Her hidden timeline was strict, clearly.
“Mrs. Denman, wait! I need help! I need my questions answered!”
Her footsteps sounded on the stairs, quick, clattering away into the silence of the house.
As he heard the enormous car start up outside, he ran down the stairs, but by the time he reached the front of the building, she was already well down the driveway.
He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and jammed her number in—and got nothing. The damn phone was deader than dead. He glanced up at the spotted, angry sun and threw it down onto the elegant brick driveway.
A moment later, there was a flash, followed at once by a sound so loud that it was like a body blow from a wrecking ball, an enormous, thundering roar.
He had never been close to a large explosion, and so did not know the effects and did not immediately understand what was happening. Then he did.
Shocked, disbelieving, he watched the smoke rising. She had been right and more than right. This place had enemies, and so did he. And he felt sure that they had just taken from him his most important ally.
From behind him, a siren began to wail. No police came, though, no fire department, no EMS. The siren was the clinic’s alert system, and it would be the only siren, because the Acton Clinic was alone. And he was alone, and they were all alone.
Not their enemies, though, hidden, aggressive, and lethally effective. Obviously, they were not alone.
2. THE ENEMY
In the disoriented silence that followed, a fireball erupted above the wall from the other side, then disappeared into the roiling pillar of black smoke. The car’s gas tank had exploded, ending any thought that its armor might somehow have protected the occupants.
Two white Jeeps came bounding down the driveway, with discreet ACTON SECURITY signs on their doors. They raced through the gate.
Finally absorbing the reality of the situation, David began running behind them. At once, though, powerful arms stopped him. He struggled but he could not escape from hands like great stones.
“You can’t help her now.”
Then another man ran past them, a tall man in an improbably elegant green crushed-silk suit.
“Mack, stop,” the man holding David shouted. “STOP THERE!” Then, more softly, “Shit!”
A small fire truck left the gate, and a moment later white steam began rising, and the sound of water hissing from its pump.
The man holding him released his grip. “I’m Glen MacNamara,” he said as David turned around. David was startled by a sense of recognition. He’d seen Glen before. His voice, even, contained an echo of familiarity.
“I’m David Ford.”
The patient called Mack came back with his minder, who was introduced by MacNamara as Sam Taylor.
“I’m sorry I manhandled you like that, Doctor,” Glen said between breaths. He was pale, his eyes shocked. He looked to Taylor, who shook his head. No survivors.
“The car—you mean Mrs. Denman’s car? That’s what blew up?”
All three men, Sam, Glen MacNamara, and the patient, looked at him with careful eyes.
“It was a bomb,” Mack said.
Aubrey Denman had certainly been right that there was a security problem, but this was far, far worse even than her warning had suggested.
“They’ve been killed,” he said faintly, trying to grasp the catastrophe, trying to understand. But he could not understand, could not even begin to. “Why? An old lady like that?
“Doctor,” Glen MacNamara said, “I’d feel a lot better if we could go inside.”
Two security guards went toward the gate carrying freshly opened body bags.
“Don’t bag them until I’ve inspected,” Glen said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Glen insisted on accompanying him to the house.
“I need to get in touch with the rest of the board,” David said.
“You’d best ask Katie Starnes about that.”
The tone of Glen’s voice, his choice of words, brought more recognition. Normally, he would have simply asked him outright if he’d been in the class, but he wasn’t about to do that now.
“Glen, you look familiar. Have we met before?”
Glen stared back, his eyes steady.
“We have, haven’t we?”
He did not say no.
“And you remember, and thank God. What else do you remember?”
Glen grabbed his shoulder so hard he stopped talking immediately.
“Never speak about it,” he said.
“No, obviously not directly.”
“Not at all.”
As they walked, Glen took something from his pocket, then slipped it into David’s hand. David felt a small capsule.
“If you’re captured, bite down on it and breathe deeply. It takes ten seconds. No pain.”
“But—”
“Do it without fail.”
He jammed the thing down into his pocket, and then they were through the main door and immediately confronting a silent, frightened crowd.
Staffers, patients, workers—the whole front half of the house was filled with people. A couple of security men kept them back.
David realized that he was going to have to make an introduction of himself here and now. No waiting on this.
He raised his voice. “Obviously a tragedy,” he said. He found himself clutching the cyanide capsule, as if it represented rescue, or needed protection. Then, afraid that it might open, he took his hand out of his pocket.
A sea of faces, eyes wide, silent, looked back at him. Here and there, somebody exhibited inappropriate behavior, grinning, bobbing their head, dancing to some inner music.
But these people weren’t really crazy, at least not all of them. Induced psychosis as a means of concealment. And now what was he to do?
“I’m Dr. Ford. David Ford. I’m your new chief psychiatrist. I—we—we—” But what did he say? “The security team will handle this,” he finally blurted out. “Mr. MacNamara—here—here he is.”
Now, there was a great speech. Very dynamic and take-charge. Idiotic.
“Thank you, Dr. Ford. We’ve informed the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office,” he told them. “Right now, we’re assuming that criminal activity was involved.” He drew himself up. “There will be an investigation. The perpetrator will be found.”
“Was it one of us?” a voice called.
“There will be an investigation. That’s all. Thank you.”
David said, “Attendants, please accompany the patients back to routine. Back to routine, please.”
He went slowly up the grand staircase, into the fabulous painted sky, with its birds and its heavenly clouds.
He had never felt this alone. He had not known that such a feeling—like falling and being buried alive at the same time—was possible.
He entered his office, filling now with evening shadows, as silent as death.
There was one
