by Cate Noble
“I swear.” Rufin eyed the photograph then shook his head. “I’ve never seen him.”
“He’s telling the truth.” Max pointed to Taz. “We’ve been the only prisoners at this place.”
“Get them out of here,” Dante said. “I’ll set the charges.”
“Don’t blow this up,” Rufin pleaded as he was escorted away.
“I’m not about to leave it behind for someone else,” Dante said. “Let’s move!”
Rocco had hoisted the still unconscious Taz up in a fireman’s carry. Riley edged closer as if preparing to grab Max in the same manner.
“I can walk,” Max said. “Just give me an arm.”
Outside, it was growing dark. Disorientation hit Max like a load of bricks. Leave and you die. He sucked in huge gulps of night air in an effort to combat the rapidly swelling paranoia. Damn it, they were being rescued. So why the tension? Fear?
Something’s out there…
He leaned heavily against Riley as it became increasingly difficult to move his feet. He concentrated on fighting the drug. They were going home. They were free.
Shots rang out.
“Sniper at seven o’clock.” Riley’s hiss reminded Max that the others were communicating with their radios. “Shit! Zeke’s down. Rufin’s running like a bat out of hell. In the wrong fucking direction!”
“Go. Help Zeke.” Max pushed away from Riley.
“Just follow Rocco,” Riley said before turning away. “The chopper’s straight ahead.”
Rocco was running now. Or trying to. Taz was bouncing like a ragdoll over his shoulder. “Come on, Max!” Rocco shouted back to him. “Twenty more yards. You can do it!”
The whoop-whoop of a descending chopper scoured the air. Shots pelted the dirt around Max, making him wonder who the good guys were. Who the hell was shooting at them?
He felt his head whiplash as a rocket of heat tunneled into the back of his skull. Extreme agony shattered his senses. Then everything slowed.
Max knew a moment’s clarity, followed by total relief from the pain. For one sparkling second, all answers were his. But at what cost? A bullet in the head?
“Ten more yards, buddy!” Rocco’s voice grew more distant. “You’re almost home.”
Max started to fall. Someone grabbed his arms, nearly wrenched them out of their sockets.
“I got you, buddy.”
Dante.
Max felt a pounding jostle, followed by a bone-jarring slam.
He was on the floor of a helicopter, sandwiched between Taz and Zeke. Riley’s voice grew faint as he shouted orders.
The gunfire had grown louder, more intense.
Empty shell cases clattered to the chopper’s floor like holy rain as Dante and Rocco sprayed the ground with automatic fire, giving them cover as the chopper ascended and spun away.
The rat-a-tat of bullets morphed from lullaby to dirge as darkness closed over Max.
He’d never make it.
Chapter 4
Dodd Treatment Center, Langley, Virginia
September 19
“Paging Dr. Houston—call on line four.”
Unaccustomed to hearing her name on the PA system, Erin checked her cell phone. The display was dead. Again. A not-so-subtle reminder that the replacement battery she’d ordered sat unopened on her kitchen table. Another sign she was losing it.
She hurried toward the nurses’ station, resisting the urge to smack her own forehead. Physician, heal thyself. She counseled people daily on the pitfalls of prolonged stress. She needed to get a grip…and fast before these annoying little slips morphed into big uglies.
Alice, her friend and the nursing supervisor, held up a receiver as soon as she spotted Erin. “No rest for the weary,” Alice said.
“Thanks.” Erin pressed the phone to her ear. “This is Dr. Houston.”
“It’s Marguerite. Dr. Winchette would like to see you. Are you free?”
Working for Dr. Stanley Winchette, the head of the hospital’s psychiatric research division, required learning his secretary’s verbal shorthand. Marguerite’s “are you free” meant “get your ass down here now.” Still, the woman’s acerbic mannerisms paled in comparison to Winchette’s.
“Yes.” Erin checked her watch. It was twelve-thirty. Since she worked half-days on Wednesdays, she was usually at the gym, kickboxing, by this time. “I’m on my way,” she said even though Marguerite had already disconnected.
