In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue...

by K. Alex Walker

  Agent William cautiously approached Delgano before tossing him to the ground and cuffing his hands behind his back. Once he was secured, the other two agents put away their guns and they all boarded the jet. Delgano tried to block out his thoughts as he refused to believe what his mind was telling him, but the logic was virtually impenetrable. If the FBI had that information, there was only one person that could have given it to them.

  Chapter Twelve

  Back in Wren’s room, Larke sat at the edge of the bed while Wren laid on her stomach in the center of the mattress.

  “I don’t think I would have thought I’d make it either,” she told Larke. “I mean, you getting out of there is like something from a movie.”

  Larke stared at the crown moulding that bordered the ceiling. “Trust me Wren, I’ve thought about all of that. But now that I’m looking back at it, Desmond made all of the difference.”

  She smiled as she thought about Desmond and how it had felt to kiss him while standing in the middle of the basement, as though the kiss was a punctuation mark to an extremely long sentence. Even as she sat there on Wren’s bed, she wanted to swoon. She wanted to place the back of her hand to her forehead and collapse extravagantly onto the mattress as though she was in a 1940s black and white film.

  As she felt another flush of energy rush from her chest to her cheeks, she closed her eyes and rode the wave for a few seconds before it waned. The minute that he was done meeting with Doug downstairs, she was going to go to him. Already, she missed the tartness of his lips and her skin missed the roughness of his palms. How much good had she done in the world to have been lucky enough to marry a man like Desmond?

  “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying are you?” Wren asked, pulling Larke from her thoughts. Startled, Larke stared at her sister for a few seconds to process what she was saying.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Wren said with a laugh.

  Larke gently shoved her in the shoulder. “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something.”

  “About Desmond?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what were you thinking about?”

  Larke eased further onto the bed, placed her back against the headboard, and drew one knee up to her chest. “What will happen when all of this is over,” she answered. “Us rebuilding our marriage. If I’ll get my memory back. If getting my memory back will mean that things might change between us.”

  Wren shrugged and flipped onto her back, grimacing at the ache in her ribs. “I don’t think that anything will change. Just like any other married couple, you guys had your differences, but I was always confident that you’d be able to work them out.”

  Frowning, Larke looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “The separation. You guys didn’t talk about that downstairs?”

  “No. What separation?”

  “Never mind—”

  “Wren. You’re lucky I can’t wrestle it out of you.”

  Wren pushed up on her elbows and grimaced in pain once more, and anger heated Larke’s blood. Jarvis could come after her all he wanted, that was one thing, but to hurt her family was another. The previous fear that she’d felt towards him had been completely engulfed by rage. She no longer wanted him behind bars because, as it seemed, he could just break out whenever he felt the urge. She wanted him gone.

  “It kills me to know I wasn’t there for you,” Larke admitted.

  “I know it does, sis,” Wren answered. “But I’m okay, really. Even before Phillip showed up, I was kicking some major ass.”

  They both laughed and Larke maneuvered until her sister’s head was in her lap. She looked down into her face as she played with her beautifully coiled hair, and marveled at how she’d even forgotten that her little Wrennie sported a face full of freckles.

  “But don’t change the subject,” Larke warned. “Why were Des and I separated?”

  Another memory snapped throughout her head, coming in fast and hot like a thunderclap headache. It was the image of a letter in what she’d inherently known was Desmond’s handwriting. It said something about them not working out, that they couldn’t be together anymore. As the memory processed, the pain in her heart followed.

  “Did he leave me?” She asked.

  Just then, one of the agents stepped into the room and cleared his throat.

  “Miss Tapley, if you don’t mind, Dr. Lindholm is here to see Wren,” he announced.

  Larke gave Wren’s wrist a gentle squeeze before rising from the bed, and the agent stepped inside to let Dr. Lindholm enter the room. The doctor was wearing a dark brown suit that peeked from beneath his white coat, and sported a head full of bright blonde hair. He sent a quick nod towards Larke before tending to Wren who was now sitting at the edge of the bed, her legs strewn over the side.

