One More Day (StrikeForce Book 2)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “It’s like in The Godfather, when Michael wanted to make the family legitimate, but he had to do all of this bad shit to get there,” I said, still reading. “But then you realize in the end that it was all pretty words and while he may have started out okay, he ultimately loved power more than anything or anyone else.”

  “Is everything a movie reference with you?” Jenson asked with a laugh.

  “You can relate any important topic to a movie,” I said. “Or it’s ultimately not that important.” I read some more. “He mentions me here. Alpha,” I clarified.

  “Yeah, I saw that,” David said. “It looks like that was right after you crashed into our prison wing,” he added, pointing at the metadata for the document. “It looks like there was some heavy back and forth negotiating over your sample, with Alpha wanting a higher price for it. His contact finally agrees to it here,” he said, pointing at another document, “but then there’s a bit of back and forth because they guy’s pissed that Alpha’s taking so long to get your sample.”

  “I’m guessing I’m the ‘blond bitch’ mentioned here,” I said, scanning through the document. “Those are some high numbers they’re throwing around there,” I said, noting the price Alpha had finally accepted as payment once he got a sample of my blood.

  A thought struck me, and I looked over at Jenson in alarm. “When I was in the hospital, they would have taken blood,” I said.

  “He wasn’t able to do anything with it then, though. Caine and I had him scared, and he didn’t leave his office. And, that last email where the contact is mad that he doesn’t have your sample yet… look at the date.” I did. It was three weeks after my fight against Maddoc. I realized with a start, that it was from the day we’d staged our little coup and locked Alpha and his people up. I felt a knot release in my stomach.

  “Okay. Well that’s a relief, as long as nothing changed between the time this was sent and when we took control.”

  “So… I mean, I think we can safely assume this is Dr. Death, right?” David asked, and Jenson and I both nodded. “So, we have evidence here now that he was negotiating with a super villain to sell him samples of blood for his little science experiment, without our permission and with ill intent. If this isn’t enough for the international tribunal to take him off our hands, lock him up, and throw away the key, I don’t know what is.”

  “I agree,” Jenson said. Then she smiled at David. “Amazing job. These files drove me nuts for so long. And now we finally have something more concrete.”

  “Yeah, that’s all great, and I’m glad Jolene’s blood isn’t out there, but mine is. So’s yours,” Ryan said to Jenson and David. “And Dr. Death is apparently working on some injection to give others our powers, or a mix of them, or all of them for all we know. What are we gonna do about that part of it?”

  “We’ll catch him,” I said, meeting his eyes. He shook his head and stormed out of the lab. I quickly thanked David and Jenson, then followed him out.

  “Hey,” I said as he was getting onto the elevator. He held the door open for me, and I got on with him. “It’ll be okay. We’ll catch him and — ”

  “Despite the fact that we haven’t managed that yet, there’s something else,” Ryan said.

  “I know, he might have used the samples already. And if he has we’ll deal with that when— ”

  “No.”

  “No, we won’t deal with it?” I asked him.

  He turned to me, looking down at me. He was pissed, and I’ve never seen him actually pissed before. You had the sense that he was barely containing his anger, that the second he could, he’d let it go and somebody would have a really, really bad day. “No. The issue is this, partner: you knew this shit had happened. For, what? A week or so now? Maybe longer? You knew Alpha took my blood, and you kept it from me.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “I didn’t know what he was doing with it, or even if it had gone through at all. I didn’t see any point in telling anyone until they uncovered more.”

  “You didn’t see any point in telling me that my blood had been taken from me under false pretenses, and that he was negotiating money for it? Are you kidding me?”

  “Ryan,” I began, and he shook his head.

  “I thought you’d be different from them, Jo. I thought you understood what it was to have your choices taken from you.”

  “I do.” He looked away, and I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “It was wrong not to tell you. And it says a lot about my screwy sense of ethics, but I honestly didn’t even think of telling you. It just never crossed my mind, because I was just focusing on the hope that they’d find out more.”

  The elevator stopped on my floor and I stepped off, and, to my surprise, so did he. I looked up at him, and he started walking toward my suite.

  “We’re gonna talk about this. And you’re gonna tell me everything you know so far about Dr. Death and these samples.” He looked down at me. “Right?”

  “Right.” I unlocked my door and we stepped into my suite, then sat down at the little dining table, and I told him everything we’d uncovered so far while he sat there in stony silence. When I was done, he got up and left without a word.

  It takes a lot to make me feel like a jerk. Ryan managed to do it without uttering a word. That, or I was getting soft, I thought as I fell into bed. We had a patrol shift in a couple of hours.

  “That should be fun,” I muttered as I fell into bed and closed my eyes. Bet he was regretting telling me his real name now, I thought as I pulled the blankets up over my head.

  Chapter Eight

  After making it through a tense and entirely silent patrol shift with Ryan, I walked up the front walk of the house I’d bought for Mama, taking a good look as I did. I could see why she liked it so much. Cute Craftsman bungalow with a front porch that spanned the whole front of the house. It was painted a happy yellow, which was my mom’s favorite color. The front yard had an enormous maple tree, and I could imagine how pretty it would look in spring and summer, when everything was green. Or in fall, with red and orange leaves. I smiled to myself. I could absolutely see Mama living here, in this nice little neighborhood with the grocery store in walking distance, a bakery just a few blocks away. She’d be pissed at me for buying it, but she’d fall in love with it. I knew that much about Mama. She’d chide me every chance she got, but she’d be grateful.

