First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1

by Carey Baldwin

  Katie was running toward the lava flows.

  Sky took off in the opposite direction.

  Wheeling sharply, she headed up the path to the Big House. She knew she was running into a dead end, but she didn’t care. She heard grunting and footfalls behind her. Garth was chasing her.

  She smiled—Garth was chasing her.

  There were a thousand hiding places among the wooded escarpments and volcanic remains. At least for the moment, Katie was safe. Sky’s relief was so great, she didn’t notice until it was too late that she’d cornered herself inside one of the tiny apartments in the Big House. Shoulders heaving, she turned her back to the frigid adobe walls. Garth was on top of her. She spit in his face, and he punched her in the stomach with his fist.

  She cried out in pain.

  Grabbing her by the hair, he jerked her head back so that her face tilted up to his. He licked his lips. His breath was foul and fetid, and she shrank back against the wall. His mouth descended on top of her; his lips grazed hers, and as she forced her mouth closed against his horrifying kiss, he spat on top of her lips. Gagging and coughing, she tasted blood and bile.

  Mid-forehead, Garth stuck the icy muzzle of the Glock onto her raw skin. His face warped into a furious black mask. “I should do you right now.” She felt his gun tremble.

  “But I can’t.” Pulling the Glock away, he stepped back. Suddenly, he was all docility. “Please. You have to forgive me.”

  Struggling to match the unexpected change in his demeanor, she said, “That’s right. You can’t. Give me the gun. And let’s talk about it.” She reached out her palm, as if she fully expected him to hand over the Glock.

  Keeping the gun pointed at her, he backed further away. “Stay where you are. With your back against the wall.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, then took off running. Let him shoot at her. Her brother was no marksman, and she liked her chances a hell of a lot better as a moving target than as a sitting duck.

  As she bolted into one of the larger apartments, a bullet whizzed past her head. Bits of brick and dirt went flying. The shrapnel nicked and stung like bees swarming over her skin. She hopped a low wall and found herself in an adjoining room. Garth was right behind her, but she was already crawling through a window onto an outdoor walkway.

  Casting a glance behind her, she didn’t see Garth. A ladder was propped against the building. Splinters dug into her abraded palms as she grabbed on to the decaying wooden rails and started to climb. She knew the ancient ladder might not hold her weight, and even if it did, there was no real hope of escape. But none of that mattered. What did matter was Katie. And every second Garth spent in pursuit of Sky bought Katie more time.

  “Sky!” Garth appeared below and grabbed the base of the ladder.

  Shake. Shake. Shake.

  Like ripened fruit, she came loose easy and landed hard. Her right arm wrenched behind her back. Garth yanked her by the left wrist, pulled her upright, dislocating her elbow in the process. A searing pain fired up her arm.

  “You hurt me!” Her outcry was irrational. Apparently the fall had knocked her momentarily senseless—enough to suppose that this man was the brother she’d always known, and that he cared that she was in pain. But to her surprise, Garth responded by throwing his arms around her and hugging her against his chest. She felt the cold pistol press into her side. “I’m sorry, Sky. I’m so sorry.”

  Her revulsion became physical. She was going to vomit. “Let me go. Please…”

  Releasing her, he backed up a few steps. His eyes were wild and wide and he was panting. “Let’s just stop fighting. I need to talk to you.”

  Still struggling to retain her stomach contents, she nodded.

  “Are you okay?” He studied her with apparent concern.

  Blood trickled down her neck. Her head throbbed and ached. Her stomach felt as though someone had sliced opened the fascia and ripped her abdominal muscles apart with their bare hands. It hurt to speak, to breathe. With her right arm, she reached across her chest and grabbed her left wrist, supinating and flexing her forearm, she popped her dislocated elbow back into place. “I’m okay.”

  Garth ran a bloodied hand through his hair. A gash of moonlight and shadow hollowed out his already gaunt features. His shoulders rose and fell with each gasping breath.

  This night was taking its toll on them both.

  “I am not a monster.” His words crumbled under the weight of the night wind.

