Triggered Response Page 15

  CLAIRE FINALLY SHUT OFF the engine, stuffed her Maglite in her pocket, left the vehicle and headed after Bray. She was part of this. Her life had been at risk. And despite Bray’s insult added to the warning from Mac, she wasn’t running the other way.

  The wind had picked up and a chill shot down her back. She pulled up her hoodie and jogged to stay warm, first on solid ground, then across the sand. A spray of water hit her face and she realized the sky was spritzing. She could see Bray ahead, a dark silhouette against the darker night, but there was no sign of anyone else, and she wondered why Gage would use subterfuge in such a secluded area. Something didn’t feel right. Instincts humming, she moved faster.

  “Bray, wait for me!”

  The beam flashed and she saw him glance back, then simply forge up the ramp to the deck surrounding the squat structure. Claire cursed and kept going. A moment later she was racing upward, gasping for breath.

  “Bray, where are you?” she called in a stage whisper, though she didn’t know why since they seemed to be the only ones out here.

  “Right here,” he said from directly behind her.

  Whipping around brought her practically against his chest. The lighthouse beam blipped, illuminating his closed expression. Angry or not, she couldn’t help but respond physically to him. She wanted to press herself against his body and wrap her arms around his neck. Suspecting he would no longer appreciate the gesture, she took a step back.

  “What are you doing here, Claire?”

  “The same as you.” She moved away from him and began circling the deck that surrounded the lighthouse. “Waiting for Gage to show up.”

  “Get out now, while you can.”

  The words were almost identical to those in Mac’s message.

  “I don’t want out. I want answers.”

  “You could get a hell of a lot more trouble than you bargained for.”

  “What’s life without a little risk?”

  His fingers wrapped around her arm and jerked her to a stop. “Are you really that naive or is this part of your act?”

  “Forget it. You’re not driving me away no matter what you say.”

  Claire realized that had been his purpose in saying those awful things to her. He’d wanted her out of the way. Not that it made her feel any better.

  She jerked her arm out of Bray’s grasp and whirled away from him. She hadn’t taken more than two steps before her foot caught in something soft. The beam blipped and she grabbed on to the railing and reached down to the obstacle. Cloth gave way to cool flesh. Her gorge rose in her throat when she realized she was up close and personal with a body.

  “What happened?” Bray demanded. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay, but he’s not. I think I just found Gage.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lily Darnell felt as if she’d paced the floor between her four poster bed and the seating area in front of the fireplace until the carpet in between was nearly worn.

  Why hadn’t Gage called her?

  How could he have forgotten his cell phone?

  Seething with frustration, she felt her head go light when her own cell phone finally rang. With fumbling fingers, she pulled it from her pocket, but rather than Bray, the call was from Echo.

  “I wasn’t going to call you, and then I thought if it was me and Rand, I would want to know.”

  “Know what?” Knees trembling, Lily perched on the edge of the bed and stared out the window that looked over the water. Too dark now to see anything.

  “I told Bray that Gage wanted to meet him at Lansdale lighthouse, but it wasn’t really Gage.”

  Lily grew cold as she listened to Echo’s tale about the two Gages and about how the real Gage figured Bray was in trouble and was hell-bent on saving him.

  “I just thought you ought to know.”

  “You warned Bray, right?”

  “No signal. And he has a pre-pay cell—no voice mail. I left a message for Rand, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. I feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I need to find a car,” Lily said. If she stayed in Rehoboth Beach, she would feel equally helpless. “I wonder if I can get a rental this late. I need to get back to St. Stephens. Call me the instant you hear anything.”

  “Sure. Lily, I’m really sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. Not for either of us. Gage and Bray are going to be okay.”

  Lily kept telling herself that as she grabbed a wallet out of her purse and rushed downstairs only to be told the rental agencies were closed for the night.

  “It’s an emergency,” she said. “I have to get back to St. Stephens right away. I’ll pay anything. Please, it’s my husband.”

