I took the report from Davey, scanning over the specifics and the blood sample matches they had from Stansfield’s personal doctor, "Did you interview neighbors, friends and family? Was this guy tied to anyone that would suggest he was a target?"
Sheehan sat on the corner of the table, "Family is a no go right now, we just notified them of the death and the ex-wife is heading down to the morgue for ID. From what little we have found, Stansfield was a standup guy. A perfect image of a police officer doing the job for all of the right reasons. He is practically spotless, even his neighbors said he was a standup guy. Helping old women with groceries and their cats."
I leaned over the table, picking up the personnel file and DMV record Sheehnan had brought. I flipped through it as Davey asked more questions about how it was possible that no one noticed a change in Stansfield’s movements if he was so popular. "Danny, did anyone notice that the poor schmuck didn't leave his house for a days?"
Sheehnan let out a breath, "We have neighbors telling us that Stansfield let his next door neighbor know he was going to be out of town for a few days, leaving after his last shift a day ago." The police sergeant rubbed at his temple, "This was obviously planned. If the real Stansfield has been dead for days and his clone is walking around tying up all the loose ends."
I glanced at Claire when the word clone passed around the room. She was tucked up in a chair, wearing a large sweater to hide that she was no longer injured from Sheehnan. She met my eyes and I saw the fear building again, I wanted Claire to stay in the bedroom and avoid hearing the gruesome details that came with a week old dead body and peeling apart the theory I handed out in one simple sentence, but she was adamant about sitting in on the casual debriefing.
Claire nodded, signaling she was fine before returning to Sheehnan and Davey discussing canvassing the neighbors one more time. I returned to the DMV record in my hands. Stansfield was spotless, paying his registration fees early or years in advanced. Not one single ticket, not even a parking ticket marred his driving record. I looked at the smiling man in his license photo, easily picking up the fact that this man was a literal version of Dudley Do Right. I went to turn the page and dive into his police record when I paused.
The Stansfield in front of me had hazel colored eyes. I tore through pages until I found all of Stansfield’s police identification photos. Every single one of them, hazel eyes peered back at me. "Fuck." I threw the files in my hand on the table, startling Sheehnan and Davey. I stood up, "It wasn't Stansfield in the hallway, it was someone else." I grabbed the autopsy report, again there it was taunting me in bold black letters. Victim’s eye color is hazel.
I threw the report towards Sheehnan, "The asshole I chased had dark blue eyes. Joseph Stansfield has hazel eyes." I ran my hands through my hair, "Fuck."
Davey pulled the files towards him, "Are you sure Kit?"
I blew out an angry laugh, "Yes I’m sure. He locked eyes with me as he spoke his final words before pulling the trigger. Dark blue eyes. I won't ever forget them." I glanced at Claire as she quietly stood up and left the room. "Plus it was an obvious disguise." I motioned to the evidence bag in Sheehnan’s open briefcase holding the mask I had found in the stairwell, "Did the techs pull any DNA or fibers from that thing?"
Sheehnan looked at the bag, "It's clean. Like frighteningly clean. There is nothing, not even casting chemicals or anything to trace."
Davey covered his face in his hands, "What do we do next? One dead body and a ghost is not much to go on."
I leaned on the edge of the table, looking over the mounds of paperwork, "We find Alistair Montgomery."
Davey chuckled, "Kit, again. Chasing ghosts. We don't even know what Montgomery looks like, you aren't even sure if he is a man or woman. Hell are we even sure it was him that attacked you in the motel?"
I sighed hard, "It was him at the motel and it was him in the hallway." I glared from the side at Davey, "My gut tells me so, and my gut is never wrong." I straighten up from the table, looking directly at Sheehnan, "If I can get you the information are you willing to chase all of the leads and toss all the houses of every god damn thug that is linked or was linked to Alistair?"
Sheehnan stared at me, caught off guard by my firm, commanding tone. Eventually a small smirk came across his face, "Well, the Captain owes me a favor. I think the hallway incident could just fall into my lap as lead supervisor assisting the detective bureau. I think I can make a few things happen between my boys and the dicks." He scooped up the crime scene photos, "How is she?" Sheehnan looked up at the staircase Claire had taken to leave us.
