Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2)

by Tara N Hathcock

  The basement was still this time of morning and Quincy was glad for the efforts she’d made to spend time down here. Already familiar with the layout and the staff, she had a plan to get in and out quickly. She would need to be efficient, and she would need to be fast. The records had to go, but she had to make sure the people working in the building got out, too. Most of them were innocent; blue collar and middle-class workers, trying to support their families from afar. She wasn’t sure what would happen to them after tonight, but at least she could give them a chance to get away. It was the best she could do.

  The door to the records room looked as dingy and forlorn as ever, but the men sitting behind the counter looked different. Or rather, she looked different and it reflected on their faces.

  “Dr. Cans!” Don exclaimed. “Is something wrong?”

  “Was there a fire or something?” Mason asked, concern etched all over his face.

  “A fire?” Quincy couldn’t help but laugh. By the looks on the two men’s faces, it came across more maniacal than amused. She pulled herself together.

  “No, no fire. Not yet anyway.” She shot them a wink and smiled. “I was cleaning my office and decided to go for comfort over professionalism.” She should have realized downgrading her skirts and heels to jeans and sneakers would raise some eyebrows, but for Heaven’s sake, she was on the clock. Her charm would have to suffice.

  “As I was straightening up some of my files, I realized I needed to check one of the records again. I think I may have incorrect information listed. You guys don’t mind, do you?” she asked. “I’ll be quick.”

  The boys looked at each other and shrugged. They were still confused, and maybe a little concerned. But people usually saw what they wanted to see. She had conditioned them to see Dr. Allison Cans. Just because the disguise was gone didn’t mean they would see anything else.

  “Sure thing Doc,” Mason said. “You know where you’re going by now.”

  She smiled and tossed them the bag of Italian roast coffee beans she’d pulled out of her bag. “I wouldn’t mind sharing a cup of actual coffee while I’m here, if you want to fire up the grinder.” The break room where they stored the grinder, the one that she’d supplied, and the fancy coffee drip was in the opposite corner of the room from where she needed to go.

  They grinned at each other. “Give us ten minutes.”

  Quincy smiled back. “That will be perfect.”

  Chapter 51

  Logan

  “Where is she?” he demanded, refusing to move until he laid eyes on Quincy.

  An older woman pushed her way forward. “She said to tell you to keep to the plan. She’ll rendezvous with us at the drop point.”

  “The plan was for us to all leave together,” he growled.

  This figures. It was just like her. They had a perfectly well-ironed plan, one that had been in the works for weeks, and she pulls an audible in the middle of the play. Typical.

  “We’ve got to go, man,” the man at the back said. He had been standing at the back door, making sure no one was following them. “No one’s coming yet but they will be soon enough.”

  “She said you’d fight her on this,” the older woman said. She sounded disappointed. Disapproving. Like a mom might. “And she said to tell you to stop being such a jarhead.”

  Logan almost rolled his eyes but the older lady, Claire, he knew from Quincy’s notes, grabbed his shoulder.

  “She said if you trusted her, you would go. That you would ‘keep to the mission.’”

  The woman stepped towards him and held something out. An envelop, looking like it had already gone a few miles. He didn’t want to touch it. He knew what it would say, and he didn’t want to hear it. When he didn’t reach out, Claire tucked it into the front pocket of his shirt.

  “For later,” she said simply.

  Logan exhaled, painfully. It was the only play he had, really. The only one she’d left him. When one member detours from the mission plan, without contact, the other members must proceed with the plan in place.

  But he didn’t trust her. Not even a little bit.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “Okay, on my six.”

  He turned to go and heard Amy whisper, “What?”

  “It means ‘follow me.’”

  He led them out of the service door he’d come through to a white panel delivery truck parked on the street behind. The sides of the truck proudly declared “The Fastest Cleaning Crew in the Zone.” What the Zone was, he didn’t know. But it did look official.

  “In here,” he said, sliding the back door up and pointing towards the equipment panels in the back.

  “Each pod has a false wall.” He climbed in and pulled one of the cabinet doors open, reaching in and sliding a second panel out of the way. “You’ll ride in here. If we get stopped, the equipment and the false wall should be enough to throw off suspicion.”

  “You expect us to just hop on and lock ourselves in? Are you serious?” Amy asked. “We don’t know you. And we’ve been locked up by people we don’t know for over a year.” She backed away. “I’m not getting in there.”

  She seemed on the verge of panic, but they just didn’t have time for that. Logan opened his mouth to tell her exactly that when someone else intervened.

  “Amy,” Claire said, gripping her above the elbow and turning her back towards the truck. “You are going to do exactly that. You are going to get in the truck, and you are going to lock yourself in, and you are going to do it right now.”

  Claire steered her to the door before turning her so she could look up into Amy’s eyes.

  “I trust him. And you trust me. So let’s get on with it.”

  Logan was prepared for Amy to balk again but, to his surprise, she just nodded and climbed up into the truck. She slid into the cubby Logan had opened without hesitation and he looked at Claire, who just shrugged.

  “I’ve been told it’s a gift,” she said nonchalantly before climbing up herself.

