Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2)

by Tara N Hathcock

  “Do you think her disappearance has something to do with her old head injury?” he asked, an odd lilt to his voice.

  “Not at all,” she lied smoothly. “I just like to have a complete picture and it wasn’t something ever mentioned in the news.”

  “Yeah, but the way you talk about it,” he continued, “it’s like there’s more to the story. That accident was almost six years ago. Yet a few months after she went missing, I got a call from a doctor, asking about that time. He said he was one of the doctors who looked after her during her stay in intensive care but his name wasn’t familiar to me, and I knew all of Amy’s doctors.”

  Quincy felt a chill settle over her shoulders. “Mr. Madison, do you remember this doctor’s name or what he wanted to know?”

  “Of course,” he replied. “I remember everything about those first few months. Let’s see…” There was a pause, then, “It was a Dr. Alfred White. He was asking about the symptoms you mentioned. Her sleeplessness, what her headaches were like, and if she ever had thoughts of, you know, ending things.” That last was said haltingly, as though difficult for him to get out.

  So, the company wasn’t getting the information it wanted from the source so it had resorted to secondary options. At least, that’s what it sounded like to her. It was risky, reaching out to the family of the woman they’d kidnapped. It had to mean something. Maybe Amy wasn’t being as forthcoming about her condition as they had hoped. Quincy couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

  “Thank you for talking with me, Mr. Madison,” she said. “I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you.” She didn’t want to give him false hope. He hadn’t really given her anything that could help her find his wife, but he had given her some insight into someone else with the same condition. Maybe this Amy Madison was a fighter, too.

  He laughed. It sounded exhausted. “We’re surviving,” he said. “Amy’s mom lives with us now. I called her as soon as the police left that night and she’s been with us ever since. I don’t know what we’d do without her,” he said, voice watery from the strain of everything he was being forced to remember. “She’s the only family we have left, and she keeps me sane on the days that I just don’t know how to keep going.”

  “I’m glad you have her,” Quincy said. “We all need that one person when our life falls to pieces.” Sometimes, one person was all that you had to hold on to.

  “Sounds like you know a thing or two about that yourself,” Randall said.

  “Yes,” Quincy agreed. “Unfortunately, I do.”

  “Please call if you have any more questions,” he said. “Or if you find anything. It doesn’t matter how small. We just want her back.”

  The hope in his voice was enough to turn Quincy’s stomach. She shouldn’t have involved the family. How cruel to get their hopes up when Amy was as good as dead, locked in the stranglehold of the company the way she was.

  “I will,” she agreed, choking on the words. “Thank you for your time.”

  Randall Madison hung up the phone and Quincy slumped back into her chair. The missing Amy Madison had a home, a family who loved her.

  No, who loves her. Present tense. And who eagerly waited for her return. Quincy had been unconscious in that hospital in Sacramento for over a month and no one had ever come looking. She was the one who should be stuck with the company, not Amy.

  It wasn’t going to do Amy, or any of the others, any good to feel sorry for herself. Quincy straightened and pulled herself back to the desk. Her first order of business was to track down anything she could on this Dr. Alfred White. The name was undoubtedly an alias and would turn out to be a dead end. Still, she would chase every lead she could find. After that, maybe she’d look into getting her hands on whatever camera footage the police had of the night Amy disappeared. Knowing what she knew, maybe there was something they’d missed.

  Chapter 21

  Dr. Cans

  Dr. Cans strode through the halls, leaving the common room and her agitated patients behind her. Now that she had decided upon a course of action, she felt stronger. Filled with a sense of purpose. She knew she needed access to the file room, she would just need to plan it carefully. Timing would be everything.

  “Dr. Cans.”

  She was so deeply involved in her own plans that the voice caught her off-guard. She mentally berated herself as she looked up, professionally distant smile plastered to her face. Not only was Nathan Anderson standing in front of her office door, Mr. Smith was with him. From the looks of them, they’d been waiting longer than they would like. Or longer than Nathan liked, anyway. Mr. Smith looked perfectly content.

