Chain Reaction

by Rebecca York

  He wanted to look at the scene of the explosion and the lab records, specifically notes that wouldn’t be available on computer. And he wanted to talk to Riddell.

  Later, he could hack into the Cranesbrook system. But that would mean buying a computer and setting it up somewhere.

  After pitching his tent, he laid out a security perimeter around his campsite. If anyone tried to sneak up on him, he’d know about it before they got close enough to do any damage.

  With a Sig tucked into the waistband of his shorts, he went for a run across the fields bordering the river. After being cooped up for days, it felt good to stretch his legs and work his muscles. And good to know that he was getting back into reasonable shape.

  He stopped to wolf down a power bar, then practiced his climbing skills on a maple tree. After the exertion, he stripped off his clothes and quickly washed at one of the faucets scattered around the grounds that were used for watering the shrubbery. It was cold water but that was the best he was going to get out here.

  Next he drove over to the Cranesbrook compound, just to have a look at the setup. Staying well out of range of the security cameras, he used binoculars to inspect the guard at the front gate. The man was wearing the uniform of Ace Security—the company that had bid against him for the original contract.

  He’d expected that someone else would be handling the Cranesbrook detail. Still it made his throat tighten to see that his men were out of a job. Or maybe Peggy Olson had shuffled them into other assignments. He hoped so, but he couldn’t ask her about it. That would get her involved and he’d already done enough damage to Lily by doing that.

  Feeling somewhat deflated, he returned to camp. With the automatic weapon at his side, he cooked himself some Polish sausage and beans on the camp stove, and ate them along with some crudités from the refrigerator case at the grocery.

  Crudités. He grinned. The first time he’d seen Lily write that word on a menu, he’d had no idea what it was.

  She’d laughed and told him they were cut, raw vegetables.

  His first lesson from his wife in fine dining.

  Thinking of her made his heart squeeze. Was she all right? Were the cops hounding her? How did she feel about helping him escape?

  He ached to call her and make sure she was doing okay. Knowing that could be a fatal mistake, he went back to the simple meal. He liked camp food and could live like this for a long time. But he wanted it to be his choice, not because he was running from the law.

  He wanted his life back. His good name. His wife.

  He closed his eyes, unable to keep himself from thinking about Lily again. At the Wilson estate, she could have run right outside and told the cops about his escape route, but she’d helped him get away. That meant she believed he wasn’t a murderer. At least he hoped that was true.

  He wanted to talk to her about it.

  Talk?

  What he really wanted was to feel her arms around him. Feel her lips on his. Feel her body warm and pliant in his arms.

  The mere thought of making love to Lily turned him on. He had to stop that fantasy.

  Until he cleared his name, he couldn’t see her again. Not even if he staged another kidnapping. No more tricks like that.

  He’d better focus on Cranesbrook and what he was going to do to help himself.

  And first, he needed to check his powers. How much juice did he have, exactly?

  He walked through the woods and picked up several pieces of wood that he might have used for a campfire, if he’d thought a campfire wasn’t too dangerous under the current circumstances.

  After setting a small log on the ground, he walked about ten feet away and tried to send his thoughts toward it.

  He imagined it breaking in half. Though sweat broke out on his forehead, nothing happened.

  Had he lost the talent?

  That thought sent panic surging through him. Trotting up to the log, he took it in his hands and tried the experiment again. This time it snapped in half without him exerting any physical pressure, and he breathed out a small sigh.

  It was amazing how quickly his panic had blossomed. A few days ago he hadn’t possessed the ability to affect the physical world with his mind. Now he was starting to rely on it. That wasn’t good. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have been able to escape from Beech Grove or get away from the cops twice if he hadn’t been able to work those tricks.

  With a sense of fatalism, he set another log on the ground, then took a couple of steps back.

  Once again he focused on snapping the wood with his thoughts. And once again he was able to do it.

  He took five paces away from the next log. This time, every muscle in his body tensed as he struggled to break the wood.

  Nothing happened. Five paces was too far, but four turned out to work. So he knew his range. And perhaps he could improve it with practice.

  He spent the late afternoon resting. Before dark, he wiped down the pickup truck, making sure he hadn’t left any fingerprints. Not that he expected anyone to impound the vehicle. But he wasn’t taking any chances.

  After dark, he smeared ashes on his face and donned a black shirt, slacks and shoes, along with a pair of thin leather gloves.

  With the gun jammed into his waistband and a knapsack beside him on the passenger seat, he drove to the facility where he’d worked until last week.

  If he got caught here, his ass was grass. So he had to avoid capture at all cost.

  Erring on the side of caution, he kept well down the road as he watched the gatehouse through night-vision binoculars. After dark, there were two guards instead of one.

  Slipping through the woods, he took up a position fifty yards from the front gate where the woods came close to the barrier. Then he leaned far enough out from behind a tree trunk to train his gaze on the walkway along the fence. When a guard came along, he noted the time, then waited for several cycles.

