Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2)

by Tara N Hathcock

  The little woman looked scandalized. “Mr. Pickles is a Baptist,” she said ardently, as though that settled the matter. Quincy decided to move on because really, how could one debate the religious affiliation of a cat?

  “Mr. Pickles looks very dignified.” Quincy smiled at the little woman, who seemed so delighted by the compliment she decided to take it one step further.

  “Would you mind if I hang some of these pictures up on the wall behind me?” Quincy motioned over her shoulder toward the blank wall behind her computer. “It would make my day go so much faster if I had Mr. Pickles for company. And I just know the other patients would love to see him.”

  Mrs. Roberts positively lit up. “Oh, that would be lovely,” she cried. Literally. She reached into her hand bag and pulled out a hand-tatted handkerchief, dabbing gently beneath each eye.

  Then, tucking the hankie back into her bag, she reached out and patted Quincy’s hand. “You’re such a darling. Coming to this office is the highlight of my week.”

  Quincy smiled at her. “Mrs. Roberts, you are always such a ray of sunshine. I’ll look forward to seeing you next Monday.”

  She offered Mrs. Roberts a card with her appointment written on it, not that she really needed it. Mrs. Roberts had taken the same appointment for weeks now, but she still grasped the card in her tiny hand and tucked it into the oversized handbag tucked into the crook of her elbow. She zipped it securely and gave Quincy one more watery smile.

  “See you next week, baby,” she said. Quincy followed her to the door and opened it, letting Mrs. Roberts slip out and watched as she made her way up the sidewalk. She only lived a block away and preferred to walk. But Quincy never felt right until she saw Mrs. Roberts let herself into her tiny cottage.

  Closing the door, she meandered her way back to the desk. Dr. Thomas must have come for Mrs. O’Neil during the Roberts farewell tour and the office was empty. She wandered over to the magazine rack to straighten up. Mrs. Roberts had called her baby. It was a term of endearment, she knew. But it was also familiar. Had someone else called her that? Maybe an older woman, like Mrs. Roberts?

  Taken by the thought, Quincy stared at nothing, eyes unfocused, mind wandering away. An older woman, one who cared about her. Who was always glad to see her…

  The door jangled open, snapping her out of her reverie. She finished straightening the magazines, not bothering to look. The chime at the top of the door bore witness to the exuberance of the opener and really, there was only one person who could make even a door sound enthusiastic.

  “Up and at ‘em, Sleeping Beauty?” she asked.

  “I’ve been up for awhile,” Logan replied. “Hard to sleep when it’s so nice outside.” Logan usually finished his self-imposed guard duty as she and Dave were leaving for the clinic. He would sack out for a few hours and be up and ready to spar by the time they got back.

  “How would you know it’s nice?” Quincy asked. “You were in a basement.”

  “There are some things the soul just knows,” he replied with confidence. “And a beautiful fall day is one of them.”

  Quincy finally turned. Logan was still standing in the open doorway and she had to admit, it really was beautiful outside. The sun was shining and the air was cool and breezy, with just enough snap to let everyone know winter was coming whether they wanted it to or not.

  Quincy closed her eyes and let the slight breeze wash over her face. It ruffled her hair and she absently tucked it behind her ears. She had decided, much like with her name, to stick with her current hair color here in Boulder. She usually changed everything for a move - new place, new identity, new look. But with the company hopefully off her scent for now, she’d decided not to bother. Besides, she’d missed her natural hair color. She’d learned she wasn’t a bottle blonde and, though she could pull off both black and brunette, she missed the auburn when it wasn’t there. Plus, it was hard to keep covered. No matter how much she changed the color, those red and gold highlights would come peeking through in a matter of weeks. So the change in pace and maintenance was nice.

  “Dave’s just finishing up,” she told Logan, moving behind the desk to dispose of the empty coffee cup and various wrappers she’d picked up on her loop around the waiting room. She nonchalantly flipped the notebook shut and slid it behind the computer monitor. No sense in bringing Logan into it just yet. He’d no doubt be worried and try to convince her not to look. Whether he thought she wouldn’t like what she found or worry she wouldn’t find anything, he’d try to insert himself into the mix to protect her. But there was nothing to protect, because there was nothing to find.

