Angel Face

by Suzanne Forster

  Meanwhile, Peter had made some decisions of his own. He’d cooperated long enough and probably for the wrong reasons. Now it had to be his way. He had not saved Angela Lowe for nothing.

  He walked to the glass that looked down on the lab. It was late, after midnight, but the lights were on in some areas, and a few stragglers were still working. The lab rats, he called them, smiling ruefully. Most of them worked around the clock on their experiments and left the lab only to shower, eat, and sleep. Their life was whatever hypothesis they were working on at the moment. Peter understood what drove them. He was one of them not so many years ago. In many cases, his most dedicated workers were avoiding a world they didn’t understand in order to observe one they might have a chance of explaining.

  Lab rats were a strange, brainy breed who preferred the abstract to the real. They liked mysteries they could solve, and the human condition was much more manageable when you divided it into experimental chunks that could be analyzed on the computer monitor. Some people weren’t good at life with all its confusing emotional and social demands, so they retreated to analyze it from a distance.

  Angela was one of them, for so many reasons, and it grieved him deeply that she would never have a place to heal, to fit in, even if it was with a group of misfits. She would have been safe here. That was his plan, to isolate and protect her. But it couldn’t be done, and maybe he should have known that. She was his most ambitious experiment, and to understand her might have helped unravel the mysteries of extreme abuse. Why some children survive and thrive despite it, and sadly, why most don’t.

  Perhaps the experiment was always doomed to fail, but if that was the case, only he could end it. If she had to be stopped, he would stop her. No fucking government agency was going to wipe her from the record books as if she didn’t exist. No, she was going out in a blaze of glory.

  He was about to turn away when he noticed the most brilliant of the lab rats, Sammy Tran. Sammy was peering at his computer screen with the intensity of a teenager caught up in a video game. It wasn’t unusual for him to be here this late. Peter had found him asleep at his desk at all hours, but something about the man’s body language caught his attention. The lab was freezing, but Sammy had just mopped his forehead with his sleeve, as if he were sweating.

  Peter’s gut told him something was wrong, but he was already on overload and didn’t need to borrow trouble. It was stress. Not Sammy’s, his own. He was overreacting. Sammy was fine. Peter was reading his own reactions into his employee. Sammy had always been the calm before, during, and after the storm. There were plenty of people at SmartTech capable of cracking under pressure, but not him. The sky would fall before he would. Sammy was fine.

  With that he turned from the window to go. Swallowing was painful, mere breathing was painful, but pain had never been a reliable state from which to judge anything. The scientist in him was trained to be dispassionate and to discard theories that weren’t valid. You could not cling to the patently false, no matter how much you wanted it to be true. Dreams and illusions were the antithesis of scientific progress. He had learned that in his lab rat days, and it had served him well. He did not like going outside the law, but better he than the government. Better he than Ron Laird or some other Philistine, who had no concept of the exquisite perfection of soul he was dealing with.

  How terribly, terribly sad, he thought, to waste such a gift.

  “GET rid of the knife!”

  Jordan surged to his knees and roared at Angela with such force her legs buckled. Dizziness rocked her, but she had enough presence of mind to know that his behavior didn’t make any sense. Nothing about it felt real. It was as strange and stark and fuzzy at the edges as a dream. A sick-stomach dream, she used to call them when she was a kid because she would wake up from them dizzy and nauseous, with the smell of fear in her nostrils.

  “Get rid of it, goddamit!!”

  The knife slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. She tried to pick it up and stumbled. Her legs didn’t want to stay underneath her. It felt like she was on a moving sidewalk and couldn’t get off. One thing after another shocked her senses: the white rage in his face, the strangely gyrating room, her own nakedness. Her thighs and belly and even the dark triangle between her legs were totally exposed. A startled sound slipped from her lips.

  How? How?

  Dizziness made her drop to the floor, and an anchor took her down, spiraling down.

  Why was he shouting at her? She had only meant to cut him loose. She had tortured him enough.

  His voice was distant and muted now. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, and there were other voices shouting at her, too. Someone was being slapped. She heard it, the sharp crack of a hand against tender flesh. Her face stung like fire. What had she done? Why was he shaking her? Peter, don’t hit me! No, don’t say that! I couldn’t have hurt Adam. I loved him.

  Now her hands and feet were bleeding. She was crawling over a floor of broken dolls. Hundreds of dolls. They were in jagged pieces, as if someone had thrown them down and smashed them. There was blood everywhere.

  People were crying out for help, but she couldn’t get to them.

  “Do as you’re told, and no one will get hurt.”

  The jaguar roared at her, and she roared back.

  “Fooled you, fooled you,” a bird shrieked.

  Why did he keep shouting at her? Her father was having a heart attack. He was already dead, and yet he kept shouting. “It’s not working! More voltage, more pressure on the paddles, turn it higher!”

  She did as she was told! Did as she was told!

  Who killed Adam? She did. Oh, God, she did.

  “When I say rain, rain, go away, you won’t remember anything. It will all be gone.”

  “Wake up, Angela. It’s all over. Everything’s gone. You’re safe. Safe!”

