Triggered Response

by Patricia Rosemoor

  “A woman?”

  He nodded. “In Afghanistan. Her name was Krystal. I met her the night I saw my mate step on that land mine.”

  “You were vulnerable.”

  “Hell, I was drunk. I thought I could lose myself in her. In the morning she was gone. I figured I would never see her again.”

  “But you did.”

  “That night. And the night after that. I got caught up in her, thought of her as my lifeline. I didn’t ask any personal questions about her and she didn’t volunteer any personal information—like the fact that she was married.”

  “Maybe she thought you knew.”

  “I should have guessed. Maybe on some level I had. You don’t find many women like that in Afghanistan. I was too screwed around to realize it, though.”

  “How did she get there? Surely wives aren’t allowed in combat areas.”

  “Reporters are. She got herself assigned to be near her husband. She had a few days off and came on base to see him. Captain Jack Hansen. Apparently it wasn’t a positive reunion. He didn’t approve of her being in a war zone, reporter or not. He went out on a mission and told her to get back to the States. She found me instead. And then the captain found us together. I was in the brig faster than anyone could ask me my side of the story.”

  “But they didn’t court-martial you.”

  “Because Gage spoke up for me. He intervened, told Captain Hansen how I’d gotten twisted around by what happened on that recon mission. The captain agreed not to press charges if I would cut my tour of duty short. Krystal threatened them with bad publicity if they didn’t look the other way. Luckily, the military didn’t need any more negative press, so I didn’t go to trial.”

  “She doesn’t sound like a bad person. She did stand up for you.”

  “If she hadn’t lied in the first place, I wouldn’t have been in the brig.” Pausing for a moment, he wondered what it would take to make Claire tell the truth. “Lies don’t bother you?”

  “It all depends. Sometimes a person has a really good reason to lie.”

  Undoubtedly she meant herself. “What kind of a reason would it take for you to lie, Claire?”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  No, she didn’t want to talk about the lies she’d spun around him. Until she came clean with him and admitted that she’d tricked him into thinking they were married, how could he be certain anything she said to him was the truth? He couldn’t trust her.

  “So how much of your memory is back?” she asked. “That was pretty detailed stuff you just shared.”

  “The long term memory is starting to flow. Short-term is different. I only remember a few seconds of the lab accident—those few seconds that keep haunting my dreams.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “Now back to my sister…”

  In the end, Bray agreed to call Echo rather than surprise her. It was a better idea anyway. With the kidnapping and all, he had no idea who might be hanging around her place. He might be the one surprised.

  While Claire changed inside the CRV into workout clothes, he sat outside the vehicle on a tree stump and used the cell phone he’d bought in Annapolis to call Echo.

  “Hello, Rand?” came a voice that proved to be hearteningly familiar.

  “It’s Bray.”

  “Oh, my God, Bray! You’re alive!” Joy filled Echo’s voice. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Well, mostly.”

  “Where have you been? Why haven’t you called me before this?”

  “I’ve been having a little trouble with my memory since the lab accident. Until the day before yesterday, I didn’t even know who I was.”

  Echo made a choked sound. “I knew something was wrong! Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I was checked out in Baltimore.”

  “How did you get there? Are you there now?”

  “Whoa. I’ll answer all your questions, at least what I can, but how about I do it in person? I want to see you and Zoe. I’m in the area.”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  “Your place might not be the best,” he said, still thinking of the authorities surprising them. “How about we meet at Waterside Café in about an hour for breakfast?”

  “I’ll be there with Zoe.”

  Bray clicked off, wondering if he would really remember his sister fully or if a veil of uncertainty would remain between them. His memory was returning in bits and pieces and he didn’t even need to touch anything to remember some incident. But there were still blanks, particularly concerning Cranesbrook Associates.

  The net was closing in, tightening. Now he not only had the authorities after him, but someone who wanted him dead.

  He only hoped he could fill in the gaps before it was too late.

  Chapter Twelve

  As they drove up to the restaurant, Claire began to panic. She hadn’t been able to talk Bray out of this meeting with his sister. Part of her wanted to do the cowardly thing and let him go in alone, but she had feelings for the man, and if Echo was going to slap him with the truth about their relationship, she needed to be there. She would take the fallout, and she would try to make it right.

  So why couldn’t she do it now?

  A coward. She was a real coward, fearful that Bray would look at her with disgust and shut her out of his life forever.

  Echo was waiting for them at a table in back, away from other diners, with Zoe next to her in a high chair. Zoe’s eyes were pale like her mother’s and her fine brown hair was just starting to curl in wisps around her round face. Thankfully she’d been rescued unhurt. Claire was certain she would be in her mother’s line of sight from now until young adulthood, at least.

  When Echo saw Bray, her face lit then crumpled as she started to cry. She nearly knocked over her chair as she got to her feet and moved toward her brother, her lavender angel-sleeved tunic fluttering. She threw her arms around him as though she would never let him go, either.

  “Oh, Bray, I was so afraid for you. I thought…well, the worst.”

  “That I was guilty?”

  “No of course not, I never thought that. I was worried that you were hurt…or dead.” Echo let go of him and looked over his shoulder, her expression questioning. “Claire?”

