Burning Bridges (Shattered Highways Book 2)

by Tara N Hathcock

  “I don’t know if I can. Not really. But I can try.” Andre absently began running his hands up and down his arms, pressing lightly when he came to his shoulders. “It hurts all the time. Not like body or muscle aches. I was an athlete. I know all about that kind of pain.”

  He cracked his neck, attempting to ease some of the tension. This was a side of Andre that he had kept carefully concealed, not just from her but from the other patients, as well. That he was finally showing her was either very encouraging…or very concerning.

  “This is different. This is a constant pain, like a throbbing, stabbing tingle through my entire body. Up my arms, down my legs, through my chest and stomach. It gets so tense that my shoulders and neck feel like they could lock up.”

  For a former college athlete and construction foreman to complain of pain, it must be intense.

  “They feel like they could lock up, or they do lock up?” Dr. Cans asked. There was a difference, but he might not realize it until he was called on it.

  “I power through,” he said. “I always power through.”

  Andre came to a stop. He had paced around her office and found himself behind her massive oak desk, looking out of the window. He leaned forward until his forehead was resting against the thick inner pane. The heat pouring off him was enough to fog the glass and condensation began to slowly slip down the window.

  “Sometimes,” he said quietly, “I find ways to cause pain in one spot, just to water down the pain everywhere else.”

  Dr. Cans shifted subtly in her chair. She hadn’t expected to hear that, and she didn’t like the sound of exhaustion in his voice. The rage was better. It kept him up, moving, fighting. Exhaustion led to things she didn’t like to consider.

  “How did you deal with the pain before coming here?” she asked. Maybe she could find another outlet for the pain.

  “My job,” he said simply. “Construction is a hard business. You don’t have to go looking for pain there.”

  She nodded. That made sense. “You coach football, too. Play a little now and again. I imagine that helps?”

  He nodded. “When I’m running or blocking, my mind can finally relax and the pain, well, it doesn’t go away. Not really. But it does fade into the background. It gives me just enough distance to forget about it for a little while.”

  “Like the way some people run as a diversion,” Dr. Cans mused, almost to herself.

  Yes, that made perfect sense. The boost in adrenaline Andre would get from a physically competitive game or walking a high-rise at work would be enough to trick his mind into, if not forgetting, then accepting the unnatural pain that came from RNB.

  “Andre,” she said, waiting until he looked at her before she continued. “What happens when something you do causes terrible pain?”

  “You mean something like slamming a heavy door against my hand or smashing my face against the metal frame of my bed?”

  “Sure. Something like that,” she answered, turning and writing…absolutely nothing on her notepad. How was she supposed to record something like that? Besides, she wasn’t likely to forget he said it.

  He wandered back around to his chair and slid down into it. “Nothing, really. My head gets a little fuzzy for a couple of seconds and then, when it clears, I’m able to function for a little while.”

  “You’re able to function?” She tapped her pen against her empty pad of paper. “So, slamming your hand inside one of our industrial doors doesn’t keep you from using your hand?”

  “No,” he confirmed. “If anything, it makes it a little easier. For awhile, anyway.”

  “And what about at work?” Dr. Cans pressed. “Have you ever, say, broken a bone and continued to work, like the injury wasn’t there at all?”

  He finally looked interested. “How did you know that?”

  “That would be a ‘yes’, then?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded his head. “A new employee dropped a chunk of concrete on me from two stories up once. Hit me in the shoulder.” His hand moved absently up to his left shoulder and rubbed. “My head did that fuzzy thing it does and when it cleared up, I finished the job. The other guys wanted me to go get an x-ray, but I didn’t see the point. My shoulder was working fine.”

  “But eventually, you had it checked out?”

  “This was before I owned my own crew. My boss insisted. Said he didn’t want any lawsuits after the fact.” Andre grinned. “He was a corporate guy, not a crew guy.” As though that explained what was a completely reasonable precaution.

  “Fractured clavicle and scapula,” he confirmed. “It wasn’t really a big deal, though. Neither of those bones are weight-bearing.”

  Dr. Cans looked at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  “I’m not just a jock and an uneducated construction worker,” he said, insulted. “I know most people think that when they look at me, but I played football for Loyola. And you don’t play sports for a Catholic college without getting the degree that goes with it.”

  “Touché,” she said with a smile. So Andre had a decent grasp of anatomy. That should make understanding his condition easier for him. Or harder. If he knew how the injury had affected his brain, and he knew what RNB was manipulating to keep him alive, he might dig his heels in even further. Although, she suspected his previous refusal to consider the condition had more to do with his state of mind than the anatomy inside it. Deniability was key. You could only ignore something if you refused to acknowledge it. Once you acknowledge it, there was no going back.

  “So, can you fix it?” he asked, his appeal plaintive and, frankly, just sad. “I need to know if you can fix it.”

  “The pain?” she asked, not surprised at the direction their conversation was going. He was in constant pain. Of course he wanted to fix it. She wished it was that simple.

  “Andre,” she said, leaning forward and locking eyes with him once more so he would understand how important this was. “There’s nothing to fix.”

