by Mike McCrary
This is the third time she’s been in here.
First time was when Darby was put in charge of the mess they are currently in. The mess of Markus Murphy and everything surrounding him. Peyton had never met Darby before, let alone worked with her.
With her, not for her.
Work is another word that itches inside Peyton’s brain.
This all might be work for Darby, part of her job, just another box to be checked, but not to Peyton. To her, this is far from punching the clock. This is more like her heartbeat. The science she and her team began is her reason for breathing. There is nothing else. She has poured everything she has into this, only to watch it morph into a global catastrophe, and she’s had a front row seat to the entire unraveling disaster. A perfect view of everything she’s lived and worked for set ablaze before her very eyes.
However, Peyton is a realist.
She knows what is in the past belongs there and the only way forward is through Darby. Doesn’t love it, but it’s where she is. Her father used to talk often about living to fight another day. Peyton’s edges might be frayed, her nerves on the verge of shattering, but make no mistake, Peyton is alive and prepared to fight as hard and long as it takes.
“Can I get you something?” Darby asks. “Besides a new jacket.”
Peyton gives a polite laugh, tugging at her right shoulder. She has found Darby to be a sharp, highly intelligent woman with a dry sense of humor that cuts like a dull knife.
She also doesn’t trust her.
Not at all.
Peyton knows this mistrust stems from her past experience with the CIA. Thompson was her past experience. Her only experience. And that was more than enough to formulate her opinion. Thompson was a former CIA agent who moved on to the private side serving as a bridge for new, rising tech and biotech firms that needed a little seed money and would do almost anything to have access to that funding. Funding the CIA could and would gladly provide with unspoken strings attached.
Peyton was one of those rising biotech firms in need of money to seed her life’s work. Former CIA agent Thompson was her main point of contact with the agency prior to Murphy blowing his head off.
Thompson lied to Peyton from the very beginning.
Failed to mention there was a separate CIA group mirroring Peyton’s work. Stealing, using her research and bleeding-edge science to develop dirty deeds.
Peyton wanted to help people.
Do good with her work by adding balance to troubled minds through advanced medical and psychological treatments after her younger brother died from an overdose, losing his long battle with a lifetime of issues stemming from an extreme bipolar disorder. She created a way of mixing the unstable with the stable for the benefit of everyone.
The CIA wanted the opposite.
They wanted to inject murder into the minds of stable, functional people in order to create on-demand killers. Push-button psychopaths ready and waiting for orders. Lady Brubaker was part of that group. She was a highly trained killer mixed with the mind of a lovely, kind woman named Kate.
Brubaker led others like her in a takeover of the lab where they’d been poked and prodded. The main difference, her followers were all males who had Murphy mixed into their minds. Brubaker was the lone female, which is why Kate was used. Together, Brubaker and her followers rose up and killed everyone in the lab that held them captive. CIA agents, doctors, scientists were all slaughtered. Then, Brubaker and her Murphy-mixed followers vanished into the wind. Became ghosts. Hell had been set loose, until Peyton and Murphy did their best to put a lid on it.
“Shitshow.” Darby runs her tongue over her teeth. “Shitshow? Would you consider that a tired, yet accurate description of what’s going on?”
“Reasonable assessment.” Peyton sits up straight.
A corner of Darby’s mouth lifts, giving the thinnest of smiles.
“Brubaker is in surgery right now.”
“Is she—”
“Gonna die?” Darby lets a little of her Georgia roots slip through. “Lost a lot of blood. Given her skill set, she knew the best place to start the cut, so I really don’t know. Bit of a pain in the neck, however.”
Peyton smiles at the joke. Not sure if it was one.
“It didn’t go well. I acknowledge that.” Peyton clears her throat. “But there wasn’t anything in her profile that suggested a risk of suicide.”
“Which profile? There’s two on her, of course.”
“Neither of them. Kate had nothing vaguely signaling suicidal behavior. And Brubaker is a psychopathic narcissist. The studies are mixed, but that mental makeup plus her history does not suggest she would ever consider taking her own life.”
“Far more likely to slaughter everyone in the building than kill herself.”
“One would think.” Peyton clears her throat again. Shoulders inch up like earrings. “I took something I knew from her past, and within reasonable risk parameters, I hoped that I might create an open environment. Get her to—”
“You rolled the dice based on data.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not something you need to apologize for, Dr. Peyton.” Darby’s eyes drill in. Impossible to read her intentions. “That’s something we tend to do around here. Taking reasonable risks to sidestep unbridled hell is plenty cool with me.”
Peyton’s shoulders lower. Not entirely, but a little.
“They call this the Split-Head Project. Did you know that?”
“What? Wait. Who’s they exactly?”
“Some wise-ass agent started it. Probably that douche Irving. But the name has some teeth to it. It’s caught on around here. The higher-ups are calling it that now too.”
“How sensitive of them.”
“That former agent you worked with really screwed that whole thing up, didn’t he? Thompson was it?”