  “How are you feeling?” He asked her, pressing his stethoscope against her ribcage.

  “I’m doing alright,” Wren quickly answered, trying not to wince as he pressed ice cold hands to her skin. When he arrived at a tender spot on her abdomen, he tsked.

  “Did they do an X-ray on you, Ms. Tapley?” He asked.

  The agent stepped forward. “They tried to, but she refused.”

  Wren shot him a look. “I just wanted to get out of there,” she explained. “When they told me that my sister was still alive, I didn’t want to stay in that hospital another moment.”

  Dr. Lindholm put both hands on her shoulders and smiled. Wren found that she liked his pleasant demeanor, and his smile made his deep blue eyes even more endearing.

  “I think you have some bruising in your ribs,” he told her. “I need to get you set up on an IV and a pain reliever so that I can continue the examination.”

  Wren’s shoulders sagged. “Is that really necessary?”

  He smiled once more. “You do want to get better, don’t you? I wouldn’t want what that heinous man did to you to cause any permanent damage.”

  She glanced at Larke who smiled as bravely as she could. Really, it pained her to see her sister in any sort of pain, and it only made it worse when she thought about where that pain had come from.

  “Okay,” Wren conceded, and a few seconds later, a second agent wheeled in a bag of saline solution. The doctor then started the IV and injected the medication. As it began to take effect, Wren felt her limbs begin to tingle.

  “Where are you from, Dr. Lindholm?” she asked, feeling unusually stiff.

  “Me? I’m Swedish,” he answered, standing over her.

  “Makes sense,” Wren answered. “Because your eyes are so deep blue that they almost look…purplish.”

  The minute that the final word left Wren’s mouth, Larke’s stomach leapt. She searched her brain for where she’d heard that before, that someone’s eyes were purplish. As Dr. Lindholm bent to tend to Wren, she zeroed in on the side of his face. Twila. It was Twila that had used the word “purplish.” But what had she been talking about?

  He turned to face her briefly, and her mind finally made the connection. Twila had said that the doctor who had delivered the news of Taina’s death had purplish eyes.

  As she examined his face further, she realized that she was staring directly into the face of the man that Doug had said was new on the radar, but unidentified. The man that had been working with Delgano…and therefore had been working with Eddie Jarvis.

  “Dr. Lindholm, I can’t move,” she heard Wren say. “My arms and legs. I can’t move them.”

  Larke tried to rush towards her, but one of the agents placed a hand over her mouth and effortlessly pinned both of her hands behind her back with the other. She felt the sharp sting of a needle going into her neck, and Wren’s cries soon became farther away. Her body went limp, and she fell into the agent’s arms before succumbing to darkness yet again.

  *****

  “What do you mean, Joni’s dead?” Desmond asked.

  Doug joined Desmond on the sofa. “We called her to come in for questioning and she agreed that s
he would, but then a few minutes later a return call came from her phone from Senator Dillinger. Apparently, she and the Senator had been having an affair for about a year. He was the one who told us that she was dead.”

  Desmond decided to ask the obvious. “Did Jarvis kill her?”

  “He did. Shot her right there in Dillinger’s cabin. But that’s not all the Senator gave us. He gave us the entire rundown on Jarvis’ operation. There’s a call-center that he has in Jamaica that acts as a cover-up for a basement full of workers. What happens is, he has the drugs shipped in from Colombia to Jamaica where he then cuts them down to make them weaker. That way, it’s almost guaranteed that people will get hooked. After they’re cut down, they’re smuggled into the 90-North warehouse in Miami through children’s toys. A warehouse raid turned up drugs in hollowed out rocking-horses and kids’ blocks, and we even found oxy in the double-stitched lining of a teddy bear. The teddy bear’s ear was tagged to go to a boy at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital after the drug was removed, but imagine what would have happened if they missed a toy and one of those kids got their hands on the actual drug.”