  “What do you mean, there’s nothing to fix?!” He exploded out of the chair, towering over her and forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. His fists balled and he leaned forward as well. “Did you not understand what I said? It hurts. All the time. There’s no getting away from it.”

  He shoved his hands over his head, grabbing the hair that had grown in over the last year of captivity. “I can’t sleep. The pain keeps me up at night. Medication doesn’t touch it. I should know. I’ve tried them all.”

  Dr. Cans surreptitiously wrote drug dependence in her notes. At least she’d have something to take back after this session.

  “I just want it to stop. I need it to stop.” He sank back into the chair, exhausted, and buried his face in his hands. “I need to quit hearing this voice, telling me the only way to make it stop is to stop everything. I need to sleep and I need the pain to go away. That’s what I need.”

  So, Andre did hear a voice. That implied the others did, too. She’d wondered but had never been able to confirm it. Dr. Cans scooted her chair forward slowly, just enough that she could reach out and lay her hand on Andre’s knee.

  “Andre,” she said, waiting until he looked up at her through his fingers. “That voice is lying to you.”

  “How do you know?” he whispered. He sounded like a ghost. Like he was already gone.

  “Because depression is your brain’s way of handling the constant strain your body is under. You can’t sleep as little as you do, and you can’t battle constant pain, without manifesting side effects. The voice is just one of the consequences of surviving the accident.”

  “Yeah, I survived.” Andre sat up, breaking the connection between them. “I survived the accident, and I survived the pain, and now I’m here. What’s left to survive for?”

  Dr. Cans opened her mouth to say … something. Something that would help. But really, what was there to say? That he should fight because of his family? He didn’t have one. That he should survive for his career and his employees? He alrea
dy knew Rhinehardt wasn’t intending to let him go.

  So instead, she rose to her feet. “Come on,” she said, tossing the notepad to the desk behind her and holding out a hand. “I want to try something.”

  Andre eyed her hand with suspicion. “What exactly do you want to try?”

  “You’re an athlete, right? Well, we have a weight room one building over, and I want you to try something for me.”

  “One building over?” He scoffed. “That’s one building too far for someone like me,” he reminded her. But he couldn’t cover the brief spark of excitement that flashed through his eyes, so that was something.

  “Oh, I think you underestimate me,” Dr. Cans said, smiling brightly. “This is part of your treatment plan. The company would never deny that.”

  She turned on her heel, not at all sure Andre would follow. She made it all the way to the door before she felt movement behind her but finally, there it was. He was following. Maybe she could give him something to fight for, after all.

  Chapter 36

  Quincy

  “Okay, so in the four cases we know about, I narrowed the time frame to a two-hour window surrounding the kidnapping and a 10-mile radius.”

  “That’s a pretty tight frame,” Logan remarked.

  “I know. I figured I could always expand it if I needed to, but I didn’t. In Amy Madison’s case, there were four rental cars on traffic cameras leaving the area within the two-hour time limit, all heading in different directions.”

  Quincy pulled the file on Andre Michaels out next. “In the Michaels case, there were 20 rentals. I know,” she said, cutting Logan off. “That’s a lot to track, but Andre Michaels lived in a much larger metropolitan area than Amy Madison’s suburban location. It’s still doable.”

  He looked skeptical so she decided to keep going. “Claire Montgomery. Snatched from Orlando International after a month-long tour of Europe, en route to her home in Boca. Not as many rentals as you would think. Most of the residents either have their own vehicles or use the much more popular rideshare options. There were only seven rental cars in the area during the two-hour window.”

  “Question,” Logan interrupted. “If Claire was using her own car or a rideshare, why would she willingly get into a rental car?”

  “She didn’t have a car at the airport,” Quincy answered. “I checked. Best I can figure, she ordered a rideshare, not knowing it was actually a rental car when it showed up.” The rideshare apps weren’t that hard to hack. She knew. She’d tried it.

  “What about families of the residents?” Dave asked. “Out-of-towners. They could choose to rent to make the drive for a visit.”

  “They could, but they didn’t.” Quincy pulled out her list of the seven rentals she’d traced around Claire Montgomery. “Not one of the seven traced back to a family member of a local Florida resident.”

  “You managed to trace the rental registrations?” Logan asked in surprise.

  Quincy shrugged, knowing where he was going with the question. “Other than eliminating possible family connections, I think it’s a dead end. None of the rentals have been issued to similar identities, businesses, or areas. Whoever is making the grabs, they’re doing it under false identities with no ties to each other.”

  Logan rolled his neck, annoyed. Quincy jumped as his tension eased out with a loud snap, crackle, and pop.

  “I guess that kind of slip was too much to hope for.”

  Quincy smiled. “And then we have Miguel Alvarez, whose big rig was found abandoned on the side of an interstate outside of Sedona.”

  Dave broke in. “If his truck was found on the side of the road, how did you narrow down a time frame to trace?” he asked.

