by Sharon Sala
* * *
Benny’s wife discovered the email, which led her to check their bank account. When she saw the deposit, she screamed out in disbelief and began to cry. Her children came running, thinking she’d received bad news about their father. By the time she explained, they were all celebrating. Benny would be coming home tomorrow, but she couldn’t wait to tell him the news.
* * *
Unaware of the magnitude of demons Wyrick had unleashed, Charlie returned to the mansion. He entered her apartment carrying a suitcase, and with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He dumped it all on the living room floor and then went to check on her.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“I know.”
He sighed. “Let me rephrase that... I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No. I heard you drive in. What’s the weather doing?”
“Nothing yet. Can I get you anything?” Charlie asked.
“Chocolate?”
He made a U-turn and bolted back down the hall.
Wyrick thought she’d scared him off until he came back carrying the candy he’d brought from his apartment, along with a bottle of Pepsi he’d gotten from her refrigerator.
He dropped the candy onto the bed beside her, opened the bottle of Pepsi and set it on the table by the gun, then turned on her TV and handed her the remote.
“You don’t have an extra bedroom,” he said.
“I have eight of them,” she said, and pointed at the ceiling.
“Sorry. Too far away. You own this monster. I’ll bunk on your sofa tonight, but tomorrow, you’re moving up a floor.”
“I was going to remodel,” she said.
“Instead, you got shot out of the air. You are a phoenix, Wyrick, but don’t push your luck. Heal first. Remodel second.”
“I pulled the trigger on Cyrus Parks. Be prepared.”
He looked at her closer, then sat down on the side of the bed, dug out one of his candy bars and started eating it.
Wyrick stared. He was sitting on her bed like he had a right to be there, eating candy he’d just given to her.
She frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Getting prepared,” he said. “If you started a war, you don’t get all the chocolate.”
* * *
When Special Agent Hank Raines saw the email from Wyrick with a subject heading of Fourth Dimension, he immediately opened it.
It took a few moments for shock to set in, and then he began opening file after file, reading in disbelief. But then he opened the file on her personal story and nearly fell out of his chair.
“Holy shit!” he muttered, and grabbed his cell phone.
He didn’t know what had happened to prompt this or even how to take it, but he knew someone who would. He called Charlie Dodge.
* * *
While Wyrick was resting, Charlie was upstairs exploring. He found the empty bedroom downstairs, and when he saw the wheelchair, he guessed it must have been Merlin’s room. He didn’t know how she would feel about sleeping there, but it was a logical choice.
Then he found the elevator and rode it up to the second floor, and found the seven other bedroom suites, each one elegant in its own way. It reminded him somewhat of the Dunleavy castle in Denver, but on a smaller scale.
The elevator was the turning point. If she wanted to be upstairs, then there was a safe way for her to get up and down from the second floor while she healed.
Then he went through the kitchen, checking to see what was in the refrigerator, but it had been completely cleaned out. It was cold, but sitting empty. The butler’s pantry was huge, and the food pantry a separate thing altogether. This way of living was so out of his comfort zone that he was almost intimidated by the opulence.
It wasn’t something he would have ever aspired to, and the Wyrick he knew didn’t really fit in here, either, but then he reminded himself—he’d only seen one tiny part of the amazing creature she was, and had no idea of how she’d lived before she went into hiding.
He was about to head back downstairs when his cell phone rang, and when he saw it was Hank Raines, he paused to answer.
“Hey, Hank. What’s up?”
“I have no freaking idea. That’s why I called you. What the hell is going on with Wyrick?”
Charlie frowned. “Uh...she’s home and healing.”
“Healing from what?” Hank asked.
“She was in her chopper last week, flying back from Galveston, when a sniper in another chopper intercepted her and shot her down. She crashed in Sam Houston National Forest with a bullet wound in her shoulder and another in her leg. I was with the search party that found her. She’s been recovering in a hospital in Houston up until today, when I brought her home.”
“Jesus...why would anyone do that?”
“To shut her up,” Charlie said.
“Might that someone be a consortium called Universal Theorem, headed by a man named Cyrus Parks?” Hank asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“She sent me some information that I didn’t quite know what to do with, but now it’s beginning to make sense. I need to contact the director and—”
“Uh... I don’t think you’ll have to,” Charlie said.
Hank frowned. “Why not?”
“Unless she changed her mind, that same information is already in his hands, and a multitude of other nationwide agencies, maybe worldwide. I don’t understand all of what it entails, but this wasn’t the first attempt on her life, and I guess she sees this as her only recourse to staying alive. Tell the truth of how she came to be, and take down the people who are still trying to play God. They’ve been trying to silence her to protect themselves, but doing what she’s doing is a huge sacrifice to her personal privacy. She’s giving up her sovereignty to save herself.”
