He turned to meet Echo’s surprised gray eyes. “Wes and I were just talking. I didn’t mean to distract you from your work.” He stared at Echo, willing her to disappear back into the storeroom, back where she’d be safe.
Her gaze flicked to Vanderhoven. “What are you doing here?”
“I…need to find your brother.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Now, why don’t I believe that?”
Rand stepped around the lighthouses and circled a bin filled with pillows in the shapes of shells. “If you want to find Bray Sloane, I’m the one you want to talk to, not Echo.”
“Rand?” Echo started toward him.
He held up a hand. He wasn’t sure why he got the feeling that Vanderhoven was dangerous. He had no evidence of that fact. Nothing more than the strange way the lab tech was acting. The strange way he’d acted before. But alarm blasted over his nerves like a siren, and he wasn’t going to take the chance the feeling wasn’t right. Not with Echo in the room. “Come outside with me and we’ll talk about Sloane.” The alarm blared louder, ringing in his ears, making his head throb.
Vanderhoven shook his head. “I’d rather talk to her. Not only do I doubt you have any idea where Sloane is, but she’s prettier.” He smiled at Echo, if you could call open leering a smile.
Jealousy gripped low in Rand’s gut. Jealousy he had no right and no reason to feel. “You stay away from her.”
Vanderhoven stared at him. “You know, women don’t like it when you get too jealous.”
Rand put a hand on one of the nearby shelves to balance himself. He was jealous, damn it. The emotion twisted and writhed inside him like a snake. He wanted to grab Echo, drag her outside, keep her all to himself. And if he couldn’t have her—
The rickety wooden shelf shifted under his weight. A dozen toy fishing boats dumped to the floor.
“Oh!” Echo lunged for the shelf. Falling to her knees, she started picking up the toys.
Rand struggled to get a grip. It was happening again. The emotional surge. The insanity. He had to get out of here. But before he did, he had to make sure Echo was safe. “Echo.” Her name wrenched from his throat.
Echo focused on him, her eyes wide and confused, her lips pinched and her eyebrows dipped. “You broke them.”
“What’s going on?” a voice shrilled from the back room. An older woman rushed into the store. “Oh my God, what happened?”
Rand scrambled, his feet skidding on plastic. He wanted to punch Vanderhoven, beg Echo’s for giveness, throw her over his shoulder and haul her to safety all at the same time.
It had to be Vanderhoven. He had to be causing it.
Rand bit his lip, forcing his mind to clear if only for a second.
Vanderhoven stared at them with those eerie pale-blue eyes. His face was set in a mask, as if he didn’t feel anything at all. As if he wasn’t affected.
“You’re doing this.” Anger and fear surged over Rand. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. It was as if he was drowning in emotion.
Still crouched on the floor over the broken boats, Echo started to sob.
The strangled sound of her crying ripped through him.
Echo had to get out. And it was up to Rand to make sure she did. Dipping low, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her, tossing her over his shoulder in a squirming, awkward move.
Her crying erupted in a scream. Her fists landed on his back. “Let me down. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m saving you. I can’t let you get hurt.” Holding her legs fast, he raced for the door, hitting two more shelves on the way. The shop owner yelled as they burst outside and thundered down the wooden steps.
The St. Stephens cop met them at the sidewalk. “Detective, what’s going on?”
The damn question of the day.
He wanted to tell the guy to run, to get out while he could. He couldn’t find the words. Emotions clanged in his head, writhing and wrenching, tearing him apart.
“Let me go!” Echo yelled, struggling and scratching like an angry cat. “I have to go back in! Joyce is in there!”
The shop door slammed.
Rand looked up the stairs and into the hypnotic eyes of Wesley Vanderhoven.
The cop groaned. He groped blindly at the snap on his holster, then fell to his knees.
On the street, tires squealed. Metal smacked metal. Car doors flew open and angry voices screamed obscenities.
Rand had to stop it. He had to prevent innocent people from getting hurt. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t think.
Vanderhoven walked slowly down the steps. He was the only sane person on the street. The only one not affected.
Because he was causing the insanity.
The only way to make it stop was to stop him.
Rand reached for his Glock. His fingers touched the grip.
Ringing rose in Rand’s ears. Sound clanged through his head. Beside him, the officer was crying, tears rolling down his face. Echo struggled in his arms, trying to race up the stairs to reach the woman in the store. And all Rand could do was hold her tight.
He couldn’t protect St. Stephens. He couldn’t protect Echo. Who the hell was he kidding? He couldn’t even protect himself.
Chapter Eleven
An hour had passed since all hell broke loose in the streets of St. Stephens, and Echo’s legs were still shaking so badly she could hardly stand.
Wesley Vanderhoven was long gone. He merely walked down the steps, climbed into his car and drove away, leaving the chaos behind. But as soon as he left, the swirling emotion started to dissipate. The confusion. The helplessness. The insanity drained from her and Rand and the rest of the people on the street like water down a slow drain.
