In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (25 page)

“To protect Jamie Tremayne. Why else? I know what you plan on doing to him.”

Bridget sneered as Beecher stepped up to the bed and began to buckle extra restraints around her brother’s wrists. “And how do you think to do that? You’re just as helpless as James is!”

The cold eyes hardened even more. “I won’t always be helpless, you whore. And you’ll be the first one I go after when I’m lose.”

Bridget spun around, fixing Lassiter with a glare that made the man take a step back from her.

“Get the therapy room ready. Now! I have no intention of standing here and listening to this shit.”

Kristen sat in
the staff lounge and stared at the fabric of her wool dress. The overhead lights flickered, sputtered, dimmed, then returned to their normal brightness.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, knowing what had caused the lights to dim.

She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to think of something other than the horror taking place down the hallway. From out of nowhere, a picture of her dead father flitted across her mind and she firmly pushed away that image.

“Out of sight and out of mind,” she mumbled. “No love lost there, Daddy-O.”

The lights wavered overhead causing her to flinch. She stood, paced the floor, flinched again as the lights flickered and dimmed once more.

“How many times are you going to do that to him?” she shouted. Her voice was trembling, her hands shaking, and she felt as though she was going to vomit.

“Mrs. Tremayne?”

Kristen spun around and glared at the black man standing in the doorway. “What the hell do you want?”

Martin Cobb took a hesitant step into the room. “I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do, ma’am.”

Before Kristen thought, she snapped, “Can you stop them from hurting my husband?” As soon as she said it, she started to yell at the black man, but his soft voice stopped her.

“I wish to the Lord I could, Mrs. Tremayne.” He shook his head. “I wish somebody could help that man.” He looked at her with an apology. “It wasn’t until they did that first shock treatment that he started being different folk.”

Kristen had already figured that out for herself. She sucked in a long, wavering breath and locked her eyes on the black man’s concerned face.

“Is there a phone around here I can use? One that might have a scrambler on it?”

He nodded. “You wanna call his brother? Mr. Patrick?”

Suspicion narrowed Kristen’s eyes. “I didn’t say that.”

“He’s about the only one of Mr. James’ family what cares about him, ma’am. I just thought he’d be the one you called.” He lowered his eyes. “I didn’t mean no disrespect, Mrs. Tremayne.”

“Just show me where the phone is.”

Even as he
was strapped down to the table, Jimmy glared his defiance up at the woman behind him. His cold eyes, so alien, so deadly, stared right through her as though she no longer existed for him. There was no begging, no obvious reaction to what was about to happen as Bridget shoved the rubber wedge between coldly smiling lips.

“You won’t be so damned smug in a minute,” Bridget snarled. She turned her eyes to Lassiter. “Hold his chin while I get the electrodes.”

There was pain on Lassiter’s face as he firmly gripped his patient’s chin in the palm of his hand. He looked into the insolent eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Lassiter apologized as the man on the table drew his lips back in a chilling grin.

Bridget fastened the electrodes on her brother’s temples. “Clear!”

The moment Jimmy’s body slammed back down on the table, James appeared. His confused, pleading eyes, so filled with the need for love and affection, stared back at Bridget with an accusatory look that infuriated the woman.

“Clear!”

Jimmy returned, his eyes boring into hers with an anger that was beyond rage, beyond human understanding of the word. He bucked, trying to get free, grunting in fury as his sister stepped back. He was still there when James Tremayne’s body settled once more to the gurney. He glared up at Bridget Casey with such hatred, such violent intent, the woman stepped back and activated the machine once more.

“Clear!”

The machine buzzed and the man on the table turned rigid.

“That’s enough,” Lassiter shouted, pushing Bridget aside. “You’ll kill him!”

James Tremayne whimpered, pain rocketing through his body as he pushed Gabe aside to return. Tears welled in his eyes and he gazed up at his sister with wounded hurt. As the wedge was drawn from his mouth, he whimpered again.

