Shadow of Vengeance (21 page)

“With those electronic locks,” Rachel began. “Can you tell when someone swipes their keycard?”

“I…ah…” Lynch rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yes,” a short, portly man said as he entered the room.

Chuckling, Lynch said, “Well, there you have it. Charlie, here, is more tech savvy than I’ll ever be.”

She turned to Charlie. “We were told that the electronic locks began to fail—campus wide—Friday night.”

“That’s right. We’ve been able to restore seventy percent of those locks, but obviously still have work to do.”

“Did those failing locks include the dorm rooms?” Owen asked before she had the chance.

“Only at Stanley Hall. It’s a co-ed residence hall for freshman and sophomores.”

And where her brother and Josh lived.

“The thing is,” Charlie continued. “Not every lock at Stanley Hall failed.”

“That’s right,” Lynch said. “Half of one floor went down along with the entire second floor.”

Her brother’s floor.

A chill swept through her as she asked, “Can we look at Saturday night’s video footage of Stanley Hall?” There was no need to pull records of the time and number of keycard swipes made to Sean and Josh’s room. If the kidnapper had been behind disengaging the locks, he’d done so the day before the boys had gone missing. Had the locks been working when they’d disappeared, they would have had evidence that someone had gone back to their dorm room to remove the two liter of Mountain Dew and empty any other valuable evidence from their trash can.

Charlie gave her a big smile. “Adam told me you were coming. I have it cued up for you on screen one,” he said and pointed to the monitor.

She stood next to Owen and watched the screen. According to the date and time stamp, Charlie had begun the footage from Stanley Hall at five on Saturday evening.
 

“I’ve already gone through this,” Charlie said and began to fast forward the video. “Nothing interesting happens until around six.”

Like scurrying little mice, students quickly came and went. All the while, the security guard, Bill Baker, remained at his post. As the time stamp zipped through, anxiety rolled through her stomach, then slithered through the rest of her body when Charlie slowed the video.

Owen moved closer, his familiar scent comforted her, while his nearness alone had a calming effect. Something she needed right now as she watched her brother and Josh’s images on the monitor. Just as Bill had explained to them, the boys stood in the foyer for a moment and spoke with the security guard. After they left, Bill swayed, then used the desk to steady himself. He shook his head, then suddenly covered his mouth, bolted from the foyer, running toward the hallway and out of sight of the security camera.
 

Seconds ticked by on the time stamp. As she was about to ask Charlie to speed up the recording, the handle of what appeared to be a broomstick filled the screen. It tipped and swayed, then fell out of sight.
 

Slowly, the view changed. With each second that passed, the residence hall foyer began to tilt and climb, the objects on camera fading away. First Bill’s desk, then the bulletin board behind it…up the wall, past the clock. Then the slow ascent stopped and the screen filled with nothing but white stucco.
 

Her skin crawling with goose bumps, she rubbed her arms and whispered, “Oh my God.”
 

Owen touched her elbow. She looked at him, at the concern in his eyes and nodded. “I’m good.”
 

His jaw tightened as he turned toward Charlie. “When did you realize someone had tampered with the security camera?”

“Today, when I was cuing the video for you. I told the guard on duty at Stanley Hall to not touch it. Thought maybe you might want to check it for fingerprints.”

She shook her head. “It’s obvious they used something to move the camera.”

Owen shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “Looked like a stick of some sort. Maybe a broom or a mop. Other than custodians, who would have access to supplies like that?”

Lynch leaned against the doorjamb. “Us and maintenance. But I can tell you that no one from custodial or maintenance services were in that hall Saturday evening.”

“With the broken locks, I would think maintenance would be working overtime,” Rachel said.

“They weren’t able to repair any of them without certain parts, which were placed on special order late Friday night and didn’t arrive until yesterday morning. So, no. Maintenance wouldn’t have been there to work on the locks, and there were no other service orders placed that day. As for custodial, Saturday’s they’re gone by three in the afternoon.”

