“Good evening, Dr. Mortensen,” he said in the Swedish accent Louise was beginning to loathe. “I’m Lucas. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I didn’t want to bother Maja. I thought I’d bring my plates out.”
“It will be better for you to stay in your suite—you never know who you might encounter if you are wandering around Herr Viklund’s home unescorted. I will ask Maja to collect the plates.”
“All right. Thank you for your help.”
“Certainly, Dr. Mortensen.”
She felt his eyes on her as she retreated down the corridor and let herself back into the suite. In a few minutes, Maja appeared with a tray onto which she loaded the plates and glass.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, Dr. Mortensen?”
“No, thank you, Maja,” said Louise.
“I wouldn’t suggest leaving your suite without me,” said Maja. “Herr Viklund’s home is quite large and the corridors can be confusing. I’m happy to take you anywhere you’d like to go. Within the complex,” she added.
“Yes, I’ll certainly do that from now on.”
27
Lizzy and Ruby stayed in a motel the first night and then, after breakfast the next morning, drove to a car rental where Ruby got a Mitsubishi Mirage for the drive back to Overbrook.
Ruby walked Lizzy back to the van.
“Don’t drive after dark,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“And stay on the backroads.”
“I will.”
“Want me to show you that trick to get the driver’s door to unlock again?”
“No, I think I’ve got it.”
“Just jiggle the key.”
“Ruby,” said Lizzy, exasperated, “I know. You showed me twice.”
Ruby sighed. “I hate leaving you here by yourself.”
“Yeah, but it’s for the best.”
“It didn’t work out so well when we left you in Smoketown,” Ruby said pointedly.
“That was a while ago.”
“It was just a few months ago.”
“Yeah, but a lot has happened since then.”
“That’s true.” After a moment Ruby added, “I could stay with you for another day or two.”
“No, you need to get home to your sister and brother-in-law.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.” Ruby scowled at the van. “Are you sure you don’t want to go shopping for supplies before I head back?”
“No, I’ll stop at a Walmart tonight and pick up what I need. They probably like it better if you’re staying in their parking lot if you’ve bought something from them, right?”
“Yes, I imagine so. Call us and let us know how you’re doing. It should be all right for you to let us know you’re okay without any details about where you are, right?”
Lizzy hesitated. “I think it would make me homesick to talk to you or Uncle Owen or Andy.”
“How are you going to get updates on the senior Dr. McNally’s condition?”
“Maybe you can text me any important information like that. And I’ll text you to let you know I’m okay.”
Ruby examined Lizzy closely for a moment, then said, “At least once a day.”
“Yup, at least once a day.”
Ruby appeared about to say something else, then changed her mind and gave Lizzy a quick hug. She stepped back. “At least you probably don’t need to go too far. It will be helpful for us to be able to get together again quickly depending on how things develop.”
“Sure.”
“You take care of yourself, Lizzy.”
“You too, Ruby.”
Ruby crossed the parking lot to the Mirage, started it up, then turned onto the road, heading east.
Lizzy jiggled the van’s balky lock open and climbed in. She got out her phone and tapped in her destination: Williams AZ. Thirty hours. She clicked Options and selected Avoid highways. Thirty-eight hours.
She sighed, put the van into drive, and pulled away.
She couldn’t tell Ruby that the real reason for not wanting to talk with her or Uncle Owen or Andy was her fear that it would break her tenuous resolve to kill Tobe Hanrick.
28
Philip woke up the next morning feeling considerably less terrible than he had after the prostitute George Millard had hired had slipped something into one of his drinks in Sedona. So it hadn't just been the drug that had inflicted the suffering after all—the eight shots of bourbon had played a part as well.
He was wearing the same clothes he had had on the night before, minus the boots, and was lying on top of the bedclothes, covered by a cotton blanket of a Southwestern-themed design. No detail too small, he thought sourly.
In the bathroom adjoining the bedroom, Philip undressed and cleaned up as best he could with the bandage still on his shoulder, then worked his way into fresh clothes.
He tried the door, which, not surprisingly, was locked. He pressed zero on the Viklund-provided mobile phone.
In a moment, there was a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Elsa entered.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Castillo?”
“Great. Just wanted to let Viklund know I’m up and about.”
“Very good, I’ll take you to see him.”
She led him down the corridor, continuing on past the room where he had dined with Viklund. The doors were open and Philip glanced inside. The Southwestern decor was gone—there were no rugs on the walls or tchotchkes on the sideboard. It looked like a partially dressed stage—which, he thought, was pretty much exactly what it was.
She led him to a conservatory, windows overlooking the wooded landscape, where Viklund sat at a cafe table flanked by two metal chairs. He stood when Philip entered.
“Good morning, Mr. Castillo. I hope you’re feeling well?”
“I’d feel better if I didn’t keep getting drugged.”
“I apologize for taking the liberty. But I’m sure you know that this was not your first such experience.”
Philip was silent.
“I do owe you an explanation,” said Viklund. “Please,” he continued, gesturing to the other chair, “have a seat.”
