Fatal Deception

by April Hunt

  “Minus a few words, it would be from Bram Stoker,” Tony retorted.

  But Maddy was right. She continually went on tirades about no failure being a real failure. Things in history were discovered by pure accident: Silly Putty, Post-it Notes. Failures gave you data and make you better informed for the next try. The stress of knowing the people in Beaver Ridge were counting on her to make good on her promise was making it difficult for her to remember her own lessons.

  Having narrowed down the premier cocktail to four different medications, they were so much closer than they’d been yesterday. All they needed to do now was calculate the medication to viral load ratio and apply it to the human samples.

  And then sit back and watch.

  “Last batch cooked up,” Maddy announced the completion proudly. “Let’s put these babies in the incubator, take a break, and come back and see what they got for us in an hour or two.”

  “You go on ahead. There’s one more thing I want to check out before I call halftime.” The lab suddenly got ridiculously quiet. Both Tony and Maddy, wearing matching worried expressions, watched her cautiously. “What?”

  “You’re doing it again,” Maddy accused.

  “Doing what? My job?”

  “Burying shit under test tubes. Isa, come on. You know I can’t stand seeing you so…sad.”

  Or so pathetic. Or so grumpy. There was a lot of so the last couple days. Less than an hour ago, she’d been ready to take her aggravation out on an innocent bottle of saline, for crying out loud. “I’m not burying myself under test tubes. I made my feelings clear. I was dumped. It happens. It’s time to move on.”

  “Yeah, but did you really?”

  “Did I what? Get dumped?” Isa’s heart still ached whenever she replayed Roman’s words. Not compatible. “Yeah, he made himself pretty clear.”

  “But did you?”

  “I told him—”

  “That you’re in love with him? Did you actually say the three little words: I. Love. You?” Maddy turned to a silently listening Tony. “You’re a man. Tell her that unless you look them point blank in the eye and enunciate those three words loudly and clearly, in the man’s psyche, you most definitely did not make your feelings clear.”

  Tony shrugged. “For what it’s worth, men can be pretty dense.”

  “Exactly.” Maddy turned back to Isa. “So unless you told Roman in explicit detail how much you L-O-V-E him, he most certainly did not get your message.”

  “I don’t know what difference it would’ve made,” Isa said honestly.

  Oh, Roman had almost succeeded in making her believe he really meant every syllable of the words coming out of his mouth, but she’d seen the pain in his eyes. But because she loved him, she knew any attempt to show he was deserving of happiness would fall on deaf ears until he was ready to hear it and believe it.

  No three magical words would make that happen any faster, and until Roman realized it on his own, all she could do was wait and pray she didn’t die from a broken heart in the process.

  “So that’s it?” Maddy demanded, less than enthused by her answers. “You’re seriously going to just let the man you love walk away without putting up some kind of a fight? Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?”

  “Your best friend is trying to do the best she can in the situation.” Isa squeezed her gloved fingers with her own. “But she loves that you’re always looking out for her…and she’d love you even more if you went to the employee cafeteria and got her a plate full of those soft-baked macadamia nut cookies she loves so much.”

  Maddy pointed an accusing finger at her. “That’s blackmail.”

  “No, because I didn’t offer anything in exchange. It’s actually a guilt trip.” Isa pushed a shaky smile to her face. “Is it working?”

  “Damn you, yes. Tony? You want anything?”

  “Maybe just a coffee.”

  She squinted her eyes through her hood. “I’ll get you a water, too. You’re looking a little peaked.”

  Fifteen minutes later, when Maddy was safely tucked onto the Legion elevator, Isa turned her back on Tony and let the first tear fall. Then the second. By the time the third slipped down her chin, all she could do was pray she emptied out by the time Maddy got back with those cookies.

  * * *

  Roman glared through the one-way mirror to where Lina Doe sat in interrogation, her wrists and ankles shackled to the anchor on the floor.

