Fated (36 page)

 “Is he really?” Conrad asked, though this was no news to him. He grabbed Hart’s jaw and pushed his face to the side so he could inspect his neck. “Not a mark on you. It’s the doctor we need.” He let go of Hart’s face. “I’ll take care of him, Alex. You go find the doctor.”

Hart could see Alex’s eyes bulge. “But he’s a
cop
.”

“Alex.” Conrad gave Hart a long-suffering look, as if he were supposed to sympathize. “I’m not going to kill him,” he said in a way Hart didn’t believe for a second. “I’ll just hold him here long enough so we can get away after we’ve checked out the doctor.”

“And if he… is clean?”

“The doctor?” Conrad asked pleasantly, looking over his shoulder to Alex. “Then we leave. We need to find the Predator.”

Alex’s eyes shifted like a frightened rabbit from Conrad to Hart to the gun on the table. “This means the end of my career,” he whispered. “My life. I’d have to leave everything behind.”

Conrad smiled at Hart, then schooled his expression before he turned around.

“He’s manipulating you, Alex,” Hart said quickly. “Don’t listen to him. He has no plans at all to let me or Toby walk away from here. He’s been killing—” Hart’s head snapped sharply to the left when Conrad backhanded him.

“It would be wise for you to keep your mouth shut.” Conrad turned to Alex. “Don’t listen to him. Just go find the doctor. No one is going to die who doesn’t deserve it, okay?”

“I guess.” Alex didn’t look at Hart at all, which was a bad sign. For a moment he had thought he could recruit Alex to help him out, but he doubted it now. In silence he watched.

Conrad softened his voice. “Go. All you have to do is tell him we’ve got Lieutenant Hart, and he’ll come, I guarantee you.”

“He means nothing to me,” Hart said. He didn’t want Toby dragged into this. He didn’t want Toby to die a gruesome death. None of this was his fault, and belatedly Hart realized he could’ve been so much kinder to him.

Conrad didn’t seem to care. “Ah, that may be. But I’m not sure that particular feeling is mutual. Take the gun, Alex. Just in case.”

C
ONRAD
WALKED
over to the rocking chair and sat down while Alex grabbed a car key and disappeared through the front door. Hart saw him hesitate, but Alex was gone before he could infer any meaning from it. The soft pattering of rain hit the cabin roof and windows. His arms and head ached. When he glanced up, he noticed the burn on his wrist had reopened and was bleeding onto the cuff of his shirt. Looking at it made it hurt more, so he dropped his gaze. Hart wanted to laugh. He should’ve taken Isaac’s car and driven home last night instead of drinking God knew how many bottles of wine. The only good-bye he needed to say to Jonathan Hart had been offered during the burial.

Rocking back and forth, Conrad studied him like he had nothing else to do. A devilishly handsome man, Hart thought, if it weren’t for that manic glint in his pale blue eyes. His hair was the kind of dark gray that hinted toward black not so long ago. Hart guessed he was in his late forties, maybe early fifties, but by the grace of his movements, the wiry muscles on his forearms as he rolled up his sleeves, Hart wouldn’t want to test his strength against this man.

“Toby doesn’t have a mark on his neck either,” Hart tried, watching Conrad as he stilled the rocking, his gaze sharpening like a hawk.

“You know what I’m looking for.”

“I’m on the case. I’ve seen the marks.” Conrad said nothing. “The real ones, and the ones you tried to fake.”

Conrad didn’t get riled up like Hart had hoped. Nothing seemed to throw this guy off balance. Instead he began his rocking again. “I may have faked the marks, but they still were dead people walking.”

“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“They should’ve stayed dead, there’s nothing more to it. The touch of some unnatural being shouldn’t give some people more time and not others. Like your friend Doctor Darwin. He might not have a mark, but he still should’ve died. Who knows what kind of evil is festering inside him, keeping him alive. I wouldn’t want to live that way, would you?”

