She hands both syringes to me and then suddenly stands up in plain view. Her head swivels back and forth, her eyes flicking nervously around the room and toward the ceiling.
“I also need something. It’s a clear gel capsule.”
She freezes, then spins around. “Who told you about those pills?”
What can I say to her that will make sense? That will make her help me without asking why?
I stand up straight and look her in the eye. “Dr. Buckley.”
“You’re lying. Buckley isn’t even on site, and even if he were, he doesn’t interact with patients as a rule.”
She looks at the clothes I’m wearing. At my boots. Like she’s trying to piece things together. “Someone helped you get out. Who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
I see her jaw working as she thinks. “It was Ladner, wasn’t it? Yes, it had to be. I knew there was something funny about that power outage. This place has backup systems for its backup systems. And just when that consultant was here to make sure your procedure went as planned.”
Jenner moves closer to me. Her blue surgical scrubs are filthy and torn. She looks like she wants to put her hands around my neck and break it. I have no doubt she could.
I sigh loudly, rub my eyes, and sit down in the desk chair even as she towers over me. I’m getting tired of people wanting to kill me. I really am.
She grabs the chair and spins it so that I’m facing her. “It makes sense now. All the delays. You were supposed to be done months ago, but every time you were scheduled for surgery, something would inexplicably come up. Twice, Dr. Buckley just didn’t show up to conduct your procedure.”
She puts her forefinger against the side of my head and presses on one of the remaining halo inserts.
“They were doing something different to you. And they didn’t want anyone to find out.”
“What was it? What did they do to me?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t allowed near your surgeries. They told me I didn’t have high enough security clearance. Nonsense. I’ve assisted with dozens of memory modifications. I know where all the bodies are buried around here. And then you come along, and suddenly I can’t be trusted?”
She’s inches from me, her eyes blazing and locked on to me like I’m a target.
“No one could observe. You were some big breakthrough. I heard them say it once, and I didn’t understand at the time. I didn’t get why Dr. Buckley and Ladner gave you special treatment. Why would that be?”
I have no idea. I really don’t, but what’s the point of telling her that?
“I don’t think there’s anything special about you at all. I think you’re just a girl with a violent past, a bad attitude, and no future. Just like the rest of them.”
The door swings open behind Nurse Jenner. I see the outline of a soldier, and then I hear a scuffle followed by grunts and a crack. When I look again, a dark form lies crumpled on the floor. Sam and Jerry enter, stepping over the mercenary’s body. Sam crouches down and picks through the soldier’s utility belts and pockets. He takes the mercenary’s gun and slings the guy’s backpack over his shoulder, the model of cool professionalism.
Jenner looks at Sam and Jerry and shakes her head. “And now, as if things weren’t bad enough, you’ve gone and opened Pandora’s box.”
“No, they’re okay,” I say. “A bit messed up in terms of geography at the moment, but they’re still the same good men they were before.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. They put those men here so they could gather every last bit of information about them before they died. Maybe learn from their mistakes. Those men are nothing but failed medical experiments.”
She stares at me, her face steely and hateful, her coral lipstick smeared up into the lines around her mouth. She no longer has to care for me or pretend to be civil, and we both know it.
She pours a bottle of capsules onto the floor and then throws the bottle down. “If you want to know what you really are, by all means, take these pills. But be prepared.”
“I’m not afraid of finding out who I am. Not anymore.”
“You should be. The fourth floor was where they put the worst cases, and the soldiers upstairs who are after you, whoever they are—let me just tell you, they wouldn’t be after you if you didn’t deserve it.”
Jenner grabs the microphone on the nurses’ desk and blows into it. “Testing. Can you hear me?” I hear her voice amplified over the PA system. “This is Pamela Jenner. I have level 2A clearance. I’m at the third-floor nurses’ station. She’s here. The girl you’re looking for is here. Sarah Ramos.”
My whole body sags. Not because she’s hurt my feelings or betrayed my trust—let’s face it, I hate the woman and she hates me—but because I know what’s going to happen.
“They’re not going to reward you for turning me in, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’d rather take my chances with them than with you. Or them,” she says, nodding toward Sam and Jerry.
“Nurse Jenner, Pam, whatever your name is, I don’t know how much they’re paying you to do this job, but it’s not nearly enough, considering what’s about to happen to you.”
Almost instantly, soldiers pour into the room. They fire at the desk and hit the bank of monitors behind us. Sam looks at the approaching mercenaries; his eyes narrow like he’s got crosshairs built into his pupils.
Nurse Jenner lunges at me and grabs me by my wrist, but trying to hold on to me is her big mistake. As I peel Jenner’s fingers off my arm one by one, Jerry moves toward her with such grace I can’t resist watching. He raises the handgun he removed from the downed soldier’s body and squeezes off two quick rounds. Jenner hits the desk, her cheek knocking the phone out of its cradle as she collapses to the floor. He turns and pulls the trigger three more times, leaving three more soldiers dead.