They both sat.
“Coffee?” asked Viklund, lifting a silver coffee pot.
Philip raised an eyebrow.
Viklund smiled. “You are no doubt suspicious that it was the espresso that contained the drug, and you would be right. Allow me to serve myself first.”
Viklund poured coffee into his own cup, placed the coffee pot within Philip’s reach, and drained his own cup.
“You asked me before if I worked for Louise Mortensen. It is more accurate to say that Dr. Mortensen works for me. In fact, she is here at the compound.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do,” said Viklund. “I have supported Dr. Mortensen and her research for many years, and I was happy to come to her aid when she had exhausted her options.”
“That was big of you.”
“It will likely not surprise you to learn that my friendship with Dr. Mortensen was not the only motivation for the assistance I provided to her. She will be an invaluable resource for me—she has a truly innovative mind, and I believe her innovations will open opportunities for me and my allies.”
“And how long do you expect her to be innovating for you and your buddies?”
Viklund smiled, and Philip almost felt bad for Louise Mortensen. “Oh, I have every reason to expect that Dr. Mortensen will be supporting my work for many years to come.”
Philip nodded.
“And, as you may already suspect,” continued Viklund, “Mitchell Pieda is here as well. The presence of Dr. Mortensen and Mr. Pieda at the compound is why I—regrettably—must lock the door to your room. It wouldn’t do to have you run into either of them wandering the corridors of my home.”
Philip smiled thinly. “Yeah, that would be awkward.”
“You are a master of understatement, Mr. Castillo.” Vikl
und refilled his own cup, then held the coffee pot over Philip’s cup. At Philip’s nod, he filled his cup as well. “I believe you are aware of Mr. Pieda’s special skills. There’s not only his ability to create strokes, but his ability to read minds. Some people have a natural resistance to this ability, but as with so many things, science gives us a recourse. The drug you were given—here and in Sedona—is a derivative of flunitrazepam and makes the subject more susceptible to Mr. Pieda’s mind-reading ability.”
“And what did ol’ Mitch ask me this time?” asked Philip, more casually than he felt.
“He asked what the prize is that you seek.”
Philip tried to keep his face neutral. “And what did he find out?”
“He perceived your relief that you weren’t aware of Miss Ballard’s location and therefore could not provide it to us. That made me curious, because we believed Miss Ballard to be in a hotel near the hospital where her godfather is recovering from his heart attack. I had two employees watching the hotel, and they confirmed that although Dr. McNally’s younger brother had indeed come and gone yesterday morning, he had only gone to the front desk, not to the room. That seemed odd, so this morning they checked the room while the housekeeper was cleaning. It seems that Andrew McNally had ended his reservation the previous day.” He took another sip of coffee. “I was none too pleased to hear that, and those two employees have now been … reassigned, shall we say.”
“How do they like their new assignment?” asked Philip, deadpan.
Viklund smiled thinly. “It is a permanent assignment, so I can only hope that they are satisfied with where they ended up.”
Philip looked back at him, expressionless.
Theo continued. “Mr. Pieda also confirmed the fact that you were intent on staying out of jail based on the unpleasant experiences of your first incarceration.”
“You wouldn’t need a mind reader to figure that out.”
“And he found out that you want a man in prison in Arizona named Tobe Hanrick dead.”
“Interesting.”
“Perhaps to you. I must say I have no interest in personal vendettas—except my own, of course. However, there was another motivation that did interest me.”
“Which was?”
“Your desire to kill him yourself, rather than having Miss Ballard do it for you. That is of interest to me, because I believe that were Miss Ballard to try to take on the task you set before her, it would not only be emotionally damaging to her, but would also put her in danger. And I have no interest in having Miss Ballard be more traumatized—either emotionally or physically—than she has been already. So, in that sense, I do have an interest in helping you to kill Mr. Hanrick, so that Miss Ballard doesn’t have to.”
“Why do you care what happens to Ballard?”
“She is an extraordinary result of Dr. Mortensen’s experiments. It would be a shame if she were to die in an attempt to fulfill a promise made to a friend.”
“And a shame if she fell into the hands of someone other than yourself. I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to add Ballard to the list of extraordinary people you have working for you.”
“I won’t deny it would be quite a coup to enlist Miss Ballard to my cause, but from what Dr. Mortensen has told me, for my purposes she is not quite … how shall I say it …”
“Bloodthirsty enough?” suggested Philip.
Viklund smiled. “Exactly. So, while I have no designs on her myself—at least for now—I nevertheless would not like to see her come to any harm, with a view to a possible future alliance.” He laughed. “I can see you are unconvinced as to my motives, Mr. Castillo.”
“Sorry to be a skeptic.”
Viklund waved his hand. “No matter. I won’t ask you to try to find out where she is—from one of the McNally brothers, for example.”
“I figure that since Ballard would have told them about Pieda’s ability to read minds, they have probably made it a point not to know where she is either.”
