Vengeance (17 page)

"What did you do?" I dabbed at the side wound gingerly.

I bit him
. He stepped forward, limping as he favored his left rear leg.

"Are you okay?"

He kicked me. I'll be fine. We should get home. It's getting cold.

I was starting to feel it. March in Minnesota was a roller-coaster month, snow alternating with warm summery days. Tonight felt like late winter. I rolled over onto all fours then used the side of the shelter to pull myself up. I almost passed out from the nausea but managed to stay upright. "Do you need me to help you?" I asked dizzily as Cerberus shuffled ahead of me on the path.

I'll be fine. I'm just a bit bruised
.

I knew he was lying, but I was too exhausted to care. He started to trot ahead of me with a rolling, awkward gait.
I'm sorry about what happened. You shouldn't have found out this way
.

"I'm sorry, too." I saved my breath for walking, which occupied all my strength. I trudged along the path, emerging onto the street between Mrs. Taylor's house and Martha Neilson's garage. I paused in the darkness, aching in every bone and so cold I was sure I'd never be warm again. I skirted the streetlights, knowing that either Edna or Wayne Taylor were probably sitting next to the window, watching the evening news and the street with equal attention. I didn't want them to see my blood-stained shirt.

I ran that gauntlet without a nosy neighbor accosting me. As my house came into view, Cerberus said,
Someone is there
.

A car sat in the driveway. I couldn't face any more surprises in my life that night. All I wanted to do was get quietly drunk, pass out and put this whole day behind me. "I'll get rid of whoever it is." As I neared, the driver's door opened and a tall man stepped out.

Cerberus rushed ahead, teeth bared.
Who are you? Get back. We don't want you here
. He stopped a few feet away from the man, crouched low and ready to spring.

"Cerberus, be careful." I limped up the drive as I evaluated my visitor. He had curly dark gray hair cut short, but still unruly. The motion light illuminated his broad features as he turned to look at Cerberus. They were the same features I saw in the portrait in the Delacroix Labs conference room. But tonight David Delacroix wasn't smiling and relaxed. His features were pale and pinched, his face haggard. The man in front of me was older than the man in the portrait, but he was still recognizable. This was Lucinda's father.

"I thought you were going to call." I stopped a few feet away, out of the circle cast by the garage's motion light.

"And I thought you said Lucinda would be here." He glanced at the house then back to me. "I was hoping..."

"Hoping to see your daughter?" Even as I spoke, I wondered if Delacroix knew about Lucinda's past life. Was he aware of it? Then a thought struck me. Did my parents know? Faces blurred in my memory--my mother, Judy, who was a genetic engineer in the future; my mother, Sarah, who was a squire's wife in the past. I shook my head, willing the thoughts away until I had time to sort it out, if it could be sorted.

"I don't know what I was hoping for," Delacroix said. "But I knew we had to talk about Meyer. It's important that you know some things."

"Inside." I remembered Meyer's comment about the surveillance bugs. I tapped the code to open the garage door. As we entered, I took my headpiece from its hook near the steps then entered the necessary sequence to deactivate the house alarms and allow Delacroix access as a guest. I don't know if he even noticed. He appeared distracted and anxious, unaware of his surroundings.

I opened the door to the kitchen with the remote and Cerberus raced ahead.
I'll check it out
, he called back as he disappeared into the house.

"My watchdog," I muttered. I turned on the minimum number of lights with a whispered command and glanced at Delacroix, who followed me into the kitchen. "A glass of wine? Water?"

He looked around the room, his gaze bouncing from the counter to the cabinets then back to the counter. He picked up
The Velveteen Rabbit
. "This was Lucinda's favorite book." His voice was soft with memory. "Cara, of course, always wanted the newest toy, giving Lucinda all her hand-me-downs. Cinda tried so hard to make all those stuffed animals and old dolls real. She kept them long after they were worn out. That's so like her." He set the book down then faced me. "Someone hired you to kill Lucinda. We need to talk about that."

"I'm sure we do. But I also need a drink." I poured a healthy splash of Maker's Mark into a cut-glass tumbler and held up the bottle. He nodded and I did the same for him then we went into the living room.

Cerberus thundered down the back steps, paused in the kitchen to sniff at his bowl, then bounded into the room behind us.
All clear
. He went to the far window and jumped up on the window seat.
Pity we had to throw my cushion out. We should get me another one.
His tongue lolled as he scanned the outside world.
Killer Bambi alert. They're in the woods, a whole herd of them. Shall I chase them away?

I thought you were wounded
. I touched a button on the headset to acknowledge the alarm tone buzzing in my ear then settled in my favorite chair.
Thanks for the update.

It's my job to watch. Maybe we have a cushion lying around somewhere I could use?

I rolled my eyes. His hurt leg apparently wasn't giving him any problems. The dog's energy was exhausting.
I'll look later
. I gestured to the leather couch. "Have a seat."

Delacroix sat down but almost spilled his liquor when he finally saw me in the brighter light of the room. "Are you injured? What happened?"

I glanced down at the jagged tears in my sweatshirt and the blood-soaked fabric, which was a stark contrast to the pale gray. "A scratch."

"That looks like more than a scratch."

I sipped the liquor, the burning warmth sliding down my throat. "I saw Meyer tonight. We had a discussion."