I drop and try to find one of the clear capsules among the scattered, glittering bits of broken glass.
Another wave of soldiers arrives. Jerry fires at them so that Sam and I can retreat, but I don’t want to leave without that pill. I keep sweeping my hands back and forth, hoping I’ll get lucky and find it, but Sam pulls me by the arm back toward the stairwell.
I struggle to break free of his grip. A pill lies inches from Jenner’s face, right in front of her nose. I scramble for it on my hands and knees. Sam grabs my ankle just as I’m about to reach the pill.
“Noooooo!”
He drags me along the ground, firing at the same time. I watch as Jerry is hit in the neck by a bullet. He goes down onto one knee, still firing, his hand over the pulsing wound. The last thing he does before he slips to the floor is shoot the surveillance camera in the corner of the room.
Sam and I spill into the stairwell, and I leap to my feet. We hear soldiers bearing down on us, their boots beating like drums. The sound is coming from above and below. We’re trapped. Sam pulls another gun from the pack he’s carrying and hands it to me along with the simple command, “Point and shoot.”
Then he takes something from the bag, just as calm as can be. I know what he’s planning to do. “You want to go up or down?” he asks.
“Down.”
He twists one of the disks in his hand and tosses it up. The disk zooms toward the metal fire door and sticks.
The mine explodes just as we make it to the landing. I’m so startled by the noise I drop the gun as I try to cover my ears. We spill out of the stairwell into the main lobby near the elevator bank.
It’s probably the worst place we could have ended up.
CHAPTER 29
We are going to die. Right here. Right now. This is where all those angry red dots are concentrated like a bull’s-eye.
Sam keeps his gun drawn, and pushes me behind him, putting himself between me and whatever may be coming from the direction of the lobby. We press ourselves into the elevator alcove, against the closed doors. I expect soldiers to come around the corner and start shooting at
any moment, but nothing happens.
“We should try to get to the basement. See if the tunnel connecting the buildings is really there,” he says.
Of course it might not be. But we don’t have any alternative.
Sam presses the elevator button, and I watch as the car sinks down, down, down toward the main floor. The mercenaries must see us on the security cameras by now.
I suddenly remember what Jenner said about the panic button—about how it would take hours for help to arrive. I wonder if we’ll last that long.
I look toward the desk. The panic button is mounted on the wall, plain as day—yellow, big as the palm of my hand, with a plastic cover over it. The open space between these elevators and that button might as well be miles long, but I’ve got to try anyway.
“I’m going to try to get to the panic button to call for help. Wait here.”
“No, I’ll come with you to cover you if you need it.”
The wind groans through the windows. I take a step toward the desk. I expect to hear gunfire, but there’s nothing. No one is around. Sam and I quickly cross the ten yards to the guard’s desk. I’m about to reach for the button when two soldiers walk into the lobby.
Damn.
Then Hodges.
Damn, damn, damn.
Sam and I drop to the floor. We hear a ding as the elevator car finally arrives. The soldiers rush toward it, guns drawn. The doors open; they see that no one is inside and lower their weapons.
Hodges is so close I can hear the jangle of her bracelets. I can see the tips of her ivory shoes under the desk. Now she’s wearing a long coat with fur trim.
The elevator doors close again, and she makes a noise in her throat, slapping her hand on the desk. The sound makes me jump, and I thump my head on the underside of the counter just as a soldier says to her, “Not there.”
“Well, obviously.” Her voice is thick and so down-homey, she might as well be speaking with a mouthful of grits. “Go and find her. This is getting ridiculous. Seven million dollars for mercenaries. Seven million. I could have found her with a coonhound by now.”
Sam gets into a crouch, ready to spring up and hit the panic button if we get the chance, which is looking less and less likely. As I look around, searching out our options, I notice something unexpected.
Steve!
His chest is rising and falling in a stuttered rhythm. A bubble of bloody snot expands out of his nostril. I don’t know how he’s still alive, but he is.
Hodges sends the two soldiers off. She’s by herself now.
Sam points toward the elevator car. The doors have reopened, and it’s just sitting there, waiting for us if we can get to it. I get up onto the balls of my feet, ready to slap the panic button and then make a dash for the elevators.
Hodges paces and curses. I hear beeping, like she’s dialing the same phone number over and over, but she keeps getting cut off. She becomes more familiar to me just as everything begins to blur. It’s like someone has taken two pictures and put them in the same place in front of my eyes, and I don’t know what to focus on, the past or the present.
I feel myself fall back onto my heels and then onto the floor. I can’t stop it now. It’s the police station again. It’s the same day, the same memory. I know because Hodges is still in her purple ball gown.
She spins her bracelets again.
“Nervous?” I say.
“No. I’m not nervous.” But she immediately stops and folds her hands in her lap.
“I’ve never met you before today,” I say. “How exactly am I ruining your life?”
“How indeed. Let me first ask you, what do you think you’ve been doing all this time at Mr. Claymore’s worksites?”
“Um, climbing?”
