Jessi ignored them both to climb out of the saddle and hunker down in the soaking-wet grass. Ben and Adam looked at her, then at each other. If there was a sign left in all this rain, Jessi would find it. They both got down, as well, and, crouching low, examined the ground, inch by inch.
“Here!” Jessi yelled.
Ben’s heart jolted in his chest, and for a moment he was certain he’d see his wife’s body when he ran to where Jessi knelt in the tall grass. But he didn’t. He didn’t really see much of anything. Except a few broken blades.
“This is where he walked in from the road. You see?”
Ben knelt down and looked back toward the road where she pointed. And in a moment a pattern seemed to solidify in the grass. Trodden places formed a path. He turned the other way, but Jessi was way ahead of him, following where it led.
“Looks like only one person, though,” she was saying. “Maybe it wasn’t them….” Her words trailed off as she came to a stop.
Ben caught up, and then he saw why. This place where the grass was all flattened was much larger. As if someone had been lying down on it.
The ramifications shook him to the core, but he refused to believe what he was thinking. “It could have been a deer,” he said, though he knew his voice lacked conviction. “Or a couple of deer…they just bedded down here for the night, is all.”
Jessi got down on hands and knees. “She didn’t go any farther than this. It’s like he brought her in and left her lying here, then came back for her and took her somewhere else.”
“That’s when he returned the car,” Adam said. He looked at Ben, his eyes full of sympathy. “She must have been drugged. That needle we found….”
“You can’t even be sure this isn’t just an animal trail!” Ben closed his eyes, not wanting to think of Penny, helpless in some insane bastard’s arms. Alone. He’d promised to protect her, dammit!
“Ben….”
He looked down to see his sister holding up a small wristwatch. He shook his head. “It’s not hers—”
“Yes, it is, Ben,” Jessi said softly, getting to her feet. “Chelsea gave it to her at the party. I know, I helped her pick it out. She’s leaving us clues, Ben, don’t you see it? She must have been okay if she was still with it enough to think of taking off the watch.”
Ben lowered his head. “I should have never let her leave the dojo. I should have stopped her. Damn, I don’t know what I was doing, letting myself get so wrapped up in my own pain that I put her at risk. And then the flat tire—”
“We both know that flat tire was no accident,” Adam said softly. “He planned this all out. Left her here, then took Chelsea’s car back home, probably hoping we wouldn’t even realize Penny was missing until morning. Then he came back here and….” Adam stopped and frowned hard.
“There had to have been another car,” Jessi said. “He must have left one somewhere between here and the ranch.” She looked up at the rainy sky, shook her head in disgust. “There might still be some tracks, but not for long. Come on.”
Taking Ben’s arm, she dragged him back toward the road. When they reached it, Garrett’s pickup was just rolling to a stop, headlights and wipers at full power. He got out, pulling up the hood of his yellow raincoat. Doc clambered out the passenger side, using his black umbrella like a shield, and Ben wondered why Garrett had dragged the poor man all the way out here.
“Find anything?” Garrett asked.
Jessi nodded. “Her watch,” she said, holding it up.
Garrett took it from her. “Why don’t you and Adam show me where you found this, while Doc here has a talk with Ben?”
Jessi nodded, and the three took off. Ben looked at Doc, shivering and wet, and reached past him to open the truck’s door. “Get back in, Doc,” he said. “We can talk just as well where it’s dry.”
Nodding hard, Doc climbed back inside, folding and shaking the umbrella. When Ben was settled in the other side and the heater was blasting at full power, Doc said, “I have the results of Penny’s blood work, Ben.”
Ben braced himself, squared his shoulders and met Doc’s dark eyes. “The HWS?”
“There is no trace. She’s cured, my friend. It is nothing short of a miracle. This Dr. Barlow…he is a genius.”
“He’s also a criminal,” Ben said.
“This I know.” Doc lowered his head. “And I suspected it to be the case even before Garrett told me about Penny’s disappearance. Ben, something else showed up in the blood tests. I thought of it when Penny talked about these headaches of hers. But I had to be sure.”