  “Looks like she’s been the model inmate, huh?” Roman joked without a speck of humor.

  Nat grunted. “We didn’t bolt her to the table the first time and quickly learned our lesson. Two guards with broken noses, and I’m pretty sure Duke won’t be able to give his wife that boy they’ve been talking about anytime soon. The State Department cannot take these guys off our hands fast enough.”

  “When’s that?” King asked.

  “Supposedly this afternoon.” Her gaze flickered toward the window before landing on Roman. “What do you think?”

  “I think,” King interjected, “that you need to turn off the cameras and leave me alone with her for ten minutes. Fuck that. Five.”

  Nat drilled the former black ops soldier with a hard glare. To say the detective and Roman’s buddy hadn’t hit it off on their first meeting was a vast understatement. “And if this were a corrupt nation, that might fly, but we have rules and laws and something called the Bill of Rights. Whatever the hell you want to do in five minutes isn’t allowed.”

  King shrugged, seemingly unaffected by her disapproval. “Maybe not, but it is effective, princess.”

  Roman shifted closer to Nat, and Liam shifted to King, as if prepping to pull him to safety. There wasn’t a doubt in Roman’s mind his friend hadn’t used princess in reference to Nat’s former life as Miss USA.

  “Why the hell is he here again?” Nat shifted her ire to Roman. “I extended the invitation to Steele Ops, not low-level criminals.”

  King leaned back in his chair and smiled. “You may actually hurt my feelings if you keep that attitude up.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if you have feelings to hurt. Please. I know your type. Hell, I’ve arrested too many of your type to count.”

  “Can we get back to Lina Doe over here?” Roman intervened. “She’s really not in any facial recognition system? Fingerprints?”

  “Nothing that we’ve come across yet, although fingerprints would actually be kinda helpful. She’s either burned them off or poured acid on them or something, because she doesn’t have any.” Nat glared at the woman Isa had tussled with in Alaska. “And she’s not exactly chatty…except when it comes to Isa.”

  Roman knew there was a big possibility this was nothing but another twisted game, and he was done playing it. “Then let’s get this over with.” He tossed a look at King. “You in?”

  “Hell yeah, I am.” He dropped his boots to the floor.

  Nat stepped in front of the door. “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t worry, princess. I’ll keep Roman here in line.” King flashed her a shit-eating smirk.

  Nat tossed a pleading look at Roman. “Roman.”

  “He’ll behave, Nat. I promise.”

  “Killjoy,” King muttered as they stepped into the holding room.

  Lina’s head snapped up when they entered the room. “Oh look. A reunion.”

  King grunted. “You wanted to talk. We’re here, so start talking. You have five minutes.”

  “Is that any way to talk to someone who’s looking to right a few wrongs?”

  “A few wrongs?” Roman interjected. “You infected an entire town with a deadly virus, and God only knows what you guys planned on doing with Isabel Santiago the two times you attempted to abduct her. You’ve now got four minutes and thirty seconds.”

  She bristled and shifted in her seat, unable to move far due to the chains. “I’m about to do you a favor, so you may want to rethink that time limit.”

  Roman slammed his palms to the table
, making her jump. “I don’t need any fucking favors from you! In case no one has told you, we have your entire fucking team and the virus. You. Are. Done.”

  “You have the virus and my crew, but you may want to rethink that other boast.”

  “Sorry to rain on your parade, sweetheart, but there’s more than sufficient evidence to put you and your friends away for a very long time. Your money stream has officially been cut off.”

  “I want a deal,” Lina demanded. “I get a plea deal in exchange for telling you something that you really want to know. That’s how this works, right?”

  The door to the interrogation room opened.

  “What the hell do you have?” Nat asked.

  “She’s got nothing, Nat.” Roman shook his head. “I’ve seen this kind of shit before. She’s afraid of getting tossed in the federal pen, and so she tries to make herself indispensable.”

