Antidote (Don't) (51 page)

“Sir?”

“Nobody’s to talk to Jack, not until I give the all clear.”

“And Halliday?” said Ray, coming over. “He’s just called to say he’s had to stop by Jack’s dad’s. He’s running late.”

Gray’s eyes narrowed.

“What th’fuck d’you know?” Jack was reaching for his coat, but Gray took it off him and handed it to Ray. Jack pulled back. “You, you take Jan with you over me?”

Gray was suddenly by Jack, pushing him back as he cupped his face. “You listen to me. This is nothing to do with what you can and can’t do, kid. This is—”

Giving an angered snarl, Jack pushed him off, hands going to his head. “He isn’t trained, I am. I’m fucking a fourth dan in—”

“Jack,” snarled Gray, but Jack started to back off.

“Sit pretty, right?” he said as he reached a display case of Gray’s. “Because only real men get dirty? And Christ knows he got out where I didn’t.” Giving a groan, he pushed the display case over. “
Fuck you. Fuck you both an
—”

“Fucking watch him,” Gray snarled to Ray, then he was pulling open the door, mobile in hand, putting a call through to someone...

I wanted to ask just what the hell was going on, but maybe now wasn’t the time for questions, certainly not ones Gray was prepared to answer just yet. He wasn’t holding out on me, I could tell he was working over details in his mind, piecing things together. We pulled up outside an old Victorian house, white brick and wood panelling speaking its finery and class. From all of the hospital visits, I recognised Greg’s Range Rover in the drive, but not the two others that sat beside it. Gray stopped just behind a black Mercedes, but before he got out, he tapped something into his phone, his gaze on the Mercedes touching the nose of his Mercedes.

“Halliday’s?” It had to be; Halliday was MC, head of their psychology department, but still MC, driving one of the two MC signature mark cars.

Gray nodded, his attention still on the phone.

“What’s going on, Gray? What’s the issue with Halliday? Is he tied to this Leamore woman?” I frowned. “Would he have known about April through past sessions with Jack when Jack was a teen? I mean, I take it Jack would have come under MC scrutiny when you first met him?”

“Halliday wasn’t part of the department then.”

“But he does have access to the files!” My skin started to crawl. “And the money aspect: he’s MC—paid damn well. Is...” Something else started to creep in. “Is he anything to do with Ben? The psychology student who was training to be a Dom when I met Jack? Ben was murdered.”

Gray looked at the house.

“Gray?”

A glance at me, he pushed out of the Mercedes. After a moment he leaned back down and looked in. “You let me deal with this, Jan. You say nothing. You
do
nothing.”

“Except talk to Greg?” I suddenly saw why he’d allowed me to come now.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

I pushed out of the car, then went around to meet Gray. But apparently Greg’s radar had already kicked in because the front door to his home was open and Greg came out, meeting Gray halfway across the courtyard.

“You.” Greg looked small, his back slightly arched, with heavy lines under his eyes that said he’d had about as much sleep as the rest of us. “Not at my home.” He tried to square himself up. “You only ever bring trouble to my home. Not here. Not now. I’ve had enough, Gray, We’ve all had enough.”

I slipped between them, urging Greg back toward his front door, yet Greg kept his gaze behind us, on Gray, his cracked lips as thin as Gray’s.

“Dr. Halliday told you that he got a call this morning, to come and see Jack?” I said quietly.

“Yes, why?” Now Greg was back with me. “What’s wrong?”

“Martin’s back on the scene.” That came from behind us and Greg stopped and pulled his elbow out of my grip, all to look back at Gray. “
Martin
?” The name was hissed through his teeth. “He... Jack’s been doing fine. He’s been doing
more
than fine.”

I started pulling at Greg’s arm again and managed to get him through the door. “Jack’s been slipping out for the past three weeks,” I said, hearing voices in the living room. “We found out last night.”

“Is...” Greg pulled me to a stop, panic in his gaze. “Is he okay?”

“No,” said Gray, pushing through the middle of both of us, “it’s why we called the good ol’ doc in.”

Leaving Greg there in the hall, I followed Gray into the living room to see Gray do exactly the same as he did to Kris when he’d purred around Jack at the nightclub. He went over to Halliday, nose-to-nose with him, and backed him away from Jack’s mother.