“Sure of what?” He watched Doc’s face, fearing more bad news.
“There were traces of a drug called Senitrate in her bloodstream. It…it is a drug that has been banned in most countries. It was written about in all the medical journals not long ago. Something certain government researchers developed for use in the military.”
Ben frowned as he took this in. “What does it do? Cure HWS?”
“No,” Doc said, shaking his head. “We still do not know how Barlow managed that.” Drawing a deep breath, Doc went on. “Senitrate, it induces amnesia. If given in high enough doses, the effect can be permanent.”
He could have struck Ben and hurt him less. “Are you saying that animal deliberately took away her memory?”
Doc nodded. “No doubt he began administering the Senitrate as soon as she came out of the coma. If she remembered you, Ben, she’d have never stayed with him. And if she is one of the few—perhaps even the only patient—he’s ever cured successfully, then he’d want to keep her in his care. Study her,”
“Study her? Jeeze, Doc, this is my wife, not some lab rat.”
Doc nodded, patting Ben’s arm repeatedly. “I know. I know, I’m only telling you what I’ve learned. And, Ben, if he has her now and can get access to more of the Senitrate….” Again he averted his eyes.
Ben gripped Doc’s arm. “He could erase her memory all over again?”
The older man nodded shakily. “I’m afraid so.”
“No.” Ben pounded his hands on the steering wheel. “No, dammit!” He wrenched the door open and got out, running down the muddy road in the pouring rain until his lungs burned and his heart thundered in his chest. Stopping, breathless, he flung his head back and shouted her name into the storm-tossed sky, making it a cry to the heavens, to the gods if they were listening. And when his breath ran out and the sound of his anguish was swallowed up by the storm, he dropped to his knees in the mud, lowered his head and whispered, “God, Penny, where are you?”
A heavy hand came down on his shoulder. Garrett’s hand. “Doc told me on the way over here…about the drug.”
Ben nodded. “I can’t lose her again. Dammit, Garrett, I can’t.”
“You won’t,” Garrett promised.
Ben shook his head slowly, looking at the ground. “We don’t even have a clue which direction they went. They could be anywhere by now.”
“Penny’s a handful when she gets her dander up,” Garrett said. He gripped Ben’s arm and helped him to his feet. “Or she was, when she was younger. And she seems more like the kid she was these days, than the woman she grew into. He’d have one hell of a time taking her far without her drawing notice somehow or another. You know that.”
Ben nodded slowly. “I know that. It’s taken me a while to see it. I’ve been trying to treat her like the helpless, sick woman I lost. When all the time she’s been someone else.”
“Yeah. A hellion.”
Ben managed a sad smile that died quickly. “That’s why the bastard is shooting her full of drugs to keep her still.”
“Right. But dragging a half-conscious woman around in public would attract just as much notice as hauling a fighting one, don’t you think? To say nothing about getting her onto a jet bound for Europe.”
Ben lifted his gaze, searched Garrett’s face. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking he wouldn’t bother risking it. Not when he has a supplier o
ut there somewhere for this Senitrate that Doc was talking about. I’m thinking he’d hole up somewhere nearby, keep her quiet and then give her the drug to erase her memory again. After that he could feed her some bull story, and she’d probably believe him. Go where he told her to without fighting him or having to be tranquilized at all.”
Ben listened, but he knew Garrett was only trying to give him some kind of hope to cling to, thin though it was. “That’s a pretty wild theory, Garrett. I could come up with a dozen others that have as much basis in fact, including Penny being abducted by aliens.”
“I have a hunch, though,” Garrett said.
Ben shook his head. “Does it matter? We still don’t know where he’s hiding out with her. Hell, he might have had the drug with him, might have given it to her already.”
“Maybe. But if he didn’t have any on him, he’d have to get it. And frankly I don’t think he’d have risked coming into the country carrying a banned drug. Why would he? He didn’t even know if he’d find her or not.”
Ben’s head came up. “And if he didn’t bring any, he’ll have to get some shipped to him.”