  “Hi, Echo. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Bray when you came by yesterday,” Claire quickly said. “He was on Lainie’s Moor, asleep. If you hadn’t been with Detective McClellan, I would have brought you in.”

  Bray’s voice went stiff when he said, “You didn’t tell me you saw my sister.”

  “It must have slipped my mind.”

  Claire gave Echo an expression that pleaded for her understanding. And her discretion. She could see the other woman’s mind working as she tried to figure out the relationship. Claire placed her hand on Bray’s arm and Echo’s eyebrows rose. She got the connection.

  Bray smiled down at Zoe and ran a gentle finger along her cheek. The baby smiled at him, threw her chubby arms in the air and crowed. Obviously she recognized him even if Bray didn’t really know her, Claire thought. As they sat, the waitress arrived with a pot of coffee. She took their breakfast orders and left again.

  The moment they were alone, Echo said, “Bray, the authorities think you had something to do with the lab accident at Cranesbrook. I know you would never do anything dishonest, but I haven’t even been able to convince Rand—”

  “Rand?”

  “Detective McClellan,” Claire clarified.

  Bray frowned at his sister. “You and this detective…?”

  Echo nodded. “I—I love him, Bray, and he loves me. If you give yourself up to him, he’ll help clear your name. He’ll do that for me.”

  “Even though he thinks I’m guilty.”

  “But you aren’t. Tell him everything you know and you’ll convince him.”

  “That’s the problem, Echo. I don’t know anything. Or not enough. My memory was wiped out and it’s just now starting to come back. That’s why I disap
peared. Until two days ago, when Zoe was kidnapped and my photo was on the front page of the Baltimore Sun, I didn’t even know who I was. I don’t make a very convincing witness for myself.”

  Claire said, “I believe you.”

  “That’s because you’re—”

  “On your side,” she quickly cut in, stopping him from calling her his wife in front of Echo.

  Bray brought his sister up to date on how he’d gotten to Baltimore and his stay in a homeless shelter, things he hadn’t even shared with Claire. He told her about hitching to St. Stephens and about his using subterfuge to get back into the Cranesbrook labs.

  At which point Claire stiffened.

  But rather than going into how they’d bumped into each other two nights before, Bray merely said, “Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that jogged my memory about what happened. They’d already cleared out the lab and storeroom, of course.”

  “About the storeroom.” Echo shifted uncomfortably. “They have footage of you in there on the day of the accident.”

  “I really don’t remember.”

  “It’s time-stamped an hour before the explosion. They said you had no reason to be in there. I have a copy on DVD in my bag. We have to find a way for you to see it.”

  “No problem,” Claire said. “We can use my laptop to check it out before we leave.”

  Echo gave Claire an intent once-over again, but she kept her questions to herself.

  The food arrived. Starving, Claire dug right in, as did Bray. Echo picked at her food, then lifted a fussy Zoe out of her chair and held her tight. The baby sucked her thumb and fisted her mother’s hair with her free hand. Claire could see the tears form in Echo’s eyes. She blinked back tears of her own and concentrated on her food.

  “Bray, I’m really afraid for you,” Echo said. “I don’t know what the authorities will do if they spot you on the street. You need to give yourself up.”

  Claire felt Bray’s tension when he asked, “So they can lock me up?”

  “At least you’ll be alive until they can sort this thing out. It’ll look better for you if you turn yourself over to the authorities and tell them what you know.”

  “That’s the problem. I can’t give them anything new. And if as you say they have proof that I was in the storeroom, that doesn’t look good for me, does it?”

  “Maybe you can give them something new.” Echo hesitated a moment, then in a rush asked, “Has anything unusual happened to you since the accident?”

  Bray put down his fork. “Like what?”

  “Both Gage and Vanderhoven were affected by the chemicals.” Echo lowered her voice. “Their minds were affected. I guess you could say ‘expanded.’”

  “We know,” Claire said. “Gage made some notes in the Cranesbrook computer files about what was going on. He said he could open doors with his mind.”

  “And move other things,” Echo said. “They call it telekinesis.”

  “What about Vanderhoven?”

  “Not the same. He was able to amplify people’s emotions so they lost control. What about you, Bray?”

  “I can’t do either of those things, not that I know of. But I can pick up memories by touching objects,” he admitted. “Other people’s memories.”

  “I don’t understand,” Echo murmured. “How can the chemicals work so differently on different people? What did the Department of Defense hope to do with this weapon of theirs?”

  So she’d been correct, Claire thought. The DOD was responsible for Project Cypress, and Cranesbrook was inventing some sort of weapon.

  “Maybe it’s not doing what it was meant to do.” That was the only thing that made sense to Claire. “Something went wrong and someone at Cranesbrook is trying to cover it up so they don’t lose millions.”

  “But surely the authorities know about the powers Gage and Vanderhoven developed,” Bray said.

  Echo shook her head. “Only Rand, as far as I know. It’s not something a person believes in lightly. They kind of have to see proof.”

  Just as she had, Claire thought.

  “So will you do it?” Echo asked. “Will you give yourself up? Show them what you can do?”

