Patient Darkness: Brooding City Series Book 2 (18 page)

Alex tried to keep her shock from showing. “How did you know?”

“I saw it on your face the moment we walked in. What happened?”

“I’m going to get better, it’s just temporary. Benjamin said that in time—”

“Hold on, did you say Benjamin?” Her father’s eyes frowned as lines gathered at the sides. “Short, old man? Pretends to be blind?”

She nodded.

“I cannot stress how important it is that you stay away from him, Alexis. That man is dangerous.”

“That’s funny, he said the same thing about you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Alex didn’t care anymore. Her power was gone, her money was lost, and soon the detective would be killed by her father’s vengeful henchmen. Then there would be nothing to prevent the serial killer from continuing his streak, a deadly trail of bodies that might soon include her own. “Benjamin told me that he has had you under surveillance for a long time. And I know
exactly
who he is, Dad, so you don’t need to try and protect me from him. Why would he put eyes on you? He’s a Sleeper, and possibly their leader. If that man is worried, then what does that make
you
?”

James pursed his lips and looped an arm around her shoulder. “I am your father. I will always have your best interests at heart, unlike that withered assassin.”

Alex shrugged off his hand. “Just like how you trained Leviathan to resist me? Yeah, I know about that,” she said, watching his face for any reaction. He was impassive, in control, as always. “And if they know how to block me out, then they must have had one hell of a teacher. How long have you been deceiving me?”

“I have always been honest with you. No secrets, remember? You’re so powerful, more so than I could have ever hoped for. I’m the proudest father in the world.”

“Platitudes won’t make me any less upset with you. I’m going home now.”

James rose and straightened his suit jacket. “Yes, you are. With me.”

“To my apartment, I meant.”

“I know what you meant, but the result is the same. I’m worried about you, Alexis. Your decision to hire Leviathan out from underneath me is disturbing, and until your power recovers, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you on your own.”

Alex looked out the window and saw a flash of black disappearing, the edge of another suit as it entered the tower. A few seconds later, Kern’s familiar face appeared as he climbed the stairs. The butler’s age showed in his movements, but he smiled politely as he gestured for her to join him. She spared a glancing glare at her father before rising and smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress.

“Fine, Dad. I’ll come home with you, but just for tonight.” He nodded, and she walked ahead of him at a crisp pace. “Besides, it will be nice to see Mom again.”

“This place seriously
creeps me out,” Sam said. “I don’t know how anybody can work here.”

“Hey, I’m standing right here!”

“Sorry, Wally.”

“It’s Wallace…”

Brennan drew his jacket in tighter against his body. He secretly shared Sam’s sentiments, and he would gladly have traded the pervasive cold of the morgue for the dry heat of a roaring fireplace right now. Winter was coming, and there would be plenty of time for bracing against the cold soon enough.

“Wally, why did you call us here?”

The pathologist frowned. “Me? I thought you were just visiting because we’re friends. I didn’t call you.”

“I did,” said a harsh and familiar female voice.

Sam and Brennan turned to see Bishop coming from the stairwell with two suited men in tow. They were big and muscular, though neither was quite as tall as Brennan. “Lieutenant,” he said respectfully.

“My Queen,” Sam said, bowing at the waist. “How lustrous your luscious locks look in the limpid light of the…lights.”

“Shut up, Sam. Brennan, these men are with the FBI. They—”

“We would like a few moments of your time,” one of the agents said, extending a hand as he stepped forward. His voice sounded like wet gravel crunching underfoot. “Special Agent Pascale,” he said by way of introduction. “My partner is Special Agent Jun.”

“You both have the same first name? How
special.
”

“Shut up, Sam,” Brennan and Bishop said in unison.

Pascale looked down his nose as Sam. “You aren’t with the department anymore, McCarthy, but don’t think you’re off our radar.”

“I’m quaking in my boots.”

“Four, seventeen, eight,” Pascale said cryptically.

The smile slid from Sam’s face, and he affixed Agent Pascale with a wary stare. “How do you know about that?”

The agent smirked and looked briefly to Bishop, who nodded. “Agent Pascale, he’s all yours.”

“Detective Brennan, if you would follow me.”

“What’s this all about?”

“We can discuss this further in private.”

Brennan exchanged looks with Sam and Wally before following the two agents to the elevator. When they reached the second floor of the station, Agent Pascale marched directly to Bishop’s new office and let himself in. He motioned for Brennan to sit while his partner shut the door and closed the blinds. Agent Jun folded his hands and stood impassively by the door.