  He’d had his men patrolling every twenty minutes. The present system was down to twelve minutes. Which meant he’d have to work fast to get inside.

  He thought about how best to get into the compound. Because of the cement walkway, he couldn’t dig his way under. And he couldn’t go through. He’d been able to open, and reclose, the bars on the fence around Beech Grove, but this fence was wire mesh. If he opened a hole in it, he wasn’t sure he could put it back together the way he’d found it.

  He scanned the barrier again. It was festooned at the top with razor wire. Maybe he could make a break in a section of the wire then put them back together again when he came out.

  That was the best plan he could think of. But it had its risks. Although the experiments with the logs had proved that he wouldn’t have to climb the fence to work on the wire, he’d have to be standing right next to it to be effective.

  As soon as the guard passed, he got down on his belly and slithered toward the fence, staying as low to the ground as he could. After he’d crossed the intervening space, he stood up beside the fence and focused on the razor wire.

  It was four feet above his head. And working on it wasn’t as easy as splitting a piece of wood under test conditions.

  He’d been standing there for less than a minute when a spotlight switched on and swung toward him.

  “There. Over by the woods,” an excited voice shouted.

  “Get him.”

  Gage jumped away from the fence and turning, dashed toward the woods. Once again, he heard the sound of gunshots, but he didn’t spare the breath to curse.

  He ran flat-out through the trees, making for the truck that he’d left on a turnoff along the two-lane road.

  Footsteps pounded behind him. He knew that if he didn’t get away, they were going to bring him down.

  He reached the truck, leaped inside and started the engine. The wheels spun on gravel, but he managed to roar onto the road.

  The bullets didn’t stop. He heard one plow into the back left fender. Another hit the bumper, and he was glad he’d thought to disable t
he light over the license plate. Still, he was going to have to change vehicles again, since he couldn’t drive around in something that looked like it had previously operated in Baghdad.

  As he roared down the secondary road, headlights appeared behind him. He kept up his speed, then glanced at the instrument panel and saw that the gas gauge was dropping.

  His angry curse filled the interior of the vehicle.

  They’d hit the gas tank.

  So how long could he keep driving? Ten minutes? Less?

  He made a sharp turn onto the highway and kept going, praying that he could get far enough to outrun the bastards in back of him.

  Did they know it was him? Or were they under orders to cut down anyone who tried to get into the compound?

  His nerves were jumping as he drove into the night, away from the estate where he’d left his stuff. He didn’t want them to think he was staying anywhere in the vicinity.

  Praying that he still had enough gas for another few minutes, he switched to a road that paralleled one of the many rivers snaking through the low-lying coastal region. When the engine started sputtering, he slowed and angled the vehicle toward the water.

  Opening the door, he flung himself out, hitting the ground in a roll as the car plunged forward into the river.

  He was scraped up, but that seemed to be the worst of it. At least he could run for cover at top speed. When two SUVs roared to a stop, he waited in the underbrush to find out what would happen next.

  He could hear excited voices.

  “Looks like he went into the water.”

  “The truck did. Maybe we’d better search the area.”

  Fading into the underbrush, he trotted away, staying parallel to the road but keeping under cover until he was a half mile from the scene where he’d ditched the truck.

  When he came to a house with a couple of vehicles pulled up in the driveway, he made a quick decision. He was sick of stealing cars, but he didn’t have much choice. Every minute that he stayed on foot increased the likelihood that the guards would spot him. So he picked the scruffiest car and unlocked the door. Then he rolled it down the driveway, using his muscles and his mind to move the car along. When he was about fifty yards from the house, he started the engine and drove away.

  He left the car in Oxford and took another one that looked as though it belonged to people who had left the Eastern Shore for the winter season.

  With his tracks pretty well covered, he headed back to his campsite. He’d thought he could get into Cranesbrook. That had obviously been a mistake.

  LILY FINISHED UP her shift at the restaurant, then crossed the parking lot to the employee area. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed. When she pulled out of her parking space, she saw a car at the other end of the lot switch on its lights.

  It pulled out after her, and she speeded up. Once in traffic it seemed that she lost the tail, but she’d seen enough cop shows to know that you didn’t have to see somebody behind you to have them following you. They could be using communications equipment and two or three cars. Or they could have put a tracking device on her car.

  She was watchful as she pulled into her own driveway and saw an SUV glide past.

  Were they tapping her phone, too? She was going to have to assume that was true.

  After closing the blinds, she began selecting a few items of clothing and some toilet articles, all of which she packed into a plastic bag. The past few days she’d deliberately taken a large purse to work. Now she emptied out most of the contents and shoved the plastic bag inside.

  In the morning, she choked down a little breakfast and called her sister.

  “Pam?”

  “Lily! How are you doing?”

  “Not too bad, under the circumstances.”

  “It’s got to be rough for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t heard anything about Gage?”

  “No.” She cleared her throat, hoping to get her sister’s cooperation without giving anything away in case the cops were listening. “I know I’m not exactly the daughter Mom and Dad wanted.”

