Seeking Asylum (17 page)

The door flew open behind her. Rachel whirled, but all she saw was a big shadow disappearing into the haze of rain.

She sat up, her hands and knee stinging. Frantic, she groped for her backpack, wincing when her hand touched the rough canvas.

Gulping air in huge terrified sobs, she hugged her backpack to her chest and scrambled to her feet. She pushed her door closed and threw the latch. Her rational brain noted that the lock still worked and the door hadn’t been forced, which meant that whoever had invaded her apartment had used a key. The security guards probably had master keys to every room on the grounds. That thought did not make her feel safe.

She put the chain on with shaky fingers, feeling silly. If someone wanted to get in, a hardware store chain lock wasn’t going to keep them out. But it made her feel a tiny bit safer to hear the reassuringly solid rattle of metal against metal.

For a panic-stricken instant, she considered running out to her car and driving away—but where would she go? To the FBI?

No.
FBI agents probably dealt with situations like this all the time. If Mitch Decker thought she was incapable of handling a simple break-in, he’d probably jerk her out of there so fast her head would spin, and make good on his promise to lock her in protective custody until the investigation was over.

She shook her head, feeling dwarfed by the powerful presence of the stately building on the hill and intimidated by the magnitude of her task. Yet she couldn’t leave. Not while Eric was still here. She had to stay, for his sake.

She put her hand over her mouth, trying to control her spasming lungs. She was about to hyperventilate. Someone had been in her apartment, touched her computer. Who? What else had they touched? And what were they hoping to find?

She looked down at the navy-blue backpack she carried with her everywhere. The backpack that had held the doctor’s order forms until earlier this evening, when she’d turned them over to the FBI agent. Then she peered at the computer. What had the intruder been searching for? The open file was titled Journal. Rachel had been typing a little each night since she’d been at the Meadows, recording her experiences here. Her last entry had been five days ago on Tuesday, the day she’d been kidnapped.

Luckily, she’d been too busy, or too tired, to journal since she’d been back. Staring at her mundane words only emphasized the bizarre nature of her life since her kidnapping. And it had only gotten more bizarre since Eric had gone undercover as his brother. At first, all the sneaking around, dodging guards and dogs and taking secret messages had been exciting, even titillating.

But all at once, within the space of a few seconds, she no longer felt safe. Her world, which she had worked so hard to make structured and secure, had turned fragile.

She pressed the button that turned on her com unit. She heard the dead quiet that meant Eric’s unit wasn’t on. But still she tried. “Eric?” she said.

Glancing at the clock on the kitchen wall, she saw that it was 8:35p.m. It would be forty minutes before Eric turned his com unit on for the last time tonight. At eight-fifteen, she hadn’t tried to contact him, because she’d been out of the five-mile range.

“Damn it, Eric,” she whispered, her voice cracking. Why didn’t he ever feel the need to turn the unit on as she occasionally did, just check to see if she was listening or might need him.

“I need you,” she whispered.

She bent to pick up a shard of glass and her knee screamed in protest.

“Ow!” Tears sprang to her eyes. She limped into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror.

She was a mess. Her hair was soaked and plastered to her head. A wide streak of red stained her forehead and left cheek where she’d wiped them with her bleeding hands. Her eyes were red-rimmed with tears. She reached up to wipe the blood off her cheek and her stinging palm left more red than it wiped away. She turned her hands over. Her palms sparkled with slivers of glass.

She spent some time digging it out of her hands and knee, then washed the cuts and splashed water on her face, rinsing off the blood. She combed her wet hair back. The streaks of blood were gone but she still looked like she felt.

One heartbeat away from panic.

A faint ringing sound reached her ears. It was the FBI cell phone. She stared at her wide-eyed reflection in the mirror, wanting to ignore the call. She did not want to talk to anyone except Eric.

But the ringing persisted. She slung a terry-cloth robe she kept hanging on the back of the door around her as she hurried to her backpack and fished the phone out of the side pocket.

“Rachel? It’s Mitch Decker.”

“Oh, Mitch. Hi.”

