Twisted

  “I wasn’t going to suggest turning it over to another agent. I was going to suggest I call Newark and get Anderson involved. He was the agent who worked your friend’s case in the Newark field office. Richard Stockton is in his jurisdiction, not mine. He’ll call the Atlantic City RA. When we first ran down the AC lead, he worked with a good agent down there. Tom McGraw. He’s smart and he’s thorough. I’ll call Anderson now, see if McGraw can get started on the legwork right away.”

  “Makes sense.” Sloane’s wheels were still turning. “One favor. I told Deanna Frost you’d be contacting her as the agent in charge. I’d appreciate if you’d meet with her, just for a cup of coffee. She works at the New York Public Library, so it’s your jurisdiction. It would take maybe an hour of your time. But I think you’d have the best shot of getting her to remember something.”

  Derek’s brows rose. “Better than you? That’s one I never thought I’d hear.”

  “It’s a question of chemistry, not skill. I only spoke with Deanna briefly. She’s inherently decent and cooperative. But my instincts tell me she’s also a reserved, intellectual loner. You’ll be bigger than life to her. Between your FBI status, your whole former Army Ranger macho aura, and that classic charm of yours—trust me, she’ll do handsprings to come through for you.”

  Despite his best intentions, Derek found himself grinning. “Can I hear my résumé again?”

  “No. Just tell me you’ll do it.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Sloane’s exhale of relief was audible. “Thank you.”

  “I aim to please.”

  A taut endless silence.

  Derek broke it first. “You said you’d be out of town. Will you be reachable by cell?”

  “I’ll make myself reachable. I’ll be in Boston conducting a two-day workshop. I’m leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow and I’ll be back Friday night. During that time, I’ll be on pretty much every minute. But I’ll keep checking my cell for messages. Tonight I’ll be home. Right now I’m heading into Manhattan for a session with my hand therapist, and I’m already running late. But I’ll leave my phone on vibrate.”

  “Good enough. I’ve got an hour or two before people start heading home. I’ll make some calls and give you a status report as soon as I have it.”

  “And since I’m sitting in the car fighting traffic, I’ll call Hope Truman now and let her know where things stand.”

  “It’s a plan. Talk to you later.”

  “Derek?” Sloane caught him just before he hung up. “I realize I’m the last person you want to work with. I’m no happier than you. Frankly, the whole situation sucks. But regardless of my personal feelings, or yours—or maybe because of them—I want you to know I really appreciate this. Penny was a big part of my childhood.”

  For a long moment, Derek stared down at his desk, contemplating her words. He knew how much they’d cost her to say. His reaction to them was a mixed bag—one he didn’t care to analyze.

  “No problem. Just doing my job.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  Four-ten. It was 4:10.

  Who ever thought that the simple act of telling time would matter so much?

  And yet it gives me a tremendous sense of comfort. In my present world, day and night cease to matter. Time passes in a vague sense of nonreality. So when he paused outside the bathroom door, setting down the pail of toiletries and readying the key to lock me in, I’d looked around and spotted the wall clock for the first time.

  A huge wave of relief swept through me. The tiniest awareness of something, anything, that related to life as I’d known it, was a gift.

  What a fool I’ve been to take those gifts for granted.

  Not anymore.

  When he came to my room, announcing that I could have my bath, I almost wept with joy. Even the sight of the combat knife he was clutching didn’t make me flinch, nor did the pressure of it at my throat as he led me outside my prison. I was too focused on the items in the bucket he was carrying.

  Soap. Shampoo. Lotion. Common, everyday products that were so familiar and yet so precious.

  He withdrew the knife when I was safely inside the bathroom. Twenty minutes, he said. That’s all I have.

  It’s enough.

  With the door shut and locked behind me, I reached into the old ceramic bathtub and turned on the water, waiting for it to heat up. I’d decided on a shower rather than a bath. In part, that’s because I don’t want to waste an instant of my freedom waiting for the tub to fill, and, in part, because I want to wash away every drop of filth, not sit in it.

