"I don't believe you," Blankenship said.
"Well, then I guess we're at an impasse." A grin crept onto the man's face that could only be described as shit-eating, even as a bruise on the side of his head darkened under the harsh light. It was a gnarly mix of red and purple and black, and Watson frowned at the sight of it. Not only because he had no idea how it had gotten there—as far as he knew, the man hadn't been attacked since his arrest—but because it appeared to grow and shift before his eyes. He locked eyes with Blankenship, arching a brow and head-tilting in the man's direction.
The door opened before either detective could ask another question. Both Watson and Blankenship turned in their seats, greeted with the sight of Detective Stevens with a manila folder in his right hand and his face as pale as either of them had ever seen. Stevens didn't even spare a glance or a snide remark at the suspect, which was yet another sign that whatever was in that folder...
Watson stood and joined his colleague, fighting the crease threatening to form in his brow.
"We got a problem." Stevens handed Watson the folder.
Opening the folder, Watson studied its contents. His brow furrowed as he read, a shudder working down his spine and dread sitting in the pit of his stomach like a brick. He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he was going to say got stuck in the back of his throat. He glanced over his shoulder at the suspect before turning his gaze back to Stevens.
"You read right," the older detective said. "Fuckwad on the slab is Erik Wagner."
"But..." Watson stabbed the file in his grasp with his finger. "Says here Wagner died two years ago."
"And again, earlier this afternoon."
"Are you sure?"
"DNA don't lie, son." Stevens tsked, finally staring at the man sitting across the table. He pushed his way past Watson, taking the occupied seat and clasping his hands together. When the other man sneered at him, Stevens replied with a smirk, his bushy mustache hiding his upper lip the same way it had dating all the way back to his college days. "So, if our dead body is Wagner... does that make you Gordon?"
Blankenship tossed Stevens a confused glare. The other man's sneer faded, but other than that, he remained perfectly still.
And silent.
"Yeah." Stevens smoothed out his mustache. "Yeah, that's it. You're Patrick Gordon. Buddies with Wagner going back to your military days."
"Uh, Earl?" Blankenship cast a sideways look at her partner, who responded only by shrugging his shoulders. "Mind filling in the blanks for the rest of us?"
"Even when he's on the run, Cap's been helping us out," Stevens explained. "See, news of your little shooting spree travels fast. I called the captain to report it, and he already knew what had happened—and he even offered up some juicy nuggets on ol' Wagner and Gordon here. Their fucked-up philosophy fits in quite nicely with this Collective crap, so it's not all that shocking that they'd be roped into this."
"Except one of them was dead," Watson interrupted from the doorway. Shock had kept him from joining his colleagues back at the table.
"So what?" Gordon shrugged and shook his head. He met Stevens' glare, his upper lip curling into a sneer. "I ain't goin' back to prison."
The oldest of the three detectives gathered the papers strewn across the table and stuffed them back into his manila folder. "You wouldn't last long, even if you did."
Stevens and Blankenship shared a glance before both detectives rose from their chairs. The legs scraped across the floor, but Gordon didn't even flinch. The pair joined Watson at the door, and with a nod from Stevens, the door swung open. Watson and Blankenship stepped through the threshold, with Stevens poised to follow.
"Wait," Gordon called out.
Stevens glanced over his shoulder with an arched brow.
"We can make a deal."
"A deal," the detective repeated, shutting the door behind him. "You behead people on live TV, you shoot up a buncha tourists, and you want a damn deal?"
"I'll give you our leader."
"No, you won't." Stevens smirked. "You'll give us who they told you is the leader. They're not dumb enough to actually give you that intel."
"They'll kill me if I stay here."
"Maybe." Stevens opened the folder again, staring at the contents and stroking his mustache with his free hand. "Or maybe you're dying anyway."
CHAPTER 43
"I really hope you know what you're doing."