“Does your custodial service include cleaning dorm rooms?” Owen asked.

“No,” Lynch answered. “We had an issue with students claiming things were being stolen from their rooms. So, now the students take care of their own cleaning. Even their bathrooms.”

After thanking the security guards, Rachel followed Owen out of the building and to the Lexus. Once inside the car she finally succumbed to her bad habit and pulled the pencil from her pocket. “This isn’t good.” She chomped on the pencil. “At all.”

“Nope,” Owen agreed as he backed the Lexus out of the parking spot. “If custodial and maintenance weren’t at Sean’s residence hall that night, and the camera didn’t pick up anyone other than students entering the building, that means only one thing.”

“Right. Either a student is copycatting Wexman Hell Week or—”

“Our kidnapper has himself a new recruit.”

*

“Meet our longest resident,” the occupational therapist, Olivia, said to a young, pretty brunette as they entered the room. “Jane Doe has been with us for approximately eighteen months.” Olivia glanced my way and offered a pleasant smile, her plump cheeks dimpling.

The brunette shifted her dark eyes over my limp body as she moved closer to the bed. “Hello, Jane. I’m your new speech therapist, Elizabeth Cormack, but everyone calls me Bunny.” With a wry smile tilting her lips, she said, “Long story. I’ll fill you in another time. For now…” She turned back to Olivia. “I’m anxious to find out all I can about Jane so we can begin our therapy. It’s my understanding that you’ve taken care of her from the start.”

“Yes,” Olivia began while I wondered how the pretty speech therapist ended up stuck with what sounded more like a pole dancer’s nickname. “Even when Jane was in a coma I was working with her, exercising her limbs, stretching her muscles.” Olivia’s pale, green eyes softened as she looked at me. Other than Lois, she was the only other person I’ve come to care for in this shitty, smelly, drab institution. She’d shown me nothing but kindness and based on her patience, her compassion, even her frustration at my lack of progress, I honestly believe she cares and wants to see me walk out of this place.
 

“Can we pretend I’ve never seen Jane’s case file?” Bunny asked. “I’d love to hear about her from someone who’s familiar with what she’s been through.”
 

“Her file is missing things anyway.”

“How so? All of the medical records—”

“Right, all of the medical information is in there, but the rest…” She patted my numb leg. “My brother’s a Marietta cop, but he’s got a good friend who’s a deputy with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department.”

With the way the bed had been raised, I was able to watch the confusion crossing Bunny’s face, along with Olivia’s sympathy and disgust. She should be disgusted. Not for what had happened to me, but the reasons it had happened in the first place. My father had once told me that you make your own bad luck. While bad luck hadn’t brought me to southern Ohio and this dreary institution, blind ignorance, self-absorption and vengeance had. Unknowingly, I had brought this on myself. And while I’d love nothing more than to walk, talk and take a huge bite of a greasy cheeseburger, sometimes I wonder if maybe I deserve my fate. That being mute, paralyzed and forced to wear a diaper was the universe’s way of meting out the ultimate punishment.
 

Bunny nodded and sent Olivia a sly smile. “So, you know her story.”

Olivia stepped away from the hospital bed, peered into the quiet hallway, then closed the door. “This stays between us, understand?” she asked, her tone hushed, conspiratorial.
 

“Absolutely,” Bunny replied with a firm nod.

My stomach jumped and anticipation burned through my veins. I knew what had happened to me, but have never heard anyone actually discuss it. Of course there had been moments when things weren’t exactly clear. Black, fuzzy passages of time that to this day made zero sense. To be able to hear every gory detail…
 

“Eighteen months ago, my brother’s buddy, Dave, got a call from a farmer. Apparently the farmer was brush hogging his fields when he found our Jane. At first, the farmer thought she was dead. I guess she was covered in—oh my God, Jane,” Olivia cried and pounded on the nurses call button.