“Hey, hey-hey,” snarled Greg, pushing past me and grabbing at Gray’s jacket sleeve. “You don’t come into my house and threaten my gues—”

Gray looked at him, and the look going on in his eyes shut Greg up. Halliday had already fallen dumb, Gray leaving him pale and shaking despite Halliday being a foot taller. Christ, that look shut me up and I’d said nothing.

“Take a seat, Doc,” said Gray, not even looking back, and Halliday did just that. Forget the fact there was nothing there for him to sit on
but
the floor, he sat, hands searching blindly behind him.

Giving a glance down, happy that Halliday seemed to be staying put, Gray moved away to the mantelpiece and picked something up that had caught his eye. After a wipe at his face, he traced a finger over the photo frame he held, then smiled in my direction and showed me the photo.

“Stunning-looking kid,” said Gray to Greg. “How old is Jack here? Five, six?”

“Six.” Greg moved a little closer, but something caused him to stop and he glanced back at me with that same questioning innocence of Jack’s. Gray was running his thumb over the frame. The picture had been a mass of black hair and huge grey eyes, this huge cheeky smile as Jack stood posing in trousers, white shirt, and blue jumper with a school logo on the front. Only his tie had been pulled down, the first button undone, and the cap he wore looked fit for the lead guitarist of AC/DC.

“First day at school?” said Gray. Greg nodded, but it was Elena who answered with a quiet, “First year. That was his first school photo.” Her smile reflected the little boy in the photo.

Gray put the picture frame back on the mantelpiece and looked around. “No others?” he said over to Greg.

Greg shrugged as Elena said, “I have them.”

Gray nodded. “Must have been a good place to be for you,” he said over to Greg, then Elena, “Jack with no troubles.” He indicated to the photo. “Back then.”

Greg only shrugged again. “Jack’s... Jack,” he said quietly. “Past, present... all of it makes up who he is.”

A wipe at his face, Gray nodded, then looked down at Halliday. His look was questioning, almost mimicking Halliday’s, only Gray’s was a lot harder.

“Do you remember buying Jack this?” He was back with Greg, and he pulled the necklace out of his pocket.

“Oh my lord.” Greg came over and took it from him. “Where?” Greg turned the necklace over in his hands. “Where did you get this?”

Gray took it back off him, wrapping his fist around it, enough for the silver and black cross to dig into the skin. “The night I met him,” said Gray. “In the alley, when we fought, it came off in the scuffle.”

Greg snorted. “When you beat the sh—”

“
Don’t
,” shouted Gray, enough to make Greg jolt and back off. Gray laughed, gave a slight shake of his head, then a small smile. “Jack was so pissed at me for breaking it,” he said, his body having lost all of its calmness, its ability to relax. “He spent days looking for it afterwards. Always back at the same place, that dumbass intensity on his face.” Gray seemed lost in the memory. “To be honest, I never even realised I had it until I’d had my suit dry cleaned a few days later.”

He looked down at the necklace. “I wanted to keep it until after the trial, get it fixed for him as a thank you.” A slight frown. “His head was in such a bad place, yet he still stood up to that fuck.” Gray’s voice was a little quieter. “See, he mentioned his ‘old man’ had bought it for him, and, well...” Gray smiled at me, Greg. “We all know how much he loves his old man, right?”

“Gray...” Greg stepped a little closer, almost reached out to him, and then drew back a touch. “This... all this, it’s been hard on everyone. Hard on... on you. But...” He shrugged. “I don’t know what this is; I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

Gray looked over at Elena. “I never really hear him talk much about you, though.”

She frowned. First at Greg, then me. “Have you ever asked him?” she said, looking just as confused.

Gray chuckled. “All movements and alibis checked out, and,” Gray glanced down at Halliday, “psych evaluations too.” He was back with Elena. “And yet still I’m left asking: what the hell have you done with April Leamore, Elena? What the fuck have you done, period?”

Greg frowned.

“See, Greg here, he said that April asked if he was Jack Harrison’s dad, only problem being, April only knew Martin.” There was a cold smile. “And Martin himself said he got bored with April being less of a challenge on the intelligence score. So... the question is: how did she find out that Jack was Martin?”

Elena still didn’t seem to understand. “Both national and international papers covered Cutter being sent down—”

“Jack was under witness protection, there was a media blackout on pictures and his name,” said Gray. “Try again.”

“Try what again?” said Elena.

