Found Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #14): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (5 page)

In the VR, Lily looked from Corker to Mack and back again, giving herself a few minutes to get comfortable in the artificial setting.

Mack pressed his shoulder against hers. “You remember the first time we woke up here?”

She winced. “Yes, Hamilton sent me in here to lie to you—and all the other patients. And he didn’t even give me a very convincing script. You knew there was something weird about me.”

“That’s not what I was thinking about.”

“I know. But when I think about that first day, I feel ashamed.”

“Your behavior wasn’t your decision. You were obeying instructions from your superior not to reveal where we really were.”

“Yes, And now he’s gone, I’m running the show, and I’m going to be up front with Jonas Corker.”

Getting up, she went to the desk, opened a side drawer, and took out a hypodermic. It seemed like a strange thing to do in a virtual environment, yet after reevaluating the needs of the patients and also any staff who went inside, she’d created some safeguards. They’d set the place up to be as real as possible. And that meant having a way to wake up patients in the artificial environment and sedate them if necessary.

After checking the label on the hypodermic, she crossed the room, knelt by Corker and gave him an injection in the forearm.

Tension sizzled through her as she waited for what would happen next.

“Is something wrong?” Mack whispered.

“I hope not. I haven’t done this before, and it could take a little while,” she added.

As she watched, Corker’s facial muscles twitched. Then his eyelids fluttered. After several more seconds his eyes snapped open. At first his vision looked like it was directed inward. Then he focused on her as though trying to figure out if he had seen her before.

His lips moved, but no sound came out.

When he turned his head away, she put her hand on his shoulder, and he jumped like someone had touched him with a hot poker.

Quickly she pulled her hand back. “Jonas.”

His head twisted back toward her, his expression wary. “Do I know you?”

“No. We just met. I’m Lily Wardman,” she answered. She could have said, “Dr. Wardman,” but she’d made the split-second decision not to make him worry about that immediately. So much for full disclosure.

“Where am I?” he asked in a thick voice, his eyes darting around the small room, then back to her.

“Somewhere safe.”

He looked like he didn’t believe her.

As she gave him a little more space, he made a moaning sound. “The boxes. I saw the boxes falling. I felt . . .” His voice trailed off.

“It’s okay. You’re safe,” she repeated.

“I don’t think so.”

He pushed himself up, keeping his gaze on her as though he was prepared for some kind of unexpected—and dangerous—move on her part. When she stayed still, trying to project a nonthreatening aura, his focus shifted to Mack.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Mack Bradley.”

“Are you a security guard?”

Mack looked to Lily, and she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“I’m Lily’s husband,” he said.

“Oh yeah. Well I can tell from your expressions there’s something fishy going on. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing. You need to know what happened and where you are now.”

“I know where I’m am,” Corker shot back. “I’m in hell, and you’re trying to get me to relax so you can torture me.”

“No. Of course not.”

“I’m dead.”

“No.”

Ignoring her reassurance, he plowed on, “I know all those heavy boxes hit me. And you can’t fool me. I know where I ended up.”

“You’re not dead, and you’re not in hell,” Lily said in a voice that she hoped was reassuring.

Corker sat up, glancing around the small room as though he was looking for an escape route.

“We’re here to help you,” Lily said, glad that she had thought to prepare this room, “You were injured, and you’re . . . better.”

“You’re lying.”

At that moment, the door flew open, and Shelly burst into what was supposed to be a private encounter. The little girl had a gleeful expression on her face as she ran toward Lily.

“See, Anna was right. You’re here. She told me you were here.”

Lily felt her face go rigid with shock. Obviously the computer program knew that she was coming with a new patient, but she hadn’t expected her sister to find out about it and rush to see her. Behind her, she could see Anna, the simulated nursemaid who kept the rambunctious child from getting into too much trouble.

Before Lily could react, the man on the couch leaped up. “Demon,” he shouted as he launched himself at the little girl.

“No,” Lily screamed as she leaped into his path, trying to block him.                                                                     

Mack jumped up as well, putting himself between Lily, Shelly and the maddened patient. The guy came out swinging and hit him in the chest.

Trying to keep from getting socked in the jaw, Mack shoved the guy away. He bounced back, colliding with Lily, who came down hard on the floor, banging her back painfully against the edge of the sofa. For long moments, she lay stunned.

The scene of chaos gave the new patient an opening. Pushing himself up, he shoved Mack out of the way and made for the door again. The frantic series of attacks and responses might have been a scene from an action comedy movie, except that none of it was funny.

“Anna, take Shelly out of here,” Lily cried out as Mack grabbed for Corker.

             
oOo
             

In the lab, Jenny heard Grant make a startled sound. Something was happening, but she couldn’t see what it was because Terry Montrose had crowded in closer, their bodies blocking her view of the monitor.

Obviously things weren’t going the way anybody had expected.

“Mack, what do you need?” Grant called out.

Jenny didn’t stay to hear the answer. Thinking that she couldn’t have arranged things better if she’d tried, she slipped along the wall, then out into the reception area.

She felt a pang of worry—and guilt. Lily and Mack must be in trouble, but it was only in the VR, she reminded herself. Nothing permanent could happen to them there, could it?

From what Lily had told the patients, Jenny knew Dr. Hamilton’s original lab was in a fancy office building in Bethesda. Grant had said they’d been moved to a much more modest facility in an industrial park between Baltimore and Washington.