  “Gentlemen,” she greeted, opening her door and ushering them in. “Did we have an appointment?” She shot a quelling look over her shoulder at Barnes, who was guiltily pretending not to notice. What good was an office assistant if he didn’t give her a heads up?

  “Not at all,” Mr. Smith replied. “Nathan and I were discussing an upcoming shareholders’ meeting and your name came up.”

  “It did?” she asked politely. She gestured to the comfortable arm chairs in front of her desk and moved to the polished oak side board that ran the length of the wall to the right.

  “Coffee?” she asked. One thing Barnes did do was turn her state-of-the-art coffee maker on 15 minutes before group sessions ended. She poured three cups and offered two of them to the men settling themselves for what looked like an important conversation.

  “Yes, please,” Mr. Smith replied. He took a sip and looked pleasantly surprised. “This is very good.”

  Dr. Cans smiled, arranging herself delicately behind her desk with her own cup. “Dark roast whole beans shipped directly from Ethiopia,” she said. “The Kaffa region, I believe.”

  “Impressive,” he said, taking another drink. “I admire someone with a taste for fine coffee. The drivel you buy retail just doesn’t have the same flavor profile.”

  She took a sip, allowing a small smile to peek from behind her cup. “Agreed,” she murmured.

  “Really, Nathan,” Mr. Smith scolded, “one should never insult the host by not drinking. Or the hostess, in this case,” he said, frowning at his companion, who had yet to drink and who was, instead, eyeing the bookcases that lined the walls with disdain.

  “What an informal decorating choice,” he finally remarked. The snide tone belied the nonchalant words. “Old novels. How…novel…of you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, ignoring the connotation. “I believe appearing a little more human will subconsciously allow the patients to relax while they’re with me.”

  “Oh?” Mr. Smith asked, looking interested. “How so?”

  “Surround them with medical books and psychology manuals and they will never forget where they are. Surrounding them with things they might see in their everyday lives brings on a sense of relaxation. It’s subtle, to be sure. Combined with coffee, tea, natural light and, well,” she gestured mildly around her office, “the effect can be hard to fight.”

  Mr. Smith nodded approvingly. “It seems as though everything you do has a purpose,” he said appreciatively.

  She ducked her head in acknowledgement. “So, what brings the two highest ranking company officers to my office today?” she asked. The coffee might help, but the headache she felt building during the group session was making itself known. There was no escaping the headache that was about to take her fast and hard, but she wasn’t about to show weakness in front of either man. She needed to speed this along.

  “I was very impressed with you at the board meeting last week,” Mr. Smith said, setting his empty cup on the edge of her desk. “I wanted to see your operation in person, maybe get to know you a little better.” He settled back in his chair and smiled broadly at her, making it clear that he did not mean in a professional capacity.

  Dr. Cans shifted in her chair, crossing her legs and leaning forward slightly. She smiled, allowing a slightly flirtatious quality to her voice. “I’d like that as well,” she d
emurred. “What you’ve managed to build here is incredible.” Her voice took on an air of awe. “The laws you must have skirted, the ethics that would have to be disregarded to create the Rhinehardt Corporation…” She shook her head. “It all speaks to your own personal philosophy, I think.”

  He took it as a compliment, as she had known he would.

  “I appreciate that you noticed,” he said in satisfaction. “My grandfather scraped this company together with nothing but grit and his bare hands. He and my father were both content with maintaining control of the majority of the pharmaceutical business in the United States, but I saw the potential for more.”

  “Anyone can be in pharmaceuticals,” she agreed, playing to his sense of aggrandizement, “but not everyone has the stomach for human experimentation.”

  He shook his head. “It was really a stroke of luck that I came across Dr. Garrison when I did.”

  Dr. David Garrison, the pioneering neurosurgeon who had developed the theory of Reflexive Neurological Bias. At the moment, the only one in the world to know more about the condition than she did.