  But Angela couldn’t wake up this time. Her yawning and spiraling mind took her to depths she wasn’t supposed to go. The void had always been her place of refuge. Its darkness had protected her, but now everything was exposed, all the hidden corners and crevices, all the devastating secrets. Her mind plunged her into the miasma of her past and forced her to relive what she’d done. And what they’d done to her.

  SHE was lying on a rattan couch. Her hands were behind her, bound at the wrist. Her feet were tied, too. She tried to move them and felt the ropes. She also felt naked skin, her own, against the back of her hands, and that was all the feedback she needed. She knew immediately where she was and what had happened. There was no more screaming, no voices, no fever. Her head was clear and her body cool.

  Opening her eyes confirmed everything. She was now the hostage. He hadn’t tied her well, but she wasn’t going far without clothes. At least he’d covered her with a sheet.

  She didn’t see him at first. The hurricane lamps had burned down, and in the deep golden haze, she could just make out a figure standing by the screen that separated the rooms. He was still bare-chested and wearing shorts, but he looked more like a beach partygoer than the roaring beast she’d been dealing with. He’d obviously showered or taken a swim, and he had a bottle of something in his hand. It appeared to be a beer.

  “Sleeping beauty awakens,” he said.

  “Did I faint?” she asked.

  He nodded. “All I wanted you to do was drop the knife, but you went down, too. You’re okay, though. I checked you out.”

  She bridled. “I’ll bet you did.”

  “Hey, I’m a doctor. That’s what I do.”

  “A doctor bellows at his patients? He ties them up?”

  “I was trying the jaguar thing . . . being bold.”

  He gave her a look from across the room that could have been a smile but involved little more than his eyes. Her heart came alert to the threat. She was naked and restrained, and no one knew that better than him. He didn’t look bent on revenge at the moment, but he couldn’t have forgotten what she did to him. She hadn’t forgotten it.

  “My fever
broke,” she said, ignoring the rest of it for the moment.

  “A few hours ago with a little help from my fiends. I had a medical bag in the truck with some antibiotics in it. Somehow you missed it.”

  She didn’t think it necessary to inform him that if she’d been looking for it, she would have found it. He knew what she could do.

  “Don’t you want to know how you got that way?” he asked.

  “Tied up? Let me guess. I conveniently dropped the knife in your lap and collapsed in front of you.”

  “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.” He took a long drink from the bottle. “Tell me about Adam.”

  It was no longer hot in the room. She was freezing. “What made you ask about him?”

  “He’s all you talked about while you were unconscious. Adam. You must have mentioned his name a dozen times. Apparently, he was one of your casualties.”

  A casualty, yes, Adam could be called a casualty. The dream had brought him back. But she couldn’t talk about that. It would destroy her.

  Stiff-voiced, she said, “I’d rather not.”

  The beer hit the nearest tabletop, and Jordan came across the room. “We’re not negotiating this,” he told her. “You’re going to talk. You’re going to tell me everything.”

  “I don’t remember Ada—him.”

  “You sure as hell do. You said you killed him. You said you loved him. I heard you.”

  She drew up her legs to ward off the shakiness. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. What did he actually know about her, except what he’d read in her dossier, and most of that was lies. What did he know about loneliness? For him it was missing your parents because they’d moved to another state. She was talking about the kind of isolation that separated you from everything human.

  She hadn’t believed anyone could be lonelier than she was until she met Adam. Her heart had gone out to him immediately, but no matter how she tried to help, she made it worse, just like when she was a child. What did you call someone like that? A curse? An angel of death?

  When she tried to talk, her voice got tangled up on itself. Only one word could be clearly heard. “Poison.”

  “You poisoned him? That isn’t the way Angel Face does it.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” The sheet slid down her chest as she tried to sit up. There was no way to stop it with tied hands. “There is no Angel Face. She’s a software program.”

  “What do you mean, a software program?”

  “The company I work for has developed a criminal profiling program that uses supercomputers and AIR software to crunch data from brain scans. It can predict violent behavior, but it’s still in the simulation stages. Angel Face is a virtual serial killer. She’s programmed to react to stressors like rejection and humiliation, but she’s not real.”

  “Angela, men have died. A doctor in my own hospital died. I found him myself. Someone is killing them, and if it isn’t Angel Face, who is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice cracked with an emotion she rarely allowed herself to express. “But someone is lying to you. There is no Angel Face, and I had nothing to do with the death of that doctor, or any other doctors.”

  “Except your father, except Adam.”

  “My foster father was a butcher, and Adam—”

  “What was he? Tell me about him.”

  “Untie me first. I took off your blindfold when you asked.”

  “Not quite the same thing.”

  She ignored his mordant tone and came back with, “Do you really think I’m so dangerous that I have to be restrained?”

  “I know you are.”

  “Coward,” she countered under her breath.

  Whatever impulse she may have felt to goad him further died when he walked over and took hold of the sheet that covered her. It had dropped so low her breasts were nearly exposed. His knuckles were warm as they brushed her skin, and the quickening she felt was almost painful.

