Chain Reaction Read online

  “Did you fire Five Star?” she asked when she’d been escorted to Sid Edmonston’s plush office.

  “Your husband is out of commission, and Sloane is missing. I needed to get somebody in on short notice,” the company president told her. “Sorry I had to make that decision, but we’ve got a situation here.”

  He went on to give her the bad news about Gage. Not long after arriving at the emergency room, her husband had turned violent. They’d sedated him and moved him from the medical facility to a private mental hospital called Beech Grove.

  She drove directly from Cranesbrook to Beech Grove. But the physician in charge, a Dr. Morton, refused to let her see Gage because he was under sedation. Praying something would change, she rented a motel room for the night and came back the next morning, then sat in the waiting room for hours. Finally, at the end of the day, Dr. Morton told her Gage wasn’t responding to treatment. According to the doctor, Gage was either violent or out of it and it would be dangerous for her to see him, so she might as well go home and wait for news.

  As it turned out, she had no choice. The imperious Amelia St. James told her that, if she wanted to keep her position, she’d better report to the kitchen for the dinner shift on Monday.

  She was tempted to tell her boss to take the job and stick it—until her saner side prevailed. Five Star Security had been kicked off their biggest account. Peggy Olson, who ran the office in Baltimore, had frantically switched the Cranesbrook men to other duties, including installing security systems.

  Without the Cranesbrook account, cash was tight at the company. To keep from being a drain on Five Star resources, she needed to keep her job, unless she wanted to borrow money from her parents. And she was damned if she’d give them the satisfaction of saying, “I told you so.”

  That was why she’d dragged herself to Chez Amelia and spent the past two evenings and this afternoon trying to focus on such vital matters as perfectly prepared bearnaise sauce, wild mushrooms and herbed risotto.

  Ordinarily, she took pride in her work. She knew her parents had been upset when she’d chosen culinary school over college. But she’d selected the best, the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America.

  Like Gage, she was ambitious. She wanted to open her own restaurant, although there was no way she could afford that yet.

  But work wasn’t her biggest priority. That was her marriage. Or it had been—until Gage had started treating her like an appendage to his real life.

  She’d hoped she could get their relationship back on track. Now…

  The smell of browning butter made her snatch the skillet off the burner. She’d come within a few seconds of ruining some very expensive meat, and she looked around to see if anybody else in the kitchen was watching.

  Sue Carmichael gave her a sympathetic smile. She was Lily’s best friend at work, and Lily had talked to her about the accident at Cranesbrook. But there was no chance of talking now. They were both too busy for conversations.

  Maybe in a few hours she could call Beech Grove again. Not that she expected the staff to tell her anything.

  She was starting to think she needed a lawyer. Could a lawyer make the mental hospital tell her anything besides “Mr. Darnell is not responding to treatment”?

  After transferring the veal to three plates, she passed them to one of the line cooks to add the potatoes au gratin, Swiss chard and garnish.

  Moisture blurred her vision, and she blinked. If she’d been alone, she would have lowered her head to her hands and given in to the need to sob out her frustration—and her guilt. She’d give anything if her last words to Gage hadn’t been angry. She’d give anything to hear him reassure her that he hadn’t been distracted, that he hadn’t been focused on their angry exchange when he should have been thinking about business.

  No, scratch that last thought, she told herself. Gage was a professional. He would have snapped back into soldier mode as soon as he had to respond to an emergency. She had to keep believing that or she’d come apart at the seams.

  WHEN THE nurses left, Gage slitted his eyes and studied the room, looking for an escape route. In case someone was watching, he barely moved his head as he looked around. There were two doors. One led to the hall, the other to a bathroom. Did it have a window he could squeeze through?

  Not unless he got out of the damn arm restraints.

  When he heard footsteps in the hall, he closed his eyes again and forced his facial muscles to relax.

  The smell of peppermint wafted toward him, and he knew Dr. Morton was back.

  The little man crossed to him and shook his shoulder. “Mr. Darnell?”

  He pretended he was coming out of a fog. “Yes?”

  “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked, his voice hearty. Nurse Dumont was standing right behind him.

  “Better. Could you loosen my wrists and crank my bed up?”

  “Not a good idea.”

  Gage struggled not to grit his teeth. “If you think I’m crazy, give me a sanity hearing.”

  “Now, now, don’t be hasty,” Morton said, as though he were talking to a naughty child. “You’d be a danger to yourself if you were allowed your freedom.”

  “Why?”

  “You and some others were exposed to a dangerous chemical.”

  “What chemical?”

  “Something they were testing at Cranesbrook.”

  “What is it supposed to do?”

  “That’s proprietary information. We’re going to keep you here for observation until we find out how it affected you.”

  “And I can’t see my wife?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “What about my partner? Bray.”

  “He’s not available.”

  Because he escaped? Gage didn’t want to give away that he’d picked up that piece of information earlier when the nurses were talking. Instead, he strove for sincerity when he said, “I want to cooperate with you.”

  “That’s good. We’ve lowered your dose of medication. I think we can have a more productive conversation in a few hours.”

  The doctor started toward the door.

