Flame's Dawn (6 page)

Barnaby sputtered. “No. Absolutely not. I was thinking more like you should be an orderly.”

“As in I'm a neat, tidy person?”

“No. You get a job as an orderly. Cleaning vomit and giving sponge baths.”

“Only if I can totally work on the women's ward.”

Barnaby palmed his forehead.

Whatever made Dante happy. Barnaby needed help. “I'm banking on it.”

“Count me in, my man! When do you need me to start?”

“Tomorrow. Think you can pull off an infiltration of a hospital? The place is full of nuns.”

“Like that's a challenge? I can make any woman's toes curl. Even a shriveled sister!” His laugh rattled the phone. “Seriously, why do you need me to do this?”

“More eyes on a big facility. I'm looking for something, not sure what. I don't have your gift of charm, so you might be able to get info I cannot. And ... well, maybe I'll know more when you get here.”

“Gotta love a mystery. I'm blowing this taco stand as we speak. Tell me where to meet you.”

Barnaby gave his old friend directions, then strolled into the hospital's human resources department in the basement. After filling out an application for janitorial services, he gave his military credentials and his commanding officer as a reference. In no time, he had a job, starting the next day at 7 a.m. if he wanted it.

Yes!
His screaming instincts yearned to search the building immediately.

But he needed to wait until morning. He'd mop every floor in the place if it allowed him to figure out what his sixth sense wanted him to know.

Maybe he'd lost his mind.

Didn't matter. Work started tomorrow.

• • •

What Jane would give to wipe away the dried sweat on her forehead and the piece of hair that had crept into her mouth. It was driving her crazy.

Unfortunately, the leather restraints on the hospital bed made any movement impossible.

What she really wanted was to take a scalding hot bath and scrub her body until the skin came off. At least all of the awful cramping and bleeding had stopped, thank God.

To crush her optimism, a wave of sweat and lower belly pain steamrolled her until she cried out. Her voice had become pitiful, foreign, and thin, like an animal that had been kicked one too many times. At least she had regained her voice. She'd screamed herself hoarse however many days or weeks ago when she had first arrived here.

Where was
here
?

She squinted up at an aluminum light fixture encasing a single harsh bulb. The brightness invaded, even with her eyes closed. Every minute felt like high noon. No day, no night. Just endless light.

Tugging against the restraints, she tamped down panic. When she tilted her head back to view the room, dizziness hit her and she had to swallow hard. Maybe someone would come looking for her.

Who? She had no family. No acquaintances, due to her work. And the DEA had wiped its hands of her. For all the DEA knew, she was on the beach, sipping a piña colada and working on her tan.

Mission failure.

After the nausea passed, she cracked open her eyes once more and took in the plain, white walls encasing a plain room, devoid of any furniture save the bed on which she lay. Lime-green vinyl floors and a stinging antiseptic smell didn't reassure her. Nor did the solid-looking door with metal gridded into the inset window.

Another bout of pain gripped her lower pelvis, like the worst menstrual cramp in the universe, and she gritted her teeth until it passed.

Time meant nothing. Could have been minutes or hours.

Muffled noises in the hall tantalized her as she strained to make out the sounds. Inhuman yelps and howls raised the hair on her arms.

The door squeaked open, and she tensed. A woman entered the room carrying two syringes. Her perfectly coiffed salt-and-pepper bouffant, better suited to 1960 than today, cradled a crisp nurse's cap.

Jane pulled halfheartedly against the restraints. “Where am I?”

The nurse pushed slanted glasses up her nose. “In the hospital, of course.”

“Which hospital? What happened?”

The woman made a face and ignored the first question. “Because you are committed.”

“Why? I'm not crazy.”

“Of course, dear.” Her words didn't match the eye roll.

Jane licked her dry lips. “Why am I tied down?”

“For your safety.”

“What's going on ... in my stomach?”

“Yes, well, you have a bit of an infection from, um, the infection. Well ...”

“Infection?”

