She considered herself a strong woman. Anyone would after what she’d gone through in her time on this world.
She had never known her father. As a child she’d always dreamed that her conception had been some royal scandal. That she’d been the love child of a prince or a king, and that someday the real daughter would die and some handsome prince would sweep her off her feet and bring her to England or France to be his second duchess.
Those dreams had faded in her twenties, reserved for romantic thoughts in the minutes just before sleep. Thirty had brought an end to them completely, save for the odd reminiscing on them while she watched her own daughter play.
Her once vibrant and beautiful appearance had shifted into a haggard form of a woman at the very end of a very slender rope. She realized now that her origins didn’t involve kings or queens, but it did involve riches, ironically. Simply put, her father’s family didn’t deem her mother ‘good enough’ to enter into the family. They had cast her pregnant mother out onto the streets with no child support or means of finance. When she’d learned that, Natasha had sworn she’d prove her father’s family wrong. That she would make herself good enough, in her own eyes if not in theirs.
For a short time, she had actually dared to hope that she would succeed.
She looked up from the large desk covered in scattered papers she sat behind. Her gaze moved over the open suitcase on the floor and then on to the suede love-seat beneath the large bay window where her daughter slept, her knees curled up to her chubby little chin as she slept. A light orange afghan was draped over her, making her look warm and snug as she smiled in her sleep.
She cursed her ex-husband for not taking her to his apartment again. He was supposed to take her twice a week but rarely did, though she never seemed to lose hope. Every time her eyes would light up and she’d spend the day jumping around the motel room, screaming and laughing. Then seven o’clock would come and he wouldn’t be there, and slowly she’d get the picture again.
Bastard, Natasha thought bitterly, shaking her head as she turned back toward the papers on her desk.
A year ago she’d made partner in the law firm of Mayer, Summers and Soul. It hadn’t been terribly long after that that the third partner had left, along with two corporate backers and the majority of the firm’s funding. There had been layoffs and pay cuts galore, so much that she couldn’t even afford a steady apartment anymore. She and Gwen rented a motel room most nights, though on the two nights that Paul was supposed to have her, she just slept in the office to save a little money.
Tonight they’d both be sleeping there.
She let out a heavy sigh as the drum in the back of her head began to fade away, but the tightly-coiled knot in each shoulder remained. She bit her lip as she reached up and began to kneed her own muscles, staring back down at the files and folders that were scattered across her desk.
There were blood tests, psyche analysis reports, IQ test scores, weight classifications, legal documents, all on one man: Adam Genblade.
The files had been faxed to the office the day before, though nobody had been quite sure why at the time. A few of the kids in accounting had been ruffling through it for fun when she’d walked in and seen it and if Gwen hadn’t been with her she might have chewed them a new asshole. Even as it was, they knew they’d been dressed down and were still walking around with their tails between their legs today.
She’d read the original stories in the report Tom Drake had done on them. She’d even gotten a look at Tim White’s police report on it before he’d been promoted, albeit briefly. She’d picked up the file assuming it had been sent by the family of the guard that had been mutilated by Genblade at Coral Beach Pen. They’d decided to sue and rightly so, from what she’d read of what had happened to him. But nobody from either the guard’s family or the prison had sent the file.
It had sat on her desk for only an hour before she began to thumb through it.
She’d thought it would be clear-cut murder story, but the more she read into his case, the more oddities appeared to perk her curiosity. The police still had no idea who he was, besides the name Adam that was believed to merely be an alias. He had no record of birth, no passport... no fingerprints, even. A few people had suggested CIA, but Genblade himself had debunked that claim almost instantly.
Not that that meant it wasn’t true anyway.
The oddest thing by far though was that he had maintained his guilt for the duration of his arrest and in early interviews, but had always maintained his innocence to the guards. Had teased them with it, one of them had said, used to even sing about it when they sprayed him down for his shower. It was only after the D.A. had insisted on his receiving the death penalty that he had changed his tune and publicly claimed his innocence, turning what would have been a no-contest case into a circus.
Frowning, she picked up the transcript of the last psyche evaluation that the penitentiary’s clinical therapist had done and skipped down to the center of the second page.
WO: Are you saying you aren’t responsible for the deaths in Coral Beach, Adam?
AG: Responsible?
WO: Did you kill those children, Adam?
AG: (laughter). Ain’t ya heard? It’s a funny, funny story. I’m innocent.
WO: Who is responsible, Adam?
AG: Directly responsible?
Natasha repeated those words in her head as she stared at Genblade’s black and white file photo. His cold, piercing eyes seemed to stare right at her and follow her no matter where she was sitting. They didn’t just look at you, or even through you. They dissected you, cut you open in his mind until you were nothing but a shriveling worm of rendered flesh. She shivered, covering up the photo with another sheet of paper.
The door to her office swung open, tapping off of the far wall with a thud. She slammed the file down to the desk like a child caught doing something wrong, her breath shallow for just that one moment. She laughed at herself, realizing that she was on a coffee high and had no sleep these past few days, as her partner, Nate Summers, strolled into the room.
