Snakes and Ladders Page 22

  “Well, I’ll be, all those doughnuts finally caught up with you.”

  Andy McNally stood in the doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Owen in alarm. “I thought you were in Louisiana.”

  “I just got back this afternoon. Then I got a call from one of the docs in the ER whose sister I dated a few years ago,” said Andy, stepping into the room. “She said she noticed the family resemblance—I said, ‘What? A resemblance? Say it ain’t so!’—and then saw the last name and called me up.” He sat down on the bed. “I looked at your chart. It appears you have suffered the first completely symptom-free myocardial infarction in medical history.”

  Owen glanced toward the door. “I didn’t really have a heart attack,” he whispered.

  “No kidding,” said Andy, deadpan. “So, what’s up?”

  Casting nervous glances toward the door, Owen said, “I was at the Neurobiology office talking to Ambrose Steck, and afterwards I saw this guy watching my car in the parking lot. I think it was George Millard. I couldn’t think of how else to get away from him, so I went to the ER.”

  “So how long are you planning to enjoy fraudulent room and board at the expense of our fine insurance system?” asked Andy.

  Owen blushed. “Only for a day or two—“

  Andy shook his head. “It’s just professional courtesy that they haven’t kicked you out already. Look, they barely even have you hooked up to any monitors.” Andy leaned forward. “Why didn’t you just call me, bro?”

  “The whole point,” said Owen, exasperated, “was not to get you or Ruby reinvolved in this whole fiasco!”

  “Ruby, sure. But you and me, we’re the Dynamic Duo. I, of course, am Batman to your Robin. Or maybe Robin Hood to your Friar Tuck—”

  “Andy, I appreciate it, I really do—despite the insults—but I think we’re close to finding a way to resolve this whole thing.”

  “How’s that?”

  “That’s what I was talking to Steck about. Lizzy wants to turn herself in to the authorities—”

  “What?”

  “Listen, I think it might be for the best—”

  “It’s not for the best. Aren’t you the one who used the phrase ‘lab rat’ at one time?”

  Owen sighed. “Yes, I did, but we’re running out of options. I wouldn’t have approached Steck on my own—Lizzy asked me to. It’s all coming to a head. We’re pretty sure that it was George Millard who we ran into on the trail in Arizona, and who probably put the snakes in her path. I don’t think we’re a match for them on our own. We need help—some official help—and I can use the time in here to figure out how to get that.”

  “Where’s Lizzy now?”

  “She moved out of where we had been staying. I told her not to tell me where, just in case Mortensen or Millard caught up with me. Philip Castillo, the guy I told you about in Sedona, is coming out here to keep an eye on her.”

  “How much do you know about him?”

  “Not a lot. I couldn’t find much background on him online, but he seemed to be a big help to Lizzy, and she really trusts him.”

  “She’s just a kid.”

  “Yeah, but she’s an insightful kid.” Owen paused. “I talked with him myself,” he continued, looking a bit embarrassed. “Meant to give him the third degree and ended up unloading about the situation with Mom and Dad, the difficulties of being away from home. I can say from personal experience that he’s easy to talk with.”

  “Yeah, but con men can be easy to talk with—”

  “I know, but I feel like he’s trustworthy.”

  Andy opened his mouth, but Owen held up a hand.

  “I know, I know—not very scientific. But that’s my assessment. I trust him enough to ask him to come out here and keep an eye on Lizzy.”

  Andy ran his fingers through his hair. “Christ, what a mess.”

  Owen levered himself out of the chair and went to stand by the window. It provided a view of the parking garage across the street and, if the viewer’s angle was just right, the towers of Center City. “I’ve run out of ideas, little brother.”

  “Owen.”

  Andy never called him by his actual name. Owen turned from the window.

  “Have you … lost weight? Do you have what others would consider normal skin color but for you constitutes … a tan?”

  Owen looked down at himself. “Uh, I guess so …”

  “You keep it up, pretty soon you’ll be so handsome that there will be a family resemblance.”

  55

  Early the next morning, Millard, dressed in an orderly’s uniform, stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor of William Penn University Hospital, sauntered down the corridor, and glanced into Owen McNally’s room. The same visitor was in the room as had been there when Millard had cased the room the night before, a man who even the least astute observer would have identified as McNally’s younger, thinner, and better-looking brother, Andrew McNally. Millard kept walking to the end of the corridor, glancing into rooms as if looking for someone, then returned to the elevator. This family was evidently determined to make the life of Louise Mortensen and her associates as difficult as possible. Millard was looking forward to eliminating that annoyance in short order.

  When he reappeared from the elevator a short time later, his uniform was covered by a long coat and scarf. He sat down in a visitor waiting area near the elevator lobby. A few minutes later, the elevator chimed open and the large metal cart carrying the patients’ breakfast trays trundled out. Millard pulled out his phone and pressed in a number.

  “Dr. Andrew McNally’s answering service.”

  “Hello, this is Dr. Jarvis Pruitt,” said Millard. “I’m working with a patient at CHOP—a seven-year-old girl awaiting a lung transplant—and I urgently need Dr. McNally’s advice. Can you ask him to meet me at the CHOP ICU as soon as possible?”

