A Murder in Time (6 page)

“He is.”

“What about Greene and Balakirev? The ricin?”

“Balakirev's dead. He was caught in the cross fire. The ricin was packaged in pellet form, just as you predicted. We confiscated it—and Balakirev's laptop. We've got CAT working on it. There's a lot of encrypted information. Once they crack it, we hope to infiltrate several terrorist cells the bastard was doing business with.”

“So we didn't need Balakirev after all. We just needed his laptop.”

“Well, I don't think Peter Carson sees it quite that way. But technology makes most of us obsolete, doesn't it?”

“God, I'd love to get my hands on it.” Kendra's fingers curled in frustration, digging into the crisp sheets.

“I'll bet you would.” He glanced at his watch. “My five minutes are up. I'm going to go before Dr. Campbell boots my ass out. I'll check on you tomorrow. The Director indicated that he may stop by.” He walked to the door. Hesitated. “If you need to talk to anybody—”

“I don't.”

He stared at her for a full minute, and decided not to remind her that she'd be required to do a full psych evaluation before returning to the Bureau. For now, he simply nodded. “You're a valuable member of our team, Special Agent Donovan.”

“Thank you. Ah . . . sir? Have you informed . . . do my parents know that I'm . . . never mind.” Her throat closed tightly, cutting off the remainder of her words. She was embarrassed to see her fingers, twisting in the bed linen again, tremble. She already regretted her impulsive question, could see pity in the associate director's eyes.

“As your nearest relatives, both your parents were informed,” he said gently.

She nodded, and could no longer hold his gaze. “Thank you.”

Leeds hesitated, and felt an unfamiliar anger burn inside him against the two scientists. Both, he knew, were brilliant in their fields—Dr. Eleanor Jahnke, in quantum physics, and Dr. Carl Donovan, in genome research and biogenetic engineering. But, as far as he was concerned, they were both miserable human beings.

Because there was nothing he could do to ease the desolation he'd glimpsed in Kendra's dark eyes before she'd looked away, he simply said, “Get some rest, Agent Donovan.”

Kendra struggled against the humiliation and odd ache in her chest that had nothing to do with her injuries. When she finally lifted her gaze, she was surprised to see that she was once again alone in the room.

And she still didn't know what had happened to Sir Jeremy Greene.

The next four days passed in a haze of tests and physical therapy. Kendra hated her weakness, hated how her limbs felt sluggish and ungainly.
Unnatural
. Every movement she forced herself to make was like pushing a giant boulder up a mountain, leaving her shaky and disoriented afterward, and in desperate need of a hospital bed.

Luckily, she had one available.

Leeds did not return, although she did hear that he checked on her regularly. As promised, Carson arrived to debrief her, solemnly informing her of the body count, which included Allan O'Brien in addition to Sheppard and Vale, and Danny Cortez from Team One. Two men from Vale's SWAT team were also killed. Bill Noone had taken a bullet in the leg, but he was alive.

Terry Landon didn't count.

Kendra thought of O'Brien, and his young wife who was now a widow, and wanted to weep. And to shoot Terry Landon all over again.
Fucking bastard.

Carson left before she could ask him about Greene, and in truth, by the time their session was over, she was too drained to formulate any coherent questions anyway. She wondered if some of that lassitude was her mood, or if they'd added morphine to her IV bag after all.

Certainly time seemed to stretch out and then snap together, blurring and bleeding from one moment to the next, from evening to morning to afternoon. She never seemed to be alone. The nurses she'd heard talking—Annie (a motherly figure with sunny blond curls bouncing around a surprisingly youthful face) and Pamela (far less motherly, more angular with short salt-and-pepper hair)—now buzzed in and out of her hospital room like busy bees, checking her vitals, giving her little paper cups of pills, and accompanying her on her journey two floors below for tests, and then dropping another floor to the physical therapy department.

“For someone who was in a coma a couple of weeks ago, you're doing amazingly well,” Dr. Campbell remarked as he came into the room one morning. He picked up her chart from the foot of the bed and gave it a brisk assessing glance before smiling at her. “You've got a visitor.”

“Oh?”

“Kendra.”

Her heart gave a lurch as her eyes swung to the door.

The man standing in the threshold was tall and thin, and so much older than she remembered. His once black hair was now streaked lightly at the temples with silver, and there were lines carved on his handsome face that she couldn't seem to recall.
It's been more than a decade.

Yet as he stepped into the room, the expression on his face, in his thickly lashed, dark, dark brown eyes—
her
eyes, she realized with a weird sort of clutch of her heart—was sharply familiar, cool detachment laced with dissatisfaction.

Some things never change.

Seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents swirling in the room, Dr. Campbell continued to smile. “It's good of you to visit Kendra, Dr. Donovan,” he said. If he thought it odd that the man hadn't visited or called when his daughter's life was hanging by a thread, he gave no sign. “I'll give you some privacy.” He strode to the door, paused. “Kendra is doing remarkably well, but please don't overtire her.”

“I understand. Thank you, Dr. Campbell.” Dr. Carl Donovan waited until the other man left the room, then said coolly, “So . . . this is why you gave up what could have been a brilliant future?”

Kendra didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Twelve years, and his first words to her were a criticism.
Typical.
“What're you doing here?” She sounded a little breathless, but otherwise steady. “I'm the one with the head injury, but apparently you forgot that you disowned me.”

“Don't be impertinent, Kendra.” Her father's mouth compressed into a thin line. “I received a phone call from Associate Director Leeds, who suggested that if I wanted to keep doing my research, I should visit you.”

