Chapter Twenty-Nine
Harley - Present Day
Today is the day. It’s time to rescue Quinn.
X and I took the long drive out to the hospital today in a van disguised as a roadworks vehicle.
We have been watching from a distance. My neck aches from being sat in a cramped space, and anxiety is rife within me.
I’m unsettled, and I won't be settled until I know she is safe. I’ve brought Ted with us just in case human interaction is too much.
Bless him, he’s a good boy; he’s sat waiting, watching.
He knows the routine by now, but it always surprises me how he manages to thrive no matter the disruption to his daily habits.
From what we’ve seen, besides Stephanie, it looks like there are only two members of staff who seem to live on the premises. I haven’t seen either of them leave, anyway. One man and one woman.
Based on the blueprints of the building, there is the bigger house at the front and a smaller one in the back.
We’ve been using thermal cameras via a drone, and based on heat signatures, it looks like the people inside are divided between the two buildings.
One smaller one that, from what we’ve seen on camera, looks dilapidated.
At first I thought it was abandoned, and then I saw heat signatures in different parts of the building, some even lying down, so it looks like it’s definitely inhabited.
It should surprise me that Stephanie would put people in these situations, and if it was anyone else, it would.
But with her, she’s always ten steps ahead, and you’re just lagging behind.
There is one part of the property to the left, separated from the rest of the buildings, that is what I can only describe as an outhouse building.
Inside, there are three different signatures.
One is lying down, and the other two are standing on either side.
If I had to guess, that would be the treatment room.
Stephanie would never allow someone to accidentally walk in on her doing a procedure.
God forbid someone should witness her off-the-book actions and ruin her reputation.
But, to our advantage, there are no electric fences for us to combat.
From an outside perspective, it looks like a building completely separate from the main property.
The bigger building to the front of the property seems to be well maintained, but there are fences surrounding it with barbed wire on the top and signs telling you to stay away or be electrocuted.
But if I know Stephanie, she wouldn’t want to pay for the extra electricity, so we’ve hacked into her emails, and I’m currently looking through her bills.
“Ah! Got ya, you little bitch.” Now, normally you would never catch me talking about a woman like this, but let’s be honest here, she’s an actual cunt. Ted jumps at my outburst, furious at me for disturbing his nap.
“What have you found?” X asks as he rubs Ted’s head affectionately.
“I had an inkling that the electric fences weren’t charged. She’s a bill skirter. She pays for what she needs and nothing more, and it was niggling at me why all of a sudden that would change for her.”
“Well, based on what you’ve told me about her and what we’ve seen, I would imagine paying the extra to keep the patients in the facility would be beneficial to preserving her reputation. If they got out, they could do some serious damage.”
“Yes, but most of the patients she has, I can almost guarantee, are guinea pigs and don’t actually need to be there.
She will be using them for some kind of research.
What kind, I have yet to figure out. Anyway, her bills haven’t changed.
Every month they’re the exact same amount, no surges for different times of the evening or the hours of free electricity. It’s one solid amount each month.”
“Okay?” X looks at me like I’ve lost the plot.
“If she was supplying electricity to the fences on top of the supply to the rest of the buildings, her monthly bill would be much higher. Based on what she’s specified to the company, they’re only supplying electricity to the one main building with an added surcharge for the outhouse.”
He catches my drift before his face shows concern. “But what about the building with the people in the back?”
“It doesn’t look like that building gets anything extra.
Even the gas bill is extremely low, and considering we’ve not long come out of winter, you would expect the last 6 months of bills to be a lot higher.
Yet, they’re borderline with the summer months.
There’s barely any increase, which tells me they also get minimal heating and hot water.
The residents that were here before Quinn must have had one hell of a winter. Especially this far up the mountains.”
“So she’s sadistic as well as a psychopath? How fun for us.” X chuckles to himself.
“I wish I could put into words the lengths I’ve seen this woman go to. But take it from me, there is nothing she won’t do to protect herself. She’s a loner. She collects people who benefit her, and then when they’re no longer beneficial for her, they’re tossed to the side without a second thought.”
“How has no one ever been able to bring a case against her?”
“She’s clever. She gets them involved just enough that they would face criminal prosecution themselves, and then they have no choice but to comply. From what I’ve read, the few people who have tried to—one was paid off, and the others disappeared.”
“I can’t wait to take this bitch down.” X looks contemplative. “We have to do something about her.”
“I agree. And we will. But my priority right now is Quinn.”
He nods. “So, Batman, what’s the plan?”
I laugh. “Right film, wrong character, bud.”
“You can laugh, but between you being called Harley and being a therapist, and your girl being called Quinn, you’re like two halves of a whole that becomes Harley Quinn, the psychiatrist and love interest of The Joker. It’s like it was written in the stars when the Batman universe was born.”
I ponder his words. He’s not wrong. “To be fair, the night we met she made a joke about the fact I was called Harley, and she was a Quinn. If we’d have met under any other circumstance, she’d be the girl of my dreams.”
“And why can’t she be the girl of your dreams?”
“Because right now she needs a doctor, not a boyfriend. She needs someone who wants to help her get better and receive nothing in return.”
“If history books tell us anything, H, they tell us that love conquers all. Whatever you do to put those boundaries in place, love will win over everything else. And if I can offer one piece of advice to you, it would be to follow your heart at every turn. Life is too short to not take a chance at love when it’s quite literally standing in front of you.
She may not be in the safest place to make that decision now, but you have to trust that when she makes that decision, she knows what she wants. ”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, we just need to get her out of there and away from that family.”
Ted moves off of his spot and comes over to nestle his nose into my lap. I look at him and count my lucky fucking stars that I found him at the rescue. He’s my soul dog. Without him, I don’t know where I would be.
“Okay boy, let’s go and save our girl.”
We wait for the sun to go down and the darkness to settle in before grabbing our supplies and heading to the left-hand side of the property.
We saw the heat signatures moving from the outhouse earlier, and the third person was taken to the back building before the other two headed back to the main house.
Dr Stephanie left an hour ago, oblivious to us in the van.
That was her first mistake. Always pay attention to your surroundings.
I put my rucksack on my back, which has rope inside and other equipment I may need.
A knife and a taser are attached to a belt around my waist. During extractions, we like to keep things as non-violent as possible, but somewhere along the line Lulu managed to come to an agreement with our local police force.
Knowing her, the leverage she used was top-notch, so until new people take over the roles, that relationship is set—as tentative as it is.
It’s not lost on me that we aren’t in the vicinity of our local area. We are, in fact, well out of bounds. So we need to get in and out and leave no evidence behind.
I pull my hat over my head and my mask over my mouth, leaving only my eyes on show. I haven’t found any cameras on the front or the side, and there was no evidence of camera footage in her cloud account. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any.
X is covered in exactly the same way, and we are dressed completely in black, with a bulletproof vest over the top because it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Ted trots alongside me, his lead connected to my waist and an all-black harness with a handle that makes it easier to grab onto him in case we need to abort our mission.
We both put in our earpieces and test them to make sure they’re working as needed.
We check the building to the left to make sure that there is no one inside.
All the lights are off, but a glance through the window confirms my suspicions that it’s the treatment room.
Shivers run through my body at the thought of what people have experienced in that room.
With our heads on a swivel, we make our way, low and slow, to the fence on the side.
“Moving,” I say to X so that he can cover my movements as I do. Ted and I stop, and I crouch so that I’m covered by the longer grass.