Seeking Asylum (23 page)

When Patel frowned in puzzlement, Metzger realized he’d spoken in German.

“Are you telling me that Caleb Baldwyn has a twin brother?” he repeated in English. “Why was I never informed of this?”

Patel’s dark face turned a sickly yellow. “I shouldn’t have mentioned anything. I’m distraught.”

Thoughts were crowding into Metzger’s brain too fast to process. He took a long, shaky breath and tried to consciously slow down his racing heart. He shoved his fisted hands into his lab coat pocket.

“Rajid, you cannot unsay what you have said. Now explain. Caleb Baldwyn has a twin? Why was none of this information in his medical records?”

Patel dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face. “I just t-told you. The endowment his grandmother gave the Meadows was more than enough to build and maintain the Women’s Dependency Center. The stipulation on the money was that no one was to ever know that Caleb Baldwyn was alive, much less that he had any
family. As far as his brother knows, Baldwyn died in a fall twenty years ago. Gerhardt, you must promise me that this information will go no further.”

Metzger didn’t even respond to Patel’s plea. He leaned forward. “Where is the twin? Are they identical? How can you be sure the twin is unaware of the existence of his brother?”

Patel stood and rounded his desk, looking down at the shorter man. “You must forget what I have said. Please. Olivia Stanhope wanted the other boy to believe Caleb had died. That was her decision to make, not ours.” He fingered his tie. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. We could lose the monies she entrusted to us for Caleb’s care. It is a
very
large amount of money. And Eric Baldwyn is now Caleb’s legal guardian. And if that happened, the Meadows would be ruined. We could not possibly liquidate that amount of cash.”

“That’s an administrative problem. My interest is clinical. Do you have any idea how important this information is to my—” He’d almost said,
my research.
“To Baldwyn’s treatment? Knowing he has a twin brother makes all the difference.”

Metzger rose. Ignoring Patel’s plaintive voice ringing in his ears, he left the director’s office. He had to find Thomas. Now he knew why Caleb’s behavior had been so abnormal since his return to the Meadows.

The answer was so simple, now that he understood.

It was because he wasn’t Caleb Baldwyn.

RACHEL TOOK ERIC’S hand and used it to leverage herself up and over the wooden break wall that had been built to stop erosion of the dirt crawl space at the front of the basement.

He gripped the waistband of her jeans and hauled her up as she fought for a foothold on the packed dirt.

Finally she was sitting beside him in a cavelike hole that smelled of earth and mold and rats.

“This is not a good idea. Anyone with any sense who’s looking for a missing patient would look up here.”

“We’re not staying here.”

She coughed and wiped her face, then dusted her hands together. “I can feel spiderwebs,” she complained, shuddering, even as she admitted to herself that she’d rather lie in a vat of spiders than go any deeper into the darkness.

Unfortunately she was afraid that was what Eric had in mind.

In the distance, muffled by walls and dirt, she heard the familiar creak of the service elevators. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “They’re searching down here.”

“Come on,” he whispered, hardly loud enough to reach her through her com unit. She barely made out his outline in the darkness as he put out his hand. “Watch your head.”

They crawled several feet in, away from the light. Rachel’s lungs burned. Every breath was torture. Her chest and throat were squeezed so tightly that she felt like she was suffocating.

The top of her head brushed the heavy wooden beams. She imagined the weight of the entire building above her. She groped to her right, until she touched and gripped a handful of Eric’s T-shirt. “Eric, I can’t do this,” she gasped.

He took her hand in his, dirt and grit scratching the skin of her palm, and pressed it quickly to his lips. “Trust me.”

His low voice humming through the com unit held a promise she wished desperately she could believe in.

Voices echoed down the corridor below them. Eric’s warm fingers pressed lightly against her lips.

“Just a little further. Hurry,” he whispered, and pulled her forward.

Her breath caught as she felt something solid in front of them. “What is this?”

He pushed a piece of wood aside. “Put your hand out. Feel that opening?”

She ran her hand along what felt like a plank of wood, until her fingers slipped off the ragged edge. “Y-yes.”

“Crawl through.”