The woman glanced around, and a tiny iota of sympathy flitted across her severe features. “You lost the baby.”

“Baby? What?”

Oh God. In a rush, images blasted in and out of her mind, like a Super 8 movie at the end of the reel. Flip, flip, flip. Light, shadow, specks. New images piled on top of old ones until she couldn't tell where reality started and her imagination stopped.

The nurse's cold pat on the arm brought her back to reality. “My dear, you lost the baby. Your husband, Mr. Thompson, brought you here, but you were out of your mind. He thought it would be better if you received treatment in the psych unit. For your own safety.”

“No. That's wrong.” Jane frowned. “I'm not crazy, and I'm not married.” A flash of recognition hit her, and panic choked her. “Oh my God. He's a bad man. Please, I need to get out of here.”

“Oh, no. You're not going anywhere. Mr. Thompson is one of our hospital benefactors, and he's very concerned for your welfare.” She lifted the syringe and flicked a bead of liquid from the tip of a long needle.

“What are you giving me?” Her heart pounded.

“Something to help with your anxiety. And something for the infection.” She swabbed Jane's upper arm and arced the first syringe down to bite into muscle.

“Please. I need— What day is it?” The world fuzzed around the edges, but Jane fought to stay conscious.

“July 10, 1974, of course.”

She'd lost three months?

“How long have I been in the hospital?”

“A little over a week. Treatment has been ... challenging. We were waiting for you to get over that infection so you'd be strong enough for ECT.”

She struggled against the medication fog. “ECT?”

“Electroconvulsive therapy.”

“You're going to shock my brain?” Breathing became difficult.

“Yes, so you don't say those crazy things anymore.”

“About what?”

“Silly things about Mr. Thompson being a criminal. And how the government is involved.”

Oh God, what else had she said?

The nurse sighed. “He's such a patient and loving man who hasn't given up on you. He's even coming by to check on you later today.”

What the hell had happened to her?

Blasts of sensation smacked into her. A bedroom that smelled of sex and desperation, then his big, sweaty body laying on her, grabbing her, forcing her to ... Over and over, endless invasion clouded by drug after drug. Bad shit, burning her tongue. A pill going into her mouth and a hand holding her head until she swallowed it. And she'd let it happen, all to get the information to complete her mission.

Her mission. What a ridiculous mistake. God. Memories slid through the nurse's medication. The horrible pain, all of the bleeding while she was trapped in that room. Thompson wouldn't help her. How had she survived that house of horrors?

If Thompson suspected she was a narc, he would've let her die. So why was she alive? How had she ended up in the hospital?

A vague image formed of her crawling down the stairs and into the street. Somehow, she'd flagged down the police. Then she recalled an ambulance and a concerned Thompson.

By sheer luck, she had done the one thing possible to buy herself time and stay alive. She'd made a spectacle and thrust Thompson right in the limelight.

So why was she still alive?

Too much attention on Thompson. He had to bide his time.

Besides, he needed to find out what she knew first. Then he could kill her.

The meeting with Thompson today.

With an extra dose of medication and a sprinkle of plausible deniability, just like that, there would be no more Jane. She yanked at the unyielding restraints.

If Thompson didn't finish her off, then the mole in the DEA would figure out how to get rid of her. Implicating a member of the DEA as participating in a cult financed by drugs would destroy the entire organization. If the DEA went under, they'd take her with them.

Her breathing came fast and harsh as the drug took over and mixed with bare fear.

Then psychedelic swirls of light, the sharp scent of rubbing alcohol, and mindless pain in her gut created a wild howl of confusion that blended poorly with whatever the nurse had given her. Confusion blanketed her mind. The howls weren't coming from down the hall.

They were coming from Jane's own mouth.

Barnaby swabbed the floors with a thoughtful flourish. His shoulders chafed against the starched white uniform. Did these uncivilized hospital folk never test garments on real people before distributing them to new hires?

