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They had all had a very close call.
It had been one thing to make the problem of the patient in room Bgo away six weeks ago. No one had come around asking about Brooke Kendrick. All the records relating to her appointment at the clinic had been destroyed. The patient in room A had been the only witness, and his memories were fractured and distorted because of the drug.
Geddings’s disappearance had been somewhat more complicated, but in the end no one except Jodi Luckhurst had cared. She had been convinced that her boyfriend had deserted her for greener drug-dealing pastures.
Everything had been under control until Drake and his podcast pal, Llewellyn, had arrived in town. In spite of nearly getting killed in the explosion and regardless of the fact that they had no proof to confirm their suspicions, they showed no signs of giving up their so-called investigation. Something had to be done about them, but that was Moore’s and Guthrie’s problem.
Fenner stared at the package on the table, savoring the relief, temporary though it was. He knew what was inside—the same items that had been in the previous two packages—the drug that he would use on the next unwitting research subject Mr.Knight sent his way.
The brief flash of relief faded. He was eager to move forward with his own experiments with the insomnia drug, but he dreaded having to deal with the next patient Knight referred to the Institute. The disaster with Brooke Kendrick had left him badly shaken. But running Knight’s trial was the price he paid to continue with his own cutting-edge work. The insomnia medication still had some quirks. The hallucinations were a serious problem. But he was making progress. He just needed time.
He got up to make himself a cup of tea. He had no doubt but that in the end, his years of research in the field of insomnia would be validated. He would not let his future be destroyed by the likes ofLlewellyn and Drake. He had come too far and risked too much to see it all burned down by the podcast bitch and the writer.
He was sitting down to drink the tea when he heard the sharp, demanding knock on the door. Between one breath and the next his anxiety level shot sky-high. His heart raced. He could hardly breathe. Something was wrong. No one called on him. He never invited staff or members of the college faculty to visit. He had chosen to rent the house in which he was living precisely because there were no nearby neighbors.
He rose, went into the front hall, and peered through the peephole. Bewildered, he opened the door.
“What are you doing here?” he said. “I assume you have news. You had better come in.”
He turned to lead the way back into the kitchen. He never saw the syringe in the killer’s hands. The needle pierced his upper shoulder where it curved into his neck. Shocked, he started to turn around, but the world was already getting blurry.
The killer took his arm and steered him across the living room and into the kitchen. He collapsed on a chair. It occurred to him that there was something wrong with the light. It was fading.
A moment later he toppled off the chair and sprawled on the floor. He listened to the killer moving around in the kitchen. They said that hearing was the last sense to go. He realized in a rather vague way that he would never receive recognition of his pioneering work. He was doomed to be a forgotten footnote in the history of sleep research.
The last things he heard were the soft sounds of the killer picking up the package wrapped in brown paper and the closing of the front door.
A moment later there was nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ambrose opened hiseyes to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and a rainy dawn. The fragments of a dream whispered through him. Not a nightmare, for once; instead he recalled the feel of a warm, soft, gently curved female body snuggled against him. A familiar scent still clung to the pillow propped behind his head. It was a scent he recognized, a scent he would forever associate with Pallas.
“What the hell?” He sat up suddenly, struggling to orient himself. There was no muffled clanking from the chain that bound him to the bed. Something was wrong. Had he somehow succeeded in unlocking the manacle while sleepwalking?
He finally realized he was still in the padded armchair in Pallas’s room. His unchained ankle was propped on a footstool. There was a blanket draped over him.
Pallas was no longer holding his hand. She was at the console, pouring coffee into a cup. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.
“Good morning to you, too,” she said.
Memory and reality slammed through him. He checked the viewoutside the window, confirming the sunlight. Then he looked at his watch, trying to remember when he had come upstairs, calculating how long he had been asleep.
“About seven hours,” Pallas said. She crossed the room and handed him the coffee she had just poured. “That’s what you want to know, right? How long you were asleep? I doubt if it’s enough to make up for all the bad nights, but maybe it will help.”
He took the coffee. “I don’t understand.”
“You needed the rest. After I calmed your energy, your body took control and sent you straight to sleep. As far as I could tell, you didn’t have any nightmares. You definitely did not sleepwalk.”
He frowned. “You were awake the whole time?”
“No, but I slept very lightly. Dozed for the most part. Woke up several times to check on you.”
He glanced at the bed. It was still made up.
“Where did you sleep?” he asked, confused.
“You and I shared that chair most of the night. I thought it best to maintain physical contact even after I was sure you were sleeping peacefully. That way I would know immediately if you became agitated or tried to sleepwalk.”