“Why, Bridie?” he pleaded. “Why don’t you love me?”

Bridget Casey’s own fury was irrational. She wanted to reach out to the machine, turn it on and leave it on until the brain of the man lying on the table was beyond repair.

“Go to hell,” she shouted and fled, her hatred of the man evident in the way she slammed out of the room.

“Give me a hundred milligrams of meperidine,” Lassiter ordered his nurse. He leaned over his patient, peering into the young man’s eyes with his light, checking the reaction. He took the prepared syringe and injected the powerful analgesic into James Tremayne’s upper arm.

“It’s all right, James,” the physician said in a soothing voice. “It’s all over for now.” He started when a soft, understanding voice replaced the harsh voice of Jimmy, the angry voice of Gabe, and the child-like voice of James.

“My name is Jamie. Where am I?”

“Paddy?” Kristen said
into the phone. “You’d better get down here quick!” She was breathless, her anger making her hyperventilate.

“What’s the matter?” Patrick Tremayne’s voice sounded as though he had been expecting trouble.

“It’s Bridget! She’s here and she’s putting Jamie through shock treatment without anesthetic!”

“What did you say?”

“Liam okayed it, Paddy. They’re trying to get rid of Gabe James. They don’t want Gabe James to exist anymore so they’re trying to destroy him. Only it’s Jamie who’s suffering, Paddy,” she cried. “Bridie is deliberately hurting him!”

“No,” Patrick whispered. “No. She can’t do that.”

“She’s doing it, damn it! You’ve got to stop her, Patrick.”

“I don’t dare go down there, Krissy. Papa would have my ass if I did. But I’ll find a way to stop it. Believe me, I will!”

“Hurry, Paddy,” Kristen begged. “You’ve got—”

She jumped as something sharp was jammed into her back. Half turning, she saw Bridget’s angry face glaring at her.

“Bridie?” she questioned before her eyes rolled up in her head and she slumped to the floor.

“Hello, Patrick.
”

Instant alarm shot through Patrick at hearing his sister’s voice. He knew, without any doubt, that Kristen Tremayne was as good as dead. He gripped the phone, pressing it hard to his ear.

“Don’t hurt him, Bridie. He can’t harm Papa.”

There was a hollow laugh from the other end of the line. “Don’t be such a wuss, Paddy. You just might wind up taking a nice long rest alongside James.”

The line went dead.

For a long time, Patrick sat with the receiver’s ear piece pressed against his mouth. He stared across his luxurious office not seeing the expensive furniture and modern decor. His eyes were seeing a struggling Jamie, hearing his brother telling him, “It hurt, Paddy”. He knew now Jamie had not meant the removal of the stitches, but what had been done to him before Patrick had arrived.

“No,” Patrick whispered. “No.”

His eyes fell on the sheet of paper where he had copied down a name. He stared at it.

“No,” he repeated. “I’m not going to let you do this to Jamie again.”

He stood and hurried from his office.

They were all
sitting there: Kyle and Ellen; Edna Mae Menke; Mary Bernice and Delbert Merrill; Dean Allen; Dr. Richard Warrington and his wife Jennifer; Thais Dupree and Galen Whitney; Mel Vanderwoode; Jake Mueller; Dr. Chad Remington.

Looking about her dining room, Ellen knew these people could be trusted and looked on to do whatever needed to be done to get Gabe back. She had decided to go along with them, replacing Joyce Barnes. Had she not, she would have been a nervous wreck awaiting word from Florida. Plans were being solidified and assignments given out. There was much to do, even more to discuss, and the phone had been taken off the hook to keep them from being interrupted.

“I’ll fly the three of us out of here in the morning,” Doc Remington, a retired Army medic, told Kyle and Edna Mae. “Alec will meet us at Harry Burnside’s condo in Destin and we can start on the paperwork to get you committed to Harbor House.”

“Jake and I will be leaving around midnight tonight,” Mel Vanderwoode, the trucking company owner, put in. “It’ll take us about twenty hours to get down to Mobile.”