  In the end, the brunette softened and called a friend who worked at one of the car rental places. Soon Lily would be on her way back to St. Stephens without a clue as to what she would do when she arrived there.

  WHEN CLAIRE SNAPPED on her Maglite and swept it along the body sprawled back on the deck, the first thing Bray saw was the bloom of red covering the victim’s white lab coat right where his heart would be.

  Bray let out his breath. “That’s not Gage.”

  “No, it’s Hank Riddell.” She reached out and felt for a pulse, then looked up at Bray, her face shadowed by the hood of her jogging suit. “He’s dead.”

  “What’s that next to him?”

  Claire focused the light on the weapon next to the body.

  “Don’t touch it,” Bray warned her. “Fingerprints.”

  And his would probably be all over the damn thing. He was pretty certain it was the gun he’d kept in the Cranesbrook security office. With each passing hour, he was remembering more and more. Kind of like a megafile being loaded into a computer, slowly, one frustrating bite at a time.

  “Is this what Gage wanted me to see?” he asked.

  “Why isn’t he here, then?”

  Water lapped against the piles below them. Bray was tempted to throw the damn gun as far as he could into the water, but of course he couldn’t destroy evidence, not even if it pointed to him.

  Before he could decide on a course of action, a bright beam came at him, followed by a deep voice. “Freeze right there, Sloane.”

  Bray whirled around to see dark uniforms behind twin flashlights tromping up the ramp. Police uniforms. What the hell! Had he been set up by his own partner?

  One of the cops got on his radio and called in. “Yep, Sloane’s here just like the anonymous tip said. And there’s another body. Guy in a lab coat. Must be from Cranesbrook. Send an ambulance to pick him up.”

  A siren announced the arrival of another police car. Backup had already arrived. The light flashed and he could see the car pulling in at the opposite side of the point from Claire’s CRV. Silently cursing Gage, Bray began to sweat. He couldn’t be taken in. Not when he was so close to answers. And now Claire would be implicated unless he got her out of here before the cops got a good look at her face. Thankfully, the hood was still hiding her identity.

  “Over here!” one of the cops yelled to the new arrivals.

  “The victim’s name is Hank Riddell,” Bray said. “Look, we just got here and found him like that.”

  “You’ll get a chance to give your side of the story at the station.”

  Another siren. One of the cops glanced back and Bray saw his chance. He jammed a shoulder into the other officer as he lunged toward the water side, grabbing Claire and jerking her into following. They hit the railing and scrambled over it together. Then they were falling and crashing feet-first into the cold water. Luckily the tide was in. Bray hit the bottom with a jerk.

  The lighthouse beam flashed, allowing him to see that Claire was right next to him. He put his finger to his lips as quick footsteps tattooed against the ramp.

  “Shit, we gotta go in after them?”

  “Nah, they have to come out somewhere,” one of the new arrivals said. “Too cold to stay in long. All we have to do is stay put and wai
t.”

  Bray held on to Claire and lifted his feet from the sea bottom. The flesh under his fingers trembled and he realized how cold she was. He pulled her closer to conserve body heat. She went stiff but didn’t fight him. The current was taking them downstream away from the cops and toward the area where she’d parked her car.

  “Hey, I see movement over that way!” someone shouted. “Don’t let ’em get away.”

  The beam blipped and Bray saw the cops run in the opposite direction. All but one guy who backed away from the others and signaled them.

  Gage Darnell!

  What the hell was going on?

  By the next blip, Gage had moved far enough back from the water line to be hidden by shrubs and tall beach grasses. He was waving frantically for them to come in. Bray realized he’d sent the cops on a wild-goose chase.

  Splatters of rain hit the water around them. Claire was now shaking against him from the cold. He held her tight and began moving toward shore, one eye on the activity down the beach, the other on his partner, who’d sent the cops off in the wrong direction. Could he trust Gage? It couldn’t be a mere coincidence that his partner had wanted to meet here and then Riddell turned up dead.

