Before she knew it, she was on her feet. She would have rushed forward, demanded that the man not give up, but Dent gripped her arm, holding her at bay.
Still facing away from them, Father Lance said, “I’m going to take a shower. Oh wait, I can’t.” He tapped his cast with the crutch. “I’m going to take a bath. A long bath. And when I’m done and come back down, I expect you both to be gone. Take whatever you need. Food, water, first aid, just take it and be gone from here.”
He made the bottom of the stairs, and paused as he contemplated how difficult it would be now to traverse the steps.
“Father Lance,” Dent said, his voice firm, though Kasumi heard the slight raise in pitch, as if Dent were pleading for the other man to turn around.
He did.
“You think you failed the people of Saint Nicholas? Fine. Don’t want to stand before them again? Fine. Think you have no right to preach to them? Fine. But I will tell you this. There is a group of people who would be glad to have a screw up like you among them, a group of people who need someone who’s screwed up and understands them. Someone who has helped them in the past and can continue helping them. You don’t need Saint Nicholas for that. In fact, Saint Nicholas is the reason those people are so destitute. Those people living out there on the streets have nowhere to go but up.”
At that, Dent pulled Kasumi along. Heading for the front door.
When she looked back, she saw Father Lance look up the stairs. And, with a determined face, he managed to take the first step.
And then another.
XXXIX
The Audi jostled as Dent stepped out.
He gave a cursory glance up to the sign above the closed mechanic shop’s garage. He noticed the water stains, the sanded and polished sections that had been cleared of rust. He hadn’t really seen it for what it meant:
Lynn Wilkens’s shop had to have been here for many years.
Had she been a mechanic before signing on with Chisholme and his little experiment here in Herristown and Saint Nicholas? Or was that something she had to learn in order to keep her cover?
And Jason. What about the boy?
Dent stepped over the grease and oil stains, the pitted asphalt, the worn concrete, and was surprised when he found the front door to the attached building unlocked. Maybe she wasn’t here. Maybe she’d made a run for it.
He found he didn’t know which scenario he wanted more — her being here, or her being long gone.
The reception room that resembled the living room of the Wilkens’ residence was empty. Only the smell of rubber with a teasing taste of gasoline was in the air. He closed the door behind him, stared back out into the street through the glass. He had to come here. Something deep inside him made him come, drove him to seek her out.
He blamed Fifth for that. Her emotional magnetism. Another thing he was unsure of, whether he wished to be part of him. A door opened and closed somewhere behind him, and the smell of cucumbers suddenly won over rubber and gasoline.
He turned.
Lynn Wilkens stood at the hallway, half-turned his way.
“I was kind of hoping you’d show,” she said.
He stepped further into the room. And now that he had, he saw the knife she held in her right hand, partially hidden behind her hip.
“Looks like you didn’t expect to be talking,” he commented.
She let her eyes stray down to his pocket. “I can say the same of you. I’d ask if that’s a gun in your pocket or if you’re happy to see me, but I’m afraid the joke would be lost on you.”
She was right. On both accounts. He did have his Glock in his pocket, and he did not laugh at her joke.
She turned fully now, sidestepping from the hallway. He watched as she searched the small room, maybe looking for a way around him, maybe looking for a better weapon. He did, after all, bring a gun to a knife fight.
“Are you satisfied, Marion?” she suddenly asked. “Are you here to gloat?”
Neither feeling registered in him. If he could put a name to what he was feeling, perhaps he’d go with betrayed. Hurt.
When he failed to answer her, she raised both the knife and her voice. “Why are you here?!”
Of the two, only Dent had the right to be angry.
He said nothing.
“I heard you spirited Theresa away,” she said. “Took her from Saint Nicholas, like you had the right to do so.”
He didn’t tell her what had happened to Theresa. In truth, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.
“Say something, dammit!” she screamed. “Say anything! Just don’t stand there silently accusing me—”
“Why?”
Her mouth snapped shut. The knife wavered then lowered.
“Why?” he asked again, this time louder.