  I glanced in the mirror just before turning on the shower spray and stepping in. God, I barely recognize myself. My face is gaunt. My eyes are huge, with big, dark circles underneath, and my pupils are dilated from the drugs. My hair is tangled, sticky with sweat. I’d lost my hair band when I struggled with him on campus. So my hair was loose, hanging down, limp and lifeless. I reached up, and my fingers touched the gash on my neck left by his combat knife. It wasn’t being treated, so it wasn’t healing. And it was far from the only mark on my body.

  My gaze shifted to my arms. Needle marks. So many of them. And bruises, everywhere. From my capture. From those visits when the madness filled his eyes.

  I shuddered and turned away, stepping into the wall of water that was my illusory reprieve.

  Hospital for Special Surgery

  New York Weill Cornell Medical Center

  East Seventieth Street, New York City

  4:50 P.M.

  Constance Griggs was a forty-one-year-old divorcée with loans up the wazoo, an ex-husband who was as reliable as the rhythm method, and two small kids to raise on her own. She was a natural blonde with a trim figure, a healthy enjoyment of the opposite sex, and no time for a social life. Still, she was a born optimist who believed in happily-ever-afters and had a natural affinity for helping people. She was also fascinated with orthopedic medicine and the intricacies of the fine bones and blood vessels that composed the human hand.

  Maybe that’s why she was the best occupational hand therapist in all of Manhattan.

  Sloane had been with Constance ever since Dr. Charles Houghton had referred her eight months ago, just after her second surgery. Dr. Houghton was a bona fide genius. He’d operated on Sloane twice—once to reverse the damage done by her initial surgery, conducted under emergency circumstances in a rural Ohio hospital. The surgeons there had done their best, but their focus had been on stopping the bleeding.

  They’d patched her up, but their lack of expertise in treating such a complex injury left Sloane with major scarring around the tendons of her index finger, ultimately leaving it so stiff it could scarcely bend. Thankfully, she’d already moved back east and was being treated by Dr. Houghton, who immediately diagnosed the tendon as being stuck in flexion. He operated, removing the scar tissue and freeing the tendon to heal. Then he sent her to Constance for physical therapy. That was the good part. The bad part was that the healing process had to start from scratch. And Sloane was a lousy patient.

  When the splint was finally removed, she began resistance exercises, and despite Constance’s warnings to take it easy, Sloane had pushed herself too hard, too fast. As a result, the tendons in her index finger ruptured, and she’d been back in the operating room again. Dr. Houghton had done a brilliant job of grafting her tendon, the only negative being some residual nerve damage—and more rehab.

  The process was grueling, painful, and frustrating as hell. But thanks to Constance, she could now bend her finger about two-thirds of the way to her hand. That was good—but not good enough.

  Unless she regained full use of her trigger finger and was able to pass the pistol qualification test, reapplication to the FBI was out.

  Sloane wouldn’t give up. And Constance wouldn’t let her. That was the other perk that had come out of this life-altering nightmare. Sloane and Constance had become friends.

  Constance worked directly with Dr. Houghton at
the Hospital for Special Surgery. She also had a small private practice near her home in Morristown, New Jersey, where she worked two days a week. That kept her child-care expenses down and accommodated both her New York and New Jersey clients. It was also ideal for Sloane, who lived about forty-five minutes away from Morristown. So twice a week she went there and once a week she went to the hospital.

  Today was hospital day.

  “Hi, Connie,” she said, greeting her therapist as she walked into the occupational-therapy room. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “It happens. Thanks for calling, though. I returned a few phone calls from patients while I waited.” Connie glanced up from the various sensory reeducation tools she’d been laying out for Sloane’s session, frowning as she saw the expression on her friend’s face. “Bad day?”

  “Weird day.” Sloane sat down on the padded patient’s chair at the examination table and flexed her fingers. The action didn’t make her wince the way it once had, but the ache was still there and the lack of full sensation in her index finger was still glaringly apparent.