Hart wasn’t going to get pulled into this game. “You do realize the police have your van. It won’t be long before they find a fingerprint, a hair, a speck of blood, anything at all to track you down, and now you’re adding kidnapping and injuring a police officer to your list. Judges don’t look kindly upon that sort of thing. You should let me go while you still can.”

With his head tilted to the side, Conrad studied Hart, smiling a little sardonically. “Tell me what you think you know. I’m intrigued. But I should warn you,” he added before Hart could start talking, “playing for time won’t do you any good. No one is looking for you, and if they are, we’ll be long gone before they track you here.”

“I don’t know much,” Hart admitted, but in the back of his mind the cogs were turning. “The house where the van was found… the woman who lived there is dead. I saw her gravestone at the cemetery.”

That cold madness flashed in Conrad’s eyes again, and Hart knew he’d hit home. He would have to tread carefully. “She was your wife,” he continued, grasping at straws. “But I’m going to guess she never took your name.”

“She was a teacher,” Conrad said with the first sign of anger twisting around his mouth. “She wanted to keep her name, and I didn’t mind.”

When he didn’t go on, Hart said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I only saw the grave because I was making preparations for my father’s burial.”

“Yes, you know a thing or two about loss, don’t you?”

“I do,” Hart simply said. “But you have to understand that if I can put this together from here, it won’t be long before someone else figures out Carly Albright was your wife. That was a sloppy move, leaving the van at the house. I think….” He hesitated because this was dangerous ground. But then again, he was already in really deep shit. It couldn’t get much deeper, could it? The vision in his left eye kept tunneling, and he knew he had a concussion, if not worse. There was no time to waste. “I think you wanted to get caught.”

“Maybe.” Conrad shrugged like he wasn’t all that bothered. “I had meant to move it away from there, but by then you had your eye out for it. That car bomb was the real mistake. I should never have trusted Alex with the detonator. He pressed the button too soon.” And Hart saw the flicker of doubt, though Conrad did his best to hide it. Maybe the premature detonation hadn’t been so accidental after all.

“How would it have served you to take me out?” Hart asked, genuinely curious.

“I knew your father had research on the Predator in his home. I needed to get to it before you did.”

Hart almost said, “Alex had access to it,” but he kept his mouth shut. The fact that Alex had never handed that laptop over to Conrad could be promising. What did Conrad have on him? Instead he asked, “And blowing up my car was the best you could think of?”

“Evidently not good enough.” Conrad’s eyes twinkled. “I didn’t know at the time you were police, just that you were Jonathan’s son. Didn’t figure it out until I saw you sitting in that cruiser, anyway. You really didn’t look like a cop.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hart groaned. Somewhere Freddie was laughing while she had no idea why. “Wait, how did you know my father?”

“I work at the university. In fact—” Conrad’s eyes flickered to Hart’s, and he grinned. “I used to be Professor Jonathan Hart’s secretary. The exact job Alex now has. Unfortunately, he found me snooping on his laptop about four years ago. I didn’t get fired because everyone felt so sorry for me after Carly died. I was shuffled along to the IT department. They never caught me doing something wrong again, of course.”

“Because what you needed was in my father’s laptop.”

“Exactly. I didn’t manage to crack all of it, but I did find out enough.”

Hart closed his eyes. “Benjamin Drake. He was in some advanced IT class, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right. Another one of the Predator’s filthy creations.”

“Why did you fake the marks? What do they mean?”

The creaking back and forth of the rocking chair stopped, and Conrad’s eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“Really? Well hopefully you’ll get to hear it from the mouth of the creature himself. You ended up leading me here, after all.”

“This cabin will be empty all week. The ranger who lives here is up the Mountain for a shift.”

“Ah, but he doesn’t live here alone, does he?”

Was that the idea? To wait for Julian to return from wherever he’d gone? And then… kill him?

“What’s the point of all this, Conrad? You’re making a huge self-sacrifice here. You have to know you’ll get caught.”

“I want to make the Predator pay,” Conrad said, his voice barely audible over the crackle of the fire.