  Nat leaned against her, her green eyes locked furiously on the other woman. “I’m going to ask this one more time. What do you have?”

  “Deal first, then info,” Lina demanded.

  “That’s not how this works, Lina. You only get a deal if and when I decide the information you’re giving me is worth it.”

  With a growl, Roman headed to the door. “I’m done with this shit.”

  “Me and my crew didn’t target your girlfriend’s stupid virus all on our own,” Lina called out.

  Roman’s hand froze on the door handle. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “None of us had even heard of the damn thing much less would’ve known where to find it if we didn’t have a little help. And abducting your little doctor? Not our idea…at least not originally.” An evil, all-knowing smile crawled onto her face.

  “You expect us to believe this?”

  “I don’t really care if you do or not. Just know that if you don’t, it’s going to be your little girlfriend that pays.”

  “And you’re suddenly ready to tell all, huh? After being cooped up in here for a few days?”

  “Well, like you pointed out, me and my team are now all locked up in here…and I’ll give you one guess who’s not.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Five

  Blinking, Isa pushed her hood closer to the microscope. “No way. No. Freaking. Way.”

  “What’s up?” Tony hovered near her shoulder, waiting for her to share. “Something exciting?”

  “You tell me.” She flipped on the monitor linked to her scope, and the image on the slide came to life on the much larger screen over their heads. “What do you see up there?”

  Tony studied the monitor. “I see FC-5. I see red blood cells. I see…what exactly am I seeing right there? On the bottom left?”

  Excitement had her nibbling on her bottom lip. “So you see it, too. I applied two different antivirals from the same class, and two inhibitors, each from a different class…and it slowed down the FC-5 replication. I mean, it’s not a full reversal, but the fact that it’s slowed down that much could be huge!”

  “It gives us more time to explore our options.”

  “And it gives the patient’s immune system more time to heal so it can hopefully help fight the infection right alongside the medication!” Isa laughed, giddy for the first time in days, and pulled Tony into as tight a hug as their suits allowed. “It’s happening! It’s finally happening!”

  “I knew if anyone could do it that it would be you.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t just me. It was you and Maddy. It was Roman and his family. We never would’ve gotten to this point if it hadn’t been for everyone involved.” Isa sighed, glancing back up at the screen and the slowing FC-5 cells. “I need to notify the GHO. They need to start implementing this in Beaver Ridge right now.”

  Isa reached for the phone, but Tony’s hand beat hers there. “Don’t you think we should maybe verify it with another test or two?”

  “If we weren’t in a pinch for time, definitely. But this could help ease some of the suffering happening in the more extreme cases in Alaska.” Isa frowned, glancing down at Tony’s hand still wrapped around hers. “You don’t think we should jump on this?”

  “I know you, kiddo. You’d be destroyed if we didn’t test the theory out more thoroughly and something ended up happening to one of those patients.”

  He was right. She’d be devastated. The last thing she wanted was to make anyone suffer more, or to get their hopes up only to watch them spiral down in a horrible crash. Yet as Isa studied her mentor, something unsettled her stomach. The feeling was one that, after meeting Roman, she knew never to ignore.

  Tony, as much as she loved him, had never been the cautious sort. It’s what made him a good epidemiologist, unafraid to go into hot zones deemed too hostile for even the most experienced medical personnel. It’s why the GHO had both hired him and cringed at his reports.

  That man wasn’t the one standing in front of her now.

  Isa slid her hand out from Tony’s and inched left. “So you think we should run the test again?”

  He nodded. “At least once. Maybe twice.”

  “That’ll take at least two, maybe three days until we actually see the chemistry behind the process. That’s a long time for Beaver Ridge.”

  “It’ll best for everyone involved in the long run. Trust me.”

  He stepped closer, and Isa’s feet automatically countered his movement. “Waiting longer means we’re dealing with higher viral loads. How is that best for everyone?”

  “You realize what we’re up against here, right, Isa?”

