Before I Wake (18 page)

You didn’t threaten people in their own home.

The four gentlemen at the table bristled, and the room fell silent. The waitress froze with a tray of food. The cook appeared in the kitchen doorway, drying his hands on a white towel.

“Don’t you have any manners?” Harley asked, his voice rising. “Didn’t your mama teach you not to stare?”

The four men got to their feet, chairs scraping.

They were hardworking farmers. They weren’t inviting a fight, but if one came their way they wouldn’t back down. And they could probably kick some ass if they had to.

Arden reached across the table and grabbed Harley’s arm. He turned his angry glare on her and shook off her hand.

“You’d better leave,” the cook said. “Tracy, where’s their bill?”

Harley crumpled. “I’m sorry.”

It was like watching someone with multiple personality disorder transform into an alter ego right before their eyes. He buried his face in his hands and began to sob, his shoulders shaking.

“I’ll pay,” Eli said. “You can take him outside.”

Arden put her arm around Harley. “Come on. Let’s go.”

He got up, keeping his face covered.

“My friend hasn’t been well,” Arden explained as they walked toward the door.

The group of men suddenly looked embarrassed and ashamed. Mental illness made people uncomfortable.

“Oh, hey.” One of the men waved a hand at her. “That’s okay. We got one of them in my family too. Goes off for no reason.”

He blushed, realizing the words he’d meant as comfort hadn’t been all that appropriate.

“We didn’t mean to stare,” said another man in brown canvas Carhartt overalls.

They were dressed for winter, and it dawned on Arden that the temperature had been dropping steadily.

“It’s just that we aren’t used to seeing somebody…” With one finger, he made a motion around his face.

Arden frowned in question.

“Food all over his face.”

Arden gave him a tight smile and pushed Harley through the door.

So much for keeping a low profile.

Fury was shaving when his cell phone rang.

“They’re gone,” the caller said.

It took Fury a moment to identify the owner of the strained voice as Harris. He set the disposable razor down on the edge of the sink. “Who’s gone?”

“Your ex-partner. I told you I didn’t want her brought back here. I told you she was too unstable.”

Fury grabbed a hand towel and wiped the remaining shaving cream from his face.

“Not only is Davis gone,” Harris said, “but she’s taken my student test subjects with her.”

Fury wasn’t all that surprised to find that Arden had taken off. She’d been ready to run ever since getting there. But on top of the recent murder, her disappearance looked bad. “We’ll find her. We’ll bring them back.”

Harris wasn’t finished. “One other thing,” he said. “They kidnapped a patient.”

That wasn’t something Fury had expected to hear. “Who?”

“Harley Larson.”

Eli paid the pizza delivery guy and closed the motel room door with his elbow. He turned the lock and slid the chain into place. “One large sausage, four sodas.” He put their order in the middle of the nearest bed, the smell wafting in Arden’s direction. “That’s the end of my money.”

Exhaustion had hit them and they’d decided to stop mid-afternoon. A motel gave them a private place to take Harley so they could avoid a repeat of the coffee shop scene, plus he could have the shower he’d been begging for since dawn.

“I gotta get this salt off me,” he’d told them. “It’s making my skin crawl.”

The room had been cheap. Forty-five dollars, plus tax. Two queen beds. Mirrors along one wall. A TV. Clock radio.

The musty smell that went along with old motels was free.

At the moment, the shower was running and had been running for the last fifteen minutes. Arden had begun to wonder if Harley was ever coming out.

Franny perched on the edge of the bed and grabbed a diet Coke. “Should we wait?”

“I can’t.” Eli opened the cardboard container. “I’m getting the hypoglycemic shakes.” He held out a trembling hand, then dragged a slice of limp, gooey pizza from the box. “And I don’t know if that dude’s ever gonna be done.”

Arden rapped on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”

A muffled reply came back. Something that sounded like, “Fine.”

Etiquette broken, Harley still alive, Franny and Arden dove into the pizza.

“What are we doing?” Franny asked after she’d taken a few bites and satisfied her initial pangs of hunger. “What’s the plan? Do we have a plan?”

“Our priority was to put some distance between ourselves and the Hill,” Arden said.

“We don’t even know if anybody’s after us,” Eli pointed out. “Or even looking for us.” He wiped a napkin across his mouth. “I’ll bet they aren’t. We’re runnin’ around like a bunch of kids playing hide-’n’-seek, except nobody’s it.”

“I think we need to go to the police,” Franny said.

Arden took a swallow of soda. She wasn’t used to drinking the stuff and recoiled at the carbonation. “Tell them what? It’s just going to be our word against theirs. And, of course, Harley’s. We have Harley.”

Franny reached for a second slice of pizza. “Maybe we should tell a paper. A big paper. Like the
New York Times
.”

Eli nodded, excited by the idea. “Or
Rolling Stone
. How about
Rolling Stone
?”

Franny shoved his shoulder. “
Rolling Stone
? What are you talking about?”

“In
Firestarter
, they told
Rolling Stone
.”

“Maybe in the book, but not in the movie,” Franny said. “Why? Because by that time
Rolling Stone
was no longer the radical voice of anarchy, it was one big voice for consumer culture and logo recognition.”

Eli looked hurt, but Arden was glad to see some animation in Franny. It was the first strong reaction she’d shown since Noah’s death.

The shower stopped.

“About time,” Eli said. “That water tower we saw on the edge of town is probably empty.”

Five minutes later, the door opened and a cloud of steam escaped. “I ran outta hot water,” Harley complained.

Eli snorted.

“I was only in there a couple of minutes.”

“Really?” Arden asked.

“Yeah. I just got lathered up and bang. No hot water.”

He was losing track of time.