  Desmond’s brows narrowed. “But aren’t there regulations around this sort of thing?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” Doug answered, “and that’s the biggest part of it. Eddie’s got his hands in the entire gamut. We’re talking from Congress to Customs. His operation has been going on for the last seven years, yet no one had been on his trail until now.”

  Desmond leaned back into the seat cushion. “Damn.”

  “Damn is right again,” Doug added. “The Marshals moved the Senator’s family into protective custody and Dillinger’s being treated for a bullet wound that skated off the side of his head. Unfortunately, Jarvis’ primary defense attorney was found dead in his study this morning. His wife said that she found him unresponsive after he’d had his morning cup of coffee, so his cup was likely laced with something. It’s like Jarvis knows that he’s going down, so he’s trying to take everyone with him.”

  Desmond held up a hand. “So, Joni wasn’t involved after all then?”

  “To a small degree. Turns out, she knew about Jarvis’ plans because she overheard the details while hiding in the Senator’s closet. Dillinger claims that she didn’t know that they were serious about killing Larke, but she still agreed to go to Larke’s the same night the two men showed up to make sure that she stayed in. She was also the one who leaked the disappearance to the FBI, no doubt to assuage the guilt she felt for being involved in the first place.”

  They both paused for a moment to allow the information to saturate.

  “How was Eddie disseminating the drugs in the US then?” Desmond asked.

  Doug chuckled. “I can’t believe I left out the best part. Eddie distributed through these low-income clinics that are really cover-ups for pill-mills that have been popping up all over the country. He acted as the primary financial backer to fund the clinics, but you’d never guess who the actual owner of the clinics was?”

  Something in Desmond’s head clicked. “The mystery man that popped up on your radar.”

  Doug smiled and pressed a fist into the seat cushion. “Yes. You had your Wheaties this morning, Harding. Turns out that this guy used to be one of the best neurologists in Sweden. In the world, even. He specialized in neuropharmacology, mainly Alzheimer’s research, and specifically the delivery of medication across the blood-brain-barrier, and ways to reduce the stress of intrathecal administration of drugs to the patient.”

  Desmond blinked.

  “Oh, sorry,” Doug apologized. “Basically, he specializes in drugs that can get to the brain without putting a needle directly through the skull. Several years ago, he was close to being considered for a Nobel Prize because he created a drug that helped to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by reinforcing the barrier between the blood and the brain, which prevented a specific Alzheimer’s-related protein from getting to the brain. He was also pioneering a mechanism to regenerate damaged brain cells to stop Alzheimer’s from getting worse. However, about three years ago, his wife and eighteen-month old son died in a car crash and after that, they said he went crazy. As he fell further off the deep end, funding for his research was cut off. When the funding was cut off, another source stepped in.”

  “Jarvis,” Desmond stated.

  “Yes. Once Jarvis started funding him, his research started up again, but in private. Then came the human trials, which relates to that form Larke found in Taina’s stuff. Unfortunately, the drug, the Trovodine, had a major side effect. It wiped out people’s memories, sometimes upwards of fifty-percent. But, the impact wasn’t permanent. The minute the person underwent any sort of traumatic event, the memories would start to come back. So, I guess it’s like putting all of your bad memories into one folder and forgetting that they’re there, but then something else bad happens, you grab the folder to put away the new bad memory, and end up remembering the ones you put away in the first place.”

  Desmond thought back to the men standing over Larke at her apartment. After he’d taken them out, he’d scooped her up and placed her on the sofa, threw a bag together, and left the house. As he was walking out, he briefly spotted an open black bag in the kitchen.

  “That’s why it didn’t make any sense,” Desmond realized. “Larke didn’t suffer any head trauma significant enough to cause that kind of memory loss. The men at her place did give her something. That drug. But, why would Jarvis want to erase her memory?”