  Miguel stepped to the door next. “Brother,” he said as he moved past Logan, “I suppose it would’ve been too much to ask to rent something with a little more leg room?”

  Logan grinned. The guy, whose eyes were wrapped in a blindfold, still had his sense of humor. Logan could respect that.

  “Sorry pal. Smuggling rackets only come in a one-size-fits-all.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll take cramped and confined over that place any day.” He glanced back over his shoulder towards the building one more time before pulling open the wall panel on the far wall and climbing inside.

  “Wait,” Logan said again, confused. He had only counted three. “Shouldn’t there be one more? Where’s Andre?”

  Claire, Amy, and Miguel looked at each other in silence for a moment before Claire turned to him. “Andre didn’t make it.”

  Logan didn’t get it. “He didn’t make it? You mean, he got caught?”

  “No,” Claire said. She shook her head and Amy and Miguel both looked away. “He didn’t make it.”

  “Oh.”

  Another one lost. There wasn’t anything he could really say to that, so Logan climbed up and slid the panels closed, quickly rearranging the equipment stored in each pod to hang over the false opening. This hadn’t been too hard. No one was even on to them yet. If he just waited a few more minutes for -

  The shrill blaze of the alarm jerked him up and into action. He vaulted out of the back and slammed the door shut. They were out of time. As he climbed into the driver’s seat and shifted into gear, he realized Claire had been right. He had a mission to complete.

  Logan drove away with their prize tucked safely in the back, wondering what it was going to cost him to get it.

  Chapter 52

  Quincy

  The files the company had on the patients they knew about were kept with the other paper records, shelved on massive metal units that extended throughout the large, warehouse-like room. Quincy had been completely hidden from view as she’d pursued Claire, And
re, and Miguel’s files over the last few weeks.

  The records of other potential patients, though, were kept on an electronic database housed in a small cubby off the back of the room. It was kept locked and the only people who had access to it was Nathan Anderson and Mr. Smith. She had been able to pick Mr. Smith’s wallet, but that had been a fairly safe bet. Rich men like him rarely paid for anything themselves. They had staff and assistants who handled their money.

  The likelihood of him discovering the absence of a wallet he rarely used had been worth the irony of him funding the escape of the people whose lives he’d ruined. Keys were another matter. He would need them to unlock his office, his home, his vehicle. She didn’t know which key fit this lock and it hadn’t been worth it to find out. Not when she could just pick it. Sending the boys to make coffee might have been unnecessary, but it was an easy precaution to take. It provided a little extra security, and she’d know exactly where they were going to be when the time came.

  Quincy crouched now in front of the door and pulled out her lock picks. A basic rim and mortise combination lock. She shook her head. In this technological age, it might seem safer to eliminate electronic security measures. That should at least keep the room safe from hackers, which was probably viewed as more of a threat these days than someone breaking and entering. Especially here, where every person was strictly vetted and accounted for. But really, a metal locking mechanism? She supposed it wouldn’t have mattered to her either way, since she was technically a hacker, too. She grinned to herself. The company had planned for many different scenarios, but one they hadn’t planned for was protecting their valuable information from one of their potential victims.

  The lock popped open and Quincy eased the door open. No alarm sounded. Seriously. So cocky.

  She stood and moved into the room, glancing over her shoulder to make certain she couldn’t be seen. A single computer sat on a desk in the small room and she dropped into the chair in front of it. The problem with a database was that it wasn’t just on the hardware or a server on property. Not anymore. Now, information was backed up on cloud storage servers, meaning there was no physical access point to eliminate the entire thing. It was a double blind security measure. Thieves could break into the room to access the database, but they couldn’t touch the information in the database without being a hacker. But again, it didn’t matter to her either way. She was both.

  Quincy slipped her backpack off her shoulders and pushed aside the clothes until she felt the bottom of the bag. There should be a seam that was frayed, just enough to slip something small and flat between the layers of fabric …

  There. She tugged the small USB drive out of the tear and popped it into the computer’s port. It would take a few minutes to boot up. Once the virus was active, it would eat through every bit of cloud data storage the company had and once the computer itself was destroyed, the local data would all disappear, too.

  Unfortunately, as soon as the virus activated, it would set off the company’s internal security. The top-notch IT personnel on staff would be all over it in about 10 seconds. Quincy hadn’t had time to deal with that problem so she had decided to go around it. While the virus was loading, she pulled a small flask and a lighter from the bag.

  This part was tricky. Fire protocols dictated full campus evacuation in the event of a live event, meaning not just the staff in this building, but in all buildings. Including the IT department housed one building over. The paper documents in the main file room would go up like kindling, initiating the evacuation order. She needed to start the fire before the virus activated so cyber security would be absent, and then she had to make sure the virus was live before getting out herself.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be. In this case, the messier the better. If all went according to plan, she would start the fire, verify the virus was live, grab Don and Mason, and then disappear in the chaos.

  Sure. No problem.

  Quincy crept back out into the records room. It would be best to set the fire a few rows away from the database to give her time to get back in and out, but not so far that the boys up front would notice it too quickly and come looking for her.