“He did. Caused a lot of pain for a lot of people.”
Darby nods. She turns her chair slightly to the right, looks out the window.
“We’ve been digging through things. Sifting through the wreckage of what was left when Brubaker and her friends escaped the lab and—”
“Excuse me.” Peyton cuts in. Her heartbeat cranks up a few more beats per second. “Do you mind if I stand up? I think better when I’m standing. Moving, actually. More like pacing. I think better when I’m pacing, and this sounds like a conversation where I should be pacing.”
“Please do.” Darby playfully motions for her to rise.
Peyton stands, beginning to pace back and forth. Darby watches her with that thin smile working overtime.
“I’ll cut through most of the shit, Dr. Peyton. We’ve found there are a few of Brubaker’s split heads, for lack of better term, still out there.”
“We thought that would be the case.”
“True. We did. We still don’t know the exact number, and unfortunately, we discovered there are a few more things we didn’t know.”
Peyton speeds up her pace, thinking of how Brubaker said something about one being out there. One out there being like her. Peyton keeps it to herself, although she knows full well that Margo Darby has reviewed the recordings from her conversation with Brubaker.
“We think someone from the CIA side of that project survived the escape.”
“Who?”
“Not completely sure. There are four potential agency personnel unaccounted for and—”
“Four?” Peyton blurts out.
Darby nods, wiggling four fingers with her thumb folded tight into her palm.
“Well…” Darby balls her wiggling fingers into a fist and turns back toward the window. “There’s only one who’s actually alive now.”
Darby taps her desk without looking away from the window. The curtains pull closed as the overhead lights dim. The far wall illuminates, flickering, then shows a photo of a man laid out dead in the street.
Peyton winces a bit at the sight of what happens to the human body after falling from a considerable height.
“This guy fell out of a hotel. And…” Darby taps, then slides her finger along her desk. “These two died in a parking lot. One took a bullet to the head. The other one was beaten to death. All three died last night. All three right around the same time.”
Peyton stares at the screen, slows her pacing.
She doesn’t recognize any of them, but why would she? She never had any contact with the members of the CIA who stole her work. She didn’t know they even existed until recently. Thompson made damn sure of that.
“Who did this?” Peyton asks.
“Not sure. Surprisingly, there is no footage of the parking lot or from the hotel. Not a single security camera or anyone’s personal device caught a shot of any of it.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s not. Not in today’s world.”
“You said four survived the lab. This is only three.”
“Your math is correct. There’s one left. A CIA-sponsored scientist. Much like yourself.”
“Nothing like me.” Peyton said it with a little more bite than she intended.
“Apologies.” Darby resets. “A man named Ernesto. We are still pulling all we know about Dr. Ernesto, but what we do know is that he was on the opposite side of this project from you. Highly respected in the field of neuroscience. Knee-deep in some shadow ops that—”
“He was involved with Brubaker and—”
“And the rest of the ones who escaped? Yes. Ernesto was the main brain on that side.”
“Fucking fantastic.” Peyton lets the words slip without realizing it.
“What’s really fucking fantastic,” Darby says with a crack of her knuckles, “is that we can’t find him.”
“You think this Ernesto killed these people?” Peyton points to the grisly images on the wall while picking up the pace of her pacing.
“I doubt dear Dr. Ernesto did this. He’s in his early sixties and is about the size of a schnauzer.”
“Then who?”
“We like some of Brubaker’s buddies for this.”
“What?” Peyton comes to dead stop. “You really think so?”
“We do.”
Peyton goes back to pacing, letting her mind work through it.
“You still keep pretty close tabs on Murphy, correct?” Darby asks.
“Of course I do.” Peyton studies the photos of the dead. Processing. “You know I do.”
“Was that part of the agreement with him?”
“Something like that.” Peyton stops, turning to Darby.
Darby nods. Her stare bores through Peyton. Unreadable as hell. “You know, some people in this building think he never should have been let out in the wild.”
“Some people haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
“Not saying I’m one of them.”
Bullshit, Peyton thinks.
“Do you track him?” Darby lets out a soft chuckle.
“Constantly.”
“You trust him?”
“I trust part of him.” Peyton starts pacing again.
“He is part scary dude.”
Darby taps her desk. The wall goes dark. The curtains open up, letting light creep back into the office. Staring at Peyton for a minute too long, Darby lets the silence pick away at her. Peyton fights everything inside of her not to talk first. She knows this is a game to Darby.
“We need to find Markus Murphy. We need to talk with him.”
“We?”
“Well, you. For now, you.” A veiled threat if ever there was one. “His special level of insight might be valuable at a time like this.”
Peyton takes her original seat in front of Darby’s desk. The wheels in her mind spin.
“That a problem?” Darby looks back to the window, as if removing herself from the room.
“Murphy is in a fragile state right now.”
“Aren’t we all.”
“I’m being serious.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“I think there might be something happening chemically. I need to run tests on Brubaker, but her sudden suicide attempt concerns me. On several levels.”