She’d have to catch a later class. The alternative, to skip, wasn’t an option. The intense workout was one of the few things that KO’d her stress. It got her mind off work and helped her clear her head.
Alice, who had given her the token three-foot radius of privacy, moved back in and held out her hands for the stack of patient charts Erin had balanced on the counter.
Alice then pretended to reel sideways from their weight. “Is it me, or do these files get thicker with every new ‘paperless’ program they institute?”
Erin shrugged, knowing her friend didn’t expect a reply. Dr. Winchette’s dislike of digital media meant everything in his department got printed, in triplicate, just to buck their system. Winchette’s vocabulary didn’t include “ecofriendly.”
“I wish you were going tonight,” Alice said.
“Tonight?” Erin drew a blank.
Alice rolled her eyes. “Hello? Cindy’s bachelorette party? Chippendale dancers? Men with big, honking muscles? Jeez, girl, you do remember big honking muscles, right? Or do I need to call nine-one-one for your libido?” She dropped her voice. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but when was the last time you let your hair down? Did something wild and crazy like have wild monkey sex?”
“Ewww.”
“Not with a monkey, of course. A real man?”
“As opposed to a fake one?” Erin deflected the question with humor, but Alice was tenacious.
“When was your last booty call? I’m talking someone with a pulse, no batteries required.” Alice crossed her arms. “And please don’t tell me you haven’t had any since what’s-his-doodle moved out.”
“Perry.” They’d broken up two years ago for reasons Erin couldn’t even recall. “I’m sure I’ve had some since then.”
Hadn’t she? Now that she thought about it, her more memorable forays had involved a fantasy lover and a vibrator. But instead of relieving frustration, it seemed to make it worse.
“Some? You need to move HOT SEX higher on your list. Tonight’s eye candy will help remind you what you’re missing.”
“I really can’t go. I’m on call for Penny.”
What Erin didn’t mention was that she’d volunteered to be on call as it gave her a legitimate reason to come back late tonight, when the administrative offices were deserted.
Since Dr. Winchette spent one day a week in Springfield, Massachusetts, overseeing the construction of a new clinical test facility, Wednesday was the only night he didn’t keep to his usual ungodly hours, the only night she could search the lab and storeroom where her father used to work.
“Fine. I’ll take pictures, you know, to jump-start your imagination.” Alice wagged her brows before turning away to answer another ringing line. “See you tomorrow.”
Erin made her way down the two flights of stairs leading to the basement level, her thoughts matching the staccato tapping of her functional pumps. It dawned on her that she could probably walk these halls blindfolded. The lack of windows and outside doors prompted many to compare the basement to a maze. No wonder she sometimes felt like the rat in the maze. Searching, searching.
As always when she came this way, her thoughts sank. How many times had she walked these very same stairwells with her father before he’d retired “early” nine months ago, listening to his diatribe on exercise? And how many times had she walked them afterward, the weight of his suicide nearly breaking her?
Suicide. She blinked back angry tears wondering how much longer she could keep up the act. No way had her father taken his own life.
&n
bsp; No one who knows what I know, who has seen what I’ve seen, leaves this business alive, her father had seemingly prophesied in a cryptic journal entry. Had he truly expected to die?
Marguerite spotted her and waved her directly toward the double doors to her right. “You can wait there. He’ll be right with you.”
Steeling herself, Erin stepped inside the very room that used to be her father’s office. Funny to think she’d practically grown up here, had slept many nights on the shabby old plaid couch that used to be in the corner. Following her mother’s death when Erin was only two years old, her father simply brought her along when he had to work late. Or he’d have the housekeeper drop her off when she left for the day.
Her nose wrinkled at the faint smell of stale cigars. While the ancient facility was currently tobacco-free, for decades everyone had smoked in their offices. No amount of paint could ever cover it.