How long had he been in the float tank? She could ask him, but he probably wouldn’t know the answer. He might say minutes, when it could have been hours. Even days. And where had he been when he wasn’t in the tank?

She wished she’d had time to go through Harris’s records. But all she’d been thinking about was getting Harley out of Cottage 25. And there was a good chance Harley’s file was locked up tight.

Eli picked up the remote control and turned on the TV. He flipped through stations while Harley attacked the pizza. Franny sat in the corner of the room, turning pages in a spiral notebook. Occasionally, Arden heard a sniffle. Suddenly, Franny tossed the notebook aside and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it behind her.

Harley looked up, a slice of pizza in his hand. “What’s her deal?”

How much was he ready to hear? Arden wondered. How much could he absorb right now? “Her boyfriend just died.” She would leave out the part about the murder for now. “He committed suicide. We think it was directly related to Project TAKE.”

Poor Franny.

With no time to grieve, she’d been thrown from one surreal situation into another. “We need to know what happened to you, Harley. We need to know everything you can remember. Maybe not right now, but when you’re ready.”

He nodded, reaching for another slice of pizza. “That’s cool.”

Behind them, Eli made a strange, strangling sound.

Harley and Arden looked up.

Eli was staring at the TV, his mouth open. Arden slowly turned her head in the direction of his gaze.

The reporter, a man wearing too much makeup, was on location in front of Building 50.

“The idyllic town of Madeline, West Virginia, hasn’t seen a murder in three years,” the newsman said into the camera. “And never does anyone here recall a homicide with this level of brutality.”

The camera cut to the town’s chief of police. “At this time, we’re still gathering evidence.”

“What about the apparent suicide?” asked a female reporter. “Is there a connection between the two tragedies?”

“I don’t want to comment on that until we’ve put together all the information. Right now we’re hoping witnesses will step forward.”

The camera cut back to the newsman and Building 50. “Some of those witnesses wanted for questioning are three people who disappeared from the Hill in the early hours of November sixteenth. The police department claims they aren’t suspects, but rather people of interest. If you see any of these individuals, do not approach them. Contact your local law enforcement office.”

That was followed by a description of the car and the license plate number. “Again, if you see this vehicle, do not approach it. The occupants could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Me?” Eli laughed and bounced up and down on the bed, hitting the mattress with both fists.

The reporter wasn’t finished. “It seems the three participants aren’t the only people who’ve vanished. Earlier today, we caught up with Dr. Phillip Harris, head of psychiatric research at the Webber Research Institute in Madeline.”

They cut to recorded footage of Dr. Harris in his office.

“Even more alarming is that a patient of mine is now missing,” Dr. Harris said, standing in front of his desk, arms crossed over his lab coat.

“And you think the disappearance is in some way connected to the sudden departure of the study subjects?” the reporter asked.

“We have no proof, but it seems highly suspicious.”

Arden had wondered how Harris would handle the subject of Harley. No real surprise that he’d chosen to admit to his existence, since the truth would come out eventually.

The reporter continued. “Are you suggesting the patient was kidnapped?”

“It’s highly possible.”

“Oh, man!” Eli said. “This is friggin’ hilarious!”

Inside the bathroom, Franny heard Eli’s burst of laughter. Why was he laughing? He shouldn’t be laughing.

She hooked her thumb in the hem of her long-sleeved shirt, stretching the fabric over her hand in order to clean a circle of steam from the glass.

Dark, swollen eyes. No makeup. Hair not styled. She liked the messy look, but it had to be deliberately messy. This was real.

She didn’t care how bad she looked. Noah was dead. Not only dead, but he’d killed himself. She should have seen it coming. She should have been able to stop him. It was her fault.

Another burst of laughter.

Franny blew her nose, grabbed the cheap box of tissues from the corner of the sink, and shoved open the door. “What’s so funny?”

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Eli pointed to the TV.

All three of their photos were on the screen, with their names below. Franny dropped down on the bed, tissues in her hand.

At times like these, it was a good thing she didn’t have parents. They would have died.

“Look.” Eli pointed at the television again.

A reporter stood in front of Building 50. It was a dramatic low shot, probably executed by some film grad who’d been forced to take a local TV news gig, but was still trying to be creative. Franny didn’t hear what the reporter was saying because Eli kept interrupting, giddily bragging about how they were fugitives.

When the piece ended, Eli borrowed Franny’s cell phone to call his grandmother in Omaha, then his parents in Chicago.

“I’m okay,” he told them, laughing. “It’s just a big mix-up. I’ll get it straightened out. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Tell Sis hi. Love you, too.”

“That was short,” Franny said as he disconnected and handed the phone back.

“Can’t have them tracing the call. They’re probably snooping through your phone records right now. Checking every call you’ve made in the last month.”

“I think we should go to Lake County, Ohio,” Arden announced.

Eli looked up in surprise. “Where you used to live?”

“We’re broke,” she explained. Eli and Franny would know what had happened in Ohio. It had been national news for about five minutes, until it was replaced with another horrific piece of murder or mayhem. “We have nowhere to go,” she continued. “I’m only talking about a day or two. Long enough for us to collect ourselves.”

It was something she’d been thinking about for a while. Would a return jar her memory and fill in some blanks? Would she recall a clue that might help solve her parents’ case? Were their deaths in any way connected to Project TAKE?

And Daniel was there…

Franny shivered and hugged herself. “How can you talk about going back to that place?”

“Because nobody will be expecting it,” Arden said. “At least not right away. Harris is trying to blame us for Noah’s and Vera’s deaths. He’s accusing us of kidnapping. Is he trying to cover up a research project gone awry? If so, Harley could be the best witness we have. But we need to buy ourselves a little time. We need to give Harley some space.”

Upon hearing his name, Harley perked up and seemed to take a sudden, curious interest in the situation. “You kidnapped me?” he asked.