Jeff Abbott - Fear

Allison said Sorenson ran a special program. Sangre de Cristo offered a special program. So was it one and the same, and was the shooter connected to the program?

The next name on his list was Celeste Brent, the woman who’d left the message on Allison’s phone. He Googled her name combined with ‘Santa Fe’ and got an avalanche of results. The first was a headline: ‘Reality TV Star Moves to Santa Fe after Tragedy.’

TV star?

A knock sounded against the door. Miles closed the browser.

‘The computer working yet, sweetie?’ Joy asked, sticking her head inside.

‘Having trouble getting your e-mail running,’ he fibbed, ‘but I’ll figure it out.’

‘We need to rotate a few pieces, can you please come help me?’

‘Sure,’ he said. He could read the rest about Celeste Brent later. But he realized with a cold shiver, if he was to find the truth, he had to get inside that hospital, Sangre de Cristo, find out what was going on there.

A mental hospital. His worst nightmare.

‘The crazy guy,’ Andy said from the other side of the room, as Miles hung a new painting with Joy’s guidance, ‘breaking into the asylum. This I have to see.’

First the fists, then the rubber hoses, then finally the screwdriver, brought back into the act for a virtuoso encore, won Groote a name from Nathan’s battered lips. Groote derived no pleasure from hurting others; agony was a means to an end. But two hours into the torture – really, Tin Soldier had done an impressive imitation of a hero, holding out far longer than Groote had figured he would – he’d screamed out a name for Allison’s shadowy partner: Michael Raymond. The MR in Allison’s cell. Five minutes later he got a physical description as well: about six two, strong build, brown hair, brown eyes.

Groote called a friend immediately back in California – a friend who made his living piercing firewalls, to test the security of the cell-phone provider. His friend, assured of a generous payment, spent the day hacking and then late Wednesday afternoon gave Groote a home address and a work number for the account. Groote dialed the work number, got a woman’s voice welcoming him to Joy Garrison Gallery on the world-famous Canyon Road, listing the employees and giving a number to reach their voice mail. ‘For Michael Raymond, press four,’ the computerized voice intoned.

Groote hung up. Gotcha, asshole.

Groote stood in the compact kitchen on the Sangre de Cristo’s top floor and drank a glass of ice water. He dumped the ice into the sink and scrutinized his hands. Nathan’s blood had crusted underneath Groote’s nails and he needed to give them another hard scrub.

He shuddered. You did what you had to do. For Amanda. For all the other poor sick bastards out there who need to be unchained from their nightmares. Even if Nathan Ruiz was one of those same poor bastards.

Doctor Hurley – sleepless, frazzled, a scared rabbit in a forest full of foxes – unlocked the door, stepped inside the kitchen, locked the door back behind him. ‘Quantrill’s on the phone. He sounds unhappy.’

‘Imagine.’

‘This isn’t my fault. Not at all. I asked Quantrill for additional security and he balked. He should have sent you earlier. I won’t be held responsible-’

Groote hit him, not hard, but enough in the stomach to shut his mouth. He sagged to the floor, vomited up a splash of coffee.

‘I can hit you next time, in the nose just so, Doctor Hurley, and send a splinter of bone right into your brain. It’s no sweat off my back. You understand me?’

Hurley nodded, real fear in his eyes.

‘So shut up. I’m in charge now, you’re not. You don’t have to worry your overstuffed head about responsibility. But I can’t abide whining.’ He helped Hurley to his feet.

‘You – you should take his call in my office,’ Hurley said in a daze.

‘I’ll do that.’

He walked back to Hurley’s office and thumbed the phone’s button. ‘Groote.’

‘Tell me you have Frost back.’

Groote kept his voice calm. ‘Cut the drama. If I had it I’d have already called. I need you and Hurley to keep your heads on straight, you got me?’

He heard Quantrill take a calming breath. ‘So what’s the situation?’

‘I have a theory. She takes on exposing you, it’s natural to assume she had help, and Nathan says she asked this Michael Raymond guy for help. Raymond works at an art gallery, which doesn’t make sense in terms of how he could help her – but say Nathan’s telling the truth. Michael Raymond realized your drug was going to go for a premium price. So he uses Allison to get Frost. Then he gets rid of Allison.’

‘A bomb… who would use a bomb?’ Quantrill’s voice held a sudden fear in it that replaced the impatience of a minute ago.

‘We don’t know it was a bomb. Could have been he rigged a gas explosion. We don’t know shit about this guy except his name and he works in an art gallery.’ He paused. ‘Both mentioned another name. Sorenson. Nathan and Raymond claimed Sorenson was a guy who came to Allison’s house after she died, but I never saw him. So either there’s another player working here, role unknown, or they’re lying to me. I got to go with what I know.’

Quantrill considered in silence.

‘Mr. Quantrill,’ Groote said, ‘I need you to be honest with me. You got enemies, I’m guessing, other than this woman who might have been a whistle-blower. Who knows about Frost? Who might try to steal it from you?’

‘A pharmaceutical. Another information broker.’

‘The drug company so they could produce it. The broker so he could sell the research.’

‘Or,’ Quantrill said slowly, ‘Michael Raymond might want a financial payment. He doesn’t blow the whistle the way Allison would. He sells me back the research copies for a price.’

‘But then when I spoke to him he didn’t want to set up a meeting. He seemed… confused. But he did say he knew where Frost was, it would take time, but he’d call me back.’

‘Then he’s wanting us to squirm to drive up the price.’

‘If he goes public…’

‘No drug company could produce a medication based on illegal testing,’ Quantrill said. ‘We have to bury how Frost was tested. It would kill the research in its tracks. Years before anyone would touch it again or bring it to market.’

Years Amanda didn’t have. ‘Then the money has to be his motivation. Otherwise he would have gone public already.’

‘Find him. Say you’ll pay him five million for Frost. You’ll have to make sure he hasn’t passed the information on to anyone else. Obviously you can’t leave him alive.’

‘I’ll get out the screwdriver.’ He hung up and Groote checked his gun and his watch. First try the gallery for Michael Raymond, then try the apartment. A gallery. It didn’t fit a guy who Allison Vance would ask for help. And that bothered Groote. He didn’t like walking into the unknown.

He fitted his gun into his jacket holster and headed for the parking lot.

Groote walked into the gallery. He surveyed the art on the walls with indifference: portraits of Navajo and cowboy, landscapes of burnished New Mexico desert and wildflower-dotted fields. He read the price tag on one landscape of a stone-choked creek. Eleven thousand dollars. He’d killed a man for less once.

He stopped and listened with care. He guessed there were two people in the gallery, from the murmur of voices. A woman, a man, talking softly from the rear of the gallery. He left his sunglasses in place – no need to be easily recognizable. He went back to the door, flipped the OPEN sign of engraved, polished metal to CLOSED, turned the dead bolt. He hoped he didn’t have to kill everyone in the building. He’d prefer to get Raymond out of the building, get him alone. But better to be prepared.