Take the Monkey and Run (30 page)

“I think you're overestimating how much Logan likes me,” I said. “He owed me a favor, but that's it.”

“Yes, you saved that girl, Brooke. She will be next.”

“You'll never get your hands on Brooke. Don't you know who her father is?”

“Charles Sartori does not worry me.”

“Then you're stupid.”

“Accidents happen. These teenagers”—she
ts
k
ed—“always texting and driving.”

My stomach clinched. Disgust and fear vied for dominance. Man, I really hoped Logan got his hands on this bitch.

Reset!

I needed to find the damn button and . . . then what? Come up with a plan.

“Where is he, then?” I made a show of looking around the room as if trying to find Logan, and searched for the reset button. The movement made my head swim and I had to place my free hand on the corner of one of the tables to stay upright.

“Would you like my seat?” Anya stood and offered it to me.

“No thanks.” As much as I wanted to sit, I had to remain on my feet, because my scan of the room had paid off.

Over my left shoulder, affixed to a metal support beam, was the reset button. I knew what it was because below the button was a piece of paper warning—
DO NOT PRESS THE RESET BUTTON
.

Okay, now, I needed a plan.

The power would be out for thirty seconds. Barry was headed to electrocute Hugh and Kai, who were still climbing the tower. I assumed he intended to use the metal tower as a conduit. If I cut the power now, would it prompt them to climb back down and away from the tower? Would thirty seconds be enough time for them to get clear?

My head was pounding. I was having a hard time thinking.

Maybe I could hit the button and make it outside in time to warn them.

That wouldn't work. I'd have to get past Anya, who was between me and the door.

Think, Grace.

I had thirty seconds to work with. If I could contact Moss, I could send him to stop Barry. With the tower off-line, I'd be able to reach Moss—but he was stuck in the room with Emma and Belinda.

I also had to consider that my dog might not blindly do as I asked until he knew I was okay. As soon as he sensed my pain, he'd try to find me. Even if I was able to warn him about Anya, and he was able to avoid being shot, it would be too late to send him to warn Kai.

I glanced at the monitor to watch Kai and Hugh for a moment, and something on the neighboring screen caught my attention.

Ronnie was moving slowly down the hallway near Hattie's room, looking through the windows set in each door she passed. Out of the darkness, a man appeared. Clamping a hand over her mouth, he grabbed her from behind and pulled her backward out of sight.

Just before the picture switched to Hattie's room, Barry appeared in the hallway and I understood Cornelius's prediction.

Logan had saved Ronnie. For a moment I wanted to surrender to the idea he would do the same for me, but let the thought go. Logan might ride to my rescue, but what about Kai and Hugh?

Barry was on the way to kill them. I needed to forget about Logan's help and act.

Even with my ability restored, it would be useless in this situation.

Just as the thought entered my head, something appeared on one of the monitors. A monkey. Running through the rear entrance.

Cornelius?

How on earth did that little . . . Of course he'd escaped. He'd become an expert.

He was moving fast and was soon out of the frame, but he was headed this way. Coming to help his friends, I was sure.

I couldn't use Moss to stop Barry, but maybe Cornelius could warn Kai and Hugh.

I'd have to get the timing right. I couldn't hit the button until Cornelius was close enough to connect with.

Which would probably be in the next few minutes.

I'd wait, throw the bomb to make sure Anya couldn't see, hit the button, and run. I might not make it very far but at least Anya wouldn't know where I was.

Once I'd recovered my ability, I'd find Cornelius and get him to warn Kai.

Simple.

What could go wrong?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emma and Belinda on the monitor. They'd started toward the door of the operating room.

No.

Moss stood, waiting.

Anya saw what had caught my attention.

“You're worried about your friends?”

I didn't answer.

“They won't get far. Barry will have locked the perimeter doors.”

Emma reached out to clasp the handle.

No, Emma
.

She opened the door.

Moss was gone in a flash.

“Oh, it looks like the doggy is coming to rescue you, too. I will kill him, like Logan.”

A few seconds later, Moss appeared on another monitor. This time, in the room with the cages.

