***
“Come on, Dylan,” Toby muttered. The rural highway conveying him and Jackson to the mall in Martinsburg took them through rolling pastures. “She’s not answering,” he groused, counting the rings over the sound of Milly panting in the back seat.
Jackson shot him a sympathetic glance. “Leave her a message,” he suggested.
Dylan’s voice barked suddenly in his ear. “What now?” she demanded.
The defensive question threw Toby off balance for a second. Had she been expecting someone else? “Hey, babe. It’s me.” He winced, regretting the endearment immediately.
She kept silent so long that he checked the bars on his cell to see if he’d lost reception.
“What do you want?”
Her belligerent tone offered no hope for forgiveness. “Um…I’m calling to apologize.”
His words met with a bitter-sounding laugh. He forged ahead before he lost all courage. “I never meant to hurt you, Dylan. I’m so sorry.”
“Do you really think an apology is all you owe me?” He’d heard that raised pitch before, signaling grave distress. “Every word you ever said to me was a lie.”
If only he was there to soothe her with his touch. “That’s not true—”
“It’s not? You said you wanted to join my militia so you could serve your country.”
“That’s what I thought I was doing, but—”
“You said I could lean on you.”
“Dylan, you can. I’m still here. I’ll always be here for you.”
“You’ve never been diagnosed with PTSD, have you?” she demanded, throwing him a left hook.
Toby cringed. “No, I haven’t,” he admitted. “Milly’s a bomb-sniffing dog, not a therapy dog.” Two black and white heifers grazing peacefully alongside the highway stared at him, as if dumbstruck.
Dylan’s bitter laugh raked over his conscience like claws. “Then everything you ever told me was a lie. Everything.”
He bristled. “Not everything. And I didn’t lie to you to hurt you, Dylan. I had a job to do. What I said about my feelings for you—” he flicked an uncomfortable glance at his colleague and pitched his voice lower. “—that was absolutely true.”
Cynical silence followed his humbling confession.
“Please believe me. Whatever it takes to—”
The line went suddenly dead. Toby’s hand fell like a lead weight to his lap, and a vice clamped down around his chest. She’d hung up on him.
Milly, sensing his sudden upset, snuffled at his ear and delicately licked it.
Jackson cast him a sidelong grimace. “She just needs more time,” he said encouragingly.
Toby stared straight ahead, seeing nothing but flashing white and yellow lines. Time was the one thing Dylan didn’t have. He’d seen the signs of her emotional distress before. Without him there to reassure her, she’d start to fall apart, lashing out in ways that would make her seem as crazy as the FBI alleged she was. She was tumbling in a downward spiral, and there was little he could do about it—not on a Sunday, anyway.
Bastard! Dylan leapt from the bed to pace the length of her room. If only she could leave the house and run, she would take off running and never stop. How she needed that release, now more than ever! But a blind sprint across her property would inevitably result in her stumbling into edgy soldiers bearing loaded M-16 rifles. She’d end up getting shot, or worse.
How dare Tobias even speak to her after what he’d done? Babe! She was nobody’s babe, and certainly not his! What a weak, easy conquest she must have seemed to him. A few slow smiles, a couple of laughs, and one mind-blowing kiss—that’s all it had taken to lure her into his trap. And now he had the gall to tell her that it hadn’t been a lie? How could he possibly have loved her while sharing her innermost secrets with the FBI?
Snatching a pillow off the bed, she hurled it to the floor. The relief it brought had her reaching for another pillow and then another. When she ran out of pillows to throw, she hauled open a dresser drawer and flung its contents across her room, one fistful at a time, unmindful of the mess she was making. Her elbow caught a lamp, and it toppled to the floor, the light bulb shattering. Her throat ached with the need to scream, except she couldn’t, not without disturbing Terrence, not without alerting her men.
Blinded with tears and fueled by betrayal, she tore her room apart until she was left standing up to her knees in wreckage.
Only then, did she look around and realize that she was in danger of tipping over the edge into the dark abyss of insanity.
