Betrayal

by J. D. Cunegan

  CHAPTER 53

  Jill had been making her way back to the FBI field office in Windsor Mill, no other clue as to how to proceed once the paramedics had taken David Gregor for treatment. But as soon as she had heard Brian's voicemail, she reversed course as quickly as she could. She had thought to eventually monitor Gregor at the hospital, though she was confident Gregor wouldn't reveal too much about their encounter because doing so would implicate him as much as her. Besides, she doubted any of the first responders would have believed the part about her father being resurrected within an hour of his execution. Jill had seen the result of that firsthand, and even she wasn't sure she believed it.

  Brian's message had been light on details, but the tone of his voice told Jill time was not on her side.

  As Jill approached the front door, and saw it cracked open, she reached back to wrap her hand around the handle of her sword. The blade was still caked in blood, and it would take too long to clean once this was all over. Her stomach churned at the sight of it, but without knowing details, the last thing Jill needed to do was barge in unarmed.

  Jill pressed her back to the siding to the right of the door, kicking the gun in the grass to the side and listening for anything out of the ordinary. She frowned at the silence, sucking in a deep breath before pushing the door open and stepping inside. The carpet kept her boots from announcing her presence, and her eyes danced around the foyer and the living room.

  Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Everything was where she remembered it. Nothing was broken. Yet specks of blood dotting the carpet caught Jill's eye and she froze.

  Please don't let that be Brian's...

  "Brian?" she called out, proud of how she managed to keep the panic out of her voice.

  "In here."

  The voice came from a corner of the living room Jill couldn't see from the foyer. Her brother sounded none the worse for wear, though his voice was the same low monotone it had been on the voicemail. She knew that tone; Brian only used it when he was overwhelmed, when he was overly emotional or faced a situation where he had no control. Jill crossed into the living room, her heart leaping into her throat when she saw Brian sitting next to the couch—where her father was prone, arching his back, whimpering in pain, and covered in cracked skin, blood, and sweat.

  "Brian..."

  "He's been here about an hour." Brian stared at his hands. "Just showed up, gun at my chest, making no sense. Then the skin started cracking and..." Finally, Brian rose his head to meet his sister's gaze. "He says he's dying."

  Jill crossed to the sofa and dropped to her knees. The last time she had seen Paul, not even two hours ago, he had driven her sword into David Gregor's gut, and she had threatened to kill him if he had come after her brother. She hadn't expected him to come to their childhood home, looking to talk or otherwise, and she damn sure hadn't expected to find him in such bad shape. It wasn't that long ago he had been matching Jill blow for blow, and now he was shedding skin all over their couch.

  Jill reached out to press her hand against her father's forehead, but she recoiled when his clammy skin cracked and gave way under her palm. Jill swallowed bile and cast a sideways glance at her brother, who didn't look as angry as she had expected. Instead, he simply looked lost and confused.

  That was almost worse.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I should've called you when we discovered his casket was empty."

  "Why didn't you?"

  Jill arched her human brow. "Would you believe me if I told you Dad, Gregor, and I were in the middle of a brawl?"

  "Considering a man I thought dead showed up at my door earlier this evening?" Brian shrugged. "Makes as much sense as anything else."

  Jill turned her attention back to her father, careful not to touch him. Other than the damage the fight had done to him earlier, Paul had appeared the picture of health the last time she had seen him. Now he looked like he would shatter at any moment, as if he were as brittle as a centuries-old artifact that had been at the mercy of the elements. His skin resembled cracked stone and the dried blood looked black in the dim light of the room. Paul's breaths were short and ragged, and he had his head turned away from Jill. His eyes were closed, and his jaw clenched.

  "Dad?"

  Paul made no motion to indicate he even knew Jill was there.

  "I'm surprised you let him in," she muttered.

  "You and me both." Brian wheeled closer, placing a hand on his sister's shoulder. "He asked if I'd let him die with dignity."

  Jill glanced at Brian over her shoulder, the furrow in her brow disappearing. "Looks like whatever brought him back was only temporary."

