One More Day (14 page)

“David said he found something, I’m guessing in those files you were having him working on. I said we’d go down and take a look.”

She nodded, and we got off the elevator and headed into David’s lab.

Chapter Seven

Jenson and I walked through the double doors into David’s work space. He was hunched over his keyboard, looking at the monitor. Reading something, I supposed. Ryan was standing nearby, leaning back against one of the work tables that David always had a bunch of parts and papers piled up on. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a stony expression on his face. I met his eyes for a moment, and his expression didn’t change.

“Let’s take a look at what you found,” Jenson said, and David raised his head and watched us walk the rest of the way toward them. He stood up and motioned to his chair, and I took it while Jenson dragged one over from another part of the lab. I sat down, nodding my thanks, and he tapped the display a few times, opening a variety of documents.

“Okay. This first one is the first time we see any mention of what it is they’re planning to do with the samples,” he said, and I leaned forward and started reading.

“An injection?” I asked after a couple of minutes of reading.

“Yeah.”

I read some more. “So… they were using the samples to try to… what? Create something that would give ordinary people powers?”

“Seems like it. And it fits with what we knew Dr. Death was already working on, with that mess Mayhem created in Midtown.”

I nodded. Dr. Death and Mayhem had built a machine that released a gas that was supposed to turn anyone who breathed it in into a powered person. Something had gone horribly wrong, and we’d ended up with almost three dozen corpses. It was the reason Alpha had finally had no choice but to let me out after Mayhem.

“Why, though?” I said, still scanning through the document.

“From this next document,” David said, clicking over to another one, “it looks like the ultimate goal is to create a super powered army under the control of what they’re calling ‘The Conclave.’”

I leaned forward and read. “They’re fucking crazy,” I murmured as my stomach twisted. “I mean… creation of a super powered army, wresting control of international governments, creating a world-wide force under their command. This is super whack-job world domination shit right here.”

“I know,” David said. “Uh. From this other one, I guess Alpha must have asked his contact the same question. Mostly, he wanted to know what was in it for him, because, you know: Alpha,” he said.

“Of course,” I agreed.

“But besides that, he asked what the endgame is. And this was his contact’s response.” He pulled up another document and I started reading.

“So Alpha is promised more money than he could ever imagine, along with exclusive contracts to keep providing ‘The Conclave’ with more varied samples and a position of importance in their new little super villain club.” I read some more. “‘To bring a lasting peace to the world.’ Is he serious with this bullshit?”

“Villains always say crap like that,” Jenson muttered. “What it means, of course, is ultimate control and the ability to do whatever they want, however they want it, without having to sneak around or have someone like StrikeForce or any of the other cities’ forces on their backs.”

“It’s like in
The Godfather
, when Michael wanted to make the family legitimate, but he had to do all of this bad shit to get there,” I said, still reading. “But then you realize in the end that it was all pretty words and while he may have started out okay, he ultimately loved power more than anything or anyone else.”

“Is everything a movie reference with you?” Jenson asked with a laugh.

“You can relate any important topic to a movie,” I said. “Or it’s ultimately not that important.” I read some more. “He mentions me here. Alpha,” I clarified.

“Yeah, I saw that,” David said. “It looks like that was right after you crashed into our prison wing,” he added, pointing at the metadata for the document. “It looks like there was some heavy back and forth negotiating over your sample, with Alpha wanting a higher price for it. His contact finally agrees to it here,” he said, pointing at another document, “but then there’s a bit of back and forth because they guy’s pissed that Alpha’s taking so long to get your sample.”

“I’m guessing I’m the ‘blond bitch’ mentioned here,” I said, scanning through the document. “Those are some high numbers they’re throwing around there,” I said, noting the price Alpha had finally accepted as payment once he got a sample of my blood.

A thought struck me, and I looked over at Jenson in alarm. “When I was in the hospital, they would have taken blood,” I said.

“He wasn’t able to do anything with it then, though. Caine and I had him scared, and he didn’t leave his office. And, that last email where the contact is mad that he doesn’t have your sample yet… look at the date.” I did. It was three weeks after my fight against Maddoc. I realized with a start, that it was from the day we’d staged our little coup and locked Alpha and his people up. I felt a knot release in my stomach.

“Okay. Well that’s a relief, as long as nothing changed between the time this was sent and when we took control.”

“So… I mean, I think we can safely assume this is Dr. Death, right?” David asked, and Jenson and I both nodded. “So, we have evidence here now that he was negotiating with a super villain to sell him samples of blood for his little science experiment, without our permission and with ill intent. If this isn’t enough for the international tribunal to take him off our hands, lock him up, and throw away the key, I don’t know what is.”

“I agree,” Jenson said. Then she smiled at David. “Amazing job. These files drove me nuts for so long. And now we finally have something more concrete.”

“Yeah, that’s all great, and I’m glad Jolene’s blood isn’t out there, but mine is. So’s yours,” Ryan said to Jenson and David. “And Dr. Death is apparently working on some injection to give others our powers, or a mix of them, or all of them for all we know. What are we gonna do about that part of it?”

“We’ll catch him,” I said, meeting his eyes. He shook his head and stormed out of the lab. I quickly thanked David and Jenson, then followed him out.