  “Wait!”

  “Just rest now. I’ll be back in a few hours,” Morton said firmly. Nurse Dumont followed him out of the room.

  Alone again, Gage lay on the bed, his breath shallow.

  Rest! That’s all he’d been doing in this damn place.

  Feeling more clearheaded by the moment, he looked around the room again, taking in additional details. The one window was covered by bars. He had to assume it would be the same in the bathroom.

  The walls were an institutional green. Besides the bed, there was no other furniture, not even a chair or a television set bolted to the wall. Instead there was a video camera.

  He was under surveillance.

  Straining his ears, he listened for sounds around him. Now that the doctor and nurse were gone, he felt like the only human being for miles around, although he knew that couldn’t be true. Lord, what if they just left him here tied to the bed? He wouldn’t put it past that bastard Morton.

  The thought made his heart pound. They wouldn’t tell him how long he’d been here or when he might be discharged. They wouldn’t even let him out of bed. Not good.

  His eyes were drawn to the cuffs on his wrists.

  They were made of some sort of soft material on the outside, with a padded interior, designed to inflict minimal damage on his flesh, he supposed. Probably because Morton didn’t want any evidence to show on the body.

  Gage swore under his breath, wondering again if he was suffering from paranoia. Was that from the chemical he’d been exposed to?

  Again he focused on the cuffs that prevented his hands from moving.

  Lord, what if Lily saw him this way? He’d longed for her, but the idea of her finding him trussed up like a mad dog made his insides curdle.

  “Lily.” He whispered her name. They’d had such a close, warm relationship when they’d first married three years ago. H
e’d been thrilled that a beautiful, giving, creative woman like her was interested in a hard-bitten soldier like him. Not just a soldier. A guy who was way below her in social status. When she’d agreed to marry him, he’d vowed to make their marriage work.

  She was the most creative person he had ever met. She could turn a pound of ground beef into food fit for a king. And she’d made a beautiful home for him, using more imagination than money, since he hadn’t let her take any gifts from her snooty parents. The way she could turn a garage-sale castoff into a thing of beauty never failed to amaze him. Like the old mantel that she’d made into a headboard for their bed.

  And in bed…they had mind-blowing sex. He’d never known how good making love could be until he’d fallen in love with Lily.

  He went into a little fantasy, thinking about what he wanted to do when he held his wife in his arms again. He’d been stuck at Cranesbrook for weeks, and they’d planned a weekend focused on each other. Then, at the last minute, he’d had to cancel out on her.

  What a fool thing to do. He should have told Bray he was going home and slotted Evan Buckley for extra work. Only he’d been afraid Buckley would screw up.

  Instead of second-guessing his decisions, he pulled his mind away from his present circumstances. Closing his eyes, he imagined himself and Lily in their king-size bed. A bed big enough to roll around in and have some fun.

  They were both naked, and Lily was lying on top of him, her body pressed provocatively to his, all her familiar curves teasing his nerve endings, her lips brushing back and forth across his. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her close, reveling in the taste of her, the touch of her fingers on his face.

  She moved against his erection, and he dragged in a shuddering breath.

  Lord, he would explode if she didn’t take him inside her, then give him a view of her beautiful body as she sat up and began to move.

  Her eyes sparkled as she grinned down at him, and he grinned back, knowing they were on the same wavelength.

  The heated images had him hard as a stovepipe. When he tried to move his hands, the restraints snapped him out of the fantasy. He was in a hospital bed, with his wrists cuffed to the rails. Not at home in his king-size bed with his wife. And it was dangerous to escape into his imagination. The more he tuned out the real world, the less likely it was that he could change his actual situation.

  Clenching his teeth, he struggled to bring his mind back into safer territory. But he couldn’t stop thinking about his wife.

  She had given him so much. And he hadn’t believed he deserved any of it. He’d been so determined not to be like his father, who had never been able to support his family. But her family was part of it, too. He’d wanted them to know that she hadn’t made a mistake by marrying a guy without a college education. A guy who’d fiddled around with electronics since he was a kid, then learned more in the army. He’d been proud of his skills. Too proud, apparently. Because now he understood that he’d been proving his in-laws right all along.

  He’d neglected his wife—the flesh-and-blood woman—and gone into overdrive with his career, so he could feel as if he was doing right by her. She’d wanted to have a baby. He’d said they had to wait until they were financially secure.

  Now, deep down, he knew he’d been too focused on success. Had he gone so far that he’d ruined their marriage?

  He felt moisture gathering behind his eyes, and he fought back the tears. Hell, he couldn’t even wipe them away if they dribbled down his cheeks. And the idea of the surveillance camera picking up that made his gut twist.

  Hating his own weakness, he fought off the attack of maudlin emotion by grabbing for his anger. He might have made mistakes in the past, but he hadn’t gotten himself into this fix. Someone had put him here.

  “This is your wake-up call,” he muttered to himself. “You have to get back to Lily and tell her how much you love her, how much you appreciate her. How much you need her.”

  But how could he, when he was in this damn bed, cuffed to the handrails?

