Bloodline

by F. Paul Wilson

  Jack would make a call and suggest that to the ME as soon as he left Levy. That decided, he had another concern.

  “What haven’t you told me about what this agency and the DoD are really up to with this oDNA?”

  “I’ve told you—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ve told me a lot, not all of it true. You say if you can control the trigger gene you can turn them all into Alan Alda. But there’s got to be another agenda. I mean, it’s not the Department of Public Health and Safety we’re working with here. What are they really going to do? Create oDNA-loaded soldiers and control their trigger genes so they’re all milquetoasts during peacetime, then stop treatment and let the dogs out during combat?”

  Levy dropped his sandwich. “Wh-where did you hear that?”

  Jack stared at him. He looked bloodless.

  “I just pulled it out of the air. You’re not telling me—?”

  “Of course not, of course not. I…I just thought…I mean, I was just wondering where you might have heard something so far-fetched and ridiculous.” He pushed his plate away. He seemed to have lost his appetite. “The, um, crime scene. You were there. Any sign that he left evidence?”

  Levy apparently wanted a change of subject. Jack let it go. If it were true, he could do nothing about it. And with the way this so-called therapy was working, the plan would never get off the ground.

  “Not that I could tell. What about the Pepsi bottle? Any prints?”

  “I’ll hear today.”

  “And if his are on it, will that be cause enough for your people to haul him in?”

  “If it were up to me, absolutely. But it will be Julia’s call, and I can almost guarantee she won’t. She’ll say it’s just an indication to up the dosage.”

  Jack clasped his hands tighter.

  “From where I sit, Vecca’s as bad as Bolton. She pointed him in Gerhard’s direction, didn’t she? Why? To test the suppresser therapy?” Levy’s expression told him he’d hit a nerve. “That was it, wasn’t it. Rattle his cage and see what he’d do. Did the same to me. Maybe she should be on this therapy. Anyone ever test her for oDNA?”

  Levy shook his head. “I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had none.”

  Jack lowered his voice. “She’s a killer, damn it! She might as well have slit Christy’s wrists and held Gerhard’s head under water herself.”

  “Oh, she could never do that. She’s not violent—and that’s the hallmark of oDNA-influenced behavior. But I do believe she’s a sociopath—a scientific sociopath. She sees life as a series of well-coordinated chemical reactions. And death is merely the cessation of those reactions.”

  “That doesn’t make her less responsible. She fingered me, and so Bolton thought he had to stop me. When he couldn’t do that by his usual direct means—killing me—he did it indirectly by killing the person who’d hired me. I’m laying that right on Vecca’s doorstep.”

  “What are you working up to here? I hope you’re not thinking of doing anything so foolish as taking reprisals on Julia. You could get us both in a lot of hot water.”

  “Hot water? Two people are dead. Gerhard might not have been the most savory character, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him. And Christy…I liked Christy.”

  “Please don’t do anything rash.”

  “Me?” Jack said. “Rash? Never.”

  “So you’ll stay away from Julia?”

  “Won’t harm a hair on her head.”

  But he couldn’t speak for Jeremy Bolton.

  3

  That guy, that detective, that Robertson…had to be him.

  Jeremy fumed in silence as he comforted a sobbing Dawn in the police station. The two of them were seated at the desk of a detective named Cullen—homicide of all things—who’d just explained the circumstances of her mother’s death. Balding, overweight, sweating, Cullen was obviously uncomfortable as he described how they’d found her, and the wounds that had killed her.

  “B-but the news said something about ‘suspicious,’” Dawn said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means the circumstances are unusual enough to warrant an investigation. We received a call informing us of your mother’s death. That’s certainly unusual in a suicide. And the caller told us to run drug and tox screens on her.”

  The fuck! How could he know?

  Jeremy felt a scream of rage building…wanted to start smashing things…but forced himself to remain calm and cool.

  “But what does that mean?” Dawn said.

  “It means we have two possibilities.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Someone found your mother after she committed suicide, wrongly suspected foul play, but didn’t want to get involved; or someone found her dead, rightly suspected foul play, but didn’t want to get involved. The second possibility means that someone killed your mother and made it look like suicide.”

  “But who…?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know. The caller used a pay-as-you-go cell phone, so the call is untraceable.”

  Jeremy could tell him who owned that phone. Robertson…that fuck Robertson must have paid a visit to Moonglow soon after Jeremy left, found her dead, and made the call. A simple suicide had now become a possible murder. And if they checked her blood as suggested…

  Jeremy said, “If she was killed—I can’t imagine a soul in the world who would want Mrs. Pickering dead, but let’s just say she was—how do you know it wasn’t the killer himself who called?”

  “That would be even more unusual, but nothing’s impossible.” He squinted at Jeremy and then pointed at his own nose. “Have an accident, Mister”—he checked his notes—“Bethlehem?”

  “Tripped on the stairs yesterday. Racked up my knee too.”

  Cullen’s expression said nothing. He turned to Dawn.

  “Did your mother seem depressed recently?”

