Nowhere to Run (22 page)
When she paused long enough for Liv to worry she wasn’t going to go on, she urged, “Tell me. Please.”
“He was asked to leave Grandview. He was a fine doctor,” she added quickly. “His reputation was clean. It was just his methods weren’t in sync with Grandview.”
“And Hathaway House . . . ?”
“He was never accused of any wrongdoing, you understand. But he was . . . his methods were deemed unacceptable at other facilities as well.”
“What kind of methods?” Liv asked.
“What are you looking for, Talia?”
The doctor’s voice had grown ever more cautious. Time to hang up. “I think he was the doctor of a friend of mine who really felt he’d helped her,” Liv said, lying through her teeth. Her voice was starting to shake. One of those “I cannot tell a lie” idiosyncracies that cropped up unexpectedly. “I just was hoping to find him.”
“Well . . .” There was censure in her tone. “I’m not sure I would recommend the man.”
“If I asked at Hathaway House, do you think they’d know where he was?”
“Are you still getting treatment?”
“I’m seeing someone privately.” She glanced around the room wildly, her gaze falling on Auggie. “Dr. Augdogsen.”
“I don’t recognize the name,” Dr. Yancy said, and Auggie shook his head in disbelief.
“He’s not from the Portland area.”
“Well, if you need anything, please call again, now that you have my number. I’d be happy to help.”
“Thank you. I will.” Liv hung up quickly, her hands trembling.
“Augdogsen?” Auggie repeated, picking up the cell phone where she’d set it down.
She ignored that. “The zombie doctor is Dr. Navarone. I recognize the name. He’s the stalker in the photos, I’m almost sure of it. I never paid that much attention to him at Hathaway House. He looked different than in the photo, but I’m almost positive he’s the guy.” Liv hugged herself, suddenly cold even though the room was warm. “The killer.”
“So, where is he now?”
“She didn’t know. He used to be at Grandview Hospital, but now it’s an elder-care center, and he was asked to leave anyway, something about his methods of treatment.”
“Electric shock therapy? Lobotomies? Kumbaya?”
“None of the above,” she said automatically. They looked at each other, and for some reason both of them cracked up. “I don’t know why I’m laughing,” she said after several moments of hilarity. “Hysteria, I guess.”
“C’mere.” He pulled her to her feet, amusement still lurking around the corners of his eyes. “You can’t keep this stress up without some laughing. You’ll go crazy.” She lifted a brow at him, and he made a sound. “I wasn’t gonna say it.”
“You thought it.”
“You’re the one who thinks you’re crazy. I’m just here to listen.”
“My dad’s the one who thought I was crazy,” she corrected him. “And Lorinda. Later, they sent Hague away, too, though I was out of Hathaway by then.”
“Your brother was at Hathaway House?”
“No . . . Hague’s my father’s
real
son. Not his crazy adopted daughter whose real parents were probably crazy, too. Hathaway wasn’t quite good enough for blood.” Liv looked into his face, so close still; he hadn’t backed away from her. “To Grandview Hospital.”
real
son. Not his crazy adopted daughter whose real parents were probably crazy, too. Hathaway wasn’t quite good enough for blood.” Liv looked into his face, so close still; he hadn’t backed away from her. “To Grandview Hospital.”
He stared at her. “Are you saying your brother was at Grandview when Dr. Navarone was there?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Liv moved slightly away from him. Being so close was becoming unnerving.
“So . . . does Hague know something about Navarone?”
“I don’t know. Hague’s hard to read.”
“What did he say to you?”
They keep their hands in their pockets and wear rigor smiles.... He’ll drill holes in your head and he’ll put receivers inside the folds of your brain.... We both know him . . . from when we were kids...
She shivered, remembering.
“What?” Auggie’s gaze sharpened on her.
She shook her head. “He doesn’t know much more than I do. Less, probably. He’s not really in touch with reality.”
“You showed him the package.”
“He barely leaves his apartment.”
