Urban Renewal (Urban Elite Book 1) (29 page)

Max

I take a drink of the coffee the nurse brought back and then set it on the floor. I note Lance isn’t eating anything, just sitting on the edge of a folding chair as his leg nervously bounces up and down. So much nervous energy pouring out of this guy.

His brother, Liam, is just the opposite. He’s standing confidently against the wall with the surgical mask he’d been wearing pulled down on his neck. His arms are folded over his broad chest. One leg is bent at the knee, his foot resting flat on the wall like he’s holding it up, and quite effortlessly. Words like elegant and debonair come to mind – the qualities I most enjoyed during our dinner dates. It’s easy to see that Liam is everything Lance wants to be…but isn’t. That would be enough to piss anyone off, really.

Liam being here really helps me relax. I smile reassuringly at him and go for a little levity to break the tension. “Wow, Liam, we’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I say nervously, but he just frowns at me and gives me little more than a curt, formal nod in return. That was odd, to say the least, but then again, I don’t suppose any of us are at our best right now.

Lance watches our exchange with great interest, his furiously tapping foot a blur against the floor. With a deep breath, I open my notebook and try to put him at ease. I need him to let his guard down.

“So, Lance. I think it’s only fair that you be the one to tell your story. The public needs to see you portrayed in truth—
your
truth, and not as some monster. So please…just start at the beginning.” I look up expectantly, my pen poised above the paper as I wait to see what he’ll do next.

He paces the floor restlessly, moving through the space where the patient had rested only moments before. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to measure up. It started as soon as I was old enough to know my mother discarded me. She chose
him
over me.”

“I can’t imagine a mother not wanting her child. I can see how upsetting that would be,” I say quietly.

“Can you, now?” he murmurs with a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I think about that a lot myself. What do you suppose she would have done if I’d truly been an only child? It wasn’t even that she
couldn’t
have kept both of us. She. Just. Didn’t. Want.
Me
.” This last is said with a snarl, his face only inches away from his brother’s. Liam’s expression becomes flat, his bearing utterly still. The malevolence is practically vibrating in the air between these two.

“You know,” Lance drawls as he turns away from Liam and resumes his relentless pacing, “if you ask the right person, you can find out just about anything. A Social Services employee with loose lips gave me a few hints, enough for me to know that my whore of a mother threw me away. So as soon as I was old enough to know how, I looked my dear brother up on the internet. You might say he became my new hobby. I followed him around like any good brother would. Everything he does turns to gold. It’s maddening.

“I couldn’t have his childhood, that bitch took care of that – but I saw no reason not to have the kind of life he was obviously going to have. And I did it honestly! Fair and square.” Lance’s breathing becomes labored as his emotions spike. “The Golden Boy went to medical school, so I went to medical school. I had to scrounge for every bit of funding I could get my hands on, but foster kids can get grants and scholarships and that’s what I did.”

“You must have worked very hard to open doors that would otherwise have been closed to you,” I said calmly.

“I knew you would get it, Max. I could tell right away that I’d found a kindred spirit in you. All those years I walked right past him on the UL campus, ate in the same cafeteria, and bought my books in the same bookstore…and he never knew I existed. I’d change it up a little with hair color or colored contacts, but I loved keeping it real and confusing the hell out of everyone he knew. It was fun to just…be him. I’d fuck up his car and while he arranged for a tow, I’d attend his class.”

Liam pushed away from the wall, his eyes big as saucers, his jaw clenched tight as his brother’s words registered. Lance pulled up a chair and sat down. He leaned back, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee, beaming at his brother as he reminisced, “Hell, this one time, I even tricked one of his girlfriends. What was her name, Liam? Hmm? Jamie. That’s right, yeah, Jamie.” He pauses as Liam frowns, bracing for God knows what.

“Remember the Valentine’s Dance with Jamie, Liam? Max, listen carefully, this is such a sweet story. Liam and Jamie, they were engaged, you see.” He smirks as Liam’s face contorts with rage, fists clenched at his sides. “You were running late because, well, you just couldn’t find your car keys
anywhere
. I fucked her, Liam. Fucked her so good. She never knew I wasn’t the Golden Boy, just kept wondering why it was so much bigger, so much better than it had ever been before. I only wished I could have been there when you showed up and she was still in bed, right where I left her, covered in my spunk. Yeah, she never could quite explain that, could she? I mean, after all, as far as she was concerned you had just been there, so…”

“You motherfucker!” Liam hisses, color high on his cheeks.

