Found Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #14): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (9 page)

Lily had felt a spurt of hope when she saw the wolf. She couldn’t stop her spirits from sinking as she watched him withdraw.

Her attention zinged back to her chief captor when he snapped, “Get on with it, or I’m gonna help you out.”

Knowing his patience was wearing thin, she closed her eyes for a moment, steeling herself to keep the performance going as long as she had to. But what if that meant taking off all her clothes and letting the goons drag her into the next room?

Struggling to thrust that thought out of her mind, she finished unbuttoning the top, then began to tug it off her shoulders so that her only garment above the waist was her bra. Thank God she’d worn a practical one this morning. Not one of the lacy numbers that Mack liked.

The men watched with greedy expressions, undoubtedly anticipating what they were going to do to her.

“Take that off too. Let’s see your tits,” one of them shouted.

It was then that she saw the door ease open again and armed Decorah Security men coming into the front of the facility, taking up positions. But she knew they couldn’t shoot, not when the three hostages were in the line of fire.

Lily struggled to keep up her performance and hold the thugs attention as she sensuously reached behind her, fingering the hooks at the back of her bra.

It was all working—until one of the invaders must have sensed movement behind him. Or perhaps her expression had changed enough to alert him to danger. He whirled and lay down a blast of automatic gunfire.

The others turned as well, blasting away.

As the shooting started, Mack’s gaze swept the room in frustration. Lily knew he was searching for a weapon. Before he could get himself killed, she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the dressing room. He gave her a surprised look, then let her tug him out of the line of fire. When they were in the dressing area, he turned the tables, yanking her to the floor. As bullets slammed into the doorframe, he came down on top of her, shielding her body from the barrage.

Terry leaped in seconds behind them, hitting the floor farther back in the room and hugging the cold tiles with his arms over his head.

             
oOo

Beyond the dressing room, Grant and the other Decorah agents exchanged fire with the bad guys.

Brand ducked low behind the security desk, using it as a shield as he kept firing. He saw one of the bad guys go down. The other two kept shooting, both of them moving toward the lobby, laying down fire as they went. The Decorah men were forced back. One of the invaders was stuck in the reception area. The other barreled toward the door, spraying a steady stream of fire that kept the rescuers pinned down.

They were unable to drop him, and he exited the building.

Brand, who was closest to the main room, charged into the patient area, intent on making sure the captives were okay.

The other two Decorah men leaped toward the exit and kept firing at the fleeing man, but he forced them to take cover as he returned fire.

             
oOo

Inside the dressing room, Mack continued to shield Lily with his body. She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to dampen the sound of the gun battle and praying that the bad guys weren’t coming in to shoot Mack.

The barrage seemed to go on for a century. Then the sound of the automatic weapons receded into the distance. When the clatter of the assault rifles stopped, she could hear running feet. Mack started to get up.

“No,” she shouted as he scrambled to his feet.

He yanked himself free and grabbed the bench, holding it in front of himself as he moved toward the door.

Before he reached it, Brand Marshall charged in.

“All clear.” His gaze swept over them. “You all right?”

“Yes,” they answered.

Mack put down the bench and helped Lily to her feet. From the shelves she grabbed another scrub suit top and put it on so that she was covered up again.

After the clatter of the assault rifles, the facility was strangely quiet.

When she stepped into the main room, two of the invaders were lying in pools of blood on the tile floor, one near where he had originally been standing, and the other closer to the door.

She didn’t see the third man, the one she’d called Buzz Cut.

“What happened?” Mack asked, looking at the Decorah men. It seemed that on short notice, Grant had been able to round up Brand and Cole Marshall, plus Wyatt Granger.

Brand answered. “We got one of them right away. The other two took cover, then started pushing their way into the lobby area, shooting as they came. We got two of them. The other escaped.

She looked at the two dead men. “The leader was the one who got away.”

“Okay.”

Lily went into the supply room, found two sheets and draped them over the dead men.

“The head guy was one fierce bastard,” Brand said. “It looked like he was determined to escape—or get killed.”

She looked at the Decorah agents, then turned toward Mack “Where’s Grant?”

“He went to make sure Jenny’s safe.”

Lily stared around the ruined facility. “Thank God the patients were at the side of the room. But we’d better check to make sure none of them and none of the life support equipment was hit,” she said to Terry.