“But maybe he’s involved somehow, at some level. Could he have any—”
“No!” Liv cut him off. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this. My brother’s sick, but not like that. He wouldn’t hurt anybody. He was a baby when my mother died! And the only place he goes is to the ground-floor cantina in his own building.”
“But it sounds like he crossed paths with Navarone at Grandview. Maybe something got kick-started then that involves Hague. Maybe—”
She pushed him. In the chest. In sudden fury. He staggered back a couple of steps.
“Hey,” he said, affronted. He’d been so wrapped up in his train of thought that she felt he’d forgotten she was there.
“Leave Hague out of this,” Liv ordered. “It’s not about him.”
“Well, it kinda is,” he argued. “He didn’t kill your mother, sure, but there’s a connection there.”
She wanted to clap her hands over her ears. No! Not Hague. Not her little brother.
“If this Dr. Navarone is the man in the picture with your mother, and she sent you these photos, photos you showed to your brother who was a patient at Grandview Mental Hospital about the same time Navarone was there . . .”
Liv didn’t respond. She was wrestling with anxiety and a sudden fear that she might not want to know the truth after all.
“When you showed your brother, and his girlfriend, caretaker, whatever, and your father and stepmother, the photos in the package, they saw this guy. The stalking man in the photo. And you told them you were going to look into your mother’s death, and so maybe . . . somehow . . . word got back to him?”
“I don’t know for sure they’re one and the same,” Liv said, backpedaling.
“We need to find this Navarone.” Auggie was certain.
“We,” she repeated.
“We’ll go to Grandview. So it’s an elder-care facility now. Someone there might remember, or at least direct us to Navarone.”
“Why are you doing this? What do you care?” she demanded, her voice rising.
He stared at her for a long moment, then slowly leaned forward, grabbing her by the forearms and pulling her gently toward him. She resisted, holding back, until her feet actually stumbled a bit as he drew her closer.
“What are you doing? Let go of me,” she said in a voice that sounded high and alarmed to her own ears.
“Stop fighting. Let me help you,” he stated with repressed urgency.
“Do I have a choice?”
His face was way too close to hers. “Maybe not. You dragged me into this, and now I’m committed. I have to know how it ends.”
“How it ends?” She half-laughed. Definitely hysteria creeping in this time.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said.
She reared back on that one, eyes wide. “No . . . I . . .”
But her protests were lost beneath his lips on hers. Liv stood stock still, completely shocked. She told herself to move but her brain and body felt disconnected. All she could really feel were his lips molding to hers, his thighs pressed to hers, his hands sliding around the small of her back.
She didn’t want him. She didn’t. She didn’t want any man. But her traitorous fingers were clenched on his arms, feeling taut, sinewy muscle beneath. Her mind fractured. Too many sensations bombarded her at once: his lips, his hands, his shallow breaths. No, those were her breaths, rapidly growing in tandem with her heartbeats.
His mouth was hard and soft and warm and his tongue teased at the crease of her lips.
She wasn’t sure how this had happened. She didn’t want it to stop.
She opened her mouth to protest and his tongue moved in, taking it as an invitation. The feel of his tongue was warm and slick and the way it filled her mouth did something to her knees. They quivered wildly and she would have sunk down, but his arm was a bar around her back, keeping her lower body hot against his.
She could feel his arousal. It was all she could think about. She’d put on her jeans and a clean T-shirt but it felt as if there were nothing between them. Her bones had turned to liquid. Her skin felt sensitized. Somewhere in her mind she knew she should resist, but she couldn’t. This was nothing like anything she’d experienced before and she suddenly wanted it.
Wanted
it. If she died tomorrow, she was going to have this. Now.
Wanted
it. If she died tomorrow, she was going to have this. Now.
He sensed her capitulation and half-walked her, half-dragged her to the couch. They didn’t say a word to each other. One moment they were kissing and bending toward each other as if they wanted to fuse bodies, the next they were both naked and she was feeling the cushions of the couch meet her bare buttocks and shoulders.
And then he hesitated. As if second thoughts had finally penetrated the blinding passion that consumed them. “I—don’t—” he began.
