by Dale Mayer
She nodded and studied the remaining food on the cart. “Maybe I could manage a little bit extra.”
He scooped the leftover eggs and sausage onto her plate. “There, is that better?”
She nodded. “I’m not sure why I’m so hungry.”
“Because you slept the night and the day away. It’s not Saturday or Sunday. It’s Monday.”
*
He wondered how she’d take the news. In fact, she looked like she was still processing. She held onto her cup of coffee again and stared out the window, an odd look on her face.
“You know when I escaped from that damn place, I worried I’d missed out on so much. I swore I never would let that happen again. I wanted to experience everything. Now apparently I missed the last day and a half.” She groaned. “And of course there was the month and a half before that too when I was comatose in the hospital.”
“After you fell asleep, Stefan said the guy was on his way back with the right tools to fight through the alarm system. It wasn’t intended to do more than let us know there was an intruder. Given that and your condition, Stefan offered this place, and I packed up, carried you out and brought you here.”
“Thank you.”
He searched her gaze but not seeing anything untoward nodded his head and said, “You’re welcome.”
“What do we do now?” she said, her gaze unwilling to let his go. He could understand that. He’d completely changed her life and now she likely didn’t know where she stood.
“I’m waiting to hear from my partner. He’s been chasing down the names from the file we found. Hoping to find someone still alive.”
As if he’d heard them talking about him, Dean’s cell phone went off showing a picture of Jones. “There he is now,” Dean said.
He answered his phone, pushing his chair back slightly. “Any news, Jones?” He put the phone on speaker.
“We tracked down two grad students who came into the program later. One had been fired and the other quit. The one who’d been fired said he’d been trying to make the living conditions more bearable for the people in the institution. He was quite aggravated and upset during the conversation. Said it was horrible. The other guy said he couldn’t do it. The place was horribly run, and it was obvious that the doctor wasn’t all there anymore. He was obsessed with paranormal abilities.”
Dean interrupted him. “Did he think the doctor had any abilities of his own?”
“No, I don’t believe so, but he was looking to use iron and steel in some of his experiments but would never explain why or how. Particularly small balls.”
“But there were still others there at the time. According to Tia, she was the last one left.”
“That’s the thing, he was there almost to the end and said there was a lot of hush hush discussion going on – figured that’s actually why he’d been fired as he’d overhead something he shouldn’t have. They’d told him they were in the process of moving to a new location. Only he didn’t know where it was.”
Dean’s heart slammed against his ribs. “They moved everyone somewhere else?”
“According to the one guy. The other one knew nothing about it.”
“Maybe he wasn’t there at the same time?”
“No, he was a couple of months earlier.” His tone changed. “I did check on some of the parents of the dead kids.”
Ah, here was something. Dean straightened. “And.”
“I got a hold of Calendar’s mom and she was a pistol. Said it was a Godsend that the boy died. According to Wilhelm he was in terrible pain at the end and his passing was easy.”
“What?” Dean looked across at Tia who’d been eyeing the last two pancakes on the trolley. But at Jones’s words, she sat up. He asked her, “Did you know Billy to be ill?”
Her face twisted in a frown as she thought for a moment then she shook her head. “The last time I remember seeing him, he was laughing and joking.” She stared out the window. “No, that’s not quite true. The last time I spoke to him he was like that. But the last time I saw him I was in the observation room, and they were wheeling him down the hallway. He didn’t look so good then.”
“Any physical injuries?”
She shrugged. “Not that I could see but his skin had a gray cast. I remember thinking he needed a doctor because he was sick.”
“According to his mother, he had a terminal illness and Wilhelm said his death was a kindness at the end.”
Dean watched her slump back in her seat and play with her fork. It had to be tough to have all these memories not match up with the current information.
Jones continued to speak. “We spoke to a couple of other parents. One wouldn’t talk to us, said his boy was deceased and there was nothing to be gained by talking to us about his condition. And another–”
“Condition? What condition?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? He wouldn’t talk to us. Said if we knew how to find him and ask about his boy then we obviously had the information we needed already.”
“Typical.” So many people became belligerent when the cops asked questions. “And the other one?”
“Yeah, that’s not so nice. She was the girl’s aunt and said basically good riddance. The girl was nothing but trouble since she was born and nothing she’d seen that girl do since had made up for her living with her.”
“Wow, nice family.”
“So I’m getting the idea these were all misfits or unloved or terminally ill cases that no one else could help.”
“So far they are fitting into that pattern, yes.”
“And his funding?”
“Private. We’re still working on that. Keep in mind Wilhelm came from a very wealthy European family and likely had access to the family coffers.”
“Hell, they probably paid him to stay over here and do his research and keep him out of their lives.”
“Quite possibly. The company was Wilhelm Bros, Ltd. Although, there were a couple of other administrators in and out, but no names.”