  “It wouldn’t prove anything, Echo, certainly not that I’m innocent of wrongdoing. They might think I knew what the chemicals would do and purposely set them off.”

  Echo sank into silence and clung to her now sleeping daughter. A lump settled in Claire’s stomach and she set down her fork, unable to finish her breakfast.

  Bray seemed to have removed himself from the gathering. He kept eating but waved the waitress over and asked for the check. When it came, Claire insisted on using her credit card to pay so if the authorities were tracking his, they wouldn’t know he was on the Eastern Shore. Bray didn’t fight her for it.

  Moments later, they were on their way out of the restaurant, heading for Claire’s CRV and her laptop.

  Bray stopped to get a newspaper from a box. Would the boat explosion be front-page news? If Echo already knew about it, she hadn’t indicated such.

  Pushing Zoe’s stroller, Echo kept up with her and softly asked, “What’s going on between you and my brother?”

  “Nothing bad, I promise you.” Claire glanced back to see him scanning the front page. “I care for Bray and want to help him clear his name.”

  “Is that all?”

  “What other motive would I have?” Claire asked, this lie nearly choking her.

  Claire could tell Echo wasn’t buying her innocent act, but thankfully, she let the subject drop, at least for the moment. Bray caught up to them as Claire opened the car doors with her remote. She climbed into the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition, started the car and connected the laptop adaptor to the vehicle’s lighter socket.

  “It’ll take just a minute for my laptop to fire up.”

  “That gives me a minute to reconnect with my niece.” He turned to his sister. “Can I hold Zoe? I’m happy she isn’t scared of me.”

  “How could she be scared of the first man who ever held her?” Echo said, sounding a little choked.

  Revving up the laptop, Claire glanced up to see Bray take Zoe into his arms. The baby squealed and smacked him in the nose with an open hand. Bray’s expression softened as he looked into his niece’s face. And Claire’s throat tightened as she thought how comfortable Bray looked holding a baby.

  “Here’s the DVD,” Echo said, offering the disk to her.

  “Thanks.” Claire took it, waited until her computer’s operating system was humming comfortably, then popped in the disk. She set the laptop on the dash so they could all see. “Here we go.”

  The footage opened with an empty lab, but then a shadow appeared on the monitor. A man followed. As he strode toward the storeroom, his spiked black hair glistened in the overhead lights. He pulled the door open and, pausing, looked over his shoulder toward the camera as if checking to make sure he wasn’t being watched before disappearing inside.

  “That’s me, all right.”

  A black band ran under the image. The time, date and lab number were branded in red.

  “And that’s the day…” Claire murmured. “Maybe an hour before the accident.”

  “Does this help you remember anything?” Echo asked.

  Bray’s expression tightened. “Nope. Not a thing.”

  Noticing his forehead pulling together in a deep frown, Claire asked, “What is it?”

  “Play it back.”

  They watched the sequence again as Bray came into the shot, then walked into the storeroom.

  “Something seems off, but I can’t quite place it.”

  “What kind of something?” Claire asked.

  “Something about the way I’m dressed.”

  Echo said, “I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “Wait,” Claire murmured. “I have it. It’s not the clothing. The radio. It’s wrong. It’s in a sleeve attached to your belt.”

  “And that wo
uld be wrong why?” Echo asked.

  Bray answered, “Because the radio should be attached to the shirt pocket. I remember now. We used to carry the larger radios but switched to the smaller units last spring.”

  Claire nodded. “He’s right. I’ve never seen them any other way. Could someone have tampered with the footage to throw suspicion on him?”

  Bray asked his sister, “Where did you get the DVD?”

  “Rand made a copy from the original, which he got from Hank Riddell.”

  “Riddell again!” Claire gasped. “Yesterday morning he found one of the janitors who’d just died of a heart attack. Then I caught him searching my desk. He said he was looking for a folder for Dr. Ulrich. The folder was in plain sight on top, and he was searching through my drawers.”

  “What kind of work does Riddell do on Project Cypress?” Bray mused.

  Claire shrugged. “Considering we can’t get to the files, who knows exactly other than the men on the project. Riddell is Ulrich’s and Kelso’s research fellow. Wes Vanderhoven worked on the project as a lab assistant. And so did Mac Ellroy. Mac left under mysterious circumstances, and Vanderhoven is dead.”

  Before they could discuss it further, a midnight-blue Crown Victoria entered the lot and with a screech of tires, stopped yards from them. Claire’s eyes widened when she realized the driver was none other than Detective Rand McClellan.

  She shut down the laptop, closed the cover and slipped the computer into the back seat.

  The detective flew from the car, yelling, “Brayden Sloane, stop right there!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Stepping out of her vehicle, Claire couldn’t believe Echo had arranged for the detective to be there. She could see that Bray was equally disbelieving when he gave his sister an accusing look.

  “You called in the cops?”

  “Not the cops. Just Rand. He’s on our side. I left a voice mail for him to meet us here to talk.” A desperate-sounding Echo white-knuckled the stroller handle. “I had to do it for your sake. I’m so afraid for you, Bray. Too many people connected with the Cranesbrook accident have died already. I don’t want you to be next.”