by M. D. Archer
“Obviously.”
“Built at the same time as the health centre?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was built a while ago. Maybe it’s been here for years.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“And no one knows about it?”
“Well, it is a secret basement.” Logan smiled and slowly shook his head. “Well, no, that’s not entirely true. Let’s just say no one who would rescue you knows about it.”
A rush of fear swarmed through me, making me dizzy. I tried to swallow, but my throat was so dry I couldn’t. “Please, can I have some water?”
Logan ignored me, looking at his phone instead.
“What am I doing here?” I whispered.
He rubbed his eyes wearily, like he couldn’t believe he had to answer such a stupid question. “You are being contained.”
“Yeah, being locked in a cell is a bit of a giveaway.”
His eyes snapped open. “You think sarcasm is helpful?”
He had a point.
“Okay, but why?”
For a moment he eyed me, as if properly considering the question.
“You were everywhere, all the time,” he said, his voice bitter. “You stole your file and my laptop.” He shook his head. “The arrogance!” He swayed on his feet.
I peered into the dim light. His eyes were glazed. Was he drunk? And did that make this better or worse? Would it make him sloppy and easier to get away from? Or would it make him less reasonable and unpredictable?
“Well?” he said, as if he’d asked me a question.
I swallowed. No matter how scared I was, this was my chance at finding out for sure what happened at Montrose High.
“I know you dosed the grade twelves with something called DcH. Why? Just to see if you could?”
Logan stood motionless for a moment, then dropped his chin once. “Yes. Well done. Who else knows?” His voice went hard. “Who helped you?”
“No one.”
“Really? Did I imagine that friend driving you around? At the diner with you?”
Isaac.
No. He couldn’t know about Isaac.
“Sure, he was with me, but he just thinks you’re a crazy person who has a vendetta against me. He knew you got me fired, and he thought you’d gone psycho. I guess he’s right.”
Logan narrowed his eyes as he considered this information. “No one else knows? Not even Cole?”
I felt my eyes bug out. “Cole… he….” I didn’t know what to say. “No. Why?”
“Because—” He seemed to stop himself from finishing his sentence. “Why were you snooping around in the first place?”
“Because I noticed all the crazy stuff going on. I saw you being shady, and I wanted to figure it out.”
“Shady?” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it was that simple. “How did you get into the laptop?”
“I’m good with computers. I, ah….” I tried to remember what Harvey had said when he was trying to crack the password. “I ran a password hacking code. But then it shut down on its own.”
As Logan smiled, pleased with himself, my thoughts went back to Cole. Why had Logan asked about him? Was it because he had him locked up somewhere too and he was trying to figure out how to plug all the leaks? Cole had tried to warn me I was in danger. So maybe Logan knew about that. Maybe that was why Cole never answered my call and never showed up at the health centre.
“Where’s Cole, Logan?” My voice shook.
He frowned. “No idea. Why would you ask me that?”
I fell silent as I studied his face. He seemed genuinely confused, and I believed him. Relief swirled through me, making me light-headed. Or maybe it was the dehydration. I was so thirsty.
“What do you want from me?”
He smiled, a slow, lazy grin. “You’re in a unique situation. Your results were rather unexpected.” He rubbed his hands together. “And I’m the only one who knows about it, so I can use that nugget of information as a bargaining chip.”
Did he mean use me as a bargaining chip?
“And then, of course, there’s what it means in the grand scheme of things,” Logan continued.
“What’s the grand scheme of things?”
“The big picture, the overall objective.’
I waited, but Logan lapsed into silence.
“Whose body did they pull from the health centre fire?”
“Rather clever on my part, if I do say so myself.” His head bobbed as he smiled. He held up two fingers like a peace sign. “Two birds.” He continued with just his index finger raised and said, “One stone.”
“I don’t get it,” I said, frustration rising. “Logan, who was it?”
“There was a spare body going around.” He laughed again.
“Did… did you kill someone to use as a cover?”
