That part of the plan sounded fine, until she opened a small case that contained a dozen pre-filled syringes. My heart pounded. It’s not a fear of needles or anything. It's just more Camp Hell baggage. “What’s that?”
“The latest in anti-psyactives,” she said, swabbing the crook of my arm with an antiseptic wipe. She flicked the syringe a couple of times, then looked at me over the rim of her glasses. “You do want to get your visions under control, don’t you?”
“I think half an Auracel would do the trick. Maybe we could adjust my dose....”
Roger stood behind her, his hand resting on his holstered gun. He didn’t look like his normal, cheerful self, and I doubted he was going to offer to go get me some Starbucks.
“Detective,” said Chance. “This is the cutting edge of current Psy research. You’re lucky to be a part of it.”
Oh God. Cutting edge. Just like Camp Hell, back in the day. My breathing went shallow and rapid and I tensed up to spring.
“Hold him,” Chance said, her voice bland.
Roger was airborne in less than a second. His forearm snapped my jaw shut and wedged under my chin, his hard, muscled body pinned mine, his upper thigh drove into my groin and his other arm held mine out to the side with its white, vulnerable undersurface extended. I struggled to move -- knee-jerk reaction, I guess, since I’d still be drugged and locked in a room even if I managed to throw Roger. Not that my stunted flailing even budged him
“Just a pinprick,” Chance said. There was a sting on my inner elbow and then warmth spread through my arm.
My panic died away immediately and I went limp. A rush of well-being stole over me and I had to admit that Chance’s new miracle drug wasn’t half bad.
“That’s better,” said Chance, and Roger climbed off me. “To get a baseline, I’m going to need to ask you some questions.”
She started firing them off, grilling me about the type of contact I had with the dead, the frequency and intensity, and my ability to pull information from them that they might not want to part with.
I answered her as best I could, but the overwhelming feeling of good cheer coursing through my veins was far more interesting to me than Chance. Would I get access to this wonderdrug if I helped them test it out? Would it eventually be available in some kind of syrup or pill so I didn’t have to poke holes in my arm?
“Let’s move on to your level of control,” she said. “If you tell a spirit to do something, does it generally comply?”
“I dunno. No, not really. They’re kinda stupid, can’t usually tell you much other than the way they died.” My headrush ebbed a little, and it occurred to me that I felt an awful lot like I did when I was celebrating with a fresh batch of Seconal.
Chance looked at her watch. “How’s the medication? Shall we try a supporting dose?”
I don’t think it was actually a question. I wasn’t sure how much time had gone by, but not long, maybe ten minutes since Roger had bodyslammed me. He held me again -- just my arm this time -- and she shot a little more juice into me. There was the warmth, and the wonderful, wonderful high.
“Try to recall a time when you successfully encouraged a dead subject to talk about something other than its own passing.”
“A guy in a coffee shop...I used him as a witness.” I laughed. “Don’t tell anyone, it’s off the record.”
“And so you would say that you might possess the ability to command dead subjects, maybe with more training?”
I pressed the back of my head into the headboard and rode the wave of contentment that had taken hold of me. It felt so much like Seconal that it made me wonder if it was laced with barbiturates. Yeah, that made sense. Barbiturates were a drug group that I could understand.
“Detective?”
“Depends on the dead.”
“How so?”
“I think this guy wanted to talk to me because he just liked to talk. Probably was the sort of guy who never shut up when he was alive.”
A word popped into my head: Amytal. Seconal’s close cousin. Also known as truth serum. Not that it actually makes anyone tell the truth; confessions taken with the aid of Amytal aren’t admissible in court. But it keeps the subject in
happy, la-la, everybody’s-my-friend land. I’d have to concede that I was currently visiting that very spot.
“Detective Bayne?”
“Huh?”
“Your assessment of the amount of personality retained by the deceased?”
I thought about it. “They always seem more like the living when they’re fresh.”
Chance nodded. “It might have to do with the degradation of their signal over time.”
“Signal?”
There was a rap on the door. Roger left his post at my bedside and opened it. The guy with the crew cut who’d let us in the night before stuck his head inside. “There’s a deputy here,” he said quietly. I’ll try not to let him upstairs, but there’s only so much I can do. If I tell him to go get a search warrant he’ll be suspicious.”
“I’ll handle it,” said Roger.
“He thinks I’ve got a honeymooning couple here. He wanted to see both of you.”
Chance looked at me. “How’re you doing on that medication, Detective?”
“Fine,” I said. My voice sounded a little distant.
She pulled out another syringe and shot it into me without even bothering to ask Roger to hold me down. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the headrush.
“He’ll be sedated for at least fifteen minutes. Longer, if he falls asleep,” she said. “Let’s go.” They left the room and locked the door behind them.
