The Enclave Read Free

consequences. His focus was on her wound now: a six-inch, straight-edged glass cut running along the inside of her left forearm, still bleeding profusely.
    “It’ll need stitches,” he said, stepping to one of the cabinets. He pulled out a first-aid kit and set it on the floor beside her, then turned to the sink of soapy water Lacey had prepared earlier. “This intruder,” he said as he plunged his hands into the bubbles, “what did he look like?”
    She told him all she could recall, realizing as she did that the youth had seemed somehow familiar, though she couldn’t imagine where she might have seen him before.
    Hands washed and rinsed, Reinhardt was drying them off when two distant echoing booms halted the flow of her words. “What was that?” she whispered.
    “Sounded like gunshots,” Dr. Reinhardt said. He stood listening for a moment, then set about cleaning and butterfly-bandaging her wound, a service he performed with a swift and practiced competence that surprised her. As he worked he pressed her to continue her story, interrupting occasionally to question her more closely about the young man. Did he speak? Had she seen him before? Did she think he was truly unbalanced, or one of Director Swain’s feared corporate spies putting on a show?
    He was taping the last bandage to the slash in her arm when the door crashed open and Slattery burst in. A short, swarthy, vigorous man with a pocked complexion, he had straight black hair brushed back from a high forehead, bushy black brows, and piercing blue eyes. For a moment he paused as if surprised to find them as they were, then said to Reinhardt, “You’ve tended her, then.”
    “Only temporarily. She’ll need stitches.”
    “Probably has a mild concussion, too.” Slattery turned to the man who’d followed him into the room and gestured at Lacey. “Take her to the clinic.”
    A second man now angled a gurney through the door as Lacey tottered to her feet. “Oh, I won’t need that, Dr. Slattery,” she said. “I’m fine, really.”
    He scowled at her. “You could hardly walk a few minutes ago, miss.”
    “I just had the breath knocked out of me.”
    “And took a good knock to the head, too, from the look of that goose egg behind your ear. A concussion’s nothing to take lightly. And there’s the cut to stitch, as well. I won’t risk any lawsuits. Now, hop aboard like a good girl.”
    Reluctantly she obeyed. “Did you find him? The man who attacked me?”
    “Not yet,” Slattery said, his scowl deepening. Irritably he motioned for the men to wheel her away, and immediately they complied.
    As they lifted the gurney over the raised threshold of the prep room floor, the pain of her cut finally began to override the pain of the cramps in her back. Maybe a visit to the clinic wouldn’t be so bad after all. She didn’t have to walk, and they might have some Tylenol they could give her and maybe a compress for her back. In fact, she wouldn’t even object if they wanted to take some X rays, just to make sure she’ d not broken something.

Chapter Two
    As the gurney carried Ms. McHenry out of his sight, whatever had held Cam Reinhardt together was loosed. A wave of trembling overtook him and he found himself staring at the shockingly large puddle of blood pooled on the floor at his feet. The deep red surface reflected the fluorescent lights overhead and stirred up dangerous memories that made his stomach flutter and light flicker at the edges of his vision.
    A rumpled, bloodstained lab coat lay in a heap beside the puddle, so close it was almost touching. Fearful at any moment it would, he stooped, picked it up, and slid it on, struggling a bit to work the damp garment over his flannel shirt. It bound across the shoulders as he stooped to pick up the other coat, which was also damp. And bloodstained. He started to put that one on, too, then stopped himself, bemused.
    Out in the corridor, the elevator pinged, and its doors rumbled open. He heard the