“Look,” Anya said. “He is tracking you down.”

I wasn't sure how far away Moss was, but I tried to reach out and connect to his mind.

I couldn't. It was like he wasn't anywhere.

“He will come here, next. Yes?” Anya asked like a kid waiting on a prize.

Anya turned to the darkened doorway.

“Too bad you cannot warn him.”

I heard the faint jingle of his tags. They grew louder as he drew closer.

Moss, no!

There was no answer.

“Moss, stay!” I yelled.

He kept coming.

“Moss, NO!”

Anya raised her gun.

I threw the smoke bomb as hard as I could at her feet.

There was a tiny
pop!
An instant later, she was enveloped in a solid wall of smoke.

I spun, lunged toward the support beam, and slammed my hand on the reset button.

A heartbeat later, the room went dark.

Disoriented by both the absence of light and my sudden movement, I tried to run around the desks but tripped over a coil of wires and stumbled onto my hands and knees.

I know, with a name like Grace you'd think I'd be graceful, but no.

A sudden surge of protective anger roared to life in my head.

Guard!

Moss!

Grace!
His elation at our reconnection soared through me. But I couldn't be distracted by the unexpected rush of joy. Moss needed to understand he was racing toward danger. I knew there was no way to make him stop, so I warned him instead.

Careful!
I tried to project the concept, and showed him the image of where Anya stood, pointing her gun at the door.

He got the message at the last second and changed tactics. Instead of biting her leg and holding on, my dog plowed into Anya's shins and kept running.

She got off a shot but missed.

Moss, be quiet.

Okay?

I'm fine, buddy. Stay still and quiet. Okay?

Okay.

Without hesitating, I cast my senses out to find Cornelius. I felt the thrumming buzz of his brain a moment later.

Cornelius! Help!

Yes, help.

To more clearly understand where he was and guide him to Kai and Hugh, I solidified our connection and slid into his head.

He'd found the other monkeys. They were shivering, frightened, and confused.

Grace, help.

He was asking
me
to help
him
.

Damn. I didn't have time to explain my predicament. I had to get Cornelius to Kai.

Kai will help you and your friends. Find Kai.

I sent him an image of Kai along with what I'd seen on the monitor, which gave him a location.

Help?

Yes, hurry!

The little monkey took off. Once I was sure he was headed toward the tower, I pulled back from his mind. All the scampering and jumping was making me dizzier than I already was.

Out of the darkness, I heard the most unexpected sound.

Anya had started laughing.

“Something funny?”

“Yes. You just killed your friends.”

I ignored the taunt. She was just trying to psych me out, right?

There was no time to dwell on it. In less than thirty seconds, the power would come back on, which would not only allow Anya to see and, therefore, shoot me and my dog, but would cut off my connection to Moss.

Remembering the emptiness I'd felt when I'd reached out for him brought on a wave of anxiety so powerful, I almost shut down.

From somewhere to my left I heard a low growl.

Moss sensed my sudden surge of fear.

Guard.

Easy, Moss.

Anya didn't try to shoot him, though his growl would have given her a general idea of where he was. She knew as well as I that he stood no chance once the lights were on and was probably just biding her time.

We needed to disarm her. The problem was, it was too dark to see. Even Moss's wolf-eyes couldn't penetrate the darkness.

If I could come up with the smallest amount of light, he could charge Anya and take out the arm holding the gun.

Bite.
Moss knew what I was planning and was ready.

Steady, big guy. Wait till I say “Go.”

Guard.
He protested my plan, but stayed silent.

How could I generate enough light to let Moss see and keep Anya blind?

Distantly, I sensed a surge of emotion from Cornelius. Restoring my connection to him didn't take long.

Kai, help!

The monkey was hopping around Kai and making distressed clicking and whistling sounds.

“Cornelius?” I heard Kai say via Cornelius. “Hey, it's okay.”

Cornelius continued to vocalize his need for help.

Unfortunately, Kai didn't speak capuchin.

Hugh, on the other hand . . .

“He's freaked out,” Hugh said.