“And that concern is?”
“I’m concerned they might be crashing. To put it in blunt terms.”
Darby nods without looking her way.
“I don’t think—” Peyton stops, resets. “Not sure we should disrupt the healing process that—”
“Not sure I’m asking permission.” Darby turns back to Peyton, her thin smile returning.
Peyton leans back, holding on to the arms of the chair. A sudden suffocating feeling grips her. Like icy fingers wrapping around her throat. A sensation she never experienced prior to working with these people. And this new working-with-the-CIA choking feeling, it is becoming a little too familiar for her liking.
“Where’s Murphy?” Darby asks.
Now Peyton looks out the window. Darby clears her throat, guiding attention back to her.
“Where is he, Dr. Peyton?”
Peyton pauses. Thinks.
“He’s eating pie with his mother.”
Chapter 12
Best pie in the universe.
That’s the bold statement on the sign out front.
An impossible claim to prove, but Murphy has noticed that these insane results posted from unnamed competitions are commonplace among the pie-making elite.
Best cheesecake in the state.
Best whatever in the USA.
And now, best pie in the universe.
This slice of pie is pretty damn good, however. Mother hasn’t said much since they left the park. Since they made that quick detour stopping to see the girls. Murphy can’t imagine what’s going through Mother’s mind. Trying to pin down her thoughts has always been an amazing act of futility. She’s been many things over the years, but easy to read is not one of them.
Mother chews her bite of pie and sips her coffee.
The diner they’re seated in is small but not tiny. The décor is an odd mix of the past and present. There’s a picture of Elvis next to a large portrait of the new high-speed rail that rockets people around the East Coast like cattle riding a bullet stuck on a bolt of lightning. There’s an ancient pie carousel slow turning the best pie in the universe, along with some of its lesser dessert friends. A rotating glass tube of goodness. The glass projects slow-dissolving, brightly colored names and prices of the desserts on display. Provides a modern touch along with the nostalgia. A smiley face gets mixed in here and there amongst the dollar signs.
Murphy’s eyes dart.
Scanning, processing his surroundings constantly.
He can tell you the height and weight of everyone. He knows whether everyone here is right or left-handed, customers and staff included. He’s not sure about the kitchen, but his best guess is there are two to four people working back there. He can also safely assume there are three exits to the diner at the minimum. The front door they came in, the window in the men’s room—probably one in the women’s—and there has to be at least one leading out the back of the kitchen for trash and deliveries. He has enough bullets to kill or immobilize everyone, but he doubts the likelihood of any of them being threats.
One never knows, however.
It’s the never knows that can and will get you killed.
The threats will more than likely come from outside this diner. His mind churns through this style of analysis in a looping serpentine of data. Taking in the new inputs and stimuli. Process, report, then repeat as needed.
Mr. Nice Guy is melting into this pattern of thinking, adding what he knows about the world into the mix of what Murphy brings to the party. Locations, parts of the country, and perhaps most importantly, people. He knows personalities and types of people better than Murphy, who basically only knows two types of humans—bad people and worse people, and those aren’t always easy to spot. Sometimes, often actually, they are one and the same.
“You gonna talk to me about those girls?” Mother finally bre
aks open the quiet.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Anything would be nice.”
“It’s a little complicated.”
“No shit.”
“You saw them.” Murphy wipes his mouth with his napkin. “They’re better off where they are.”
“That why you keep visiting them?” Mother locks her eyes with his. “Sending them ducks and shit? Because you’re so damn blessed at letting things go?”
“It’s compl—”
“Complicated. Yeah, you said that.”
Murphy thinks about his gun again.
Easy.
A familiar woman’s voice cuts in.
“Murphy.”
Murphy looks up. Dr. Peyton stands a few feet from their table.
“Hi.” Murphy hides his surprise.
Surprised isn’t supposed to be a thing with Murphy. He can’t believe he allowed her to walk into the diner without detection, let alone slide up to their table. He’s getting soft. Mother and Mr. Nice Guy Noah are dulling the edge they all need so badly to survive.
“Who the hell are you?” Mother grips her fork like a weapon.
“Peyton.” She extends a hand.
Mother doesn’t accept the gesture, looking to her son for confirmation.
“Dr. Peyton, actually,” he says.
“Oh.” Mother recognizes the name. “Dr. fucking Frankenstein—”
“She’s okay, Mother. I told you about her.”
Peyton motions to the open chair, asking if she can join them. Murphy nods. Mother goes back to her pie keeping her eyes down. Peyton takes a seat as a waitress comes over. While Peyton orders some coffee, Mother fires eyes at Murphy, making her concern known. He raises a hand begging for calm. Please in his eyes.
“Happen to be in the neighborhood, Dr. Peyton?” Mother asks.
“Not far.” There’s a forced smile in Peyton’s voice. “I’ll pay you the courtesy of not lying. I track your son’s movement constantly.”