  “Stay low,” he told Claire as they hit shallow water.

  They crept onto land half bent over. The lighthouse beam flashed, revealing a Jeep next to the CRV. Gage was already there. By the time they caught up to him, the rain was starting to come down in fits and starts.

  “Claire, I’m going with Gage.”

  “Then so am I.”

  “No. I don’t want you with us in case the cops catch us.” Or in case Gage betrayed them. He still didn’t know what to think about his partner, but Bray wasn’t letting Gage out of his sight until he knew what was what. “They couldn’t see your face with that hood up, so they don’t know who you are.”

  “He’s right, Claire,” Gage said. “I’ll drive past them so they’ll come after us. That’ll give you a chance to get away. Head west and keep your lights off as long as you can.”

  Claire shook her head.

  “Do it!” Bray said, opening her driver’s door and pushing her to get inside. He held her arm a moment longer than necessary, knowing it might be the last time he would ever touch her.

  She pulled her arm from his gasp and slammed the door in his face.

  By the time Bray climbed into the Jeep, Gage was already in the driver’s seat. “Let’s get going. We have a lot to talk about.”

  “We have some cops to lose first.” Gage started the engine.

  Bray looked out the window as the beam blipped. Claire’s hood was off and she was wiping her eyes. Sea water? Or was she crying? He swallowed his guilt as Gage pulled out and swung past the official vehicles. He heard a shout and saw flashlight beams bob toward them as the officers ran for their vehicles in the now driving rain.

  Gage drove like a madman. But then he always had, the reason Bray had let him have command of the Humvee in Afghanistan. As they whipped around curves and turns, Bray felt his brain jar into motion, speeding up the memories about the night of the lab accident until there was only one thing missing. The aftermath of the explosion.

  “Head for Cranesbrook.”

  “As soon as I’m sure I’ve lost them.”

  Gage circled around their objective. The rain let up and Bray saw a pair of lights in the distance behind them.

  “I think they got us.”

  “Not yet.”

  Gage drove straight off the road and down into a ravine where he cut his lights and the engine. A minute later the other set of lights sailed right past.

  “So what the hell is going on, Gage? Why did you get me to come to a murder scene?”

  “You were set up, but not by me. I’m not the one who paid your sister a visit this afternoon. I believe we’ve got a fourth person who inhaled the chemicals. One with a new power.”

  Gage filled him in on his assumption that a fourth person’s brain had mutated, enabling him to project an image that made Echo believe she’d been speaking to Gage.

  “A fourth person came into the lab?” Bray was still trying to fill that hole in his memory.

  “As far as I know, the only people affected by the accident were Vanderhoven, me and you.”

  “What if the fourth guy wasn’t a part of the accident? What if one of our intrepid scientists decided to experiment on himself?”

  “You mean, inhale the chemicals purposely?”

  “Claire found some vials and what sounds like a flashpot in a storeroom in what supposedly was an empty lab. A janitor died in there.”

  “You mean, Artur? I heard he’d died of a heart attack.”

  “But caused by what? Claire said Riddell found him. And now Riddell’s dead. Murdered.”

  “It’s all tied together, everything that’s happened since the accident.”

  “We came to the same conclusion.”

  We… He and Claire. He already missed her. He wanted to believe there was some way they could be together again, but he simply didn’t see how when their short relationship had been nothing but a lie. He needed to focus on what they were doing. Even thinking about Claire was too distracting.

  “Can I use your cell?” he asked Gage. “Mine took a swim and I need to let Echo know I’m okay.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Gage pulled it from his jacket pocket and handed it to Bray. “And I have some dry sweats in the back that should fit you.” He paused a second while Bray tapped out his sister’s number, then said, “She’ll corroborate my story.”

  Bray didn’t protest. And indeed, when Echo got on the phone, she did exactly that. Relief shot through Bray and he finally relaxed. When Echo asked him what they were going to do next, he gave her the truth, including the fact that the police arrived right after they found Riddell, ending with, “We’re going to break into Cranesbrook and do what’s necessary to get some answers.”

