying, isn’t it?”
Darkness was creeping in on all sides. She had tunnel vision now. Only the tips of the tall grasses and the stars dotting the midnight blue sky directly above her were visible, until he leaned over, blotting out the beauty.
“This is what you were living with, Penny, when I took you in. This kind of fear. But I took that away from you. I cured you, Penny. I gave you back your life. No one else could have done that. You owe me, Penny. Don’t you? Don’t you?” He gripped her shoulders and shook them.
“Y-yes!”
“But you repay me by running away. Telling my secrets and forcing me to close the clinic and go into hiding. Like a criminal. You deserve to die, you know you do.”
“No, please….”
He let go of her shoulders, and she fell backward, her body cushioned again by the deep grasses. “Don’t worry. I lied. It was only a tranquilizer. You’re not going to die, Penny. But you are going to come away with me. I’m starting a new clinic. And you, Penny, are going to be the center of my studies. The core of my research.”
Fear gripped her, but even then her eyes kept falling closed. His words made them pop open again.
“You still don’t understand, do you?” he asked her. “Penny, you’re the only one. The only one ever to recover from HWS. I’ve found the cure, but the drug is only part of it. The rest is…hidden. Encoded, somewhere inside you.” He smiled down at her, his face blurry and swimming before her eyes. “I’ll find it, though. I’ll find it, even if I have to take you apart to do it.”
Her stomach turned, and she tried again to scream, but no sound emerged.
Dr. Barlow smiled and tipped his head skyward. “Just as I promised you I would, Mother. Just as I promised.” Then he looked at Penny again. “That’s it, you rest now. I’ll come back for you as soon as I’ve returned the car you borrowed. Wouldn’t want those nice Brands to worry, now, would we?”
He moved out of her range of vision, and she heard the grasses brushing his legs as he traipsed back to the car, then heard the engine as he drove away. They’d see him. Someone would see him when he left the car there. And they’d know. They’d come for her. And Ben, Ben must be on his way. He must have come after her…unless…unless he truly didn’t care….
No. He did care. She knew he did. He was coming. But maybe not fast enough. She’d have to help, or he’d never be able to find her again. She’d leave something…a sign….
She couldn’t stay awake much longer. She clutched at the first thing she thought of—the wristwatch Chelsea had given her as a gift at the party. It was a tremendous effort to tug it off, but she managed it, and then dropped it into the grass where she lay, and prayed Ben would find it there.
Ben pulled into the driveway a half hour later, after changing the tire and driving back from town. He parked beside Chelsea’s little car, relieved to see it there. At least he knew Penny had got home okay. He needed to talk to her. Didn’t know what he was going to say exactly, but he knew they had to talk.
He sighed heavily and walked up the porch steps and through the screen door. The house was quiet, dark. Had that peaceful feel it only got when everyone inside was sound asleep, an event that didn’t happen very often. Someone was usually awake. But it didn’t feel as if anyone was up right now.
Blue lay on the floor next to the fireplace, and Olive was laid out beside him with her legs sticking straight out behind her like frog’s legs. Both were sound asleep. That Stubby looked like a lumpy rug, stretched out as she was. Ben grinned and thought about showing Penny, but his smile froze and died slow. They wouldn’t be sharing smiles or laughter…not until they got things settled between them.
Turning, Ben headed up the stairs to talk to her. But the sound of that screen door creaking stopped him, and he turned to see Garrett just coming inside.
Ben nodded hello and continued up another step.
“Hold up a minute, Ben.” Garrett came farther into the room, pausing at the archway to the dining room and inclining his head when Ben turned to face him again. “We need to talk. In the kitchen.”
“About what?” Ben asked. He was more eager to see Penny right now than to talk to his brother. He didn’t like the idea of her falling asleep with this misguided idea that things could end between them just because she said it was over and he’d been stupid enough and angry enough and wounded enough to agree with her. It would never be over between them. She was as much a part of him as his own heart, and he was just that much a part of her. Or he had been once. And he would be again, dammit.