As she spoke, she hurried to her sister’s bed. Shelly was lying there as peacefully as if nothing had happened. It was always so strange to see what she really looked like. In the VR, she was a little girl—the same age as when she’d gone into a coma. But in the real world, her body had matured into an adult’s. And when Lily saw her like this, she couldn’t help thinking about how different her sister’s life could have been.

Lily laid a hand on Shelly’s brow, then touched the pulse in her neck, reassured by the steady rhythm. As she checked the telemetry, she spoke softly to her sister, even though she knew Shelly wasn’t going to respond. “Thank God you’re okay.”

When she’d made sure Shelly was fine, she turned back to see how Terry was doing. He hardly looked in condition to check anything, but he dutifully began going from bed to bed, following her orders, making sure that everybody was okay and all the equipment was operational.

When he caught his breath, she gave him a questioning look. “What?”

“Jonas Corker took a bullet.”

“How is he?”

“Dead.”

“Oh no.”

She’d left him in a bed close to the center of the room, and he’d been in the line of fire.

“I’m sorry,” Mack said. “But I think he wasn’t going to work out, anyway.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“We have to worry about the living now,” her husband clipped out.

“Right.” Lily focused on the Decorah men. “All of you are okay?”

“I could use a bandage on my arm, so I don’t keep dripping blood on this shirt,” Wyatt Granger said.

Lily crossed to him and saw blood oozing through the fabric of his sleeve.

“Take off your shirt.”

“It’s just a graze.”

“We’ll see.”

Wyatt unbuttoned and shrugged out of his shirt, and she looked at the wound. “Okay, you’re right.”

“Yeah, I can move it.”

“But you still need a bandage and antibiotics.”

She had just finished with Wyatt when movement in the doorway made her head snap up.

Jenny was standing there, not quite steady on her feet, clutching Grant’s hand. She was dressed in Lily’s clothes and looking like she wished she was on the other side of the continental United States.

Her gaze skidded to the white sheets on the floor, then quickly away again.

When she caught Lily’s eye, she looked like she was going to cry. Straightening her shoulders, she said, “I’m sorry.”

Everything had been happening so fast that Lily hadn’t know what she would do or say when they brought Jenny back—if they could bring her back. But here she was, looking like she’d survived an earthquake.

Lily opened her mouth and heard herself remarking, “Running away wasn’t the smartest thing you ever did.”

The young woman lowered her head. “I can see that now. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You could have trusted us,” Grant said in a gritty voice.

She kept her focus downward as she spoke. “The whole time I was in the VR, I thought I was putting you all in danger. And I was right,” she added, sweeping her arm around the carnage.

“We would have been better prepared if you’d leveled with us,” Grant said, not making it any easier on her.

She dragged in a breath and let it out before saying, “I understand that now.”

“How long were you planning your—escape?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know.” She kept her gaze on Lily. “You knew I was waking up.”

“Yes.”

“I was trying to play it down so you wouldn’t realize I was so close to the surface. And I started thinking I could get away. Like Mack did.”

“I didn’t advise that for him, either,” Lily continued. “Let me check you out.”

“Don’t’ make me go back into the VR,” Jenny said.

“We’ll see.”

To get away from their audience, she gathered up a stethoscope and other equipment and ushered Jenny down the hall to the staff lounge.

“Sit down,” she said, sweeping her arm toward the bed where she sometimes slept if she had to stay on duty.

Jenny remained on her feet. “I stole your purse and your clothes—and your car,” she murmured.

“I won’t say ‘that’s okay.’ But I think I understand. You thought you were getting us out of danger—even when you were putting your own welfare at risk. But those guys came here, and they thought we were lying about your leaving. When they didn’t find you, they started threatening us. They were going to kill patients to get us to talk.”

Jenny winced. “I guess I wasn’t thinking straight. I figured that if they came here and didn’t find me, they’d go away.”

“Who were they?”

A voice chimed in from the doorway. “Yeah, maybe you’d better give us some details.”

Jenny and Lily both looked up to see Grant standing in the doorway, a hard expression on his face.

Jenny gave Lily a panicked look.

“Let’s not press her now,” she said to Grant. “She’s been through an ordeal. She needs to sleep.”

Jenny opened her mouth and closed it again, looking relieved.

Grant withdrew, and Lily listened to Jenny’s heart and lungs, checked her reflexes, palpated her stomach and went through all the other simple tests of the girl’s physical state.

