Dying to Tell (44 page)

First he checked with the nurse’s station. The security guard met him there, but Dr. Tynsdale hadn’t answered his pager.

Jake told him to let him know if they spotted Tynsdale, then slipped down a corridor to the right. He passed several rooms where the doors were ajar. Obviously those patients didn’t need as much supervision as the ones in the wing where they’d housed Amelia. He headed to the right, past a service elevator, then a series of swinging doors marked “Staff Only,” then down a gloomy, shadowed corridor that looked as if it hadn’t been used in years.

Praying Amelia hadn’t steered him wrong, he ran his hand along a corner of the wall, searching for the hidden button to
open the door. He found it a second later, and was shocked when the metal door opened.

The entrance was dark, the strong scent of chemicals filling the air. He inched down the steps, moving as quietly as possible. The sound of a clock ticking reverberated through the narrow corridor, and down below he heard footsteps, so he removed his gun, bracing himself for the worst.

Another noise sounded to the right. Metal clinking. He slowly made his way through the space to the doorway. When he looked inside, he froze.

Sadie was strapped to a gurney, her face pale, her body jerking as she tried to free herself.

Dammit.

A man was hovering over Sadie, a hypodermic in his hand.

Then he saw the man’s face, and swallowed hard.

The man was his father.

Sadie twisted and fought against her bindings. She had to get away.

If she didn’t, Blackwood would find Amelia, and he’d kill her, too.

“You killed Papaw, didn’t you?” she asked. “You shot him.”

That sinister laugh bounced through the cold room again. “Coker started having regrets in his old age and gave your granddaddy the old files. I had to take care of both of them.”

“So you knew what they were doing all along?” Sadie asked. “That the doctors were experimenting on children.” She jerked her head, indicating the darkened room. “Is this where you brought them? You forced all them down here and drugged them. What else did you do to them?”

“We were doing our jobs, following military orders,” Blackwood said. “Coker and Sanderson thought they’d discovered
a new hallucinogen that wouldn’t have the side effects the drugs did in the fifties and sixties. They modified Metrazol, thinking the new form wouldn’t cause convulsive seizures. It was all Sanderson’s idea. He worked in biowarfare on Project Bluebird. I was with the CIA, so we formed a team.”

“What kind of monster are you?” Sadie cried. “You tore apart people’s families and destroyed lives. Why?”

“The government wanted to create perfect soldiers. With LSD, shock treatments, sensory deprivation, they thought they could create new identities within the children. Mind control could control them, like puppets on a string.”

“Only the experiments failed, just as they had before, didn’t they?” Sadie choked out. “Your inhumane treatment caused mental illness and disorders so severe that you had no control.”

“We had some successes. Emanuel Giogardi, for one. He was a sniper, and he did as we commanded until the very end.” He sounded smug. “And we had control,” he said in a lethal tone. “We’ve been controlling your sister for years. Only you never knew it.”

Fear seized Sadie. She remembered the drugs she’d found in Amelia’s bathroom; they had kept her sister incoherent, so no one would believe her even if she did tell someone what had happened.

Dear God. Dr. Tynsdale had prescribed the drugs and monitored her sister all these years.

Had he been in on the experiment?

Shock immobilized Jake. His father was alive.

He choked back a protest as he listened to his confession. Where was the man who had raised him and loved him?

How could he be so cold, such a monster?

Inhaling deeply to calm the rage and pain rocking through him, he texted Nick that he needed backup, then gripped his gun tighter and raised it at the ready.

Finally he stepped from the shadows. “Dad?”

His father suddenly jerked around, his eyes widening as he spotted Jake. Their gazes locked for a long, tension-filled minute. His father had always seemed ominous and powerful, a man to be revered and admired, one he’d strived to emulate.

Now gray tinged his military haircut, and the eyes that had once looked at him with love were empty, void of emotion.

Dammit, he’d missed his father for so long, had ached to see him again.

But this man was a stranger.

“It’s true,” Jake said. “You’re responsible for hurting all those children, Amelia and Joe Swoony, Grace Granger, Bertrice Folsom, and Emanuel Giogardi. And now you’re killing anyone who knew about the experiments to cover your ass.”

“Did you kill my parents, too?” Sadie cried.

“Your mother overheard a phone conversation with Dr. Coker that she shouldn’t have heard...she got suspicious. A pity, but I had to do something.” Jake’s father glared at him. “You should have stopped nosing around,” he said. “But you had to come back to Slaughter Creek and reopen my case.”

Jake choked back a curse. His investigation into his father’s disappearance had triggered all these deaths.

“Dammit, I was looking for my father. I thought something had happened to you, but all along you were alive, destroying people’s lives.”