  “You look stressed out,” Connie observed. “How’s the hand?”

  “Depends on when you ask. Some days good, some days not so good. Also depends on who you ask.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Okay then, the throbbing’s been keeping me up at night. That part I can handle. Now for the parts I can’t. The feeling in my index finger still isn’t back. Neither are my small motor skills, even though I do my exercises every day. And I’m still not hitting the damned bull’s-eye on my archery course, even though I’ve reconditioned myself to drawing back the bowstring with my ring and middle fingers.”

  Connie rolled her eyes. “And I bet you haven’t walked on water yet, either.”

  “I haven’t tried.” Sloane sighed. “Okay, I get it. You think I’m expecting miracles. But I’m not. Connie, it’s been forever. I just want my life back.”

  “I know you do.” Connie walked around to the opposite side of the examining table and pulled over her stool. Seated, she took Sloane’s hand in hers, palm up. “I could give you a lecture on how far you’ve come. I could reiterate that it would take the digital nerve six months to regenerate under ideal circumstances, which yours clearly are not. I could remind you that with complicated hand injuries, there are no guarantees, especially when you’re talking about the fine motor skills needed to shoot a pistol and rejoin the FBI. I could say a lot of things. But you know every one of them already, and it doesn’t make your situation any easier to bear. So why don’t we do some passive bending exercises and scar massage first. I’ll do the work, you do the talking. Then we’ll switch. You’ll do active extensions and gripping exercises, and I’ll talk. So start. Tell me what’s going on in your high-powered life.”

  “Nothing cheerful.” Sloane watched Connie put lotion on the scar-tissue massage tool, then begin a gentle motion with its roller ball, softening Sloane’s skin and soothing the scars around her incision. “I’m involved in two missing persons cases. One of the subjects is an old childhood friend. The other’s a college kid. Neither case looks too promising in the way of a positive outcome.”

  “That’s terrible. No wonder you look so upset.” Connie continued her work. “Are there ransom notes?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is it possible that either or both of them took off on their own?”

  “Possible. Not likely.”

  “Well, you never know what’s going on in someone’s life. Remember Lydia Halas?”

  “Hmm?” Sloane’s mind had drifted off for an instant as she pondered the unlikely prospect that Penny was alive. She switched her attention back to Connie. “You mean Lydia Halas—my nurse?”

  “Yup.”

  “Of course I remember her. She took care of me after both my surgeries. She was superefficient, but always compassionate. She gave me daily pep talks about how I’d recover and be myself again. Once she even sneaked me up a pint of Ben & Jerry’s when I was losing my mind from the hospital food.”

  “That’s Lydia.” Connie smiled, bending Sloane’s fingers to check her range of motion. “Anyway, she left here right before Christmas.”

  “She moved to a different hospital?” Sloane asked in surprise.

  A shrug. “No clue. One day she just didn’t come in. It turned out she didn’t just leave HSS, she left Manhattan. The police checked it out, and apparently she and her husband had separated a few months earlier. There were rumors of abuse, but I never saw a mark on her. I know the separation was difficult for her. Apparently, she went to start over. I have no idea where. The point is, maybe your friend just wanted a new life. And a college student? They’re the ultimate free spirits. Maybe this kid got bored and ran off to find some excitement. That sounds reasonable to me. So don’t assume the worst. You could be surprised.”

  Sloane smiled fondly. “Connie, you’d find something positive to say if I told you I was having a tooth extraction without novocaine. I wish I had your nature.”

  “We can’t all be that lucky.” Connie’s eyes twinkled, and she placed a wad of medium-resistance therapy putty in Sloane’s palm. “Squeeze that for me with your entire hand. Then shift it to the space between your index and middle finger and squeeze again. And, while you’re doing that, tell me about the guy.”

  “Guy?” Sloane complied, curving her fingers around the putty and exerting as much pressure as she could. After a minute, she placed it between her middle and index fingers and repeated the process. “What guy?”

