The gloating voice was fatally familiar. I pushed up again as my brain convulsed desperately to grasp what was going on. This time with a leg that was worthless deadweight, I managed to turn onto my back and braced myself, barely, upright on my elbows. Where was he? There was nothing but darkness and a leering moon that all but blocked out the sky.
“All I wanted to do,” the voice floated on, “was to make others like me. With a few minor improvements of course.” There was a laugh rich with mock self-deprecation. “I do get so lonely.”
Jericho. It all came back; a river of fetid knowledge—fear, rage, and despair. The only hope I had left was that Michael was in the water. I didn’t see him. He had to be swimming away—he had to be. As for me—I was dead. It was inevitable. I had seconds, maybe minutes, before Jericho killed me, but if Michael made it out of here, then death was something I could live with. That would look good on a T-shirt. Death was something I could live with. The bile black humor twisted itself onto my lips before a spasm of coughing sent sand from my lungs. “Come out, you son of a bitch,” I rasped. My gun . . . Where was my gun? It had flown from my hand when I fell. Surreptitiously I felt beside me, running fingers through grit for the comforting feel of metal. It was over for me; I accepted that, but my last breath would be spent trying to take Jericho with me. “Come out,” I repeated. “What the hell are you afraid of?”
“Certainly not of a common thief.” He materialized out of a mass of night and moon shadows. He was a shadow himself, lit only with lunar streaks along the planes of his face. “You took my Michael. You took my property. Cheaters never prosper, haven’t you heard? And neither do thieves.” He hadn’t lost his gun. It was still securely in his hand and trained on me.
“Thief? You’re the one who stole him. Stole a little boy,” I spat. “Did you think you could just take him and walk away?”
“Steal? I didn’t steal him. Like any good baker, I made him from scratch.” The grin that carved across his face was as brilliant and cold as the moon overhead.
He wasn’t making any sense. None. The man was insane, but I would listen to his psychotic ranting until the end of time if that gave Michael more of a chance to escape. “How did you find us?” My hands still searched futilely for my weapon.
“A friend.” He crouched down well out of reach and rested his gun hand on his knee. “An old, old friend who sold you a sad, sad story. I hear you’ll let him know when the article comes out. Could I get a copy? Since it is about me, it seems only fair. I could frame it for my office.”
I should’ve felt stupid. I didn’t. I felt worse. It was idiocy that couldn’t be equaled; it was carelessness miles beyond criminal. Bellucci had spun his tale of righteous anger, betrayal, and redemption, and I had swallowed it all like a spoon-fed baby. I’d watched the person who had no doubt planted the tracer on our car and my only thought had been regarding the ugliness of the wet dog she’d been carrying. It hadn’t once crossed my mind that Jericho needed a confederate in the legitimate science world. What better way to get access to cutting-edge new developments that had yet to see the light of the published world? Bellucci was the perfect silent partner. He could feed Jericho information, equipment, and get a nice slice of make-your-own-assassin pie. Even better, he could write outraged refutations of Jericho’s work and show himself to be Jericho’s most devoted rival. If anyone investigated Jericho, where would they go first?
Right.
Jericho’s early-warning system had been our downfall. “College pals,” I said bitterly. “Colleagues. And now you torture children together. Isn’t that . . .” The pain started. I was talking and breathing, and suddenly that was over. A malevolent butcher set up shop and went to work carving my thighbone into a thousand sharp-edged ivory knives. I gasped raggedly for air, then pushed through the black wave that washed over me. “Isn’t that . . . too . . . much togetherness?”
“You bore me.” Dismissive, he stood and walked close enough to kick the foot of my injured leg. As kicks went, it wasn’t much. Fairly gentle, more of a hard tap than anything, it was nevertheless enough to have the salty copper of blood flooding my mouth. “I thought you must be clever to have gotten this far, but close up . . . I simply don’t see it. Although removing his tracking chip wasn’t completely idiotic.” He tilted his head as if truly considering the exact measurement of my stupidity. “Surprising such a thought would occur to you. But even more of a mystery is that Michael stayed with you. He’s not much for killing, more’s the pity, but I fully expected him to take his leave of you quickly enough. Surely he wouldn’t have balked at a short coma for his kidnapper.”
My tongue almost refused to cooperate, numb from where I’d bitten it to keep from screaming in pain. “Not a kidnapper.” My hands fisted in the sand felt like the only thing holding me to consciousness. “He’s mine.”