“Yes. And no,” he said, shaking his head. “Some ambitious little tart starts blabbing? Only in the local rag, but she had an online presence, and then she said she was going to do a series.” Logan tsked.
I thought about what he said. He could only mean one person. “Brie Paulson?”
After a beat, he nodded.
“Why are they saying it was you? They must have figured out pretty quickly that the body was female.”
“I bought me some time. You’d be amazed what money can buy you. And it’s better that way. If people think I’m dead, it gives me the freedom to sort out other things.”
“What did you do to her?” I whispered.
“I didn’t do anything to her. He did. He’s rather good at it. Too good, in fact. He can get a little carried away. Letting him run free in the park could be a mistake. All that space and no witnesses.” He shook his head.
“Carried away… killing people?” Shock made it hard to get the words out. “Do you mean the bodies found in the park?”
Logan looked down and inspected his fingernails as he nodded again.
“Who, Logan?” I asked. “Who gets—” I gulped. “—carried away?”
Did I even want to know?
After a pause, he said, “HM1.”
I frowned. “H. M. 1?” I repeated.
He sighed, seeming irritated. “He’s been useful, though.” Logan nodded and tapped his head again, as if this was some sort of explanation.
Useful… as in getting rid of people? Logan had some sort of goon who lived in the park who enjoyed killing people? Some guy called HM1?
“The hiker, Robert, he…. was it because he was a pharmaceutical rep?”
Logan squinted at me. “Pharmaceutical equipment,” he said, nodding. “There’s a difference.”
“Equipment?”
“Loose ends need to be tied up,” he said, an unpleasant smile crossing his face. “Especially if they start being difficult and asking too many questions.”
I nodded slowly. I’d been right about Logan being connected to the hiker’s death.
“Robert was involved in the secret experiment, so he had to be….” I gulped. “What about Kade Liston? Did he ask questions too?”
Logan lifted his head abruptly.
“I didn’t imagine seeing him at the health centre that night, did I? Now that I know about this place”—I swept my hand to indicate my holding cell—“and I know that you’ve got people who cover up things for you, then me seeing Kade after he’d apparently died isn’t so ridiculous. Did you have Kade down here before he escaped?”
“I think you’ll find Kade’s official time of death doesn’t match the events you’re describing,” he said with a smirk. “Kade was different,” he continued, seeming distracted. “He was an opportunity I took advantage of. A final test run. An extra subject never hurts.”
“A test run? An extra subject?” He could only mean one thing. “You dosed Kade too?” I shook my head with disbelief. “You saw Kade hitch-hiking and you picked him up, and after chatting to him for a while realized he had no one, that no one would come looking for him, and that was enough? You kidnapped him and brought him he
re? And then… HM1 got him?” Disbelief and sadness for Kade made my throat tight and my voice squeaky. “Kade died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Logan smiled unevenly, his eyes suddenly looking a little unfocused. “Look at you, joining the dots. You’re not altogether useless, are you, Calliope Laws?” he slurred. “It’s a shame the health centre had to go,” he added randomly. “But it helped cover up a few things. And I did try to link the reporter to the fire in some way to explain everything once they identified her,” he said earnestly, “but it got too tricky.”
Something awful occurred to me.
He was totally spilling the beans.
I was locked up in a secret basement with Logan, and he was telling me all his secrets.
There weren’t many ways this could turn out.
I started to shake involuntarily. My legs wobbled. I crouched down and sat with my back against the cold concrete wall, brought my knees up to my chest, and dropped my head.
“Had enough?” Logan said, seeming pleased with himself. “I’m feeling rather tired myself. Might take a nap and follow up on a few emails.”
He lurched away, and I watched the circle of light from the lantern grow faint as he trudged up the stairs. In the silence, without him talking, however rambling it was, I felt completely alone. Logan, a lunatic with a drinking problem, had kidnapped me and hidden me in the secret basement of the health centre.
