Elixir

by Charles Atkins

  He went down to IT and touched base with Gabe Duncan, the expert who’d scoured Atlas’s hard drive.

  ‘Nothing was copied, nothing deleted. No fingerprints other than his, but …’

  ‘But what, Gabe?’

  ‘Around the time of death there was online activity.’

  ‘He was writing an email to Frank Garfield. We’ve been over this.’

  ‘Yeah, and so it’s probably nothing, but the email was never sent and it was opened a second time.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, usually when people save an email they’re still working on it, right? If you open it again you’re either going to edit it or send it, or probably both. In this case it was neither. People don’t realize but that’s less than a two-percent scenario, that you reopen and don’t do something with it.’

  ‘This has been studied?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Oh yeah, email, IM, texting behavior, Facebook, Instagram, tweeting, SnapChat, it’s a whole social cyber sub-specialty.’

  ‘For the two percent who reopen and don’t send and/or edit what are they doing?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Exactly. And in this case. Who’s doing it?’

  ‘And what’s going through their head?’ Sean added, as he tried to picture the dead junkie and couldn’t. ‘They want to see more.’

  ‘But know they shouldn’t,’ Gabe added, ‘because they’re smart enough to know that every keystroke leaves a trail of metadata.’

  ‘Or maybe Jackson was going to edit it and that’s when he got shot. You found nothing else?’

  ‘Other than Professor Atlas had trust issues.’

  ‘Based on …?’

  ‘Sophisticated encryption. He browsed the dark-net, and knew how to properly delete files. Almost no one does.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Gabe asked.

  ‘You ever have the feeling that you’re being played with?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In the way I can close this case now and it’ll stay closed. Or, I decide that everything on the surface is bullshit, in which case this isn’t a single murder, but somebody set up a junkie to look like a murderer and then fed him some bad dope. In which case, it’s a double homicide.’

  ‘Occam’s razor,’ Gabe replied. ‘Ninety-nine percent of the time the simple answer is the right one.’

  ‘And one percent of the time it’s not.’

  ‘You have an alternative motive to cash for drugs?’

  Sean shook his head, as the crazy possibilities of Frank’s work hit home. ‘How’s this … what if I told you I could let you live an extra hundred years … good years. What’s that worth?’

  ‘If it’s not bullshit the question is more like, what isn’t it worth? You’re talking holy grail stuff. You think something in Atlas’s research got him killed?’

  ‘Not his.’ Fuck. The queasy feeling surged. ‘I got to go.’ He left Gabe’s office and called Frank. Dead junkie was so much better.

  ‘Sean.’

  ‘Hey Frank. You got a minute?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The Langs. When’s the first time you met either one of them?’

  Long seconds passed.

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘I’m here. Just needed to think a bit. It’s weird, with all that’s happened you’d think it would be a long time ago. But it’s three weeks. Dalton approached me after … my therapy session.’

  Therapy? Great. More I don’t know. ‘Nothing before?’

  ‘Not that I remember and—’

  ‘You’ve got a photographic memory.’

  ‘Not for everything, but yeah.’

  ‘Clearly they’ve been tracking you and your research for a while.’

  ‘Yeah. They knew a lot about me and—’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘A lot about Jackson. Which considering the history between him and Leona adds a layer. I still don’t understand it.’

  ‘The man was a man, Frank. We’ve all got clay feet.’

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘I do, and hopefully you stick round long enough to see them.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, Sean.’

  ‘Good to know. So how long, based on what they’ve told you, do you think they’ve been watching you and your work?’

  ‘I’d not thought about it like that. Figured Leona read my recent articles on telomere stabilization and went from there with literature searches and whatever else they did … to figure out where I’d be at two o’clock on a Tuesday.’

  ‘That takes more than a Google search.’

  Silence.

  ‘Frank? You still there?’

  ‘Something clicked. The night they had me to dinner at the Taj, Dalton knew about the kids at St Mary’s.’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me, you’re a pediatric oncologist.’