“Hey,” I said as he was getting onto the elevator. He held the door open for me, and I got on with him. “It’ll be okay. We’ll catch him and — ”

“Despite the fact that we haven’t managed that yet, there’s something else,” Ryan said.

“I know, he might have used the samples already. And if he has we’ll deal with that when— ”

“No.”

“No, we won’t deal with it?” I asked him.

He turned to me, looking down at me. He was pissed, and I’ve never seen him actually pissed before. You had the sense that he was barely containing his anger, that the second he could, he’d let it go and somebody would have a really, really bad day. “No. The issue is this, partner: you knew this shit had happened. For, what? A week or so now? Maybe longer? You knew Alpha took my blood, and you kept it from me.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “I didn’t know what he was doing with it, or even if it had gone through at all. I didn’t see any point in telling anyone until they uncovered more.”

“You didn’t see any point in telling me that my blood had been taken from me under false pretenses, and that he was negotiating money for it? Are you kidding me?”

“Ryan,” I began, and he shook his head.

“I thought you’d be different from them, Jo. I thought you understood what it was to have your choices taken from you.”

“I do.” He looked away, and I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “It was wrong not to tell you. And it says a lot about my screwy sense of ethics, but I honestly didn’t even think of telling you. It just never crossed my mind, because I was just focusing on the hope that they’d find out more.”

The elevator stopped on my floor and I stepped off, and, to my surprise, so did he. I looked up at him, and he started walking toward my suite.

“We’re gonna talk about this. And you’re gonna tell me everything you know so far about Dr. Death and these samples.” He looked down at me. “Right?”

“Right.” I unlocked my door and we stepped into my suite, then sat down at the little dining table, and I told him everything we’d uncovered so far while he sat there in stony silence. When I was done, he got up and left without a word.

It takes a lot to make me feel like a jerk. Ryan managed to do it without uttering a word. That, or I was getting soft, I thought as I fell into bed. We had a patrol shift in a couple of hours.

“That should be fun,” I muttered as I fell into bed and closed my eyes. Bet he was regretting telling me his real name now, I thought as I pulled the blankets up over my head.

Chapter Eight

After making it through a tense and entirely silent patrol shift with Ryan, I walked up the front walk of the house I’d bought for Mama, taking a good look as I did. I could see why she liked it so much. Cute Craftsman bungalow with a front porch that spanned the whole front of the house. It was painted a happy yellow, which was my mom’s favorite color. The front yard had an enormous maple tree, and I could imagine how pretty it would look in spring and summer, when everything was green. Or in fall, with red and orange leaves. I smiled to myself. I could absolutely see Mama living here, in this nice little neighborhood with the grocery store in walking distance, a bakery just a few blocks away. She’d be pissed at me for buying it, but she’d fall in love with it. I knew that much about Mama. She’d chide me every chance she got, but she’d be grateful.

I stomped up the wood front steps and unlocked the front door. I turned on lights in some of the first floor rooms, since it was so dreary outside. I walked through the rooms, looking around, noting things I wanted fixed.

Honestly, I didn’t have very high hopes for this contractor, carpenter, whatever. The last one hadn’t shown up at all, which pissed me off doubly since I’d had to take David’s early morning patrol shift to work it in. And the one before that had wanted to rip everything out and start over with new drywall, new floors, new everything. What’s the point of buying an old house and putting all new shit in it? My mother would hate that.

I could picture Mama having her coffee in the little breakfast nook in the kitchen. Maybe setting up her old sewing machine in one of the first floor bedrooms. She loved to sew, but she always had to dig her sewing machine and other stuff out of our storage unit and then set up on the dining room table in our trailer when she wanted to work on a project, which meant that she didn’t bother very often anymore. When I was a kid, before we lost our first house, she used to sew all the time.

I smiled to myself. I could not wait to walk her into this house. I could picture it all fixed up, just waiting for Mama. Hopefully the repairs wouldn’t take too long.

I heard a knock on the front door and I walked through the dining and living rooms. A man was standing on the front porch. Much younger than the first contractor I’d talked to, probably in his mid thirties or so. He had dark hair, a little wavy and probably overdue for a trim. Dark eyebrows and a bit of dark scruff on his jawline. He wore jeans and a navy blue button-down shirt.

“Hi. Justin Rhys,” he said when I came to the door. I opened it and waved him in.

“Jolene Faraday,” I said, sticking my hand out awkwardly. He took it and shook my hand. “Thanks for coming by.”

“Happy to do it. This is a great house,” he said, looking around.

I nodded. “It is. I just bought it. It’s for my mother, actually.”

“Nice daughter,” he murmured, glancing at me with a smile before continuing to look around. He had brown eyes, with just a hint of smile lines beginning to form at the corners. I looked away.

“Well, I figured it was the least I could do after what a little shit I was when I was a kid.”

“Now that you’re totally reformed, right?” he asked, grinning.

I let out a short laugh. “Definitely. Totally on the straight and narrow now.”

He laughed. It was a good laugh. Some people have an almost mean-sounding laugh. Some laugh like they don’t mean it, like they’re putting in actual effort to seem like they have a sense of humor. He didn’t seem like that.