First Do No Evil: Blood Secrets, Book 1 (36 page)

Still, she thought she should give the calm but firm approach one more try. “We’re all tired, and Katie is miserable with that collar and chain around her neck. I insist you remove them and let her go.”

As she’d expected, Garth shook his head in refusal. Then he laughed, low and cruel. Without hesitation she lunged for his gun. “Run, Katie! Run!”

He raised the gun over his head. Her arms weren’t long enough to reach it, so she jammed her elbows in his chest and jerked her knee into his groin. The gun discharged with an earsplitting crack.

“You crazy bitch!” He kicked her feet out from under her, and she hit the ground face forward. Her lip split apart, and blood spewed over the earth. Garth lost his footing on the blood and snow-slicked rock. He went down hard and flat on his back.

“Run!” Sky screamed again.

Katie was already running, but the chain clanking behind her made an easy tail for Garth to grab, and he lunged for it. Sky rolled in front of him and blocked him with her body. His arm swung over, and his elbow jammed into her throat. A crushing pain, and then the breath wheezed out of her narrowed windpipe. Suffocating, she reared back and kicked him in the shin. His hold loosened, and she slipped out and leapt to her feet.

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.”