The last ambulance pulled away from the curb, taking one of the injured victims of road rage to the hospital. Rand finished his conversation with the St. Stephens officer who’d tried to come to their aid, and started making his way back to her.
The tremble spread up her legs and centered in her chest.
“How are you holding up?”
“Okay,” she lied. “You?”
“Relieved, I guess. That I’m not losing my mind. The others were swept away with emotion as much as I was.”
“That was what you were talking about. The emotional surge.”
“Yes.”
“Was Vanderhoven responsible all along?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Then that would mean…” Her stomach clutched. “Do you think he has Zoe? Do you think he’s the one who kidnapped her?”
“I put an APB out for him. All law enforcement agencies in the area will be looking for him.”
“But what good will that do? If he can amplify the cops’ emotions to the point where they can’t fight back, all the police on the Eastern Seaboard could be after him and it won’t matter.”
He rubbed his chin, fingertips scraping stubble. His eyes were sunken, the shadows around them dark as bruises. “I have to figure out a way to take him down. A way to get that weapon away from him.”
“It’s a weapon?” Of course. It made sense. If someone had a weapon like that, they could reduce an opposing army to a bunch of sobbing babies. “Is that what they were working on at Cranesbrook? I know they do research for the government. Are they developing weapons?”
Rand let out a breath. “It looks like Project Cypress is a weapon, yes. It’s part of a contract Cranesbrook has with the DOD.”
“How does it work?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything more than what I told you.”
“But you’re going to find out?”
“Yes.”
“How? You said you aren’t allowed inside Cranesbrook, right?”
“The St. Stephens PD has an officer watching the gate to the Cranesbrook campus. As soon as someone who can answer my questions leaves, they’ll give my supervisor a call. That’s how I found out Vanderhoven was o
n his way to see you.”
A great plan. “I want to go with you. When you get the next call, I want to be there.”
“You can’t, Echo.”
“Why not? If Vanderhoven has this weapon, if he is the one who kidnapped Zoe, don’t you think I have the right to know what I’m up against?”
“You’re a civilian. This is police business.”
“I’m a mother and that monster has my child.”
“No. I’m not going to let you endanger yourself.”
“What about Zoe? What about the danger she’s in?”
“No.”
“You can’t just expect me to sit around and do nothing.”
“That’s what you’re going to have to do. I don’t even know if I can convince anyone from Cranesbrook to give me straight answers. I know they aren’t going to talk if you’re there.”
That might be true. But it felt like more than that. If felt like Rand was determined to keep her away from the people responsible. Determined to shut her out, as if keeping her helpless was for her own good. “Whatever we find out, I can handle it. What I can’t handle is being kept in the dark.”
“It’s for the best.”
“Who’s best? Yours?”
“Echo…”
She held up her hands. “I know. I know. It’s safer. You’re protecting me.”
“I am protecting you. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“And having my baby out there, somewhere I can’t reach her, that doesn’t hurt? That doesn’t kill me with every hour she’s gone?”
He looked down at the ground. Creases lined his brow. Worry pinched the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t known you long. I realize that. But the thought of you hurt, the thought of you gone…I can’t live with that.” He shook his head.
“Then you understand a little of how I feel about Zoe. About Bray.”
“It’s hell. I know. Believe me.”
She did believe him. She could hear the ache of truth in his voice. But that much pain didn’t come from his fear of losing her. It was deeper than that. Older. She remembered the story in the paper, the story she’d read before she’d met Detective Rand McClellan. “You’re talking about your partner’s death?”
“Richard Francis.” He stared blankly at the cobblestone. For a long time he said nothing more. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet Echo’s. “And Maxie Wallace.”
“The other officer who was killed?”
“Yes. And there might be a third. An officer who was at Cranesbrook when Maxie died. He was found crying in the hall outside. He killed himself.”
She gasped. She hadn’t heard of the suicide. But after all that had happened, she knew what Rand was thinking. “Vanderhoven?”
He nodded.
She could understand his pain. Losing anyone was hard, people you worked with, people you liked. But there was more than loss in Rand’s voice, in his expression. There was guilt. “And you believe if you had done something differently, they wouldn’t be dead?”
“Maybe with Maxie. If I hadn’t pushed for her help.” He shook his head. “She was good police. I thought I was doing her a favor.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“I know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.” He shook his head again, as if trying to discount all he’d revealed.
“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Echo.”
“Why not? Maybe you need to talk. Maybe you need to get these feelings out instead of keeping them bottled up.”
“No, I need to focus on this case. Find the bastards responsible. And keep you safe.”
“By keeping me sitting at home when I could be doing something to find my little girl.”
“You’re going to have to trust me, Echo.” He blew a stream of air through tight lips. “It’s the only way.”
RAND HAD JUST DROPPED Echo off at her house when the call came through. Nelson Ulrich had driven out of the front gate at Cranesbrook and was heading toward his residence along the water not far from downtown St. Stephens.