His deep, steady voice made tears well in her eyes. She swallowed, afraid he could hear her distress.

“I spoke to Agent Simmons. He said the exchange went smoothly this evening. Are you all right?”

“S-sure.” She grimaced, certain he could tell she was lying. She had to get control of her emotions. Mitch had
threatened to lock her in a safe house once. If he thought she was too emotional, he might actually do it.

She would not be taken away. Eric needed her.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in my apartment. I just got back. It…it’s been raining, and these roads are not well marked.” She bit her lip as hard as she dared, struggling to control the trembling sobs that kept trying to escape her throat.

“Are you saying you had an accident?”

“No.” She pressed her fingertips against her mouth for an instant. “Close enough to scare me, but no. No accident.” She cleared her throat. “I’m fine.”

“Rachel—” Mitch’s kind, authoritative voice penetrated her fragile self-control.

She couldn’t lie to him. “There was someone…in my apartment tonight.”

“Who?” Mitch’s voice didn’t change timbre.

“I don’t know. I surprised him and he ran out. He’d been on my computer, but he didn’t find anything.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Mitch, don’t take me away. I can handle it. I need to stay here.”

“Could he have found anything pertaining to the investigation?”

“No. I keep everything with me.”

“Good. Someone is suspicious of you. Be extra careful. Don’t give them any reason to be. I’m going to put together an extraction team, in case you need to be pulled out quickly.”

“Mitch, I swear, I can handle it. Please don’t extract me.”

“I’ll leave you in as long as I can. You’re my only link to Eric. You’ve got the blueprints, right?”

“Yes. And I handed over the physicians’ orders to Sim
mons.” She sounded pathetic. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes with relief. Mitch was not going to extract her. “One page, a progress note written by Dr. Green, refers to respiratory depression in a young white female. I couldn’t identify the patient, but I think it may be Misty Norwood, the girl Caleb mentioned.” As Rachel talked, her fluttering pulse began to calm and her voice sounded stronger.

“Good. Natasha will contact you as soon as she has verified any of the information. Rachel, I need to talk to Eric. Tonight if possible. Can you get the cell phone to him?”

“Yes.” Her pulse raced as she thought about going back out into the darkness. “Is something wrong?”

“I have some information for him.” His tone discouraged questions.

“Should he call this number?”

“Yes. Thanks. How long do you think it will be?”

“No more than an hour.”

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

Mitch disconnected.

The tears Rachel had held at bay during the conversation overflowed.

Wiping her hot cheeks, she pulled on the first thing at hand: stretchy yoga pants and a little T-shirt that read UN BEND.

She didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself. She had to get the phone to Eric. It worried her that Mitch had evaded her question, that he hadn’t just given her a message for Eric. Something must be wrong with Caleb.

It was a dark, miserable trek across the grounds to the main building. The rain had stopped, but the ground was wet and slippery and the unsettling noise made by water dripping from the trees frayed her nerves.

By the time she got to the rear of the building her watch read three minutes after nine. In twelve minutes, Eric would turn on his com unit. She activated hers, but all she heard was the flat silence that meant his unit was off.

Hearing that absence of sound was worse than anything that had happened tonight. Because it meant Eric wasn’t there.

She felt isolated, claustrophobic, as if she were trapped in a sound-proofed room. She’d gotten too accustomed to having his voice in her ear.

She wanted to switch the unit off, to cut out that awful deadness, but Eric might try to reach her at any moment, so she left it on.

Without Eric’s help, she couldn’t get in through the back door, so she circled around to the front entrance and looked through the glass doors at the security desk. The guard was leaning back in his chair, talking on his cell phone.

She debated walking in past him, but given her state of mind right now, she was afraid if the guard stopped her she wouldn’t be able to give him a coherent answer, much less a plausible excuse for being in the main building this time of night.

She checked her watch. It was seven minutes past nine. She’d wait and get Eric to sneak down and open the rear door.

Just as she was about to sneak away, the guard pocketed his phone and stood, stretching. He picked up his two-way radio, and walked away from the desk.

