The woman stirred and rolled over onto her side, facing away from the door. Felicia held her breath and stared at the woman’s face. If she awoke and opened her eyes, Felicia could continue play-acting as a clinic nurse. However, there would be a witness to her presence in the clinic, and she needed to remain unseen.
The woman yawned in her sleep and nuzzled deeper into her pillow. Felicia relaxed and blew out her breath with a long, drawn-out sigh. The scrambler was in place, and the woman showed no signs that she had been aware of Felicia’s intrusion. She left the patient’s room and returned to the service corridor. She took a few, short steps and stood outside the door to Simmonds’ quarantined room.
“This is it,” she consoled herself. “It has to be this way.” She took a deep breath and pulled the remote to the scrambler from her shirt pocket. It looked like an ordinary, unsuspicious stylus, but it was crucial to the next phase in her plan. She closed her eyes and activated the scrambler.
On the other side of the corridor, alarms began blaring from the woman’s suite. The scrambler had sent false signals to the monitoring equipment, tricking it into thinking the patient was suffering from cardiac arrest. Doctors and nurses streamed into the room. With all eyes in the clinic focused across the hall, Felicia walked undisturbed through the quarantine door into Daryl’s room.
Felicia had not been anticipating finding the doctor standing next to the pilot, reading a tablet and looking at the displays from the monitoring equipment. She had been operating under the belief that the pilot was quarantined and alone. She had seconds to decide her next move. The doctor turned around and saw Felicia as she hesitated at the door. He did not seem to give her a second thought and returned his attention to the man in the bed covered with bandages.
Felicia slid one hand in her pocket and wrapped her fingers around one of the injectors. She walked up to the doctor’s left side and held up her tablet in front of him. “Doctor?” she said, trying to mask the nervousness in her voice. “Can you help me understand these readings?”
He took the tablet from her hands and bowed his head down to read. She placed one hand on the top of his head and forced it hard against his chest as she pushed the injector against the side of his neck. There was a small hiss of air as she gave him a small portion of the injector’s contents.
He drooped and sagged, dropping the two tablets onto the patient’s bed. She caught him before he fell to the ground and carried him over to the nearby chair to sleep it off. The dose Felicia gave the doctor was enough to knock him out, but not enough to cause any long-term damage. The rest was for the suffering pilot.
She walked over to his bedside and looked down on him. He was covered head to toe in bandages, wrapped like a mummy from the ancient history museum tours she took in school. As hard as she tried, she could not remember what the pilot had looked like. The only details she could remember were that he was young and he was innocent.
Nevertheless, that did not matter anymore. He was past saving and within her hand, she carried the quickest way to end his suffering. If she did not do it, he would continue to fall apart until nothing but bandages would be holding him together. Alternatively, he would live out his life in a stasis tube like the others, a living, breathing mummy. There was not a doctor on the planet that could change that.
She held the injector up to the IV bag and inserted the remainder of the potent neuroleptic. She emptied the second injector into the bag as well. His life had been forfeit the moment Garrett offered him that flask of water. She stood by his bed, offered a pathetic apology for her actions, and begged for the forgiveness that would never come.
She turned away from his bed and walked out into the service corridor. The false alarm across the hall had been resolved. She heard a woman’s voice yelling about proper attachment of sensors. A twinge of guilt shot through her for causing someone else to take the blame over her act of sabotage.
With her task completed, she needed to change back into her own clothing before someone discovered her unauthorized presence. There was not a great need for her to be in a hurry. The clinic staff would assume a simple malfunction or human error had been behind the false alarm in the elderly woman’s room. When they discovered the unconscious doctor in Simmonds’ room, exhaustion would be named as the culprit behind his collapse. He would wake up in a few hours and tell them about the nurse who forced the injection upon him. They may or may not connect her to the pilot’s unexpected death, but she planned to be far, far away if it happened.
Felicia had one more task she needed to complete before the night was done, and she knew it was going to be much more difficult. She was certain their enemies would also be after Jack Evans.
She managed to evade detection and get out of the clinic before the alarms that announced Daryl Simmonds’ passing began to sound. She returned to the locker room, hid in one of the toilet stalls, and changed back into her own clothing. She felt more comfortable in her own clothes, but also felt more conspicuous until she covered herself in the maintenance coveralls she had borrowed to get into the service corridors.
She forced herself to walk at a calm, steady pace as she left the clinic and headed back to the freight lift that would take her down to the residential levels. She pressed the call button for the lift and found a dark corner to wait in.
She squatted down on her heels and leaned back against the cold concrete walls. Her eyes burned as she waited for the lift to arrive. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders convulsing with every sob that echoed through the concrete maze.
“God in Heaven, forgive me!” she cried.
FORTY-FOUR
Gideon searched through thousands of security feeds in his task of tracking Evangeline while Jack was sitting at the virtual replica of his office desk.
He had almost completed a diagnostic of Gideon’s final upgrade when the doorbell rang, echoing from the physical world, and jarring their virtual search efforts. Jack tapped a glowing button on his desktop console, which activated a display. The feed from the front door security camera popped up, revealing the person who had interrupted his thought process.
