Found Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #14): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (4 page)

Using one of the private databases available to the staff, he called up a master list of medical workers in the Bethesda area. To his annoyance, there was no specific category for personnel who had worked at the Hamilton Lab. Taking another approach, he went to a job search board Hamilton had used when he’d been looking for a doctor who had worked with coma patients.

Several people had interviewed for the job, and Hamilton had hired a woman named Lily Wardman who had trained at Johns Hopkins.

She was the most senior staff member after Hamilton. Had she been the one to take over when the researcher’s experiment were involuntarily terminated? Maybe, but he found no specific record of responsibility for the project being transferred to her. Yet he had to think someone had taken over. They wouldn’t just abandon a bunch of half-dead patients, would they? Or maybe they would. That thought sent a chill up his spine, and he had to get up and go to his room where he poured some of the vodka he kept in a dresser drawer into a bathroom glass and took several gulps.

After stewing for a few minutes, he decided there was another way to approach the problem. What was Dr. Wardman doing now?

He went back to the computer, this time focusing on the doctor and not the project. 

Dr. Wardman was currently working for an outfit called Decorah Security. Further digging revealed that they were a private detective agency. So what was a brain doctor doing for them?

He did more checking, but he couldn’t find anything specific.

There was a nice Web page for Decorah Security. It was run by a guy named Frank Decorah, who advertised himself as an ex-Navy SEAL. And his agency had its main place of business in an office park in Beltsville, Maryland, near the USDA Agricultural Research Library, a much less prestigious location than Dr. Hamilton had chosen. It was like he’d deliberately decided to keep a low profile. There was no record of his running a lab experimenting on wigged-out patients. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t doing it. Or maybe he’d shifted from experiments to maintenance.

Next on Carlos’s agenda would be to scout them out.

Lily had planned to bring the new patient, Jonas Corker, into the VR in the morning. But she’d had some last minute details to attend to in his paperwork—and she wanted to have all her i’s dotted and her t’s crossed, unlike her previous boss who had gone to very questionable lengths to acquire subjects for his experiments.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that she was actually ready to proceed with the introduction of Corker into the VR.

Assisted by her head orderly, Terry Montrose, she started with a thorough check of the patient’s physical condition. He’d been working in a warehouse when a large crate had fallen off a high shelf and clipped him on the back of the skull. As a result, he’d suffered considerable brain damage, and the neurological staff at George Washington University Hospital had concluded there was no way he would ever wake up.

Because Lily had sent letters to various area hospitals explaining what Decorah was doing to help comatose patients, the chief of the GW neurology department, a Dr. Lawrence Young had called to say he might have a patient for her.

Corker was divorced with no family, which meant there was no one who could participate in his medical decisions.

She’d accepted the patient on the proviso that if he didn’t work out in the VR, she could send him to a long-term care facility—which would mean he would be no better than a vegetable.

As she looked down at his slack face, she felt her heart squeeze. She’d gotten into this field because of her own sister, Shelly, who’d been previously warehoused as a hopeless case. But now she was in the VR and enjoying a new found lease on her life.

She could never leave, but that didn’t matter to Shelly, and certainly not to Lily. She was just glad her sister was lucky enough to be living in a beautiful environment that provided care and stimulation. And she hoped it could be the same for Corker.

Turning her focus back to him, she said a little prayer for success. Right now he looked so vulnerable and helpless, but she knew from experience that the situation could change dramatically in the VR. And unlike Dr. Hamilton, she’d bring him in and explain the opportunity he’d been given.

Corker was already hooked up to the equipment that would send him into the artificial environment. While she was making the final preparations, she was aware of Mack standing behind her.

Turning, she gave him a reassuring look. “I’ve taken every precaution.”

“But you could still get hurt.”

“In the first place, we’ll be in a virtual reality. In the second place, you’ll be there to make sure I’m okay.”

She could tell from his expression that he still didn’t like the setup, but all he said was, “When are you sending him in?”

“As soon as Grant arrives,” she answered, wanting to get it over with but at the same time a little reluctant to begin, now that the moment of truth had come. She knew from personal experience that this could go terribly wrong, and she had no way of predicting which patients were going to work out and which ones were too damaged to make the leap into the virtual world. Hopefully, she’d learn some way to find out—starting with her observations of this man. Or could she draw any general conclusions from him? It might turn out that each case was different.