  Mortensen had been able to ascertain that Andrew McNally’s clinical advisor in medical school had been Jarvis Pruitt, and that McNally had in fact consulted with him on several cases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The woman on the phone took down the information without question and rang off. A minute later, a concerned-looking Andrew McNally stepped out of Owen McNally’s room and walked quickly to the stairway, almost bumping into the actual orderly who was delivering trays from the cart to the patient rooms.

  “Sorry about that,” said McNally.

  The man shook his head, slid out two more trays, and headed down the hall as McNally disappeared into a stairwell.

  Millard dropped his coat and scarf on one of the visitor area chairs and stepped to the temporarily unattended cart. Each tray in its slide-out rack was labeled with a room number. He slid Owen McNally’s tray out. Pulling a syringe from his pocket, he uncapped it with his teeth, stabbed the needle through the foil covering of a plastic orange juice container, depressed the plunger, and had just recapped the syringe and slid it into his pocket when the orderly returned.

  “What’s up?” the man asked.

  “I’m looking for breakfast for 487,” said Millard. “She’s kicking up a fuss.”

  The man looked at the tray in Millard’s hand. “That’s for 477,” he said. He slid out the tray under the empty slot that had held McNally’s and handed it to Millard. “That’s the one for 487.”

  “Thanks, man,” replied Millard, passing McNally’s tray to the orderly. Then he hurried down the hall, glancing back to see the orderly step into McNally’s room with the tray. Millard stepped into 487 and dropped the tray unceremoniously on the table next to the bed in which a white-haired woman snored. Then he walked quickly to the service stairs.

  A few minutes later, with trays continuing to be delivered to the other rooms, Millard led Mitchell Pieda, also dressed in an orderly’s uniform, to McNally’s room.

  Millard eased his head around the doorway. McNally sat facing the window. His tray, with the empty orange juice container on it, was on the table beside him. His arm hung over the
side of the chair, still gripping a fork, but the piece of food that had been speared on it when the drug kicked in was lying on the floor. It looked like a piece of fruit cocktail.

  Millard rapped lightly on the open door, ready to jump back should McNally turn around, but there was no movement. He stepped into the doorway.

  “Dr. McNally?”

  No reaction.

  He gestured to Pieda to follow him into the room.

  McNally was in the same state that Castillo—and, for that matter, Millard himself—had been in under the influence of Louise’s concoction: unresponsive, his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. Millard swished the privacy curtain closed and said to Mitchell, “Hurry up, we don’t have long before the brother realizes it was a fake call.”

  Mitchell squatted down in front of McNally.

  “Dr. McNally, can you hear me?” Pause. “That’s good. I need you to answer a question for me. Where is Elizabeth Ballard?” After a moment, Mitchell looked up at Millard.

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “Bullshit. Ask him again.”

  Pieda pressed his lips together, then turned back to McNally. “Dr. McNally, I want you to think about the place you left Lizzy.” Almost immediately he said, “Hampton Inn in King of Prussia.”

  “There we go, just needed a little persistence,” said Millard, drawing a second syringe out of his pocket. He filled it and stepped to McNally’s side. “Want to scoot over a little, Mitchell? Give me some room?”

  Pieda was still squatted down in front of McNally, examining his face. He ignored Millard.

  “Dr. McNally, is she still there now?” After a moment, Mitchell said, “She’s not there anymore.”

  “Damn!” Millard stepped back. “Why not?”

  “Why isn’t Elizabeth Ballard at the Hampton Inn, Dr. McNally?” After another moment, he said, “He sent her away.”

  “Dammit!” Millard stood staring at McNally’s inert form for a moment, until the clatter of the cart, returning to collect the trays, roused him.

  “Fine, we’ll find her some other way. Move over, Pieda.”

  He felt a slight twinge behind his left eye, which he tried to ignore.

  “Why bother killing him?” whispered Pieda. “He won’t remember we were here. You should know that better than me.”

  “I’m sick of dealing with him,” said Millard. And sick of dealing with you, too, he added silently. “I got my orders from Mortensen and I’m carrying them out.”

  He jabbed the needle into Owen McNally’s arm and depressed the plunger.

  56

  At ten o’clock in the morning, after a few scant hours of sleep at the Motel 6 to which she had relocated, Lizzy jumped to her feet at a knock on the door and pressed her eye to the peephole. Philip stood in the hallway. She threw the door open and gave him a hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” She stepped aside to let him in. “Where are your bags?”

  “Just one bag. It’s in the car.”

  “I’m going to call Uncle Owen and let him know you’re here—I haven’t talked to him since last night. He went to the emergency room yesterday and told them he was having a heart attack, and they checked him into the hospital,” she said, her words spilling over each other with pent-up excitement.

  She speed-dialed Owen and listened through a few rings. She was expecting the call to go to voicemail when a voice answered.

  “Hi, Lizzy, it’s Andy.”

  “Hey, Andy—are you with Uncle Owen?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes. I’m at William Penn Hospital. He had a heart attack.”