“How am I?” Jenny asked.

“In remarkably good shape. It looks like all the physical training you were doing in there carried over into the real world.”

“I was hoping it would.”

“How did you feel when you got up?”

“Shaky,” Jenny admitted.

“Not dizzy?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “But I decided I couldn’t drive very far. That’s how Grant found me.”

“He was really worried,” Lily said sternly.

“I know.” She raised her head to Lily. “So do I have to go back into the VR?”

“At this point, I’m not sure what good it would do. But you do need to rest. “I’m going to give you a sedative,” Lily said. “If you’re not going back to the Mirador, at least you need to sleep.”

“Okay.”

Jenny sat on one of the beds, and Lily gave her a couple of strong sedative pills. After swallowing them, she slipped under the covers and lay down.

Lily stayed until the girl was sleeping. Then she turned off the light and closed the door. She had a lot of questions for Jenny, but probably not as many as Grant.

Carlos Mardano was ten miles away before he turned off the highway and into a development of low-end houses. He found a dead-end street and pulled to a stop in front of a rancher where all the lights were off. Of course in this kind of neighborhood, someone could come out with a shotgun and ask what he was doing there, but in that case, he’d give them a big surprise.

He breathed out a sigh and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then threw back his head, thinking about what had just happened. Danny and Lee were both dead, but he’d been able to get away—partly through their stupidity. They’d made themselves targets while he had hung back, then taken the opportunity to dash through the door.

The question was—would he have been better off joining them? Because they were already dead, they didn’t have to face Rambo’s wrath.

What were his options?

He could keep driving, head for some big city and look for work among the gangs and mob organizations. But there was no guarantee that someone greedy for money wouldn’t turn him in to Rambo. And then he’d wish he’d been shot in the firefight and gotten it over quickly.

He could try to pass for a civilian and disappear into some small town in the Midwest where he could get a legit job. His dad had been a plumber. He’d helped out on some jobs. Maybe he could work his way into that trade. Or maybe he could be a farmer. He snorted. Both of those professions meant wading through shit—not his kind of scene.

Which left him with the alternative—go back to Rambo and say that he’d failed. Or—not failed.

How could he spin this disaster to his advantage? And how could he turn the tables on the bitch who’d been leading him on by starting to undress when she knew her friends were coming to the rescue.                                                                                                               

All along, he’d thought she was giving him a song and dance. At least he’d seen from the expression on her face that she was lying about something. And what good would it do her to lie about anything besides Jenny Seaver? Probably she knew where the little idiot was. Which meant he could find her. All he had to do was tell Rambo they’d hidden Jenny; and if they kept watch on the facility, they’d find her. Of course, he couldn’t do that by himself. He’d need more guys—to make sure he had the place covered twenty-four seven.

Yeah, that was the best way to go.

It sounded like a reasonable plan. The sticking point was going back to Rambo and twisting defeat into anticipated victory.

Yet even as he bolstered his case, he couldn’t dismiss a nagging worry. You could do the perfectly logical thing with Rambo, and the guy would react in some out-of-kilter way.

Again Carlos thought about taking off. Christ, he wasn’t really sure which way to jump. Closing his eyes, he cursed the day he’d gone to work for the guy. He’d been tempted by the pay, but he hadn’t realized the working conditions would be almost intolerable.

             
oOo

Grant came back to the patient area and saw the other Decorah men putting the bad guys into body bags. He’d been in firefights before, but never inside a building where he worked.

“Are we going to call the cops?” he asked.

“I think not.” The answer came from Frank Decorah who strode into the main room and looked around at the mess.

“You figure nobody noticed the gun battle?” Grant asked. “Or they thought we were filming a made-for-TV movie?”

Frank shook his head. “I think we’re lucky as hell that we’re the only tenant in this industrial park that operates on a twenty-four hour basis.”

“I suppose you picked the location for that reason,” Mack said.

“Yeah. I wanted as much privacy as possible, given that we’d already battled a gang of thugs and the FBI at Hamilton’s old lab.”

Grant kept his gaze on the boss. “When I knew the place was under attack, I tried to call the main Decorah number. Did the bad guys take it out—or what?”

“No. It was a phone company problem.”

Grant kept his gaze on his boss. “Which could have gotten Lily, Mack and Terry killed. Is there some way we can have a direct line to you—if we need it?”

