Chapter Ten
“I don’t understand,” Alice whispered. “This video must have been shot on my wedding night.”
Owen rezzed pause to stop the video. Her stricken expression made him feel simultaneously helpless and enraged. There was nothing he could do to save the woman on the bed from three months in a psychiatric hospital and seven more months of living in fear.
But now the time for vengeance had come. He had to stay focused on getting Kelbrook out of her life. That meant applying logic, not emotion, to the problem.
“We take this one step at a time,” he said. “It could be a fake.”
She clutched Sebastian with her right hand and gestured at the screen with her left. “The date stamp is from ten months ago, the date of the wedding.”
“That, too, could be a fake,” he said.
The new gold wedding band on her hand caught the light.
An hour ago he had put that ring on her finger.
She had been reluctant but he had persuaded her that it was necessary.
Yes, theirs was a Marriage of Convenience—emphasis on convenience—but nevertheless, they needed to send a clear message to Kelbrook. The ring helped reinforce that message.
His logic was solid. There was a good reason for her to wear the ring. But now he was aware that just the sight of the ancient symbol of marriage on her hand gave him an absurdly possessive, protective rush of satisfaction. The woman he had spent the last two weeks searching for was his wife.
Ruthlessly, he suppressed the urge to take her into his arms and attempt to comfort her. He told himself she would not welcome such a move. As far as she was concerned, they were practically strangers. The smart, efficient thing to do was to keep moving forward. Focus, March.
“Are you ready to watch the rest of the video?” he asked.
She blinked, straightened her shoulders, and lifted her chin. The energy of her determination charged the atmosphere. “Yes. But what if we can’t tell if it’s real or fake?”
“I know someone who can answer that question for us, if we decide it’s necessary.”
She gave him a shaky smile. “The benefits of occasionally consulting for the FBPI?”
“Think of the Bureau’s resources as my version of your Aurora Street Dream Clinic connections.” He gave it a beat before adding, “Except a bit less colorful. No one has ever accused agents of the FBPI of having a lot of style.”
“Well, you can’t have everything.”
Her attempt at humor sent a wave of relief through him. She might be an innocent out here in the real world, but she had the grit she needed to survive.
“I can contact my friends at the Bureau if absolutely necessary, but I’d rather avoid that if possible,” he said.
“If I bring in official law enforcement at this stage, there’s a risk of losing control.
I trust the agents I work with, but I don’t know if we can trust upper management.
Realistically speaking, the people at the top might be vulnerable to the kind of pressure a man like Kelbrook can apply. ”
“I am aware of that, believe me.”
“Regardless of whether it’s real, this video is giving us crucial information. If it’s legit, we may have proof of what really happened to you that night. If it’s fake, we’ll look for the person who went to the trouble of producing it.”
“The dead man in the shower, Carl Voyle?”
“Maybe. But it’s equally possible that someone paid him to make the video. One thing’s for sure—we need to know more about Voyle and why someone murdered him and left him in your shower.”
She gave him a quick, unreadable glance. “You’re sure I didn’t kill him?”
“He was shot with a mag-rez. You tried to take down a couple of armed men with a flamer set on stun. All you managed to do was set a quilt on fire. No, I don’t think you killed Voyle.”
“In other words, I’m innocent by reason of incompetence?”
“That’s harsh. ‘Inexperienced in the intricacies of firearms’ would be more accurate.”
“Yes,” she said. “That sounds better. Core Principle Number Three: Expertise in any endeavor comes with practice.”
“Something like that.”
He rezzed play and together they watched the motionless figure on the bed. “Pay attention to details. If this video is fake, there may be something that gives it away as a recent production.”
“It’s hard to see a lot of details because of the vapor.”
“I know, but it drifts a little, so we may see something later that we can’t make out now. The clothes look right. That’s how you were dressed in the one photo of the wedding that I was able to find.”
“Yes,” she said. “But I don’t remember getting dressed or the ceremony or packing for the wedding night.”
“Whose idea was it to spend that night at the Hotel of Dreams?”
“It must have been Travis’s.” She shook her head once. “I wasn’t even aware of that awful hotel. I’m sure of that much. And I would not have chosen it for a wedding night if I had known about it.”