“Why. Why. One word. Why.” She shook her head with each syllable.
He waited.
“Why do you protect Kasumi? Why did you come here?”
He answered the second question. “To stop Theresa and Saint Nicholas Parish. To put an end to this false positive had that gripped Herristown.”
“You would call what we’ve accomplished here false?” She shook her head. “Not false, Marion. All positive.”
He disagreed. “Those people caught up in this test, caught up by Theresa and Saint Nicholas, who gave away all they owned, gave up their normal lives because some twisted sense of elevation? Those people in the Stretch, who live only by the generosity of the rest of the community? How is that positive?”
“You saw them. You talked to them. They don’t hate their lot in life. And besides, any new advances in any field of study will inevitably leave some unfortunate few behind. Those people who can’t control their emotions are better off where they are. And as long as we catered to them, word of what was happening here would never have gotten out.”
Even Dent was taken aback by that callousness. “They couldn’t control their emotions because they had those emotions forced onto them.”
This time it was she who remained silent.
“What about you, Lynn? Was this all fake?”
She looked at him and he had the impression she read more into his question than he had intended.
“This shop,” he clarified. “Adopting Jason.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “This shop opened when I moved here. The start-up came from HelpTouch. But that’s it. I built this place into a profitable business. HelpTouch pays me on the side for keeping tabs on Theresa and Saint Nicholas, but this … I earn my keep. I put food on the table for Jason because of the money I earn here. Out of my own pocket.”
The knife glinted as she raised it. “I am not dependent on others to survive. And I never will be.”
Dent kept his eye on the blade, noticed it wasn’t holding steady. Something in him trembled just as well. Trembled and bubbled up, forming words he hadn’t intended to say.
“And Jason? You talk of providing for him. Another cover for HelpTouch? Is Jason like this shop, provided only to cover your real job?” Lynn flinched at his raised voice. Inside, Dent did as well.
She came at him, knife and teeth and lashing tongue. “How dare you!” she hissed. “How dare you belittle what Jason is to me!”
He threw his right arm up and around, diverting the knife aside and then drove his left fist into her side, drawing back just enough to push her away. She screamed as she tumbled over the small table and folded into the space between it and the couch.
Dent kept himself from going for his gun, backed away and watched as she cavorted around to finally stand back up. Blood seeped from the corner of her mouth but she seemed not to notice.
“Don’t you dare bring Jason or my love for him into this!”
Dent knew how much his next words would sting her before he said them. He spoke anyways. “You brought him into this. You adopted a child just so you could pretend to be a parent.”
Her eyes flared, her nostrils flared, everything about her flared. Like a corner
ed cat in an alley. “And Kasumi, Marion? You talk of pretending to be a parent?” She spit a glob of blood at him. He was wrong. Apparently she had been aware that she was bleeding.
Dent didn’t bother answering the woman. Dent did what he did to protect Fifth. Call it pretend, call it real. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that she remained safe. And as long as there were people out there working for Chisholme, using children much like Fifth for their own gains, Dent would continue on parenting, or pretend parenting. Whatever he was doing, he was nothing like this woman before him.
Dent never claimed what he was doing for Fifth was for some greater good. He didn’t use the girl to keep up appearances. Deep down, he knew that when this was all over, Fifth would be better off without him. And shutting down Saint Nicholas put her one step closer to being able to live a normal life. A life without need of Dent.
Lynn stepped around the table, putting herself and Dent a half dozen feet apart, her knife held up between them. “Why did you have to come here, Marion?”
“I told you.”
Her voice cracked as she asked the same question again. And again.
Dent stared at her, at the knife, and her watering eyes.
He had no answer. None that she would like.
“Why did you come to me when you first got hurt, huh?” For some reason she was screaming again. “Why did you then come to me after you’d been shot?”
“I needed medical attention. I was in no state to—”
“Bullshit! Talk about being false! You came to me because you knew I cared.”
“You cared enough to drug me.”