Show them where you want to go, Cornelius. Go down.

Cornelius did as I asked. When the men didn't follow, he climbed back to them.

Help!

“The machine is off,” Hugh said. “Do you think—”

Kai squinted at the monkey. “Grace?”

Yes!
How to confirm I was sending them a message?

I did the first thing that came to mind.

Give him a kiss.

Cornelius hopped onto Kai's shoulder and, just as he had done with his previous owner, kissed Kai on the cheek.

Still hanging on the rung, Kai glanced at Hugh. “It's her.”

Cornelius hopped away and started down the tower.

Follow the monkey, Kai.

“Let's go,” Kai said.

I wasted no time coming back to myself. But the head-hopping was taking its toll and it took me a couple of seconds to adjust and locate Moss.

I found him in the most unlikely place.

My dog had his front paws firmly planted on Anya's chest, pinning her down.

I knew this not because I'd jumped into his head, but because I could see them. Or the silhouette of them, in any case.

On the floor a few feet away, a cell phone glowed softly. Anya tried to shift her weight.

Moss's low growl intensified.

“I'd be still if I were you,” I told her as I got my feet under me.

She was cradling her arm.

Guard.

Good boy.

Using the table to keep me steady, I searched for the gun. It was near Anya's foot.

I walked over to it. Rather than bend over and tempt my already pounding head to explode, I squatted and picked up the gun.

A second later, the lights blinked on. The hum of machines started as the power was restored.

I saw my stun gun sitting on one of the tables and picked it up. I really wanted to sink into the office chair but was afraid if I did I wouldn't want to get back up.

“Call him off.” Anya grated out the words.

Holding a weapon in each hand I turned to look at her.

“No.”

“Please, call him off.”

“Why should I? I saw your cruelty, Anya,” I said. “I know what kind of person you are.”

“Oh, and what kind is that?”

“You believe animals are nothing more than property. Shells to be used however you deem necessary. But they can feel, Anya. Want to guess what he's feeling now?”

Moss inched closer to her face. His lips peeled back from glistening, sharp teeth.

Her eyes went wide.

“You won't let him kill me.”

“Let?” I scoffed. “He's a sentient being. He makes his own choices.”

With that, I walked around her and headed for the door.

“Wait. Please!”

I kept going. I'd walked only a few feet into the hall when Moss caught up with me.

“See? You're a better person than she is,” I said, and we continued on.

We reached a dark doorway and Moss stopped and pricked his ears.

I knew someone was standing inside, and after a moment I knew who it was—Logan.

I had a lot of questions for him, but only one mattered. “Is everyone safe?”

“Everyone but Barry.”

That worked for me.

Glancing over my shoulder at the room where I'd left Anya, I asked, “Did you really kill everyone she loved?”

No answer.

“She wants revenge.”

“I know.”

“She knows about Brooke.”

Leaving it at that, Moss and I walked out of that awful place into the cold night.

Belinda was at the stove, wearing her colorful kimono, topped with her Hot Stuff apron.

Emma had tried to get her to sit and rest and let her do all the work, but Belinda wouldn't hear of it.

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

Pancakes.

I hadn't even bothered to argue when they'd decreed I was to sit and be waited on.

My headache was better, but my brain was not functioning at full power, which was normal for someone with a concussion.

Unfortunately for me, that meant I couldn't shield my mind from the animals I came in contact with. Moss had saved me again. He'd somehow understood how sensitive I was and stayed by my side, maintaining a solid presence for me to connect to.

Staying linked to him helped keep other animal brains at bay.

Even so, sometimes I'd get a blast of telepathic energy so strong that I wished for Barry's mini-anti-psychic
contraption. Though neither it nor Barry had made it out of the amusement park in one piece.

“What's the latest on Barry?” I asked Kai, who'd set a plate of pancakes in front of me before taking his seat.

“The police aren't sure they'll be able to charge him, given his condition. The doctors say he'll never recover from what that thing did to his head.”