I handed him a stack of photographs, "She's okay. Tired of being chased and being a target." I looked at Davey, "But Davey and I will keep her safe, with your help of course." I smiled, "We just need to get better leads to track this asshole down and let him understand that Claire cannot be harmed without repercussions."
Sheehnan grinned, "I will do my best." He snapped his briefcase shut, dragging it over the table to hang in his hand, "Do you want me to have a few extra patrols hang around the house?"
I shook my head, "Don't make it obvious, a few more drive throughs will be plenty. This house is practically better than Fort Knox." I followed Davey and Sheehnan upstairs and to the front door. I said a quick goodbye to Sheehnan after I told him that I would send him all of the information I had on Alistair and his groupies. He promised Davey and I that as soon as he got more information about the real Stansfield he would send it our way.
Davey closed the door, leaning his back against it, "Kit, this is turning into a literal shit show. Like a bad movie with no ending in sight." He loosened his tie, "I will have my boys start digging as well. I would like to have a face to face conversation with Alistair." Davey pushed off the door, yawning, "I am going get the word out now and then I am going to fall into bed for a small coma." Davey rolled his eyes, "And I have to call Rebecca back, she has been calling the firm and all the contacts I have since the news hit about the hallway. I will bite that bullet for you and Claire, I can usually talk her down from bitchy to sassy."
He placed his hand on my shoulder, "Go to upstairs and get some rest Kit. You look like shit." He smiled and scanned over my mismatched outfit of a Miller Lite t-shirt and the pinstriped pants I still wore with matching heels.
I looked down, feeling like it had been a lifetime wearing these clothes, "Thanks?"
Davey chuckled, grabbing me into a hug. I was still getting used to the impeccable man hugging me, but welcomed it, "Go be with her. You two are stronger together than you are separate." He stepped out of my arms, "Make her go to bed, I know her. She will probably be in her little office drowning away in work to avoid thinking about the things she needs to. Bits is terrible at processing things, just buries them in work until her brain is overcrowded."
I smiled at Davey, waiting until he disappeared into the basement before I went upstairs to Claire's bedroom.
He was right, I found Claire sitting in the large wing back chair, her black frame glasses on hunched over a notebook scribbling away with Dr. Bourne's notebook splayed out in front of her on the floor. There was also a thick patient file on the bed.
I sat on the edge of the bed in front of her next to the patient file, "Sheehnan left, he will be back in the morning. Davey is downstairs sending out word to a few of his boys to start digging further about Alistair." I waited a moment, Claire only nodding that she heard me, continuing to scribble. She was in her work bubble like Davey said. "I am going to clean up and get changed. I think you should do the same, then join Norbert and I in some cuddling and a movie until we pass out." I was trying to keep things light, knowing that the air was still tense, but for the rest of the night I wanted to forget, cuddle up with Claire and think about the day we could leave this all behind. Hoping it would come soon.
I went to stand up when I caught the patient name on the edge of the thick file next to me. Beth S. Littell. I cocked my head, Littell. The family that had sent the package to Cla
ire's office, the same one I had thrown to the ground to chase the fake Stansfield. I lifted the surprisingly heavy file, opening it to reveal piles of test results, charts, graphs and a litany of medical terminology I had little understanding of. I easily picked out Claire's messy handwriting on the margins of some of the pages. Notes such as, replace lungs in third phase after kidneys have stabilized. Spleen in fourth stage then look at possible total bone marrow replacement.
I read through the things I could understand and found that this little girl was very sick and running out of time. Her personal physician had given her eight months to live four months ago. I continued reading the doctors notes mixed with Claire's notes. Catching the last page where Claire had written, "Arrival at Criterion scheduled for late December. Two weeks before my arrival to begin phase one. Contact Zehren after Xmas to finalize."
I set the file in my lap, looking up to see Claire staring at me. I closed the file and set it off to the side, "I probably shouldn't have read that."