Chapter Seventeen
Wilford Loomis, the silver-haired Director of Martinsburg VA Medical Center, responded to Toby and Jackson’s visit with a look of annoyance. “I thought you were dropping by this afternoon,” he groused, pushing aside the fat folder on the desk in front of him.
His statement betrayed the fact that Palmer’s investigative team had planned to drop by later.
Toby seized the man’s assumption and ran with it. “Sorry, but we’re under pressure to build our case against Dylan Connelly.”
The director’s eyes brightened at the mention of Dylan’s downfall. “Please, have a seat.”
By the time they left his office, Toby had moved Loomis to the top of his suspect list.
“You think he could be the one framing her?” Jackson muttered as they made their way toward the wing where Dylan worked.
“He hates her enough.” Loomis had made no secret of his contempt for Dylan, who’d used her militia to protest one of his new hospital policies. “If anyone has the power to make her disappear at the hospital, it’s that guy,” Toby whispered. “Maybe he enlisted Ackerman to help him.” Except Ackerman had been home on Halloween night with the other NCOs, hadn’t he?
En route to Dylan’s office, they encountered Leigh, the same nurse who’d dealt with Toby twice before. She caught his eye and did a double-take. “What are you doing here?” Her gaze flickered over the smart navy blue suit he wore. “I thought you were in the militia.” She gasped in horror, her eyes flying to his. “You’re with the FBI?” she squeaked.
He was never happier to disassociate himself. “No, actually, I’m with a taskforce dedicated to proving her innocence.”
Only a portion of Leigh’s suspicion faded. “Well, thank goodness,” she declared, still clearly wary.
“We need your help figuring out who laced the mocha latte someone left for her the other night.”
She wrung her hands. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she admitted. “I’ve tried remembering who might have approached her room, but I just can’t come up with anything.”
“That’s fine,” Toby assured her. “It’s not your fault she was drugged.”
Jackson motioned toward the short corridor where Dylan’s office was situated. “Who else has offices on this hall?” he inquired.
“The names are on all the doors,” Leigh answered, “and I believe every doctor is at work today, except for Dr. Connelly, of course.” She glanced over her shoulder, stepped closer and whispered, “Have you questioned Dr. Hendrix?”
“We’re keeping him in mind.” Except that Hendrix had been hospitalized at the time of Dylan’s disappearance, and the only way he could have been involved was if he worked in cahoots with someone else. “Who else holds a grudge against her?”
She spread her hands helplessly. “Director Loomis?”
“Can you tell us who she works with on a daily or weekly basis?”
Leigh provided them with a list of doctors, nurses, orderlies and staff. “Oh, and there’s also Dr. Richardson, our resident psychiatrist, whom she sees professionally, if you know what I mean,” she added under her breath. “I think he’s in his office now, just down the hall from hers.” A disruption along the main corridor captured her attention. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said, rushing off to help the orderly coax a veteran back into his wheelchair.
Toby gestured for Jackson to follow him. “Ackerman’s psychiatrist. We need to tal
k to him anyway.”
They found Dr. Richardson’s office two office doors down from Dylan’s and across the hall. A peek through the open door revealed a cozy ring of comfortable-looking chairs, several potted plants, and a fountain bubbling over into a granite basin. “Not here,” Toby muttered.
Jackson pointed toward the glass exit doors nearby. “Do you think that’s him?”
A man in a white smock stood on the cement steps outside, hugging himself against the cold as he puffed on a cigarette. Toby started toward him. “Only one way to find out.” But then, considering that Dylan might have described him well enough for Richardson to guess who he was, he drew Jackson in front of him. “You do the talking,” he instructed. “Don’t mention my name.”
Jackson nodded his understanding. “Dr. Richardson?” he called, as they pushed their way outside.
The middle-aged doctor with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair turned to take stock of them. Hazel eyes widened behind his plastic-framed lenses. “Yes.” He quickly snuffed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and turned to face them expectantly. “Let me guess,” he said, taking in their dark suits. “You’re with the FBI?”
