Léo should have fought harder, denied his father this prize. When had that ever worked?
The agent nudged Heidi. She glanced at her clipboard of questions, gaze lost in time and space.
He’d throw her a bone. Give them a truth they couldn’t prove.
“Am I saying John killed my parents? Hell yes he did, and I thanked him for it. I didn’t know at the time that this was who he was. What he did. I guess he’d never helped a teenager before, though. He adopted me and that was that.”
“There were people before you?”
“Yes, though as I understand it, they never knew who their savior was.”
“W-what about later? T-the other people?”
“Just because John adopted me didn’t stop him being who he was. I think I changed him, just as he changed me. Back then he was well meaning, but he didn’t know how to stop himself. What to do to cover it up. That’s where I came in. After a brief period of shock we figured out a system. He’d help someone get out from under their abusive family, friend, whatever. Then I’d make the body vanish.”
“I’m sorry.” Heidi reached forward and flipped the switch, descending him into silence. She pressed her hand to her chest and blew out a breath.
It was a lot to take in.
The man and woman on either side of her leaned in, no doubt speaking encouraging, soothing words.
Léo leaned forward and tapped his knuckle on the wall. They didn’t have the luxury of time.
The male agent flipped the microphone back on.
Heidi cleared her throat and leaned forward, her voice clearer.
“When did it change? When did-did you turn it into a business?”
“What John did, it drew attention. Someone offered to pay him, I told him to take it. Making bodies disappear is expensive, and we needed the money. I created a monster.” Léo shrugged. If he could go back and keep them the two man operation, he would. But that was unrealistic. Eventually it was going to happen.
“Where is he now?”
“Last I saw him? Dayus Pharmacy basement apartment. He won’t be there now though. We own it through one of our subsidiary accounts.”
“How does all this work? The labs? The business? How do you sleep at night?”
“On Egyptian cotton sheets like a baby. There’s a lot of bad people in the world. The ones who want to do business with us? They’re generally the worst. John views what we do as a public service, weeding out the bad guys.”
“And Laranya?”
“An unfortunate casualty in all of this. She was like you. Unwilling and uninterested in her savior. If you ask me, she was a spoiled child who married too young. She wasn’t a victim. By the time our opportunity in India opened, she’d grown up. I respect the lengths she went to for her family, though it’s because of her that we’re even in this mess.”
Heidi didn’t answer. He knew the details though.
“From time to time John remembers he’s the boss and makes decisions. The India lab was his doing. I got tasked with the unfortunate responsibility of making sure events rolled out how John wanted. I didn’t want to have a lab there. I didn’t think Sorkin was a good business partner. And I sure as hell didn’t think kidnapping would serve our end goal. But, I live to serve.”
“The attack. What about the attack you were planning?” Agent Brooks asked.
“She asks the questions.” Léo pointed at Heidi.
“What he asked.” Her voice was dry, probably from gaping at him.
“Last I heard, there was no job.” Léo shrugged. That was the truth. There’d never been an East Coast job, just John’s fanciful plans.
“What is John planning to do?” Brooks asked again.
Heidi nodded at Brooks.
Léo would cut her some slack. This time.
“You have to understand, John is my father, and I love him, but I’m not delusional like they are. He’s not well. He’s not always right. And...I’d be willing to bet that he intends to spread a contagion somewhere he feels it will make an impact. Create a statement. Kill—thousands.”
“Oh, God,” Heidi muttered.
“Are you going to tell us how to stop him then?”
“She asks the questions.” Léo pointed at Heidi. “When you get me, my deal I’ll see if I remember anything else. No paper, no details.”
Léo could afford to wait a little while at least.
SATURDAY. ATLANTA, Georgia.
John frowned at the empty seat beside him. It wasn’t like Léo to fail to micromanage everything. Where was he with his to do lists and color coordinating calendars? He might not have known there wasn’t a client, but that shouldn’t stop him from being over prepared.
Had John missed something?
This was the part about aging he didn’t like. Used to, he could juggle everything, he knew how to organize his life and shuffle it around. Sure, he’d had some close calls along the way, but he’d managed. Then Léo had come into his life and all John had to do was tell him what he wanted and when.
In many ways, it wasn’t John who was Léo’s keeper. It was the other way around. John had never done well with boundaries, so he’d pushed. Léo pushed back. Ultimately, John wasn’t proud of what he’d done, going around Léo’s back but he needed the freedom. He needed the thrill. Which was why, when an opportunity presented itself, he’d made Julie his under the table assistant to help him with things he couldn’t tell Léo about. His passion projects.
Ever since they enlarged their operation, Léo had sucked all the fun out of it.
“Here’s everything, sir.” Julie handed a folder back to John.
He took it, frowning at the colored tabs.
This was Léo’s work, but his son wasn’t here. What was Julie not telling him?
John stared at the driver’s profile.
C-something. He was Léo’s assistant, driver, friend. If he was here, then what was Léo doing?
