Roman pulled Russ’s gun from his coat pocket; Brina realized he must have had it all along. But Roman didn’t point it at Mathew; instead, he pointed it to the floor and placed a finger over his lips. Brina glanced down to where Roman was looking and saw a pair of legs splayed on the tile. It had to be Edward.
Mathew backed out of the freezer, pulling none other than Mathew. Ridiculous, she thought. This was a mess beyond ridiculous.
Roman pointed the gun now at Mathew. “Be still.”
Mathew’s shoulders relaxed, and his voice had the same smile as earlier. “I’m glad you’re finally here. We need to talk about our future.” He slouched the body by the counter and turned. “I see everyone’s here.”
“She’s not part of this, Mathew. I won’t let you hurt her,” Roman said.
“Well, isn’t that noble of you—and you’re all of four, is it?” Mathew scoffed. “Just wait until you’re forty and you’ll have a different opinion. She’s worked with them from the start. Ask her.”
Doubt crossed Roman’s face as he looked to her. Brina shook her head no. “You’re a liar,” he said. “You’ll say anything.”
Brina walked from the steps to Roman, measuring each tile with a heartbeat. “Your lies aren’t going to work, no more than his did.” She stared pointedly at Mathew Roman. To her right, Edward moaned, his hand dropping from his chest to the floor. Brina gave him just the briefest of glances; a syringe bobbed from his throat with each breath, and blood trickled down the starched front of his shirt. She had no idea what was in the needle, but she was certain Edward would be dead shortly.
“Don’t feel sorry for him. He really chose to go this way. He didn’t want to suffer,” Mathew said.
“It’s true,” Roman said. “He gave him a choice. He could die in the refrigerator, or he could simply go to sleep. Edward didn’t want to be in the refrigerator.”
The omission as to whether Edward actually verbalized a choice wasn’t lost on her, and the implied threat wasn’t lost, either. She looked at Roman, his back to her and all his resolve seeming to fade as he faced a version of himself.
“If you kill me, you’ll feel it,” said Mathew as he squatted to Roman’s level. “You’ll suffer every bit, and the pain will taint you the rest of your life. Trust me, I know.” Mathew looked up at her. “I felt every one that died.”
“What about the one in the attic?” she asked. Every time Mathew had spoken about the others, it was that pink gelatinous face that she saw. Her brain drew threads from one bit of the puzzle to another: the files, the fetus pressed into the jar, and the twisted turn that drew her and Russ into the mix.
Mathew smiled, and it was a genuine, amused smile that he directed to Edward. “He felt that one.”
“Edward?”
“He had one of his own, but Mathew shut it down.” Mathew pointed from one suspect to the other, one dead and one another almost there.
Somewhere, in the back of her head, the answer that tied it all together eluded her.
“That’s because you’re not capable of imagining what happened,” said Roman. “Edward killed Mathew, and Mathew killed Edward and the park ranger, and he plans to kill you and Russ.”
“And the bird ate the fly, and the cat ate the bird, and so on,” contributed Mathew. “And eventually I get what I want. Bless them, that’s how they made me.”
“Roman?” Brina placed her hands on the counter, trying to make contact with anything that was solid and unmoving.
He turned his four-year-old face to her, concern wrinkling his forehead. “I’m not the monster; I didn’t kill anyone.”
Guessing he could read her almost as clearly as he could Mathew, she fought to control the anxiety working up from the soles of her feet.
“I know you’re not a monster, Roman.” She made eye contact, hoping he got her message clearly. “I know what you’re capable of, and I love you no matter what.” Roman touched her face in what was becoming a familiar exchange.
“Roman, don’t you think it’s time to close this Popsicle stand?” Mathew had propped himself against the refrigerator door with his arms crossed, as though the entire exchange had been solely for his entertainment.
Roman turned, his hand in his pocket, “I think you’re right.” The gun was faster than Mathew, catching him in the shoulder and sending him backward across the corrugated cardboard boxes and metal shelves inside the refrigerator. Brina leapt past Roman and slammed the door shut. He shoved the metal bar through the handles just as Mathew landed his first assault on the door.