I rested my head on my knees. No one was going to find me. I was going to die here inside this cell, at the mercy of a man who’d lost his mind. I buried my head in my hands and let the tears flow.
31
My body was stiff from lying on concrete and my head throbbed, but worse than that, I was so thirsty I thought my insides might actually be drying up. How long had I been down here? I hadn’t seen Logan for hours now. What was he doing? Did he have a plan at all?
The sound of a door banging startled me. A moment later, I heard his heavy footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Won’t even take my goddam phone calls,” Logan hissed to himself as he emerged from the darkness. The lantern swung as he set it down next to a chair placed a few feet away from my cell.
I pulled myself to standing.
Logan sat down, swaying as he almost fell into a seated position. He’d obviously kept drinking and didn’t intend to stop now—he was swigging straight from a bottle of what looked like vodka but, based on what I’d seen at his place, was probably gin.
“Logan, please. My throat… I’m so thirsty.”
He eyed me, then grinned stupidly as he held out the bottle. When I didn’t move, he raised his eyebrows. “No?” He shrugged. “More for me.”
I doubled over, finding it hard to breathe.
“Aw, poor you,” Logan said in a whiny voice. “Guess you should have thought about the consequences of your actions before you stole my laptop.”
“They’re going to find out, you know,” I said, anger rising up. “About you. About this. The project.” I knew it was a stupid thing to say, but I couldn’t help myself. “You can’t cover this up. People will find out.”
Logan started laughing. “How? There’s no trace of what happened at Montrose.”
I stared at him, the realization sinking slowly, softly into my stomach. He was right. He’d made the laptop self–destruct, and he’d burned down the health centre. What proof was there?
“And once I’ve sorted you out, all the loose ends will be tied up. I just need to fix all the problems.” He nodded as if he was trying to convince himself. Liquid sloshed in the bottle as Logan raised it to his mouth. As if he needed to drink more. But maybe the drunker Logan got, the better the odds of me getting out of here were. And the more boozed he was, the more likely he’d tell me what really happened at Montrose High.
“That’s where you come in,” he said, making no sense at all.
“Me? Why?”
Logan drunkenly swept his hand and nearly fell off the chair.
“What’s this about, Logan? The experiment at Montrose. Why?”
He paused before answering, tapping his lower lip as he thought. His eyes lit up as he looked out into the darkness, as if it held all the secrets. “Science. The things they’re doing,” he added, talking more to himself than me, “would blow your mind. The scientific advancements we’ve seen in the last ten years are incredible. It’s all hush-hush, though.” Logan leaned forward with a finger to his lips and again almost toppled over, but he caught himself in time. He smiled to himself, lost in his own little world. “And of course… everyone needs a project,” he slurred, then giggled.
I didn’t get the joke.
“But in all seriousness,” he said earnestly, “it’s incredible. And the question is why wouldn’t you do it? I mean, if you can? Once you have the science? You can’t tell me morals and ethics should get in the way. It’s for the greater good. The plan… it’s brilliant.” He rocked back and forth on his chair with a stupid grin on his face.
“You must be doing this for a specific reason, though?”
“Yes, of course we are. What, you thought this was just a hobby?” He chuckled.
At least he was cracking himself up.
Logan leaned forward. “It’s about moving forward, about scientific advancement. Discovery, enhancement, and, progress.”
My head swam.
“It’s like the great Professor Harris says.” Logan raised one finger but then stopped. “What was it? ‘Without great sacrifice, there cannot be…’ No. ‘For great advancement, one must…’”
A wave of dizziness hit, and I staggered backward. “Water. Please, Logan.”
He was still talking, but something was pulsing in my ears. Black spots appeared in my eyes, blurring my vision. My legs trembled and gave out, sending me straight to the ground.
There was the sound of sloshing liquid again. Logan grunted. It almost sounded like a snore. I lifted my head. If he passed out permanently, what would happen to me?