Terror ripped through her. “It’s too little.”

“No it’s not. Come on, duck your head.” He pushed gently.

She balked, her breath coming in short sharp gasps, the heavy darkness more and more oppressive. She glanced behind her, hungrily seeking the faint glow of light that was much farther behind them than she’d realized.

“You’ve got to trust me, Rachel.”

The voices below them were getting louder.

“I’m afraid of the dark.”

“I know.”

Taking a deep breath of musty air, and reminding herself of what Metzger would do to Eric if he found him, Rachel slithered through the tiny opening and into a large open space. She felt air moving around her and the smells of dirt and mold had faded. In here, the odor was more like the rest of the building—old wood with a slight smoky scent, probably from the fireplaces in the original house. It was pitch-black, but at least she didn’t feel the walls closing in on her—yet.

Eric slid in behind her and she heard the quiet scratch of wood against wood.

“Where are we?” she asked, reaching out to touch him for reassurance.

“Shh. Scoot over here to the side and don’t make any noise.”

He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. “Be still,” echoed in her ear.

She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder and pretended that the only reason there was no light was because she had her eyes shut.

He cradled her head with his hand and put his cheek against her hair.

Below them, a dog barked and a voice shouted.

Eric’s arms tightened and Rachel hunched her shoulders.

“Back here!”

“Somebody check the crawl space,” a deep voice called.

Tensing, she lifted her head and saw the brief flicker of a flashlight beam through a crack in the wooden planks.

Her heart slammed against her chest. Were they about to be discovered?

The absolute irony of her situation did not escape her. She was hiding with a missing patient in the crawl space of a mental institution, holding proof that an internationally famous physician was conducting illegal and dangerous experiments on helpless patients and may have caused one or more deaths.

If Dr. Green was killed for talking with a reporter, Rachel had no doubt that her fate would be the same. She shuddered.

“Can you see through to the hallway on the other side?” the deep voice asked.

A voice that sounded as though it was just on the other side of the wall from them spoke up. “Nope. Looks like dirt and structural beams are blocking it.”

The man who had climbed up into the crawl space cursed. “Damn, I hate spiderwebs.”

Rachel heard shuffling and dirt falling as the searcher backed out of the narrow space.

“I got an idea,” he huffed as he landed on the concrete floor with a thud. “You climb up on the other side.”

The other man laughed. “And get my uniform all dirty? I don’t think so.”

The dog barked.

“Hush, Babe. Let’s go.”

Eric held Rachel until the footsteps faded. Her body trembled against his. Her quick, panicky breathing seared the skin below his collarbone, even through the cotton of his T-shirt.

Once the corridor below them was silent, she shifted against him, sending an agony of desire surging through him.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. “Stay strong. They’re not gone yet.”

She nodded against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

He buried his nose in her hair and caressed her head, putting his mouth to her temple and kissing it lightly. “Don’t be sorry. I’m so proud of you,” he said softly, knowing she’d be able to hear his slightest whisper through her com unit. “I know how much the dark frightens you. I wish I could give you light.”

She tilted her head, until her mouth brushed the underside of his chin. Faintly, in the distance, he heard the searchers’ voices. They were checking out the crawl space at the end of the corridor to the east.

Eric suffered her lips caressing his skin. He knew he couldn’t bear to kiss her. It would lead to more, and more could put them in danger. So he turned his head.

She barely moved, but he felt her withdrawal. She thought he was rejecting her.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, he heard the creak of the ancient elevator.

Rachel heard it, too, because he felt her tense against him. “Are they gone now?” she asked.

“I think so, but we still must be very careful.”

“Can we—” Rachel paused and Eric heard the poorly disguised terror in her voice. “Can we turn the flashlight on?”

“Yeah. Let’s see where we are.” He sat straighter and Rachel eased up beside him. He noticed she never let go of him. She’d hooked her fingers through one of the belt loops on his jeans.

He flipped on the flashlight and aimed its beam into the darkness.

“We’re in a room.”

The ceiling was only about five feet high and the floor was unfinished plywood. Support beams had been placed every few feet.