“Where are you going to be staying?” Kyle asked.

“Don’t know yet, but Galen’s going to be looking into that,” Mel answered.

“We want to establish Jake down there as an independent trucker,” the DEA agent told them. “Badger will have all the necessary papers for the rig and he’ll get us a Louisiana tag for the trailer.”

“Mary Bernice, Del and Dean will be flying back with us,” Thais reported. “We’ll set them up in Pensacola for now.”

“I ain’t too happy about them arrangements,” Del groused. “I ain’t never flown and ain’t wanting to! And I ain’t never liked Florida.”

“Shut up, Del,” Mary Bernice said as she poked him in the ribs. “We can’t drive down there. It’ll take too long.”

“Besides,” Galen said with a twinkle in his eyes. “We got the whitest sands in the world on our beaches, Del.” His brows wagged. “You can work on your tan!”

“What about you and Jenny, Dick?” Edna Mae inquired, smiling at Del’s black face glowering at Galen.

“As soon as we get to Memphis and pick up the vehicle we’ll be driving, we’ll arrange for the cargo for Mel’s truck, then we’ll meet them in Mobile.” He consulted some papers. “We’ll be staying at the Ponderosa Inn and I’ll give all of you a copy of the number. We’ll be registered under the name Hampton.”

Ellen let out a long breath. “I’ll be staying at the Briarcliff Motel in New Orleans under the name Carol Cean. I’ll provide you with the number there, too.” She shrugged as she looked at Del. “I’ve never flown before either, Delbert, but at least you’ll be with people you know. I won’t.”

“There’s still time for us to get Joyce,” Kyle told his sister, but Ellen shook her head.

“All right,” Thais said as he laid out a map on Ellen’s dining room table. “Here’s all the rest stops, truck stops and exits around those three clinics we’re going to be trying to get Kyle into. I’ve made copies of them for each of you and I want you to familiarize yourselves with the ones around Harbor House. The others we won’t worry about until we can safely rule out Harbor House as being where Gabe is.”

Galen pointed a thick finger at one particular rest stop. “This here place is convenient to them all. Make sure you study it ‘cause that’s the way we’ll be going as soon as we have Gabe under our wing. Let’s know exactly what we’re going to be doing, people. You guys may be amateurs but you make up in moxy what you ain’t got in experience.” He looked around. “We
can
do this.”

“We have to,” Kyle said in a grim voice. “There’s no turning back now.”

“Damn it,” Patrick
snarled as he slammed down the pay phone. The operator had just informed him there was trouble on the line at Kyle Vittetoe’s house. He glared at the instrument, hating it almost as much as he hated his sister. Yanking it up, he began to savagely punch in the number he hadn’t wanted to call.

Kyle handed out
sheets of code words—bits of songs, snatches of poetry—as Ellen passed around the two-way radios they’d be using.

“All the vehicles will be equipped with CBs,” Jake explained to them, “but we just might need to make some conversation we don’t want nobody else to hear.”

“Make sure you learn how to use these things,” Doc Remington warned everyone. “It’s important we be able to contact each other every minute of the time after we snatch Gabe.”

“Learn them signals, too,” Galen told them. “You gotta know what every blink of the other guy’s lights means. What two short blasts and one long mean on somebody else’s horn. We ain’t fooling around here, folks.”

“How about the other guys?” Dean asked. “When will they be joining us?”

“Not until we absolutely need them.” Thais looked at Galen. “Even then, you won’t necessarily see what they look like.”

“It’s safer for them that way,” Galen cautioned.

“We can appreciate that,” Edna Mae agreed. “It’s enough they’re risking their jobs to help.”

“What about Sadler?” Dean wanted to know. “Is he in on this or not?”

“To some extent,” Kyle explained, “but he doesn’t need to know any more than is absolutely necessary.” He glanced around the room. “I’m not saying I distrust the men under him, but there’s been some leaks I ain’t too happy about.”