“That wasn’t a request, Dr. O’Farrell.” He seemed to enjoy her suffering. He put what felt like a paper cup to her lips. “Relax. It’s just water.”
He started pouring, the lukewarm fluid spilling down her chin and throat, into her blouse. Her mouth opened involuntarily. Her jaw was swelling, bruised, the pain even worse now.
“Drink,” he ordered. “I don’t want you passing out.”
Pulling her hair, he yanked her head back and dumped the water down her throat. She choked on it, coughing. Something was wrong—it had an off taste.
It’s bad water.
“Come on. Up you go.”
His voice seemed far away. He got her to her feet and slung her over one shoulder, and she couldn’t make herself kick or flail—couldn’t move at all. And she was sinking into unconsciousness. She knew it was happening but couldn’t stop it.
He’d drugged her.
Panic fluttered through her, but there was nothing she could do, and she could feel her eyelids droop, her muscles relax, as the darkness came.
Joshua had finally just dozed off when someone pounded on his front door.
“It’s me, Barry,” his downstairs neighbor yelled. “Open up!”
“What the hell—” Joshua pulled on his bath robe and glanced at his bedside clock. It was 3:00 a.m. Jesus, Barry. He hoped the poor guy wasn’t having a heart attack, although from the vigor of his knocking, Joshua doubted it. He staggered into his living room and out to the entry, the tile floor cold under his feet. He pushed back the dead bolt and opened the door. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. You got your TV on?”
“Barry, it’s three o’clock in the morning. No, I don’t have my television on—”
“You work odd hours sometimes. You never know.” He pushed his way past Joshua into the living room and switched on his television, picking up the remote. “I was up with sciatica. Half the time I don’t sleep regular, anyway. I’m used to it. How the hell you work this remote? Put CNN on.”
“Barry—”
“That guy—what’s his name? The one who attacked your daughter in New York—”
Joshua felt gut-punched. “Bobby Tatro?”
“Yeah. Him. He broke out. Faked appendicitis or some damn thing, and they took him to the hospital—they figure he had help from accomplices—”
“Tatro escaped?”
“That’s what they’re saying on the news.”
Grabbing the remote from the old man, Joshua clicked on CNN and caught the tail end of the report. It confirmed the outlines of what Barry had just told him.
“They had it as Breaking News at first,” Barry said. “I hate to admit it, but I get an adrenaline rush when I hear the Breaking News music.”
“When did Tatro escape? Did they give a time?”
“About an hour ago.”
Not time enough for him to reach Vermont. To reach Wendy. Juliet. Joshua forced himself to concentrate on the report. Tatro had been taken to the hospital just before two o’clock…within fifteen minutes, someone complained of a noxious odor. A woman went into seizures. Another lost consciousness. In the resulting pandemonium, Tatro took off. One of his guards was found doubled over, puking his guts out due to the fumes; another had his throat slit, but he was lucky—doctors found him and stitched him up in time. Although the exact substance used to cause the nerve reactions was still a mystery, it hadn’t caused any fatalities, the only good news of the night.
According to the news report a massive manhunt was under way. As yet, there was no sign of Tatro or his accomplices or any indication of who his accomplices were.
Barry was shaking his head in amazement, his thin white hair sticking out above his ears. He had on a pilled red tracksuit that was at least twenty years old. “What a hell of a thing to happen.”
“You okay?” Joshua asked him.
“Yeah, yeah. My ticker can handle a breakout. You?”
“I’m good. I’m going to make a couple calls, see what I can find out—”
As if on cue, his telephone rang. Barry plopped down on Joshua’s couch and motioned for him to go ahead and answer.
He expected it to be a fellow state trooper. “Longstreet—”
“Trooper Longstreet, right? Juliet’s brother?”
“One of them. You’re—”
“Mike Rivera. Chief deputy—”
Joshua’s heart jumped. Had she gone back to New York and not told him? He warned himself not to speculate. “I’m Joshua Longstreet. What can I do for you, Chief?”
“I’m trying to reach your sister. I was hoping you could help me. Her cell phone’s off or something.”
“She’s in the woods. No cell service out there. I just heard about Tatro.”