Page 11 of Heart of Danger
What time was it? It must be close to midnight. She’d slept badly the night before, unnerved by patient Nine.
Patient Nine—Lucius Ward—had been so desperately insistent, the force of his will had simply washed over her, prickling her skin. The images coming from him had been so very strong, the strongest she’d ever had. As if the barriers between them had dissolved and she was in his damaged head. There were images there, true, not words, except for that one name, murmured brokenly over and over again. Tom McEnroe. Mac. Mac. Mac.
The images were clear. The mountain. Lonely broken roads. Obstacles. A dead car.
And, horrifyingly, his own death. Cold stillness, his body on a steel gurney with runnels. A body laid out for an autopsy.
She’d shivered. Lucius Ward was ill but not at death’s door. His EEC was pathological but his heart and lungs functioned well. But the image was insistent. He expected to die soon.
He’d been agitated, trying to talk, clinging to her arm with an emaciated hand that still held surprising strength. His throat clicked, over and over, words that weren’t coming out. A thin trickle of air escaping from his mouth, with a short hum. His eyes bulged, the cords in his thin neck stretched. His mouth opened and closed with a clatter of teeth.
His efforts to speak were heartbreaking, she couldn’t stand it. Bending down to him, fixed in his wild, desperate gaze, she bent her ear to his mouth.
“Run,” he’d whispered and she’d broken out in goose bumps.
Troubled, Catherine had gone home. She couldn’t eat and couldn’t sleep and finally the next morning she decided to follow the pictures in her head. Something about the wild fear he had instilled kept her from calling in sick. She simply left.
The man stood up suddenly and looked down at her. “Stay here,” he commanded and walked out.Stay here. Well, where would she go? The door had opened for him and closed behind him before she could even think of making a break for it.
She looked down at the tabletop. The grain of the wood was unusually fine and she fixated on it until her head drooped. She jerked upright. She’d nearly fallen asleep in the chair.
Were they going to keep her here all night? There were only two chairs. Maybe she could use the other chair for her legs and try to catch a few hours of uncomfortable sleep.
She shifted uneasily, stiff and sore, exhaustion seeping into her bones. Hunger and thirst were added to the discomfort of exhaustion. She turned her head to eye the door. There was no doorknob. It had somehow swished open for the man in black and swished closed again with no visible command having been given. There was no keypad and even if there were, she didn’t have the code.
She was a prisoner. For how long? Was she going to be kept locked up here without food. There was still a glass of water in the pitcher, but nothing else.
She sifted through her impressions of the man. Rocky exterior, granite underneath that. Iron self-control, cold awareness. All those had been there. But no cruelty, no sadism.
She’d felt cruelty and sadism before. The world was full of hidden psychopaths. Catherine had known men and women who would have happily left her to die in a locked room without giving it a second thought. But not that man in black.
She didn’t think she was going to die here. In this room. Yet.
But man, she’d kill for food and water and a bed. And while she was at it, wishing for things she didn’t have—a shower. And?—
The door whooshed open again unexpectedly and she turned in her chair, heart pounding, muscles tensed for danger.
But it wasn’t danger, it was only a teenaged boy holding a big tray. She was so surprised that by the time she thought to react, to engage the boy in a conversation, to try to pry some information out of him, he was gone, the door whooshing open and closed for him as if invisible genies inhabited the place.
A cornucopia lay before her. Her stomach rumbled loudly, the wonderful smells sparking some kind of intense endocrine reaction.
Her hand trembled as she picked up the first thing close to her hand. A taco. But not just any taco, oh no. Maybe it was extreme hunger, but the tastes were incredible. Stone ground cornmeal shell, fresh tomatoes, perfectly cooked spicy meat…even the lettuce was delicious. There were two tacos, large and steaming hot. The best homemade guacamole she’d ever tasted. A baked potato with fresh clotted cream and fresh chopped chives. A salad of red, tasty tomatoes drizzled with virgin olive oil. A huge slice of the best peach pie she’d ever tasted, so good she nearly laughed aloud as she brought the fork to her mouth.
A pitcher of absolutely fresh juice. She could taste apples and carrots and a touch of lemon. It went down her parched throat like a dream and it was like being in a garden on a summer’s day.
Oh man, if they were going to kill her at least they were serving her the best last meal ever.
CHAPTERTHREE
SAN FRANCISCO—HEADQUARTERS, ARKA PHARMACEUTICALS
His cell buzzed.Dr Charles Lee checked the number, set the phone in its dock and pressed the icon for hologram. The shaved bullet head of his chief of security at the Millon lab, Cal Baring, appeared in 3D. He was scowling ferociously, but then he usually did.
Lee checked the overhead bank of clocks, showing all the time zones in the world. He only cared about one. Beijing time. It was 6 pm here, 9 am in Beijing.
“Yes, Baring?” He continued scrolling through research data. Though one’s instinct was to address a hologram because it was so lifelike, it wasn’t necessary. “What is it?”
“It’s about Dr. Young, sir.”