  I stomped up the wood front steps and unlocked the front door. I turned on lights in some of the first floor rooms, since it was so dreary outside. I walked through the rooms, looking around, noting things I wanted fixed.

  Honestly, I didn’t have very high hopes for this contractor, carpenter, whatever. The last one hadn’t shown up at all, which pissed me off doubly since I’d had to take David’s early morning patrol shift to work it in. And the one before that had wanted to rip everything out and start over with new drywall, new floors, new everything. What’s the point of buying an old house and putting all new shit in it? My mother would hate that.

  I could picture Mama having her coffee in the little breakfast nook in the kitchen. Maybe setting up her old sewing machine in one of the first floor bedrooms. She loved to sew, but she always had to dig her sewing machine and other stuff out of our storage unit and then set up on the dining room table in our trailer when she wanted to work on a project, which meant that she didn’t bother very often anymore. When I was a kid, before we lost our first house, she used to sew all the time.

  I smiled to myself. I could not wait to walk her into this house. I could picture it all fixed up, just waiting for Mama. Hopefully the repairs wouldn’t take too long.

  I heard a knock on the front door and I walked through the dining and living rooms. A man was standing on the front porch. Much younger than the first contractor I’d talked to, probably in his mid thirties or so. He had dark hair, a little wavy and probably overdue for a trim. Dark eyebrows and a bit of dark scruff on his jawline. He wore jeans and a navy blue button-down sh
irt.

  “Hi. Justin Rhys,” he said when I came to the door. I opened it and waved him in.

  “Jolene Faraday,” I said, sticking my hand out awkwardly. He took it and shook my hand. “Thanks for coming by.”

  “Happy to do it. This is a great house,” he said, looking around.

  I nodded. “It is. I just bought it. It’s for my mother, actually.”

  “Nice daughter,” he murmured, glancing at me with a smile before continuing to look around. He had brown eyes, with just a hint of smile lines beginning to form at the corners. I looked away.

  “Well, I figured it was the least I could do after what a little shit I was when I was a kid.”

  “Now that you’re totally reformed, right?” he asked, grinning.

  I let out a short laugh. “Definitely. Totally on the straight and narrow now.”

  He laughed. It was a good laugh. Some people have an almost mean-sounding laugh. Some laugh like they don’t mean it, like they’re putting in actual effort to seem like they have a sense of humor. He didn’t seem like that.

  Then again, Connor had a great laugh, too. So apparently, it didn’t mean all that much.

  I felt a bit of my good mood fading. “Um. So I kind of want to surprise her with this, but there are a few things I can see right off that need to be fixed and I don’t want her to have to deal with them.”

  He nodded. “Makes sense.” He had a clipboard in his hand, and he clicked a pen. “I noticed two broken panes of glass in the front windows,” he said, writing that down. I nodded.

  “That. The front door sticks a little,” I added, and he wrote that down, too. “Really, there’s something that needs to be worked on in just about every room. And that’s not even getting into the furnace or plumbing or anything like that, because I don’t even know what to look for.”

  “I’ll take a look at it while I’m here,” he said, making a note of it.

  “And charge me whether there’s anything wrong or not?” I asked, semi-teasing.

  He looked at me, a serious expression on his face. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said quietly.

  “Why not? I just admitted that I wouldn’t know either way.”

  “Because that’s dishonest, and most of my referrals are word of mouth. I do a good job, so I get a lot of referrals. If I cheated people, that wouldn’t happen.” He met my eyes. “And, you were just honest with me about not knowing. I’d be an absolute jerk to take advantage of that.”

  “Okay,” I said. He was still studying me. “What?”

  “You look kind of familiar,” he said, and I tried not to react. My mask had fallen off during my fight with Maddoc, and it had been broadcast live on TV. For the most part, my face had been swollen and bloody, so I doubted many people would recognize me. My mother had, though.

  I shrugged. “I’m just another blond chick. There are thousands of us, right?” I forced myself to smile.

  “Maybe. Do you live around here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hm. Well, let’s see what else you want to add to the list, and then I’ll get you a quote.”

  I took him through the house, room by room, pointing out all of the things I wanted fixed, from a broken light switch in the hallway to better fixtures in the bathroom. The wood floors throughout the house needed to be refinished, and the plaster was cracking in a few places on the ceiling and walls. There were a few more modern light fixtures that people had put in that didn’t go with the house, and I pointed those out. When that was done, I led the way down to the basement and he took a look at the furnace and other mechanicals.

  “This furnace is pretty new, actually,” he said. “Water heater, too. The ductwork could use some insulating, though. These old houses are notorious for losing heat in the winter.”

  “Should we insulate anywhere else?” I asked, thinking of Mama’s utility bills.

  “I’ll check out the attic. Probably wouldn’t hurt to add some up there. And I’ll check the windows and seal any that need it.”