  “He was giving a presentation at a medical symposium on neurological pathology and I happened to stop in. The presentation completely destroyed his reputation, of course,” Mr. Smith said, obviously unconcerned with the impact to his future meal ticket, “but he had been regarded as the foremost pioneer in the field before, absolutely brilliant amongst his circle of peers.”

  “You brought Dr. Garrison in?” she asked innocently. Of course he did. How else would he have the knowledge to begin the project that existed today.

  “I gave him a base of operations and an expense account. He was more than happy to continue his research, fully-funded.”

  “Until he realized how his research would be used,” she summed up.

  “Now how would you know that?” Nathan Anderson broke in, interrupting the flow between Dr. Cans and Mr. Smith.

  Funny. She had almost forgotten he was there.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” she remarked, as though only a fool couldn’t have guessed. “Dr. Garrison was an idealist. A brilliant idealist,” she allowed, “but all idealists have the same flaw.”

  “And that would be?”

  His dislike for her was more than obvious. She saw Mr. Smith watching Anderson from the corner of her eye, as though he had just noticed something that concerned him.

  “Humanity.” Dr. Cans sat back in her chair, taking another sip of her coffee, now lukewarm. Her hand trembled, ever so slightly, and she splayed it flat on the desk in front of her to hide it.

  “The work Dr. Garrison does, he does for the good of humanity, not for profit.”

  “Everyone works for profit,” Anderson disagreed, arrogant in his assessment. “We just haven’t found Dr. Garrison’s asking price yet.”

  “Some men aren’t for sale.”

  They stared at each other, Dr. Cans refusing to be the first to break the stalemate. She may have cemented his hatred of her but if she were reading the situation correctly, she had also planted a small seed of discontent within Mr. Smith for his second-in-command. Dividing them, if ever so slightly, might become an important bargaining chip later if she needed it.

  “Well,” Mr. Smith finally said, and Anderson broke first, turning to his boss with reluctance. “That was an eye-opening exchange.”

  He stood and Anderson followed suit. “Dr. Cans.” He extended his hand and she rose to take it. “I am even more impressed now than I was before. I have no doubt the profile project and, more importantly, our patients, are in the best possible hands. Don’t you agree, Nathan?” He stepped back and Anderson had no choice but to take his place, reaching forward to take her hand in a vice-like grip.

  “She is certainly knowledgeable enough to do what we need,” he managed to reply. “Whether she does or not, though, remains to be seen.”

  “Well said,” Mr. Smith allowed as Anderson released her hand slowly and moved away. Dr. Cans felt the threat in both his words and his actions. She met his eyes so he would understand that she felt no fear. “And to that end, I propose we move this conversation to somewhere a little more informal.”

  “Sir?” she asked, shifting her attention back to Mr. Smith. It was difficult. Mr. Smith might be the ultimate authority, but Nathan Anderson was clearly the more dangerous of the two. It felt like turning her back on a viper.

  “Join me for dinner tomorrow night,” Mr. Smith said. “I have a standing reservation at the Ponte Vecchio. We’ll have dinner and you can tell me your plans for developing the profiling project.”

  She smiled. “I think dinner for two sounds lovely,” she agreed, lowering her voice slightly and glancing at Anderson as she said it, separating him from the pack with ease. He glowered at the knowledge he’d been outmaneuvered. “I’m sure I can find something…appropriate…to wear.”

  The look on Mr. Smith’s face said he certainly hoped so. “The car will be outside your residence at 6:30 sharp.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Wonderful.” He took her hand one more time. “Dr. Cans, it’s been a pleasure. Until tomorrow.”

  “Please,” she insisted, “call me Allison.”

  Chapter 22

  Dr. Cans

  Hand trembling slightly, Dr. Cans managed to pop the top off the bottle of prescription-strength ibuprofen she’d hidden in her desk. The child-proof cap wasn’t easy to open with her hands shaking as badly as they were, but she finally managed and swallowed four pills dry.