“I want some answers.” John laid the folder on the seat beside him.
“About what, sir?” Julie twisted to face him.
“Where is my son?”
“I’m right here, sir,” the driver said.
That wasn’t what he meant and they damn well knew it.
He hated these people calling him father and dad. The only person he’d ever made that commitment to was Léo. John swallowed his irritation.
“Where is Léo?” he asked.
Julie glanced at the driver then back to John.
Her throat flexed, the blood pumping faster.
She was nervous. Scared? Julie was a trained sniper and had done three tours of duty. Enlisting had likely saved her from a grandfather who’d invested ten years of her life into routine torture before John put an end to that. And she was scared now? Of what?
“Léo...he left.” Julie glanced at the floor. “I didn’t want to tell you. I know how much he meant to you.”
She was lying. Not about Léo being gone, but the rest. He hadn’t left on his own. Léo wouldn’t do that, not after all these years. So where was he? What were the events that led to this?
“Where did Léo go? Why didn’t he say anything to me?” John was curious where this would go, what they would tell him.
The driver and Julie glanced at each other.
Crane. His name was Crane, like the bird. He’d been brought to this country as a child worker, grew up under someone else’s thumb until their paths happened to cross. It was Léo’s doing, but John needed to help. He was their patron saint, the forgotten and abused, the ones hiding their brokenness, begging for freedom.
Their fear was palpable.
The only reason they’d need fear him was if they’d done something.
“Someone needs to tell me what’s going on, right now.” John folded his hands in his lap and picked at the side of his watch. Léo had given him the item as a gift because plans didn’t always go as they should and everyone needed a backup.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror.
“He wanted to stop your work. He wanted to take over what we’re doing because you were too unstable to continue to lead,” Crane said.
“We told him to leave, or we’d kill him for trying to stop your work.” Julie watched him in the vanity mirror. She wouldn’t even face him.
Léo was pragmatic. He’d have looked at Julie and Crane and seen no way of surviving a physical altercation. Léo would do the sensible thing and leave. He’d run. It wasn’t what Léo would want to do, but that was what Léo did. He made the hard calls so John wouldn’t have to. And these two leeches wanted to take his son away from him. The only person John had ever truly called his own, who’d known and loved all parts of him.
“You decided it was okay to kill my son? Léo?” John spoke softly, the rage simmering in his veins.
“We didn’t kill him,” Julie said in a rush.
“He chose to leave because we were right,” Crane said.
“You were wrong,” John snarled.
He pulled the tab on his watch, the coil of wire inside of it releasing. Before Julie could react, John looped the wire over her head, around her throat and hauled back, putting his weight into it.
He might have freed these people from the people who set out to hurt them, break them, but that didn’t give them license to do the same to others. Especially not Léo. John would burn the world to the core for his son.
“What are you doing? Stop!” Crane pulled the vehicle into the loading bay of some building and turned, staring in horror at Julie’s slack body.
It took close to three minutes to kill someone from strangulation. She was just passed out though her wind pipe could be crushed for all he knew.
“You are alive because I allow it, understand?” John stared into the wide, fearful eyes of his son’s friend—former friend—and promised himself that someday, this man would die for this betrayal.
John let go of the end of the wire. His watch slowly wound the line back in.
He got out of the SUV and closed the door.
To hell with the job, he needed to find Léo and get him back here. Didn’t these people realize that without Léo none of this would be possible?
John began walking, but he didn’t get far.
A restaurant’s flat screen TV caught his attention, the scene playing out one of his worst nightmares.
Léo was on the ground, Adam Novak had him restrained, and standing in the background was Heidi, looking on while his son was roughed up by her lousy excuse for a husband. This whole time, he’d been trying to do what was best for her, and this was how she repaid him? By siding with the enemy? The man who hurt her time and time again?
John was going to get Léo back and make Heidi sorry she’d ever thought to bite the hand that only wanted to free her.
This was revenge.
He pulled his phone out and kept walking. He had two cards left to play, Williams and Cindy. John was going to get Léo back, or he’d take everyone down with him.
15.
SATURDAY. CDC, ATLANTA, Georgia.
Adam opened the passenger door and held it for Heidi.
She stood there staring at him, her head tilted to the side, lips tightly pressed together.
He’d almost had her safe and home, a whole country away from this bullshit. Now, they were smack dab in the middle all over again.
“I get that you’re upset, but please—listen to what I’m saying for a moment?” She didn’t budge from where she stood.
“Get in. Please?” He gestured at the waiting SUV. Their FBI baby-sitters would be there any moment to return them to the damn safe house where they’d do nothing but cool their heels.
“If I can help, we need to stay in Atlanta.” Heidi slid into the back seat of the truck
Adam climbed in next to her. The others were already gone since there’d been nothing for them to do all day. Heidi turned toward him and grasped his hand.
“Léo said John is sick. Whatever his perception of me and you is, it’s not right.”