Garrett sent Ben an impatient look, swept his hat off his head and turned to march into the kitchen. He had his hat in one hand and a file folder in the other. Ben figured there was no sense arguing. It must be important, or Garrett wouldn’t have been up and away from home so late anyway. It took major events to get him to work late these days. Had ever since he’d married Chelsea, in fact.
Ben came back down the stairs and followed his brother through the dining room and into the kitchen. He didn’t pull out a chair, though. Instead he leaned back against the counter and crossed one boot over the other. Garrett slapped the folder onto the kitchen table. Then he hung his hat on the back of a chair and sat down. “You’re gonna want to see this.”
Ben stayed where he was. “What is it?”
“Information on Penny’s Dr. Barlow. Turns out he isn’t a doctor at all. At least, not anymore.”
Suddenly interested, Ben straightened. “What do you mean, not anymore?”
“His license was taken away five years ago.”
“What?” Ben lunged forward, yanking the file across the table and flipping it open to skim the contents. “Where does it say that? Garrett, where did you get all this?”
Garrett gently pulled the folder back and closed it. “Sit down, Ben. No sense you trying to translate it from legalese to English—I’ve already been over everything in there. Let me give you the gist of it in digest form, okay?”
Ben pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m listening.”
Garrett nodded. “Okay. To begin with, Gregory Barlow’s real name is Barton, and he is a smart man. Probably a genius. The only child of an unwed mother, he sailed through high school, graduating three years early, and started college at sixteen. He was at the top of his class in med school, despite that he was also the youngest student there. About that time his mother was diagnosed with HWS—same disease Penny had.”
Ben leaned forward in the chair. “And?”
Garrett shrugged. “The reports don’t say what was going on in Barlow’s head, but it’s a pretty easy guess. He was devastated. She was all he had, so they must have been close. He turned to full-time HWS research, and I don’t think it would be too farfetched to assume he was hoping to find a cure before it was too late for his mother.”
“But he didn’t, did he, Garrett?”
Garrett shook his head sadly. He picked up the folder, tapping its edge on the table. “I’ve got documentation of hundred-plus-hour work weeks this guy put in nonstop for over two years. And the worse his mother got, the harder he worked. But the funding for the research got pulled, and the work was stopped. Officially, at least. It looks like Barlow was still working on his own.” Lowering the folder, flipping it open, Garrett went on. “In 1984 he petitioned for permission to begin clinical trials with some new drug cocktail he’d developed, but permission was denied. The MHRA felt there was not enough data to begin using it on human subjects. Barlow’s mother died in 1985, less than a year later.”
Ben lowered his head. “You sound like you almost feel sorry for the guy.”
“We both know what it’s like to lose a mother, Ben.”
“Yeah, and thanks to Barlow, I know what it’s like to lose a wife, as well.” Ben pushed away from the table and paced to the window, staring outside. “I can probably guess the rest.”
&nb
sp; “You probably can,” Garrett said. “Barlow went ahead with the clinical trials anyway, but he did it undercover. Set up a hospice for HWS victims. People went there thinking they’d get the best of care up to the end. But instead of just caring for them, Barlow was experimenting on them. Injecting them with this new drug of his. The government caught on and shut him down, but he vanished. Turned up again running another clinic under another name, and when they shut that one down, he disappeared again.”
Ben shook his head slowly. “He’s unbalanced, isn’t he?”
“That’s the theory. And, Ben—” Garrett lowered his head “—Penny was right about Michele Kudrow.”
“The nurse?” Ben asked.
Garrett nodded. “Autopsy showed she was drugged. So much of it in her bloodstream, she couldn’t possibly have been conscious when she allegedly slit her wrists.”
Ben felt the blood drain from his face. They’d been taking all of Penny’s theories so lightly, just the way they always had.
“She’s safe here, Ben. No one’s going to get to her here.”
“We gotta get this guy, Garrett.”