“Let’s get out of here!” she yelled, giving Roman a shove towards the door. He clutched her sleeve and pulled her close, planting a kiss on her lips.
“You would’ve loved me even if I let him kill you. I’ll never let that happen.” He ran the flight of steps, footsteps echoing on the floor above.
Edward flipped his hand again; apparently it was the only part of his body under his control. Brina knelt beside him and pulled the needle from his neck. Mathew was beginning to raise a louder fuss as he recovered from Roman’s betrayal.
She leaned in to make sure Edward heard her. “If I could, you’d be in the refrigerator, too, so you could die together.” She started to say more, but instead shook her head in disgust. “You’re not worth it.”
Edward’s eyes darted in panic.
She ran to the top of the stairs, where she punched in the code and watched the lab disappear behind a knotted pine panel.
Roman was waiting for her in the kitchen, his shroud of innocence firmly in place. She wasn’t surprised at what Mathew and Edward had imagined, only at how far their curiosity had driven them.
Chapter 42
Edward stared out from his handicapped vantage point. The lights remained on after he heard the panel shut, leaving him a view of bare desk legs and the lab ceiling. Mathew switched from banging on the refrigerator door to clanking as he tried to figure another way out.
The tingling in Edward’s arm moved up into his shoulder until the motion finally returned. The gunshot had let blood seep with morbid slowness into his lungs, while the needle pumped his heart harder, keeping him conscious. It occurred to him that Mathew’s original intent may have been to prolong his agony.
Edward reached out for the leg of his desk and pulled. His body crashed to the side, but he was closer. His eyes trailed up to the refrigerator handles. He wanted an even playing field. If he was going to die, so would they. Mathew would self-destruct soon enough, but Brina and Russ? What would they do if they made it out? Edward wasn’t concerned with his reputation; what difference would it make to anyone that he engineered human DNA? He wouldn’t be around for any parade, that was for sure. He couldn’t even spend Mathew’s money. He would let them die, simply because that’s what they intended to do to him.
As Edward’s mind ran circles around his anger, each clawed grasp drew him closer to the heavy metal doors, which vibrated with Mathew’s determination to escape. The floor left a ridge of dust on his clothes, and bits of dirt dug into his hands like miniature boulders. He reached; the handle was still too far away. Just inches.
Edward drew himself up against the cold insulated door, the exertion thinning his vision to a hazy dusk. His hand faltered at the bar, rattling it through the handles.
Mathew heard the noise and stopped his own excavation. “Roman?” he yelled, his voice hopeful. “Let me out!” He pounded another assault, which sent the bar clattering to the floor, and Mathew burst from the refrigerator, propelling Edward face-down onto the tile.
Hands grabbed the back of his head, as pain shot out from his neck, connecting with his eyes and rattling his teeth. Mathew’s breath caressed his ear in an uneven rhythm.
“Kill them,” whispered Edward.
The hands wrapped around Edward’s head more firmly and twisted. As the searing pain raced from his skull to his spine, he saw Mathew’s eyes, flat like bored observer of a play.
Chapter 43
Brina ha
uled the suitcase over to the Jeep and wedged it into the back. The sky was beginning to brighten as clouds moved off to reveal stars and a waxing moon.
Roman sat beside Russ on the garage floor, the blankets wrapped around their bodies. Russ needed a doctor—now. She pulled the Jeep forward and angled it so they had a straight shot past the truck, then hopped out and went to them.
Russ was no longer shivering, but she worried that instead of that being a good sign, he was going deeper into shock.
“Come on, it’s time to go.”
“Is it for real this time?” asked Roman. For all his ability, his experience fell short of happy endings.
“Yes, this time we’re really leaving. You can count on it,” she answered.
They helped Russ to the Jeep and pulled the seat belt across his chest to hold him in. Roman settled between the seat back and the suitcase. “How far are we going?”