  Something told him that the mastermind behind the cover-up and all the deaths would be waiting for them.

  GREAT SOBS RACKED Claire for all of a minute before anger won over heartbreak. If Bray really thought she could be sent packing so easily, he had another think coming. She had as much at stake as he did, now being the target of both a murderer and a police investigation.

  The muffled sound of sirens intruded, but soon they faded. So the chase was on. Shedding the wet hoodie and throwing it in back, she started her engine, slid out of her parking spot and coasted in the other direction, all the while checking her rearview mirror. Gradually she picked up speed, turned on her running lights, steeled herself for what she was going to do next.

  Halfway to Cranesbrook, she pulled into the parking lot of a diner. Grabbing the bag with the new clothes and finding her umbrella, she stepped out into the rain that had now petered off to a fine drizzle. She entered the diner and looked around. The place was half empty.

  “O-oh, darlin’, you been swimming?” asked a waitress, who was wielding a pot of coffee at the counter where three customers turned to look at her.

  Claire gave them all an abashed grin and took on another persona. “Looks like it, don’t it? You’d think a girl would have the sense to take her umbrella when it’s fixin’ to rain.”

  “I see you got it now.”

  “Dry clothes, too. That’s why I’m not taking any chances. Do you think you could have a big cup of hot Joe to go by the time I’m out of the ladies’ room?”

  “Sure enough, darlin’. How do you take it?”

  “Straight up’ll do.”

  “You got it.”

  Claire rushed into the restroom, where she quickly got into dry clothes. That felt better. Then she took her hair down from its clip, finger-combed it and fluffed it in front of the electric hand-dryer.

  A glance in the mirror assured her she was now presentable if not glamorous. She grabbed her bag of wet clothes and her umbrella and went to pay for her coffee. Even her money was wet when she took out her wallet.

  �
�Oh, you did go swimming,” the waitress said with a laugh.

  Claire took a sip from the foam cup. “Ah, that’s better.” Warmth trickled to her stomach. “You have a good night now.”

  “Back at ya, darlin’.”

  Claire left the diner knowing the waitress would remember her. That didn’t mean she would cooperate with a cop asking questions about a woman on the run. Besides, the place was far enough away from Lansdale Point that no one would think to search for her here.

  Though she raced to the car, umbrella up, she couldn’t avoid the rain altogether. Still, she felt about seventy percent better. Taking another sip of hot coffee, starting the engine and turning on the heat increased that percentage. On the outside anyway.

  Inside, she was still cold and numb. She and Bray were over, but she would have to deal with those emotions later. Now she had to get to Cranesbrook before all hell let loose.

  “YOU’RE SURE this is going to work?”

  “Watch and become a believer.”

  The moon had broken through the cloud bank to cast a cold blue light over the Cranesbrook complex. Bray could see the metal box attached to the nearby building that held landscaping tools and janitorial supplies. The box housed the controls for the electrified fence. Being that Five Star had installed the system, Gage knew exactly what had to be done to cut the electricity so they could get into the complex unharmed and undetected. The power box’s door suddenly whipped open. Gage continued to focus his energy on the controls.

  Whatever might be happening was a mystery to Bray because he couldn’t see inside.

  Gage stepped back and said, “Power’s off, so let’s do this fast,” then focused on the fence itself. A section of chain-link started to rattle. “You remember how to walk on your belly?”

  “Watch me.”

  A frisson of excitement zapped through Bray as the chain-link separated itself from one of the posts and curled upward several inches. On the ground on his stomach, he slithered under the fence without so much as brushing it. Then he rolled up onto his feet as Gage followed. They were in!

  Quickly, Gage reversed his mental wizardry, fixing and re-electrifying the fence so it would seem to any security guard on his toes as if there simply had been an interruption of power rather than a break-in.