  “Shhh.” She tried to soothe him before he became violent again. Without Garth’s objection she managed to pace one step away from him. She took another step, and then another. Still, he didn’t protest. A hopeful gust of wind blew across the pueblo, stirring up a small cloud of dusted snow. Tasting grit, she blinked away the dirt that stung her eyes.

  “I am not a monster,” he repeated. “I wish you would make the smallest effort to understand why I had to do the things I’ve done.”

  Exquisite pain shot down her spine and into her legs, tried to persuade her knees to buckle. She wasn’t certain she had the strength to lead Garth on another chase through the ruins, not without a rest. So if he wanted to talk, why not let him? This was as close to rational as he’d been all night, and if nothing else, it would buy her time. And besides, she wanted to know the truth.

  No matter how horrible.

  “You’re right. We shouldn’t fight like this. I do want to understand you. Tell me all of it. I want to know everything.”

  “I will. I’ll tell you everything, and then you’ll forgive me. You must forgive me, Sky.”

  Her voice trembled a little. “And why, exactly, is that so important to you?”

  “Because I’m not a monster.”

  Right, yet somehow she kept forgetting. “I don’t know who you are. I’m staring at a man who looks exactly like my brother. But he isn’t my brother. He’s a crazy man. He’s holding me at gunpoint and demanding my forgiveness.” Impervious as to how Garth would react, she shrugged, and said sardonically, “If you want forgiveness so badly, perhaps you might consider putting the gun away.”

  Tilting his head, he stroked the barrel of the Glock. “It’s not as crazy as it seems…”

  Yes it was. And she might be just as crazy as Garth, because she really did want to understand why he had committed these atrocities. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the events, and she was struggling to make sense of things that defied understanding.

  “You had Edmond killed,” she said, steeling herself against the misery that had her by the throat.

  “I did.”

  “Why?” She cast her eyes to the ground, and ducked her head.

  “I should think it would be obvious. He came to me about Bella. After Livy, Amanda, and Henrietta died, Edmond started looking for the cause. He wasn’t as smart as you are, Sky.” Garth smiled, almost beamed. “All he could come up with was that Bella was to blame. He insisted he had to file an adverse events report with the FDA. I couldn’t allow that.”

  “So you hired a hit man. How do you go about finding one of those anyway? I mean I assume they’re not listed in the yellow pages.”

  “Fate, I suppose. Because I didn’t have to go looking at all. It was Jack—Jack Spurlock—who came to me. He was trying to blackmail me.”

  With his wide-eyed glance and upturned palms, Garth seemed to be expecting some expression of sympathy from her.

  “Oh, that’s terrible.” She turned her palms up right back at him. “Blackmail you with what?”

  “I’d rather you not interrupt me.” He raised one eyebrow. “Anyway, he was trying to blackmail me, and I simply pointed out that there was a lot of money to be made from my Bella vaccine. I simply explained that Edmond wanted to ruin a potential gold mine. I simply suggested to Jack, that instead of taking me on as an adversary, he had much more to gain by becoming my ally. I offered him an ongoing portion of my profits from Bella in exchange for getting rid of Edmond.” Garth’s tone turned distinctly self-satisfied. “And that
went quite well really. Not only did Jack get rid of Edmond for me, your friend, Benson got rid of Jack at the same time. So you see, I thought there would be no further obstacles to overcome. I thought you and I could resume the happy relations we’d enjoyed before Edmond came along and ruined things. And Bella, of course, would continue to save lives.”

  “All’s well that ends well…only it didn’t.” She couldn’t hide her disgust for what he’d done, didn’t want to hide it.

  “All would have been well, if Benson had let the case drop, and if you, Sky, had not insisted on combing through those medical files once the malpractice suit was filed.” He wagged his pistol at her. “You need to own up to your part in this. Had you done as I asked and settled the suit without further ado, Nevaeh would still be alive.”

  Numbly, she said, “You burned the clinic to destroy the files.”

  “And I had to get rid of Nevaeh because she was a loose end.”

  “You didn’t have to kill Nevaeh. You could have set the fire when no one was there.”