Delacroix leaned forward, cradling his glass in his hands. His curly gray hair had strands of black in it. In this light, I saw Lucinda's resemblance to him in the alert gray eyes and the strong line of his jaw. She had that same jaw, especially when she was angry about something. "I was afraid of that. I wanted to warn you about him." He glanced at Cerberus, who had abandoned the window seat and now lay in front of the fireplace, noisily chewing one of the bones I bought him at the pet store. Small bits of rawhide pieces were dribbling onto the braided rug in front of the custom-made iron grate depicting a scene from Greek mythology. Delacroix swung his head to look at me, his eyes haunted. "He infected you, didn't he?"

I swirled the amber liquid in my glass. "What do you know about that?"

"Everything. I found his notes. We were business partners for years. When I confronted him, he told me the truth."

"And you believed him?"

"Not at first." Delacroix took a sip of his whiskey, choking slightly. "I thought he was crazy. I figured it was some kind of fantasy. Then I read his notes and I started to believe him."

Years of caution made me hide the truth. "You can't always believe what you read," I said, sipping my whiskey.

"Really?" His hand was unsteady as he raised his glass. "His notes were very convincing."

I smiled bitterly. "Everything about Robert Meyer is convincing."

Delacroix nodded wearily. "That's why I came to you. You were mentioned in his notes. I knew it couldn't be coincidence when you met Lucinda. Meyer arranged it somehow, I'm sure of it."

I started to protest this, but he didn't let me speak.

"You know about my so-called death? I can't come out of hiding. It's...complicated, but it was essential that I fake my death when I did. But now I see Cinda and I can't help her. I did the best I could. I contacted Kat."

My hand paused as I raised my drink. "Your granddaughter? Kathryn Delacroix? What about her?"

He took a long swallow of whiskey, effectively hiding the expression on his face. "Kat has contacts in the government. I asked her to, well, to help. To do some research."

"What kind of contacts?" Did he know about Parker? Did he know that Kat was the one who supposedly took out a contract on Lucinda?

"I can't really say. It's private, between her and me. I really can't talk about it." He faced me then, his gray eyes troubled. "I'm not sure it will be enough. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I'm watching Cara and her games, watching what Meyer is doing--you know why he wants to buy the lab, don't you?"

I shook my head. "I've been puzzling over that. He said he needed the contacts he could get in the lab. But the lab doesn't do distribution or manufacture. So what does he want?"

"It's not Meyer. It's the government."

"What?"

"He's being funded, to hide what he's doing." Delacroix took another unsteady sip. The glass tilted and a drop of golden fluid splashed on the wood floor.

"Why would they need a lab? They've got labs all over the country."

"No, government labs are under scrutiny."

After years of seeing the political system at work, I wasn't too surprised. "I can believe almost anything of the United States government, but--"

He held up a hand. "I didn't say the United States government."

Cerberus looked up from his bone.
That makes sense
.

He was right. It made a horrible, terrible sense. If Meyer, a private citizen, could buy into a lab without taking the company public, he could do just about anything he wanted and not have to answer to anyone. All he would have to do was fill out a few forms for the EPA for the disposal of hazardous materials. No one was going to monitor what he did as long as he didn't bring anything to market.

It was a perfect setup. "But what's in it for Meyer? What does he get out of it?"

Delacroix shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what drives the man. But I can tell you right now, it has nothing to do with humanity."

Amen to that
, Cerberus said as his powerful jaws crushed the bone.

If Meyer acts today, can his actions change the future? Or has it already changed and that's why we're here?
I sipped my drink to cover the private conversation with Cerberus
. I don't understand. I've never understood how this time travel thing works.

Cerberus stood up and paced out of the room to his water dish.
Suffice it to say, someone higher up than you has it well in hand.

"I'm not exactly sure what Meyer is developing. I think it's a form of Spanish flu. And I think he's working on the antidote for the strain he's developing. You know what that means," Delacroix said.

This confirmed Meyer's words. If he unleashed a variety of Spanish flu the effect would be devastating. The world wasn't prepared for another pandemic. The outbreak in 1918 had been somewhat contained because there was relatively little travel between countries. In today's world of air travel and internationalization, a virus would spread in a matter of hours.

I spoke my thoughts out loud. "If he creates a disease and its cure, then he gets to choose who lives and dies. And that might be enough to control the outcome of the spread of the disease." This was all starting to add up. "Would he do that?"

Delacroix and Cerberus spoke simultaneously.

Of course
.

"Of course he would."

"Can he buy enough shares in the company to control research?"

"He can if Lucinda dies." Delacroix stood, setting his glass with a clatter on the handmade wooden end table. He paced to the windows and stared out into the blackness. The tense set of his shoulders in the blue cashmere sweater showed me how upset he truly was.

"How does that work? She only has thirty percent of the company."

"My son, Aaron, and my daughters, Cara and Cinda, wrote their wills so the stock stayed in the family. Aaron's share went to his children, Kat and Jeff. Lucinda's shares go to any children of Cara and Aaron. Cara has the same provision. Since neither she nor Cinda have children, they've amended their wills so Cinda's shares go to Kat and Cara's shares go to Jeff."

I considered the various permutations. "That still doesn't give Meyer the shares he needs."

"It does if Cinda dies and her thirty percent goes to Kat. Half of Kat's shares will then be twenty-two point five percent. I think Cara will give Meyer all her shares. So if Meyer gets half of Kat's shares plus Cara's, that gives him fifty-five point five percent of the company." Delacroix's shoulders sagged and he once again looked like a middle-aged, grieving man. "I suspect he could get John's shares too, if he wanted." Delacroix jammed his hands into his jeans pockets. "John's in trouble financially. He took money from the company and he needs to start paying it back or he'll be in trouble. Meyer found out about it. It wouldn't surprise me to find he's blackmailing poor John."