“Okay, keep me posted,” he said. “We need to find his new location too.”
“Yeah, quiz Tia. She likely knows more than she thinks she does.”
They hung up and Dean tossed his phone on the small table. He reached over and filled his cup of coffee. Hers was still full. Not sure how to approach the conversation, he stayed quiet.
“Well,” she asked. “Another location. Interesting. The place was empty when I escaped. I always assumed I was the last one alive.”
“Or maybe you were just the last one to be moved.” His tone deepened. “And maybe they are still looking for you to go back and join them.”
She swallowed hard. “As in I’m the one that got away?”
“As in, they just haven’t collected you – yet.”
Chapter 33
She stared at him. Her stomach roiled at the thought, but there was something there…something triggering in the back of her memories.
“There was something about collecting under one roof, but I don’t remember much about that. As if there might have been several labs that needed to be combined into one.”
“What?” Dean leaned forward. “So there could have been several labs?”
She shrugged. “There could have been dozens. And run by Wilhelm’s family for all I know. I saw a man who looked to be his brother arguing with him one day.” She smiled. “I was in the observation room again.”
“This is the first you’ve mentioned visitors.”
“It’s the first you’ve asked,” she said in exasperation. “How am I supposed to know what’s important and what’s not?”
“Okay, think back. Did you hear a name? See a name tag? Hear anyone else mention Wilhelm’s family?”
“Sure, we all joked about it all the time. He had brothers, several of them, and a mother who lived back in the homeland. The sons all came to America in search of a better life.” But she added, a mocking tone to her voice, “Instead he found us.”
�
�And he wanted more.”
“He wanted much more than he originally thought. I never did hear any of the conversations between the suits that came to check up on his work or between the other doctors that came through. We were kept isolated. The staff talked, but to each other, not so much to us, but we had a great gossip line. We tried to keep each other in the loop but…we were limited.”
“Understood.”
“Can’t we find the records of who worked there and who donated money to them?”
“We haven’t found anything yet. Being private it could take a court order to make that happen. On the other hand, the grad students were from the university, worked mostly for free and had limited access.”
“Sure, but they know names that I wouldn’t.”
“I’ll text Jones about that.” He picked up the phone and started to write out the message.
“Labs. I remember them talking about multiple labs.” She tried to remember, but everything was faint and foggy. She’d also spent a lot of years trying to avoid thinking about the nightmare of her time there.
“As kids, didn’t you joke around, play jokes on the staff or try to prank them. Surely there are tidbits that you remember that were personal.”
She shrugged, understanding why he needed to know but also realizing he had no idea how painful what he was asking was. Pushing her chair back, she stood up and carried her coffee over to the table. “I’ll think about it, maybe jot down a few notes and see what I can pull out of my brain.” As if by magic, a blank pad of paper showed up in front of her on the coffee table. She laughed. “Right.”
He walked toward the bed.
“What are you going to do?”
“Find you some clothes,” he said in a dark voice and walked away from her.
She glanced down and realized the front of her robe had fallen open. She flushed and tugged the edges of the terrycloth together. To hide her embarrassment and cleavage, she snatched up the pen and paper and curled up in the corner of the couch.
The paper stared back at her, as blank as her mind, but her heart pounded against her chest. She wasn’t scared. Or alarmed, so what the hell was going on? She closed her eyes and leaned back.
Instantly, she was thrown back into a memory. Another notepad on the table, a pen beside it. And orders to do something. But what.
She hated this blackness in her mind. But there was someone talking to her. Back then.
Write it down.
All of it.
Tell me how you are doing this.
Every last detail.
The orders flew at her at an alarming pace and the tone darkened. Deepened. She placed the notepad down and stared at it. How did she do what she was doing? He seemed to think anyone could do this if she gave them the instructions.
Her current mindset tried to probe the memory for details. Looking for something to grasp onto.
“You aren’t so special,” he snarled. “Anyone can do this.”
“Then do it,” she snapped. “Just do it. Why do you need me?”
“I don’t need you but I own you so you will help me or else.”
“Or else what?” she screamed.
The slap had been hard, clean, and made her brains shake. She’d heard ringing in her ears for days.
The interview had been terminated at that point as she’d had to be carried back to her room. Her face had swelled up and she’d been afraid he’d broken her cheekbone. But he’d given her the weapon she needed against him and his probing.
The next time he’d asked her how she did it, she had her answer for him. “What difference does it make, you’ll never be able to do it.” She’d deliberately made her tone weary and calm.
He’d responded in kind. “And why is that?”
“Because to do what I do takes control.”
She’d avoided a second blow then but only because she’d ducked. He was so angry he’d left her alone in the observation room for days. Like that was a punishment. Her bedroom was always isolated and locked down, but in the observation room she could watch the nurse flirt with the orderly, the men talking to Wilhelm. The fights.