  She moved towards the far wall, about halfway between the database and the front door. She smiled as she pulled Patient Zero’s file from the shelf that contained all of her patients’ files. It was only fitting, after all.

  Quincy unscrewed the top of the flask and dumped it over the file. The gasoline she’d pilfered from the motor pool soaked into the paper and she tossed it down on the small study table in front of her. If all went well, Patient Zero would remain an urban legend. The one that got away. No one would ever know it was Patient Zero herself who brought the Rhinehardt Collaborative crumbling down on itself.

  The fire was small, contained. One folder, even covered in an accelerant, would take time to spread. Too long. The smoke detectors would go off soon and the fire would be caught and extinguished, which wouldn’t do. Quincy pulled Claire, Amy, Miguel, and Andre’s folders down and tossed them on the burning pile, sloshing even more gas over the top, and layering more documents from the fire to the metal shelving unit behind her. The shelf itself wouldn’t catch, but the ancient, dusty files it held should spark a massive burn. All the fire needed to do was follow the trail.

  Quincy heard a sound from the front of the room. Don and Mason, back at the counter. Her ten minutes were up. She left the fire to follow the trail she’d laid and moved back to the database room. Backpack slung across her shoulders, she checked her watch. If she’d done the math right, it was just a matter of three…two…one…

  Chapter 53

  Claire

  Claire stood, reaching out to lean against the false wall of the truck for balance. After riding for so long and then bumping over the rough, uneven gravel, she was a little shaky on her feet. She listened as the back of the truck was unlocked and rolled up. She could hear the faint murmur of voices, though the false wall muffled them enough that she couldn’t hear what was being said. She thought she recognized the deep bass of the man, shrouded in darkness, who had handed her up into the truck early that morning with a quick, “Up you go.” But there was another voice, not quite as deep but still, Claire thought, distinctly male, and a softer voice, more gentle in tone but talking at a much quicker pace. Almost frantic.

  The voices stopped and suddenly, the wall that had been built out from the back of the truck disappeared. Blinding light and harsh tendrils of cold flooded the back of the truck and Claire flinched, closing her eyes against the onslaught. From her right she felt Amy cringe, but Miguel slammed his hands up against his eyes in pain, groaning. His blindfold was firmly in place but the sudden light, after being trapped so long in darkness, was overwhelming.

  Claire squinted, and the man was suddenly towering over her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, regret leaking through the words. “I’m so sorry. I should have warned you first.”

  Claire shook her head, blinking up at the man. “We’ve only seen sunlight from behind glass for too long. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  Her hand found the man’s shoulder, gripping it tightly. “Then I’d say you’re ready to feel it, too,” he said gently, taking her hand in his and leading the way to the end of the truck. He jumped down and turned, helping her to climb down slowly. The gravel churned under her feet as she landed and a cold, brisk wind tangled the short hair around her ears. She had never felt anything so wonderful.

  The man let go of her hand after making sure she was steady, moving back towards the truck and the others, and Claire glanced around, taking in her surroundings. There were four people standing twenty feet away, grouped together. The other two voices she had heard speaking to their rescuer earlier had to be part of that group.

  One of the two men stood huddled with a small, older woman and a gangly, fair-complexioned boy. They looked nervously towards the truck, craning their heads as though to see around Claire. She had barely
registered the second man standing slightly apart from the group when something shot past her, almost knocking her to her knees. A scream and another blur, smaller and clumsier than the first, and a little boy yelling, “Mama!” over and over. Amy collided with her son, swooping him into her arms and clutching him to her chest as she collapsed to the ground, crying for the first time in almost two years.

  The man, her husband, Claire guessed, was forcefully restraining the petite, older woman with him. Amy’s mother, who was the spitting image of her daughter, everything from the blonde hair to the desperation for her child. She took a cheap shot at her son-in-law’s shin and he finally released her, allowing her to drop down onto her daughter and grandson, still wrapped around each other on the freezing ground. The woman took Amy’s face tenderly between her hands and just stared at her, tears streaming from her eyes. “My baby, my baby,” she whispered, over and over.

  The joy and the pain, wrenched Claire’s heart in equal measure, forcing her to turn away. It was enough to watch Amy’s reunion with her beloved family, but feeling it was too much. However, Claire was in this thing now, and she fully accepted it. Ever since she had convinced the guard to believe their story, her strange ability had been running more strongly than ever. Maybe because this morning had been the first time she had willingly used it, and maybe because her efforts to suppress it, to deny the truth, had held it back more than she thought. Because now that it was active, everything was amplified even more.

  Claire placed a hand against her chest and took a breath. She wanted so badly to run to Amy and throw her own arms around the other woman’s son. To hold him and shield him and never let anyone else touch him again. The thought of ever being separated from him again was more than she could bear. In fact, the overwhelming rush of emotion was enough to make Claire stagger. She reached out a hand, desperate for something to hold on to, and collided with something warm and strong. It was the other man. The one that had been standing near Amy’s family. He must have seen her distress and moved closer. She felt his arms circle her shoulders, holding her up while she struggled to hold onto her sanity.