“I’ll take care of it. He’s still helping Moore search the grounds for Alice. I can handle things from here.”
“It’s alright.” In the corridor, Andrew reached up to caress Dani’s cheek, brush her hair back behind her ear, but realized he still had O’Malley’s vomit drying on his hand, sticky on his sleeve. With a wince, he dropped his hand again, moved to wipe it on his pants, realized these were soaked, too, and grimaced.
“I can’t leave,” Dani said. “Not now, not with Thomas so sick.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.” Her brows lifted. “I know what you said about Dr. Moore, what he’s doing to Alice, but I just can’t leave Thomas.”
“It’s alright,” he told her again.
“Let me see how he is in the morning,” she said. “If he’s stable enough to transport somewhere, it could be the excuse we need to smuggle Alice out of here.”
Andrew frowned, thoughtful. “I can’t keep her in my room for too much longer. Moore thinks she’s in the lab. Suzette said he’s tearing it apart looking for her. But sooner or later, he’ll check the barracks. You know the compound better than me. Is there someplace I can bring her for tonight? Someplace safe where Moore won’t think to look?”
Dani shook her head, then her eyes widened. “Wait a minute. There’s a bathroom in the back of the garage. It doubles as a storage closet, so it’s pretty big.” She shoved her hand into her pocket and he heard the jangle of metal on metal as she pulled out a small key ring. “It’s one of the only doors in the whole complex with a keyed lock.” With a wink, she added, “And I’ve got the only key.”
She dangled them in the air and when he held out his hand, she let them fall noisily into the basin of his palm.
“God, I love you.” He said this with a laugh, meaning it playfully, but the moment the words were out of his mouth, his smile faltered. He hadn’t said I love you to anyone since Lila. For some reason, though, instead of sounding foreign and strange as they lingered in the air between Andrew and Dani, they seemed right somehow.
But when she stared up at him, visibly surprised, offering nothing in immediate reply—not the I love you, too, which would have admittedly been nice, or even a What the hell are you thinking?, which would have admittedly been called for—he found himself abashed and awkward. “I’m sorry.”
“Get out of here,” she said with a smile. “You smell like puke.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Andrew found Alice exactly as he’d left her, curled up and sound asleep on his bed. Moving quietly around the room so he wouldn’t disturb her, he’d pulled the last of the clean clothing provisions from a bureau drawer, then stripped off his soggy jeans and shirt for disposal. Then he stood under the heavy shower spray and scrubbed his skin, Suzette’s words of admonition still ringing in his ears.
The strain of streptococcus that can lead to rheumatic fever is contagious.
Just the thought of possibly contracting the same bacteria that had caused such debilitating and disfiguring illness in O’Malley left him damn near wearing a groove into the bar of soap as he rubbed it between his hands, lathering up again and again.
He got out of the shower stall and mopped at his head with a towel. I can’t believe I said that. With the smell of vomit off of him, his mind had wandered to other concerns besides potentially biohazardous contamination. Most specifically, he thought about Dani and his unintentional slip of the tongue.
She smiled at me, though, he thought, wrapping the towel around his waist, tucking the corner in to secure it loosely in place. She didn’t kick me in the balls or anything and she could have. She should have. So she couldn’t have been too pissed off about me saying it. Right?
Raking his fingers through his wet hair to comb it back from his face, he opened the bathroom door. At almost the exact same moment, he heard a quiet series of beeps from his doorway. It occurred to him dimly that someone was typing in a pass code and then the door burst open as Edward Moore shoved his way inside, Major Prendick less than a full step behind him.
“Where is she?” Moore demanded, his face twisted with barely tamped fury, his fists clenched as he charged forward.
Andrew backpedaled in surprise and alarm, but the ironic realization that this was the second time in as many days that Moore had barged into his room uninvited and caught him in nothing but a bath towel was short-lived. Moore’s hand shot out, clamping beneath the shelf of his chin, slamming him into the bathroom doorframe, cutting his startled yelp breathlessly short.
“Where is my daughter, you son of a bitch?” Moore shouted, his face inches away from Andrew’s own, peppering Andrew with spittle. “What have you done with her? Tell me right goddamn now!”
Andrew pawed at his hand, trying to wedge his fingers beneath Moore’s, to loosen that furious, powerful hold that had crushed his windpipe, leaving him straining futilely for any hint of air. “Let… go…!” he gasped.
“Dr. Moore.” Prendick clapped his hand on Moore’s shoulder, but made no immediate move to haul the other man away. “Let him go.”
“Please,” Andrew choked, pawing at Moore’s hand, staring desperately at Prendick. Help me, he wanted to cry, even though all he could manage to croak out was a feeble, “Help.” Get this crazy son of a bitch off of me!
“Moore.” Prendick’s voice sharpened. “Let him go.”
After a long moment, Moore at last drew his hand away. Andrew stumbled backwards, whooping for breath.
“You…” he gasped, staring at Moore. “You’re crazy.”
Moore paid him no attention, instead turning and stomping into Andrew’s bedroom. “Alice!” he shouted. “Alice, answer me. It’s Daddy.”
What the hell is he yelling for? Andrew thought, breathless and bewildered. She’s not deaf, for God’s sake.
Then he looked beyond the doorway into the bedroom and realized Alice was no longer lying on the bed. “What the…?” he whispered.
“Something wrong, Mister Braddock?” Prendick asked as Andrew brushed past him and limped into the bedroom, following Moore.
Where’d she go? he wondered in rising alarm, watching as Moore dropped onto his knees and flipped back the bedspread, looking underneath the bed.
“I said…” Prendick’s hand fell heavily against Andrew’s shoulder from behind. “Is something wrong?”
Andrew frowned, shrugging Prendick away. “Yeah, I’d say something’s wrong. Moore just about killed me. And you just about stood there and let him. What the hell’s your problem?”
“Dr. Moore’s daughter is missing,” Prendick said, seeming unfazed by Andrew’s hostile retort. “We were hoping maybe you had some idea of her whereabouts.”
“No. Why would I?”
“He’s lying,” Moore snapped.
“Like hell,” Andrew snapped back, balling his hands into fists.
“He’s done something to Alice. I know it.” Moore whirled to face Andrew. “Tell me where she is. She’s a very sick little girl and she needs medicine to—”
“Yeah, I know all about your medicine,” Andrew cut in. “The holes you drill in her head. Did he tell you about this?” He glared at Prendick. “He cuts holes into her skull to put this so-called ‘medicine’ into her.” Squaring off against Moore, he said, “You’re not a doctor. You’re a monster. A sick, fucking sadist who carves up his own kid, for Christ’s—”
Moore bellowed, an inarticulate, furious roar, and charged again like a pissed off rhinoceros or a linebacker with some kind of murderous vendetta. Shoulders hunched, head tucked, he plowed straight for Andrew, and when Andrew danced back, out of his path, he stumbled over a chair, knocked over a lamp and crashed with them to the floor in heap. After a long moment in which there were no sounds in the room except for the thick, sodden sounds of Moore’s labored breathing, he sat up.