Frank looked torn. “I’ve never operated that way. But under the circumstances, I think it’s necessary. I’ll get a dedicated cell phone and make sure everybody has the number.”

There were murmurs of agreement and thanks around the room.

Frank glanced toward the hallway “I want some answers from Jenny Seville.”

“Her real name is Jenny Seaver,” Terry said. “We found that out from the men who came looking for her.”

Frank nodded, “That’s a start. Maybe it will lead to a lot more information.”

He turned to Lily. “How long before she wakes up?”

“At least six hours.”

“Okay. We can use the time to do some planning and get this place back into shape.”

“Including patching up the bullet holes?” Mark asked.

“Yeah. Otherwise we’re going to have to explain how they got there.”

“And explain how one of the patients got killed?” Lily asked.

His gaze jerked to her. “We lost a patient?”

“Yes, the man we tried to introduce to the VR. His bed was closest to the gun battle.”

“He’s the man who went nuts?” Frank clarified.

“Yes.”

“I hate to be pragmatic, but he might be better off now.”

Lily winced, but she silently acknowledged that Frank was probably right.

But he must have read her expression. “We’ll find another suitable candidate, and you can try again. And next time, he won’t be caught in the middle of a gun battle.”

“Yes.”

Frank kept his gaze on Lily. “We’ve got to have a death certificate.”

She nodded.

“I know you hated finding out that Dr. Hamilton was running an illegal operation. But in this case, it’s probably better to say he died of heart failure.”

She thought about it for a few moments. Frank was right. She didn’t like doing something illegal. But she knew it was better to leave gun violence out of the equation.

“Okay,” she answered in a low voice.

Grant shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the rest if the group turned toward him. “I think we’d better clear out of here,” he said. “I mean, one of the guys escaped. He could come back with reinforcements.”

Alarm flashed in Lily’s eyes. “You don’t mean tonight?”

“Probably not. It depends on where he’s from. And what kind of instructions he gets from his boss.”

“We need to find out who that is,” Mack muttered.             

“I’ll put Teddy on it while we deal with the current situation,” Frank answered, referring to one of the Decorah IT men.

“And where do you suggest we move the patients?” Lily asked.

“There’s room in the main Decorah facility,” Frank answered. “It will be crowded, but it’s only temporary. And just to be on the safe side, we’ll have at least five Decorah agents in the building at all times.”

There was agreement around the room.

“Meanwhile, we’ll get this place back in shape.” Frank looked at the bullet-riddled security desk. “We might as well throw that thing out.”

“My cousin Ross has some experience in the construction trade,” Brand said.

“Okay, call him.” Frank looked at Mack, “And call a private ambulance service to transport the patients.”

“We have to set up the beds first,” Lily said. “And do it in shifts.”

“How many extra do you have?”

“Four.”

So far, they had been making plans for the patient facility. Now Grant looked at the two dead men. “What about the bodies?”

Frank followed his gaze. “We’ve left bodies scattered around before.”

“Yeah, like in upstate New York,” Brand agreed.

“But never in our own front yard.”

“Somebody’s gonna miss them,” Grant said.

“Nobody who wants to get the authorities involved.”

Grant grimaced. “But we can’t just leave them here.”

“I brought a van,” Frank said. He turned to Lily. “We need DNA samples so we can try to identify them.”

She went to a supply cabinet, got out the equipment she needed, and turned to one of the body bags.

Mack and Grant exchanged glances as she got to work.

She’s come a long way since she first worked for Hamilton,
Grant observed.                                         

Yeah,
his brother allowed.

Grant nodded, then closed off his mind from his brother. But he knew Mack had caught his fleeting thought that he wished Jenny were as straightforward as his brother’s wife. Of course, Lily had been following Hamilton’s directions when she’d first met Mack—before she’d started working with Mack.

When Lily had finished getting the samples, the agents loaded the thugs in the van.

“And now what?” Mack asked when they’d closed the doors of the vehicle.

“Then you let me worry about it,” his boss answered.

Grant looked toward the comatose patients “You can’t just put dead guys into a virtual reality and make them disappear,” he said.

A strange expression crossed Frank Decorah’s face, but all he said was, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. While I’m gone, move the spare beds to the Decorah headquarters and put Teddy on the Jenny Seaver problem.”

Grant nodded. He was having his own thoughts about what to do next, but he wasn’t going to start working on anything until Frank returned.