An Angel was standing at the door. Jack scratched the whiskers of his chin and furrowed his eyebrow. Gideon noticed Jack’s confused stare and used his hacking skills to activate the door camera to the unit across the hall. Jack turned around and saw the new display of his front door hovering among the hundreds of other images. With a quick swipe of his hand, he cloned the feed from his neighbors’ front door camera and zoomed onto the Angel. He could not think of a reason why there would be an Angel at his door this late at night, and dressed in a manner he could only describe as sporty business casual.
The striking image of an angel out of uniform caused Jack to think about the typical robes worn by every other Angel he had ever known. Female Angels wore a two-piece garment. One piece covering their body from their neck to their feet in one long flowing gown. The other piece was similar to a shawl, but longer and cuffed at the wrist. The males wore a similar shawl, but shorter in the front, and tapered in the back like tuxedo coat tails.
The Angel standing on his doorstep wore a shorter version of the regular shawl, but underneath had on skin-tight leggings that appeared to form straight into slippers on her feet. Her attire suggested she was on her way to a slumber party, not a house call to a stranger. Her face was cast in the same familiar, contented expression Angels wore anywhere else.
Jack had always thought all Angels looked alike, however, he did not work with or around Angels, so he was certain she was not someone he was acquainted with. This unexpected interruption was quite puzzling. Was this a random visit, a wrong address, or somehow linked to recent events?
“Can I help you?” he spoke into the intercom. Unlike Jack, the visitor had not impeded Gideon’s progress. He had maintained his search through the security feeds in the LTZ, although he had enlarged the display to monitor the front door camera feed.
“Mr. Evans?” she asked with a
warm smile. “My name is Gabriella. I am a trauma counselor on the military base. I have been asked by Colonel Jacobs to visit Evangeline and see how she’s been doing since the accident. May I come in, please?”
Jack forced himself to take a deep breath. The disruption irritated him, but he believed that was no excuse to show disrespect to anyone. He tried to smooth the edges out of his voice.
“I’m sorry, but my wife isn’t here right now. Maybe you can try to catch her on base tomorrow,” he said.
The Angel’s smile never faltered. “I’m also here to speak with you, Mr. Evans,” she replied. “You will also have been impacted by the accident your wife was involved in. I would very much like to speak with you about how the accident has affected you and your home life.”
Jack was in no mood to talk to a counselor. Finding his wife was his first priority, and he did not see any way that a therapy session would help in his panicked state.
“I’m sorry, but now is really not a good time,” he said, frustrated. “Just try to get a hold of Evangeline tomorrow, okay?”
The Angel donned another loving smile. “Please, Mr. Evans,” she said with a persuasive, singsong voice. “May I come in for just five minutes? I’d like to introduce myself professionally, and I’d appreciate if I could share my contact information with you. Intercoms can be so impersonal.” Her smile never wavered. Jack thought that Angels were so good they bordered on annoying.
He huffed a sigh of resignation, which broadcast over the intercom and resonated in the hall outside his door. “Alright, I’ll be there in just a moment,” he grumbled.
Jack had grown up enjoying the simple, hard-working life of a farm boy. As an adult, he could still hear his mother’s gentle rebuke for polite behavior, just as she had when he was a child. She would have been ashamed of him, dismissing an innocent soul who was trying to offer aid to him and his wife. After all, the Angel only wished for a few minutes of his time.
He waved his hand at the displays hovering over his desktop, shrinking them to small icons that danced above the surface of his desk like leaves on the wind. He spun around in his chair and turned to Gideon.
“Keep looking for signs of Evangeline, Gideon. I’ll be right back,” he gestured, jerking his thumb toward the door. “I have to go get rid of a nosy neighbor.” Gideon nodded and then returned his attention back to the security feeds swimming around him.
Jack touched the digital interface on his head and opened his eyes in his study. He massaged the bridge of his nose to dispel the headache that had developed from spending more than a few hours interfaced to his lab. He was not as accustomed to the extra sensory input like Evangeline.
He removed the interface from off of his head, folded it up, and placed it in his pocket out of habit. He stood up, stretching up to the ceiling, and then down to his toes. His mind had never stopped searching for his wife, but his body had been still and stationery for hours.
He felt a touch of satisfaction as he made the Angel wait a few more seconds. His mother would not have been happy about that, but he was in no hurry to get to the door. He loathed walking away from Gideon and the search for Evangeline.
He walked out of his office and headed toward the front door. He opened it to find Gabriella standing in the alcove. Her smile brightened at his arrival, as if he was a long, lost friend. She reached out and offered her hand. Jack took it, sighing as he went along with formalities. He had never been able to be rude to an Angel in person. It would be like being cruel to a small child. The child might have cried, but an Angel would have continued expressing love and kindness.