Pushing his troubling discussion with Echo to the back of his mind, Rand caught up to Cranesbrook’s director of research in front of his condo on the St. Stephens Harbor. The afternoon sun gleamed off his bare scalp and the graying blond hair combed over to conceal it. The scent of crab cakes wafted from the restaurant take-out container in his hand, reminding Rand of just how long it had been since he’d taken time to eat.
“Nelson Ulrich? I’m with the state police. I need to ask you a few questions.”
Ulrich didn’t slow his pace. His white lab coat flapped in the light breeze, the buttons skewed as if he’d fastened them in a hurry. “I would like to eat my dinner, if you don’t mind…detective, is it?”
Rand fell into step beside him. “Detective McClellan.”
“Ah, yes. The man who shot Sid.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I trust you received the surveillance video from Hank Riddell.”
“Yes.”
“And that you’ll find Mr. Sloane.”
“We’re working on it.”
“Good. Maybe you will get the opportunity to use some of your expert marksmanship on him.”
“At least I don’t have to ask how you feel about Bray Sloane.”
“Feel? How should I feel? The man tried to sabotage one of my laboratories.”
“Allegedly.” He almost wished Echo was here so she could appreciate his restraint.
Ulrich stopped at the entrance to the condo’s lobby and grasped the door handle. “Detective, I know what I saw on that DVD. I would hope that as a police officer, you, too, know evidence when you see it.” Ulrich peered through his wire-rimmed glasses as if looking down on a servant.
A good trick since Rand was at least an inch or two taller. “The video is damning. I agree.” Add that to Sloane’s debt situation and it added up to likely guilt, whether Echo wanted to acknowledge it or not.
“Then I trust that justice will be served.” He bobbed his head in a sharp nod, as if everything was settled.
Rand didn’t move.
Ulrich gave him an impatient glower. “Is there anything else?”
“I heard that Wesley Vanderhoven visited you this morning.”
Ulrich didn’t answer for so long, Rand thought he might not have heard his statement. “Did he visit you?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Why?” Judging from how uncomfortable talk of Vanderhoven made Ulrich, Rand would be willing to bet the research director knew something. Though what that might be, he couldn’t tell.
Ulrich stepped away from the door. Leading Rand around the side of the condo, he stopped at a small patio with a view of the water. White swans dotted the still blue. “I could make up some nice story, but you’d see through that, wouldn’t you, Detective?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“And I can trust you not to mention this information to anyone? Our investors would be rather upset.” His thin lips stretched into a phony smile.
“I don’t run in the same social circles as your investors, Ulrich. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Very well.” He paused as if searching for the right words. “Vanderhoven threatened me.”
The lab tech was full of surprises today. “Threatened you? How?”
“With a lawsuit. As a result of the explosion. I don’t have to tell you that something like that could cost the company a great deal, both in dollars and in reputation.”
So Vanderhoven hadn’t used the emotional amplification weapon against Ulrich? Or was that part of the threat? A part Ulrich didn’t want to mention. “So you’re going to pay him off?”
Ulrich brushed his question away the way he might shoo a pesky fly. “Kelso deals with that end.”
“Dr. Martin Kelso.”
“He wanted Edmonston’s title, he gets Edmonston’s problems.”
“And you? You didn’t want the title?” As
dedicated to research as Ulrich seemed, he also seemed to have a healthy desire for power. Just the way he looked down at Rand suggested that much.
“Research, Detective. That’s what’s important to me. Science. I didn’t get this far to become a paper pusher.”
“Then maybe you can tell me something.”
He raised a graying blond brow.
“Strange things have been happening lately. I wonder if you can help shed some light on them. From a scientific perspective.”
“I’ll certainly try.”
“Could there be a chemical agent of some kind that could alter people’s emotions?”
Ulrich didn’t even blink. “Of course. Have you heard of alcohol? Not to mention certain prescription drugs and a whole host of illegal ones.”
“I’m not talking about drugs. Well, none that I’m familiar with. This would be some kind of airborne agent.”
Ulrich stopped and looked at him as if for the first time. “Maybe if you give me some particulars…”
“I first noticed the effect in the Beech Grove Clinic.”
“And what was the effect exactly? How were your emotions altered?”
Rand hesitated. He was here to ask Ulrich the questions, not vice versa. But he needed to know what he was dealing with. And if anyone could tell him, it was Cranesbrook’s director of research. Whether he would tell was something else. “They weren’t altered as much as exaggerated. As if any small thing I felt was amplified.”
“How strong was this amplification?”
“Strong enough that it was very hard to control.”
“Or impossible?”
His gut seized at the memory. The sensation of being so overwhelmed by feeling that nothing else mattered. The last time, just hours ago in the street outside Echo’s shop, he’d been so out of his mind he hadn’t even been able to get his body to work. “Yes. Impossible.”
“Interesting.”
“I believe it might be a drug administered through the air. Possibly something being tested at Beech Grove. Or Cranesbrook.”
Ulrich’s brows arched toward his comb over. “I would be very surprised if Dr. Frederick Morton had such creativity.”
So he knew Morton, too. Or at least knew of him. “How about Wesley Vanderhoven?”
Critical Exposure Page 10