The door flew open and Brundle entered. She looked at Prosper, her eyes widening in surprise before she withdrew her gun. Cuts and grazes decorated her face and her clothes were dishevelled.
“You son of a bitch, you killed Williams.” She clenched her jaw.
Lester put his hand up. “Not here. Take him somewhere quiet.”
Brundle motioned with her gun. “This way.”
Prosper swallowed but didn’t move. He withdrew an envelope and threw it onto Lester’s desk. “I’ve left details with certain people that if anything happens to me, a copy of that will be posted to every major newspaper and television studio in the country.”
Lester picked the envelope up and opened it. He read in silence then dropped the letter on the desk and stared at Prosper. “Very clever.” He nodded. “Stalemate I believe.”
“What is it?” Brundle asked.
Lester pursed his lips, took a breath. “Mr. Snow has written a letter detailing our experiment and those involved.” He stared at Prosper. “But how do I know you’re not bluffing about leaving copies with people?”
“Try me.” He kept his gaze fixed on Lester, not blinking.
Lester glared back. Eventually he cleared his throat and glanced at Brundle. “Let him go.”
“But—”
“That’s an order.”
Brundle pursed her lips, eyes narrowed before she put her gun away and stepped aside.
Prosper headed towards the door but then paused and turned back. “One more thing, I want to keep my job.”
Lester snorted loudly and then nodded. “I’ll be watching you, Mr. Snow.”
Prosper walked out of the room. It took all of his strength not to run.
“So what are we going to do?” Brundle asked after Prosper left. “Do you want me to go after him?”
Lester leaned forwards in his chair and studied the letter on his desk. After a moment he shook his head. “No. Prosper Snow has served his purpose for now. Besides, you heard him. He won’t be going anywhere.”
Brundle frowned. “I thought he was brought in to take the fall?”
“Well luckily, we’ve managed to keep a lid on most of the murders that Klement committed, so we’ll just find another patsy to take the fall.”
“But he knows too much. He’s a liability. And he almost bloody killed me along with Williams when he blew that building up.”
“I don’t think he’s foolish enough to say anything. He has too much to lose. And you survived, so get over it. We have more pressing matters.” Lester stood up and walked towards the door. Brundle followed him out into the corridor.
A security guard pressed a button and a barred gate swung across allowing them to proceed.
Further ahead, Lester punched a code into a keypad to unlock another door and then entered a brightly lit corridor. He stopped at a window and stared into the room beyond. Klement lay strapped to a bed, his wound being tended to by a nurse.
Lester snorted to himself. It seemed incredible that the ideal test subject had been underneath their noses the whole time.
“Klement holds the key to the experiment,” Lester said. “Now we just have to determine whether it was nature or nurture that made him kill without compunction. And we have a lot of work to do.”
Prosper walked out of the building and headed towards Wolfe who sat waiting in his car. He opened the door and dropped into the passenger seat. Sweat coated his brow.
“So I’m guessing it worked.”
Prosper nodded. He had taken a huge risk bluffing that he had left the letter with certain people but as long as Lester believed he had, then he hoped he and his family would be safe.
Wolfe started driving. “So I guess you’re now unemployed.”
“Not quite.”
Wolfe stared at him. “What does ‘not quite’ mean? Either you are or you aren’t.”
“Well then I’m not. I made Lester keep me on.”
Wolfe slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to an abrupt stop. Prosper flew forwards, the seatbelt saving him from flying through the windscreen. An angry horn blast emanated from the car behind as it swerved around them to avoid a crash.
“You did what?” Wolfe screamed.
Prosper slackened the belt and rubbed at his chest. “There’s an old adage about keeping your friends close but your enemies closer. Well how am I going to keep an eye on them if I’m not close?”
“You’re crazy. Those people wanted to frame you for murder.”
“Only they wouldn’t be framing me, would they? I am guilty of murder. We both are.”
“Is that what this is about? That you feel like you should pay for what happened?”
“No. This is about me wanting to make sure I keep my family safe. And ultimately, I want to make them pay for what they’ve done.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s more to do with you starting to get a kick out of all this.”
“Just drive.”
Wolfe shook his head, exhaled slowly and then started driving.
Prosper stared out of the windscreen, his jaw clenched tight. He thought about his family. He had a lot of explaining to do to Natasha. Not that he could tell her the truth, but he’d have to tell her something. But then he was getting good at lying.
He then thought about his unborn baby. A tabula rasa. He only hoped to god that with all the killing he had done, he hadn’t passed along a biological predisposition.
Nature or nurture?
One thing was certain. Murder makes monsters of people. Prosper Snow knows that better than most.
###
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank the following people for their support and help and for generally just being there for me: Debra Platt, Callum Jeffrey, Michael Wilson, Jim Mcleod, Martyn Smithson, Rhonda Wilson, J.G. Franklin, Garry Charles, Daniel I Russell, J.G. Faherty and Stacey Turner. I would also like to thank everyone who takes a chance by purchasing this book. I hope you enjoy it. If so, please consider leaving a review wherever you can to let other people know.
About the author:
Shaun Jeffrey was brought up in a house in a cemetery, so it was only natural for his prose to stray towards the dark side when he started writing. He has had five novels published, ‘Killers’, ‘The Kult’, ‘Deadfall’, ‘Fangtooth’ and ‘Evilution’, and one collection of short stories, ‘Voyeurs of Death’. Among his other writing credits are short stories published in Cemetery Dance, Surreal Magazine, Dark Discoveries and Shadowed Realms. The Kult was optioned for film by Gharial Productions.
Visit the author's site at: http://www.shaunjeffrey.com
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