"I know exactly what I'm doing." Jill stood as still as she could, despite the late November chill coming in off the bay. Mount Winans United Methodist stood guard over the rows of stone, some of which had clearly seen better days. The harsh winters and humid summers had wreaked havoc on some of the older tombs, but the only two that mattered to Jill, right in front of her, were pristine. Brian had made sure of that over the years, and it struck Jill just now that she had never told him how much that meant to her. That felt like a conversation to have. After Jill was done figuring out if her father was actually dead or not. She had her guess, but she hoped against hope she was wrong.
With any luck, this pit in her stomach was because of the soup she’d had for dinner—not because her father wasn’t in the box under his headstone.
But since when had Jill been lucky?
Spotlights shone on the final resting place of Janice and Paul Andersen, and the surrounding area had been roped off with yellow crime scene tape. FBI forensics vans were scattered along the grounds. FBI resources aside, it was no different than every other crime scene Jill had been a part of over the years. Just more dead bodies than she was used to.
"How did Brian take the news?" Ramon asked, staring at the patch of grass that presumably laid over Paul's casket.
"He wasn't happy about it, but I think he understood," Jill said, her lower lip quivering. It was because of the cold, she swore. "He saw the same video I did. He just wants the same thing I do."
"For your dad to be in that box?"
Jill nodded and huffed a laugh in spite of herself. The irony in now wishing her father was dead. But it beat the alternative, didn't it? Every time Jill thought back on what Dr. Lo had described as the next step of Project Fusion—human reanimation—she shuddered. It was one thing to use science in an effort to improve what already existed. In many ways, Jill was the pinnacle of scientific achievement in that regard. But to reverse the natural order of things? To take such monumental concepts as life and death and play with them, as if one were a deity?
She couldn't fathom that, let alone stomach it.
Jill stared at her phone, frowning when she noticed Castillo hadn’t messaged her. He had been tasked with tracking down Dr. Lo before Jill and the FBI cavalry descended upon the cemetery, and he had promised word as soon as he found something. Silence meant the not so good doctor was still out there. Hell, for all Jill knew, he was long gone by now.
Because why would any of this be easy?
Agent McDermott joined the pair, wearing a black wool coat and a matching scarf. For the first time since Jill initially crossed paths with him, his demeanor was anything but laid-back and carefree. He cocked a sideways glance at her, sympathy in his eyes. Jill appreciated him for that, even though she still felt something off about him, like she did any other time she was in his presence. That would come to a head one day, but for right now, she had more important concerns.
"Last chance to back out," he offered. "Completely understand if you have second thoughts."
"No," Jill said, pocketing her phone. "I need to know."
Pursing his lips, McDermott sighed before tilting his chin and giving the man wearing a highlighter orange vest sitting atop a bulldozer a nod. The operator gave a thumbs-up in return before pulling on a black lever. The giant machine churned—a loud, grating sound—before the claw dug into the ground for the first time. Jill flinched when metal dug into earth, clenching her jaw and sucking in a deep breath. Ramon's hand rested on her shoulder, and she had to force herself to exhale. Turning her head ever so slightly, s
he smiled softly at her partner, never more grateful than now for the fact that he had accepted her offer.
It took seven minutes and twenty-three seconds for the hole to be dug, and another fifteen minutes for the crew to lift the casket from its encasing. Contrary to popular belief, a coffin was not simply lowered into the ground before dirt and grass were tossed back in on top of it. Caskets were often encased in large cement or stone slabs, designed to keep foreign objects and predators out, while also slowing the human body's natural process of decomposition.
Though Jill had never quite understood why such lengths were taken when burying the dead, she had attended enough funerals to know how long it took to put one of those boxes in the ground. This was her first time watching the process in reverse. If she had any say, it would also be the last.
This just felt wrong.
