Skylar had been suspicious from the moment Senator Davis had offered her Fenton’s job. Anything that sounds too good to be true always is. But how could she have said no? She would be getting revenge on the man who’d ordered her lover’s death, and would have unlimited access to Eddie, at least for the time being. Just over twenty-four hours ago, she’d been informed by an overly zealous Homeland Security agent that she would never see her patient again and was losing her rights as an American citizen. Now she had her dream job, which should have taken her another twenty years to achieve. Skylar guessed that the government was desperate to keep the situation contained. The last thing they wanted was her going public with her story and suing Homeland Security for false imprisonment. If they kept her happy, she’d remain quiet. That was the deal. In fact, she’d signed a confidentiality agreement to that effect.
Skylar was certain there was more to the story, but realized she would most likely never know it. What she did know was that people changed their minds all the time. There was no guarantee how long she’d have free rein within Harmony House, so she was not about to waste time. She had to act while she had the opportunity.
The moment she stepped inside her office, she went right to the stack of storage boxes labeled Parks, Edward. She opened the first box, which contained his earliest records, and pulled out the first couple inches of folders. She riffled through them, looking for something specific. A phone number. Which she found in short order. And dialed.
CHAPTER 111
Dr. Marcus Fenton’s House, Pine Hill, New Jersey, May 29, 9:19 a.m.
Federal agents had already been searching Marcus Fenton’s home for over thirty minutes by the time he pulled into his driveway. He parked directly behind their vehicles and got out, carrying with him the few keepsakes he had taken from Harmony House. These included several framed photographs of his deceased wife, Ruthie.
To no one in particular, Fenton said he was going to hire the best lawyer he knew, who would readily put a stop to all this. He went inside to his home office, where he sat down behind his desk. His computer and all his technology had been removed. How dare they? Fenton placed the photographs on his empty desktop, then opened a drawer, which was not a drawer at all but the cover of a small safe with a combination lock. He turned the dial two rotations to the right, one to the left, and one to the right. He opened the safe and removed several notebooks. Behind them was a small jewelry box. Inside the box were two plain white pills. Each was 500 milligrams of a lethal, untraceable compound known only as KT-186. It was going to look like Marcus Fenton had a heart attack, which would be completely believable given the circumstances.
Michael Barnes had had his escape plan. Marcus Fenton had his.
He poured himself a glass of water and swallowed the pills. Both went down smoothly. Nothing happened immediately. He didn’t expect it to. He calmly closed the small jewelry box and placed it and the notebooks back inside the safe, which he then locked. He closed the small drawer, concealing the safe, and looked at one of the photographs of his wife. “See you soon.”
Fenton’s heart stopped beating twenty seconds later. Agents would find him on the floor behind his desk several minutes afterward, in a puddle of his own bodily fluids. Paramedics arrived eleven minutes later. They would reach Jefferson Hospital in Stratford twenty-seven minutes after that. The once senior and most respected doctor on the grounds of Harmony House was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m.
CHAPTER 112
Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 29, 12:22 p.m.
Skylar wouldn’t learn of Fenton’s death until later that night, by which time she wouldn’t be able to give the news the attention it deserved. She was too focused on Eddie’s return to Harmony House to give much focus to anything else. She was joined by Nurse Gloria in front of the facility’s main entrance as they waited for his arrival. Gloria was still suffering the effects of too much alcohol over the weekend. “Doctor, is it true?”
Skylar played dumb. “Is what true?”
The nurse appreciated the young doctor’s humility. “That you got Fenton’s job?”
She nodded modestly. “It’s only temporary until they can find a more suitable replacement.”
“Well, congratulations, anyway. It’s still a hell of a thing.” Gloria was already trying to figure out how to condense all this information into a brief text to her other employer later that day.
The ambulance arrived with little fanfare. Lying on the gurney, Eddie remained comatose as the paramedics wheeled him back to his room. He stared blankly upward at nothing in particular. Concern was evident in Nurse Gloria’s face. She had never seen him like this. “How long has he been this way?”
“Roughly thirty-six hours.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“I do,” was all Skylar replied.
What bothered Gloria most was that the doctor now in charge of Harmony House showed such little concern for Eddie. Apparently now that she had the big job, the young doctor didn’t care about her patients like she used to. At least Fenton had pretended to care.
When they got to Eddie’s room, Gloria was surprised to see that the echo box was already there. Which meant that it had arrived separately from Eddie. In the entire time she had known this very special patient, he had been separated from it on only a handful of occasions. “That’s strange.”
Skylar asked innocently, “What?”
“He took his box with him. I wonder how it got back here before him?”
Skylar shrugged. “Homeland Security must have delivered it.”
“Homeland Security? What were they doing with it?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.” She eyeballed the nurse for a moment, and then asked, “Would you mind excusing us? I’d like some privacy with him.”
The nurse nodded and left the room, realizing that she might have to break her other employer’s rules and send two messages that day. Gloria just didn’t see any way she was going to fit all this new information into one brief message.
Inside Eddie’s room, Skylar sat on the edge of Eddie’s bed as he continued staring vacantly at the ceiling. “You can stop acting now.”
He continued staring at the ceiling. His eyes didn’t move.
“Eddie?” A hint of concern crept into her voice just as his gaze turned slowly toward the echo box, which was positioned exactly where it had been the last time it was in his room.
“I am becoming a good actor, don’t you think?”
She smiled. “Yes, Eddie, I do. A very good one.”
He closed his eyes. “Doesn’t it sound wonderful?” He was referring to the silence.
“What’s wonderful is seeing you smile again.”
He opened his eyes and looked around his room, feeling more comfortable than he had in days. He SIGHED with relief. “I’m glad to be back in my room.”
“I’m glad you are, too.”
“I don’t like the outside world.”
“I can understand why.”
Eddie sat up, staring at the echo box. He was wondering the same thing Nurse Gloria had. He got up and moved toward it, gently running his hands around the device and then the laptop supercomputer. He noticed the scratches where he had dropped them. “Somebody scratched them.”
Skylar said, “You did.”
“When did I scratch them?”
“You dropped them outside your childhood home in Philadelphia when the agents pointed their guns at us.”
Eddie kept looking around his room, anywhere but at Skylar. “I don’t remember dropping them.”
“You were going into shock.”
He thought for a moment, trying to remember. “I did not like going into shock.”