She opened her mouth to reply but instead lunged at him again, knife leading. He easily batted her arm away but she managed to knee him in the side before he could push her back from him. He twisted with the blow, worked one arm around right forearm, and shifted his weight. She fell forward, into him, and he used her loss of balance to get a grip her wrist and bend.
She screamed. The knife fell to the carpet.
Relieved of her weapon, Lynn fell back to basics and raked the nails of her free hand across Dent’s face, hard enough to draw blood. He let go of her wrist with one hand and used it to grab the other. She shook, trying to free herself, but Dent held on tightly.
She spat. A thick bubble of blood hit his cheek and she laughed. Next came a knee into his groin, and he shoved her hard, fueled by the pain radiating up into his lower stomach.
“If only you hadn’t been so calculating, Marion,” she said as she recovered herself. He saw her look to the knife near his feet. “So blinded by what you were sent here to do that you didn’t realize that you could have had something better.”
This gave Dent pause.
Her eyebrows lifted. “You … You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
Dent didn’t answer.
“I almost feel sad for you. Hell, who knows how I truly feel about you?” She stood straighter but her eyes began to water again. “HelpTouch may have paid me to keep an eye on Saint Nicholas, but taking care of you? That was all me, Marion. That was all me.”
The way she stood there, staring at him, forced him to understand what she was claiming. And it forced him to try to understand what he was feeling.
Why did he come here? He could have left, never to see her again. What urge brought him here? Why did he need to know why she did what she did? And why was he truly concerned that what they shared wasn’t a fabrication?
She took a step forward. “Admit it. You kept coming to me for a reason.”
He shook his head, took a step back.
Another step forward. “You think I was coerced into caring for you, but it was you who was using me.”
He took two steps back. “I never used you.”
“Then what brought you to me?” Her eyes had stopped watering. Now they practically bounced as she looked into both his eyes.
He found he couldn’t answer. He had no answer for what he’d felt. He wasn’t Fifth, he wasn’t Lynn or Jason or Father Lance.
He wasn’t normal.
And that’s how he wanted it to remain.
“I had a contract,” he said, answering her question.
It was her eyes that told him she would never understand. And that he had answered incorrectly.
She grit her teeth, dropped down, scooped up her fallen knife, and jumped up at him. He saw it coming. He’d been trained to read body language in these specific instances. His training told him to sidestep, lower his center of gravity, grasp her wrist, pivot and then thrust his fingers into her windpipe to leave her gasping for breaths that wouldn’t come.
But, he did none of that.
He turned, taking the knife across his lower chest in a shallow gash in order to draw her closer. His right hand snapped up, closing around her throat, halting her movement. He tilted her head up and around.
Anger, betrayal, doubt. All of those things flashed in her eyes even as she dropped the knife and grabbed his forearm. All things he had been unaware of, all things he did not understand, up until he’d met Fifth. But he was beginning to become aware of those emotions, beginning to understand them.
He knew what he had to do.
She likely knew it as well. Her face was reddening, her lips swelling.
Why had he come here?
Why had he come here?
Deep down, he knew. And it wasn’t for this.
He let go. Lynn fell to her knees, sucking in lungfuls of air.
He let his now-empty hand lower, closed it on something else.
He turned the handle to the front door and walked out. It wasn’t until five paces over the worn concrete, the pitted asphalt, and the grease and oils stains that he could no longer hear the horrible sounds of Lynn Wilkens crying.
Why had he come?
Because he needed to understand if what he had felt for her was real. Needed to know that it wasn’t some manipulation on her part, that she hadn’t forced to him to actually care for her.
And he had his answer.
That’s why he couldn’t kill her.
Damn himself, but now he knew that it had not been false.
If you liked the third installment of the eMOTION series, please give it an honest review on Amazon so others will be willing to give it a read.
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Please turn the pages for an excerpt from the next full-length Fifth and Dent novel,
eMOTION: Surge Protector.
I hoped you have enjoyed the third Fifth and Dent installment.
The fourth Fifth and Dent novel, Surge Protector, will be available 2015.
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