Leave No Trace Page 18

  After twenty minutes of frustrated searching, I spun toward Jasper. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  The door to Valerie’s detached garage was more exposed. I watched the nearby houses until I was sure no one was looking out their window and then Jasper and I ducked into the yard with the ring of keys that was thoughtfully hung right next to the back door. In the glove box of the Chevy Malibu I finally found the prize—her Congdon security badge, newly upgraded with isolation ward clearance.

  “Aww, Valerie.” I dangled the strap from one finger and watched her perky photo spin as the rope untangled. “You shouldn’t have.”

  Putting the keys back in the house, I relocked the door on my way out. I was practically skipping when I opened the gate and led Jasper back into the alley, until a man came out of the yard on the opposite side at the exact same time and did a double take when he saw me. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Oh, hey!” I smiled and jogged over, pulling Jasper into a sharp heel at my side. “Do you know Valerie? I was supposed to meet with her today, at least I think it was today, and she’s not answering her phone.”

  I scratched my temple like I was confused and made sure the stocking cap fully covered my head. As long as the maroon hair and earrings were covered, I could pass for a completely nondescript college kid, one of thousands in this town.

  The neighbor looked me over, not replying, and I could sense him cataloging, judging. Jasper tugged on the leash and let out a growl, making the guy back up a step. Apologizing loudly and repeatedly, I ordered Jasper to sit and took the opportunity to duck my head, shirking away from his gaze. I glanced back at the house, as if unsure I had the right one.

  “That’s Valerie’s place, right?”

  He finally spoke. “She and Rick are out of town.”

  “Oh crap, she’s in Cancun this week? I must have written the dates down wrong.” I pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket and pretended to check it, playing it out, waiting for him to make any wrong move. If he went for his phone or backed into his yard, I was going to have to choose between knocking him out or running. This was the first real test. Surveillance, breaking and entering, stealing—that was kid’s play, literally the toys of my childhood. It hurt no one. But now this forty-something, UMD Bulldog sweatshirt–wearing guy waffling in the back alleys of the hillside was barging into my plan. Why hadn’t I stolen some jewelry or pulled out a few drawers? I could’ve at least made it seem like a random robbery if I was spotted, which would have sent the police in a different direction than Congdon. Breathing carefully, I slipped the phone back into my pocket and closed my fingers around a jagged rock. If all else had failed, I’d been prepared to break a window to get inside. Now I prepared myself for the first innocent bystander.

  He seemed to ease up a bit, though, when I dropped the Cancun reference. I flashed him a self-deprecating smile. “She’s my mentor for this life skills program at our church. Or she’s trying to be, anyway.”

  I laughed and he loosened up more, chuckling with me, a man who wasn’t going to take a rock to the head. We talked for a minute as he put his trash out, until I remarked on the cold and how I didn’t want Jasper’s paws to freeze.

  “Thanks for your help. I guess I’ll catch up with her next week.”

  I pulled Jasper down the rest of the alley, acting like I was checking email or something, while adrenaline flooded my chest and Valerie’s security badge bounced comfortingly in the pocket against my hip.

  * * *

  The next day I went to Congdon prepared to kidnap Lucas.

  It was a strange thing walking into your job—a place where you’d worked so hard, followed all the rules, and turned yourself inside out to be accepted as a professional—suddenly hoping everything went to plan so you could commit a felony. The delinquent kid inside of me was on high alert, noting every detail down to the number of clouds in the sky as I drove to Congdon. I parked and came in through the front door with a large duffel bag that immediately set off the metal detectors.

  “Hey.” I unzipped the bag on the search table and nodded to the guard who resentfully got out of his chair at the monitoring station.

  “We’re having a jam session today. Want to come up to the third floor around three? It’s gonna be epic.”

  The guard poked through the mess of tambourines, hand drums, sleigh bells, and whatever else I could find at the secondhand music store yesterday. “Um, I think I’ll pass.”

