“Anytime now,” Kendra whispered.
Eve nodded. She could tell that Kendra was as tense and alert as she was, but Sam looked perfectly at ease. If anything, he appeared a little absentminded. He was probably performing mental gymnastics to prepare for his assault on the hospital computer system. He had spent much of the hours after they had left the restaurant in the backseat of the car, trying to hack the system from his laptop. But he eventually realized that the most confidential records would only be accessible within the complex itself.
Dammit.
“Are you good to go?” Kendra asked Sam.
“Yeah, I have a good idea what software package they’re using.” He grimaced. “But I’d feel better if we could access the computer in the personnel office.”
“Too risky. I have faith in you, Sam.”
“Then I can change the rules of time and space if I have to do it.” He added in a low voice, “And I may have to do it. The food services computer may not even be linked. But I’ll do my best.”
Kendra chuckled. “If the Pentagon trusts you to foil the Chinese, who am I to—” She broke off as a pair of headlights speared from the road and swept across the trees in front of them. “Here we go.”
A dark sedan stopped only yards away as the motorized security gate groaned and slowly swung open. The car moved through the gate and turned the corner that would take it to the complex’s subterranean parking garage.
The gate started to swing closed.
“Now!” Eve whispered.
She, Kendra, and Sam bolted for the entrance and slipped through just as the gate clanged shut behind them. They sprinted down the dark driveway and climbed the narrow set of stairs that would take them to the upper-level sidewalk.
“There,” Kendra mouthed as she waved them around the corner to a dark alcove on the side of the building. They ducked into the shadows as they heard the gate opening below them and saw another set of headlights turn into the garage.
“That’s the other kitchen worker,” Kendra said. “The next one will be here in ninety minutes. When he opens that gate, we need to be ready to get ourselves on the other side of it.”
“No pressure or anything,” Eve said to Sam.
“Oh, of course not.” He turned to Kendra. “What now?”
“We wait for that first smoke break. Or for that door to be propped open, whichever comes first.”
Kendra kept watch on the door while Eve and Sam scouted around for any sign of a security patrol. “Security camera down the walkway,” Sam murmured as he spotted the glowing red eye fastened to a tree. “I’ll take care of it.”
He was gone only a few minutes, the red light went out, and Sam was back with them. “All clear.”
Less than thirty minutes later, the door swung open, and a heavyset man dressed in white lumbered toward the outdoor railing. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out, and lit up.
“He didn’t prop the door open,” Eve whispered.
Kendra shook her head. “Plan B.”
“Right.” Eve bent over and tightened the laces on her tennis shoes. “How much time will I have?”
“About seven seconds once the door starts to close.”
Eve smiled and shook her head. Of course Kendra had thought to time the door’s closing when the man stepped outside.
After a couple minutes, the kitchen worker stamped out his cigarette, picked up the butt, and turned back toward the door. He pulled out a keycard, waved it over the sensor, and pulled open the door.
It would have been a hell of a lot more convenient for all of them if he’d propped the damn thing open, Eve thought. Why wasn’t anything ever easy?
As the kitchen worker stepped inside, Eve quietly bolted toward the door as it swung closed. Shit, she thought in panic. She couldn’t make it. The door was just—
Got it!
She gripped the edge of the door and froze, waiting to see if either of the kitchen workers had heard her or noticed that the door hadn’t entirely closed.
They hadn’t. She heard a door close across the kitchen, and the room appeared empty.
She hoped.
Kendra and Sam were directly behind her. Eve peered through the crack between the door and the frame and saw nothing but a short, dim hallway. From the left she heard running water and clanging pots. From the right, in the direction of the office, there was total silence.
She turned back toward Kendra and Sam, nodded, and crept through the doorway. Kendra and Sam were right behind her. They quickly moved down the hall and ducked into the open office. Kendra silently closed the door and lowered a roll-down shade that covered the door’s large glass pane. They switched on their tiny xenon-bulb flashlights as Sam moved toward the computer and punched the spacebar to wake it up.
“What do you think?” Eve asked.
Sam studied the monitor. “Well, it’s the system I thought they were using. I hoped this user would still be logged in, but he’s not.”
“Is that a problem?” Kendra asked.
Sam pulled a USB thumb drive from his pocket and inserted it into the computer tower next to the desk. “This may coax some of the user history out of this baby.”
While he worked, Eve shined her flashlight around the office. As Kendra had noticed, it doubled as a storage room, with tall metal shelves holding supplies, paper products, and linens. “If the kitchen staff needs something, they might pop in here at any time.”
“I locked the door,” Kendra said. “But I’m sure at least one of those men has a key.”
“More pressure,” Sam murmured. “Hand me that fob, Eve.”
Eve gave him the cream-colored fob she had lifted earlier. He swiped it across the reader, and the computer responded with an approving beep.
“I’m over the wall,” he said, his gaze intent on the screen. “Now let’s see how far I can get.”
His fingers moved furiously over the keyboard as Eve saw scores of user menus and graphical representations of the complex. “Any sign of the patient histories?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not yet. It looks like I can access everything else in this place except what we want. I’m really afraid it may be on a separate—” His eyes lit up. “Wait a second.”