  “Someone…” he looked at her through narrowed eyes, “…needed to be taught a lesson. And Nevaeh wasn’t a fit mother to that baby. I did save the baby, and I feel I ought to get credit for that. I performed surgery and gave the infant a chance, despite the delay it caused me.”

  Beneath her ribs, her heart turned to ice.

  “It was all for Bella, Sky.”

  He was trying to protect Bella. As sick and twisted as Garth’s actions were, she could see the internal logic in them. Except for one thing. “When you injected yourself that night, was that really Bella in the syringe?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why?” she asked coldly. “Why did you kill Edmond? Why did you burn the clinic? You believed Bella was safe. So even if you didn’t know until now that it was West Nile virus that killed Edmond’s patients, you knew it was not Bella. You knew that regardless of what was in those patient files, eventually Bella would be cleared.”

  “That’s irrelevant. I couldn’t let Edmond, or you, file an adverse events report. You know the FDA, Sky. How they love to cover their ass. If I had let you file your report, even with proof the women had West Nile, the FDA could still give Bella a black box warning. And with all the vaccine hysteria around right now, it would hurt sales. Not to mention the fact that many women would refuse Bella out of fear. An irrational fear, fueled by an FDA warning. Lives that should’ve been saved would be lost.”

  “You were willing to kill all those people just to stop the FDA from putting a warning label on Bella.”

  “I had to sacrifice a few lives to save many. I can’t have the public afraid to take my vaccine. It’s like Caesar’s wife, you see.”

  “No, Garth. I’m afraid I don’t see at all.”

  “Then open your eyes: Like Caesar’s wife, Bella must be above suspicion.”

  In disbelief, she passed a hand across her face.

  Garth had done it all to stop the FDA from investigating a vaccine that was, in truth, safe.

  And he had known all along that it would be proven so, eventually. He’d never been worried the vaccine would be pulled off the market. He’d merely wanted to avoid the stigma of a black box warning.

  “Forgive me, Sky.”

  Her brow broke out in a chilled sweat, and she wrapped her arms around herself to stop her shaking. “You’re holding something back. Why was Jack Spurlock blackmailing you?”

  Garth’s gaze darted from side to side. “I suppose for your forgiveness to be meaningful, I must confess it all.”

  Bracing for more, her hands fisted. There was more?

  “I knew Jack because he was in the same foster home with me and some other boys. It was all for one and one for all, us boys against the world. Only of course, I was only pretending to be friends with those louts and had little in common with them other than a lowly lot in life. Steve Regan was part of the gang, and after Isabella died…” he pulled his eyes away from hers, “…I hired Steve to kill our father. And Jack knew about that. Later, when Jack saw my name in the papers because of Bella, he figured I’d gotten rich. He’d just finished a stint in the pen, and he tracked me down and tried to pull a blackmail scheme.”

  The air around her began to vibrate, and her head, suddenly too heavy for her neck, bobbed to her chest. Her legs gave way beneath her, and she crumpled to her knees. She couldn’t catch her breath. Pressing her hand to her heart she gasped, and then choked out the words, “You hired Steve Regan…to kill Papa? To rape me?”

  His voice rose with alarm. “God no. Steve wasn’t supposed to hurt you. I only wanted our parents’ life insurance money for seed money…for Bella. It was all for Bella. Don’t you see? And when I walked in and found Steve…touching you, I went out of my mind.”

  His foot tapped the dirty snow violently. “I’d never killed anyone before Steve. Not with my own two hands anyway. There was that boy, Timmy, but that was before I knew Isabella, and that was accomplished indirectly—more of an experiment in manipulating others than anything else. Timmy has nothing to do with this.”

  Something dark and vile was pumping through her body and turning her stone cold. She closed her eyes. She imagined Garth hacking open her veins, but no blood spurted out. Instead she bled black—black poison.

  “You killed Papa for money.”

  “You make me sound selfish and cruel. But think about it, Sky. You must realize I could have had Steve kill you too. Then I could’ve had all the money. But I didn’t do that. I let you live and keep your share of the inheritance—for med school and that damn clinic. Because that’s what Isabella would have wanted. I didn’t kill your father for money. I killed him for Bella. I’m trying to make the world a better place.”

