Page 81 of One More Chance

Walter said, “I guess you’re stuck with us.”

Jax shook his head. “If we are, then you can explain what’s going on, why you’re here, and why you’re insisting we remain with you.”

She kept an eye on Lorin, wondering how a mute man and a blind man communicated. They seemed to know each other. Was it because they had been taken together and have since forged a bond in their captivity? “The two of you have been here a long time. More than fifty years.”

Lorin stared at nothing.

“We need to know what you know about Marcus Buzard.”

A gunshot exploded somewhere in the house. A fight, or someone trying to get out of a locked room they had been shut in. Had the alarm and the contamination protocol locked everyone in whatever space they occupied at the time? They could be spread across the house with no way out.

Kenna kept trying. “We need to know what he’s doing here and what he wants.”

Lorin looked at Walter for a long silent moment, then turned and touched a keypad beside the door. Just a flat panel. He pressed his thumb to the pad, and the lock on the door clicked.

“No sudden movements.” Kenna still had her gun within reach.

He looked at her, opened the door, and stepped out.

Jax led Walter by the elbow. As they left the bedroom and headed down the stairs, the sounds grew louder. Someone—or a few people—were trying to get out.

“You are going to set us all free, aren’t you?” Kenna addressed Lorin, not altogether sure why since he couldn’t answer verbally.

Walter said, “We aren’t the captors.”

“If you’re trapped here in this house, why not figure a way out?”

“You think we haven’t tried?” Walter said. “It’s why I’m blind and why the doc took away Lorin’s mouth. Earnest’s ears.”

Kenna’s stomach clenched. She’d seen something on the sides of Earnest’s head, but not what it was. She would certainly never have guessed that it was this. “I’m sorry that happened to you.” She turned back to Walter at the bottom of the stairs. “We can help you, if you let us.”

“No help for us.”

Jax said, “That’s not true. You just need to believe us. Trust that we can get you free of this doctor. He’s ruined too many lives already. Stopping him from hurting anyone else is the reason why we’re here.”

As with Three, it seemed altruism didn’t really ring true as a reason for any of them. Maybe Walter, like the men from the retirement home, didn’t care about other people. He saw no way out for himself. Why would he bother helping others when it wouldn’t do him any favors?

“You take him down,” Walter said. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

Kenna frowned, wondering how that could be when these guys were here, as part of his operation. Or were they simply apair of forgotten caretakers of the house? She needed a whole lot more information from them in order to figure this out.

“I’m going to call in the bureau,” Jax said, while they all followed Lorin into another room. A library with a sitting area of a leather couch and armchair and shelves of books on the walls. Above a fireplace at the end was a framed image that looked like it had come from a Victorian-era medical book.

“Then you can be certain that it will have to do with you.”

“We are as much his victims as you are.” The voice was robotic and full of static. Lorin turned from a sideboard, a small device in his hands. He typed on it with his thumbs, and the same voice spoke again. “But we will tell you what you want to know.”

Kenna said, “As much as I want to hear everything you have to say, I don’t want you to stay here. We can leave the house and go somewhere else. The hospital. A police station. Even a house or a park. You don’t need to remain in this place. You can leave.”

Lorin’s device said, “We can’t leave.”

“He’s right.” Walter tugged his arm from Jax’s hold, bent, and lifted his pant leg. What had been secured to his ankle looked like a monitor, the kind put on parolees to track their movements and ensure they didn’t leave a specific area.

This one had a test tube of green liquid in it.

“Break the tube so it can’t go into your bloodstream,” Kenna suggested. “You don’t have to live like this.”

“It’s not glass,” Lorin’s device said. “It is unbreakable.”

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