Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(90)

“I am.” Terry removed the knife from her pocket and showed it to him, gleaming and silver. “Now, I’m leaving here with Gloria and Ken and you are not going to follow. You killed Alice. And if you don’t want everyone to know, you will stay where you are and let us go. You know I’m stubborn. You also know you can’t risk hurting my child. If anyone lays a hand on me, I’ll use this…” She waved the knife. “On myself if I have to.”

Brenner stood uncertainly and blood roared through Terry’s head. What did they do if he wouldn’t let them go? What then?

“I loved Alice. Let them go, Papa,” Kali said through sobs.

Terry hadn’t expected that, but she’d take it. “Get out of my way,” she ordered.

Brenner still didn’t move. “It’s too bad about her,” he said, nodding to Alice. “Such lost potential is always sad. There’s so little of it in the world. We may still learn from her yet.”

The two of them were at a standoff. Terry facing-down Brenner. Him standing his ground.

What did she do if he refused?

“We’re going,” Terry said. His words made her feel sick, but what they implied was exactly what they’d planned for.

“Fine,” he said, and then he stepped aside. “Don’t hurt the child.”

Terry didn’t wait for a change of mind. She stumbled past him gripping the knife handle, expecting at any moment he’d reach out and grab her.

But he didn’t.

“Let her go!” he called to the officers in the hall, who backed away instantly. “Tell everyone to let them go.”

Gloria met her halfway up the hall dressed in orderly scrubs and with longer than usual hair.

“Did it work?” Gloria asked.

“It’s working,” Terry said. “Kali did a good job. Ken ready?”

“Like the cavalry,” Gloria said. “Be right back.”

Terry didn’t turn around to see Gloria go ahead for the last phase of the plan.





8.


Gloria had hidden a gurney up the hall from Alice’s room, and she retrieved it now. She’d even brought a wig from her mother’s special occasion closet to better disguise herself. She needn’t have worried.

Dr. Parks was in tears, and Dr. Brenner was already gone. Kali too. Gloria didn’t have much time.

Motionless on the floor, Alice looked…dead.

“Ma’am,” Gloria said, lowering her voice’s register, “I’m here to take the body to the morgue for dissection.”

The word “dissection” made her want to throw up.

Dr. Parks waved a hand for her to do what she must.

Gloria had trouble heaving Alice up, so it was a good thing Parks was distracted. Corpses didn’t usually help get themselves onto gurneys. Gloria pulled a sheet over Alice and rolled the gurney into the hallway…

Where she immediately sped up. “Hang on,” Gloria said.

She saw Alice’s fingers grip the sides of the table under the sheet. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Out of this place.”

“Sounds good to me,” Alice said.

Just as they’d planned, Ken had backed the car up to the entrance. Terry had left the door propped wide open.

“Stay down,” Gloria said, pushing the gurney toward the door. “Okay, now you can get up. The car hood will hide you. Get in the trunk.”

“The trunk?” Alice said, slipping off and to her feet in a crouch.

“It’s not for long.”

Alice sighed and did as she’d been told. Gloria shut the hood and climbed into the back. Ken and Terry were playing up their distraught reactions to Alice’s supposed death.

Security officers had made a perimeter, but they were staying back. Ken gunned the motor and she heard someone calling, “He said let them leave! No one shoot!”

“We ready?” Ken asked from behind the wheel.

“We are ready,” Terry said. And, as he gunned the motor, she said, “Bye, Hawkins. If we’re lucky, see you never!”

Except when I come back for Kali.

Terry had no intention of allowing Brenner to keep on with his monstrous work, but first she had to get Alice to safety. She had to see baby Jane into the world.

Plan “Fake Alice’s Death and Bluff Our Way Out” had worked.





9.


They didn’t slow down until they’d left Hawkins far in the rearview mirror. They stopped off at Unionville’s Greyhound station, a little outside Bloomington, not far from Larrabee. After they’d released Alice from the trunk, Ken handed her the bus ticket he’d bought earlier.

“I can’t believe you got me out of there.” Alice shook her head in wide-eyed wonder.

“Me either.” Gloria mimed wiping her brow.

Alice’s eyes got watery. “I’m going to miss you guys.”

Terry couldn’t go down that road right now or she’d cry, too. “No tears, we did it. This is only until I can expose what he’s doing there. In the meantime, you’ll be safe. Do we need to check in with your folks?”

Alice said, “My cousins will call them once I make it. I’ve come up with a code for them to use.”