Moments later, Grant walked in. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lily answered decisively.

oOo

Lying in her bed in the lab, Jenny Seville breathed out a small sigh of relief. From her eavesdropping, she’d known that Lily was planning to bring the new guy into the VR in the morning, and she’d lain among the other patients, her eyes slitted, watching the activity in the facility. Hooked up to the VR machinery, it had been hard to stay in the real world. She’d kept slipping back into the artificial environment against her will. Then she’d have to send her mind back to her own body all over again. Each time she’d thought she might have missed the transfer of the new patient, and each time nothing had happened with the new man.

Now finally, it looked like it was really going to happen. She tensed her muscles as she watched the preparations.

The staff were all busy with the new guy. Then she saw Terry Montrose start to check the other patients, and she drew in a quick breath. Was he going to screw this up for her?

She let herself drift back, away from the surface. Still she was aware of Montrose stopping to check the readouts on her bed. Apparently he was satisfied because he moved on after only a few minutes.

oOo

While Grant sat down at the desk with the VR monitor, Lily and Mack went into the dressing room and donned the standard medical gowns that the patients were wearing. Then she hooked Mack up to an IV line and put him under.

Watching the monitor over Grant’s shoulder, she saw him wake up in the room she’d prepared off the hotel lobby in the Hotel Mirador. Involuntarily, she glanced back toward the bed in the lab where he was lying. It was always strange to see someone in two places—lying still and silent in a special hospital bed and animated in the artificial environment.

On the screen, he sat up, looked at the monitor and gave her and his brother a thumbs up. She waved back, then walked to Corker’s bed. He was already hooked up to an IV line. All she had to do was send him into the room where Mack was waiting. He arrived on the sofa, still sleeping. And the way she’d set things up, he shouldn’t awaken until she joined him and gave him a stimulant.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling a small jolt of anxiety as she climbed into her own bed. She’d acted confident in front of Mack and Grant, but this was only the second time she’d brought anyone beyond the initial patient population into the VR. The first new inductee had been her sister, Shelly, who had been comatose since an auto accident when she was a child. But technically she’d been in the VR already, brought in by the hacker hired to find a criminal hiding there.  That was the first time she’d been “awake” in years. Now she was living happily in the artificial environment, watched over by a nursemaid who was like the woman behind the desk—only designed with the attributes of a caring nursery school teacher.

“Ready?”

Grant’s voice brought her back to the present.

“Yes.” She looked over at Terry Montrose. As he stepped forward, ready to put her under, she closed her eyes and ordered herself to relax. When she opened them again, she was in the anteroom with Mack and Corker.

             
oOo

Jenny had tried to stay aware of what was going on in the patient facility. Hoping she wasn’t jumping the gun, she opened her eyes fully, blinking in the light from the overhead fluorescents. Turning her head, she could see Grant hovering over the monitor across the room, watching the action in the VR anteroom. The orderly, Terry Montrose, was also facing the screen. Apparently this moment was too compelling for him to take his attention away from the induction process.

Jenny’s heart was pounding now. She’d planned something like this for weeks, trying to think of all the angles. But here was her best chance, and she wasn’t sure she could pull it off.

What if she failed? Would she be any worse off than she was now? 

Could this totally backfire? Like could she kill herself—or set back her recovery for months? Those were legitimate questions, and logically she should have discussed them with Lily, her physician. But she’d been determined to keep Lily and everybody else out of the loop.

Before she could change her mind, she moved her hand, reaching up to detach the IV line hooked to her arm.

She pulled the connection out of the port and waited with her heart pounding. Long seconds passed, and she felt pretty normal, all things considered. Cautiously she pushed herself up and immediately felt light-headed. Easing back down, she waited for a few more minutes, then looked up again. She could see Grant and Terry still staring at the screen, their backs to her. All she could do was pray that they were they both caught up enough in the VR drama so she could get out of here without their being the wiser.

She rocked back and forth in the bed, getting used to the feel of her muscles working. 