Claire smiled lightly, "It's fine. I had to tell you soon and intended to tell you when we got home today." She set her notebook down, "Beth is the reason why I can't quit right now. I, we, are going to the Criterion next month so I can start phase one of Beth's organ replacements. She will be the first patient to have the multiple replacement that Erich and I have developed over the last five years." Claire leaned forward in the chair, placing a warm hand on my knee, "I can't abandon her, I have to follow through on the promises I made to her and her family. Well before things became difficult here."
Claire let out a slow breath, "Tomorrow I will be taking a leave of absence from the Senate, in claims of recovering from my injury, instead I will be finishing up the final details to move up Beth's procedures and get them completed before she runs out of time and my enemies get closer. I need to move faster before she becomes a target by association."
Claire stood up and sat next to me on the bed, her hand finding mine. The determination in her voice told me there would be no way in hell I could negotiate her to hold off on Beth and heading to the Criterion. I honestly didn't think I could bring myself to ask her after reading Beth’s file, reading in black and white how sick the poor girl was and that Claire was truly her only chance on seeing her next birthday.
I looked at her, finally asking what I wanted to the moment she left the basement, "Are you okay? I know Sheehnan threw a lot at us."
Claire shrugged, "It was difficult to sit through, but it did give me an idea." She reached down to the floor, picking up Bourne's notebook. "It was when he said clone and you mentioned something about eye color." She flipped through a few pages before stopping, "I had caught in Dr. Bourne's notes that while performing a cloning procedure to bring back one of her test patient’s eyesight, it actually altered the eye color, from a bright green color to a dark blue color. Her notes even call it an almost dead color of blue, as if she had killed all of the pigment in the iris in the process and left the eyes to be dead and cold. The color of cold arctic ocean water."
Claire picked up her own notes, "It got me thinking, wondering if the CIA or Beekeeper had unlocked some sort of ability after Dr. Bourne’s death to be able to heal the remaining patients she left behind. Turning them into mindless vessels, with little thought of their own. Easily manipulated to follow directives and orders, not free will and thought. I had researched the news reports and some of the bits Ivan was able to get so far about the incident of the accident that killed Bourne." She flipped over her notes, pointing at one mess of scribbled words, "Two patients survived. Her first patient, Honey was killed in the blast with her. The other two were later patients, a part of the next phase of her research. The first in her attempt at advanced replication of humans." Claire ran her finger over two names. Apis and Micrapis. "Obviously she was stuck on the bee theme. But I think if we can track more information down about these two, it might lead us somewhere."
I leaned into Claire, "I don't know if it will lead us to Alistair, Claire." I closed my eyes, feeling even more tired from the day and the deluge of information being thrown at me from everywhere. Even though I was relieved that Claire was beginning to show signs of settling down from her own emotional roller coaster, I just wanted to go to bed. I sighed and laid back on the bed, yanking on her hand to follow. "Can we just sleep on it? Then deal with it in the morning?"
Claire looked back at me, "I am a little wired from the serum. I think Alistair is connected, the notebook was in the basement of the church. I also think if we find the other two we will find him." She gave me a soft negotiating look, "I want to look up Apis and Micrapis then I will come to bed."
I sighed, sitting back up, "Fine. One hour or I am sending in Norbert to come and get you." I leaned over, kissing Claire soft but deeply. Hearing her moan defiantly as I parted from her lips, I grinned at her flushed face. "I think there are other ways to deal with you being wired." I stood up and walked out to the door, looking back I met her sea green eyes, "I know I say it a thousand times a day, but." I paused, watching her eyes sparkle like they did when she looked at me like she was now, "I love you Claire, forever and through everything that we've been through and have yet to go through. I love you." I chuckled at my own sappiness that was short lived when I saw Claire's eyes turn glassy.
"I love you too Caitriona, even when I’m a pain in the ass." She smiled brightly as I left the room and moved to mine. I felt lighter than I had earlier when I saw her on the floor and everything that followed. Now that I knew she had her own backup serum, I felt better. At least there was twenty four more chances to keep her alive when the push of Alistair moved closer to her. He would only increase in intensity now that he saw the crack in her defenses.
