Rx Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #10): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (19 page)

What the hell?

Mack ducked back around the corner as two men ran out of the office and headed toward the set of stairs at the other end of the hall. As he heard them pounding down the steps, he moved quickly toward his goal. Mack knew the gunfire downstairs would have put Sterling on alert. But he couldn’t simply stay in the hall. Gun in hand, he slid around the doorjamb just far enough to see partway into the room.

Sterling was also holding a gun, but looking in the direction where his men had gone. He was half turned away from Mack and had completely turned his back on the captives as more gunfire rattled up from downstairs.

When Lily looked up and spotted Mack in the doorway, he saw her eyes widen. Relief flooded her features, but she mouthed,

“Wait.”

His heart was in his throat as he watched her edging toward the desk. In one quick motion, she picked up a decorative paperweight, and lunge toward Sterling, slamming the glass ball down onto their captor’s head.

As the man went down, Mack leaped into the room, took the gun and handed it to Landon.

Lily reached for him, and he pulled her into his arms, just for a moment.

“Are you all right?” they both asked.

“Yes.”

She drew back and gave him a considering look. “I saw you open your eyes, but I thought you couldn’t get up.”

“When that bastard took you, I knew I couldn’t just lie there.”

“What’s happening?” she asked as the sound of more gunfire reached the second floor. “Who’s down there?”

“I called Decorah Security, like Grant said. If it’s them, I can’t believe they got here that fast.”

She nodded.

They heard footsteps on the stairs, this time coming up, and Mack turned toward the door, his weapon at the ready.

“Mack Bradley,” someone called out.

“Who wants to know?”

“This is Cole Marshall with Decorah Security.”

“How do I know?”

“Fair point. Because I’m not shooting.”

“How did you get here so fast?” Mack challenged.

“Helicopter.”

“Come out where we can see you.”

A tall, dark-haired man stepped into view and held up his hands.

They heard more footsteps coming up, and it sounded like someone who had a slight limp. An older man with dark hair, now shot through with gray, stepped out and looked toward Mack.

“I’d say you were Grant if I didn’t know he had a twin brother,” he said.

“You’re Frank Decorah?”

“Right.”

“What happened downstairs?”

“When we came across the parking lot, some men started shooting. We had no choice but to defend ourselves.”

“They’re dead?”

“Yes,” Decorah answered.

“How many?”

“Five.”

“And we’ve got two more men besides me and Cole,” the agency owner said.

Mack had heard about him from Grant and knew he was an ex-Navy SEAL, who’d lost most of a leg in Vietnam. He was a mysterious figure who kept strictly to himself when he was away from the office, yet Grant suspected that he had a secret life he shared with no one.

“You said your brother is in the VR?” Decorah asked.

“Yes. I don’t know what happened there after I left. I just know that Sterling came in here and grabbed Lily.”

“Have you and Grant used your talent to communicate?”

Mack was surprised at the casual way Frank Decorah referred to his and his twin’s ability to send silent messages to each other.

“A little,” Mack said. “We lost it in our teens, but it seems to have come back.”

“A crisis brings out psychic abilities. And once you’ve got a handle on it, you can be trained to do more.”

Mack wanted to think about that, but he didn’t have that luxury now.

He motioned for them to step into the office. Lily was holding Sterling’s own gun on him as he sat on the floor, groaning and gingerly touching his head. Hamilton and Landon were in back of her, both looking shell-shocked.

The man on the floor raised his head as Marshall and Decorah entered, obviously surprised to see someone new had appeared on the scene.

“Who the hell are you? Where are my men?”

“Your men fired on us,” Frank Decorah answered in a steely voice. “We gave them a chance to surrender, but they declined.” He raised one shoulder. “They lost the fight.”

“Jesus. No,” Sterling answered.

Mack turned toward him, wondering if he was sorry his men were dead or sorry that he was now unprotected. “I think it’s time to tell us what the hell is going on.” For the newcomers’ benefit, he added some background. “Dr. Hamilton was running an experimental project for patients in a coma. He put them into a virtual reality where they could function as though they were awake.” He gestured toward the designer. “Sidney Landon is the genius programmer who created the virtual world.”

Landon flushed.

“But a guy named Preston hacked in and created a bunch of fantasy effects, like large animals and small but vicious warriors. It appears he was hired by Sterling to contact one of the patients—George Roper.”

Sterling raised his head. “I didn’t hire anyone to hack in.”

“Oh come on,” Mack responded. “If you didn’t, who did?”

Sterling looked sick, but he shook his head. None of this was making perfect sense, but Mack pressed on because Sterling was his only link to the hacker in the VR.

“At least you can tell us what’s so special about Roper.”

The man on the floor turned his head to the side.

Mack hauled him to his feet and shoved him into one of the rolling desk chairs. Then he rummaged in the desk drawers until he found packing tape which he used to secure the captive, taping his arms to the chair arms and his legs to the metal legs.

Turning to the program designer, he asked, “Can you get a window into the VR?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Let me get this bastard out of view.”

Mack wheeled Sterling’s chair into the hall, then turned to the others. “It’s better if Frank and Cole are out of sight, too. And also Lily.” Looking directly at her, he said, “If Preston asks, I’m going to tell him you’re wounded and downstairs.”

She nodded

“And I don’t want to give him and Sterling a chance to communicate.”

Again she agreed.