Her pulse sped up. Was he going on a break? Or to make his assigned rounds? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had a tiny window of time to get inside without being caught.

Hurrying up the steps, she pushed through the glass doors and strode past the desk as if she were late for a meeting. She passed two physicians on their way out, but she pretended to fiddle with the strap of her backpack to avoid looking up as she headed through the lobby toward the neurology wing. Her wet hiking boots squeaked on the tile floor and the nape of her neck prickled, as if a hand hovered just close enough to reach out and grab her.

The main corridors were empty, except for an occasional housekeeper mopping floors or a pharmacy technician wheeling a cartful of medications to one of the wards. On the other side of the doors that separated the main corridors from the service hall, Rachel heard the rattle of metal and glass, the sound of evening food trays being transported to the main kitchen.

She paused outside the double mahogany doors that led into the neurology ward, taking a moment to push her fingers through her wet hair and to wipe her face. Considering what she would say if Gracie confronted her, she eased open the doors.

The com unit in her ear came alive. Her pulse jumped.

“Eric,” she whispered.

“Did the exchange go smoothly? Where are you?”

With a glance down the hall, she darted over to Room 3 and pushed on the door. It squeaked as it opened.

“Right here.”

He whirled. He’d been standing at the window, already dressed for sleep in the standard, light blue, drawstring pajamas issued to all the male patients. Like Caleb, Eric didn’t bother with a T-shirt.

“Hi.” She smiled as her eyes filled with tears. A long shuddering breath rippled through her. She was okay now. She was with Eric.

His lean body, silhouetted against the window, had the fluid grace and easy confidence of a lion. But as his soft dark eyes scrutinized her, his face creased with worry.

“What the hell happened to you?”

Before her brain registered his movement, he was beside her. He wiped his thumb across her cheekbone, then rubbed his thumb and fingers together. “This is blood. Did you have an accident on the road?”

To her dismay, Rachel almost broke down. She put her hands over her mouth, fighting to control the sobs that tried to escape from her throat. She shook her head.

“Damn it, Rachel. Look at your hands.” He pulled them away from her mouth and bent his head to examine them. When he looked up, concern darkened his eyes. “What happened?”

She shook her head and swallowed. “The meeting with the agent went fine. I got the blueprints and I turned over the medical records.”

He nodded, his face grave. “Good.” Holding her hands gently in his, he waited for her to explain.

“When I got back to my apartment, someone was inside. He knocked me down.”

Eric’s grip tightened. The cuts burned and she flinched. He let go and grasped her shoulders.

“Tell me.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “When I unlocked my apartment door and went in, I must have surprised him, because he knocked me down and ran. I fell onto some glass.”

He cursed under his breath, but through her com unit she heard every word.

“What was missing?”

“Nothing, as far as I could tell. He’d checked my computer, but nothing seemed out of place.”

“They were probably looking for anything that might connect you with the FBI.”

Her breath shuddered out. “Do you think they know?”

“No, but I think Metzger suspects, based on some of the questions he’s asked me. So there was nothing in your apartment that would confirm their suspicions?” His gaze burned into hers.

She shook her head. “The Meadows provides a cleaning lady once a week. I didn’t want to leave anything around that she might find.”

“That’s good,” Eric said absently. He began to pace, grazing his knuckles with his teeth. “Something doesn’t add up. Breaking in doesn’t sound like Metzger’s style. If Metzger was suspicious of you, I’d think he’d just have you killed.”

Rachel went white as a sheet. Eric immediately wished he could jerk back the words.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Rachel lifted her chin. “No. You’re right. Dr. Metzger is very results-oriented.” Her throat moved as she swallowed.

He frowned. “I’m beginning to think it’s too dangerous for you here.”

Her eyes snapped with blue fire. “I can handle it.”

Eric eyed his beautiful, stubborn partner.
Yes.
He believed she could handle it. “That’s not the point,” he said, folding his arms and staring down at her. “The point is, you’ve been hurt twice already and I have no intention of allowing you to be hurt again. They suspect you, that means we need to get you out of here.”