The room tilted. Olivia and Bunny’s voices became tinny. Panic caused my vision to blur and distort. For the first time since they’d removed the ventilator, every breath suddenly became a struggle. Suffocating, constricting, as if an anvil sat on my chest.

“Where’s the nurse?” Olivia shouted, gripped my shoulders and pulled me upright.

Choking. I couldn’t draw enough air into my lungs. Tears streamed down my cheeks, sweat coated my face. The tips of my fingers tingled, itched to claw at my throat, to shove the weight off my chest. Gasping, panting, I wildly shifted my eyes, searching for help, for a lifeline to ground me, to keep me sane.
 

“I’ll go find her,” Bunny said and moved for the door.

Desperation clawed inside my belly, coiled like a spring, then snapped. A low, guttural groan escaped from my parted lips, stopping Bunny. I didn’t need the nurse or doctor. They would only dope me up on some sort of potent, prescription cocktail that would render me comatose. A panic attack. I’ve silently suffered through a multitude of them since waking from the coma. It would pass. They just needed to give it time. They couldn’t let them drug me. I needed to hear—

The door burst open and a nurse rushed into the room, followed by the doctor. My breathing grew ragged and my chest constricted even more when I saw the needle. Searching the room, my gaze locked onto Bunny’s. Jaw clenched, her dark eyes clouded with concern, she hugged herself, then winced when the doctor stabbed the needle into my arm.
 

Never breaking eye contact with her, I fought to keep awake. But as the medication filtered through my veins, my heart rate slowed, my chest lightened making it easier to breathe, and my eyelids drifted shut.
       

The doctor said something inaudible, the nurse and Olivia responded, their words completely lost from the buzzing in my head. Then the sweet scent of lavender cocooned me, followed by a warm puff of air against my cheek.

“You’re safe, Jane. I promise,” Bunny whispered against my ear. Her soothing voice, a subterfuge of comfort and hope, washed over me like a hot, summer rain with the expectation of a powerful, destructive thunderstorm to follow.
 

As I began to surrender to the mind-numbing drug the doctor had given me, Bunny’s gentle, calming voice mingled with my would-be killer’s familiar, hate-filled eyes. In the dark, foggy recesses of my mind, they coagulated, then congealed. Bunny was wrong. I would never be safe.

I was supposed to be dead.
 

Chapter 9

Rachel made her way down the second floor hallway of Dixon Medical Center carrying a bag filled with sandwiches they’d bought from a local deli. She’d brought her brother his favorite, and while the tangy aroma of his corned beef Rueben mixed with the pungent odor of antiseptics, her stomach still growled. A reminder she’d skipped breakfast this morning.

“Hungry?” Owen asked as he fell into step beside her.

She absently touched her stomach. “Starved.”

“You should have had Joy’s blueberry pancakes. I swear they’re like crack. I couldn’t get enough of them.”

Half laughing, she stopped at Sean’s hospital room. “Crack, you say? Interesting. Omelets are on the menu for tomorrow morning. If there’s any mushrooms in them, you might want to think twice. Otherwise you could end up on a trip down the rabbit hole.”

He chuckled, then motioned toward the door. “After you.”

Ignoring the tingle in her belly that had nothing to do with her need to eat something, she glanced away from him, from his sexy smile and entered Sean’s room. Then froze. “Oh my God.” She rushed to the bed. The linens had been torn away. Fluids of some sort soaked the remaining sheets, while sensors that had been attached to her brother dangled from the machine in the corner like limp spaghetti noodles. The chair she’d sat on during her last visit rested haphazardly on its side as if it had been kicked out of the way.
 

Panic weakened her knees, yet her instincts, her love for Sean, forced her feet to move. She rushed back to the doorway where Owen stood. “Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong.” That earlier tingling in her belly morphed into a spasm of dread. The room was a mess, her brother was missing. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen his doctor, let alone any nurses. Terror clenched her by the throat. She rushed past Owen.