  “Your loss, man.” I zipped the bag back up and flung it over my shoulder, heading for the employee locker rooms.

  It was early enough that the night shift was still on, yawning into their sleeves and ready for the late winter sun to end their day. I nodded to a few of them and some even acknowledged me without smirking. Walking past the lockers, I took the bag through another exit into a stairwell and jogged down to the basement. There was no badge access down here and no video cameras as far as I could tell, so I set the duffel down and went to work on the lock. Twenty minutes later, just as I was starting to lose hope, the catch sprung and I swung the door open, peeking inside. A dim, open room housed a pile of miscellaneous furniture and on either side of the mess two hallways disappeared into blackness. I took the one leading right, mentally tracking the map of the building above me, until I got to the stairwell exit I wanted. Opening the duffel bag, I reached through to the bottom where I’d cut the lining, pulled out the tools I needed, and tucked them behind a dusty fire extinguisher.

  “See you in a few.”

  Then I left the basement and started my shift.

  22

  * * *

  JASON HOUSLEY—MY fleeting front desk friend—had worked as a second shift Congdon security guard since he graduated high school fifteen years ago. In the last few days I learned he liked to sit in the break room telling anyone who would listen that he made more money than half the guys he knew who had gone to college.

  “And no friggin’ loans to pay off, either,” he’d add, slopping up whatever microwave meal he’d overcooked that day and filling the room with mystery meat or fake butter smells.

  The picture on Jason’s security badge showed a not-bad looking kid trying to seem tough, probably taken a few days after he was hired. The real Jason had the shape and appeal of a rancid turkey. He was a mountainous, slack-jawed guy who’d harassed the only unmarried nurse until she’d threatened to go to H/R and bragged to everyone about his pristine, collector-registered Pontiac Trans Am. He mattered to no one, which made him desperate to seem as important as possible. He always carried his flashlight out when he made rounds, scraping it along every door as he puffed and sweated through each ward. After I rejected his offer of a growler and a groping, he waited for me at night as I left the building, throwing out some bizarre comment he’d no doubt been refining all day.

  “You’re too late.” He sneered from the monitor station today. “The high school let out already, so you missed all the underage boys.”

  I didn’t slow down. “I prefer undergrads. All that sexy book learnin’.”

  He grunted as I left, acting offended, like it wasn’t the highlight of his day someone actually talked to him, and today I was going to make sure of that.

  On Monday nights, Congdon had late visiting hours, so there were still plenty of cars in the parking lot after five o’clock. I wove through the rows until I came to my beat-up Civic, parked right next to a shiny, black Pontiac Trans Am. The guard station faced the street, the protesters had all dispersed a few days ago, no one else was coming in or out of the building, and Jason had considerately parked his collector wheels right next to a giant spruce tree that blocked the view from most of Congdon’s windows. The car was backed into its spot and ready to floor it off the property. It was now or never.

  I pulled a tire iron out of my trunk. The nicest thing about old cars was how easily everything came apart.

  * * *

  Six hours later I parked in an alley a block away from Congdon’s eastern fence. Th
e building rose up over the top of the line of houses, a black silhouette towering at the crest of Duluth. I took a few deep breaths and stared at the outline of the institution that had given me a fresh start, not once in my life, but twice.

  For the last several days I’d obsessed over the logistics of this kidnapping—the exact sequence of events and every tool I’d need—ignoring the hovering cloud of my betrayal. I wasn’t naive. I understood exactly what I was doing, the line I was crossing. No matter if I succeeded or failed in the next hour, the life I’d been trying to live was over. I was going to prove everyone right who’d whispered Dr. Mehta was wrong to hire me, that once a mental health patient, always a mental health patient. The costume was gone, the show over. Just like my mother. I wondered if she’d been as sure as I was now, if she felt this thing in her core that told her she’d found a greater purpose. Maybe her abandonment of me was as inevitable as my abandonment of Dr. Mehta and Congdon now. Maybe it wasn’t my fault she left. I would probably never know. And I’d never know if she took a moment like I was taking now, sitting in this car at the point of no return to face the roil of sorrow in my gut. Acknowledging the emotion, like I’d been taught to do.