  “No worries,” he said. “What time is the next appointment? I thought maybe we’d hit that food truck over on West that popped up yesterday. You know,” he said with a wink, “for old times’ sake.”

  Quincy looked at him blankly. “Old times’ sake?” she asked. “What are you talking about?” She turned to dump the trash into the can below her desk and when she straightened, Logan was looking at her oddly.

  “Food trucks,” he tried again.

  When she still didn’t respond, he started to look concerned. She did not like that look directed at her. “You know, food trucks. College campuses. Late nights. Tacos?”

  “Oh, sure. Tacos,” she agreed. He had to be talking about Sheridan, the college town in Arkansas he’d tracked her down in, but she had no idea…Sheridan. There was a woman in Sheridan who called her baby. Older. The thought came out of nowhere. But she was nice. What was her name again?

  Logan looked like he wasn’t sure if he bought the line and Quincy cut him off before he could dig deeper. “I could go for some of those tacos right now, actually,” she said. “You think any of those trucks can hook us up?”

  That was all it took. “Girl, please,” Logan said. “There’s not a food park in all the world that doesn’t sell tacos in at least one truck.”

  The door that led to the exam rooms opened and Dave escorted Lionel back into the waiting room. “We’ll have those test results for you next week,” he said. “Quincy will give you a call when they come in.”

  “Merci, mon ami,” Lionel replied. “Thank you my friend, for all that you do.”

  Logan leaned across the desk until his face was inches from Quincy’s. “Is he really French?” he asked in a loud whisper.

  “Nope,” she said, and they both grinned.

  “Never hurts to be fluent in another language,” Logan said. “Maybe you can pick some of it up.”

  “Please,” Quincy said. “French took me a week. Now, if he were speaking, oh, say Italian, I might learn a thing or two.”

  Logan laughed and Dave turned, having seen Lionel out the door. “Lunch time already?” he asked.

  “Come on,” Quincy said, grabbing her backpack and slinging it across her shoulders. Old habits died hard. “Logan’s treating us to a picnic.”

  “You had me at ‘Logan’s treating,’” Dave said with a smile. “And I’m famished.”

  Chapter 7

  Claire

  Claire sat stiffly in the hard, straight-backed chair, sipping mint tea from a chipped, industrial-looking cup, watching the scene play out in front of her. She sat straight, allowing no slack across her shoulders, legs crossed daintily at the ankles - a remnant from her training as a contralto for the Metropolitan Opera Company. The straighter and stiffer one held one’s body, the more powerfully one could vocalize. Not that Claire had any intention of vocalizing anything right now. No, she was determined to observe only.

  The new doctor had arrived yesterday and unceremoniously intruded on their free time. Claire had noticed her before she’d come into the common room, as she was steering Amy away from the door. Mr. Anderson had walked her to their door and left without much fanfare. Claire had no doubt he’d left the doctor to blunder in on her own, knowing full well the prisoners were contentious and possessive of any personal time they were granted.

  Nathan Anderson, Claire had deduced, was a man who
enjoyed control. The vice president of the company holding them hostage, Anderson was second only to one man. And in order to maintain that coveted position, he did what he could to sabotage relations amongst peers he viewed as competition. His actions told Claire he viewed Dr. Cans as dangerous more than words could have.

  From what Claire could see, Dr. Cans appeared to be another garden-variety psychologist. She’d calmly bowed out of her botched introduction yesterday, leaving the prisoners - or patients, as the guards, doctors, and staff kept insisting - to their own devices.