Nate was a tall, skinny man with silver hair and a rough, unshaven chin. He smiled at Natasha as he entered, a playful swagger in his step as he walked.
He looked her up and down, pursing his lips together tightly. She was tall and thin herself, coming in an inch or two above him when she was wearing her heels. Her hair was short and brown and usually pulled back in a bun, though today it draped in front of her eyes every few moments as she examined the papers. Her cheeks were covered in freckles and her eyes were just a little red, though he wasn’t sure if it was from being tired or sad or both. He let his eyes move over her slender frame for a moment before stopping himself, hoping that she hadn’t noticed.
He handed her a tan file folder, then let his eyes wander to all of the photos and written reports scattered across her desk. He sighed, shaking his head. “This goes way beyond taking your work home, Natasha.”
She grabbed the folder from his hand. “When you live at work, it’s hard not to take your work home.”
He chuckled.
She didn’t.
She opened the folder and looked into it. Inside were more photos from crime scenes all over Downtown Coral Beach. One was of a blood spattered prison cell and a security guard lying limp, but not dead, against the bars. The next photo was profoundly more disturbing, but it still intrigued her. He still intrigued her. It was Genblade, laughing hysterically, showing off his jagged teeth. His lips were lined with redness. His eyes were there again, such a light blue that they were almost white in the black and white photo, cutting through to her soul.
She shivered.
Following the pictures was the request from the D.A. that Genblade be executed as soon as humanly possible, by act of the state. Following that was a letter, the toner of which still smelt fresh. It was ragged and tattered, its corners lined with redness. One eyebrow moving upward, she glanced at Nate from over the top of the letterhead.
He shrugged dramatically, then turned to watch Gwen and smiled.
Frowning, she turned back toward the document and started to scan through it.
Kind representative of Mayer, Summers and Soul;
It has come to my attention recently that a person/ persons at your firm has come into contact with my case file after my information was sent to you via the District Attorney.
Lavish as it is for me to have a fan, I feel it necessary to inform you that I have plead guilty to the majority of the crimes to which I am accused.
Likewise I am sure you are aware that I am expected to spend the remainder of my short life in a maximum security upstate while awaiting execution.
You above anyone understand how unacceptable this is. I have grown to regard Coral Beach and this place with fondness and do not wish to leave any more than I wish for my life to end.
Ordinarily I would be appalled at admitting this, but I find myself overcome with fear at the idea of my death. I do not want to die, sir or madame. I wish to live and to learn of the world around me, albeit through the bars of a gilded cage. I wish to fight the death penalty sentence as well as my conviction. As such, I will require the services of a lawyer.
Understand that despite all accounts, I do have the means with which to compensate you handsomely.
Sincerely, Adam Genblade.
Natasha stared at the ledger for a moment, then looked over it at Gwen as Nate moved a strand of her dark hair out of her face.
In her mind’s eye she could see it. She watched her own tears dry up in an instant. She saw her ex-husband finally being forced to pay child support and give his daughter the attention she deserved. The attention she never got. She saw the firm becoming one of the most influential in all of Maine again. She saw herself buying away her rich father’s family’s land and kicking them onto the streets with no resources to call their own. Most of all though, she saw a real future for Gwen. A future where life’s disappointments all happened to miss her, rather than hit her head on as they had been.
She saw all this in an instant, as clearly as if she were looking into a crystal ball. This was her chance to do it. To prove once and for all that she was good enough.
“I’ll take it,” she mumbled, already forming a defense for Genblade in her head.
Mike watched Cathy’s tiny nose tilt up a little with every breath she took, displacing hairs and making them fall into her face. His nose was millimeters from hers, moving back and forth in tune with her as she breathed in and out.
In, out.
A smile perked along his freckled cheeks as he carefully pushed her dark hair away from her eyelashes with one finger. She frowned once, squeezing her eyes closed as she adjusted herself in her sleep, then quickly fell back into her calm, steady rhythm. The movement shifted her hair, making it messy and tangled as it doubled over onto itself.
He stifled a laugh, turning away and bringing his fist to his mouth. She stirred again and he cursed himself, holding his breath until she settled again.
She hadn’t gotten any sleep all day. He, at least, had been drifting back and forth because of the painkillers the nurses had dosed him with. Medicated sleep wasn’t good sleep, but it was better than none. She’d just lain there, staring at the wall all day until she’d come into his room. She had been laying in his arms only eleven minutes before she was sound asleep.
His arm tingled painfully, a pinching burn shooting up from his fingertips whenever he tried to move them. He grunted in discomfort but dared not move. As long as she was sleeping, he could deal with his appendages doing the same.
She sniffled once, her nose twitching from side to side like a rabbit, and then she resumed her slow, intense breaths.
Grinning, he turned away from her and stared up at the ceiling. There was an odd, circular blue light staring back down at him attached to a crane-neck that was bolted to his headboard, the screws of which were currently burrowing into the back of his skull. Beyond it a small drip of condensation had formed on the white tile ceiling close to his window, moving up and down in a tug-o-war between gravity and the ceiling. He watched it for about twenty minutes until finally it fell to the floor with a soft pit, leaving him nothing to distract himself with.