  He startled her even more by drawing the sheet up to her chin. She hadn’t expected that, or that he would hesitate long enough to study her, his hand still at her throat. She saw the simmering male interest in his gaze. He wasn’t cool or disinterested. That was only a facade.

  Why wasn’t he taking advantage of the situation?

  The question stayed with her. He could do anything he wanted with her, just as she had with him, yet he was covering her instead of exposing her. Maybe he was a better person than she was. Or maybe he wasn’t as desperate.

  He must have seen the questions in her eyes, because he settled himself beside her on the couch, his hip brushing her thighs. It was too close for her, but if she tried to move, she lost the sheet.

  “I’m trying to understand,” he said. “Help me understand.” He seemed to sense her confusion. “You, Angela. I’m trying to understand you. Tell me you didn’t do those things. Make me believe you didn’t.”

  He wanted to believe her. There was conviction in his voice: power, anger, frustration, fear—and conviction. It was amazing to hear. The huskiness alone made her heart leap wildly.

  “Why didn’t you put my clothes back on?” she demanded to know. If she didn’t break the tension, it would break her.

  “Your clothes were drenched with sweat and fruit juice.” He got up to show her. Her shorts lay by the door, and he picked them up, dangling them from a finger. “You want them on? I’ll be happy to put them on you.”

  She shook her head, not conceding anything. “Why didn’t you put something else on me then? Why did you leave me naked?”

  “You’ll notice there’s a sheet over you. It’s dry.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, so she chose something else. “Cut me loose, please. I was going to cut you loose. That’s why I had the knife.”

  “Tell me about Adam first.” He crossed his arms and locked in on her, waiting. This was his only condition, he seemed to be saying. He wanted to know about Adam.

  Angela wasn’t sure she could do it. She had never meant to hurt Adam, but it had happened, and she’d felt like a monster tormenting a helpless, wounded animal. How could Jordan, or anyone, understand how that felt? He hadn’t lived her life or carried her crosses. It hadn’t happened to him.

  “Talk to me, Angela. Give me a reason to believe you.”

  His voice was low, hot, and persuasive. She prayed this wasn’t just a ploy to get information out of her. It was one she’d used herself.

  “I lost an entire year, and I still can’t remember most of it. Only the part about Adam. But I didn’t kill anyone, not intentionally. I know that.”

  “Just tell me what you remember.”

  “He was a recluse.” She spoke in a monotone, forcing all the emotion from her voice. Only when it was as numb as her mind could she go on. “He was a brilliant, self-educated scientist, but he was also a survivalist who’d totally isolated himself from everyone. He lived in an underground bunker in the desert.”

  She hesitated but didn’t look over to see Jordan’s reaction. “I was asked to get information about a smart chemical weapon he was working on, and I managed to get access to him by posing as a grocery deliverer. The instructions were to put the groceries in a shed on his property and leave immediately, but I pretended to hurt myself. That brought him out of hiding, and he trusted me immediately, sadly for him.

  “After the initial contact, I went back and told Brandt I couldn’t do it, that it would be cruel to take advantage of him. I told him Adam was too vulnerable and confused. I’d never felt that way about any of my other sources, as if I were taking advantage of their naïveté. But Adam was a frightened child in a forty-year-old man’s body, making a weapon he thought would protect him from his enemies, whoever he imagined they might be.”

  “Brandt?” Jordan asked, clearly not familiar with the name she’d mentioned.

  Angela didn’t stop to explain. She had begun to have her own suspicions of Peter Brandt, but she couldn’t dredge that up, too, not now.

 
; “I finally agreed to maintain contact with Adam,” she explained, “but only because I was compelled to help him. That’s what I thought we were doing, helping him. I tried to make Brandt understand that with some human contact, Adam might come to see that his fears weren’t real. And Brandt agreed, or so I thought. But once I had the information about the weapon, someone decided that Adam was too dangerous to live. And since I was the only person who could get close to him, Brandt implied that I would have to do it. I refused, of course.”

  In the same low voice, she told Jordan all of that. And one more thing.

  “I think Adam became a symbol of the people I couldn’t help as a child, the patients my foster father hurt and blamed on me. Adam was those people, and he was me, too. He was all the tortured people in the world.”

  She sank into the cushions, unaware that she’d been holding herself so rigidly.

  Jordan prompted her by asking, “But you couldn’t help him?”

  “Help him?” She had to believe he didn’t know how that question ripped her open. “I foolishly thought I could restore his trust, and instead I delivered him poisoned groceries.”

  “You knew they were poisoned?”

  “No, but I should have. I knew he was considered dangerous, and they wanted him stopped. Adam trusted me implicitly, and he wolfed down the food as soon as I brought it.”

  Her throat caught fire. Tears welled, but she shook them away. “He died right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do to help him. I’ll never forget the bewildered expression on his face as he looked at me, trying to understand how I could do such a thing. I confirmed every fear he had about the human race. No one could be trusted.

  “It was terrible. God, it was terrible.”

  She could not go on, and Jordan didn’t push her. Her head ached with fatigue. She had to rest. She needed sleep, just a short nap, and she was already tumbling into unconsciousness when his voice brought her back.