Gamma unscrewed the lid of the block and gingerly removed a syringe from within. “Let’s put this to good use. It will cost an arm and a leg to replace it once we’re done.”
I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
“Get in our own black SUV, drive out there and circle the building once. Build tension. See if the doctor notices and comes out. When he does, we pounce. You’re going to need to suit up. Balaclava, all black.”
I started collecting the items she’d mentioned and putting them on.
“This is an abduction,” Gamma said. “Prepare for a struggle. And don’t worry about the doctor remembering anything. The truth serum will help him forget. It’s part of the cocktail of drugs in this little beauty.”
“Has anyone ever told you just how terrifying you are?”
Gamma’s lips turned upward at the corners. “I’ve lost count of the times that’s been mentioned, Charlotte dear.”
Morning turned into afternoon, and afternoon into evening while we waited, parked across the street from the medical examiner’s office in my grandmother’s black SUV. The police hadn’t yet revealed to the public that Hannah had been abducted by a vehicle matching this one’s description—though, a press briefing had been scheduled for later this evening.
We didn’t have much time left to sit around waiting for Dr. Barry Briggs to emerge into the purple dusk.
Gamma tapped her fingers on the wheel of her SUV impatiently.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that the vehicle seen both at Hannah’s place and here matches the description of yours?” The SUV was my grandmother’s undercover car. Whenever she wanted to get up to no good in small town, Gossip, she’d drive it around. She had several license plates that she’d switch out so she could never be tracked, and, in case of emergency, license plate shields that slid into place in the event of a chase.
Before I’d come to Gossip, my grandmother hadn’t used the vehicle much.
“Nothing is a coincidence. Whoever’s operating behind the scenes, be it your miserable excuse for an ex-husband or not, knows exactly what they’re doing.”
I folded my arms and settled back in the passenger seat, scanning the front of the medical examiner’s office and the rest of the street. As was the case everywhere in Gossip, wrought iron lamp posts lined the wide roads. They clicked on, casting warm light over the sidewalks.
Gossip was a picturesque little town, filled with strange people who loved a gossip but meant well. Though I had been here over a year, I felt as if I’d only scratched the surface in getting to know the town and its people.
A pity since I would have to leave soon.
“Movement,” Gamma said.
My gaze snapped back to the front of the building.
Dr. Barry Briggs had emerged. He walked quickly, looking left and right over either shoulder, and stopped on the sidewalk. He didn’t notice us parked under the tree opposite him.
A powder blue car pulled up, a woman driving it, and he got inside. The car drove off.
Gamma followed at a safe distance, her eyes narrowed and her knuckles white on the wheel.
“Who is it?” I asked. “Do you think it could be Hannah? But why would Hannah be meeting with Dr. Briggs? Unless this is some ploy on her part to run away with him.” Or she’d killed Jordan and Briggs had staged her abduction to get her to safety.
My mind ran wild with the possibility. Gamma didn’t answer my questions, her focus on the car and keeping it in her sights. It wound into Gossip’s suburbs and soon parked in the driveway of a single-story brick home. The name ‘Briggs’ was printed on the side of the mailbox, peeking from the concrete.
Gamma and I stopped the SUV well back outside a picket-fenced home.
Dr. Briggs emerge from the car along with a short, chubby woman with brown hair. They entered the home together, not touching but caught in friendly conversation.
“Any idea who she is?” Gamma asked. “Do you recognize her?”
“No. You?”
“I do not,” I said.
“We’ll have to wait until she leaves before we take him,” Gamma replied. “We simply can’t risk witnesses.”
I settled in to wait. I got the feeling it was going to be a long night.
18
By 9:00 p.m., my butt had started hurting. Nothing against the leather chairs in Gamma’s SUV, but there were only so many hours one could sit still for before the pain started.
“Walk me through the serum again,” I said. “The instructions, I mean.” I needed the distraction from the butt ache and my constant worrying about the inn and when Kyle would strike next. If it was him doing the dirty work and not another killer who had an SUV.
“All right.” Gamma popped open the secret cubby underneath her seat—in case we were stopped by cops or another faction of agents—and removed a small rectangular case. Silver, with a latch. “This truth serum,” she said, hitting the button on the side of the case, “is incredibly strong. See the markings along the side of the syringe?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re only going to inject up to the first line. That leaves fifteen milliliters of fluid in the syringe. It is exceptionally important that we don’t inject more than five, or we will kill Dr. Briggs. And while I have moral compunctions about murder, I have none about disposing a body if it’s necessary. And that disposal would provide too many challenges for us, right now.”
“You’re doing the injection, right?” My palms had grown sweaty at the thought. It was silly—I’d performed injections before in my job, but this was different.
I eyed the syringe, nestled in the temperature-controlled interior of the box. White mist rose from it.
This was a make-or-break moment for us.
“Yes. I’ll do the injection. It will be up to you to—”
A