In the morgue, he had feared being reprimanded by Bishop for disobeying her orders and getting involved in the serial killer case. Benjamin had said the FBI were closing in, but Brennan had hoped the old Sleeper could keep them occupied at least for another day or two. “This is about the serial killer?” he guessed.

“You aren’t officially assigned to that case,” Pascale said. “We’re here regarding your handling of the Leviathan drug cartel. More accurately, the fact that you broke into a government-owned building and murdered several civilians.”

“Armed gangsters, actually, if it matters.”

“They had your partner, and you felt justified taking their lives because they were criminals, is that it?”

“Exactly.”

Pascale steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “What am I going to do with you, Detective? You broke a dozen regulations and could have been killed yourself. Now there’s a serial killer on the loose, and you want to play renegade cop again. We can’t have you getting in the way of our investigation.”

“Bishop wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for me,” Brennan said through gritted teeth. “And I saved countless others by getting Chamalla off the streets.”

“But you didn’t, did you? There are a dozen copycat drugs out there now, each more deadly than the last. More people are dying from the patch than ever before. We have a procedure for handling these situations for a reason.”

“Right. No operation done ‘by the book’ has ever gone belly-up. I saved Detec—
Lieutenant
Bishop, and I put a stop to Leviathan. You’re going to bring me up on charges for doing my duty to protect and serve?”

The agent sighed and leaned back in the ergonomic chair. “Here’s the situation: your lieutenant made it clear that you are not to be involved. I don’t know her reasoning behind it, but I agree with the sentiment of it.” His eyes darkened a couple shades as he glowered at Brennan. “Your already checkered past has many of us in the bureau worried.”

“My checkered past?”

“You turned on your father just as he was reaching the peak of his career. He was poised to take over the organization, and then he is suddenly gunned down by a rival outfit? Our best agents couldn’t get into their ranks, and Joseph Brennan had a way of inspiring loyalty in his followers—not a single one of them would speak to us.” His voice lowered, and Brennan had to lean forward to hear what he said next. “Everything is classified, of course, but we know only someone intimately involved in Brennan’s affairs would have had the necessary information to betray him. And now you’re sitting on the largest estate this side of the county.”

Brennan’s eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown. There were more complex reasons for what he had done, for why and how he had—

Betrayed your family,
whispered the dark voice of truth.

“No,” he whispered.

“What did you say?”

Brennan glared fiercely at the agent. “I said no. You aren’t taking me off this case, and you have no grounds to. There are greater stakes than you realize, and a lot of people are going to get hurt if I don’t help.”

Pascale’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, the stakes are greater than we realize?”

“Greater than
you
realize,” Brennan corrected him. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I don’t know about strong-and-silent over there; he may be a genius and have figured all this out already.”

Agent Jun’s mouth twitched with a suppressed smirk, but he said nothing.

“The official story,” Pascale said, swallowing his anger, “is that you improperly handled the Leviathan debacle. This is true enough, even if it has made you something of a hero within the precinct. If I find you snooping around this investigation, I will personally charge you with obstruction of justice.”

“This is outrageous! You can’t seriously expect me to—”

“Watch yourself, Detective.” Pascale rose from his seat, and Jun silently opened the door. “Please, leave me to my work. There is a serial killer stalking your streets, and I have less than twelve hours before he leaves his next victim.”

Brennan scowled at the smug agent and retreated from the room. As soon as the door closed, he rushed to his desk and grabbed a plastic cup. He set its mouth against the door to the office and pressed his ear flat to listen at the base. It was a rudimentary trick, but effective for the circumstances.

“Do you believe him?” asked a deep baritone voice. Brennan assumed that Agent Jun finally chose to speak.

“Not for an instant. His family has bred nothing but conmen and cowards. Follow him; in due time, he will reveal himself as one or the other.”

The door started to open, and Brennan retreated behind the divider that separated the office from the open farm of detectives’ desks. Agent Jun emerged and scanned the room with alert eyes, his face a neutral mask. He looked ready for anything and bored by everything.

Brennan waited until the agent was out of sight before making his own exit, taking the stairs down to the morgue. He opened the door to find Sam getting an earful from Bishop, though it appeared their fight was coming to an end. They were not quite standing apart from one another, and Sam was murmuring something to calm her down. Bishop met Brennan’s eyes as he emerged from the stairwell.

“We can talk about it more tonight,” she told Sam before turning away. “Brennan, what did they say to you?”