“Oh, dear, did someone lose his happily ever after that night? Tsk,” Lance coos with glee.

Liam takes a menacing step forward and I reach out and place my hand on his arm. “Hey. Liam, come on, my friend. It’s like you always say, just gotta focus on the here and now, right?”

Liam pivots toward me and looks at me like I’m bat shit crazy. He glares down at my hand and I remove it quickly. I know when to leave well enough alone.

Lance grins as he watches the two of us, but his face is grim as he continues, “I think the clincher was when I did all that work and didn’t get accepted for my residency because of ‘emotional issues’ from their asinine psychological testing. Just another chance to show me how I didn’t measure up. It’s like society has a hidden agenda to make certain that I fail and he succeeds. To this day, it fucking pisses me off that nobody sees that I’m just as good as he is!”

As Lance catches his breath, I think about how to word my next question. I want to not only keep him talking, I want all of us to get out of here alive. Where did he cut up all the bodies? Maybe an abandoned house, or one of the abandoned warehouses down on the river.

“I’ve been wondering about something, Lance, and maybe you can help me out here. So I understand you’re homeless. That must have presented you with a real dilemma. Where did you perform your, er, surgeries?”

“Deserted house in the historical district. I found it one night when I was walking the streets freezing my ass off,” he says as he glares at Liam. Turning his attention back to me, he continues, “It was perfect, with a stone wall to keep nosy neighbors away. Hell, it even has electricity with a freezer to store things. My very own private practice, you might say. So you know about my work – but do
they
know? Do the cops know I trained to be a doctor?” he asks anxiously. 

“Lance, they’re very impressed with all you’ve accomplished – they’re so impressed that they would very much like to study you. Would you be willing to let them learn from you and your experiences, Lance?”

I hear Liam blow out his breath on a harsh exhale, as if he finds the idea exasperating. And that’s all Lance needs to jump up in anger and begin waving the gun around as he bellows, “You think you’re better than me, you always have! She died because of
you
! Because she chose
you
! All of those other women died because of
you
. But you know what? Maybe I’ve been killing the wrong people.”

My heart pounds in my ears as he makes a show of loading a bullet in the chamber of the gun. Before I have time to think about it, I intervene on Liam’s behalf.

“Forget about him, Lance, he’s an egotistical bastard--”

Lance ignores me as he keeps speaking, his gaze fixed on me as he waves his gun in Liam’s direction. “He’s as fucked up as I am, you know. Ask him about the unwilling houseguest he’s been keeping in the basement of his mansion for six months now.” He starts laughing hysterically, waving the gun around and repeating, “Ask him! Just ask him!”

Wow, talk about shock and awe. Even though he’s obviously trying to distract me by talking nonsense about his brother, I look in Liam’s direction to try and get a read on him. He’s leaning against the wall again, but this time his eyes are closed, his lips twisted into a grimace as he slowly shakes his head, seemingly fed up with his long lost brother’s ranting and raving.

I need to get things back on track, I can’t let Lance control the course of events here. In the voice I usually reserve for small children, I murmur, “This interview is about you, Lance. Please continue.”

Jack

Watching the monitor is making me very antsy and even though Max is doing great at deflecting this guy’s anger, he’s scaring the shit out of me. This guy is unstable and his brother’s presence in the room isn’t helping. I want Max walking out of there alive. Even though these two didn’t grow up together, the sibling rivalry runs deep.

I look up as Agents Turner and Murphy walk in. Turner wastes no time before getting right to the point.

“We’re going to have to take this guy down, Jack, he’s only going to get angrier with Liam in there. I don’t want your employee getting in the crossfire. We’ve got SWAT set up in that wing of the hospital and it’s been evacuated. I think we can go in with tear gas and take him out while he’s disoriented. Things are deteriorating fast in there. We lost audio a few minutes ago but he’s clearly behaving erratically. Taking him out is a better option than leaving her in there.”

I don’t like the idea, but there really isn’t any other way to get her out alive. I wish I had sent the kid in there armed but I’d suspected he’d frisk her when she went in and I didn’t want to take any chances. “Do what you have to, Agent.”