by B. J. Graf
Then came the burst of bitter laughter from right outside the door. “Motherfucker,” Nieto called out. “You shot your own father, Detective.”
My father…?
Then Nieto charged through the doorway. His first shot went wide. I pulled the trigger, but my Glock jammed.
Nieto’s second shot punched my left shoulder before I could clear my gun. The impact slammed me back a foot even as my Second Skin tightened into armor. I rolled with the blow, aiming my body as I came out of the back-flip and hurled the jammed Glock at his head. It sliced open his hand as he batted it away.
The flesh on the side of my head burned.
From the floor Maclaren whimpered. “Don’t hurt Eddie.” His gun barrel was raised towards Nieto. But his wildly shaking hands had triggered the laser and hit me instead.
Nieto laughed and raised his gun barrel to my head.
In one fluid motion I unsheathed the katana on the coffee table. The sword moved in my hands with a life of its own.
He never got the chance to fire again.
As the blade connected with his temple, Nieto’s face became a mask of blood. He looked down, stunned, as the top of his head fell into his hands. Nieto crumpled, face down in a pool of blood glistening around his head like a perverse halo.
The whine of sirens grew until they blared loud from just outside the building. My eyes were clouding up. Probably the blood from the laser scalp wound. I wiped them, but the fog didn’t clear. The seared flesh on the side of my head was blistering.
“Jo,” I said. “You okay?”
“It was just a lie, Eddie. A sick lie.” She wiped her mouth and flashed me a faint smile.
“Paramedics are right outside.” I could hear the clatter of ambulance and police personnel scrambling in the hall.
Jo wasn’t my blood relative, but Maclaren…
My mother’s IVF confession at my father’s funeral – how she’d used a sperm donor, some medical student picked from a digital menu. Jo’s offhand comment that Maclaren had earned some extra cash that way back when he was in med school. It all tracked.
Maclaren lay on the floor, barely breathing.
“Nieto wasn’t lying,” I said out loud, “About you being my biological father, was he.” It wasn’t really a question.
I didn’t think he’d heard me, but Maclaren opened his eyes and nodded. “Sorry,” he croaked, his voice a hoarse whisper. “You deserved better.”
Suddenly the counselor’s words to my fifteen-year-old-self echoed back over all the years – how if I didn’t change course, I’d kill my father. Or he’d kill me. Of course, she’d meant Piedmont Senior, not this man in a three-thousand-dollar suit. Maclaren just wanted the golden goose with the cure to Alz X in his blood, not a son. Not me.
“When did you know?” I said. But Maclaren had closed his eyes. His head fell back. He didn’t move again. “When?!” I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. Maclaren’s body hung like a rag doll in my hands. I rose to my feet again.
“Jo?” I said. “We’re safe.”
I turned around. But Jo wasn’t moving.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
My eyes were still hazy, but as I edged closer, I could see a blood rose bloomed, staining the white of her silk shirt.
Nieto’s shot. The one that went wide.
Laying Jo face up on the floor, I ripped open her shirt. I placed my hands over the wound, pressing hard to keep her from bleeding out. A wound to the gut shouldn’t bleed out this fast. But Jo was pregnant. More blood vessels had grown there to feed the baby. Jo looked at me. Her face chalk white, an ocean of blood spread all around us.
I grabbed her hands, but her grip was so weak. “Eddie.” Her hands loosened. And just like that she was gone.
As the paramedics rushed in and pushed me away, I sat there like a stone, helpless, staring at Jo, willing her to open her eyes and breathe again.
All my life I thought I was in control…
My head burned. The haze clouding my vision was growing thicker. Jo’s face, the face I loved so much was fading. A wave of nausea flooded through me as my whole life unwound.
Then there was only darkness.
EPILOGUE / BOOK VI
“Count no man happy until he has passed the portals of this world.”
Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos
“Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood.”
Lu Xun
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
Carl Jung
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
“Cuh,” I tried to speak. My tongue was too thick. My mouth tasted of new pennies. “Where?”
“You’re in the hospital, Eddie. You’ve been out of commission for a month.” Shin’s - the familiar voice was Shin’s. “But you’re gonna make it. You were right all along, Eddie. About everything. Nieto’s death dealt a real blow to the AzteKas. We cleared a lot of cases with this one, partner.” He rattled on about the Devonshire case, Dr. Lee, several gang-related murders, the bombing and Frank. All had been tied to Nieto’s plan to unite his cartel’s illegal drug dealing with his push into the world of legal pharmaceuticals via Maclaren’s company. When I’d refused to give up the Devonshire case, I’d pulled a string and unraveled his whole operation.
“You just concentrate on getting well now.” Shin babbled on, making feeble jokes the way he always did. Jo always laughs at Shin’s jokes, especially the bad ones. She’s kind that way.
Then I remembered. Jo. And bad jokes and clearing cases didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered.
“We have to put him back in hypothermia to reduce inflammation and minimize brain damage,” a woman’s scratchy alto voice on my left said. “Induce coma stat!”
The cold hands on my right grazed my arm. The vein in my forearm began to burn. It was a relief when darkness took me again.
**
How many days or weeks or months had passed when I woke again? Muted voices off to the side were talking, but not to me. I heard Shin’s voice, and somebody else I didn’t recognize. But the place had that same awful antiseptic hospital smell.
There was something covering my eyes. I reached up and touched it. Gauze by the texture. I ripped off the bandage. Searing pain followed, but still I couldn’t see.