  “I didn’t,” Quincy smiled, eager to share this one. “There was no need. The closest traffic cams to his truck were a hundred miles each way. Assuming Miguel was picked up overnight, which would be the most likely, I watched the footage on the two closest cameras from the time Miguel’s truck was seen leaving a truck stop in Sedona at midnight to around 7 a.m. Would anyone care to guess how many rental cars passed through during that time?” she asked with a grin.

  Logan matched her with a smile of his own. “I’m thinking just the one.”

  “Where did that one rental car turn itself in?” Dave asked curiously.

  “Finding where each car was returned was tougher,” she admitted. “They were all rented through different companies. So I cross-referenced the directional patterns from Amy’s four cars, Andre’s 20, and Claire’s seven with the directional pattern for Miguel’s one and got a match from exactly one car out of each grouping.”

  “How did -” Dave started to ask but Logan cut him off. “Read a book on pattern building, by chance?” he asked sarcastically.

  “Class in statistics, actually,” Quincy said. “Back in Boise.”

  “And who’s our winner?”

  Quincy grinned up at Logan, who was leaning forward on the couch, elbows propped up on his knees. “Milwaukee.”

  “Milwaukee,” Dave mused, leaning back against the cushions. “Large city, big industry. Makes sense, I suppose, to headquarter there.”

  “Once I had the city, finding the returned cars wasn’t so hard. Like I said, they were rented out from a variety of chains. There was one from Enterprise, one from Avis, and two from Hertz. Each car was returned to locations within a nine-mile radius of each other.”

  “So you’re thinking the company is somewhere inside those nine miles,” Dave guessed.

  Quincy pushed all of the files she’d developed on the patients that they knew about out of the way and unfolded the map of Milwaukee proper she’d printed off and blown up.

  “Actually,” she said, “I don’t.” Quincy had drawn out each of the rental car companies on the map and connected them with red marker, marking the nine-mile area between them. She’d also put a mark on each of the businesses inside the area large enough to hold the company.

  “Each of these businesses could potentially be a front for the company. But even just a cursory glance was enough to tell me that none of them are large enough”

  Dave nodded his head. “The front business is one thing. That could easily be housed in a street-front building or in an office complex. But the scope of research the company would be doing would require more.”

  Quincy smiled. “Yes it would.” She glanced back down at her map. “It would require more. And here,” she pointed to an open spot on the map, just outside the boundary line between the rental car companies, “is where we find the more that they would need.”

  Quincy grabbed the yellow highlighter she had rolled up in the files for just this moment and traced a large star around the area in question.

  Dave and Logan leaned over to take a closer look.

  “What are we looking at?” asked Logan. She could see the military tactician coming to the forefront as he looked at the open space in front of him.

  “That,” Quincy said smugly, “is a corporate retreat complex used by prestigious, white collar corporations and organizations for annual shareholder meetings, leadership seminars, and employee picnics. Officially, that is.”

  “What do you mean, officially?” Logan asked, curious.

  “I mean, records for the property show reservations for various, big-name companies renting out the facilities for days, weeks, and even months. Bank deposits and financial audits list deposits from those companies coinciding with reservations and fees.”

  “You’re thinking the company is using this retreat as a front to disguise the full-time use of its facilities.”

  “And whitewash its dirty money. Yeah,” Quincy said. “I am.”

  “What kind of facilities are on the grounds?” Dave asked, interrupting Logan’s next thought.

  “That’s the best part.” Quincy shifted through the growing pile of papers in front of her until she pulled out the list she was looking for.

  “According to their website, Rhinehart Collaborative Retreat has c
ommon space within the main building, including canteen services, meeting spaces, and corporate offices. On the grounds themselves, they provide housing in the form of two apartment buildings, an on-site and fully-staffed medical clinic, and three separate, top-tiered gym facilities.” Quincy shook her head in awe. “They have steam rooms and an Olympic-sized pool, for crying out loud.”

  “Spare no expense,” Dave said wryly. “Sounds about right.”

  “What are these, here?” Logan asked, pointing to a line of what looked like vegetation.

  Quincy peered down at the map. “Green space mostly.” She looked back over her notes. “A running trail cuts through the trees there,” she said, tracing her finger along the line, “and there should be a service entrance near this edge here.” She shrugged. “But mostly, green space.”

  “Green space that butts up against the edge of a national forest preserve,” Logan pointed out. “Could be useful.”

  “Make your own list.” Quincy tugged hers away from his giant hands. “You could call it Siege and Strategy.”

  “Maybe I will,” he said lightly. “Someone’s going to have to, if we’re planning to do anything with this intel.”

  “So,” Quincy hesitated, “you agree? You think this is the company?” She thought so, but this was still pretty new to her. Plus, the danger that existed in actually going after the company…it was a lot to ask of anyone.

  Who are you to ask anyone to die?

  Quincy shook her head. She wasn’t asking anyone to die for her. They had brought her here, not the other way around. Logan had invited her into this mission, she was just pushing it forward.

  Are you sure you can?

  Logan and Dave exchanged a loaded look before Dave turned back to her. “I do,” he said, finally confirming her hopes and fears. “I think, in the space of one week, you’ve managed to find the company when Logan and I have been looking for years.”

  They were all silent a moment, letting the implications sink in.