Fights?
She directed her mind back to that scene. She’d often run to sit with her back along the wall under the window and listen. She could hear better there. And if she stretched her legs out then they could see her too and left her alone.
To hear.
*
Dean watched her sit on the couch lost in something. She held the notepad to her chest. He felt like an ass for mentioning her state of undress. Especially when he only wanted to tear the damn robe completely off of her. What the hell was wrong with him? She was under his protection. She needed him and she’d been taken advantage of all her life. He wasn’t going to be one of them.
He was going to be the good guy.
And maybe she’d not look at him as someone to walk away from when this was all over. He’d had plenty of time to ponder what he was doing with her in his life.
Trying to take his mind off her, he started searches for her parents, for other family members in the hopes they all weren’t assholes.
He’d also done his best to track down as many of the employees of the lab. He’d called the parent company, but they told him nothing.
From the lab, the best leads were the grad students, but they’d only been able to track the last two of those. Surely there were dozens of others throughout the years. If there were more labs…now that was something to ask the parent company.
On impulse he picked up the phone and called the last woman he’d spoken to. “My apologies, this is Detective Walker again. I forgot to ask you about the number of labs connected to Wilhelm’s work.”
“There was the one we spoke about. It was connected to a different lab early on, but those two headed in different directions,” she said hesitantly. “Hmm. Workman. Dr. Workman is running the other lab.”
Dean nodded. The name meant nothing to him. “So none of the patients from the one lab was moved to the other?”
“Patients? No, there were no patients at all,” she exclaimed. “Wilhelm was doing research on rats. Only on rats.”
Dean stared out at the city sprawled below. “Rats? Are you sure,” he said in a low tone. “My understanding is there were patients there. Living at Wilhelm’s lab.”
“No, no. You must be mistaken,” she said in a harried voice. “We aren’t involved in any human testing. Only animals.” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.” And she hung up.
Her actions were the biggest indicator of something wrong yet.
But how could he get concrete proof? He also had the technicians who’d worked there. Even if they were the only two left, they were eyewitnesses. The company might have tried to bury the fact that their scientist had been doing illegal testing, but it wasn’t going to stay buried. He’d make sure the company paid for their involvement in what they’d done to Tia.
He checked his email again, looking for something from Jones. He didn’t want to text yet again, but it was hard not to constantly check in for updates. There was an email.
The subject line – an exchange.
The sender’s name was a series of numbers and letters and as his stomach sank, he realized this was going to be bad.
He hated to but clicked the email to open in the pane below.
And there was a child, black and bruised and unconscious lying on a small cot. No windows to the room, no light to the space. Tears were long dried on the child’s face. Dean strangled back a gasp, desperately trying to keep Tia out of this. Marshaling his thoughts, his fists clenched and wishing for a target, he tried to neutralize the anger by studying the photo carefully.
It was old was the first thing he noticed.
The child was maybe ten.
Could be slightly older.
He’d been beaten. Nothing else gave quite the same look to flesh and blood as damage caused by another perso
n.
He couldn’t tell if the child was male or female. But it had suffered.
In a horrible way.
Glancing over at Tia, he closed the image down and went back to the email. But there was nothing else there except the wording in the subject line. And no matter which way he looked at it, the message gave no more details. He immediately forwarded it to Jones and then as an afterthought, he forwarded it to Stefan.
His phone rang almost immediately. He glanced at Tia and walked out of the room so she wouldn’t overhear the conversation.
“Jesus. What the hell are you mixed up in, Dean?”
“No idea,” he said, his voice heavy, hating to think they had a child murder case here.
“You don’t recognize the boy?”
“Is it a boy?” Dean shook his head. “And no I don’t.
“I don’t either. With that angle on his face, facial recognition won’t be a help either.”
“I was hoping there’d be some way to identify him.”
“I’ll send it to the lab. You know the captain is going to want to see you. Both of you. This changes everything.”
He knew that, but he didn’t think Tia was ready for such a visit. And he knew the captain wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Chapter 34
Would he tell her what was going on? Or try to keep it to himself. She’d watched the shock on his face turn to horror then fear before morphing into rage. It had been the rage that worried her. Only in his case it was controlled. Calm. Clenched fists and locked down jaw. If he looked at her she knew she’d see hardened steel in his eyes. As he stared at his laptop, she couldn’t imagine what might have set him off, but something did.
Then he’d picked up the phone and left. Now he was back at his laptop. She stood up quietly and walked to the back of the room and came up behind him quietly just as he clicked on an email and brought up an image.
She gasped.
He spun around, saw her, then snapped back to close down the email. Then his hand slowed. “Do you know that boy?”
“It’s no boy,” she whispered. “That’s Billy.”
“What? I thought you said Billy was a boy?”