“Special Agent Maddox,” Jackson said, not bothering to introduce Toby, who remained on the step behind him. Jackson shook Dr. Richardson’s hand. “I’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, sure. You want to go inside or—”
“This is fine. What can you tell us about Ivan Ackerman?” Jackson asked.
“Ackerman?” Richardson gave a startled laugh. “I thought you were going to ask me about Dylan Connelly.”
“We’ll get to her,” Jackson promised. “Ackerman first.”
“Well, he suffers from PTSD like the rest of the vets I treat around here.” He gave a helpless shrug.
“Did he tell you that his wife and daughter were murdered at the mall?”
Richardson’s face reflected shock. “Good heavens, no. Were they?”
“No, they weren’t. So, you know how he contracted PTSD?”
“Well, yes, he was caught in a mortar attack. Being a cook and not a war fighter, he took it harder than most.”
“Any idea why he would lie to Dr. Connelly about his past?”
The lines strafing Richardson’s forehead deepened. “To make her feel sorry for him?” he guessed.
“Hmm,” Jackson hummed. “Dylan Connelly also came to you for treatment, is that right?”
“Yes, yes, she did. Of course, I am bound by doctor-patient confidentiality not to disclose personal information, unless this is an emergency or you have a special warrant?” he lightly fished.
“You’ll see the warrant soon. I presume you know she’s been charged with the murders of Defense Secretary Nolan and General Treyburn, both staunch advocates of military intervention.”
“Of course. I imagine everyone knows that by now. It’s all over the news.”
“Do you think her capable of committing those murders?”
Richardson hesitated. His forehead creased again. “She’s a remarkable individual, very tough, but at the same time, extremely vulnerable,” he replied, clearly loath to categorize her as a murderer.
It sounded as though Richardson knew Dylan as well as he did. Jealousy snaked through Toby unexpectedly.
“She’s seen things far more gruesome than either you or I could even imagine,” Richardson continued, his eyes darkening with sympathy. “I wouldn’t presume to say if she was capable of murder, or not,” he replied, meeting Jackson’s gaze in a challenging manner.
Jackson slid his hands into his pockets. “I understand that you prescribed her a sleeping aid?”
“Yes, uh, Hipnosedon. She was in desperate need of sleep.”
“Is that a benzodiazepine?”
Richardson blinked. “Yes, it is.”
“And that’s in the same class as Rohypnol, correct?”
Dr. Richardson looked confused. “Both are in the Benzodiazepine family. Why would you ask?”
Jackson grimaced. “I’m afraid that’s classified. Dr. Richardson, were you working on Halloween night?”
Richardson chuckled and looked away. “Well, yes and no. I was at my niece’s costume party.” He reached into the pocket of his smock and pulled out his cell phone. As he did so, a bit of cellophane from the wrapper of a cigarette box fluttered from his pocket onto the step where he stood. “Here, I’ll show you a picture.” He turned his body to show it to Jackson. “She’s fifteen, now, and it’s all my brother can do to keep the boys away, so he enlisted my help.”
Toby crept one step lower to assess the photo over Jackson’s shoulder.
“That’s me there, obviously, wearing the big bad wolf costume,” Richardson explained. “There’s my niece, Maxine, impersonating some teen celebrity—Selena Gomez, I suppose.”
“Who’s that next to her?”
“My brother, Scott.”
“He looks just like you.”
“We do resemble.”
“Who took the picture,” Toby interjected, “your wife?”
Richardson cut him a curious glance, no doubt wondering why they hadn’t been introduced. “No, no. I’m divorced,” he admitted. “My brother’s wife took this picture, actually.”
Toby couldn’t help asking one more question. “So, you wore the mask the whole night?”
“Oh, heavens, no. I get claustrophobic with a mask on. Most of the time I just wore it on the top of my head. It kind of loses its impact that way, but…,” He shrugged as he dropped the phone back into his smock and stepped on the cigarette wrapper.