The lobby was pretty small. She stuck close to the wall, using it to keep herself steady as she approached a security desk.

To her relief, it was unmanned, because security was lighter here than at Hamilton’s facility. Mack had gone into the VR with Lily, and Grant had stationed himself where he could monitor the situation. Now they were both busy with whatever emergency Lily had encountered when she’d tried to introduce the new guy into the Mirador environment.

That knowledge brought another pang of guilt. Since they were running a minimal operation unknown to the public, they thought they didn’t need a lot of protection. But they didn’t know that some very bad men were looking for Jenny Seville. Well, not Seville, she reminded herself. That wasn’t her real name. And she was praying that would keep them from figuring out where she was.

She took a deep breath, wavering on her feet as she bent over the desk and started opening drawers. Grant had told her they kept weapons here as a precaution, and she found an automatic pistol in the top middle drawer. Taking it was another reason to feel guilty, but she did it anyway.

She checked the action, put the gun into Lily’s purse, and headed for the door. Outside she found herself facing a narrow parking lot, backed by ugly one-story cinder-block buildings, with a strip of grass along the margin. After the blue skies of the Mirador Hotel, it was startling to see gray clouds hiding the sun. And after the sparking clean grounds of the hotel, the warehouse area looked grubby.

The heat was another shock to her system. At the Mirador, the temperature was always a pleasant seventy degrees. Now the full force of a Maryland summer enveloped her. It was like stepping into an overused laundry room, and she struggled to draw in a full breath of air.

The change of scene was a shock, but this was the real world, where she’d have to function now. And she’d taken a lot of chances getting to this point.

She didn’t know which car was Mack and Lily’s, but she pressed the unlock button on the ignition key and heard a chirp. Pressing several more times, she followed the sound to a newish-looking Honda.

After clicking once more, she opened the door and slipped into the fiery interior. When she leaned back against the headrest, the hot seat cover burned her neck, and she hunched forward, taking several deep breaths of the overheated air. She was amazed that she had gotten this far, but it wasn’t far enough. At any moment, Grant could come charging out of the building shouting at her to come back.

Knowing she had to get away, she turned the ignition, hoping the air conditioning was going to cool the car soon. She had to get away from the lab and find somewhere to hole up. But how far could she go in this condition?

After wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm, she glanced toward the building, but apparently nobody had discovered her absence yet. Taking a chance on staying a little longer, she clicked on the GPS. It displayed a map of the area, and she saw that the industrial park was off a major north-south highway—Route 1. There ought to be convenient motels out there, but she’d better not pick the first one she came to.

She closed her eyes for a moment, praying that she had the strength to do this—and that she wasn’t going to die of heatstroke before the AC kicked in. Then she backed cautiously out of the parking space.

oOo

To Lily’s dismay, Corker made it out of the door and into the lobby. Apparently the large, luxurious space was not what he was expecting. He stopped short and cried out in surprise, giving Mack the opportunity to catch and push him down to the marble floor.

The man had been unconscious for several weeks, and although his status had changed in the VR, he was in no shape to fight a guy who worked out regularly in the real world.

“Lily, can you get a hypo?” Mack shouted.

“I’m coming. Hold him.”

As she spoke, Lily crawled to the table next to the couch and fumbled in the drawer. When she found the other hypodermic, she pushed herself up, stumbled into the lobby and jammed the needle into his arm. For a terrifying half minute, he continued to struggle against Mack. Then he suddenly went slack, and Mack grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him into the greeting room, and eased him to the sofa, where he lay sprawled.

“Thanks,” Lily said.

“I guess he’s not in as good mental shape as you thought. You should ship him to that facility you have in reserve.”

“We may have to,” Lily said as she crossed the room and hurried into the hotel lobby.

She saw Paula Rendell and Anna crouched on either side of Shelly who was sobbing, tears running down her cheeks.

Lily ran to her sister, knelt down and reached for the little girl who came into her arms, still crying.

“I didn’t do anything to that man, but he wanted to hurt me,” Shelly sobbed.

“No. He was scared of you.”

“Why?”

“He’s confused. But it’s okay. I put him to sleep. Everything’s okay,” Lily soothed as she gathered her little sister close, stroking her back. Shelly’s auto accident had been when she was eight. That was more than twenty years ago, but the girl’s mental development had been arrested at that age. She would never mature. She would always react like a child. And though her body had become a woman’s in the real world, in the VR she still looked like the youngster she had been when she was injured.

Overcome with guilt for having put her sister in danger, Lily rocked the little girl in her arms. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“That man scared me.”

“I know. But he can’t hurt you now. Uncle Mack and I put him to sleep,” she repeated what she’d said.

Gradually, Shelly’s crying subsided. She looked up at Lily, her expression troubled. “I didn’t know I shouldn’t go in there.”

“Yes. It was a mistake for me not to tell Anna. But it’s okay.”

“Why was he so mad?”

“He was afraid. And he reacted by getting mad.”

Shelly bobbed her head.

Over her shoulder, Lily regarded Anna who looked like she wished she could sink into the floor. “I didn’t know that was wrong,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” Lily answered, feeling a little strange reassuring a woman who was only part of an elaborate computer program. “Next time we’ll make sure you know we need privacy.”

“You were bringing in a new patient?” Paula asked.

“Yes.”

The travel agent kept her gaze on Lily. “And it didn’t go so well.”

“Unfortunately.”