“Shhh . . .” She dragged his mouth down to hers.
It was all she needed to say. His body pressed against hers, his hands sliding along her sides, one of them caressing her left breast convulsively. Her hips rose of their own accord and his other hand slid between her legs, stroking her in a way that sent her pulse skyrocketing and made her desire flame along her nerves.
Hurry
, she thought.
Hurry
. If something happened—anything—to interrupt them, she didn’t think she could bear it.
, she thought.
Hurry
. If something happened—anything—to interrupt them, she didn’t think she could bear it.
And then he was poised at the brink of fully taking her and she wanted to yank him forward. Somewhere distantly in her brain she sensed that if things didn’t proceed at breakneck pace they wouldn’t happen. Reason would reassert itself. Auggie would remember she was a crazy, damaged fugitive and would stop himself.
And she needed this. Maybe it wasn’t love. But it was desire. And she was going to have it.
“Livvie . . .” he whispered unsteadily.
“Come on,” she urged, her hands running down the hard muscles of his back.
That did it. He pushed against her and she felt a joyous thrill slide into her feminine core. Her hips urged him forward and he pushed harder, entering her, wringing a gasp from her lips. He stopped but her hands were urgent, pulling him closer and then he began rhythmically moving, sliding in and out until her mind was mush and she was simply sensation. No body. Nothing. Some other plane of consciousness.
The pressure built. Her body moved with his as if she’d been meant for him. Maybe she was, she thought half-hysterically. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t understood the joy of Trask and Jo, why she hadn’t felt anything that even vaguely resembled this pleasure.
Trask . . .
For a moment she was filled with anguish, but a pulse was beating in her head and her hips were meeting his in a delicious rhythm and before she knew it her hands were raking his back and she was convulsing beneath him, crying out. A moment later he thrust harder, stiffening in his own climax before he collapsed against her, his breath rasping against her ear, his heart galloping against hers.
Chapter 15
Liv woke up as if she’d been asleep, though she hadn’t. One moment she was tangled on the couch in Auggie’s arms and legs, the next she was off her astral plane and back into reality with a bang.
Her first thought was:
we didn’t use protection
.
we didn’t use protection
.
Her second:
it’s way down the list of my worries.
it’s way down the list of my worries.
When she stirred, he lifted his arms, managing somehow to prop himself on his elbow and regard her lazily. She watched him push a strand of her honey-brown hair away from her face.
“I am crazy,” she said seriously.
“It must be catching.”
Feeling idiotic, she picked up the scraps of her clothing, eased herself from his embrace, headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind her with a soft thunk that sounded as loud as thunder to her ears.
She dressed hurriedly. Checked herself in the mirror.
Good. God.
She stepped back into the living room to realize he’d put on his boxers and jeans again. He was still shirtless and standing beside the couch.
They stared at each other. After a moment, she said, “Well.”
He said, “Wanna go again?”
“Yes . . . no . . . no . . .”
He sat back down on the couch. Liv told herself to stay away from him, but she walked over and sank down beside him as if she had no will.
He laced the fingers of his left hand through those of her right. Her heart was thudding so hard it hurt. He was looking at her, she could tell, but she couldn’t turn toward him.
“I want to,” he said, his breath fanning her ear. “Tell me you don’t and make me believe it.”
The heat from his hand was radiating up her arm and through her chest, reaching toward her hammering heart. She was no proof against his slow seduction. If it was a battle, he was going to win. It made no sense to her. She should be running, planning,
escaping . . .
escaping . . .
When he stood up again, pulling her with him and leading her to the bedroom, she complied as if the whole thing had been scripted.
And when he turned her toward him at the side of the bed and his mouth captured hers and her hand was on his chest and she felt the light and fast beat of his own heart, she moved her mouth down to his bare chest and lay a row of kisses down his sternum that had him making a strangled sound.
A moment later they were both on the bed, their clothes being ripped off with frantic fingers and searching mouths.