“That’s right, and he won’t risk having it sent to wherever he’s staying, in case the drug is discovered. They’d have cops all over the place if it was discovered.”
“So he’d use…what, a P.O. box?”
“And a fake name. I got a judge to sign a warrant, and we’ve got Rangers checking in with every post office in three counties, Ben. Any suspicious packages addressed to new P.O. box customers with overseas return addresses will be checked. I doubt there will be that many in this part of Texas.”
“And if we do find the Senitrate?”
“Put it in the post-office box, stake out the place and wait. When he comes for it, we’ll follow him back to wherever he’s holding Penny.”
Ben sighed deeply. “It’s a long shot.”
“It’s not the only oar I have in the water, Ben. I’ve got guys going to hotels flashing photos at the clerks, road-blocks and APB’s, but I think the Senitrate is our best lead.”
Ben nodded. “God, I hope so. We have to find her, Garrett. He can’t give her any more of that poison.” Ben bit his lip when he felt it trembling. “I can’t lose her again.”
“I know, Ben. I know.”
Penny drifted in and out of a drug-induced stupor. Every time she woke, he gave her another shot. So she told herself to pretend she was still out, and prayed she’d remember when she next came to.
And she did. As consciousness slowly returned the next time, she heard her own voice warning her to be still, and she heeded it, even though it was several groggy moments before she remembered why. Then she saw him, sleeping in the second of the twin beds in the room. A hotel room, she guessed. She tried to sit up, and couldn’t. Damn. He was asleep. It would be the perfect time to make a run for it.
But she couldn’t. She needed to wait for her strength to seep back into her body. But in the meantime….
She reached very quietly to the stand beside the bed. If this was a hotel, there would be a notepad and a pen there. Yes. There were both. She drew them quietly toward her.
Dr. Barlow kept saying she would forget everything again, very soon. If that was true…then there were a few things she needed to get down on paper…things she wanted to remember. So she wrote, in the dark, with a trembling, weak hand. She wrote about the things that mattered most to her, and prayed she’d see these notes again if her memory vanished once more.
She’d only been writing for an hour when Barlow stirred, and she had to act quickly. She stuffed the notepad beneath the mattress, and then lay very still.
But it didn’t matter. He glanced at his watch, and injected her again. Nonetheless she’d fooled him. And if he was going by his watch, and drugging her at regular intervals, that meant she would wake again before the next injection.
And maybe next time she’d find an opportunity to escape.
Hours—many hours, she suspected—later, she woke again. Sunlight streamed through the hotel windows and splashed over her face. She opened her eyes to slits, and tried to see the room around her without moving her head too much and giving herself away. She could hear Dr. Barlow moving around. Pouring something into a glass, swallowing it. The sounds made her painfully aware of the dryness in her own throat. But she forcibly ignored it, and closed her eyes again when his footsteps came nearer.
“How’s the patient doing?” He lifted her wrist, took her pulse, dropped it again, and she let it fall limply to the bed. “Good. Now, you lucky girl, your Senitrate should be here. Guaranteed delivery by noon, you know.” He patted her cheek, stinging little slaps no doubt intended to assure him that she was truly unconscious. She never flinched.
“I won’t be long,” he told her. “And since you seem to have become so devoted to a husband you don’t even remember, I believe I’ve decided that after I erase your memory this time, I’ll tell you that you’re my wife. You’ll stay with me then, won’t you, Penny?” He laughed as he walked to the door. “Just think of it. I can create an entire life for you, and you’ll believe every word of it. Oh, why didn’t I think of it sooner?”
The door opened, closed again. Penny lay very still and listened. She could still hear him breathing. If that wasn’t the oldest trick in the book, she didn’t know what was. She lay there as limp and lifeless as a rag doll. The second time the door closed, it was for real.
She opened her eyes first, just to make sure. Then she sat up in the bed, dizzy and weak, but so determined she figured the entire U.S. Marine Corps couldn’t stop her. She missed her husband, even if he didn’t know enough to love her the way he ought to just yet. And she missed her bulldog, dammit. How was she supposed to sleep, tranquilizers or not, without Olive’s warm little body curled up close on one side of her?