  "That's what he figured. He talked like whoever brought him back was using him."

  "He stabbed Gregor." Jill shook her head. "Using my sword."

  Brian's frown deepened. "Is he...?"

  "Gregor was alive when I got your message."

  With a loud gasp, Paul bolted into a sitting position. His bloodshot eyes went wide and he clutched at his chest with both hands as a drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He twitched violently at Jill's touch, cringing before breaking into another coughing fit. He hacked until blood poured from his mouth and a crack sounded from the side of his chest. Jill cringed and helped Paul back into a prone position, at which point his eyes fluttered shut.

  "He could've killed me, Brian." Jill ran a shaky hand through her hair. "When I finally tracked him down, he attacked me. Whatever The Collective did to get him on board, it was thorough. I'd never seen such anger and hatred in Dad's eyes. But in the middle of the fight, he just... stopped. Like something snapped in him. And that's when he turned on Gregor."

  "Which I bet confused the hell outta you." Brian stared at his father. "When he first showed up, it was like there were two different people."

  "Dad tried to get me to kill Gregor." Jill sniffled and brushed her fingers through what was left of Paul's hair. Gray clumps stuck to her leather glove. "Argued that a court of law would never end the way I wanted, that killing him was the only way to end things."

  Brian shrugged. "Until the next bad guy comes along."

  "Besides," Jill added, "if I kill Gregor, what makes me any better than Dad?"

  "You were always better," Paul whispered, though his eyes stayed closed. "Killing a man as vile as Gregor... hnng... killing Gregor won't change that."

  "I can't." Jill shook her head again. "I won't."

  Brian stared at his father. "You might not have a choice."

  Jill scowled at her brother. "I used to make a living putting killers behind bars. If I kill someone—on purpose —then what? Did none of that work matter?"

  "Jill." Brian took his sister's hand and squeezed it. "You know as well as I do that man's never seeing the inside of a jail cell. He probably has an entire army of lawyers just for that. He will never stop coming at you. He will never stop undermining everything that makes this city special. His death might be the only thing that ends this nightmare."

  Jill couldn't help the sideways grin creeping onto her face. "Better not let Lannigan hear you say all that. Can't have the next DA advocating murder."

  "One thing you've taught me?" Brian lifted his chin. "Legal and right aren't always the same thing."

  "Jill." Paul's lips quivered, a ragged breath escaping. "Brian."

  Both of Paul's children leaned in closer, Jill gingerly taking her father's hand into her own. "We're here, Dad."

  "I can't... I can't say this enough." Paul swallowed hard, then broke into another coughing fit. His teeth were covered in blood and his eyes wouldn't open. "I'm... I'm sorry... for every—everything... I failed you both, in so... so many ways..."

  The words it's okay nearly came out of Jill's mouth, because she wanted so badly to say them. It wasn't true, and Paul probably didn't deserve it, but some part of Jill wanted to lie to her father to make his last moments more peaceful than the last several months had been. Why she wanted that for him, she couldn't say. He was everything
she was convinced he could never be. A murderer. A monster. But here, on his makeshift death bed, Jill wanted her father's suffering to end.

  What did that make her?

  "It's okay, Dad," Brian said, resting his hand on Jill's shoulder and giving it a squeeze when she shot him a confused glare. "You just rest."

  Paul nodded and released a long, slow exhale. His chest caved in on itself and he let go of Jill's hand as his head lolled to the side. But even as he stilled, his chest no longer rising and falling with each breath, a soft smile crept onto his gray, cracked face.

  Silence.

  Jill then buried her face in both hands and sobbed. Her shoulders rocked with each wave of tears, Brian's hand stroking her hair. Within seconds, he was crying as well, wiping under his eyes and sniffling before inching closer to his sister. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder as her lips shook and she gulped in a deep breath.

  Their conjoined sobs were the only sound in the house.