“We will. Meanwhile I don’t want you taking your eyes off your wife. Got it?”
“You can bet on it.”
Garrett walked Ben into the living room, and Ben turned to head toward the stairs, glancing fondly at that comical dog again as he passed her. Then he paused, and his blood ran cold. He lifted his gaze. “Garrett, why is Olive sleeping down here?”
Garrett shrugged. Then he frowned.
“Olive sleeps with Penny. Every time Penny lays down in bed, that dog….” Ben said.
“Damn.”
Ben took the steps two at a time, and burst into his bedroom wide-eyed. But it took only a glimpse to know that Penny wasn’t there, and the bed was still made. No one had been in it. He ran to the bathroom, but it was empty, as well.
Garrett came up behind him. “She’s not in Jessi’s room, either.” Then he went back into the hall to pound on Adam’s door, and then Elliot’s.
“I don’t get it,” Ben muttered as his brothers came awake, staggering into the hall. “The car is here. She must have come back.”
“What’s going on?” Elliot demanded.
“Something’s happened to Penny, hasn’t it?” Adam swore when Ben nodded at him, then ducked into his room to throw on some clothes.
“Go check the car out, Ben. We’ll meet you out front,” Garrett said as they trotted down the stairs together. Then he fumbled in his pocket for his key chain, and crouched in front of the locked gun cabinet in the living room.
Ben hurried out the door into the darkness. He cupped his hands and called Penny’s name, but heard only his own lonely echo on the wind. Adam was beside him before he even made it to the car. His shirt untucked, and belt hanging loose.
“You okay, Ben?”
Ben shook his head and reached for the driver’s door. “She was angry,” he muttered, half to himself as he opened the door and leaned inside. The overhead light came on. “She saw me and Kirsten at the dojo and—”
Adam’s hand clasped his shoulder and yanked him out of the car again, so that he spun around and his back slammed against the side of the vehicle. “Saw you and Kirsten doing what?”
“What do you think?” Ben shouted.
Adam’s face reddened, and he glared at Ben, his hands bunching Ben’s shirt at the neck.
“I swear, Ben, if you—”
Ben looked at Adam, then looked down at Adam’s hands on his shirt. “You know better. I’m your brother.”
Adam’s face froze for just a second before it fell in shame. He let go of Ben’s shirt and lowered his head. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I know better. I don’t know what the hell is the matter with me.”
“I do,” Ben said. “But right now I want to find my wife, so we’ll talk later.” And he turned to lean into the car again.
“So Kirsten came to see you at the dojo. Penny saw you together and jumped to the wrong conclusion,” Adam said slowly. “But do you really think that’s why she left?”
Ben went still as he noticed the tiny droplets staining the upholstered headrest. He touched the spots with his fingertip, and found them still damp. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t think that’s why she left.” He straightened and turned to face his brother. “Adam, there’s blood in the car.”
Adam swore and leaned in to see for himself. Ben felt sick, dizzy. “He couldn’t have taken her far,” he said. “I would have been right behind her if not for that damned flat— Oh, God,” he muttered. “The flat, it was no accident. Couldn’t have been.”
“So he had time,” Adam said, still searching inside Chelsea’s car. “He could have dropped the car here and taken her somewhere else. Everyone was probably in bed.” Adam was in the back seat now. “Or maybe he dropped her somewhere else and brought the car back,” he said, then he got out.
“She’d have run.”
“Maybe not.” Adam held up the hypodermic he’d found in the back seat, and Ben’s heart went icy cold.
“He won’t hurt her,” Ben said softly. “How could he hurt her? He saved her life. He cured her. Why the hell would he hurt her now?’’ He kept saying those things over and over again. But in his mind’s eye he was imagining the nurse, Michele Kudrow, brutally murdered in her own home. And he knew damned well that Penny was in danger.
He’d promised to protect her. Always. And once again the means to do it had been wrenched from his hands.
“No,” he whispered. “Not this time.”