  Today’s group session was another matter. The doctor made an impression, Claire would grant her. Neither of the last two psychologists had cared for their comfort. She didn’t know if Dr. Cans did either, but she’d at least made the effort. Instead of congregating in the common room, Dr. Cans had invited them to her office, usually reserved for individual sessions only. She’d arranged the room into a cozy circle, pulling an overstuffed love seat and a soft armchair that badly needed reupholstered into the room to give a semblance of comfort. The fancy coffee maker and porcelain tea set on the sideboard increased the feelings of safety and…home…for lack of a better word. With low lights and something resembling jazz playing softly in the background, the atmosphere was almost friendly. Or would have been, had Andre not been standing over the doctor, bellowing his disapproval.

  “A little coffee, a little tea, maybe show me some humanity, and you think, what? I’m going to cave? Cooperate?” He spit that last word out, sharp and pointed, as though the very thought was disgusting. It was.

  “I did not, in fact,” Dr. Cans replied calmly. She lifted her own coffee mug, the same sterile, cheap mugs that they were using, and took a drink. “I simply can’t operate efficiently without my own coffee and it only seemed -,” and here she paused, rather sarcastically, Claire thought, “humane to offer you some, as well.” She sat her mug sedately on the desk beside her. “If you’d like, you can enjoy some. Or not. It’s your choice.”

  Brave of her, Claire thought, to sit with them instead of tucked safely behind the solid, imposing desk that took up a third of the office space. Claire felt quite sure the rest of them weren’t violent, but she had no such assurances about Andre. And he was a very large, intimidating man. Although the doctor didn’t seem to find him so. Which was a change from the last two. Doctors Rogers and McCall had both been rather large men themselves, but their caution around Andre, and, to a certain extent, the rest of them, had been obvious. This petite woman, young for the credentials she displayed so prominently around her office, seemed to feel no fear or discomfort.

  Claire took another sip of her tea and settled the cup gently back into the worn saucer. Interesting. Andre seemed to be torn between righteous indignation and the first decent coffee he’d been offered in over a year.

  “Take the coffee,” Claire said mildly. “You can spit it on her shoes later if she tries to use it against you.”

  Dr. Cans arched a delicate eyebrow as she took another sip of her own coffee. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  It seemed their first group session with the new doctor was off to a rocky start. Claire glanced around the circle, her eyes lighting briefly on each of her fellow patients. Amy was directly to Claire’s left, clutching her own tea cup so tightly Claire was surprised it hadn’t shattered. Amy appeared as angry and belligerent as Andre, but where his rage was incendiary, Amy’s was a slow burn - creeping along, rising slowly, undulating with heat but staying tucked carefully out of sight. She was coiled tightly, but Claire couldn’t blame her. Amy had left behind a husband and young son when she’d been taken, and her constant worry for her baby was enough to keep her on edge.

  Claire herself had a husband at home, but they’d never been lucky enough to have children. She thought of him often, but a mother’s love was a different kind of love. It was ferocious, and it never went away. Claire’s love for her husband, well, it wasn’t what it once had been. Maybe that’s why Claire’s own reaction to being taken and held against her will was so different than Amy and Andre’s. She wasn’t given to strong shows of emotion in general. She never had been. In fact, she wasn’t really sure what she felt about it. She knew she should feel angry, afraid, desperate. But she didn’t. She pretended, because she knew she deserved to feel all of those things. Instead, she felt…numb. So she watched, and she listened, and she attempted to play peacemaker when she could.

  Not that she would ever advocate for working with their captors. Heavens, no. That was Miguel’s shtick. Claire slanted her eyes to her right, where Miguel sat slumped, the coffee cup Dr. Cans had handed him clutched loosely by long, sad fingers.

  Could fingers be sad? Claire wondered. His certainly looked the part. But Miguel’s sadness and desperation was different from Andre’s and Amy’s, even her own, with its shapeless, undefined form. Miguel’s desperation was palpable, from his slouched, defeated posture to the strip of cloth that covered his eyes.

  Claire had never seen Miguel without that cloth, had never seen his eyes. The cloth was thick and dark, doubled over on itself to make it even thicker. And yet, somehow, Miguel still found his way around without assistance. No aide took his arm and walked him from his bedroom cell to the common room; no one helped him collect his tray for meals or told him which pitcher was orange juice and which was milk. He’d never tripped or so much as stubbed a toe, and he’d never taken the blindfold off.