  CHAPTER 54

  As expected, the suite containing David Gregor's room at the University of Maryland Medical Center was swarming with security. Not just his own personal detail, which consisted of three obscenely large men wearing sunglasses and handguns, but the FBI had its own presence on the floor. The FBI's attire matched the private detail's so exactly that it was hard to tell who was actually guarding the billionaire.

  Jill counted five agents between the nurses' desk and Gregor's room, and she had never seen any of them before. McDermott was also nowhere to be found, and Jill wasn't sure what to make of that. She hadn't seen him since leaving his office last, and he hadn't been in contact with her, either. Come to think of it, neither had Ramon. Somehow, that upset her more than anything. She fought to bring him on board, hoping to repair whatever damage she had done to their friendship, but it seemed they had seen each other less now than those two weeks she was a fugitive.

  It was all a bit suspicious for Jill's liking.

  Approaching the desk, her eyes red and puffy, Jill flashed her badge. "Agent Andersen, FBI. I'm here to see David Gregor."

  A heavy-set nurse kept her nose buried in a stack of paperwork. "Visiting hours are over."

  Jill tossed her badge on top of the paper before folding her arms. "What part of 'FBI' didn't you get the first time?"

  The nurse dropped her pen and finally acknowledged Jill's presence with a scowl. At the same time, one of the other FBI agents, a thin black man with a goatee that was trimmed just a little too close, grabbed Jill's arm. His grip was so tight that even she couldn't free herself. "You need to leave."

  Jill frowned at the man and pointed at her badge. "I'm one of you."

  The other agent gave Jill a once-over, cocking an eyebrow. "Never seen you before."

  Somehow, Jill managed not to roll her eyes. Hopefully, in her haste to get to the hospital, she hadn't messed up in applying her skin graft. Even though her secret was no longer, well, secret, she didn't care for walking around with her eyeplate visible all the time. For no other reason than to avoid some of the looks she inevitably got from those who weren't used to it.

  "I'm new."

  "She's with me." Richard McDermott approached from behind Jill, placing a hand on the other male agent's shoulder and tossing a nod in the direction of Gregor's room. "It's alright, Agent Bryant, you can let her through."

  Bryant scowled at Jill before casting a sideways glance at McDermott, who responded with a curt nod. Then, with his hand resting on his service piece, Bryant stepped aside. As Jill walked past, she couldn't help but notice the sneer Bryant threw her way.

  "Don't mind him." McDermott was in lockstep. "Agent Bryant hates everyone."

  "Charming." Jill stared at the door she was striding toward, taking a small measure of satisfaction in the way the three burly men guarding it stepped aside and ducked their heads. They apparently knew better than to stand in the way of two federal agents—either that, or they knew who she was and knew their boss would want to see her.

  "So," she added once they were at Gregor's door, "this some full-circle thing you're working here?"

  "Just wanted to check in with my new agent." McDermott shrugged. "I hear you had quite the eventful night."

  "Tends to happen when you discover your father got resurrected, only to watch him die all over again."

  McDermott frowned. "So... that was Paul."

  Jill nodded once, staring at the door and trying to keep another round of tears at bay. She wondered how there could be any left, considering how long she and Brian had sobbed into each other's arms in the moments after Paul's second passing. The only thing she could figure was, she was making up for all the tears she didn't shed the first time he had died. But McDermott didn't need to know that, and he certainly didn't need to see it. So, for the time being, she would again play the stiff upper lip.

  It disturbed Jill how good she was at it. Somehow, the second death hurt worse than the first. She didn't know why, and she wasn't entirely keen on finding out.

  "Any word from Agent Gutierrez?"

  "On Dr. Lo?" McDermott shook his head. "Got scooped up by some spooks just as they were making the arrest. Gutierrez is trying to track him back down right now, with the help of a couple BPD detectives." He quirked a brow. "You wanna tell me what that’s all about?"

  "I'll explain everything. Soon," Jill promised. "But if you don't mind, I'd rather deal with Gregor first."

  "Lead the way."

  "Uh-uh." Jill shook her head. "I go in alone."