“I don’t mean the crane. You’ve been snooping around, asking for the building plans from the Department of City Planning. Tell me why.”
“Those plans are a matter of public record. I’m an interested citizen.”
She glares at me. “No, what you’ve been trying to do is embarrass Mr. Claymore. You think you’re going to find something out that will cause trouble. Isn’t that right?”
“Something like that.”
She crosses and uncrosses her legs like she can’t get comfortable in her chair. She says nothing for a long while; just looks up toward the ceiling like she’s thinking.
“You went to the nursing home near St. Luke’s to see Mr. Claymore’s wife. The woman is eighty-two and demented. Why?”
“Oh, was that a nursing home? Do they always put razor wire around nursing homes?”
“What could you possibly be hoping to find out from her, Sarah?”
“Sarah. Did you know that’s also Mrs. Claymore’s first name? Interesting coincidence, huh?”
“It’s a common enough name,” Hodges says as she adjusts her earring. “Very common.”
“Well, Sarah and I were just making small talk. And she’s not demented. Heartbroken maybe, but hardly crazy. You’d probably be heartbroken, too, if three of your kids were dead and one was terminally ill. Well, I mean, maybe not you, but other people. You don’t seem like the type to get all broken up.”
“You’re right. I’m not. And you know what else you should know about me? I can read people like books. Trashy, conniving little books. And I know that you’re lying to me.”
“Am I? I don’t think I’m the one who’s been lying all these years. Mrs. Claymore told me a lot of things. Really fascinating things about your boss.”
Hodges looks like she’s having a hard time maintaining her composure. She runs her tongue back and forth across her upper lip.
“Did you know that she was once married to Mr. Claymore’s older brother? But then he died suddenly, tragically, and in her grief, she married her former brother-in-law. It’s probably too much to get into here, but Mr. Claymore has a lot to answer for.”
“Shut. Your. Mouth.”
I lean back in my chair and try to act cool. My heart is pounding, but she doesn’t need to know that. “I don’t think you’re all that worried about defending your boss’s honor. I think what’s really bothering you right now is that I know some dirt you don’t.”
“You know nothing. You are nothing. You will always be nothing.”
“That sweet Southern accent of yours seems to come and go. What’s up with that?”
She slaps me in the face. I won’t lie: It hurts. A lot. But I smile anyway, even as my eyes start to tear. Then she slaps me again, this time with the back of her hand. Her bracelets tinkle as they slide down her arm.
I refuse to look at her.
“I’m going to make you very sorry, little girl.”
Make me sorry? That’s almost funny, and I might laugh about it, but I don’t want her to slap me anymore. Instead I think about how tired I am. My hands are still sore from climbing.
“You can’t take anything away from me, lady. It’s already all gone.”
“That’s true, isn’t it? It is all gone. And I, of all people, should know that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know who I work for? I’m Mr. Claymore’s right-hand … woman. I take care of all the little things for him. Things like you, for example.”
“That right?”
“I know perfectly well why you’ve been targeting his projects for the past year, and I’ll start off by telling you that I’m not going to negotiate with you. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen here, and you’re going to do it.”
“Or else?”
“Oh goodness, I’m not going to tell you the ‘or else’ part. You’re just going to experience that when the time comes.”
I feel a shiver go through me as the woman watches me with an almost bland expression on her face. Somehow, she’s still menacing. But I know my rights. I don’t have to listen to any of this. I look over at the observation window. “Hey! Are you people there? This woman is threatening me.”
I’m looking at her refle
ction, and she’s looking at mine. She smiles. “There’s no one in there who’ll help you. Mr. Claymore has a lot of friends and a lot of people who are, okay, not exactly friends, but interested parties who want to stay on his good side. So it’s just me and you right now, talking girl to girl.”
I see something in her eyes that frightens me. There’s an emptiness there. I am a thing to her. Nothing more. A thing that, for whatever reason, is in her way. It takes a lot to frighten the girl who climbs cranes. Who half hopes she’ll fall off. The girl who is afraid of nothing because she has nothing to live for, except dealing some payback.
Maybe courage is the same thing as not caring about losing. And that makes courage a worthless possession. Like everything else I own.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to publicly admit that you’ve been harassing Mr. Claymore and extorting money from him. Then you’re going to apologize and agree to spend two years on probation, doing community service for several of Mr. Claymore’s personal charities.”
I start laughing. I’ve spent the last year making trouble for Erskine Claymore, pointing out what coldhearted scum he is. After taking advantage of my mother, he just carries on like nothing while she works and scrapes to make a living? And this flouncy, red-haired woman thinks I’m just going to renounce all that? For what? I’m waiting for her to offer me money. That’s what these rich people do, and when she does, I’m going to tell her to take her money and …
“Well? I’m waiting,” she says.
“Are you trying to pay me off?”
“I didn’t say I was going to give you anything in return.”
I laugh harder now.
“What, precisely, is so funny? You don’t agree to my terms?”
She reaches over and gently brushes a strand of hair away from my forehead. I pull back in disgust.
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