Leaving everyone else in the hall, he returned to the designer’s office and said, “Okay, go ahead and get me in there—I mean visually.”

As Landon tapped on some keys, a picture of the matching computer in Lily’s closet flashed onto the screen, and Mack gasped when he saw what was going on.

Grant and Jenny were standing in front of the monitor looking grim-faced, and Preston was standing right behind them, smiling.

“I was hoping you’d join us,” he said, then gave Mack an assessing look. “I see you’re not dead.”

“I’m fine.”

“I doubt it.”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want. George Roper.”

“He’s not here,” Mack answered. “At least his mind isn’t.”

Preston’s gaze flicked to Landon. “But I think you can find him in the VR. If you change the mode, you should have a blip on your screen for everyone in the VR. Like the CIA with their tracking devices.”

“Is that true?” Mack asked.

“If I set it up that way. But it wasn’t anything I needed to do. I have to figure it out.”

“You’d better, or I’m going to kill these two.” He gestured toward Grant and Jenny. First one and then the other.”

He glanced at his two captives. “Double torture for Grant. I think he’s going to hate watching Jenny die, so I’ll do her first.”

oOo

“You touch them, and I’ll fucking kill you,” Mack spat out.

“And how are you going to do that?” the man who was only a virtual copy of himself asked.

“I’ll think of something.”

As Landon bent over the computer keyboard, Mack stepped back into the hall and motioned to Lily. When she was beside him, he brought his mouth to her ear and spoke in a whisper, “You’ve got to bring everyone back from the VR, where he can’t touch them.”

She gave him a desperate look.

“You think it won’t work?” he asked.

“I hope it will.”

Before she could say more, Preston called from the VR, “Hey, where are you going?”

He stuck his head back into the office. “To clean up a mess we have here. Guys shot their way into the building, and Dr. Wardman was wounded. You don’t want the cops to find the assault team, do you?”

There was a moment’s hesitation before Preston said, “No.”

Mack returned to the hall where Lily’s anxious look brightened a little when she saw him again.

“My brother and Jenny are in the most danger. Do them first,” he told her. “Then the others.”

“But none of them can wake up.”

“That’s okay. They can stay asleep. Just bring Grant around.”

Mack swung toward Hamilton.

“You’re going to help Lily.”

“But the experiment will be screwed up.”

Mack fixed him with a look that was deadly enough to kill. “For Christ’s sake. You think the experiment is worth shit now? Just do it. And plug the computer in the lab back in. I disabled it, but we may need it now.”

Hamilton muttered a curse.

Mack longed to pull Lily into his arms and hold her, but there was no time for anything personal between them now. They had to finish this business before there could be any time to figure out where their relationship was going.

He turned to Decorah and Marshall. “I’d feel better if you go with them, just in case there are still bad guys hiding somewhere.”

“Good point,” Decorah answered.

Mack watched the four of them disappear into the stairwell, then turned back toward Landon’s office.

He was about to step inside when Sterling raised his voice as he shouted, “Preston. Do you hear me, Preston?”

While he tried to say more, Mack leaped toward him and clamped his hand over the man’s mouth as he raced his chair down the hall and away from the designer’s office.

When they’d rounded the corner, he took his hand away from the man’s mouth and slapped him soundly across the face. It was hard to keep himself from slamming his fist into the bastard’s face again and again. But there was no time for that kind of personal satisfaction, either.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mack bellowed.

Sterling raised his gaze defiantly. “I’m not going to just let you fuck everything up.”

“What?” Mack raged. “You’ve already lost.”

“And you’re not going to get what you want either.”

Mack didn’t answer. He was thinking Lily was lucky this guy hadn’t killed her when he’d taken her out of the lab at gunpoint. But probably he figured he needed her to make sure Roper stayed alive. And then what?

Mack fought the impulse to simply pull out his gun and shoot the man right now. But he knew that saving him for questioning would be prudent.

“I’ll see you later,” he said as he tore off strips of packing tape for a gag. Then he pushed the chair into a nearby office and made sure the captive’s bonds were tight before turning back to Landon’s office.

As he walked through the door, he felt like he’d walked into a scene from a horror movie—but what he was watching on the screen was no fantasy.

Preston was now holding Grant, a knife pressed to his throat.

“What the hell is going on?” Preston demanded. “How long is this going to take?”

Until all the people are out of the VR
, Mack sent the message toward his brother.
And you’re first.

Jenny’s first.

Landon turned and gave Mack a wide-eyed look.

Aloud he said, “We’re mopping up after the invasion and making sure all the patients are okay.” Mack looked at Landon. “Have you located Roper?”

“Yes.”

Preston’s expression turned feral. “Where is he?”

Landon looked at Mack, who kept his gaze fixed on the screen.

“Let go of my brother.”

“Give me the information first.”

Hoping he’d wasted enough of Preston’s time, Mack turned to Landon and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“He’s down in the service area of the hotel. There’s a doorway that I had blocked up. Apparently he found a way to pull some boards away.

Preston gave a satisfied smirk, until Grant suddenly vanished from his grasp.

He looked around in confusion like he’d been holding the nuclear football, and it had evaporated. “What the hell?” he shouted as he reached for Jenny.

She gasped, looking for Grant. But just as Preston’s hand closed around her arm, she also disappeared.

“Fuck!” the hacker called as he turned and raced out of the bedroom and into the hallway.