“Well, thank you for speaking to us, doctor. I’m sure you’ll hear from us again,” Jackson drawled, his irony lost on Richardson but not on Toby. Palmer’s team would probably question Richardson that very afternoon. “Is there anything else you’d like to share with us—something that could shed light on Miss Connelly’s motives?”
The doctor pushed his glasses higher up his nose as he considered the question. “Well, if you do arrest her, just make sure she’s evaluated by a qualified psychiatrist,” he begged.
Jackson cocked his head. “Why is that?”
What was he implying? Toby wondered.
Richardson heaved a sigh. “I’m saying that if she did commit those murders, then it’s possible she didn’t know what she was doing. Sometimes extreme trauma—like what Dylan has experienced in the past—gives rise to dissociative identity disorder. I thought I saw evidence of that earlier in her altercations with Dr. Hendrix.”
Toby gripped the metal rail as Richardson’s insinuation slipped under his skin. He thought she was crazy. Admit it, Toby, his common sense urged, keeping him in check. You’ve had the same thought.
“If you like,” Richardson suggested, “I could continue treatment with her at her home, perhaps, or in a local institution and give you my own diagnosis. I’m sure she’s in a very agitated state, given all that’s going on. There’s even a likelihood that she’s suicidal at this point.”
Concern plunged through Toby, supplanting his anger.
“We’ll take your offer into consideration, doctor,” Jackson promised. He shook Richardson’s hand one more time while Toby swiveled on the balls of his feet and stalked back inside, heading to the hospital lobby to clear his head.
“She’s not crazy,” he insisted when Jackson caught up to him. “I lived with her day in and day out for three weeks. Other than her bouts of PTSD, there’s nothing wrong with her mental state.” Except now he couldn’t stop worrying that she might actually attempt to kill herself.
Jackson sent him a searching look. “Are you sure?”
Toby sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes, counting to five. When he opened them again, Jackson was standing a yard farther away from him. A reluctant chuckle scraped his throat. “I’m not going to hit you, Stonewall—not in public, anyway.”
“You never get tired of that joke, do you?”
“Nope.” Toby closed the gap
between them. “Listen, if she committed the murders herself, why would she have had benzos in her bloodstream?”
“Because of the sleeping pills her doctor prescribed?” Jackson raised his eyebrows.
“Right, those are benzos, too, and only a blood test can distinguish the two. But Dylan swears she wasn’t taking any sleeping pills around the night of the murder, and why would she take one at work, anyway?”
“You’re taking her word for it,” Jackson pointed out. “Plus, you’re assuming she was drugged first, and then Treyburn was shot. She may have drunk the coffee after shooting him so that she would have an alibi. That’s Palmer’s take on it. Or maybe it’s like Richardson said, and she just doesn’t remember anything because of a dissociative identity disorder.”
Toby’s temper rekindled. “That’s bullshit, and we can prove it.”
“How?”
It came to Toby suddenly. “The coffee stain. I saw it on her carpet when I looked for her the night of the shooting. Sheriff Hooper swabbed it, which means that FBI forensics has a record of it. If traces of Rohypnol were in that stain, then her story’s true. She drank the coffee and knocked over the cup while passing out. The real killer cleaned up the spill, which was why her desk was wiped down, but he missed the stain on the carpet. Then he dragged her from her office and stowed her somewhere nearby, in an empty closet, maybe.”
“With a candy wrapper in it,” Jackson added.
“Exactly.”
Jackson regarded him in thoughtful silence. “I’ll need to call forensics to see what kind of data they have on that swab. But you’re right. If traces of Rohypnol were found in the stain, it would lend credence to her story.”
Hope buoyed Toby’s anxious heart. “Let’s search for spaces where she might have been hidden.”
They spent the next hour knocking on doors and peering into office closets, storage closets, and janitor’s cabinets—all without a search warrant. The doctors and nurses cooperated fully. Toby searched high and low for a candy wrapper, but found none.
“Time to go,” Jackson said, glancing at his watch. “It’s a quarter to twelve.”
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