“It was a CIA project, one we hoped might benefit our country,” his father said sharply. “We are military men, Jake—men who must always look toward the future and what’s best for our country.”

“The future that you stole from innocent children,” Jake said bitterly.

His father shook his head. “Don’t be such a wuss, Jake. There are casualties in any cause.”

“Even soldiers have a code of ethics,” Jake argued. “War doesn’t justify torturing innocent children. Nothing does.”

“Jake,” Sadie cried. “Amelia didn’t shoot Papaw—he did.”

“Let it go, Jake. You’re the sheriff of Slaughter Creek now. You don’t want this experiment exposed. No one does.”

Jake thought of Ayla, sweet, innocent, loving Ayla. This man was her grandfather, but he would never know her.

He didn’t
want
him to know her.

Resigned that his father was dead to him, he took another step forward. “What are you going to do, Dad? Kill me, too?”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Jake, but you have to do as I say. There are others involved.”

“Then I’ll find out who they are, and stop them.” Jake gestured toward the hypodermic needle in his father’s hand. “Drop that and turn around. You’re under arrest—”

His father lunged at him, and Jake cursed. But he wasn’t fast enough for his father. His father karate-chopped the gun from his hand, and it went flying to the floor, a few feet away. Jake swung his arm up to fend off another blow. Then his father raised his foot in a kick.

Rage fueled Jake, and his military training kicked in. He dodged the blow, then got in a punch to his father’s abdomen. His father lunged at him, knocking him down with a body blow. The wind left his lungs, but Jake managed to roll over, and slammed his fist into his father’s face. Blood spurted, trickling down his nose, and Jake vaulted sideways for the gun. His father caught him by the ankle, but Jake kicked and clawed until his fingers gripped the weapon.

His father charged him again, kicking him in the gut, but Jake curled his fingers around the weapon and raised it in his hands. The menacing look in his father’s eyes knocked the breath out of him.

“You won’t shoot me, Jake. I’m your blood.”

Jake’s hand shook, but then he heard Sadie moan his name. A second later, his father lunged toward him to wrestle his gun away. Jake pressed his finger on the trigger, and the gun fired.

His father’s eyes widened in shock as the bullet pierced his abdomen, and he staggered backward, his hands clutching at his belly. Sorrow filled Jake as blood seeped through his father’s shirt, oozing out between his fingers.

S
adie shuddered as Blackwood fell backward against the gurney where he’d bound her with leather straps. The drug he’d given her earlier was fading, but the room still looked blurry, the clock ticking so loudly it sounded as if it was going to explode.

Or maybe that was the gunshot.

Gunshot...yes, Jake had fired his gun. Had he been shot? Or was it his father?

She twisted her head sideways to see what was happening. Jake jerked the hypodermic needle from his father’s hand, then spun him around and handcuffed him.

“Don’t do this, Jake. I’m your father.”

“You aren’t my father,” Jake growled. “My father was a decent man. At least I thought he was. You’re a murderer.”

Blackwood spit blood. “And you think your girlfriend there is better.”

“Shut up,” Jake snarled.

Tears blurred Sadie’s eyes as the memory of that horrible night resurfaced. She had lied to Jake once, had kept secrets from him.

This time she refused to do that.

He had to hear the truth from her, not from his deranged father.

“Tell him, Sadie,” Blackwood said on a grunt of pain. “Tell him you aren’t the sweet little innocent girl he thought you were.”

“I shot your father ten years ago,” Sadie said.

Jake eyes darkened with confusion. “What? I thought Amelia—”

“I thought she did, too,” Sadie said, choking back her emotions. “But I blocked out the memory. That was what my grandfather meant when he said he was afraid Amelia was remembering the details. All these years she took the rap for me. Tonight, when your father kidnapped me, my memories rushed back.”

Jake jerked his father’s arm, contempt in his voice. “You tried to hurt Sadie back then.”

“She was in the way,” his father snarled. “I was trying to help her sister. To calm her down.”

“No, he was drugging Amelia to keep her quiet, and he planned to kill her and make it look like a suicide,” Sadie said, determined that Jake should know the entire truth. “I found him with a knife, about to cut Amelia’s wrist. That’s why I shot him.”

“See,” Blackwood said. “Your girlfriend was no saint back then, and she’s not now. So do the right thing, Jake. Help your father.”

Sadie struggled anew against the bindings. “I had to stop him,” she said. “I couldn’t let him kill my sister.”

Jake’s gaze locked with Sadie’s, tension thrumming between them. Then his jaw hardened, and he glanced back at his father, his expression unreadable.

Sadie’s heart ached. She knew he hated her for betraying him. And he’d wanted his father back for so long...

What was he going to do now?