“Did he try to heal your wife?”

“
Heal
her?” Conrad sneered. “He doesn’t heal people. He makes pretty promises he can’t keep. He changes people, and then they die filled with his poison. She caused a car accident when she burned out, did you know that?” It vaguely rang a bell, but Hart kept quiet. Burned out? Did he mean when the healing didn’t take? “It took her right in the middle of five o’clock traffic on the highway. She was never the same when she came back to me, but it would’ve destroyed her to know she’d killed two people on her way out. The police or courts can’t deliver justice to a freak of nature, but I can. Surely you understand that. No murderer should walk free.”

“You’re a murderer,” Hart said quietly.

It might’ve been a trick of the light, but for a second Conrad’s eyes were perfectly clear. He gave Hart a wry smile, his skin pale and the rings under his eyes sickeningly dark. “Have you ever walked a road with no return, Lieutenant? I don’t expect it to lead me to freedom.” Conrad seemed to be done talking about it then, because he abruptly stood and left the room.

As silence and time slowly stretched on, the head wound and dehydration began to take their toll. Hart couldn’t stop his mind from spinning in dangerous circles. Was Isaac safe? Could he hope Alex’d had no luck in finding Toby? Would he get out of here alive? Would they kill him or leave him until he succumbed to exhaustion? He had no idea what time it was or whether Freddie would be worried by now. She probably thought he needed some time by himself, which was just fucking perfect.

W
HEN
A
car door slammed outside, Hart was so strung out he flinched on his ropes. His right arm had gone completely numb, and the left one burned. He lifted his head, eyes on the door, not breathing.

Alex and Conrad dragged Toby inside.

“Oh God,” Hart said weakly. Toby was bleeding, but he couldn’t tell from where.

“I couldn’t help it, okay? He was gonna take the gun from me!” Alex looked gray and sick, his chin wobbling as he spoke. “I had no choice. It was me or him.”

“As long as you’re sure no one saw you.” Conrad dropped Toby, but Alex tried to carry him a little farther, a little closer to the fire and subsequently to Hart.

“They didn’t. He was at Jonathan’s place”—Alex nodded at Hart—“and about to get back into his car. There was no one around.”

No one but the old neighbors. If they’d heard the gunshot, they might call the police, especially after the shooting last night. He kept his gaze off Conrad so his face wouldn’t betray the thought.

“He needs help,” Hart said.

“He’s going to die anyway,” Conrad said. “I thought you understood. The Predator doesn’t heal people, Lieutenant. They die when he touches them, and what’s left is this empty, dead shell. He needs to be stopped, and this man, like the others, has to die.”

“He’s a doctor. He helps people,” Hart tried, but Conrad shook his head.

“His time was up months ago. No matter what you believe in, God or whatever else, you know he should have died back then. No one can walk on borrowed time for long. No one.” Conrad sank back on the couch as if he was exhausted, while Alex stood looking down anxiously at Toby. He looked wrecked and nervous. Twitchy. Maybe Hart could still turn him around somehow. Or he’d get shot too for his efforts. Alex could turn out to be more of a loose cannon than Conrad.

To Conrad he said, “And you had to kill all those other people too, did you? The kid whose life support they just turned off, the guy you buried alive, all the others. When did it start? With the guy who looked like he was ritually murdered eighteen months ago?”

“Eighteen months ago?” Conrad waved that away. “That wasn’t me.” Then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the baton lying loosely in his hands. His eyes gleamed with interest. “They turned off Drake’s life support?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued. “We’ll have to sneak into the morgue, make sure he doesn’t rise again.”

Hart laughed. He couldn’t help it. “What? You think he’s going to turn into a vampire?”

Conrad sprang to his feet, waving the baton in Hart’s face. He could see what was on the metal end of it now, and Jesus fucking Christ. It was the mark that had been burned into the last victim’s neck. “I’m not taking any chances. He can resurrect them if I don’t make sure they’re all dead for real.”