  “Don’t say that! They love you.”

  “I hope so. Because at a time like this, you need your family. I wanted to go over and see them.”

  A year and a half ago, Barbara and Daryl Pindell had moved down to Maryland. Not to be near her, she was pretty sure. But so they could be close to Pam who had married an eye specialist from Johns Hopkins Hospital instead of a guy struggling to establish his own security business.

  “But you know how they are,” she continued. “Would you mind meeting me over there? That way, you know, you can sort of act as a buffer if they give me any grief.”

  Pam made a sound of commiseration. “Oh, Lily, I understand. Of course I’ll meet you there.”

  “What time?”

  “How about noon? They’re always home then.”

  “Unless they’re going out to lunch.”

  “This is Tuesday,” Lily reminded her. “Not a lunch day.”

  “Oh, right. How could I forget?”

  They both laughed.

  “Thanks,” Lily said. She hung up, wondering if her plan was going to work, since she hadn’t been able to explain anything to her sister.

  She spent a restless morning. At eleven-thirty, she got dressed in cropped pants and a top and tied a bright scarf around her head.

  As she drove to her parent’s new house off upper Charles Street in Baltimore, she spotted a car following her. This time she was making the tail a part of her plans.

  Pam was already at the house, and Lily parked her Toyota behind her sister’s Mercedes.

  Mildred, her parents’ longtime maid who had come from Philadelphia with them, greeted her at the front door.

  “Miss Lily, how are you?” she asked sympathetically.

  “As well as can be expected. Are my parents in the sunroom?” she asked. Stupid question. They’d found a mansion as much as possible like their old one, and they kept to the same routine.

  Mildred stepped aside, and Lily walked to the back of the house. Her parents were already sitting at a glass-topped table under a huge ficus tree. Mom wore a flowered dress, and Dad had on a sports coat, as if they were expecting company, not their daughters. But they’d always been formal people. Pam was standing at one of the large windows, looking out at the garden.

  She turned and crossed the room, and they embraced.

  “Thank you for coming,” Lily murmured.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “We can talk about that later.”

  Their mother interrupted the exchange, addressing Lily. “Pam told us you were coming. You could have phoned ahead.”

  “Sorry,” Lily apologized, thinking that nothing had changed. Some people mellowed as they aged. Apparently her mother wasn’t one of them.

  “They’ve stopped running your husband’s picture in the paper every day,” her father said. “That’s good.”

  “It’s so embarrassing to have our friends calling and asking questions,” Barbara murmured.

  “Sorry,” Lily said again. Over the tops of Daryl and Barbara’s heads, she and her sister exchanged a knowing look.

  The Pindells had been very conscious of their place in Philadelphia society. And when they’d come to Baltimore, they’d joined one of the most expensive and prestigious country clubs to establish their credentials in the new environment.

  Daryl Pindell’s family had made its money long ago in the shipping business, then diversified into various industries. In retirement, he and his wife kept busy playing golf and bridge and attending various charity events in Baltimore and in Philadelphia.

  It was a lifestyle that made both Pam and Lily cringe. Neither one of them had ever considered a life of leisure.

  Pam worked as a receptionist in her husband’s office several days a week. Lily had completely broken with family tradition when she’d announced she wanted to go to culinary school. Then
she’d had the bad judgment to marry a man from the wrong side of the tracks. And recently, he’d proved how egregious a choice he really was.

  After joining her parents at the table, Lily said, “Things are going pretty well at the restaurant.”

  “You should have your own place by now,” her father said.

  “Well, I’m getting recognition for my work,” she offered. “Baltimore Magazine did a piece on me in the spring.”

  They were silent for several moments. Then she cleared her throat. “With Gage out of town, things are kind of tight. I was wondering if I could borrow a little money from you.”

  “Out of town! That’s a good way to put it,” Barbara commented.

  Lily clasped her hands in front of her on the table.

  “How much do you want to borrow?” her father asked.

  “A thousand dollars would be a big help.”

  “You’ve never taken money from us in the past,” her mother observed.

  “Gage wanted to make it on his own,” Lily answered, then wondered if anyone would make a snide comment.

  Mercifully, her mother kept silent and her father said, “We’d be glad to help you out now.”

  Lily gave him a grateful look. She’d always wondered what he would have been like if he’d married a different woman. But he’d gone along with his parents’ plans to hook him up with the right sort of bride.

  “Pam says you’re staying to lunch,” Barbara said.

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  Mildred served chicken salad and fruit. Lily knew it had to be excellent, but it tasted like straw in her mouth. Still, she managed to eat a little and not to protest when her mother gave her the standard lecture on Gage Darnell. Well, not the standard lecture, since Gage had certainly outdone himself now.

  Dad excused himself and came back with the money he’d promised, and she thanked him sincerely.

  Then she stood and looked at her sister. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay.”

  They walked down the hall and stepped into the den.

  “I’m sorry you had to listen to all that,” Pam murmured.