With another slosh and a splat, he worked his way down the locked hallway. Eerie moans and screams peppered the otherwise quiet efficiency in this psychiatric ward. Such a cold environment improved no one's sanity, and even Barnaby felt mad fingers creeping up his neck at every odd sound.

Becoming a janitor had been a stroke of genius. He was like a ghost to the professionals who worked here. Even now, an older nurse with precise posture stepped out of a patient room and turned on her heel with the barest of nods to Barnaby.

Exactly as he wanted it. No impression. Blend into the bland walls and endless, same doors and rooms. Nothing interesting to see here, just a guy mopping a floor.

Only, as he passed each room, he cleaned his way over to the door and looked in each window.

He'd performed this same action hundreds of times already today, starting on the first floor as assigned. Unfortunately, his shift was drawing to an end, and he'd found nothing.

Maybe there was nothing to find.

His instincts tingled.
No. Something's here.

Hopefully, Dante was having a productive shift as an orderly. Leave it to that oaf to land the women's health wing.

With another wet arc on the floor, Barnaby mopped his way toward another patient room.

As part of the routine, he absently peeked through glass and wire mesh.

And froze.

A gaunt figure lay on the bed, immobilized by leather straps. Bruises dotted thin legs and arms.

The patient opened her mouth as if to speak, and a low moan of despair came out.

That tone of voice was so familiar.

Shadows formed in the hollows of her cheeks, stark and severe under a harsh light.

Barnaby's heart stopped.

Jane?

Couldn't be. This person looked like a tortured POW with bony knees and a harsh angle to her jaw.

But the tangled brown hair on the pillow?

His skin turned hot then cold. His head swam. So wrong, her presence here. Even his extra sense flogged him to action.
Get her out of here!

Z'wounds! What had been done to her?

He tried the door. Locked.

Shite. He had no idea what had happened, but he'd bet his right chestnut that she didn't belong in this wretched place.

“What are you doing, sir?”

He spun around, only to go nose to cap with the prim nurse.

Thank Christ for his gift of gab. “Good afternoon, madam. Barnie Blackstone. I'm assigned to clean this department.” When he stuck out his hand, the woman edged back and frowned.

“People like you don't go in these rooms.” Cold fish had more personality than this ... woman. He checked her hands. No ring. No surprise.

“Ah, my fault. Well, then, I'll carry on.”

“I didn't hear about anyone new being sent here. And I know everything in this department.”

Leaning on the end of his mop handle, he produced a rakish grin and tilted his head. It took all of his willpower not to check on Jane.

“You must be pretty important, milady.”

The nurse blinked then blushed. She stood even straighter. “Well, yes. I've been in charge here for at least two years.”

“Whoo whee. I bet you know a lot of stuff.” For good measure, he bent his arms, showing off his biceps right at her eye level. It had been quite some time since he'd needed to use such overt flirtation, and he didn't know how it would work in the modern age.

She darted a tongue to lick her lips.

Four hundred–plus years old and he still had talents.

Patting the lapels of her white-buttoned dress, she smiled. “Why yes, I even know about important people coming in here.”

He modulated his voice to a low purr. Dante, the typical Casanova, would be so proud of Barnaby's powers of sensual manipulation. “Even more important than you? No way.”

“Oh yes, tonight we're expecting a visit from one of the hospital benefactors.”

“What's a benefactor?” He rubbed his thumb over his mouth and mentally patted himself on the back when her lips parted.

“Someone who has lots of money that they've given to the hospital. We treat this man's family very well.”

Barnaby didn't miss how her eyes flitted to Jane's door and back.

“Wow. Who's coming?”

“You know I can't give out that information.” The woman attempted a giggle, but it came out high-pitched, too eager.

He straightened up and flexed his muscled chest. By Jove, Dante would be so much better at this game. Oh well. Beggars and choosers.

“As if I would tell anyone.” He grinned. “Look at me.”

She did.

Barnaby's heart thudded while she patted her stiff hair.

“Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to say.”

“Of course not, my lovely.”