  “I’m sorry, Riya.” Dr. Mehta’s first name felt wrong on my tongue and I embraced the alienness, the separation of what she’d been to me from what I had to become to her now.

  I took one last giant breath before double-checking everything in my backpack and slipping out of the car. It was time. Lucas was waiting.

  Cutting across the block to the sidewalk that bordered Congdon’s grounds, I glanced in the windows of nearby homes. Briskly, I paced to the far end of the block and checked the front gate, making sure no protesters had decided to make a reappearance, but the sidewalk in front of the guardhouse remained empty. I crept along the fence, to the spot where my shoes crunched over a pile of broken glass from the streetlights I’d knocked out last night. Hip hop thumped out an open window of a nearby house, but I didn’t see any movement other than a lone squirrel ducking through the fence’s iron bars. Pulling out a knotted length of rope from the backpack, I swung the looped side over the top of the fence and threaded the other end through, drawing it tight. I scaled easily up to the top and teetered there, carefully gripping the bars between the spikes to ease one foot over, then the other. Once I’d swung my weight over I grabbed the rope again and scaled down the other side, noting how much time it had taken while I tucked the trailing section along the fence. If someone searched the perimeter of the grounds they’d spot it, but to the casual observer it blended into the shadows.

  I put on a full ski mask and cinched the hood up on my jacket. The gloves, baggy black sweatpants, and shoes had all been purchased at Goodwill, with cash. I crept through the grounds, sticking to the trees, until I had a view of both the isolation ward and the edge of the parking lot. There were no lights in the windows of the isolation rooms and I still didn’t know the night shift’s exact schedule to do their checks, but I did know when the shift changed.

  At exactly 11:15, after the transfer of keys and notes, Jason Housley lumbered out to his Trans Am. I crouched under the bows of a pine, clutching Nurse Valerie’s badge, and held my breath. He started the car and floored the engine, then let it idle for what felt like an hour. Jesus, what was he doing in there? I couldn’t see him through the glare of the parking lot lights and started to get nervous. Could he tell something was wrong? He hadn’t hesitated before getting in the car. I edged to the far side of the tree, ready to run.

  When he shot out of his parking spot and gunned out of sight, I waited, listening. Sooner or later he was going to have to turn to exit the parking lot. And sooner or later his tires—missing all their lug nuts—were going to come barreling off his baby.

  The crash came seconds later, followed by an ear-splitting car alarm that jerked me into movement like the starting gun of a race. I sprinted to the emergency exit door and badged my way into an empty stairwell, ran down to the basement and opened the door I’d sealed with duct tape before my shift this morning to insure it wouldn’t latch. My tools—a hacksaw and can of spray paint—were exactly where I’d left them behind the fire extinguisher. I grabbed them and shoved the saw into my backpack, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached the emergency exit of the men’s isolation ward. I paused for a second, peering in the lead glass window, as the car alarm still shrieked in the night. No one was at the desk on the far side of the ward by the main entrance. I badged in just as the car alarm stopped. The quiet was deafening.

  I breathed once, then pushed the door further open and slipped inside. It was impossible to tell from this angle if any patients were up and looking through their doors. Shaking the spray paint can and cringing at the noise, I aimed it at the corner of the ceiling directly above me, where a security camera was mounted to capture the entire corridor down to the main entrance. Hopefully the front desk security staff were still in the parking lot dealing with Jason’s accident and—with any luck—they’d think a black screen was a shorted-out wire before coming to investigate the camera. Once I had the lens covered, I duct taped the door latch, then crossed to the main desk to see which room Lucas was in. My fingers shook as I ran them over the check sheet, finally finding his name by room six. I had the lock pick ready as I sprinted to his door, attacking the knob and tripping myself up with the adrenaline rocketing through my body. Bump keys wouldn’t work on these doors. I had to pick through each individual weight and spring.