  Somehow, she managed to get to her feet.

  “Now that you understand me better. Now that you see how badly I need your forgiveness, surely you can find that forgiveness in your heart. Yours has always been such a good heart.”

  “But what about you, Garth? Where is your heart?”

  “I haven’t got one, Sky. If I did, how could I have borne my life? Say you forgive me. If not for my sake, then for your own, don’t carry this to the grave with you.”

  To the grave.

  Her cheeks were wet with tears, and her pulses bounded with hate. Her body was shaking with rage. Of their own volition her eyes closed, but she forced them open again. She didn’t want to go to her grave with black poison sludging through her veins; she didn’t want to die with hatred in her heart. Raising her eyes, she looked at Garth.

  “I forgive you,” she said.

  The wind picked up.

  Dust and snow began to swirl furiously around her. She and Garth became the center of a funnel cloud made from the dirt beneath their feet and the snow falling from above. Moonlight and wind stirred and mixed the pure with the impure, the beautiful with the ugly. The cloud hummed and whirred, and she and Garth became the apex.

  He raised his pistol.

  A blinding flash.

  A sting in her chest.

  Darkness.

  Kneeling, Danny dipped a finger in a dark ball of sand and pulled out clotted blood. He lifted his finger to his nose and sniffed it like an animal, as if by scent, he could determine whose blood it was: Sky’s. Katie’s. Garth’s.

  Before him, the ruins disappeared in a haze. His heart pumped so hard his veins hummed. Either he was terribly afraid or savagely angry.

  Savagely angry.

  He pictured squeezing the trigger of his pistol and putting a bullet straight through Garth’s heart. He relished the idea of spilling Garth’s blood. And with that image shining in his mind, he hastened up the path, following the blood. The trail started with thick clumps in the ancient ball court, and then thinned to a spatter on the section of dirt and snow that led to the Big House. The large pueblo had once provided shelter to hundreds of families, and its decayed remains were full of nooks and corners that would serve to conceal his enemy.

 
The full moon and open path, on the other hand, provided no cover whatsoever for Danny. If Garth was watching from The Big House, he had both a clear view and a clear shot, at least until Danny reached the pueblo. Even then he was going to have difficulty concealing his approach due to the open structure of the remains. If he could somehow get to the roof however, he’d be above Garth’s line of vision—in sniper position.

  For now though, he had no coverage, so he jogged forward out in the open. Despite his vulnerable position, he felt enveloped, protected. This had been sacred ground to the ancients, and he sensed their spirits permeating the atmosphere, infusing the song of the wind, the howling of coyotes, even the mundane noise of scraping branches. These natural sounds were part of the fabric of the night, and Danny strained to listen past them. Listening for a tear in that fabric, he froze, and then, he heard them: The sounds that ripped open the night.

  Voices.

  Not arguing. Not screaming. Controlled voices of a man and a woman speaking so calm they might have been visitors taking a tour of the ruins. But these voices did not belong to tourists. They belonged to Garth and Sky. Using the voices to pinpoint their location, Danny pressed on until he arrived at the proximal end of The Big House. He studied the decaying bricks, and despite the nature of his mission, for a moment, his photographer’s eye honed in on the orbs of moonlight which hung on the sandstone walls like a ceremonial necklace. Closing his eyes, he shuttered away the distractions and refocused his attention on the voices. They emanated from the opposite side of the pueblo, about midway down.

  Releasing a measured, quiet breath, he inched his way along the front of a low wall. Garth and Sky were on the back side of the complex. Yes. He’d decided. He was going over the top, going to try to find a good sniper’s nest. He stole further toward the middle, taking care to make no noise, or at least no noise that couldn’t have been made by an animal creeping in the night. The pitch of the voices changed from low to high signaling an increase in the speakers’ stress level. Danny’s pulse accelerated. His eyes squeezed shut as he listened past his fear. One voice was conspicuously absent.