“Come on in,” Jack said, his irritation melting into fatigue. Stepping to the side, he gestured for Gabriella to come through the door. She crossed the threshold with a solemn bow of her head and turned into the front room as Jack closed the door and followed behind her. She stood in the center of the room, glancing around, her eyes taking in every piece of art, book, and furniture.
“Please have a seat,” he said, indicating the chair behind her as he sat himself down on the sofa. Gabriella did not move a muscle. She remained standing, immobile, beaming down at Jack.
“I understand you are a busy man, Mr. Evans,” she said. Gabriella’s voice was soft but direct. “I’m only here as a resource if you or your wife are in need of someone to talk to, confidentially of course, about the accident. Or about whatever you may wish to discuss.”
Before Jack could respond, Gabriella continued. “How long have you and your wife lived here, Mr. Evans?” she asked with polite interest while she continued looking around. Jack’s irritation flared again.
“So much for getting to the point,” He mumbled to himself. Feeling awkward sitting on the sofa while she stood in the center of the room, Jack heaved himself up and followed her gaze at the various personal items they possessed.
“We moved in right after we got married.” He glanced at their wedding album resting on an end table. “I guess it’s been about two and a half years or so.” Gabriella turned her attention to Jack and gave him a happy smile. Jack’s manners took over and he could not help but smile back. “Yeah, we moved into this unit right after we returned from our honeymoon,” he volunteered.
Her innocence was disarming. It dawned on him why an Angel would be so well-suited for a position as a counselor. Most people could not help themselves from opening up to someone who listened without judging. Jack could sense that this brief introduction was going to be much longer than planned.
“Have you two been happy here?” she asked. Jack knew the short answer was yes, but he also knew the full answer would lead to more questions than he wanted to get into.
His anxiety over Evangeline’s abduction kept him focused on his short answer. “Of course,” he replied.
Gabriella continued to examine the room with patient observational skills. Jack suspected she was trying to ascertain what their environment might reveal about their lives together.
“What kind of relationship did Evangeline have with her parents?” she asked, averting her eyes. Jack’s attention was piqued at the sudden change to a taboo subject.
Jack’s mind swam with the hundreds of separate memories that comprised his understanding of Evangeline’s relationship with her parents.
Matthew and Elizabeth Chapel were dead.
That was the official story. They had left on a supposed research trip when Evangeline was quite young, and had gone missing. Later, exposed at traitors and terrorists, the government declared them dead after a raid on a suspected Dissident base of operations. The news programs were flooded with graphic images showing the bodies of the Chapels and their terrorist colleagues strewn about in the wreckage and debris following the attack.
Evangeline never believed the official story. There was something in all the reports and images that never felt right to her. She was convinced that her parents were still alive somewhere, but she did not like to talk about it. One night, after the worst nightmare Jack could remember, Evangeline finally confided in him.
She told him about the conversation with her father before her parents had left. She told Jack about her father’s letter and his instructions to denounce them in public for her own protection. She told him about the persecution and ridicule she endured for years afterwards. She even told him that, for a time, she had buried her feelings for her parents and hid the pain she blamed them for causing. She had hated them for leaving her to face her awful life alone.
It was not until years later, when she was responsible for the safety of others, that she came to understand that they did what they believed was right, even if she did not agree with it. In the end, they were her parents and for twelve years of her life, she knew they had loved and cherished her. She had come to accept that they believed leaving her behind was in her best interest.
Jack remembered the day when Evangeline confided in him her secret from the off-world mission to the secret lab, although she never showed him the note she had found from her father.
She had made Jack promise that in the event that she died before seeing her parents again, he must take the clock and destroy it no questions asked. She told him it was because she could never bare children, and the clock was a symbol of a dead-end lineage, that she did not want it belonging to anyone else.
Jack knew there was more to her request than that, but he left it alone. It never did any good to pressure Evangeline into something she did not want to do. He never connected that the old clock and the letter had something to do with each other.
“Mr. Evans?”
Jack realized Gabriella had been staring at him.
“Where did you go just now?” she asked. Her inquisitive eyes bored into his.
“Sorry,” Jack answered as he tried to collect himself. He remembered that he needed to get Gabriella out of their home so he could continue his search. “I just get a little nervous when Evangeline’s out on a night patrol in the LTZ.” He tried to flash a charming smile, but his charming smile never came across as natural as he would have liked. Evangeline said she could always tell he was hiding something when he gave her one of those smiles. He hoped Gabriella would be easier to sway.
Gabriella’s body stiffened. Her hands, folded in front of her, separated and her posture became more erect. Her head pushed forward with interest instead of calm reserve.
“But, Mr. Evans,” she began with a sultry tone. “My records showed that Captain Evans is not on duty, which is why I tried to make my initial introductions in your home this evening. Why are you intentionally trying to deceive me?”
There was a new tenor in her voice and body language, but Jack could not put his finger it. He had never lied to an Angel before; there had never been a need to. Angels were always the epitome of politeness, never digging into a stranger’s personal matters. Jack was surprised that Gabriella caught his bluff, and even more surprised that she appeared unruffled, almost angry, about it. He took a half step back.
Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) Page 24