  ‘He knew specifics, names, diagnoses. That’s protected health information.’

  ‘Still not surprised. They dug. And they used your compassion for those kids to reel you in.’

  ‘Great, so now I’m a fish … something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something happened after that dinner. I didn’t tell you about it, because, it’s kind of embarrassing.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I went for a walk and got propositioned, nearly mugged, and nearly arrested.’

  ‘A full evening. Dalton figures into this, how?’

  ‘He followed me, and talked the cop out of arresting me. But he said something about having me under surveillance for six weeks, and his mother having followed my work much longer. But what does that mean? I took it as watched from a distance, or like the way you follow a musician or baseball team.’

  ‘You said he followed you from the restaurant, and the first time he approached you he obviously knew where you’d be.’

  ‘I’ve got another call coming in.’ Frank sounded tense. ‘Not good.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Sean asked.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘I can’t. Shit.’ The line clicked dead.

  Sean’s Monday morning tingles had morphed into gut-churning dread. The one-percent chance that Jackson’s murder was not as it appeared, swelled. He pictured the Langs. Brilliant, ambitious, how far would they go? He thought of the kids and their families, Grace, but mostly, Frank. It’s not one percent. And someone, or ones, cold-blooded enough to commit a double murder to get access to Frank’s holy grail won’t stop until they get it.

  His thoughts raced as that scenario grew. What came next sent him flying out the door and out to his car. Once they have what they want, their holy grail, what then? The answer was obvious and horrific. Eliminate anyone and everyone who knows about it.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘I can’t. Shit.’ Frank stared at the number on his cell. NY State Croton Hospital. A sick dread flooded him as he answered it.

  ‘Dr Garfield, this is Dr Harris, your mother’s psychiatrist, I’m here with Melanie Strong, Croton’s CEO, Jasper Tate your mother’s therapist, and FBI agents Clarke and Jones. I need to inform you that at around four a.m. this morning your mother escaped.’

  Frank swallowed. ‘How?’ he calculated the distance from Croton New York to where he currently stood in UNICO’s Hollow Hills lab with its expansive windows, high-tech security, and acres of electrified fence. ‘How?’ he repeated.

  ‘She complained of chest pain around midnight and was transported to Westchester Memorial.’

  He was incredulous. ‘She faked it.’

  Dr Harris continued. ‘She killed the guard who escorted her.’

  A man’s voice came on. ‘Dr Garfield, this is agent Jones with the FBI. Where do you think your mother will go?’

  ‘To find me and to kill me. You didn’t need me to tell you that. Everyone who works with her knows that’s what motivates her. Did Dr Harris tell you about her last attempt? That at her bi-annual review she scratche
d me and two of the guards.’

  ‘I don’t see how a scratch—’ the agent started to say.

  Frank spoke over him. ‘She’d smeared her nailbeds with e-coli, probably from her feces, and methicillin resistant staph aureus, likely from another patient. It was premeditated and showed how she’s run circles around the Croton staff for years.’ His head spun. He had to warn Grace. He needed to call Sean and tell him to stay away. And what am I supposed to tell him, having not yet had the discussion about his family other than to lie that his parents had both died when he was young?

  ‘We can keep you in a safe location until she’s apprehended,’ the agent said.

  ‘That won’t help. You need to understand my mother. Yes, she’s psychotic, but with a genius IQ. She won’t stop until she finds me, and finishes what she started when I was eight.’ He paused. ‘She’ll know where I am because someone at Croton will have told her. That’s how she got my Somerville address. Am I wrong, Dr Harris?’

  ‘Staff were warned not to—’

  ‘Yeah, and we saw how well that worked. And the two guards she scratched?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say.’

  ‘Even after I warned you.’

  Harris did not respond.

  The agent shot more questions and tried to sell the safe house idea. He told Frank there’d be a team of agents on site within twenty minutes.