  “More than anyone. FC-5 is—”

  “I’m not talking about FC-5. I’m talking about the Global Health Organization. I’m talking about the corporate greed that has absolutely no business being present when it involves the lives of the world’s population.” With eyes locked on Isa, Tony shuffled closer, his suit squeaking against the floor. “Medical decisions should be based on science…on actual case studies and analysis obtained by experts in the field. They shouldn’t be made by someone pushing papers and running a calculator while sitting behind a desk.”

  “I…agree,” Isa said carefully. “And yet, if it wasn’t for those people who push those papers, there isn’t a lab anywhere who would get the funding needed to run their research programs. Mine included.”

  He gripped her arms, his gloved fingers digging painfully into her biceps. “It shouldn’t be like that, Isa! I’m trying to show them that it can’t be like that without serious risk. Risk to ourselves. Risk to our communities. Our families. Once we let corporations have control of our own humanity, there won’t be any humanity left.”

  Isa grimaced. “Tony, you’re hurting my arm.”

  “I’m sorry.” He let her go, and she bumped into a tray of empty vials, the glass crashing onto the floor. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to…damn it, Isa. I’m so sorry.”

  “What…what did you do?”

  “I needed to show them that they couldn’t wait for the next big thing to happen.” Tony paced, his breathing erratic. Each heavy pant fogged the inside of his mask more, until all she could see were the heavy dots of moisture. “They left me with no choice. I had to do it. I had to.”

  Tony ripped at his suit.

  “No! Don’t!” Isa lurched to stop him, but it was too late.

  He’d tugged off his hood, the oxygen funneling to his mask from the canister on his back, hissing loudly. Without the barrier, Isa saw just how far gone her onetime friend really was. His hair stuck up at all angles, and dark circles framed each glassy blue eye.

  “Tony.” Isa kept her voice calm. “What did you do?”

  His glazed blue eyes locked on her. “I did what I had to, Isabel. I did what I always do, and I looked at the big picture. The GHO needs to be shown the error of their ways, and I need to be the one to do it. I can’t let you interfere, kiddo. There’s too much on the line, and it’s far more important than you or me.”

  Isa’s gaze shifted
down to his hand and immediately saw that balled up in his tight fist was an uncapped needle…and it was filled with nearly ten milliliters of yellow-tinted liquid that looked a hell of a lot like the undiluted FC-5 serum.

  * * *

  Roman stepped on the gas, staying close to the bumper of Nat’s squad car as she weaved in and out of traffic, her police siren wailing. If it weren’t for her as an escort, there’d be no telling how long it would take him and King to get across the river to Tru Tech.

  Or what he’d find.

  King hung up from his call, his face grim. “Guess when they say the lab is run by a skeleton crew after hours, they mean it. No one’s answering the damn phones. Got nothing on Dr. Sexy’s cell either, or the friend.”

  “Or Winter,” Roman growled.

  Fucking bastard. He couldn’t believe he let the man walk away with Isabel, and on more than one occasion. When he got his hands on him, he’d make sure the bastard couldn’t walk again. Period.

  “I don’t get it,” King thought aloud. “Winter claimed to serve the people, right? Be some protector against the evil viruses or some shit. Then why the fuck would he work with mercenaries to unleash FC-5? It seems counterproductive to the way he’s lived his entire life.”

  Roman asked himself the same question ever since they’d run out of the prison, and he’d come up empty. “None of it makes sense. Any man willing to potentially kill an entire town shouldn’t give a rat’s ass if his one-time mentee lives or not.”

  And if Lina Doe was to be believed, that had been Winter’s one stipulation to their crew: Take Isa, but take her alive.

  But that was before every single one of his accomplices had been tossed in a jail cell. It was before they’d ratted him out. And it was before he’d realized that they were onto him. If the man was willing to kill an entire town, one woman wouldn’t even register on his radar if he felt Isa stood in the way of him and whatever goal he had.