“I have no doubt that you are correct. We shall speak no more of Miss Ballard for the time being, except to ensure that we prevent her from trying to discharge her obligation to you. We need to get you to Arizona,” said Viklund. “If Miss Ballard is headed there, I suspect she will need to go by car or bus or train, since a TSA check at an airport would alert any authorities who might be looking for her to her presence. Any realistic option will take her several days. You can recuperate here for a day or two, then we will fly you out to Arizona.”
“If flying is a problem for Lizzy, it will certainly be a problem for me,” said Philip.
“Not the flying I have in mind,” said Theo. “It has been quite a few years since I or any of my associates have had to resort to a commercial airline flight.”
“And once I make sure Ballard can’t get herself into even more trouble by killing Hanrick, what then? You’re going to recruit me into your army?”
“Or perhaps into my own Knights of the Round Table.”
Philip snorted.
Viklund shook his finger at Philip. “There is a bit of the knight errant about you, Mr. Castillo. You take great risks for those who have earned your loyalty. Miss Ballard, your damsel in distress. The old man you befriended in prison.”
“He wasn’t an ‘old man.’”
Viklund held up a placating hand. “A poor choice of words. But what I wish to convey is that I admire your commitment to a cause, and I admire your willingness to break the narrow-sighted strictures of the law in service of a higher moral code. You have been a loyal friend—to Miss Ballard and Mr. Riva and no doubt to many others—but perhaps it is time for you to have an opportunity to champion your own cause.” He paused, but Philip was silent. Theo continued. “I believe that when this Hanrick business is taken care of, you and I might explore other mutually beneficial opportunities. As someone who is, or at least looks, Native American, you could be useful to me. As you may have noticed, all my staff are Swedish, and they would appear out of place in certain settings and circumstances. Since I became aware of your involvement in matters related to Dr. Mortensen, I have been thinking about opportunities that would be facilitated by having a colleague who could operate in the Native American community.”
“What kind of opportunities?”
“No need to get into that detail yet. I would first like to assist you with your goal.”
Philip was silent for a moment, then said, “Why are you telling me all this? If I were running the kind of operation it sounds like you’re running, and told someone what you’ve told me about it, I’d want them out of the way as soon as I got what I wanted from them.”
“I assume you are using ‘out of the way’ as a euphemism for dead, but I would hardly have to resort to such extreme measures. As you might surmise from the fact that I’m sheltering Dr. Mortensen—a well-known person who is suspected of involvement in arson and murder, not to mention unethical medical experimentation—I have quite a bit of control over the authorities’ interest in my business. And I similarly have quite a bit of control over the authorities’ interest in others’ business. If you were to do anything that would be against my best interests, it would be quite simple to get you into the hands of those authorities. And it’s quite likely that once you were in their hands, they would not believe a word you told them about the mysterious man you met in Maryland. Mr. Pieda was able to confirm for me your deep aversion to the idea of going back to prison. It would be all too easy for me to make that happen. Do you believe me?”
Philip nodded once.
“So we should pursue the initial goal of keeping Miss Ballard from coming to harm in her pursuit of Mr. Hanrick?”
Philip was silent for a long moment, then said, “Yes.”
Viklund nodded and sat back in his chair. “One thing that was not entirely clear to Mr. Pieda was the desired circumstances of Mr. Hanrick’s death. Do you merely want him dead? Or do you want to kill him yourself?”
Philip stared at the calm face asking
him if he wanted to commit murder. Finally, he spoke.
“I want to kill him. And I want to be looking in his eyes when he dies.”
29
Owen was finishing up the dinner of chicken breast and salad that Ruby had prepared for him. The chicken seemed a little dry and the salad dressing a little sparse, and he was contemplating the meal of fettuccini alfredo that he would prepare when he regained control of his kitchen.
He had been discharged that morning with strict orders not to exert himself in any way. Andy had called Ruby as she drove back from Western Pennsylvania and hired her to stay with Owen to make sure no exertion took place.
Ruby had declined Owen’s invitation to join him for meals.
“Dr. McNally, we would just spend the whole meal trying to think of things to talk about.”
“I never have trouble thinking of things to talk about,” said Owen plaintively.
“I’ll bring you your meals in the dining room, and I’ll eat in the kitchen,” she said, and that was that.
He levered himself out of his chair, paused to catch his breath, and began gathering up the plate and utensils.
Ruby appeared at the door. “I’ll take those, Dr. McNally,” she said, taking them from Owen.
“It’s not like I had a heart transplant,” said Owen. “I can clear my dishes myself.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Ruby briskly. “You need to rest.”
Owen trundled after her down the hall to the kitchen, Ruby’s base of operations. “I’ve been doing nothing but resting. I’m tired of resting.”
“You have to think of getting better as the job you need to do.” She rinsed the plate and utensils and put them in the dishwasher.
“It’s a pretty deadly boring job,” he said grumpily.
“Would you like dessert?” she asked.
Owen perked up. “Dessert?”
“I got something called oat-based fruit crumble.”
After a brief pause, he said, “That was very thoughtful of you.”
“I’ll bring it to you. Do you want to have dessert in the living room?”
The Iron Ring Page 12