“I don’t know yet.” Her mind mapped the roadways below, looking for the nearest route to the hospital. After that, she didn’t have a plan. She put the Jeep in gear and gunned the engine. It lurched past the truck, gaining speed in the shoveled clearing. Once it landed in the snow, the ice compacted to a slippery path downward.
The wheel jerked in her hands as the tires slid sideways and then back again, like a carnival ride from hell. The headlights bounced across the unbroken snow toward the tunnel of branches that lined the drive, startling a deer that stared back with wide red eyes. He broke and ran for cover. Brina checked her speed and pumped the brake. The incline was steeper than it looked, and she knew that even though she couldn’t see it, the land dropped to the left. The tire snagged something under the snow, jerking it to a halt. She glanced back at Roman’s worried face; as she was about to reassure him, she registered the shadow racing across the clear plastic Jeep window.
“No!” The warning stuck in her throat before she could tell Roman what was wrong.
The attack came fast, the knife slashing through the plastic in frenzied jabs. Roman screamed and jumped the seat in a mad scramble as his legs kicked the air. He landed on Russ and slid to the floor by his feet.
“Make it go! Brina!” He smacked a hand against her thigh.
Startled to action, she floored the gas. Snow spun out behind then and canted the Jeep to the right.
Mathew moved to the side and wrenched open the door. Brina wrestled with his hands, which flew at her, grabbing her hair, arms, and clothes all at once. He lifted her from the seat and laid her in the snow. Mathew blocked her view of everything else, and the expression she read in his eyes froze her like the deer she’d startled.
He pulled the knife free of the slivered plastic, dropped to his knees, and landed on all fours with a smile. His hand ran up her leg as he crawled over her body.
Brina whimpered, terrified. It was over. She had failed again.
Mathew ran his hand under her coat. “If we only had more time,” he said, wistfully. The knife inched up her belly, the shape of its blade outlined on her flesh.
“Don’t hurt me. Please.” A convulsion ran through her, and she could tell that pleased Mathew by how he pressed tighter against her. He rose and looked down.
“Though I’m sad to leave you, you’re not part of the plan.” He drew his arm back, and in her line of sight the knife connected the two points of the moon.
She screamed as the sound of a gunshot carried down the mountain.
Mathew’s face was surprised as he fell on her, the knife landing point down in the snow, and drops of blood sprayed out across her face. Still screaming, she rolled him off.
The gun in Roman’s hand wavered in her direction, and then lowered.
Chapter 44
Brina finished signing the card and handed it to Roman. He scratched out a proper R and then the rest of the letters identical to his writing primer, and then slid it back.
“Your son is adorable. How old is he?” Connie, a local volunteer from the university medical program, tucked the card between two flower stalks and set the arrangement on her cart.
Brina smiled. “He’s about to turn five, but going on twenty. Kids are such know-it-alls these days.”
“Don’t I know it? I have two younger brothers at home. Are you sure you don’t want to take these in yourself? It’s almost visiting hours.”
She looked around the lobby at the collection of families pacing near the vending machines and chatting. “No, I’m sure. Just let him know we were here.”
Two men in dark, well-stitched suits entered the automatic doors, stopping to look around. The number one man’s eye twitched as he took inventory, sizing up the lobby’s occupants. Brina stretched a cap over Roman’s head and pulled out his gloves. “Let’s go, honey. Daylight’s burning.”
Roman garnered a look from the number two guy. He flashed a smile that reached his eyes and hopped the last few steps to the door.
The men rejoined their walk to the front desk and flashed their wallets. Brina watched them confer with Connie. By the time she saw Connie’s hand point their way, she was already pulling past the entrance in the rented Explorer. She recognized the second man. It was like looking at Edward from a twenty-year-old photograph.
Brina had left Russ with two valuable tools. The first was a bodyguard, courtesy of Mathew’s bank account; the second was the note. Eventually, it would lead them all back to the same place.
The End
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