“He’s awake,” Shin shouted. Footsteps echoed out of the room. Returning footsteps were doubled with somebody else’s.
I tried to blink but couldn’t.
“Eddie, can you hear me?” Shin’s voice was coming from the right side of my bed.
I reached out. And misjudged the distance. My hand hit his cheek. Shin’s unshaven face was wet. Tears? The movement sent a sharp pain shooting behind my eyes.
“I’m Dr. Kang, Detective,” a new feminine voice on my left said. Her breath smelled of peppermint and garlic. “And you’re lucky to be alive.”
I winced. “What’s wrong with my eyes?” I thrashed around, trying to get up.
“The gun’s laser wiped out the optic nerve and the retina of your right eye. There was also considerable brain swelling,” Dr. Kang said as two pairs of hands restrained me. Her’s and Shin’s I guessed. “The brain is healing, but there was too much tissue damage in your eyes. We’ll try to fit you with animatronic eyes. When your condition improves.”
Too weak to fight, I fell back on the pillow. The hands released their hold.
“You’ve been in hypothermia for seven months while your brain and your two broken ribs healed. We’ll start cosmetic surgery soon.” She rattled on some more, but her words didn’t resonate.
“Jo,” I croaked once the doctor finally left.
The sound of his shuffling feet told me Shin wasn’t sure what to say.
“I know what happened,” I said, wishing I didn’t, wishing it hadn’t. “I remember. Where is she? Her body?”
Shin cleared his throat. “Her brother Craig made the arrangements for the cremation. Jo’s memorial and estate are on hold till you’re better.”
My throat was choked tight. I swallowed. Swallowed again and waited for the burning lump wedged deep in my esophagus to clear.
“So,” I said. “Fake eyes and cosmetic surgery. As bad as that?”
I could tell from the way Shin cracked his knuckles and shifted his weight back and forth on the creaking linoleum he was weighing how much to tell me. “Look at it this way, Eddie,” he said. “Nobody will be giving you grief about being the sexiest cop of the year anymore.”
The next thing I knew I was laughing. Demented laughter indistinguishable from hacking sobs bent me double.
Shin was laughing too. “I’m just glad you’re alive, Eddie.” I heard him blow his nose.
“Shin. If I’d let the Devonshire case alone like everyone said, then maybe…” Jo would still be alive. I couldn’t say the words. Even the thought hurt too much.
“You didn’t cause this, Eddie,” Shin said. “They did. Nieto and Maclaren. They wrapped their greed in a web of lies. But you stopped them. And you have the power to put an end to more than that. With Maclaren dead Genesys is history, but your blood still has the key to ending this Alz X plague. So, you can’t die. You hear me?”
Then Shin’s voice jumped half an octave. “Besides, Eddie.” I heard the honk as he blew his nose again. “You got something to live for.” I heard the sound of fingernails tapping something hard to Shin’s right, like a large hollow plastic box.
“I told the paramedics Jo was six months pregnant. Not four.” Shin’s voice was muffled now. I guessed he was fussing with something inside the box. “Violated protocol to save a life,” he said. “Like you would’ve done. Don’t make me regret it.”
“What?” I jerked upright in the hospital bed.
“You’re a father now.” I could feel Shin’s breath on my face as he leaned in and set a warm bundle on my lap. Very gently Shin placed my hands on top of the soft blanket cocoon.
“The baby survived? I don’t believe it.”
But my gingerly groping hands told me there was an infant inside the blanket on my lap. With great care I wrapped my arms around the bundle and leaned in, breathing deep the new baby smell. Then the tiny creature inside the blanket began to cry. Jo’s child – our child – was alive.
“Your Mom moved into your place, Eddie. She’s been helping out, but your baby girl needs you.” And just like that Shin’s metaphorical tiger rolled over one more time.
“Shin, how the hell am I gonna take care of a baby? I can’t take care of myself.”
“You’ll find a way. We’ll help you till you do.”
“No.” I shook my head and held the crying bundle out to him. But Shin didn’t take it.
So, I tucked the blanket more securely around the baby and pulled her in close to my chest. She stopped crying.
“See? You know what to do,” Shin said.
“Sure,” I said, not making an effort to keep the doubt out of my voice. “What about when she gets old enough to ask the hard questions? About Jo? What do I tell her then?”
“The truth,” Shin answered. “Her mother died to protect you both. You’ll figure out the rest when the time comes. She needs you. And you need her.”
“She deserves better.”
“You’re her father.” Shin said. “That’s good enough. It’s like kendo.” I felt the air move as Shin’s hand sliced through it and tapped my forearm. “The masters see the moves in full. The rest of us just practice till we get there. You got some choices to make about your life now, Eddie. And your kid’s life. Do something positive.”
“Like what?”
“Give your daughter a name,” Shin said. “That’d make for a good start.”
I could feel the sun’s rays on my arm. The sun must be shining outside the window. Maybe Shin was right. My family, my blood, had always been a curse, but now I saw it was a gift too. A gift I could share with others. Starting with my kid. My daughter. Those words were gonna take some getting used to.
“Jocelyn Antigone Piedmont,” I said after a long silence. “For her mother and grandmother.” But I’ll call her Tiggy after the tiger that rolled over.
I felt a tiny hand wrap around one of my fingers.
And with that touch a glimmer of warmth bled back into the world.
THE END
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