I sat up. Did they really think I was out for the count? I felt loose-limbed and high, sure. But my years of self-medicating with Seconal must’ve built up some kind of tolerance. And here I’d thought the quality of the pills had been going down.
Chapter Fourteen
The jarring sound of an old-fashioned phone ringing startled me out of my dazed inertia. I stared at the gigantic plastic behemoth on the table between the beds. It rang again. I picked it up and held it to my ear. It might be Chance calling from downstairs, after all, acting like everything between us was hunkey-dorey and she was really concerned about my well being.
“Vic?”
Except if it was Chance, she was doing a pretty damn good impression of Jacob.
“How did you get this number?” I whispered, worried that Chance and Roger had heard it ring and were making tracks back to the room. Frankly, I was shocked that they’d take my cell and leave a working phone just sitting there beside me. But since I was in a hotel, maybe outgoing calls were blocked. Incoming calls were apparently free game.
“Lisa narrowed it down. You’re in Missouri, twenty miles away from a town of any size. The Sheriff sent someone over, but I really couldn’t give him much to go on.”
“Crap,” I said, steadying myself against the headboard as I tried to remain upright. “I’m locked in a room and they’ve got my cell phone and my gun. What do I do?”
“I’m putting you on speakerphone,” said Jacob. “Okay. Ask us something Lisa can work with.”
I racked my brain for a question other than, “What can I do?” Yes or no, I told myself. “The door’s locked,” I said. “Is there anything in here I can open it with?”
“No.”
“Can I get out through the window?”
“No.”
I pushed the curtain aside. A decorative metal grating covered the outside of the window. In the country, on the second floor? Why?
“If I make lots of noise, will the deputy hear me?”
“No.”
“They didn’t pick this place out at random,” I said, “Did they?”
“No.”
“Who else is there besides Roger?” Jacob asked.
“The guy who let us in, it seems like he’s in on it. And Doctor Chance,” I said, “if that’s even her name. If she even is a doctor.”
“He’s in on it,” said Lisa. “And Chance is a doctor.”
“Think,” said Jacob. “Is there anything you can use as a weapon?”
“Against two armed people?” I said, trying to keep an edge of hysteria out of my voice. “Should I just keep going along with them?”
Lisa huffed in frustration. “Too complicated. I can’t tell.”
“There must be something I can do,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, what?”
“You’re not helping,” she said. “Yes or no questions.”
A bark of a laugh worked its way through. “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”
“Yes.”
I looked all around the room. “The desk?”
“No.”
“One of the beds?”
“No.”
“The TV?”
“Yes,” Lisa said cautiously. “Yes and no. Look at it and tell me what....”
I heard a key turning in the lock and cut her off. “They’re back,” I said, and hung up the phone. I threw myself into bed and tried to look medicated.
The door swung open and Crewcut Guy peeked his head in to check on me. I lay there with my eyelids nearly shut and didn’t move. He stared at me for a while, then closed and locked the door again.
I stared at the rotary dial for a long moment and then my stomach sank. I’d planned on doing a star-69 to get Lisa back on the phone, but there was no star. I picked up the handset. There was no dial tone, either. My theory about the outgoing calls must have been on the mark.
I looked back at the big wooden bureau that housed the TV. That had to be it -- though what “it” was, exactly, I hadn’t figured out. I opened the door and looked at the set. Nothing unusual there. I tried the drawers. Empty. There was maybe an inch of clearance between the bureau and the wall. I peeked behind it and saw a mess of cables.
It seemed like a lot of cables for a TV hookup. Maybe they had satellite. That would explain the off-season basketball game. I searched for the remote but came up empty handed. That didn’t make any sense. I could see Roger taking my gun and my cell phone. But the remote?
I swung around and started pulling and pushing at the TV set, hoping to find something, anything I could use, before Roger and Chance got back.
Something clicked on the front of the television set as I yanked on it, and the big tube tilted forward into my hands. I had no idea what the inside of a television was supposed to look like, but I suspected that the panel of hidden knobs and LCD readouts weren’t standard-issue. A slim DVD player was duct-taped to the inside. I figured that probably explained the off-season basketball game.
I could just take a handful of wires and yank them out -- but what would that possibly accomplish? I wished Lisa would call me back and tell me what to do. Unplug the thing? Smash it? Change the settings?
I forced myself to think. If Roger and Chance wanted me dead, I’d be dead. They needed me alive, presumably for my talent. I saw myself hooked up to a gurney, electrodes wired to my head and a bunch of IV’s feeding into my arm, and my vision started to tunnel. Camp Hell all over again.
Dammit. It wasn’t the time to be crying over Camp Hell, not now.
Okay. So there was a machine and it was doing something electrical. It was on. I could turn it up or down.