A television was secured to the wall a few feet from the foot of the bed, the remote for which was just out of reach on the bedside table. If he stretched, he might be able to reach it and turn it on mute. Reaching as far as he could, his fingertip narrowly missed the edge of the remote’s black plastic.
Cathy stirred, a small moan passing through her lips.
He frowned, then settled back down into place. There was a line of drool seeping out of her small mouth and onto her chin. Once again he had to turn away from her to keep from laughing out loud.
Seconds passed. After a few minutes with nothing to occupy his mind, thoughts started coming into his head like clockwork. Thoughts that he had known were there but had been trying so hard not to be conscious of, like a bad song stuck in your head.
Fucker, he thought bitterly, his lip curling as he thought of Xander’s face grinning back at him from somewhere just in front of him. The memory-Xander laughed at something, no sound coming from his lips. She’s so scared. She’s so scared that you’re coming back that she couldn’t even sleep and then you have the nerve to traipse in and out of here whenever you want. Talking about getting answers to things that you already know. Just because you don’t like the answers doesn’t mean they aren’t true. Doesn’t mean that you get to come in here and pretend everything all right when it’s not.
His head started to hurt and he became aware that his face had gotten hot. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew that he was turning red, his freckles fading away in the anger. Every muscle and joint in his body had become stiff. Next to him, Cathy cooed softly as her brow crumpled for an instant before turning back to its natural, perfectly smooth state. He wondered briefly what she was dreaming of, if it was him or something weird... or the Womb.
He sighed, flopping his fist down onto the bed. His knuckles had been clenched so tight that they had turned bright white, the color now bleeding back into them slowly. He felt helpless and scared and useless all at the same time.
Slowly, a sparkle grew in his eyes and he looked up, a smile brimming across his thin lips. “Maybe I can get the answers you’re afraid to,” he whispered to himself before turning to give Cathy a small kiss on the head.
“Okay people, I know it’s getting late but it’s going to be a busy week here and I need to know what we’ve got. Go,” John Tyler said quickly as he sat behind the massive oak desk that dominated the majority of his office, popping a handful of Rolaids into his mouth as he did. Don and Drake sat across from him, the former trying to stack his papers so that the tops all lined up and the latter checking under his nails for grit.
“Got some new stuff on the murders,” Don offered, flipping over the page of his clipboard and scanning down it, one finger lifted into the air. “Ah, an angle that they might have been racially motivated.”
Drake slowly turned his head toward him, his left eyebrow raising a little more with every degree. “How in Christ’s name do you figure that?”
“Well, there were no Blacks or Asians killed, just Caucasians.”
“Racially motivated crimes are racially motivated because they’re against minorities or by minorities. White is not a minority. It’s barely a race.”
“But the killer could be a racist.”
“Could also be Jewish! All people killed were Christians, too!” Drake yelled, running a hand through his hair.
“The murders have been done to death,” John interrupted finally, just loud enough to shut them both up. “Pardon the pun. There’s gonna be lots on them, we don’t need to reach. Any luck on the Genblade interview yet?”
“No,” Drake answered, a small growl accompanying the word from deep within his throat. “Insane prick keeps saying we did this. Won’t talk to us. Even told the secretary
at the Pen not to bother forwarding the messages anymore.”
“Son of a bitch,” John sighed. “You know if he gets moved to state we’ll never get our hands on him again, right? I’m surprised Newsweek and Time aren’t camping on our front lawn as it is.”
“They’re not gonna move him to state,” Drake scoffed.
“What makes you so sure?” Don mumbled, almost under his breath as he thumbed through the rest of his notes.
Drake snarled at him, his cheeks turning read. “They got half their staff going round the clock just to keep him in that cage as is. You think they’re gonna try to move him, fucknuts?”
Don did not respond, turning back to his notes. “Some follow up on the Phillip Masters case, needs an interview or two and maybe an extra source, but I can have it for this weeks.”
“Good. Get it,” John nodded, scrabbling something onto the large paper calendar that doubled as a placemat over his desk. He paused a moment, then looked up at the both of them. “What else, people, the pages aren’t going to fill themselves.”
“Someone should cover the Memorial coming up at the high school this week.”
“Fuck it,” John rebuffed, waving the idea away distastefully. “It’s sidebar to the trial story. Don’t need to be there, just need to know it happened.”
“Been some gang violence again lately,” Drake piped up, cocking his head to annunciate his point. “Been seeing a lot of graffiti the last few months. Most of it Omegas, some of it Snakes. Might be escalating.”
“Look into it, but try and not be too dickish,” John said, pointing a finger at him. “Last time you went at them hardball, we were cleaning the graffiti off the panes for a month.”
“Girl went missing a few days ago,” Don said, raising his hand again.
“It’s a runaway,” Drake almost whined, lolling his head dramatically.
“She’s not a runaway,” Don said again, his tone the same. “Same grid of the city that the killer likes to strike in.”
“How do you know where she was taken from if she’s a runaway?”
Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1) Page 46