  McDermott pursed his lips and stuffed both hands in his pockets, stealing a glance at the door before regarding his agent again. "Need I remind you, Agent Andersen, that I've been investigating David Gregor for the better part of three years? I need to be in there."

  "No, you don't." Jill grabbed the door handle, glancing over her shoulder. Yeah, McDermott had been on this case for three years—and in three years, he'd had nothing to show for it, and he had been so desperate as to enlist her help when everyone was trying to throw her behind bars.

  But she kept that part to herself. Her quarrel wasn't with him.

  Well, not right now.

  "This isn't personal for you," she added.

  Jill opened the door and disappeared on the other side, letting it shut on its own before McDermott could protest. If he tried to follow, Jill would convince one of Gregor's guards to step in. Either that, or she'd shoot him herself. There was no telling.

  Jill had expected to find Gregor lying in his bed, hooked up to all manner of machines that monitored his vitals. Instead, she found him standing in front of the window that overlooked much of downtown Baltimore, standing out in the vast space of his suite. Money bought him privacy, apparently even in a hospital. Gregor had his back to Jill, his right hand clutching a silver cane.

  "I was wondering when you would show," he said without turning. "How's Paul?"

  "That's none of your business."

  Wrinkled fingers flexed around the cane. "He's dead again, isn't he?"

  "Project Fusion never really went away." Jill approached until she was even with the bed, making sure to keep a bit of distance between herself and Gregor. There was no telling what he was capable of now, especially since he was standing so soon after a stab wound that had gone clear through his body. "Was that what brought Dr. Roberts to Baltimore before he was killed?"

  "You already solved his murder, Agent."

  "And yet his life's work keeps popping up." Jill folded her arms over her chest, mostly to hide her fists. "Sending another vigilante after me was one thing, David. But resurrecting my father? Turning him against me before forcing me to watch him literally wither away into nothing? That's fucked up, even for you."

  Finally, Gregor turned to look at Jill. He stared directly into her eyes. "Paul's resurrection wasn't me."

  Jill lifted her chin. "You're lying."

  "I merely provided Dr. Lo with your father's body immediately following his execution," Gregor explained, limping tow
ard Jill. "Sebastian didn’t tell me what he needed Paul's body for, and the amount of money he paid for it was so handsome I looked the other way."

  "That's not like you. You're normally much more hands-on."

  "Dr. Lo's payment allowed me to make back the money I had lost when I first invested in Project Fusion. Besides, he still owed me a favor."

  Jill pursed her lips. "The procedure."

  "Which gave the doctors and nurses here quite the scare." The ghost of a smile crept onto Gregor's face before disappearing. The gray stubble dotting his cheeks almost glowed under the hospital's harsh lighting.

  "But why?" Jill took another step forward. "Just so you could go toe-to-toe with me?"

  Gregor shrugged. "More or less."

  "What happened to the guy who hated getting his hands dirty?"

  "I finally realized that trying to deal with you through other means was never going to work." Gregor shook his head. "You're far too smart for my liking, which is probably your best asset – even with your superpowers."

  Jill's eyebrows arched. "Did you just pay me a compliment?"

  "Make no mistake, Andersen." The half-smile returned. "I respect the hell out of you. Even if I want to grind your bones into dust and keep your severed head in my office as a trophy."

  "I don't care what Dr. Lo did to you." Jill approached until she was face-to-face with Gregor. One hand wrapped around his wrist as the other reached for his cane. "You will never be able to take me."

  A short laugh burst from Gregor's lips, yanking the cane from her grasp and swinging it over her head. "Care to test that theory?"

  Jill glared at the man trying to hover over her. The cane didn't even so much as disturb her hair. Even though the two of them were nearly the same height, Gregor was trying to make it seem as if he was much taller than her. She gritted her teeth and reached out, jabbing her fist into his heavily bandaged side. The way Gregor doubled over and grunted gave her more satisfaction than she would ever admit.

  Enhanced though he might be, he was still human.

  An old human, at that.