Jill had always considered the process of exhuming a body grotesque and uncomfortable, a tactic only to be used when absolutely necessary. Fortunately, her career as a homicide cop had never necessitated such a thing, but she wasn't even a month into her FBI job before having to dig up a grave. Her own father's, no less. But she knew what she had seen on The Collective's last video, and she knew Ramon was steadfast in insisting the man on that screen had not been her father.
Even if it had looked and sounded exactly like him.
Ramon had a lot of conviction, just no proof.
The casket had been laid onto the ground, the ropes supporting it falling away as the safety crew backed off. Jill approached the finished pine, studying the grooves through a sheen of tears. It was remarkable how thorough the skin graft on the left side of her face was; not only did it allow her left eye to appear as normal as the right one, but it also allowed both eyes to function as a normal person's. Jill would never understand the science behind that, but she knew the skin graft was the only reason her secret identity had lasted as long as it did.
Jill wiped at her face with one hand as the other laid flat atop the casket. She closed her eyes and muttered a prayer under her breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she had prayed. Probably not long after Paul's conviction, when she had locked herself away in her bedroom, refusing dinner and pleading with God that this was a mistake. That naive, hopeful teenager had slowly grown into a mature, if somewhat cynical, woman—one who often didn't find much time for God.
Not out of malice. Just... God didn't fit.
None of them did.
McDermott stood beside Jill as the crew handling all the grunt work placed four metal rods—two on each side—in the crack separating the lid from the rest of the coffin. They each gave a nod before McDermott cleared his throat. "You ready?"
"No." Jill shook her head and removed her hand. "Do it."
With a mechanized whir, the rods lifted the lid off the casket. Most coffins Jill had seen over the years had lids that opened in two parts, from the side, to allow for viewings and wakes. Paul's casket, one of the cheaper models provided by the state, had a top-down lid that went on and came off in one piece. At the time, Jill thought it didn’t matter—because when would anyone ever need to open the casket?
Jill held her breath as the plank of wood came free far too slow for her liking. She felt Ramon beside her again, his hand now in hers, and when she cast a sideways glance, she saw that he was also holding his breath.
Once the lid was completely removed, Jill's knees wobbled. She nearly blacked out; her heart skipped a beat and her head spun. Ramon's hand became like a vice around hers, the only thing grounding her. McDermott stormed off, barking orders into his smartphone and the rest of the FBI agents on-scene scrambled, talking over each other and fishing for whatever device they could reach.
Because Paul Andersen's casket was empty.
CHAPTER 44
Several months ago...
Consciousness was slow to return. As Paul Andersen's eyes opened, and he slowly began to take in his surroundings, he was overwhelmed with pain. It throbbed up and down his entire body.
From his temples. Through his ribcage. Down his legs.
He couldn't see a thing; even now, Paul was bathed in pitch black. But he could feel the beads of sweat running down the side of his face, the nodes and wires that attached him to some infernal machine. Four nodes were dotted along his forehead and temples, and three more were stuck to his chest. The throbbing was its most intense on those nodes, and the sensation drove his hands into fists, fingernails digging into his palms.
Paul's eyes widened before he turned his head to the side and emptied the contents of his stomach. He retched with such force that his entire body shook, and his hands clutched the arms of his cold metal chair. Even as bile and everything else spilled from his mouth and plopped onto the floor, Paul noticed the restraints tight around his wrists and ankles. His insides heaved for what felt like minutes; even after his stomach was long empty, Paul couldn't stop gagging.
It hurt worse when there was nothing left to purge.
"My apologies," a soft, crisp voice called from the darkness. "These drugs are quite potent, but the side effects are absolute murder."
Paul managed to lift his head, squinting into the black. He swallowed the lump in his throat, cringing when his gag reflex threatened to kick in again. His arms shook, much like they would whenever he had come down with the flu or a bad cold. The sweat was dripping from his cheeks and the tip of his nose, and breathing was too much of a struggle for his liking.
"Where..." He gulped down more oxygen before breaking into a coughing fit.