Chapter 12
Penny opened her eyes slowly. And for just a second her mind played the strangest trick on her, and she thought she was only just now waking from the coma and that all the rest had been a dream.
Only, if it had been, she wouldn’t have known she’d been in a coma, would she?
Confusion blurred her thoughts, as well as her vision. She felt drunk. Light-headed. And somewhere between giggling and crying. And then she thought of Ben, and the crying seemed more desirable. So she did. He didn’t love her. He hadn’t come after her. She’d wanted him to, but he hadn’t.
No. She couldn’t believe that. Maybe he hadn’t come because he couldn’t. God, what if Barlow had hurt Ben?
“There, now, it’s not as bad as all that,” the doctor said from somewhere in this…this room. For the first time she wondered where she was, and her tears came to an abrupt halt at the sound of his voice. She looked again at the room around her, and her mind seemed to grasp that she wasn’t at the ranch she’d begun to think of as home. She was in some different place. A place she didn’t recognize.
And the man of her nightmares sat in a chair opposite her bed, just watching her.
“It’s coming back to you now, is it?”
She blinked. “I…you drugged me. You kidnapped me.
“Unpleasant, all of it, but necessary, I promise you. No need to worry, though. The trauma of all this will soon be a thing of the past, Penny. You’ll remember none of it soon enough.”
She sat up, battling the grogginess in her brain. “Let me go. Dr. Barlow, please, you have to let me go.”
“How much did you tell them, Penny?” He got to his feet and crossed the room to stand over her bed. “Not that it matters really. You’re mine again now. And even if they know exactly who has taken you and why, they won’t be able to find you.”
He adjusted a bag that hung from a pole, and Penny felt her pulse quicken as she saw it there, and traced its tubing to the spot where it disappeared into her arm. “What…what is that?”
“Saline solution,” he replied calmly. “Harmless. It’s only here in preparation for the Senitrate. I’ll inject that right into this IV the moment it arrives, and once you’ve had it you won’t be so uncooperative, I promise. Had to have it shipped from London, you know. But it should be here this afternoon, and then we can be on our way.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. What is it, this…
Senitrate? Why do you want to give it to me?”
Dr. Barlow frowned at her. “You haven’t answered my question, Penny. And it’s imperative you do. Soon you won’t remember how much you told those Brands, so you’d best tell me now. What do they know?”
“Nothing!” she blurted. “They’ve been trying to find out…where I was and why, but…but I couldn’t remember and so I—”
He shook his head. “Now you’re lying to me.”
“No. It’s the truth.” She sat up slightly in the bed. “Why can’t you let me go? I’ll never tell anyone a thing about you or what you’re doing. I swear—”
“Your tranquilizer seems to be wearing off, doesn’t it? Well, now, we can’t have that.” He pulled a prepared hypodermic from his deep pockets.
“No!” She pulled away, but he gripped her arm and drove the needle into her. She cried out in pain—briefly. The pain faded fast, along with her consciousness.
“Not as good as Senitrate,” she heard him mutter. “But it will do.”
The rain began just after 4:00 a.m. It came in torrents, and it matched Ben’s mood perfectly. He’d lost her. All over again he’d lost her.
Worse than that, he’d let her leave the dojo last night without telling her how he felt about her. And dammit, that just wasn’t acceptable. But he’d find her again.
His horse was as wet as he was, but uncomplaining as he rode along between Adam and Jessi into a sodden bit of a scrub lot just off the main road.
“Right about here,” Ben said loudly, speaking into the wind. “One of the locals told Garrett there was a car pulled over here for a few minutes last night. It might have been Barlow with Penny.”
“Is that all we have?” Adam asked, huddling more tightly into his raincoat. “It could have been anyone. I can’t believe no one saw anything more concrete!”
“Garrett’s got Texas Rangers all over town asking questions,” Ben told his brother, though he understood the frustration. But if Adam thought he had the market cornered on worry, he was dead wrong. “He’s doing the best he can.”
Long Gone Lonesome Blues Page 18