  She shouldn’t have let it get this bad. Between all the hours she was putting in at the office and the political warfare she was currently waging with Nathan Anderson, she supposed she was due for a bad one. Thankfully, this was nothing a little caffeine and a slight overdose of painkiller couldn’t handle.

  Dr. Cans sank into her chair, and then sank a little further, easing her shoes off and spinning the chair so she could prop her feet up on the window sill. It was snowing in earnest tonight, the steady drift of the flakes lulling her into a calm she wouldn’t have expected.

  Today had been a mess. Individual therapy had been about what she’d expected, moving slowly but surely, but it certainly wasn’t translating to group therapy. Privately, she was tugging her patients out bit by bit, incorporating the pieces of their lives she’d found in their smuggled out charts and easing them into a comfortable rapport. But in the peer sessions, group mentality still had a firm hold.

  When they were all together, no one was willing to talk or appear to be friendly with her. Not that she’d say they were friendly at the best of times, but she had begun to think she was making some headway. Until they were all together and the lot of them shut down hard.

  Even Miguel, who had always been open with her. But he didn’t want to appear too cooperative in front of the others. Andre and Amy, specifically, could be cruel when they were scared. And that’s what it was - fear. Dr. Cans knew that. Fear was the driving force behind most actions. The RNB patients weren’t special in that regard. But the fear was keeping them from admitting, even tangentially, that there was something different about them. Dr. Cans knew it wasn’t true. Everyone knew it wasn’t true. They wouldn’t be here if their conditions hadn’t been confirmed. Miguel’s documented abilities only solidified the certainty.

  Dr. Cans pushed out with her feet, rotating her chair towards and away from the window absently. At least Miguel seemed better physically if not mentally. Their experiments during his individual sessions had led to some useful breakthroughs and she was hopeful that he would eventually be able to focus his vision enough to be able to see reliably again. She felt certain that she could find some sort of material that could help him filter the spectrum of light he could see, enough that he could function at least on a basic level. His sight would never be normal again, but he could learn to adapt.

  A sound from behind had Dr. Cans dropping her feet and spinning towards the door. It was after 1:00 in the morning. No one except the night g
uard should be in the building and she’d long ago learned to recognize the sound of his steps. Her door knob turned slowly and the door crept open. Dr. Cans stood, tense, until Claire appeared in the dark doorway.

  “Claire,” Dr. Cans said, letting out the breath she’d been holding. “You scared me.”

  Claire was silent, watching her with questioning eyes, and Dr. Cans narrowed her own. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk with you,” she finally said.

  “It can’t wait for office hours?”

  “There are too many eyes and ears during office hours,” she replied and in that moment, Dr. Cans knew she’d been right about Claire. She might have kept her head down, but she was smart. Not much got past Claire.

  “There are supposed to be eyes and ears making sure you’re tucked safely in your rooms, too,” Dr. Cans noted.

  “Those aren’t so hard to avoid when you’ve been here for so long.”

  Silence. Dr. Cans sank back into her chair, swiveling side-to-side, Claire motionless in front of her, assessing, looking for…something. Dr. Cans just didn’t know what.

  Finally, Claire pulled the settee away from Dr. Cans’ desk, angling it so she could see both Dr. Cans and the hallway, and sank down, easing back until she was resting against the back of the chair. The chair was deep enough that she was almost reclining and Dr. Cans noted how tired she looked.

  “How can I help, Claire?” Dr. Cans asked curiously.

  “I need to know what your game is,” she answered bluntly. “Since we’ve been here, we’ve been exposed to exactly two types of attitudes - disinterested or proprietary. Until you showed up.

  “And which category do I fall under?” Dr. Cans asked.

  “Neither,” Claire answered. “Our lab techs, nurses, and guards - they’re all disinterested. Detached. I’m sure that’s how they’ve been trained. They see us as a job and nothing more. The big wigs, though,” she said, “are anything but disinterested.”