She took a seat in front of the massive mahogany desk that Dr. Winchette had moved in when he’d taken over the office, converting it to a formal space used only for meetings. He was, after all, in charge of one of the country’s oldest mental health research programs. She eyed the montage of diplomas, citations, and certificates on the walls. Even more plaques, awards, and photos cluttered the credenza.
She ignored them, her gaze coming to rest on the solitary picture frame that sat on the desk. It was an old photo of her father and Winchette back in their college days. Alpha-Geek-Geek. Horned rim glasses, white lab coats, and overflowing pocket protectors. Her father used to joke that if she looked up the word “nerd” in Webster’s, this picture would illustrate it.
The two men had acted the part as well. As a child, Erin had spent countless hours watching and listening to her father and Dr. Winchette argue over an experiment. The two men would stand at the huge blackboard that used to grace the entire back wall and argue with chalk, both of them scribbling equations so rapidly that she’d get whiplash trying to keep up.
At the time she couldn’t grasp any of it, but watching their process had always been both amazing and unsettling. The charged air, the parry and riposte. A stranger would have thought they were indeed fighting a duel. But always in the end, they’d formulate a new hypothesis that would leave them cackling like children.
“It’s how we work,” her father had explained when she was older. “I am rock-solid reason, Stanley is unruly brilliance. We spark and collide, ultimately creating bold new worlds.”
She stared at the photograph, wondering again if her father’s posthumous warning to trust no one included Stanley Winchette, who had once been his nearest and dearest friend.
Though her father never discussed it with her, Winchette had insisted that the nosedive the two men’s personal relationship took following her father’s resignation amid unsavory rumors had been a temporary glitch born of embarrassment.
Winchette had then gone on to draw a parallel between his professional relationship with Erin. “God knows you and I have had our awkward moments, but we’ve moved on.”
The door opened and Dr. Winchette entered briskly. All business, he went directly to the leather chair behind the desk.
“Erin. Good. I know this is short notice.” He set his briefcase on the desk’s smooth surface and looked at her. “I’m leaving for Springfield this afternoon and I may be tied up for several days. Colby Deets is at the Toronto conference, so—” Winchette broke off as his cell phone began to buzz. “Excuse me. I’m waiting on a call.”
Erin sat forward while Winchette checked his phone. That he was going to ask her to cover for him was totally unexpected. Was it also an olive branch?
She hadn’t anticipated getting a second chance so soon, not after her alleged screwup of a case several months ago. Winchette had practically accused her of sexual misconduct when a patient of his insisted he’d work only with Erin after she filled in during one of Winchette’s absences.
Just because Winchette later retracted his harsh words hadn’t meant all was rosy. In fact, Winchette had only recently allowed her back on his team. But only after making sure everyone knew it was mostly out of loyalty to Erin’s late father.
That hadn’t been their first awkward moment, as he liked to call them. More than once Winchette had virtually ridiculed Erin’s interest in clinical hypnosis. Or at least he had until she’d won a lucrative research grant for a study of alternative treatments for post-traumatic shock disorder.
And even though a friend of Winchette’s, a veteran allergic to most antianxiety medications, had been cured of several crippling phobias with Erin’s help—Winchette still referred to her work as “woo-woo.”
“That wasn’t the call I’m waiting for,” Winchette said. “Now where were we?”
“I’d be happy to fill in while you’re gone,” she said.
Winchette cleared his throat. “That won’t be necessary. Colby Deets is already headed back. However, his flight has been delayed until tonight. Since I’m pressed for time, I thought you could ride with me to the airport and take a few notes.”
Mortified by her presumptiveness, Erin felt she had little choice but to nod. And since Winchette knew she didn’t work Wednesday afternoons, any excuses she made up now would ring false.
Pulling off his glasses, he let out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Erin. I just realized I haven’t even asked how you’re feeling.” He pointed to his phone. “I’ve been dealing with village idiots all day, which is no excuse.”
“You’re busy. And I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” Replacing his glasses, he peered at her. “Trouble sleeping again? Perhaps you should go back to Dr. Shelton, do a little follow-up.”