  Jeremy jumped in before Dawn could reply. “She was very unhappy that Dawn had moved in with me.” He looked at her and squeezed her hand. “I don’t think I’m talkin out of school when I say she’s been actin real strange ever since we became involved. Without gettin into particulars, she seemed to become downright unglued when she learned Dawn was pregnant.”

  Cullen made some notes and said, “Unglued how?”

  Jeremy cut Dawn off again. “She never threatened suicide, if that’s what you mean. At least not to me. How about you, darlin?”

  Looking dazed, Dawn shook her head. “No, never. She did hire a detective, though.”

  Shit-shit-shit! Never should have let her speak.

  “Right,” Jeremy quickly added. “We don’t know who she hired and we don’t know why—I asked but she wouldn’t tell us.”

  Cullen was nodding. “We’ll look into that.”

  Jeremy wanted to shift the subject away from the detective before Dawn said anything about her mother’s accusations against him.

  “You say the caller mentioned drug and tox screens. Has anything come up?”

  “No results back yet.” Cullen looked at him. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, it’s just that—”

  Cullen’s phone rang. He answered it, muttered and grunted a few times, then said, “I’ll be damned. Keep me posted.”

  He hung up and looked at Dawn.

  “Looks like our mystery caller is back again. He called downstairs and said we should check your mother for Rohypnol.”

  Jeremy almost jumped out of his seat. How the hell—?

  When Moonglow came up positive for roofies and the word got out, Dirty Danny was sure to hear about it. He’d put two and two together in no time.

  Looked like Danny was going to need an accident.

  Shit!

  This was getting more complicated by the minute.

  “What’s that?” Dawn said.

  “An illegal downer. Was your mother into downers?”

  Dawn glared at him. “My mother wasn’t into anything. She was like totally antidrug.”

  “Yes,” Je
remy said. “I’d be very surprised if you found anything. The only thing Mrs. Pickering seemed hooked on was caffeine.”

  Cullen shook his head and sighed. “Okay. In the meantime, for the record: Where were you two last night?”

  Jeremy had known this was coming—family members, especially those like Dawn in line to inherit, were always prime suspects—but he put on a shocked look.

  “You can’t think Dawn would have anything to do with this terrible thing!”

  Cullen didn’t react. “As I said, for the record.”

  “We were home,” Dawn said. “Jerry was hurting from his, um, fall, so we went to bed early. When I got up this morning…”

  She broke down again. Jeremy put a comforting arm around her quaking shoulders.

  “She heard a news story about a suspicious suicide in town. And since her mother had been actin weird, she gave her a call, just to check on her, and, well, you know the rest.” He gave Cullen a pleading look. “Can I take her home now?”

  “Sure. I have your contact numbers. Miss Pickering, I’ll keep you updated on developments.”

  Still sobbing, Dawn nodded.

  Jeremy struggled out of the chair—the knee hurt worse today than yesterday. The good news was that he didn’t look like a guy who’d be sneaking around faking someone’s suicide.

  But knee or no knee, he had to do something about Dirty Danny. And then he’d have to track down Robertson. He wanted Robertson for a lot of reasons. Payback topped the list, but he also wanted to know where he got his information. Especially how he knew about the roofies.

  4

  “You don’t need a man of my not inconsiderable talents for something like this,” Russell Tuit said as he positioned the paper on the glass. “You could teach yourself in less than an hour.”

  He’d adopted a put-upon look, but Jack knew he got off on anything with a whiff of scam or illegality. He’d done some soft time for bank hacking and one of the conditions of his parole was a ten-year ban from the Internet. Russ had found ways around it—like helping the guy next door set up a wi-fi network in his apartment last month and making sure the signal was strong enough to penetrate the wall they shared—but he swore his hacking days were over. He did not want to go back inside.

  “But I don’t have one of those thingamajigs, Russ.”

  “This thingamajig is called a scanner.”

  Jack knew that, but he liked to pull Russ’s chain.

  “Right. Don’t have a scannamajig. Don’t even have a printer.”

  He shook his head. “How anyone can have a computer and not a printer is beyond me. I mean, what if you need to print out something like Mapquest directions?”

  Russ was not the stereotypical mouse potato—no taped glasses or pocket protector—but he tended to get so wrapped up in his keyboarding that he’d forget to bathe. The fact that he lived over a Second Avenue Tex-Mex restaurant was sometimes a good thing.

  “Not much of a traveler, Russ. And if I need directions to anywhere I can write them down.”

  “I suppose I’d be crazy to ask if you’ve got Photoshop.”

  “Certifiable. I mean, I’ve heard of it—a lady friend of mine who’s into art has been using it—but I can’t see myself ever buying it.”

  Gia had started toying with computer art before the accident. She probably could have done this for him but he didn’t want her involved. The less she knew the better.

  Russ smiled, showing yellow teeth. “Buying software…what a concept. I guess you do need me, Jack.”

  He closed the cover and moved to one of the three computers in the room. A few key taps and a glow began to move along the scanner’s edge. A barrage of taps and then Russ motioned Jack toward the monitor.

  “Okay. There it is. What do you want to do with it?”

  Leaning over him he realized that Russ had been procrastinating in regard to his next shower. No biggie. Couldn’t hold a candle to a rakosh.