Hank’s voice was beginning to shake. “By nationwide, do you mean local authorities? State level? National level? Don’t you think that’s overkill?”
Charlie frowned. “First of all, overkill is a poor choice of word considering what I just told you. And we’re talking Wyrick here...who trusts no one. Why would she trust people who could help bury her and hide the crime?”
“Okay, I should have chosen a better word, but dammit, there are good cops, too,” Hank said.
“Not in her world,” Charlie said. “She sent the same thing to the media, too. There’s not going to be any secret whistleblower. She gave herself up to prove it, and I made her a promise to keep her alive to see it happen.”
“Holy shit,” Hank muttered.
“Well, I’d say you guys have some scrambling to do. Get some warrants ASAP, before Cyrus Parks and his people start disappearing or destroying their own evidence.”
“They can destroy all they want,” Hank said. “I don’t know how she did it, but the files she sent are hard proof. There are even videos of lab experiments and people doing them. How the hell she got hold of all this stuff is beyond me, but we have it, and if you’re right, so does every other motherfucker in the nation. It’s going to show up on every news outlet, at which time there will be religious groups after UT for trying to play God. There will be people after them for human trafficking. And another branch after them for medical malpractice and experimentation on human embryos—the freaking list goes on and on. Even the companies attached to them are going to be in deep shit.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Charlie said. “Now, all of you, get off your butts and start picking them up for questioning, or whatever you call the tap dance you do with criminals these days.”
“You sound a little bitter toward the justice system, too,” Hank said.
“Maybe if there was real justice in this world, I wouldn’t be,” Charlie countered. “I gotta go.”
“Okay...and give her my best. Tell her thanks, and to get well soon. It’s not go
ing to take long before the world comes after her, too, just to see what she looks like, so if you need federal protection at any time, let me know. I’d consider it an honor to be one of her bodyguards.”
The intensity in Hank’s voice was proof of how moved he’d been by Wyrick’s story, and it occurred to Charlie that he might need to know what she’d turned loose, too.
He went downstairs, dreading the conversation, and found her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and eating peanut butter out of a jar, her arm out of the sling.
“Hey, you’re not—”
“Did you know that the heat register in the kitchen leads right down into the one here in the ceiling above my head, and that I heard every word of your conversation with Hank Raines?”
“Good. Then I don’t have to repeat it. So, did your psychic-self hear his side of the conversation, too, or just me?”
“Just you.”
“Then you need to know that he sends his wishes for you to heal quickly, and then if you have to travel anywhere to testify, or need protection at any time, that he would consider it an honor to be one of your bodyguards.”
Wyrick’s eyes widened. She licked the peanut butter off the spoon and then put it in the sink, and screwed the lid back on the jar. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes.
The world shifted under Charlie’s feet when he saw them. Dammit.
“Don’t you dare cry,” he muttered.
She glared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fair enough. I don’t know what everyone else is talking about, either, so do you think it would be okay if I read the stuff you turned loose on the world?”
She shrugged. “You signed up for my war. I agree you need to know what you’re fighting for. Did you bring your laptop?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll send you the same links that everyone else received. You can read to your heart’s content.”
She started to hobble down the hall, and then he came up behind her, picked her up and carried her to the office.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she said.
“I won’t have to, once I get your ass upstairs and in that motorized wheelchair I saw.”
“It was Merlin’s,” she said.
“I guessed. Was that his room?”
She nodded. “And now it’s mine.”
Surprise showed in his voice. “You’re going to pick that one?”
“The only people trying to hurt me are alive. I’m not afraid of the dead. Besides, I’ve already had a talk with the house.”
He blinked. “You talked to the house?”
“Yes. Now go away so I can send you the files. I can’t think when you’re standing here.”
Charlie turned to leave and then stopped.
“Since when does my presence disturb you from doing anything? You always shut everyone out when you’re working.”
“I don’t know. Since I fell out of the sky? Now, do you want to read the stuff or not?”
He walked out, thinking about what she’d said, and then the files began coming. He started reading and fell into the hell into which she’d been born.
He read for hours, and when he finally glanced up and saw the time, he realized she must be starving. He set the laptop aside to go check on her and found her back in bed—this time, sound asleep.
He stood there a moment, looking at the healing cut on her head and the bruising all over her face and neck, and then walked out before she woke up and caught him staring.
He didn’t have words for what he was feeling, but it wasn’t pity. She’d become an integral part of his business life, but seeing her like this, and knowing what she had endured in her short life, hurt his heart in a different way.
* * *
The media outlets were the first to react to what she’d sent. They’d just had the story of the century handed to them. Journalists and editors went ballistic, thinking they had been the sole recipients, and started scrambling to verify it.