Kendra leaned closer. “What is it?”
“This is it!” His fingers worked even faster over the keyboard. “It’s not where I thought it would be, but it’s here.”
Kendra suddenly tensed. “Shit.” She backed away from the computer.
“What is it?” Eve asked. But after another second, she heard it, too.
Footsteps in the hallway.
“Quiet,” Kendra whispered.
They held their breaths as the footsteps grew louder outside.
The doorknob jiggled.
Eve saw a shadow appear under the door.
A voice in the hallway called back to the kitchen. “Steve, I need your keys. The damn door is locked.”
Eve looked frantically around the office. There was absolutely nowhere to run, to hide in the small area.
“Sam.” Kendra whispered as she thrust herself back in front of the computer monitor. “Can you control all the systems we just saw here?”
“Yeah, of course I can.”
“Call up two menus. Now.”
He frantically typed while trying to keep the keys from clicking too loudly. “What am I doing?”
Kendra pointed to the screen. “Turn on the sprinklers in the kitchen zone. Can you do that?”
As if in response, the sound of spraying water echoed down the hallway, followed by the shouts of the other worker down in the kitchen. The shadow under the door vanished, and the footsteps pounded away.
Kendra pointed to another part of the screen. “Now cut the lights in this entire zone.”
A second later, the light under the door disappeared.
“Let’s go,” Kendra said. “No flashlights.” She threw open the office door and raced down the completely dark hal
lway.
Eve struggled to keep up, straining to hear Kendra’s footsteps over the sound of the sprinklers. Kendra was moving through the dark quickly and with complete ease. Almost as if—
As if the woman had been blind for the first twenty years of her life, Eve thought with self-disgust.
Kendra opened the back door and held it open long enough for Eve and Sam to join her on the walkway outside. They sprinted down the stairs and ran alongside the driveway, once again hiding behind the row of trees.
Eve inhaled sharply as she saw the gate looming ahead of them. “It’s open!”
Sam smiled. “I did that, too. Didn’t feel like waiting for the next shift to get here. It will close behind us. I’m known to be a little impatient.”
“In this case, impatience is definitely a virtue,” Eve said as she ran through the opening.
Seventeen Mile Drive
SAFE!
Or maybe not, Beth thought as she tossed and turned on the couch. She should be safe. The lights of the kitchen had gone out. Water was pouring down inside the kitchen of the hospital.
Water? Not rain?
And how had she gotten back to the hospital when she had thought she was free?
She was still free. She was running down the hill toward the rental car. Her heart was beating wildly, and she could hardly breathe. They had gotten out of that place, and she only hoped Sam had managed to get the records before he had set off the sprinklers.
Sam? Who was Sam? Beth didn’t know any Sam. Maybe he was one of the security guards from the hospital.
No!
Beth’s eyes flew open in panic, and she jerked upright on the couch. She wasn’t back at the hospital, she realized with relief. It had only been a nightmare.
She was in this spacious, beautiful study, lying on a brown leather couch and covered with a soft throw. There was a portrait of a woman and a dog over the fireplace. She had been afraid to use one of the bedrooms. They had seemed too large and intimidating.
She drew a deep, shaky breath, and slowly lay back down. She supposed she was lucky that she hadn’t had any nightmares about the hospital since she’d been on the run. She wasn’t used to bad dreams. The pills made her sleep too deeply for dreams. Or maybe she had dreamed, then not been able to remember. Perhaps that was another thing she had lost.
Go to sleep. She was safe here. Billy had said that she would be given a chance to heal and make her plans at this deserted house.
But evidently she was not safe from dreams.
She had been so afraid …
No, the fear had been there, but it had not been Beth’s, she realized drowsily. She had been dreaming of someone else, feeling someone else’s fear …
Who?
It didn’t matter. After all, it was only a dream.
But the name came to her just before she drifted back asleep, perhaps to prove just how much it didn’t matter. Because it was a name she didn’t know, a stranger she had never met.
Eve …
Seahaven Behavioral Health Center
EVE COULD HEAR THE GATES clang shut behind Kendra and Sam as they all hugged the shadows and ran down the hillside road to where Eve’s rental car was parked. They deliberately parked some distance away, and they were all breathing heavily as they climbed in the car.
As soon as she caught her breath, Eve turned toward the backseat and looked at the USB thumb drive still in Sam’s hand. “Please. For God’s sake, tell me you were able to get Beth’s patient files on that thing.”
“Sorry, Eve, no time. There was just too much. A couple gigs at least. It looks like they have interview notes, hours of audio and video of her sessions, maybe some photos…”
“Dammit.” Eve’s fist pounded the steering wheel in frustration. “All this for nothing?”
Sam smiled. “Hey, remember who you’re talking to here. I took care of you.”
“Took care of her how?” Kendra asked.
Sam pulled a pen from his pocket and scribbled something on a fast-food hamburger wrapper. “Your sister’s entire file is uploading as we speak. It’ll take an hour or two, but it’s all going to a secure Web site that I set up. You can access it and download the whole kit and caboodle anytime you want. And after it’s done, my program will delete itself. No one will ever know. Here’s the Web site’s address and password.” He tore a piece from the bag, handed it to Eve, then leaned back in his seat. “Hey, all this spiking adrenaline is making me hungry. Anyone in the mood for pancakes?”