Adam knew that, but he couldn’t help but wonder what Heidi might have said to John during the years Adam had been away from her to give John the idea that Heidi needed to be saved from him. If John’s focus had been her parents, hell, Adam would have probably offered to help. What was it that Heidi had told John that led him to believe she’d been hurt to the point of gross abuse?
He knew they’d hurt each other over the years given the distance and not dealing with what was really happening between them. He’d except his role in that and kick himself for the rest of eternity over it.
To find out that this whole thing, Heidi being kidnapped and their chance at sorting out their problems, was because of this lunatic? Well, Adam didn’t know what to think. He’d become a pawn in someone else’s game.
The front doors opened two agents climbed in, one of whom was Jade.
“Ready?” the driver asked.
“Yes, thank you,” Heidi replied.
She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed it back.
He wasn’t mad at her, he was just mad. Someone else had wanted to rescue his wife—his Heidi—and he was one of the reasons behind it. Heidi had tried to lead with the idea that due to the India lab imploding, he’d needed her skills first, but with someone unhinged like John, Adam had to wonder if the emotional drive mattered more.
Jade turned to face them.
“My advice is to not take anything Léo says too seriously. From the sound of it, John has quite the god complex, and he has no doubt warped the way Léo thinks and reasons. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“It’s so strange to think of John as having a god complex. I’ve met plenty of self-important doctors.” Heidi chuckled and shook her head.
“I bet, but they are all—”
The SUV lurched and Adam was thrown up against the door, his head cracking against something solid. Heidi’s smaller frame driving into his ribs and side. Metal crunched, glass shattered. It felt as though Adam’s mind and body were separated. He could feel pain, his limbs flying about, but it was as though he were experiencing a memory. Screams sounded distant, far away.
He needed to get up.
This was a car accident.
He tried to lift his head, but it was too heavy. Everything was black and growing darker by the moment.
Adam...
He heard the whisper like a barely there memory.
“Heidi?”
He forced his eyes open. The light felt as though it were stabbing his skull.
Figures moved. Hands reached for him.
Heidi’s face creased, her mouth opened and she grasped at him, but she was too far away.
SATURDAY. UNKNOWN, Atlanta, Georgia.
Heidi sucked down deep breaths and tried to not look at her arms. The deep gashes from where glass had cut her were oozed. She didn’t want to think about what that meant, the damage, how it would affect her in the future. If she moved her neck too much, it hurt. Hell, if she breathed it hurt.
Buildings whizzed by. She closed her eyes, but her stomach protested. She opened them, but the rapid fire movement of things past the vehicle had her tasting bile.
The car took another sharp turn, throwing her into the passenger door, jarring her arm. She bit the side of her cheek harder, but the whimper still came out as a strangled, pitiful sound.
Don’t make him remember you’re here...
She stared at John’s profile, still unable to grasp what he was doing. How all of this was happening.
He turned another sharp right at an intersection, cutting off a car and barely scraping by without another accident. She hadn’t been entirely coherent when he’d pulled her out of the wrecked SUV and dragged her into a car.
“I waited all damn day for you, you know that?” He glanced at her, his usually kind features sharper, crueler.
She swallowed down her words. Now wasn’t the time for conversation.
“All of this was for you. After everything you’ve been through
, you should appreciate what I’m trying to do.”
Adam. He was talking about her husband. Léo had said as much. She still didn’t understand. None of it made sense to her.
“Why did you go to Peru? Why did you help the others find me?” It was the one thing she couldn’t wrap her head around.
“I needed you. They were going to take you away from me. I needed to be there—with them—to protect you. But did you want protecting? No.” John stared at her, snarling his words.
“I’m sorry, okay?”
“You will be. I’m done putting others first. After what you did? I should kill you all. Burn your corpses.”
Heidi swallowed. No one would know better how to engineer the spread of a disease better than John. That was what he did.
“Nothing to say about that?” John demanded.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Your husband took my son, so I’m taking you. I want Léo back, and you’re going to help me get him.”
“They took away my badge, my security clearance. I can’t get to Léo.” Heidi wouldn’t help him. That spelled danger, period.
“I don’t need you to get to him. Your husband is going to bring him to me.”
Adam would never. Besides, the FBI would to have something to say about that. Unless John had another trick up his sleeve.
What if she was right, and he had another person on the inside? What then?
She needed to get away, but in her current condition she couldn’t go far or fight back. She needed an unguarded moment to call for help, but the way John was driving that wasn’t going to happen.
She’d wait. Be patient. Just like what she’d done in Peru. Time had provided her the chance to escape, it was simply kismet that Adam was there to pull her ass out of the fire.
SATURDAY. CDC, ATLANTA, Georgia.
Léo paced his cell. The doctors had begrudgingly admitted that he did not appear to be a vector and was otherwise perfectly healthy. No doubt his blood posed some interesting questions given the number of vaccines he’d had over the last couple of years.
Dangerous in Motion (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #4) Page 22