Auggie lay beside Liv on the bed, his naked body spooned up next to hers. He couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. He would guess awake, as he was. And probably just as conflicted. But happy. Or, maybe relieved. Or something.
Damn, but this shouldn’t have happened. Especially as many times as it had.
Damn, but he wasn’t sorry.
If he let his brain travel along the recent road of these last moments he could get all stirred up again and he knew that wasn’t a good idea.
Well, not unless she wanted to again, of course.
Her eyes were closed. Her lashes lying soft and weblike against her cheek. As if feeling his intense gaze, her lids opened and she turned her hazel eyes to him. They searched the depths of each other’s eyes.
“What now?” she asked.
“Grandview,” he told her, and then a bit more reluctantly, “Time to get dressed.”
September stood beside Gretchen at George’s workstation and listened with only half an ear to his report. He’d met up with Paul de Fore’s parents, who were making burial plans for their son. In the course of his one foray into real fieldwork, he’d learned enough about the de Fores and Paul to convince him that the Zuma massacre had nothing to do with them.
“They’re relatively sane, hard-working, unimaginative. Neither of ’em has enough passion to break a smile. Their son sounds just like them, from all accounts. More rigid maybe. But whoever shot the shit out of Zuma . . . it ain’t them.”
“In your opinion,” Gretchen said.
“Yours, too. If you’d talked to them.”
George had also been digging into the Zuma finances and their contracts with video-gaming distributors. “Military, schmilitary. They’re just developing video games. Lots of shooting and fake blood and gurgling sound effects. Rad showed me some backdoor ways to get to upper game levels. That’s about the extent of their secret military involvement. And with Phillip Berelli as the company comptroller, they look like they’re paying all their bills and taxes, too.”
“So, you’re saying this wasn’t about Upjohn or de Fore,” Gretchen said.
“Doesn’t read that way. And it doesn’t seem like this was some disgruntled employee. Most everyone who’s worked for Upjohn left on their own accord.” George looked at September. “You okay?”
He knew all about the body they’d discovered; September and Gretchen had reported all they knew to D’Annibal with George standing by. D’ Annibal had gone to talk to someone at county.
“I keep wondering where Wes is,” September said. “He met the first vic at a bar.”
“He was miles away. On his way back,” George said.
Gretchen’s desk phone rang and she walked over and scooped up the receiver. “Detective Sandler.”
“You look like hell,” George observed.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Who would you look at?” September asked him. “As the target for the Zuma shootings?”
“Possibly the receptionist. He shot her twice in the chest and that’s pretty serious business.”
“But he kept on going,” September pointed out. “He shot de Fore. Then Maltona. Then he went after Upjohn and Dirkus who were together in Upjohn’s office. Maybe he made a try for the upstairs.”
“I hear your brother’s contacted the other one, the bookkeeper. She’s damn lucky she wasn’t there on Friday. Maybe she’s the target and that coulda been her Waterloo.”
Gretchen slammed the receiver into the cradle. “Nine,” she said shortly.
September looked at her.
“Camille Dirkus is with Upjohn at the hospital. Let’s roll.”
Grandview Senior Care was a squat, brick hospital with wings sprouting like spokes from a central hub. Some of those wings were connected in the back, and Auggie imagined hallways that turned off hallways that turned off hallways until you were back where you started. He also suspected that when the facility had been a mental hospital, its halls and rooms weren’t quite so tired looking. Or, maybe it was just that with so many wheelchairs, walkers and elderly residents the place had picked up that sense of being in another time. Somewhere slowed down. Out of rhythm with the goings-on outside their doors.
“Hello,” a middle-aged woman with a lean, outdoorsy look greeted him. Her narrow face had a windburned quality to it, etched by lines around her mouth and eyes.
Auggie glanced back, through the sliding glass doors to the parking lot. Liv was sitting in the passenger side, staring at him through the window, her eyes covered by sunglasses. She’d been afraid to come in, and she’d been even more afraid to let him go alone, but in the end she’d allowed it, saying simply, “Go on.”