CHAPTER
8
“PECAN PANCAKES,” SAM SIGHED BLISSFULLY as he took the first bite of the stack of pancakes at the IHOP at the edge of town. “Almost as good as sex on the right occasion.” Then he made a face. “What did I just say? Crazy. I must be working too hard.”
“You certainly worked hard enough tonight,” Eve said quietly. “And I’m very grateful, Sam.”
“I enjoyed it.” He lifted his cup of coffee in a mock salute to Eve and Kendra. “We make a good team. Call me anytime.”
“I hope that won’t be necessary. If we can find out enough from those records, we might be able to find out everything we need to know about Beth. As soon as I get back to the hotel, Joe and I will start plowing through them.”
“Plow is right,” Kendra said. “It may take a long time to pull everything together.”
“We’ll begin by trying to find out how she escaped from the hospital,” Eve said. “And if someone helped her. That could be a lead for us to locate her.”
Kendra nodded. “But you don’t have to waste a lot of time on that. You have Sam.”
“She does?” Sam put down his fork. “More work?”
“You’re the expert. It won’t take you any time. Your pancakes won’t even get cold. Boot up your computer and tap into the list of people who surrounded Beth Avery during the last few weeks.”
He shrugged and slipped his computer from its case. A few moments later, he turned the laptop around so that it faced Kendra and Eve. “There’s the list. About twenty people.”
“But only one of any importance,” Kendra said softly, her gaze focused on the list. “Bingo. I thought it would be there, but I had to be sure I was right about how Beth got away that night.”
Eve’s gaze flew to Kendra’s face. “You knew?”
“I told you, I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle. I needed confirmation. We were too busy today to get it earlier.”
Eve’s gaze shifted back to the computer list. “Who?”
Kendra pointed to the twelfth name on the list.
Jessie William Newell.
Eve frowned. “Who is—” Then the memory came back to her. “The orderly?”
Kendra nodded. “That nice young man who was conveniently on the same floor as we were while Piltot was showing us around.”
“That doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“No, but your sister had to have help from someone. You’ve seen the security measures there.”
“It would be hard even with help.”
“Yes, I saw only two outdoor areas that weren’t covered by security cameras, both out back. It would take someone who could have scouted the entire facility—as we did—to know that. Both of these areas have long drops to the hillside below, which is probably why cameras aren’t covering them.”
“You think Beth jumped from one of them?”
“She was lowered from the north side of the rear walkway. There are tiny pieces of white stucco on the hillside below that spot. Nowhere else. The pieces probably came off when she braced her feet against the wall as she was lowered.”
“Lowered? You believe someone lowered her down?”
“Not someone. Jessie William Newell. He had light abrasions on his knuckles and upper arms, all of the size and character consistent with the sharp stucco on that wall. They’re especially apparent on his left hand.”
Eve had a sudden memory of the orderly reaching out to shake Kendra’s hand. “You used your left han
d. I thought it was awkward at the time.”
“It was awkward, but I had to get a better look. I’m sure he leaned over the walkway with a rope and helped lower her. If you’d bothered to look up there, you would have seen places where the stucco wall was obviously marked from a rope with a weight on it.”
“I did glance up there,” Eve said dryly. “But I obviously wasn’t seeing.”
“Concentration.” Kendra was smiling. “It has many applications. Some less pleasant than others.”
“Are you through with me?” Sam asked. “Are you satisfied that Kendra is right about this dude, Eve?”
Eve looked at the list of names again.
Jessie William Newell.
Billy had given her the security code for the house.
William. Billy?
“Yes, I’m satisfied,” she said slowly. “But I’m not through with you. I need everything you can pull up on this orderly. Will you send it to my phone?”
* * *
THE SUN WAS BEGINNING to come up over the dark sea when they left the IHOP forty minutes later.
Eve stopped as they reached Sam’s car. “I’m not going to say thank you again. But I owe you, Sam.”
“That’s always a plus.” Sam shook her hand. “I’ll remember and use that IOU if I need it.” He turned to Kendra. “How about you?”
“Am I grateful?” Kendra thought about it. “No, I gave you an entertaining experience. If anything, you owe me.” She turned back to Eve. “I’ll get my bag from your car. Sam can take me to the airport and drop me off.” She checked her watch. “I should get back in plenty of time for my appointment with Justin.”
“Just as you planned,” Eve said as she unlocked her car and took Kendra’s case from the trunk. “I’m glad you were able to fit me into your schedule.” Such polite, almost stilted words, and yet they meant so much. Kendra would resent thanks, but she had opened new doors for Eve in so many ways. She handed the duffel and guitar case to Sam. “Take care of her.”
He shrugged. “As if she’d let me.” He strolled toward his car.
Eve turned back to Kendra. “Good luck with Justin.”
“Thank you, I’ll need it. He’ll need it.” She frowned. “I don’t like leaving you like this. It feels … unfinished.”