“Yeah. This is what was left of the original basement room in which they built the bomb shelter.”

Rachel’s gaze kept coming back to the beam of the flashlight.

“How do you know all this—” She stopped.

He sent her a quick, guarded glance. “This is where Caleb and Misty came to be alone. Give me the phone.”

She dug it out and handed it to him. He traded it for the flashlight and keyed in a number.

Rachel shone the light around the room. Not ten feet from where they sat was a hospital blanket and a battery-operated lantern.

She scrambled over and grabbed the lantern. With trembling fingers, she flipped the switch at its base and sighed in relief when it came on. It gave off a soft, muted light.
She turned off the high-powered flashlight and stuck it in the pocket of her backpack.

“Mitch.” Eric’s voice was tight.

Rachel fooled with the lantern. There was no way to give Eric privacy for the heartbreaking conversation he was about to have, but she wasn’t going to just sit and gawk at him.

“Yeah, we’re okay. Mitch? Tell me about Caleb.”

Rachel waited, but finally, after several seconds of silence, she had to look up.

Eric’s face was ghostly white in the lantern’s dim glow, his high cheekbones prominent above slight hollows, his mouth straight and grim.

“A…coma?” he muttered.

Rachel’s heart leaped. Caleb wasn’t dead? A lump rose in her throat and she had a sudden and inappropriate urge to laugh, the relief was so intense, so cleansing, she almost couldn’t bear it.

“When did it happen?” Eric turned away and bent over the phone.

Rachel felt the enormous effort of will he was exerting to keep from breaking down. If he’d been devastated before, when he’d thought Caleb was dead, she couldn’t even imagine the melee of emotions that must be swirling like a hurricane inside him now.

For herself, she was still trying to take in the fact that Eric really had known when Caleb’s consciousness had disappeared from within him. The doctor’s part of her brain thought briefly of what this case study could do for the understanding of communication between twins.

But her emotional side, the side that had been betrayed by the illness her mother could not control, wanted to pull back.

While the knowledge was stunning in a clinical sense, from her position as a woman who, in the past five days, had become much too emotionally attached to the man she was now watching, it was devastating.

Even if Eric were interested in her as anything more than his key to Metzger, she could never handle the emotional turmoil of being with a man whom a lot of people would call crazy if he told them about his connection with his brother.

“Sure,” Eric said, his voice harsh with iron-fisted control. “Here she is.”

He handed the phone to Rachel without a glance and retreated beyond the circle of light provided by the lantern.

“Rachel?”

“Hi, Mitch.”

“How are you holding up?” His kind yet authoritative voice was comforting.

“Okay. We’re close to something. I have the chemical formula for the injections Caleb has been getting. Is he really alive?”

“He’s slipped into a coma. The doctors don’t hold out much hope.”

“Get the formula to them. It should help them, if anything will. I didn’t find anything on how to treat withdrawal. Do you want to take it down or should I text message it to you?”

“Text it and I’ll send it on to Walter Reed.”

“I also have a list of names and ID numbers of the patients Dr. Metzger has been injecting, but there was a problem with one of the patients on the list, according to Metzger’s logs. I’m afraid that patient may be one of the people who died here.”

“You have the logbook?”

“I have the latest one. Not the one with the patient who died.”

“Can you get back in there? We need something linking Metzger solidly with one of the deaths. We haven’t been able to connect him directly with Dr. Green’s murder.”

“Oh, my God! I saw a folder with the word Green written on it. I thought they were the progress note forms. Everybody calls them green forms. What if it was information about Dr. Green?”

Rachel glanced over at Eric’s shadowy form. “I can get back in there and get the folder. But, Mitch, you’ve got to get Eric out of here. He’s been receiving injections daily and they’re beginning to affect him. Now there’s a missing patient alert and they’re searching for us. If they’ve followed procedure, the local police have been called in.”

“They haven’t. If the locals had been called to the Meadows for any reason, the FBI would have been notified. At around 8:00 a.m. I’ll send a couple of agents in under the guise of needing to question ‘Caleb’ and you to finish some reports. That should interrupt the search and create a diversion. Can you two get out of the building?”