She was discombobulated, he knew. Making fatalistic choices. The only way he’d been able to penetrate her defenses and make love to her.
To the woman, he said, “I need to talk to someone about one of the doctors who was here when Grandview was a mental hospital.”
She lost interest immediately. “Oh, that was a whole different company. They’ve been gone a while.”
“Is there someone, though, who might know about that company?”
“I guess you could talk to Sofia,” she said reluctantly. “She didn’t work for them, but I believe her sister did.”
“Is Sofia here now?” Auggie asked. Inside his pocket, his cell phone was feeling very heavy. He needed to call D’Annibal again. He needed to make certain the lieutenant felt he was actually working the job. In truth, he wondered if he really was. He’d sort of lost perspective on his own directive. From putting a tail on Liv Dugan to becoming her hostage, and then her lover . . . well, that wasn’t exactly in the playbook for detective work.
The receptionist pushed a button and said into the receiver, “Sofia? Are you available? There’s someone at the front door for you.” A few moments later the phone buzzed back and she picked it up. Her gaze met Auggie’s and she nodded. “She’ll be right up.”
“Thanks.” There was no chair but there was a short bench along one wall. Auggie sauntered over to it, casting an eye toward the door and Liv who was still looking his way. He gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up.
Ten minutes later a large woman with short, gray hair above her ears, wearing pink surgical scrubs, her breath heaving as she half-waddled, half-strode into the waiting area, skewered Auggie with a look. “You wanted to see me?” she said with a trace of disbelief as she looked him up and down.
Her voice was gravel. Her expression was bland, but he sensed a certain disapproval coming from her. “I wanted to talk about Grandview Hospital, before it was a senior-care center.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“I understand your sister worked at Grandview?”
She cast an eye toward the receptionist, who met her gaze blandly and shrugged. “She did. For a short time.”
“Can you help me, or should I talk to her?”
“What do you want to know?”
This was normally where he would haul out his identification and suggest they go in a room and have a talk. Most people, upon realizing he was with the police, fell all over themselves to give him what he wanted and get him on his way. Unless, of course, they had something to hide.
But without the ID, he was relying on Sofia’s cooperation out of the goodness of her heart. Her very large heart, in a very large chest. And he didn’t want to take a chance that Liv would find out who he was before he was ready. Especially after what they’d now shared . . .
“I’m actually looking for a Dr. Navarone,” Auggie said, cutting to the chase.
Sofia’s eyes glared down at him. “Why?”
From across the room the receptionist was looking at them curiously now, too. Auggie said, with a mixture of fact and fiction, “I think he treated my brother when he was at Grandview. The treatment didn’t help him. I’m not interested in a lawsuit. I just want to talk to the man, find out what Dr. Navarone’s treatment was.”
Sofia snorted and it was a loud noise. “Treatment,” she said with a curl of her lip.
“I heard it was unconventional,” Auggie encouraged her.
“That’s a nice word for it.”
“What would you call it?” he asked.
“Dangerous. Stupid. Maybe even criminal. That’s what my sister said, and she would know.”
“What kind of things are we talking about?”
“What’s your brother’s name?” she asked.
“Hague Dugan,” he answered without hesitation.
She seemed to think that over. “Dr. Navarone used psychotropic drugs. Deprivation techniques. He experimented. Got his hands slapped for it, too, according to Andrea, my sister. To his credit, Navarone seemed to really believe he was helping his patients. A lot of people bought into it for a long time . . . until they didn’t.”
“What happened?”
“Somebody died. They couldn’t prove it was because of Navarone outright, but he was booted out as soon as they could figure out how to get rid of him. Andrea thought it was the beginning of the end for the facility.”
“Do you know what happened to the doctor?”
“He was a visiting doctor at different places. Maybe one of them took him. He still has his license . . . at least as far as I know.”
“You remember his first name?”
“I didn’t know him,” she reminded him, but she thought it over anyway. After a moment, she said, “Frank, I think. Frank Navarone. Google him,” she said, turning away.
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