  There was rustling and scraping in one of the rooms behind me, then a broken, singsongy voice started chanting words I couldn’t understand. It sounded like he had respiratory issues. A clavicular breathing pattern? I shook my head, forcing the voice out, and concentrated all my energy on the piece of metal separating me from Lucas. How much time did I have? Every second wasted was one second closer to failure.

  I couldn’t hear anything inside Lucas’s room, or maybe I just couldn’t hear him over the combination of the singer and the pounding of my heart. More seconds ticked by. Sweat dripped down my temples under the mask and I started praying to the god of lock picking, to anyone who could help me break through this door. I was running out of time.

  Finally, after what seemed like an hour, I popped the latch and turned the handle, pushing inside.

  It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark. When they did, I saw a body strapped to the bed in full restraints, unconscious.

  “Lucas,” I whispered, going to work on the handcuffs, which were a walk in the park compared to that freaking door. I had both his feet free before he even blinked his eyes open.

  “Lucas, can you hear me?”

  It took him a moment to focus on me and when he did, the ripple of fear over his face broke my heart. I paused at his left wrist and tugged the ski mask up, squeezing his hand.

  “Had enough of this place yet?”

  As soon as my face came into view, his entire body lifted and his breath caught. A strangled noise came out of his throat.

  “Maya,” he breathed, looking at me like he was drowning and I was the only buoy in all of Lake Superior. I swallowed a wave of emotion and smiled before pulling the ski mask back down.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I opened the last of his handcuffs, which was more difficult now that he’d woken up because he started tugging against them. When I’d finally gotten them all, I unfastened the straps on the straitjacket and pulled it off him as he staggered to his feet and then fell back on the bed heavily. I boxed his head in my hands, tilting his face to the light streaming in from the corridor. His pupils were contracted and he couldn’t stop blinking.

  “Swallow this. Quickly.” I handed him two NoDoz pills from my pocket and he ate them without question.

  “Can you walk?”

  He made himself stand up again, slower this time, and inhaled slowly. “I’ll crawl if I need to.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  I peeked out of the room.
The patient with respiratory issues had stopped singing and there was no sign of any staff yet. Ducking into the corridor, we moved awkwardly to the emergency exit. Lucas braced one arm along the wall while I pulled him by the other. We made it through the door and down the stairwell with Lucas falling twice and me helping him back to his feet. At the bottom of the stairs I pulled Nurse Valerie’s badge out and swiped it against the electronic pad.

  Nothing.

  I tried it again and the light turned red.

  “Fuck.” I threw my weight against the door once, but it was solid metal.

  “Plan B.”

  “What’s a planbee?” Lucas asked as I dragged him back up the stairs. The respiratory patient was giggling when we got back to the isolation ward. Laughter echoed down the hall and met the distant sound of walking feet. I pulled the can of spray paint out and shoved it into Lucas’s hands.

  “Spray everything.”

  “What?”

  “We need another decoy.” I ran to the giggling patient’s room and went to work on the lock. Now that I knew the model it was easier to spring the catch. As soon as I opened the door a bone-skinny white guy ran out and started making circles in the middle of the corridor, singing at the top of his lungs, his shoulders heaving up and down with the effort.

  “Hey!” I grabbed the can out of Lucas’s shaking hands and tossed it to the guy. “We did this hall, but you have to get the rest. Can you paint the basement?”

  I opened the emergency exit and he ran through it on pale, quivering legs, tottering down the stairs and spraying a trail of paint all over the walls and himself. There was no time for the stab of regret that lanced through me. Voices came from the other direction, getting closer.

  “Get into bed.” I pulled Lucas into his room, shutting the door behind us.

  “No!” He struggled against the straitjacket as I tried to cover him with it.