  ‘I got to go,’ Frank said. He looked from the files of data he’d just analyzed out to rolling green hills and a vivid spring day. A cold sweat prickled the back of his neck. She could be here already. I’m a sitting duck … His words echoed. ‘Psychotic with a genius IQ.’ Brutal scenes from his childhood played. His mother’s crazed insistence that he was the son of Satan. I’ve got to get to Grace. To Sean. The children … their families No one is safe.

  Still in his white coat, with a stethoscope popping out of one pocket, and an iPad and hand-written journal in the other, he ran towards the elevators. The building’s glass walls taunted him. Like a giant fishbowl. Even the elevator was transparent. He passed the guard at the front desk. I should warn him. But he didn’t. It’s me she wants. It’s always been me. Dr Harris’s blunt report, ‘She killed the guard who escorted her.’

  Outside, he locked himself in the Element and braced for a phone call he dreaded. He dialed Sean. He tried to play through how he’d tell the man he loved, and how did that happen? that not only had he lied about his parents and his entire existence, but that his mother was a psychotic killer whose sole motivation was to murder him.

  His pulse raced as he dialed and waited. It went to voice mail. ‘Call me, it’s important,’ was all he managed. His anxiety ratcheted higher. What if she’s already there? What if …? ‘Don’t come to see me, Sean. I can’t explain. But it’s not safe.’ He hung up.

  He dialed Grace.

  There was no answer.

  He tried again.

  Nothing.

  He left multiple voice and text messages. Why isn’t she picking up?

  Where will she go first? My house. He thought of his duo of frisky rats. She’d kill them just for the hell of it. Shit. He dialed Dalton Lang’s cell. He picked up on the second ring.

  ‘We have a problem,’ Frank said.

  ‘I’m aware,’ Dalton said. ‘Your mother. You think she’ll come here.’

  Frank thought of his earlier conversation with Sean. Of course Dalton knew about his mother. Now was not the time to contemplate how much, how long, and how closely, the Langs had watched him. ‘Yes. She’ll go wherever she thinks she can get to me.’

  ‘OK. I’ve informed security, but I hear it in your voice, Frank. That’s not going to be enough.’

  ‘She killed a hospital guard early this morning. The FBI offered to put me in a safe house. But they don’t understand her. No one near me is safe.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re safest where you are. I’ll triple the security force. Stay put, Frank.’

  ‘Right. Good advice. The kids, their families, you have to warn the staff. You don’t know what she’s capable of.’

  ‘Understood; I’m on it, Frank. We’ll lock down the facility, escort all unessential employees to their homes. Whatever is needed.’

  Not reassured, he hung up. People are going to die. He thought of his father. Images of him were hard to conjure. I have to get away from here. She’ll go where I go.

  In his car, his thoughts focused on Candace. He knew her better than anyone. The children. But how could she know about them? About any of this. His rational mind argued that there was no way she could know his location, or what he was doing. ‘Psychotic with a genius IQ. She’ll go for Grace. Or she’ll go for the children. That’s how she’ll get to me.’

  He felt disoriented and exposed. He glanced at the clock. Eleven-twelve a.m., Monday morning. By general decree the kids had voted to return to the animal farm. Open and exposed they’d make easy targets.

  He felt the venom of his mother’s delusions, as clear as if she were next to him. I abjure thee Satan. He put the Element in drive and sped towards the Crestview Farm and Petting Zoo. Get to the kids, get them safe. Decades of nightmares and flashbacks made it feel both unreal and familiar. Not a dream. She’s come to kill you. The murdered guard a gruesome reminder that anyone between her and him was in imminent and mortal jeopardy.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Dalton got off the phone with Frank. Candace Garfield’s escape was bizarre. Yes, he thought, people escape from mental hospitals. But as part of his surveillance of Frank Garfield, he’d taken a field trip to Croton Forensic. Had gotten inside by pretending to be a UNICO drug rep, with free goodies for the medical staff. He’d then charmed a young female doctor and a social worker into taking him on a tour of the facility. He’d separated the social worker from the doctor, told her of his fascination for insane female murderers and asked to meet Candace. She resisted at first. So many rules would be broken. She could get fired. He understood, he commiserated. He took out his wallet and peeled off hundreds, one after the other. He smiled and held her gaze, he’d gauged the interest in her eyes, and fed her possibilities of more … not just money. ‘Maybe we could meet for a drink sometime.’