On the video there was the sound of a key rezzing a lock. Light angled into the room. The sudden draft of air caused the yellow mist to shift and swirl, revealing a sharper image of the bed and the wall on the far side.
“Someone just opened the door,” Alice said, her voice very tight.
“Yes.”
They both watched two men approach the bed.
Alice leaned forward, riveted. “They’re dressed as emergency medics. Wearing gas masks. They’ve got a stretcher.”
“The shoes don’t look right for medics.” Owen rezzed the pause button again. “I want to check something.”
He opened his phone and started a search.
“What are you looking for?” Alice asked.
“A photo of the emergency medical services team nearest the hotel. Theoretically, they would have been the first responders in the event of a real emergency.” He zipped through the short list of hits.
“Here we go. A media photo of the local fire and rescue team. Those two in the video are wearing the wrong outfits.”
“What?” Alice leaned closer to peer at the screen of the phone. “You’re right. Maybe the pair are from Serenity Gardens. No, that can’t be right. I remember the staff uniforms at the hospital very clearly. They were nothing like what those two are wearing. Who are those people?”
“Good question.”
Alice looked at him. “You said that Kelbrook found out only recently that I was missing. Who told him?”
“Twitchell said that one of the Kelbrook accountants had questioned a couple of the hospital bills. That, in turn, caused Kelbrook to send Twitchell to Serenity to verify that you were receiving—and I quote—‘the very best care.’ ”
“Right. The very best care, as in drugged and locked away, out of sight. Kelbrook must have been furious when he discovered that I had been missing for seven months.”
“Let’s just say he obviously wants you returned to Serenity Gardens as quickly as possible,” Owen said.
He rezzed play again.
The pair in the masks moved fast. They crossed to the bed. One of them plunged a syringe into the sleeping woman. They picked her up and settled her onto the stretcher. For a moment there was a clear view of her face. Cold rage iced Owen’s senses.
“No question,” Alice said, her voice very tight. “That’s me. They used the hallucinogenic dream vapor to put me out and then they pretended to be medics, injected me with a sedative, and took me away on a stretcher. When I woke up, I was in Serenity Gardens and Travis was dead.”
“Keep watching,” Owen said. “We’ve got to authenticate the video.”
“If only I could remember more about that night.”
“Just watch,” he said. “Don’t try to overthink it. See if anything looks familiar. Anything at all. The smallest detail might be helpful.”
She did not take her eyes away from the screen. On her lap, Sebastian muttered and huddled closer.
Owen watched the two men heft the stretcher with the unconscious woman on board and start toward the door.
The masks concealed their faces, and each wore a cap, so it was impossible to determine hair color.
He leaned in, trying to get a sense of postures and body shapes.
The man carrying the front of the stretcher had the build of a bulked-up gym rat.
The other one was tall and lean, the kind of man who looked good in a tux.
“They aren’t using the hidden passageway,” Alice noted.
“Assuming they were even aware of it, there wouldn’t have been any point sneaking you out of the hotel.
Kelbrook obviously wanted the media to know about all of it—Poole’s death and the necessity of sending you away to a hospital for the criminally insane.
As far as everyone at the hotel was concerned, you were taken away by a legitimate ambulance crew because you had suffered a para-psych break and murdered your husband. ”
Alice froze. “Stop the video.”
He obliged and waited.
“Can you zoom in on the wrist of the tall man?”
He did as instructed, tightening the focus to highlight the amber-and-steel watch. It was a distinctive and expensive-looking timepiece.
“Well, shit,” Alice whispered.
The expletive caught him by surprise.
He paused the video again. “What?”
“I can’t prove that I didn’t have a para-psych break on my wedding night, but I am now absolutely certain I didn’t murder my husband.”
She was staring fixedly at the screen, a flush of outrage brightening her cheeks. Fury and disbelief shivered in the atmosphere around her.
“What makes you so sure?” he asked quietly.
She stabbed an accusing finger at the screen. “See the tall man carrying the back of the stretcher? The one with the fancy watch?”
“What about him?”
“That’s him, that’s my…my husband. Travis Poole. He was one of the kidnappers.”