  On the screen he saw an image of the lab report he’d taken from Levy, showing Bolton’s positive paternity test with Dawn. He pointed to the screen.

  “See that logo? Can you copy that onto a blank sheet to make it look like stationery?”

  Mouse-click-mouse-click-tap-tap.

  “There you go.”

  Jack blinked. “That’s all it takes? I can type a letter on that?”

  “I’ll save it as a file and you can write dozens of letters from the…” He squinted at the screen. “Creighton Institute.”

  Jack wasn’t crazy about Russ connecting him to Creighton, but the guy wasn’t a conniver. And the truth was, Russ having Creighton’s logo on his computer was a greater liability to him than to Jack.

  “Do it.”

  Mouse-click-tap.

  “Done.”

  “All right. Back to the lab report.” He touched the screen. “See those code numbers? Can you substitute names for them?”

  Russ looked up at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I didn’t think I was.”

  “You weren’t kidding.” He shook his head as he turned back to the screen. “You really do need me, Jack. At least until you join the twenty-first century.”

  “I’m not some sort of Luddite. I own a computer, I use it, I enjoy it, but it’s not a way of life.” He was sure he hadn’t tapped one percent of its potential, but getting into it took time—hours before the monitor or reading manuals that he didn’t care to surrender. “I’ve got other things to do. I mean, why should I spend my time learning this Photoshop thing when I can pay you to do it for me? You’re better at it than I’ll ever be, so it’s worth the money.”

  “Never looked at it that way,” Russ said as he moused and clicked. “You’re right, man. Save that computer of yours just for e-mail. I can always use the money.” He started tapping on the keys. “Okay. We got rid of the numbers, now we’ve got to match the font and the text size and we’re in business. What names we using here?”

  Jack grabbed a pen and pad from the desk and jotted down Dawn Pickering and Jerry Bethlehem.

  “Make sure Dawn goes in the second spot—she can’t very well be anyone’s father.”

  Russ spoke as he typed. “You never know, Jack. You never know. So, you running a number on this Bethlehem guy?”

  “Better you don’t know. And even better you forget you ever heard these names.”

  “Gotcha. Okay. There you are: Some girl’s found her daddy—or vicey-versey. I’ll print this out along with the stationery. How many copies you want?”

  Jack thought about that. He needed only one letter, but a number of copies.

  “How about I type it right here, and then you print it out.”

  “Sure thing.” Russ rose and gestured toward the keyboard. “Be my guest.”

  As Jack seated himself he pulled a slip of paper from a pocket and handed it to Russ.

  “While I’m doing this, why don’t you make yourself useful and look up the next of kin of these folks.”

  “Don’t want me to see what you’re writing, right?”

  “Right.”

  “No problem.” He looked at the names on the slip and whistled. “This might take a while.”

  Jack looked up at him. “Then you might want to get right to it. Besides, you’re blocking my light.”

  As Russ wandered away, Jack began to type. He had a two-finger style—slow, but it got the job done…

  5

  “You sure your phone’s turned on?” Jerry said.

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Dawn hid her irritation. “That’s like the tenth time you’ve asked me.”

  What was up with him? He knew her phone was never off. Never. The way he kept getting up and limping around his living room, and then sitting down again was getting on her nerves, and she didn’t have many left.

  Mom…dead…even after identifying the body—which had to be the totally worst moment in her life, ever—she still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that she wouldn’t be down the hall at home or a
t the other end of the phone anytime Dawn needed her.

  God, she wished things between them hadn’t got so out of hand.

  If I’d been home…

  Guilt enveloped her like a cold, damp cloud. She couldn’t shake it. A sob burst free.

  “It’s my fault…all my fault. If I’d been there…if I hadn’t moved out…”

  Jerry stopped his pacing and stood over her.

  “Now, darlin, we been through that. Your momma was on the edge, havin strange thoughts, doing strange things. We didn’t recognize the signs. If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have fallen in love with you. I shouldn’t have taken you away from her.”

  Dawn grabbed his hand and pressed it against her cheek. She needed Jerry now, more than ever. She felt so sad, sad beyond words, beyond belief, and maybe even a little—she didn’t like to admit it—angry at Mom for abandoning her. She’d left her totally alone, with no father, no sisters and brothers, no grandparents, nobody. She couldn’t even go back to her house because it was a crime scene and the police were still working on it—they called it “processing.” Or so they said. Maybe she was the prime suspect and they didn’t want her back, covering her tracks.

  God, that was totally sick!

  “I so should have known something was going haywire with her.”

  “Look, darlin, I been around crazy people and I know the signs, and your momma wasn’t givin a clue that she had this in mind.”

  Dawn stared up at him. He never spoke about his past. This was the first clue he’d ever given. Despite her fog of depression, she jumped on it.

  “You’ve been around crazy people? When?”

  He looked confused for a second, maybe even flustered.

  “My momma had a major breakdown when I was in my, um, twenties. Broke my heart when we had to stick her in a loony bin, but we just couldn’t handle her. I’d go visit her every day and, believe me, I saw loads of craziness.”

  “What was wrong with her?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it. You’re sure your phone’s on?”

  She wanted to scream. “Yes! Why do you keep asking?”