  I nodded. “So… how much do you think this is going to cost? Ball park, I mean.”

  He looked over the list, and I studied him while pretending not to. He wasn’t super tall, maybe six inches taller than me, I guess. Nicely built, but not as muscular as the guys I worked with. After a little while, he gave me a quote.

  “It could change, but you asked for a ball park number. We’d go through an itemized thing if you decide to go forward, of course, and I’d spec out each item so you could sign off on only the ones you want done.”

  I nodded. I really wasn’t worried about the money. I still had more than enough set aside, even after buying the place. Actually, I’d been expecting the number to be higher. “And how long do you think this will take?”

  “Well.” He looked around. “Less than a month, probably. Two to three weeks, if I hit it full time. Which, based on how much we’re looking at, I wouldn’t schedule any other jobs until I’m finished with this one, so I can give it my full attention.”

  “Do you do all the work, or do you have a crew that comes in to help you?”

  “My brother works with me sometimes, when it’s something I need more than just myself for. He’ll probably be here to help out with the upstairs bath and maybe when I’m refinishing the floors, because that’s just a lot faster with two guys. Is that okay?”

  I nodded. “That sounds great. I think I’d like to go ahead.”

  He smiled. “Perfect. Let me write this up more officially, and we’ll get a work order going.” He went over to the kitchen counter, pulled a form out of his clipboard, and started writing. I wandered through the house a bit, rather than stand there staring at him like an idiot. My phone rang, and my stomach lurched. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at the number. Connor.

  I looked at it for a moment, then answered.

  “Hey. I’m back in town and I hadn’t heard from you. How’s everything?” he asked, and all I could think of was the photo of him, as Raider, standing over the dead body of a super hero. Less-than-pleasant comments about what he expected from me.

  I gestured to Justin that I was going to step outside, and he nodded. I walked toward the front door then stepped out onto the porch before speaking.

  “You lied to me,” I said quietly.

  “Oh, come on. I came clean. That was the whole point of that. To tell you so that we could move forward— ”

  “Not about that. You said you never…” I couldn’t say the words out loud. “That British hero,” I said, hoping he’d get what I was saying.

  “I didn’t say I never did that. I asked if it mattered. And you didn’t answer.” He paused as I fumed. “So you were researching me, Jolene?”

  “What? Did you just expect me to let it go? To lap up more of your lies like a moron? I’ve done that too much already,” I hissed.

  “You’re over-reacting.”

  My jaw dropped, and I couldn’t even say anything for a few moments. “I don’t think you can over-react about something like that,” I finally said. “And besides that, there’s the whole ‘you blatantly lied to me’ thing. Which really pisses me off, by the way.”

  “I did what I had to do then. Just like I’m doing now,” he said in a flat tone.

  “What else have you lied about?” I asked. “Is anything you’ve ever said to me the truth?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “Of course.”

  “Which part?”

  “I want you. I respect you and your powers. I am doing what I think is right— ”

  “Have you killed anyone lately?” I asked, so quietly I wondered if he even heard me.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said after a while, and my stomach sank.

  “So you have.”

  “Don’t fuckin’ judge me, Jolene,” he said harshly. “You’re no innocent, either. Thief, liar, cheat. I came clean with you because I figured you’d understand. Didn’t realize you were such a hypocrite.”

  “
I’ve never killed anyone,” I said, wishing he was in front of me so I could punch him. “That’s a whole other level— ”

  “Oh, please,” he snarled. “You spend too much time with assholes in spandex. Costumed heroes are a joke, and every single one of you thinks you’re better than everyone else.”

  “I don’t think I’m better than anyone.”

  “Bullshit. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t be getting a fuckin’ lecture right now, when I was calling to see if you wanted to go out tonight.”

  “So…what? I’m supposed to feel guilty or something now? For confronting you about your bullshit?”

  “I should have just screwed you that night and let it be. You would have happily done it, too,” he said, and his voice was cold. It wasn’t a tone I’d ever heard from him. I felt the last bit of hope that I was wrong about what a jerk he actually was vanish. It was like a balloon popping, deflating instantly.

  “All that shit. All that ‘you’re so strong, Jolene,’ ‘smart girl,’” I said, mimicking him, repeating something he called me every once in a while. “The socks. All of it was bullshit.”

  “I meant some of it,” he said coolly. “It didn’t take much, did it? So close to getting what I wanted, and all I had to do was toss a few nice words and an ugly pair of socks I bought on clearance at Kmart in your direction. You are pathetic.”

  “Don’t call me again,” I said.

  “I don’t plan on it, sweetheart,” he said, the word a snide twist on the way he had once said it. I hit the “end call” button and shoved the phone back in my pocket. I took a few deep breaths.

  Well. I guess I dodged a bullet with that one. At least I found out what he was before it went any further. It hurt, actually. More than I’d expected it to. I didn’t want to admit, even now, that I’d fallen for him.

  And all of it was a lie. Every single bit of it.

  I took another breath, then turned to go back into the house. Justin was still leaning on the kitchen counter, writing.

  “Almost done. It was a long list,” he said when he heard me walk in.