“Greg himself mentioned April.” The necklace in Gray’s hand looked ready to cut into skin. “And after that? Everything fell into place really easily. The CCTV footage from the meeting in Epping Forest catching the exchange, tracing her ID, her home, her history with Jack...” Elena still didn’t seem to understand and Gray nodded. “Even the porn links, now I think about it.”

Gray slipped the necklace in his pocket. “They took me to America,” he said, “they took all three of us there. Jack and Jan, they met some very special people. That visit led to finding out that the porn links were actually uploaded from Corsica, then to April herself being there.”

“Huh?” said Greg, but Gray was purely with Elena.

“Exact locations are always hard to pin down, but Gabe, clever little sod that he is, he located country, city, then even a local internet cafe. But like everything else, he was meant to.”

“And?” said Elena, coming close, her face creasing.

“The only thing you couldn’t plan,” he said quietly, “was this.” He showed her the necklace again. He gave a small smile. “So carefully planned, Elena, but enough to leave a real bad taste with how it all connected together. You weren’t lying when you said you spoke to Jack on the phone. I checked the phone records.”

He offered her the necklace.

“But on the other hand, as drugged up as Jack was, he wasn’t lying when he said he saw you there with Vince, was he? You’d just tried to make sure you kept your identity slightly screwed so he would question himself later.”

I eased off the doorframe just as Greg looked at Elena. Elena stared at the necklace as she turned it over in her hand.

“You shouldn’t have taunted me with that last video of him,” said Gray, quietly, his hand going into his black overcoat. “See, those porn uploads were done by April herself in Corsica.” Gray smiled. “But guess who was just a short trip away in Italy, the same place where you bought a necklace that looked very similar to this one, and for Vince to use in the warehouse.”

Gray looked over to me, then nodded at the necklace. “That’s Italian design, and only made on home soil. It’s why Jack was going so nuts with trying to find it as a teen. He’d chosen it on his first trip to Italy with his parents, what, he was fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Sixteen,” mumbled Greg.

Gray nodded. “It was the last holiday you’d all spent together before the real shit over the fights and troubles over the courts really kicked in.” Gray took the necklace back, then slipped it into his pocket. “Did Mark Shaw send you those video tapes of Jack and Cutter together when you were in Italy a few months back? Just before he died? A backup plan? And you started buying a few things there for your mind fuck with Vince?” he said quietly. “Mark would have known you, he was the cameraman behind those videos with Cutter, so he knew both Jack, and possibly Martin. Take all of that away, though, there’s a lot of planning behind this; had you already put the feelers out for guys to ‘help sort Jack out’ long before Mark got in touch? Is that why April came to know both Greg and Jack? You’d tracked her down, talked to her? And then Keal... he caught wind of it and got in touch with you to ‘help out’?”

Nothing came from Elena.

“You would have known about Jack’s fugues. Part of his therapy as a teen was getting Jack to recognise Martin, and vice versa with Martin recognising Jack. It worked to a certain extent, especially with Jack encouraged to tell Greg and you about Martin, what he knew, what he’d found out in therapy from Martin himself. Although Jack’s lost some of that detail over time.” He looked at Greg. “Basic care plan, right?” Then he was back with Elena. “Did you get in contact with April just before you asked Greg to meet you at the Cafe, then have him meet April, all so it would be in the CCTV when I looked? That’s a hell of a lot of hate there over such a long period of time, not just for Jack, but April, Greg, Jan.... And tell me, what was your occupation before you took over control of one of Greg’s garages, and what was the one concern you had when you told me Jack had been set that message in your DVD of
War of the Worlds
, Elena?”

Something seemed to shrink Greg where he stood. Elena didn’t seem phased in the slightest as she said, “Computer Engineer.”

“And it really played with your head when Jack smashed the computers in his office, huh?” He snorted. “But there we have it,” said Gray, quietly. “Quite the clever old tech-lady that Jack has. Certainly clever enough to set up tech equipment to watch him away from the warehouse, transfer money from one account to another.” He still looked as though he was searching for one last detail.

“Funding gets me, though,” he said, coolly. “No divorce payment could have given you the backing to do what you’ve done, April’s wages, Vince’s, the warehouse itself.... So that means what? You have friends in high places? Very high places, hmmm?” He smiled. “Who are they, Elena? Why is Jack on their radar?”