  “No, he was just faking,” she said. “He was being followed by George Millard—at least that’s who we think it was—and he thought of going to the ER to hide out. He told them he was having a heart attack so they’d admit him.”

  “I know, Lizzy. But this is the real thing.” Lizzy heard a whoosh of expelled breath. “I was here with him at the hospital, but they lured me away with a fake phone call. They told me I was supposed to meet someone about an emergency surgery at CHOP. But when I got there, the person who the call was supposed to be from wasn’t there. Hell, he’s not even in the country—he’s on a cruise in the Mediterranean. I tried calling the nurse’s station on Owen’s floor but couldn’t get through. I ran back to Penn and found the crash team working on Owen.”

  Her voice jumped an octave. “He really had a heart attack?”

  “Yeah. I tease Owen about his weight, but honestly, he has the constitution of an ox. I don’t believe he had a heart attack unless he had some help. At first I thought someone might have gone to his room disguised as a nurse and given him an injection—maybe potassium chloride or digoxin—but I doubt Owen would have let anyone inject him with anything, and it didn’t look like there had been a struggle. Maybe they gave him a sedative—slipped something into his breakfast. I’m going to see if they have any security tapes they can pull—maybe we’ll see someone we recognize.”

  Lizzy dropped onto the bed, her face white. “Why didn’t you call me when it happened?”

  “I don’t have your cell number, and I didn’t know the passcode for Owen’s phone to get it. How are you doing? Where are you, for that matter?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, not sounding fine. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone where I am.”

  “Even me?”

  “Especially you. Uncle Owen didn’t want to get you involved again, and I agree with him.”

  “Lizzy, Owen’s my brother, I need to be involved. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Philip’s with me. He came all the way out here from Arizona to help me when Uncle Owen called him.”

  “If Owen trusts him,” said Andy, “I guess that’s okay.”

  “I trust him,” Lizzy shot back.

  “Of course, sweetheart, I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  “And don’t call me sweetheart! Everyone’s always treating me like a baby. People treat me like a baby and try to look out for me, and look what happens!”

  “Lizzy, you need to calm down—” said Philip in a soothing voice.

  “No, I won’t calm down,” said Lizzy, crying now. “First Mom, then Dad, now Uncle Owen. I’m going to do something about it, and I’m not going to let anyone else get hurt in the process.”

  And she stabbed off the connection.

  57

  It was an hour after the conversation with Andy. Lizzy’s near hysteria at the news of Owen’s heart attack had gradually given way to an air of grim determination. She was standing near the window, her hands jammed into her pockets.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Philip.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said.

  “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  “I know that!” cried Lizzy. “How come everyone—”

  Philip held up his hand. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Lizzy glared at him.

  “So,” said Philip, “what’s your plan?”

  “Well, we have to find them first.”

  “It sounds like we could catch Dr. Mortensen at her offices downtown—”

  “No, I don’t want to go there.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t.” She crossed her arms.

  “‘I just don’t’ isn’t a good plan.”

  She stared at him, stony-faced, for a moment, then looked away. “It’s where … Gerard …”

  “It’s where you killed Gerard Bonnay.”

  She nodded.

  “You’re talking about doing the same thing to someone else.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice rising again.

  “Lizzy, I just want you to think about what you’re planning to do. I’m asking you these questions because I want you to be absolutely sure about the path you’re choosing.”

  “I don’t know what else to do,” she said, her voice trembling, “at least about George Millard. Laying low doesn’t work. Un
cle Owen tried to talk to his boss about me turning myself in to the university, and that backfired. Uncle Owen wasn’t even safe from them in the hospital, and he’s not the only one who’s gotten involved in all this. You. Andy. Ruby. You’re probably all in danger because of me.”

  “Owen’s brother Andy?”

  Lizzy sighed. “Yes. He helped get me away from Gerard and Louise.”

  “Who’s Ruby?”

  “The other person who helped. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Philip was silent.

  “Don’t you think I’m doing the right thing?” she asked.

  “I think you’re doing the only thing that’s going to get you out of this mess, and the only thing that’s going to stop these people from going after your friends and family. On top of that, I think you’re right to want to even the score.”

  She nodded, not looking at him.

  He waited, but when he got no further response, he slapped his thighs and stood up. “We need to get prepared. You have your own built-in weapon, but I don’t have that advantage. I’m going to remedy that situation.”

  Lizzy stood and reached for her coat.

  “You’re staying here,” said Philip.

  “Why?” asked Lizzy. “Don’t you think it’s better if we stay together? Plus, I’m curious to see a gun store.”

  “I’m not going to a gun store.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere you need to know about.”

  “You’re getting an illegal gun?” she asked, shocked.

  “I’m a convicted felon,” said Philip. “Illegal is my only option.”

  It was dusk by the time he returned, having texted Lizzy every fifteen minutes per her instructions: Still okay … Still okay.

  “How did it go?” she asked.

  “Other than being called Tonto, it went fine,” he said peevishly.

  He upended a large plastic shopping bag over the bed.

  “What’s all that?” asked Lizzy, moving to the bed and sorting through it.