And Ben’s big strong body pressed tight to the other side?
Her heart skipped a beat when she thought of him. Dammit, she wasn’t going to give up without a fight, and it might very well be the fight of her life.
She put her feet on the floor and looked around the room. Everything swayed and loomed in and out of focus. Where was the phone? There had to be a phone somewhere, didn’t there?
There it was, way over there on the stand by the other bed. She caught hold of the headboard, pulled herself to her feet…and fell to her knees. Okay, fine, she couldn’t walk. She’d crawl.
Inch by inch she made her way across the room to where the telephone was. Gripping the stand, she tried to pull herself up again, but the stand tipped and the phone crashed to the floor.
Penny grimaced at the noise. Then she sat very still, looking around, listening, half expecting Barlow to come running any second. But he didn’t. And she could reach the phone now.
She picked it up, pushed the nine, then the one, then the one again.
But nothing happened.
Blinking in confusion, Penny tried again. Then she rattled the cutoff, but still nothing. No dial tone, nothing. Finally she traced the wire coming out the back of the phone, and saw where it had been cut in half at the middle.
“No,” she whispered.
She had no choice now. She had to get out of here. But first….
She had to take precautions. Give Ben some way to find her, in case she didn’t make it. As hard as she had to fight to stay awake, she knew with a sickening certainty that she might well pass out before she ever made it to the lobby, and it didn’t take a huge imagination to see how Dr. Barlow might find her right there upon his return. He certainly wouldn’t leave her alone for very long.
Frantically she looked around the room. Okay, first her paper. She crawled to the bed, tore the top few sheets—the ones she’d filled with her thoughts—from the notepad she’d hidden there, and then stuffed them back underneath for safekeeping. She scribbled a fast, sloppy note on the pad, then tore that sheet free and jammed it into her pocket. Then she scribbled another, and dragged herself to the window. It was an eff
ort to open the thing, but she managed, and then tossed the entire pad out, praying someone would pick it up and see her plea for help.
Almost as an afterthought, she dragged the extra blanket from the foot of the bed, and tossed that out, as well, closing the window on one corner so it flopped in the wind like a flag. But only until it became too soaked with rain to do so anymore. Then it hung limply, plastered to the side of the building, and she thought it must be all but invisible from below. Still, she left it there, and drew the curtains closed so Barlow wouldn’t see it right away.
She dragged herself into the bathroom, pulled herself to her feet by gripping the edges of the sink. A message. She’d leave a message, just in case. Lipstick, if only she had some lipstick. Soap. Soap would work. She gripped the tiny bar with the Holiday Inn wrapper on it, and struggled to peel the paper away. Then, bracing one hand on the sink for support, she scraped the soap across the mirror with a shaky hand. “Call police. Kidnapped. Penny Brand.”
Her body shook with the effort of remaining upright so long. But it was done. If she couldn’t get away, maybe someone would see this before Barlow did. A maid. Maybe she’d call for help.
Now. Time to go. She’d thought she might get stronger, but she hadn’t. In fact the dizziness was swamping her more than it had before. Damn those tranquilizers….
Wait. The tranquilizers. She should get rid of them.
She searched her foggy mind, and recalled Dr. Barlow bending low…on the far side of the bed opposite the one she’d been in. A cabinet. She saw it now, and made her way with excruciating effort across the room to it.
Dropping to her knees, she opened the door. And there she saw several tiny glass vials of the drug he’d been giving her. Anger surged. How dare that bastard do this to her? With one swipe of her hand, the tiny bottles all clattered to the floor. And Penny pulled herself upright, and stomped them to bits.
There. Let the bastard drug her now.
And let him try keeping her captive without the help of his evil little injections, she thought with venom. She’d get out of here. She had too much at stake to lose it all to a madman, even if he was the one responsible for saving her life.
Long Gone Lonesome Blues Page 19