  The organization that held them claimed they shared a very similar story and, while Claire believed some of the tale, she scoffed at the rest. She could buy the fact that they’d all suffered some sort of head injury. She could even accept that those head injuries were all quite severe. She knew hers had been. But she just couldn’t jump on board with the claim that they each survived by developing extrasensory abilities.

  Undocumented neural pathways, the first doctor had explained. Detours around the parts of the brain that were injured, resulting in improbable, yet not impossible, new senses. What those new senses were supposed to be, Claire had no idea. The doctors hadn’t elaborated at the time. But unless headaches, hearing voices, and severe insomnia were considered helpful mechanisms of survival, Claire was fairly sure it was all poppycock. Or she had been. Until she’d met Miguel.

  Claire, Amy, and Andre had arrived within weeks of each other, brought in from various points across the States to wherever off-the-map locale this black-op organization was based and having each been taken by force - Amy, manhandled into a car from the parking lot of her son’s soccer game; Andre, drugged at a downtown bar a short walk from his apartment; and Claire, tricked into a rental with no inside door handles on her way home from Orlando International.

  Miguel had been a guest of the company much longer than the rest of them. He’d been a resident for almost two years, doubling the time the rest had spent here. His story started out much the same - a truck driver, drugged and forced out of the big rig left abandoned on the side of the road. The only difference was, Miguel had bought the explanation hook, line, and sinker and had decided to stay. He was voluntary. Working with the company to explain his unusual symptoms. A collaborator.

  No, Claire decided, she couldn’t use that word. She had been nabbed returning from Europe after her last concert tour, where her company had visited several of the concentration camps dotted throughout the old Nazi-occupied territories. Collaborator was a dirty word, used to describe civilians and prisoners that cooperated with the enemy for gain. Miguel might be cooperating, but he wasn’t looking to profit. He simply wanted his life back. Claire could relate. What she couldn’t relate to was what had stolen Miguel’s life.

  Miguel’s eyes played tricks on him. That’s what his doctors said before the company found him. It was in his head. It was a symptom of migraines. She had heard it all before too. The difference being, even though Claire didn’t believe that explanation, she certainly didn’t believe the company’s, either.

  According to Miguel, his eyesight hadn’t gotten be
tter, necessarily, after his accident. But it had gotten broader. The colors he described seeing, the clarity and depth, were unbelievable. The company doctors had told him he was seeing light beyond the normal human spectrum. But people couldn’t see light beyond the human spectrum. That’s why it was called the human spectrum. Normal seemed to be the key word, according to the doctors. What Miguel was seeing might not be normal, but it wasn’t impossible either.

  Splitting hairs, as far as Claire was concerned. She wasn’t about to offer up her own curious experiences, but that didn’t seem to matter. Somehow, this off-the-books chop shop was able to obtain records from every doctor she had ever visited, including her counseling appointments.

  “Claire, are you with us?” Dr. Cans asked, and Claire realized she’d drifted away. Andre was now sitting rigid in his chair, tumbler of steaming coffee clasped firmly in his hands. She wasn’t sure where he had managed to get it - the rest of them were stuck with single serving cups.

  “Where else would I be?” Claire responded. “We weren’t given much of a choice.”

  “Not on attending this session, but maybe we can give you some control, as it were.” Dr. Cans thought for a moment. “There’s nothing that says we have to stick to the same schedule you’ve been keeping. Would you like to pick a different time for group and personal sessions?”

  It was a kind offer, Claire supposed, but the new doctor could afford to be kind. She made all the rules.

  “Goodness, I don’t know,” Claire said, pretending to think out loud. “With my busy schedule, it may be hard to work something in.”

  She wasn’t above sarcasm when the situation called for it.

  Dr. Cans smiled back, seemingly delighted with the lip. “That’s the spirit,” she said. “You just think it over and let me know what you work out.” Then she addressed the group. “Down to business, I think. I haven’t had the chance to introduce myself properly after so rudely interrupting your down time yesterday. I do apologize.”