When the power came back on after the reset, the tower had emitted some sort of pulse that had, because of the device implanted in Barry's ear, pretty much fried his brain. It had also somehow short-circuited the monkeys' psychic ability, if that's what you want to call what had been done to them.

“Does that mean he'll wind up drooling on himself in a psych ward somewhere?” Hugh asked as he spread butter over his pancakes.

“Yep.”

“Good.” Hugh punctuated the word by stabbing a piece of pancake with his fork. Instead of eating it, he lifted the fork into the air to hand off to my sister, who was buzzing around the kitchen like a bee.

She took the bite, handed the fork back to Hugh, and zoomed back to the stove.

A few seconds later Emma came back to the table to set a glass of orange juice next to my plate. She got another bite of pancake from Hugh and used the fork to point at my pancakes.

“Eat.”

She gave Kai a sharp look before heading to the refrigerator.

He cut off a piece of pancake for me and held it up.

I arched my brow at him.

“Do I need to make airplane noises?” he asked.

I smiled and opened my mouth.

“I talked to Jason,” he said. “He and Ronnie are still at the hospital with Hattie. She's stable and should be released in the next couple of days.”

Hattie had been spared the horrors of Barry's lab. As predicted, he'd wanted to use her to control Ronnie, so aside from injuries suffered from her kidnapping and some lingering psychic symptoms similar to the ones Belinda and Ronnie had been dealing with, she was okay.

“Any progress with the fire investigation?” I asked.

“No,” Kai said, forking another bite of pancake into my mouth. “I think they're going to write it up as a secondary spark after the one that zapped Barry.”

Logan had taken care of most of the evidence of what was going on at Barry's lab by torching both it and the tower, which was good, because now no one else could use his research to do something similar.

No bodies had been found in the charred wreckage. I didn't know if that meant Anya was still running around or if Logan had simply covered his tracks and disposed of her elsewhere. I had the feeling the latter was the case.

I hadn't heard from the Ghost, but figured he'd show up eventually to irritate me with his “help.”

Emma claimed to have put her birthday plans on hold until everyone was well enough to attend, but I'd heard her and Belinda whispering and was pretty sure a Mardi Gras ball was in my future.

Oh well, there were worse things, right?

I turned to Hugh. “You talked to Marisa?”

He nodded. “She has the capuchins in quarantine. The isolation has helped.”

All the capuchins but Cornelius had suffered what basically amounted to insanity due to the trauma caused to both their brains and their DNA, which Barry had also been playing around with.

The room they'd been kept in had been carefully shielded from the tower's emissions. Which was why, though the device had still been on, I'd gotten a blast of psychic energy from the monkeys when I'd entered their room.

For now, the monkeys' psychic insanity had been reversed,
but no one knew how long it would last. Cornelius was the most balanced, and his presence seemed to help his friends.

The zoo was caring for them until their condition was stable. Hugh was already making arrangements to get them into a good, permanent home.

“Speaking of monkeys,” Kai said, “are you going to tell us what Cornelius showed you?”

“When?” I asked, though I knew perfectly well what he meant.

“In Bluebell before we went into the amusement park.”

“Oh, um . . . no.”

I felt a flash of anxiety. “I mean, I don't really know what he was trying to tell me.”

“Not enough detail?” Kai asked.

I nodded.

“Maybe you'll figure it out later.”

“Maybe.” I tried to mask my unease by taking a swig of orange juice and wound up draining the glass.

“Here, I'll get you a refill.” Kai stood and walked to the fridge. I watched him for a few seconds and felt my mouth go dry. Something about the way he was standing, with his back turned, triggered the memory. It rose from the deep recesses of my mind like a ghost.

Kai's back had been turned in the vision, too. I'd recognized him instantly, though nothing else was familiar.

After a moment he'd said, “Don't worry, we'll figure this out.”

It had made me wonder who he was talking to and what they needed to figure out.

The first part of my question was answered a moment later when he turned and I could see that he held something in his arms.

The memory didn't carry quite the impact as it had the first time but I still felt a wave of surprise roll through me.

Cradled in his arms, swaddled in a sage green blanket, was a baby.