But then the first story broke in an online paper only a day later, and then another one from another news outlet, and then another from a different paper in a different part of the country. At that point, it became apparent that everyone had been given the same information and, in the current mode of the day, were running with what they’d been given without verifying anything or anyone. In the long run, it wasn’t going to matter, because the God’s truth of Universal Theorem—and Jade Wyrick’s life—was in every file.
Ironically, the first story the media broke was the one about her. The media dubbed her the Genesis child—the only one of her kind, created by an updated version of mad scientists, in a place called Universal Theorem, headed by a man named Cyrus Parks.
And then someone in the media made the connection between Cyrus Parks the mad scientist and the Cyrus Parks who’d recently donated forty million dollars to hurricane-ravaged islands, and the hunt was on as to which interview they’d score first—the one with the mad scientist or the Genesis child he’d created, but as it turned out, the Feds got to Parks first.
* * *
It was snowing in Virginia. The flakes were the kind Cyrus’s mother had called “duck feathers.” So big and so soft that they floated, landing with wet splats on windshields, melting upon impact.
He was in the company limo and on his way home from work when he got a call. He recognized the number—an informant he had within the justice system—and answered quickly.
“Hello.”
“Your target went down, but she didn’t die and she’s back in Dallas.”
For a few moments, Cyrus felt faint. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“And you know this, how?” he asked.
“I know because she just unloaded proof of everything you and your people are about upon the world. File upon file of data, readouts of testing, names, places, even videos of experiments. And then she gave herself up as proof. I got word that it went nationwide in the media, as well. You can’t bury this. It’s never going to go away. I can’t protect you anymore.”
Cyrus still had the phone to his ear when the call went dead.
She was shot and crashed and she’s still alive? What the fuck? Is she turning into some comic-book immortal?
As for leaking the stories, it was his worst fear coming true. He’d pushed too hard, and then failed twice in taking her down. She was giving herself up to destroy him. He’d gambled and lost, and he knew it. His days as a free man were numbered.
He’d thought about running, but there was no way he’d get out of the country, and he wasn’t sure if there was a safe place for him to be. Jade hadn’t just set the hounds on him and UT. The collateral damage from this was going to be massive, and there were a lot of powerful people who were going to be caught up in the sweep. The evidence was so complete and so damning, there was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.
Even if he had his people scrub every computer on the premises at UT, he knew there were people skilled enough to retrieve it. But from what he’d just been told, the files she’d turned over were so massive and so detailed that copping a plea was never going to be an option. He thought of putting a gun to his head and then shelved it. He was too big a coward to take himself out.
It took two days before the FBI arrived at his office unannounced. Cyrus stood as they flashed their badges and laid a handful of search warrants on his desk.
“You knocked?” he drawled.
“Search warrants, sir. You and Universal Theorem have been accused of illegal medical practices involving human embryos, hiding the deaths of surrogate mothers and the babies they were carrying, human trafficking...”
The agent was still talking, but Cyrus tuned him out. He already knew the charges. He was trying to wrap his head around the fact that this was really happening.
“Am I under arrest?”
“You’re being taken in for questioning,” the agent said.
A cold shudder ran through him. Someone was reading him his rights as another was patting him down. He looked around at the opulence of his office and the view of Richmond from the windows, and as the handcuffs locked shut upon his wrists, he had a feeling he was never coming back.
As they walked him out of his office, he locked eyes with his secretary and uttered his last order.
“Roberta, call my lawyer.”
* * *
It was just after breakfast and Wyrick was in the office scanning through the online news feeds. It had been days since Wyrick pulled the trigger on Cyrus Parks. She’d read the stories that came out. She knew Cyrus Parks was being detained, and that other arrests had been made. She knew the media was looking for her, and the sooner she gave her first interview, the sooner the pressure would be off.
The first thing she had to face were the emails she’d been ignoring. When she’d sent the files, she’d sent them from her public email account, giving all of the recipients the freedom to contact her. So the barrage of waiting mail to be read was inevitable. At last count, there were over four thousand. It made her skin crawl just thinking about it. She’d been an oddity to people who saw her out and about, but an anonymous oddity. But like her hair and her boobs, that part of her life was gone.
The good part was she was healing—really fast.
The bad part was she didn’t really need Charlie’s help to take care of herself anymore. And she was getting antsy. Sitting around waiting for the other shoe to fall wasn’t like her. It was time to come out of the shadows. So she put her laptop aside and went to look for Charlie.
Nineteen
Charlie had fallen in love with this old mansion. He loved the dark wood and the grand hall with the marble floor—all the high tray ceilings and the ornate decor carved into the massive fireplaces of the living room and the den.
The den, which was right across the hall from Wyrick, had become his room. The oversize, overstuffed chairs were made for a man his size, and the massive sofa where he’d been sleeping was long enough for him to stretch his legs.