Dr. Shelton was a private practice therapist who specialized in grief counseling. Erin had been so shocked by the news of her father’s death and the subsequent assertions of suicide that she’d taken Winchette up on his recommendation to see Dr. Shelton.
And it had helped her to work through the initial stages of guilt and doubt. Guilt over not recognizing her father’s alleged depression symptoms followed by the uncertainty of wondering if there was truth to the vague whispers that her father had leaked secret information. While initially Winchette had privately defended her father, the cloud of suspicion hadn’t ever gone away.
“I appreciate your concern,” she said. Liar, liar.
“Your father worked in the psychotherapy field,” Winchette had told her at the memorial service. “Who would know better than him how to hide the symptoms? Especially from his only child and closest friends.”
That hadn’t been the first time Winchette had quoted, practically verbatim, some of Dr. Shelton’s words. She’d quit seeing Shelton after suspecting he had been feeding Winchette reports the whole time. Toward the end, Shelton had seemed intent on discovering what Erin knew of her father’s work. Which at that time had been nothing. Not that she knew much more at this point.
But now that she suspected foul play, she damn sure wasn’t going back to see Shelton. The discovery of her father’s warning against trusting anyone was too fresh.
“I think it’s just my schedule,” Erin went on. “I’ve been pulling night shift twice a week to accommodate Penny’s maternity leave. It’ll straighten out in another week or two.”
Winchette smiled, warming to his fatherly role. “When Penny gets back, why don’t you take a few days yourself? Have you been up to the lake house at all?”
“Not for a while.” She struggled to keep her voice smooth. The lake house was a tender subject, but not for the reasons Dr. Winchette assumed. In fact, it was her last trip to the lake that had proved the best therapy: that of turning her grief into rage.
After delaying the trip for months, she’d finally gone to scatter her father’s ashes, to honor his last wishes. And give herself closure. She’d purposely gone alone, not wanting to share the symbolic last moment she’d have with her father.
She hadn’t expected to find his letter, hidden where he knew she’d find it. She
also hadn’t expected to discover, there in the heartbreakingly beautiful Shenandoah Mountains, that her father had actually expected he would be silenced over his accusations of plagiarized research. Accusations that had subsequently gotten twisted and deflected back at her father. It was just so wrong!
Don’t ask questions. Don’t press for answers. Just get the data I’ve collected on the Lethe Project to Professor Ralph Inger. He’ll know what to do, whom to contact.
Her father’s work had been highly classified, so contacting anyone had worried her. But then she’d learned Professor Inger was dead, too. An automobile accident. And Inger wasn’t the only one having fatal accidents. Two other scientists mentioned in her father’s notes had also died recently. Moreover, the files on this so-called Lethe Project weren’t where her father had indicated.
She was careful to put her father’s letter in a safe-deposit box while she searched for substantiation. To go public with so little meant running the risk of further tarnishing her father’s reputation.
Truth be told, she was running out of places to look for his life’s work. Which meant she either needed to abandon her search or enlist someone’s help. But who could she trust?
Don’t think about it now.
“Perhaps when I return we can—” Winchette cut himself off once again as his phone rang. “Blast.”
Erin took advantage of the interruption and stood. “Before we leave, I need to run by my office. Can I meet you in the lobby?”
“Five minutes,” he said. “I’m cutting it close already.”
Erin barely had time to get back to her office after being stopped twice by coworkers in the hallways. When she reached the lobby, it was deserted, but she spotted the shiny black Town Car idling out front beneath the portico. The driver opened the back door, where Winchette was already seated.
As soon as she was settled, they took off. To her relief, Winchette was all business.
Handing her a clipboard, he started talking before she retrieved a pen. “This is my patient roster. The first one is Kenneth Parson. He’s one of five veterans participating in a study for a new antianxiety med. His PTSD includes hallucinations. The others in the study—we’ll get to them in a moment—exhibit similar symptoms. All have shown marked improvement at the lowest dosages with the exception of Mr. Parson. I conferred with the manufacturer and received approval to increase his dosage.”