  It was that same, well-compensated social worker, who had called him at five a.m. with the news of Candace’s murderous escape. ‘If anyone finds out I’ve leaked patient information,’ she’d said. ‘This is such a HIPAA violation.’

  ‘Not to worry. If you hear anything else, anything at all, call me, and five a.m. is just fine.’

  Now, he looked out the French windows of his rental cottage on the rolling grounds of Litchfield’s Inn at Merryvale. He had near total privacy, his nearest neighbors in equally scenic one and two-story Colonial-style luxury condos hidden by dense copses of trees and well-tended acreage.

  Poor Frank. He checked the time on his phone. She could be anywhere. But, the escape rankled. It was complex and premeditated. He knew Candace Garfield was highly intelligent and from the episode where she’d attempted to kill Frank with flesh-eating bacteria, she could both plan and act. But but but. And they waited hours to tell him. Sloppy. But but but. Can this be a coincidence? Candace Garfield was not the only woman he knew capable of meditated murder.

  He dialed his mother.

  ‘Dalton.’

  Like a connoisseur with a fine Bordeaux, he let her voice, which he could mimic perfectly, swirl inside his head. He listened for subtleties of tone and intonation. ‘Did you hear?’ he asked.

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’

  Useless. If she knew, she wasn’t telling. And, if she were responsible, for whatever reason, she’d chosen to keep it from him. Two can play. ‘Frank’s mother escaped from the forensic hospital. She killed a guard.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Early this morning.’

  ‘Interesting. You notified security?’

  ‘Of course.’ His phone buzzed. ‘H
old on, it’s them.’ He switched to the head of security.

  ‘Mr Lang.’

  ‘Yes, George.’

  ‘You told me to tell you if Dr Garfield left. I tried to stop him, but he was insistent he had to go. I didn’t think I could go any further.’

  And the games begin. ‘Of course not. Did he say where he was going?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Moron. ‘Did you call the gate-house to at least see which direction he’d gone?’

  ‘No, I’ll do that now.’

  ‘Good. Then call me.’ He switched back to Mother. ‘Frank just bolted. I told him to stay put.’

  ‘He knows she’s out. You told him?’

  ‘Not me.’ She thinks I’m an idiot. ‘The hospital contacted him. He’s freaking. This place will be swarming with federal agents.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘How so?’ He clicked open his briefcase and checked his shiny new Glock, the same model used to kill Atlas. Unconvinced that she hadn’t orchestrated Candace’s escape.

  ‘She could be our catalyst.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ He pocketed his keys.

  ‘An agent that brings about reactions without being changed. Candace Garfield is a constant. But she brings change. You do see there’s an opportunity here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The only caution is we’ve two copies of the telomere formula. Frank and Grace. Until I have it, one must survive, preferably Frank.’

  ‘Why would either one of them give it up now?’ he asked. And what is keeping that fucking guard?

  ‘The children, of course. It’s always been for the children. He has to know that with a threat of this magnitude it would be wrong to withhold the formula in case …’

  ‘He’s killed. How do you propose we manage this catalyst? Seems like she’s an unstable quantity.’

  ‘Not at all. She’s singular in her goal. Kill Frank, he’s the son of Satan. It’s a simple equation.’

  ‘And once we have the formula … It would certainly be tidy.’

  ‘Yes, so our objective is just as clear as hers. The trick is the timing. We have to keep her from Frank until we have the process. Then …’