  “The one who’s been on your mind all week. I recognize the signs, although they’re new with you. I haven’t seen you distracted by a man since—him.”

  Sloane grimaced. She’d told Connie about Derek months ago, during one of her weaker moments.

  “Is there pain?” Connie asked.

  “What?”

  “Pain. You’re wrinkling your face up. Is the pressure too much for your finger?”

  “No.” Sloane glanced down at the putty. “It’s fine. That’s not the problem.”

  “Ah, the guy. Who is he?”

  “He’s him,” Sloane replied with a sigh. “In the flesh.”

  “Derek?” Connie’s brows shot up. “What do you mean in the flesh? He’s here in New York?”

  “Yup.”

  “How do you know? Has he called you?”

  “Worse. I saw him in person. He’s assigned to the New York field office. And lucky me—he’s the agent of record on my missing friend’s case. So guess who has to work together?”

  “You’re kidding.” Connie stared for a moment, then sucked in her breath and resumed treating Sloane’s hand. She took away the putty and handed Sloane a spring-loaded hand-and-finger exerciser. “That’s the usual pound-and-a-half resistance. I’m hoping we can move to the three-pound resistance sometime this month. Now grasp and squeeze.” She watched as Sloane complied. “Did you know he’d been transferred to New York?”

  “I knew he wanted to be. I haven’t exactly followed his career. It’s not the best way to forget someone.”

  “Not that you’ve managed to do that anyway. When did you see him?”

  “Monday.” Sloane rested her arm on the examining table and gripped the exerciser’s palm bar, tensing her fingers and squeezing against the springs. She frowned, irked by the distance differential between what her trigger finger could accomplish and what the rest of her fingers could do. “And before you ask, he looks good. Better than good. My chest literally clenched when he walked in. Butterflies in my stomach. Roaring in my ears. The works. Just like when we were together. Except for the anger. That wasn’t there until the end, when all hell broke loose. But it’s there now, and it’s as strong as ever. So’s the resentment. I can’t get past them. I doubt I ever will.”

  “Never’s a long time,” Connie noted. “Not to mention that there are two sides to every story. And that things aren’t always what they seem.”

  Sloane gave a half groan, half sigh, and put
down the exercise tool. “What is this—platitude hour? If so, it’s not working.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll just point out the obvious. You might not be able to get over the anger, but you sure as hell can’t get over him. I call that a major snag, and an official catch-22.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I might get over him faster now that I have to deal with him again. Maybe the fantasies will be drowned out by the glaring reminder of what an insensitive, judgmental bastard he is.”

  At that moment, there was a brief knock on the door.

  Connie looked surprised. “Yes?” she called out.

  The door opened and Dr. Houghton stepped inside. He was a tall, lanky man, with salt-and-pepper hair, angular features, and dark eyes that bore right through you. He carried himself with an air of self-confidence that bordered on arrogance but stopped just short of it.

  “Constance, before you go home, I need that file on—” He stopped, visibly surprised to see Sloane there, and glanced down at his watch. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I thought Constance’s last appointment was at four.”

  “It was,” Sloane replied drily. “Unfortunately, I held her up. I was running late, and I hit tons of city-bound traffic.” She resumed her work with the spring-loaded exerciser, intent on regaining her fine motor skills. “How are you, Dr. Houghton?”

  He glanced at her for a moment, then stared at the exercise she was performing, eyes narrowed, clearly making a quantitative assessment of her progress. He might just as well have come out and said that her question was superfluous and not worth addressing. His one and only interest was her hand.

  Sloane wasn’t offended. During one of their follow-up visits, Dr. Houghton had bluntly said that after all these years, he often didn’t remember a patient’s face, but he never forgot a hand. It wasn’t rudeness; it was professional dedication.

  She responded by providing him with what he wanted to know. “The healing process is coming along,” she reported. “Connie’s a miracle worker. I feel some definite improvement in my grip and strength in my index finger. I’m waiting for my radial nerve to catch on and catch up.”