Deadlocked

Chapter 46

A tornado destroys with the whimsy and precision of a psychopath: vicious, capricious, and remorseless. It may choose to pulverize a house into sawdust and leave neighbors on either side untouched. If so inclined, it might scoop up a car from a parking lot and fling it like a Frisbee half a mile down the street, indifferent to the makes and models not to its taste. It might uproot a stand of trees as easily as a gardener plucking carrots from the ground, save one lone survivor unable to explain its luck.

The tornado that struck Golden Years was such a killer. It peeled the roof off the psychiatric hospital like it was an aluminum pull tab, the swirling wind turning up its nose at the patients, taking none of them. A slab of roof rocketed down Eighty-seventh Street Parkway, pierced the windshield of a tractor-trailer rig, and killed the driver. The unfortunate man was the only fatality of the storm.

Mason held onto Mary's arm as they walked down the stairway at the end of the hall. A platoon of firemen had hustled by them on their way down. None of them questioned Mason's assurance that they were fine. The stairs quivered beneath them, Mason not certain whether it was the aftershocks as the building calmed itself or whether it was their own trembling. They came out the door that he had tried to get in earlier, the video camera dangling from an electrical thread as they passed beneath it.

They walked along the sidewalk toward the Visitors' Center, sidestepping fallen limbs that had been ripped from their trunks. Mason's arm was around Mary's waist, her arm stretched across his back. Her feet, unsteady at first, settled into a confident, short stride and she pulled away from his support. She offered no explanation for her presence at the hospital and, as anxious as he was to know, he let it ride for the moment.

Remnants of the roof littered the grounds along with furniture, bedding, and clothing that had been sucked into the whirlwind before drifting to earth. They stopped for a moment, looking back at the hospital. Shorn of its roof, its windows knocked out, it looked like a punch-drunk fighter.

A fleet of fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars, their lights cascading red, white, and blue, were making their way around the cars that had been in the parking lot when the storm hit. Many of those vehicles had overturned, smashing into one another like a demolition derby. The back end of a Mazda Miata stuck out of the front seat of a Lincoln Navigator, the storm tossing the coupe like a dart into the SUV. The air reeked of gasoline, a stench that warned it was too early to sound the all clear.

Sirens continued to blare in the distance as more rescue units raced to the scene. Uniformed men and woman rushed to the aid of residents and patients, corralling them for triage. Some residents wandered about in a daze. Others sat on the ground, nursing cuts and bruises.

All of the buildings on the campus had suffered some damage, none as severe as the psychiatric hospital. The tornado had struck like precision guided meteorological munitions. Its target had been the hospital. Everything and everyone else was collateral damage.

Mason led Mary through the chaos, waving off inquiries and offers of help. She was, as nearly as he could tell, unhurt. He wanted to get her out of there without answering questions from someone checking names off a list to confirm who was a victim and who was not. And he had questions of his own that would have to wait.

He caught a glimpse of Adrienne's father, Walt, cutting through the crowd. Mason wasn't certain whether he was looking for patients that were still unaccounted for or whether he was looking for Mason and Mary. Any doubt vanished when Dixon Smith ran up to the man, poking him in the chest with his finger, gesturing wildly. Walt brushed Smith's hand away. The two men nearly came to blows until Walt saw Adrienne being helped by a paramedic to an ambulance and left Smith to argue alone.

Mason unhitched his tool belt, dropping it on the ground along with his ball cap. A navy blue windbreaker had blown across the grounds, lodging against the heel of a bench. Mason snatched it and slipped it on, ignoring the snug fit. It was all he could do to change his appearance. Placing his hand on the small of Mary's back, he urged her to pick up the pace.

They walked down the long drive toward Eighty-seventh Street Parkway through a growing crowd. Once the storm had passed and news of its attack on Golden Years was broadcast by radio and television, people came to offer help and to witness the destruction firsthand. The police were busy directing emergency vehicles in and out and hadn't had time for crowd control.

A police officer directing traffic from the middle of the street held up his hand, signaling them to wait. Mary stood quietly on his left as Mason shifted his feet impatiently.

The traffic cop finally motioned them to cross, a new companion lagging a few steps behind but otherwise keeping pace. When they reached Mason's car, he opened the passenger door for Mary, closing it as she slid in. Walking around to his door, he found a woman standing in front of his car.

"Can I help you?" Mason asked.

"I want to go home," the woman answered. She was near his height with a slender frame and erect bearing. She was wearing a raincoat over pants and sneakers and a floppy hat pulled down low on her pale checks

"Where do you live?" Mason asked.

She hesitated and pulled her cap off, her tangled blonde hair pressed tightly against her head. Twisting the cap like it was a wet cloth, she looked around. "It's been so long," she said.

Her face was drawn, her eyes hollow but alive, not drugged. She was old enough to live at Golden Years, though he couldn't guess at which facility.

"You followed us out of Golden Years. Is that where you live?" Mason asked. He was sure she did and was equally certain that he didn't want to take her back and that he couldn't leave her in the parking lot, her uncertainty convincing him that she shouldn't be left alone.

"That's not my home," she answered. "I want to go home."

"Can I call someone for you?" Mason offered.

His question provoked a panic as her lips quivered and her eyes widened. She raised a hand to her mouth. "No calls," she said. "No more phone calls."

"Okay, okay," Mason said, looking over the woman's shoulder at the traffic cop, deciding that he had to take her at least that far. "What's your name?"

"Victoria King," she said. "And I want to go home."

A car turned into the parking lot from Eighty-seventh Street Parkway, circling away from Mason. It was a black BMW sedan with tinted passenger windows, the same model as Whitney King's car. He caught a glimpse of the driver through the windshield as the car turned away but didn't get a good enough look to tell if it was Whitney, though the chill in his gut was confirmation enough.

Crafting a quick mental argument on the difference between giving someone a ride home and kidnapping, Mason said, "I'll take you," and ushered the woman into the backseat.

Glad that he had parked the car facing out, he started his engine just as the BMW screeched to a stop behind him, the passenger window sliding down. He looked in his rearview mirror as Whitney King stared back at him. King's lips were peeled back in a snarl and his eyes were blacker than the storm. Hearing the car, Mary and Victoria both turned around. King's face twisted with rage as he pounded his steering wheel.

Gunning his car, Mason raced toward the street. Whitney was out of position to maneuver through Mason's parking space and was forced to drive around the long line of parked cars. The added distance Whitney had to travel was enough to let Mason escape from the parking lot, cutting in front of another fire truck on Eighty-seventh Street Parkway as the traffic cop shook his fist at him.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Whitney trapped by the fire truck and the angry cop. Mary gaped at Mason as if he was the inmate who had just escaped from the asylum. Before she could speak, he made the introductions.

"Mary Kowalczyk, say hello to Victoria King."