  He ached to break free of the restraints so he could wrap his arms around his wife and make up for all the times he’d neglected her. And as that need took hold, he discovered something interesting. The restraints around his wrists weren’t as tight as he’d thought. It appeared that the straps hadn’t been fitted securely through the buckles. Somebody had screwed up. Maybe little Nurse Lemon.

  Whoever had made the mistake, he fully intended to take advantage of that oversight.

  As he wiggled his hands, the restraints loosened even more. He focused on his right wrist, moving his arm as much as he could, giving himself more leverage. After several minutes, the strap gave, and he was able to pull his right hand free.

  Feeling like a kid who’d gotten caught cheating on a test, he moved his arm under the covers, then glanced toward the video camera, expecting Nurse Dumont and a burly orderly to come charging through the door.

  But nobody came. Either the monitor wasn’t attended at the moment, or the person watching wasn’t doing his job.

  Whichever it was, maybe the patient had a chance to get away.

  Gage reached to unbuckle the other cuff. The effort left him breathing hard, but he wasn’t going to rest until he got out of this place or died trying.

  The last thought made his skin prickle. Cautiously, he pushed himself up, fighting a wave of nausea. When it passed, he worked the mechanism on the bed that lowered the bars on the right side.

  After swinging his legs over the edge, he eased himself to the floor, where he stood holding on to the bed frame and feeling like an eighty-year-old man instead of only thirty-two.

  How long had he been here anyway?

  He was sick and shaky, and unable to rid himself of the feeling that he’d lost a big chunk of time. They’d been drugging the rational thought out of him. Now Dr. Morton wanted to talk to him so he’d eased up on the medication. How long before the doctor came back? And what about the video camera? Did someone already know he was out of bed? His only choice was to assume he was still in the clear.

  Still, he hated to operate blind and with no plans. Unfortunately, all he could do was wing it, because staying under the control of these people wasn’t an option.

  He stopped for a minute, considering everything that he remembered so far.

  If he was in a loony bin maybe there was something seriously wrong with him, and they were trying to cure him. He rejected that theory immediately. He was thinking straight, now that they’d eased up on the meds. But if he really was okay, why was he here? And if he was crazy, wouldn’t he feel perfectly okay? Did most psychotics think they were just peachy, or did they know something was wrong?

  When the circular reasoning gave him a headache, he stopped trying to figure it out. Maybe if he could talk to Vanderhoven, that might help clarify the situation. And maybe they could help each other get out of this place.

  He tottered to the window and peered out. He was at the back of the building, where he saw thick woods. On the day of the lab explosion, the leaves on the trees had been green, even though it was the beginning of October. They were still green on most of the trees, which meant that not too much time must have passed.

  Not as much as a week, he hoped.

  After doing a few stretches and some deep knee bends to limber up his arms and legs, he crossed to the door and tried the knob. It was locked. Damn!

  Now what? His longing for escape made him focus on the lock. Was there anything he could use as a pick? He looked around, seeing nothing useful in the room. Frustrated, he twisted the knob again and heard a click.

  Maybe he’d been wrong, and it hadn’t actually been locked. Maybe he’d been too weak to open it on the first try.

  Or was this a setup? Did they want him to try to escape so they’d have an excuse for…what? Getting rid of him permanently?

  If that were true, he was playing right into their hands. Still, this might be his only chance to make a run for it.


  Cautiously, he cracked the door and looked out. The room was one of several along a hallway. He waited and listened.

  About thirty feet away he saw a man and woman standing with their backs to him and talking. The woman was Nurse Dumont. And even from the back, he knew the man was Hank Riddell. Son of a bitch.

  Riddell was a creepy little PhD who was always sucking up to the senior researchers at Cranesbrook. So, had they sent him here to keep tabs on Gage? And probably on Wes Vanderhoven, too.

  While Gage was considering his next move, he caught a lucky break. Riddell and Dumont turned and walked down a side hall.

  Gage heard a door slam. Maybe they were going to check on Vanderhoven. Or have a look at the monitor displaying the scene from Gage’s room.

  Which they’d find was now empty.

  Gage was barefoot and still wearing the hospital gown. But since this might be his only chance to escape, he walked quickly down the hall.

  As he rounded the corner, his plans changed abruptly when he almost tripped over an older man swishing a wet mop across the tile floor.

  Chapter Three

  The man froze in mid-stroke, a look of surprise and horror on his face. Obviously, he didn’t expect an escaped mental patient to step around the corner.

  His gaze darted to the wall and Gage saw what he’d given away. Within reach was a box that looked like a fire alarm.

  When Gage leaped forward, the man defended himself, raising his mop and swinging it like a baseball bat, sending dirty water spraying onto the wall. Gage’s reflexes were still way below his usual standards, but he managed to duck awkwardly, then go on the attack.

  The man was a maintenance worker, not a trained fighter. And he wasn’t very strong, either. Thank God.

  They both slipped on the wet floor like a couple of circus clowns executing a crowd-pleasing routine. They went down with Gage on top. Somehow he was able to land a blow on the man’s chin. Then another.

  “Sorry,” he muttered as his opponent went limp.

  The whole incident had taken less than a minute.