I stripped off the pants, throwing them in a ball with my beer t-shirt on the floor before climbing into a scalding hot shower. I braced against the far wall as the endless hot water pounded away at my skin, removing the stress lingering in my muscles. The serum was working its way out as I felt the slow strains of being tired and being on an adrenaline high for too long.
I closed my eyes, letting my mind drift with the hot water and steam. Thinking about nothing but a soft bed, warm blankets and a long night of much needed sleep. I had full intentions of watching mindless reality shows with Norbert until Claire came to bed and then leaving them on until I passed out.
My mind began to drift to the dark blue eyes of the fake Stansfield and what Claire had said about pigment death. The fake Stansfield’s eyes were a dead dark blue. They lacked the sparkle of life that all humans carry in their eyes. Just cold, dead determined eyes that made my gut react at the familiarity.
I turned in the shower, leaning my forehead against the warm, wet tile, letting the water pound on my back. I indulged my gut, giving it a moment to sift through my mind of why there was a sense of familiarity in the blue eyes I saw. I didn't have the perfect photographic memory Claire did, but I could remember faces. I went over the faces I had encounter in the last few weeks while I was sober and could actually clearly remember faces and the names attached to them.
Then the voices of four came together in my head, all different but the same in the cold, careful way they pronounced words. It didn't matter they were male or female, they overlapped and became one clear voice. His raspy voice that left a permanent mark in my mind as he whispered his final words in my ear.
My head shot up from the tile, "Shit."
I had seen those same dead dark blue eyes before, two other distinct times before. Two times those eyes bored deep into mine for an awkward moment that was unusual. I slammed the hot water off, rushing out of the shower. Half wrapping myself in a towel, I ran back into Claire's room, startling her as she sat at her desk in the panic room, "Kit?!"
I held up my hand to stop her, "Stansfield is Michael Anderson. That asshole at the mall I sucker punched." I took a deep breath, "Michael Anderson is also Michaela Verger, that old rich lady at the restaurant who fan girl’d all over you. They are all the same perso
n. They are all Alistair." I clutched the towel against my chest, "Alistair has been right in front of us every step of the way."
Chapter 23
Kit had a panicked look on her face, one that came with finally figuring out the answer and feeling like it was a little too late. She was breathing heavy and the small towel she held against her wet body did not leave much to the mystery, her wet hair was hanging loosely around her face, small drops of water cascading down her neck and disappearing at the edges of the towel. I had to tear my eyes away from her, "What do you mean?" I swallowed thickly turning back to the plethora of research drowning my monitors.
Kit shuffled into the panic room with me, tugging the towel up under her arms to hold it while she leaned over and typed on the keyboard. "I mean that every weirdo that has come up to you since I came on board, has made at least one really awkward comment to me before staring at me dead in the eyes. Michael, Michaela, Stansfield. They all tore your attention away, but ensured that they made bold, creepy eye contact with me before continuing on with their business." Kit leaned over me, her arm brushing my hand, sending a lovely tingle throughout my body. I backed up a little to give her more room.
My pink serum had its own side effects similar to Kit's, increasing the pheromone intake of my body and making my body react appropriately inappropriately. I fully understood now what Kit had gone through over the last few days of trying to contain her desires. I had to close my eyes and listen to Kit instead of letting my hand move up to tug at the small towel she pressed against her half naked and wet body, letting it fall to the floor.
Kit's voice was urgent as she spoke, "I ran Michael when we got home from the mall. He came up clean. The typical Johnny America diligent voter." I opened my eyes to view the large DMV photograph of the well-dressed man who accosted me in the mall. Kit turned slightly to me as she continued, "I did the same for Michaela." Another large color photograph clicked to rest next to Michael. "A rich older woman who is a registered democratic, living the aristocratic life of a woman who has more money than she knows what to do with, but has no criminal record that would make her stand out as a threat." Kit stood up straight from the desk, "What do you see Claire?"
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