“Logan?” His head nodded once, twice. “Logan?” I tried again, but he was out. Somehow, he managed to stay seated while unconscious.
The more time that passed, it seemed less and less likely that Logan had any sort of plan. This could be it. The ramblings of this crazy man and his audience—me.
Frustrated tears started slipping down my face and I gave in to them, sobbing until my shoulders shook and my breath shuddered. I eased myself down to lie on the ground, the cold concrete floor pressing into me, unyielding and harsh, but eventually, emotionally spent and exhausted, I drifted off into sleep.
***
I shivered, easing out of sleep with an unpleasant creeping awareness that I wasn’t at home in bed. And that something was very wrong.
What had woken me?
My body was shaking I was so cold, but it wasn’t that. It was something else
A noise.
There. In the corner. I crawled forward and clutched at the cell bars to yank myself up, almost staggering as a wave of dizziness clouded my vision. I closed my eyes slowly, then opened them again, trying to gain control, trying to focus.
The rasping sound of someone breathing. Someone standing in the shadows of the far-right corner.
Fear gripped my throat.
Someone else is here.
I took a step backward and watched in horror as a bulky shape emerged from the darkness and moved toward me. There was something familiar about it, the shape… him. I couldn’t see his face yet, but the way he walked….
He emerged into the light of the lantern and lifted his hood to reveal his face. I sucked in a gasp as his eyes met mine. They were like black voids. Cold, expressionless, dead. He gripped the bars in front of me, staring blankly. The muscles in his forearms rippled. He looked as if he was cut from marble. A cruel scar travelled across the left side of his jaw, almost reaching his mouth. But scarier than his hulking build and his scarred face was his expression. It was devoid of humanity. It was terrifying. If eyes
were the window to the soul, then he was soulless.
A whimper escaped my throat.
His lip curled up into a snarl.
“Logan!” I shouted. I’d never have thought in a million years I’d prefer he was the one tormenting me, but the alternative was so much worse.
Logan grunted as he woke up. There was a smash as the bottle he’d been holding fell to the ground. As the dead-eyed man turned to face Logan, he properly came to, scrambling up as the man took slow steps toward him.
Logan’s face contorted with fear. “No, please, no. You don’t understand.”
A high-pitched squeal erupted from his throat as he was lifted clear off the ground, but then there was a burst of blue light and the man’s body spasmed. In that moment, I knew what I’d seen at the health centre parking lot all those weeks ago was this very same thing. Logan tasering this guy. It was enough to drive him away last time, but right now Logan was out of luck.
He staggered, only slightly, took a step toward Logan and drove his fist into his head. A crushing blow. Logan keeled over, but the man caught him before he could even hit the floor. He tossed him over his shoulder like an empty sack and trudged off into the darkness, leaving behind the fading sound of footsteps up the stairs.
Now was my chance. I had to get out of here.
I threw desperate eyes toward the space illuminated by the lantern. Something silver glinted on the ground near Logan’s overturned chair. His keys. They must have fallen out of his pocket. And the dead-eyed man was upstairs with Logan. It was now or never.
I dropped to the ground and eyed the distance between the bars and the keys. I might be able to get to them, but not with my arms. I slipped off my shoes and socks and slid my right foot forward and my left leg back. I tensed my right leg, tightening the muscles, making them as long and lean as possible, and pushed through the bars toward the keys. My hamstring burned—I hadn’t done this in a while. I bit my lip as the metal of the bars pressed into my right hip, ribs, and chest. I turned my foot and toes inward and stretched a little farther. Not quite. My instep was starting to cramp. A pulse of pain surged up my leg.
“Dammit,” I hissed. But then, just when I thought the pain would force me to retreat, I held my breath and pushed a little harder. Yes. My foot connected with metal. There. I snagged the keys with my toe and nudged them a tiny bit closer. And again. I used my heel to bring them even closer, until finally I was able to pull my leg out, reach my arm through the bars and pick them up.