  Doug shrugged. “If I had to guess, I’d say that the best way to sneak up on your prey, would be to find a way for them not to know you’re the predator.”

  Desmond picked up the folder that he’d been looking through. “So, this doctor, how did he get on the scene?”

  Doug shrugged again. “Funny thing is, as credentialed as Dr. Lindholm is, I can’t say for certain that we would have ever been able to identify him without Dillinger’s confession. This guy’s pretty low radar, and has done some amazing things medically outside of his operation with Jarvis. But, once Jarvis gave him the funding, he was basically at the sociopath’s every whim. It’s like everyone can be bought and sold these days.”

  Desmond looked up at him. “Dr. Lindholm? I’ve heard that name before.” He stood and began to pace around the room. “What’s his first name?”

  “Mark.”

  Desmond’s pacing stopped as he lunged for the papers lying on the sofa cushion. “There was a note in here. I think I saw the name Lindholm on it. Maybe one of the agents was on the right track but stopped searching when the trail went cold.”

  Doug helped him search through the tall stack of papers. “Here it is,” he announced, “and it does say Dr. Mark Lindholm, but there’s also a number on the bottom.”

  Desmond took the note and began to piece together the information. “There were two FBI agents at Wren’s bedside at the hospital. When Wren heard that Larke was alive, she refused any further care against multiple doctors’ orders, so one of the agents suggested that the family bring in a private physician. Lindholm must have been the private physician they picked, and then wrote the number down to give to Wren’s family.”

  All of the information abruptly came together in Desmond’s head. He dropped the papers and dashed up the stairs to the main room where Larke’s family was sitting around the fireplace. However, neither Larke nor Wren were with them.

  “Everything okay, Des?” Jay asked, standing. Desmond couldn’t believe how happy even he was to see Larke’s family again.

  “Larke and Wren, where are they?”

  Doug finally appeared behind him with a phone to his ear.

  “They’re back there with the Doc,” Jay answered, walking towards the room. Desmond quickly darted past him and down the hallway. When he pushed open the door, he found Wren lying awkwardly still on the bed with an orange foam rubber ball stuffed in her mouth. The room was frigid due to the cold blast of air coming in through an open window, and
Doug closed the window while Desmond gently pulled the ball from Wren’s mouth.

  “What happened?” he asked, wrapping a blanket around her body and pulling her up into a sitting position. Her limbs, however, remained limp.

  “The doctor,” she began, coughing, “he works for that guy. That Eddie Jarvis guy. He came in to examine me and said I had bruised ribs and would need medication to continue the exam. He injected something in my IV, some sort of paralytic, then he and the two agents that were with me at the hospital took Larke.”

  Desmond’s voice filled with anger. “They took Larke?”

  Grief contorted Wren’s face. “Yes. Somehow, she realized that the doctor was working for the Jarvis guy, but one of the agents grabbed her and stuck a needle in her neck. She passed out, and all four of them went out through the window.”

  Behind them, a medical team rushed into the room while Jay, Heather, and Thomas watched on as the horror enveloped them again. Desmond released Wren to allow the team to tend to her, and then walked to the window. Outside, he could make out impressions in the snow, but those would probably be gone within the next hour or so. It was also highly likely that the men weren’t going to remain on foot for very long.

  The veins in his arms and neck pulsated, and his jaw clenched in response to his ire. After all of this, after everything they’d gone through, Jarvis had been able to slip in and scoop Larke from the place where he’d intentionally left her alone because he thought that she’d be safe. And now, as he looked into the white particles drifting from the sky and piling into small mounds outside, he had to accept the fact that she’d been taken and that he had no idea where to even begin looking to find her.

  “Des,” Doug called from somewhere far off. He turned and caught the coat that was being thrown at him.

  “My guys just flew in with Delgano Richards and they’re at the field office in Milwaukee. If we can get him to talk, he might be the only way to find out where they’ve taken Larke.”