Praying she wasn’t going to fall on her face and staying low, she swung her body over the side of the bed and eased down so that she was standing on the floor. It was a shock to feel the cold tiles under her bare feet, and she fought not to cry out. Instinctively, she clamped her hands on the rails and hung on.

She’d been horizontal for so long. Now she was seized by a wave of dizziness as though all the blood was rushing out of her head.

Glancing across the room, she saw the men were still focused on what was happening in the VR.

She wanted to get away before one of them turned around, but if she tried to move fast, she knew she would end up on her face. How much time did she have? There was no way of knowing.

Moving very quietly, she eased to the next bed, and saw Tom Wright lying there, his lips turned up in a grin.

It looked like he was having a good time in the imaginary world Art Landon had created. Turning her head away, she tried not to think about what he was probably doing.

Making sure Grant and Terry were still focused on the screen, she moved to the next bed—heading for the room where Mack and Lily had changed their clothes. There was no way to move quickly, and it seemed to take forever to reach the door. But finally she knew she was out of the men’s sight if one of them happened to turn around. Of course, there was still the danger that Terry would make another sweep through the beds.

Hoping he was too absorbed in the drama unfolding in the VR, Jenny eased along the wall, still unsteady on her feet. She’d planned this escape, but she hadn’t been absolutely sure she had the guts—or the stamina—to do what was necessary.

Breathing hard from the exertion, she sat down on the bench next to the clothes Lily had laid there. After stripping off her hospital gown with a shaky hand, she pulled Lily’s knit top over her head, thankful that the doctor was about her size. Next she pulled on the woman’s slacks and sat panting from the effort. Too bad everything she did seemed to take hours and drain her of energy. Now she understood that when she’d pictured herself walking out of the building, she hadn’t been realistic. But she wasn’t going to wimp out. Either she’d make it out of here, or she’d get caught.

By Grant? When she thought of the way he’d look when he discovered her escape attempt, she felt like the floor was falling away from under her. He’d be confused. Angry. And he’d feel betrayed. She was sure of that. So she’d better not let him catch her.

Unsteadily, she pulled on Lily’s socks and shoes.

Finally dressed, she dragged in a breath and let it out. She had come this far, and she wasn’t going to give up. But she was beginning to think she had to do a couple of things that were going to make her feel even worse than she did now.

Teeth gritted, she looked around the room and spotted a bank of lockers. After tottering over to them, she steadied herself with one hand while she opened doors with the other. She found the one Lily had used.

Before she could change her mind, she took out the other woman’s purse. Rummaging inside she found her keys. She opened more lockers and found a set of men’s clothes. Mack’s she hoped.

Why was it better to steal from him than from Terry Montrose? she asked herself as she opened his wallet.

He had what looked like $250 in cash. Not a lot, but maybe enough.

If she hadn’t been desperate, she might have been disgusted by her actions. She justified her behavior by telling herself that she was doing everyone a favor by disappearing because they didn’t know what they’d gotten themselves into by accepting her as a patient.

Even if she stole from Mack and Lily, that was better than their getting shot by the men she was sure were looking for her.

She flipped open Lily’s wallet and went very still as she stared at a picture of Grant with that crooked smile she had come to love.

No, not Grant, she reminded herself. It was Mack, his twin brother. It was tempting to take the picture anyway. A reminder of the man who had made love with her yesterday, the man she loved, she admitted as she felt her heart squeeze inside her chest.

But the picture wasn’t Grant, and she left it in the plastic sleeve. Instead she slipped Lily’s ID from her wallet and put it back in the purse, along with Mack’s money.  She left Lily’s wallet on the bench. The ID and the purse were enough.

As she prepared to leave, she caught a glance at herself in the mirror near the door and went very still. In the VR she’d been the picture of vitality. The woman who stared back at her now looked pale and unhealthy, with deep circles under her eyes and hair that needed a good washing.

But what did she expect? She’d been lying in a modified hospital bed for months, shut away from the sun. She was just damn lucky that the bed was specially designed to keep her body in reasonable shape. If not, she would have gotten up and fallen flat on her face.

With a grimace, she tried to center herself, then looked out again at the men, who were still glued to the monitor—watching whatever compelling scene was playing out in the VR.

Hoping she was as invisible to them as a ghost, she slid along the wall, heading for the exit to the patient area.