“Special Agent Past-His-Prime warned me to stay away from the case, or there’d be trouble.”

“So if you had just done what I told you in the first place—”

“Dammit, Noel. There’s more to this than either you or Pascale realize.”

“Enlighten me,” she said coolly.

“I…can’t really talk about it.”

“You want me to let you keep hunting after this ghost named Kellogg? Fine, be my guest. I’ve done all I can to keep the feds and the chief from having your badge, but you don’t seem to realize the situation I’m in.” Her hands left her hips, and her tone softened. “I appreciate what you did for me, back at the hospital, but now I’m your boss, and I can’t have you getting yourself and civilians in harm’s way.”

“I’m touched by your concern,” Sam said over her shoulder.

“Part of the job description is being ‘in harm’s way,’” Brennan argued. “Generally
in the way
of it getting to someone else.”

“Again, your valor is noted,” Bishop deadpanned. “But hang up your cape and get on board with the team. If you have information, you need to come forward with it, not go all dark knight with your trusty companion.”

“Hey, I am no one’s Robin. Unless you’re up for a little bird-watching tonight,” Sam added, moving within inches of her again.

“I’d probably catch the avian flu, knowing you,” she told him. “Or the STD equivalent. Brennan, the point I’m making here is that maybe Agent Pascale is right. Maybe you need to step back from this one. We have a name now. Your approach was…unorthodox, and I can’t condone you keeping secrets from me, but we’re closer today than ever before. The only reason I haven’t suspended you for disobeying orders is because we need to show unity in a time of crisis, now more than ever.”

“But you’re still taking me off the case?”

“I’m sorry,” Bishop said, and it sounded like she meant it. “You acted against my orders, and I have to show strong leadership if I’m going to keep this promotion.” She strode past him purposefully toward the elevator.

“Lieutenant,” Brennan called. “Answer me one thing. Did our time as partners mean anything to you?”

She looked back at him with a sorrowful expression. “Of course it did.”

“Noel,” Sam called louder. “Did
our
time as partners mean anything to you?” His eyebrows wiggled suggestively as he made air quotes.

Bishop rolled her eyes, got into the elevator, and left the pair of them alone.

“Hey, where did Wally go?”

“He said something about you and I being dry tinder and our newly minted lieutenant being a raging forest fire.” Sam shrugged. “Little man can be downright poetic when he wants to be.”

“So he ran away at the smell of smoke,” Brennan said. “Smart man.”

“Smarter than the two of us.”

“What did Pascale mean earlier when he said those numbers to you?”

Sam started walking toward the elevator, shrugging off the question. “It doesn’t matter. But you and I need to have some real talk. I have a couple questions that need answering.”

“I guess I should have seen this coming.”

“We’ve skirted around it long enough,” Sam said. It was one of the rare moments when he was serious, without a trace of a smile on his face. “How did you know where Bishop was, back when Leviathan took her?”

“Do we have to do this here? Now?”

The elevator doors opened, and Sam turned to looked at him directly. “Yes, we do.”

Brennan sighed. “Let’s take the stairs. The elevator has a camera and mic.” Sam raised his eyebrows but stayed silent. He followed Brennan to the concrete stairs which held a chill of their own, separate from the morgue. This was an empty space, full of chilled city air and dank, damp spots of condensation. It was an uncomfortable place to be in, and it was optimally bereft of surveillance equipment. “You want to know the truth?”

Sam crossed his arms and nodded. “And don’t feed me some line about a confidential informant. You’re brave, but not suicidal. I know you wouldn’t have gone on the word of some complete stranger. Do you have someone on the inside of Leviathan?”

It was an intriguing guess, and Brennan quickly thought of a half dozen lies that could be spun to accommodate that theory. But why would an insider give information that would leave him jobless once Leviathan was dismantled? Maybe he just had a crisis of conscience? Then there was the explanation of how they met, how the information was exchanged without interference—

No
, Brennan thought.
This is Sam. He deserves to hear the truth.

“Greg is…psychic,” he said slowly.

Sam stared at him skeptically. “Your nephew is psychic? Like, a mind-reader?”

Funny you should mention that, I just met one the other day.
He didn’t know the mystery voice in his head, not even her name, but she had saved him when he and Clara would otherwise have died. She was responsible for bringing him and Benjamin together, too, where the truth of his wife was revealed. Brennan had a lot to owe to the unknown woman.

“Well, not all the time,” he said. The words started to flow on their own. “Greg has had visions before, and he told me he could help find Bishop if I gave him a patch, so I—”