"Not on Death Row anymore," the other man answered, an overhead light bursting to life. He smiled and adjusted his glasses before loosening his tie. "I apologize for these conditions. In order for you to get better, we have to go into hiding."
"Who is 'we?'"
"Ever the detective." The well-dressed man took a seat across from Paul, pausing to stare at a laptop display. He tapped three keys before removing his glasses. "Though I have to admit I'm a little surprised. I would imagine someone in your position would be more concerned with why you're no longer dead."
Paul's frown deepened, partly because his stomach was doing somersaults again. Every movement threatened to have him heaving once more, and he hated the way he could feel his veins throbbing. In fact, every sensation seemed more powerful than he could recall. His sight was clearer than it had ever been, and he was hearing all sorts of sounds he didn't know how to process. He had to stare at the floor to keep the light out of his eyes, and even then, it was still too bright.
"Dead?"
"You don't recall?" The man pursed his lips and typed some more. "Interesting."
"I remember I was..." Paul swallowed with a grimace. He really didn't feel like vomiting again. "I was on Death Row."
"And you were executed." The man stood and paced around Paul's chair in a circle with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Lethal injection. Really nasty stuff. That's probably what you threw up just a few moments ago."
"So what is this? Hell?" Paul shook his head with a smirk before turning his head to spit out a mouthful of bile. "Funny. I expected more fire and brimstone."
"This is not the afterlife, Mr. Andersen. You are quite alive. Not exactly well at the moment, but once the rest of the drugs clear out of your system, you will feel as well as you've felt in decades."
Paul lifted his gaze, hissing at how bright the overhead lights were. "Okay, any minute now, you're gonna say something that makes sense."
The man was back in front of Paul, cocking his head to the side and squinting. "It's actually quite simple. You've been resurrected, Mr. Andersen. You were, in fact, quite dead. For almost an hour. Thanks to all the advances in modern medicine and technology, we were able to revitalize not just your circulatory system, but your nervous system as well. Congratulations. You are the first person ever to achieve full reanimation."
Paul spat on the floor again. "Do I get a t-shirt?"
"Even better." A tight-lipped smile crossed the man's face
. "You get a second chance at life."
Paul shook his head and closed his eyes—for no other reason than to keep the room from spinning. "Who said I want one?"
"We all do, don't we?" The man shrugged. "Everyone wants a second chance at something. A job that didn't work out. The big game that ended badly. An old flame. Wanting the proverbial do-over is one of the things that makes us uniquely human, Mr. Andersen."
"But I didn't ask for this!"
"Perhaps not. But think about this, Paul. I... may call you Paul, right? Time was, you were a hero. A fine cop, the sort of man everyone should aspire to be. But then you fell in with the wrong crowd and before you know it, the hero wasn't looking so heroic. You let down your colleagues, your city... your family. The state sent you off to die for your crimes, and you did."
Paul arched a brow and swallowed back even more bile. "And?"
"Now I am offering you a chance to make things right. It won't wipe your slate clean. The damage has already been done. But... what if I told you, you could be a part of a task force designed to make sure what happened to you never happens to anyone else?"
Truth was, Paul wanted nothing more than to go back to being dead. He'd had his chance. He'd lived the life he had been given, and he messed up his one shot with it. Not that the idea of a do-over wasn't tempting, but the idea of someone using science and medicine to play God didn't sit well in his stomach. Nothing sat well in his gut right now, but knowing he had been plucked out of eternal slumber by a man whose name he still didn't know... and for what?
Paul shook his head and averted his gaze.
"There's nothing that'll help me," he muttered. "I'm beyond saving."
"Are you?" The man cocked his head to the side again. "I believe everyone is capable of redemption, Mr. Andersen. Even serial killers. That is why we're here."
"My life has caused enough pain," Paul argued. "Trust me, everyone in this town is better off without me."
"The Collective needs you, Mr. Andersen. Who better to help this city clean up the filth than someone who's so intimately familiar with it?"
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