Kendra frowned. “I'm not following. What does your research have to do with me?”

“I'm working at the Fellowship Institute in Arizona—”

“On human genome research. I know.”

“Then you should know that the government is our largest donor.”

Kendra remembered the look of pity in the associate director's eyes. “Ah. I see. Leeds blackmailed you. That's why you're here.” Not because her father wanted to see her. Heaven forbid that he actually cared. And odd how that hurt. She hadn't seen her father in a dozen years, but he still had that power.

In a fastidious move, Carl lifted his pant leg to keep its pressed line before taking a seat in the chair next to the bed. He cocked a brow. “Are you going to tell me how you ended up here . . . like that?”

“Oh, you know. Just saving the world.”

“I could point out that there are easier and undoubtedly more productive ways to save the world. If you had continued—”

“How's Barbara?” she interrupted. “The children?”

He hesitated. He wasn't a man to be diverted, but since the previous subject was distasteful to him, and pointless, he allowed it. “Barbara has taken time off from the Institute to write a book. The children are showing remarkable cognitive abilities.”

“Patricia and Stewart, right?” She recalled the names of her half siblings. “Or do you just refer to them as Test Subjects One and Two?”

“I see your sense of humor has not improved.”

“No, I don't suppose it has. But then, when it comes right down to it, I was a failure, wasn't I? Didn't quite fulfill the genius potential that you and Mother had hoped for. How is Mother, by the way? Will she be coming?”

“I have no idea. I'm sure she's being kept apprised of your condition.”

“Nothing says motherly love like a good text.”

Carl gave her a reproving look. “Eleanor has tremendous responsibility at CERN. She's part of the research team conducting experiments at the Large Hadron Collider—”

“I know. Leave it to Mom to want to create a black hole right here on earth.”

“Don't be absurd. That is typical media hyperbole, as you well know,” he said stiffly.

“My lamentable sense of humor.” She sighed, and suddenly felt bone-weary. Phillip Leeds had meant well, she knew. But it would take more than blackmail to mend a family that had shattered years ago. Hell, who was she kidding? She never had a family, not in its truest form. She'd been a lab rat. A Frankenbaby, as Annie had called her.

“It is unfortunate,” her father agreed. It took her a moment to realize he was referring to her humor.

“Too bad you couldn't have bred that out of me.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and it doesn't become you, Kendra.”

“Apparently nothing becomes me.”

Irritation flickered over his face, and Kendra admitted that a small, petty part of her still enjoyed being able to provoke him. It was the only reaction, besides disappointment, that she'd ever gotten out of him.

“You were such a promising—”

“Experiment?”

“Student,” he snapped.

“A student. Like the children of
Lebensborn
?” she suggested sweetly. “Hitler thought his SS breeding program was promising, too. All those Aryan babies. Superbabies.”

Carl glared at her. “I had hoped that you would have finally understood the purpose behind Dr. Kapoor's endeavor. I might point out that George Bernard Shaw, Charles Lindbergh, and countless brilliant minds were also advocates of eugenics.”

“Yes. I know. You want to make the world a better place by producing smarter children. But you failed, didn't you? You and Mother didn't factor in the human equation. You know—wants, desires, personal ambition.”

“Personal ambition?” Carl shifted in his chair, and his cold eyes scanned her bandaged head, the hospital room. “Personal ambition to play cop? Look where that got you.”

“I'm a special agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” She'd been the youngest person to ever be accepted into the academy, she wanted to point out. Except she knew that would mean nothing to Dr. Carl Donovan.

“A
glorified
cop. You could have done anything, been anything.”

“No, I couldn't,” she said quietly. And her eyes, unconsciously pleading, clung to his.
Do you even know why I became an FBI agent?
she wanted to ask. But of course, he didn't. He'd never asked her about anything. He'd instructed and ordered, expecting her to fall in line. And she had, for fourteen years.

“You didn't try hard enough,” he said.

Something inside her, something that had been clinging to hope, withered and died. Christ, she hadn't even realized she still had hope, thought that had died years ago. She dropped her eyes. “I'm human. You didn't count on that. And after all your tests and your trials, you gave up on me, gave up on your marriage—”

“You were the one who threatened to sue for emancipation,” he reminded her, and rose to his feet in a lithe move. “Your mother was asked to participate in the research at CERN. It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I certainly could not stand in her way.”

“Of course not. Especially since Barbara was waiting in the wings to take her place, provide you with more experiments.”

“This argument has become tiresome, Kendra. Life goes on. I believe that is what you told your mother and me when you asked for your independence. I really don't understand this melodrama. You broke away from us. While we did not agree with your decision, we accepted it. And we never blocked your access to the trust fund that we had set up in your name.”

“The trust fund came from money
I
earned by appearing like a lab rat on TV and in competitions.”

“Nevertheless, your mother and I set up the trust fund for you, which paid for your college education. This discussion is pointless.” He glanced at his watch. “I'm on a tight schedule. Unless, of course, you have something to say that relates to the present day . . . ?” He waited, staring at her. When she said nothing, he turned and walked toward the door.

Words trembled on the tip of her tongue. It took every ounce of her willpower to keep from lashing out at him.

He paused at the door, looking back. His eyes swept over her again, lingering on the white bandage swathing her head. He didn't look concerned, Kendra noticed; only confused. “Goodbye, Kendra.”

“Goodbye, Dr. Donovan.” She waited until he left before grabbing the remote for her bed. Her fingers shook as she pressed the button, lowering the mattress so that she could lay flat and stare at the ceiling. She tried to ignore the sting behind her eyes, the pounding in her head, the viselike tightness inside her chest.