eyes roll up and back as he dropped like a stone. Airless.
“Oh God, oh God! Brooks. I’m sorry.”
Since the only sound he could make was a wheeze, he gave it up after one attempt. He’d just lie there for the moment, maybe forever.
“I must have fallen asleep. You startled me.” She tried to turn him over, brushed his hair from his face. The dog licked it sympathetically. “Can you breathe? Are you breathing? You’re breathing.”
He coughed, and that burned like fire to match the inferno raging in his crotch. “Shit,” he managed, and coughed again.
“I’m going to get you water and ice. Just take slow breaths.”
She must have told the dog to stay with him, as Bert laid down so they were eye to eye. “What the fuck?” When that hissed out of him, Bert licked his face again.
He managed to swallow, then roll cautiously to his hands and knees. He stayed there another moment, wondering if he’d complete the cycle and puke. He’d made it to sitting on the floor, stomach contents intact, when Abigail rushed back in with the cold pack and a glass of water.
“Don’t you put that on my balls. It’s bad enough.” He took the water, and though the first couple of sips ripped like drinking broken razor blades, the rawness slowly eased. “What the fuck?” he said again.
“It was reflex. I’m so sorry. You’re so pale. I’m so sorry. I fell asleep, and I was back there, at Alexi’s. Ilya found me, and … I think you touched me, and I thought it was Ilya, so I reacted.”
“I’ll say. God help him if he tries for you. We may never have kids now.”
“A minor insult of this kind to the genitalia doesn’t affect fertility,” she began, then looked away. She went considerably pale herself. “I’m very sorry,” she repeated.
“I’ll live. Next time I start to carry you up to bed, I’ll wear a cup. Now you may have to carry me.”
“I’ll help you.” She kissed him gently on the cheek.
“I’d say that’s not where it hurts, but if you kiss me where it does and I have the normal reaction, it may kill me.” He waved her away, pushed to his feet. “It’s not so bad.” He cleared his throat, winced.
“I’ll help you upstairs.”
“I’ve got it. I’m just going to … check things out. For my own peace of mind.”
“All right. I’ll let Bert out before I come up.”
When she came up, he’d stripped down to his boxers but stood by her monitor, studying it.
“Is everything … um.”
“Yeah. That’s some aim you’ve got, killer.”
“It’s a particularly vulnerable area in a man.”
“I can attest. I’m going to want you to show me how this system works sometime soon. How you switch from view to view, zoom in, pan out and so on.”
“It’s very simple. Do you want me to show you now?”
“Tomorrow’s soon enough. I figure you’ve got plenty of data on the Volkovs, and the agents in their pocket. I’m going to want to review that.”
“Yes.”
He caught the tone. “What?”
“I haven’t told you everything.”
“Now would be a good time for that.”
“I’d like to clean up first.”
“Okay.” And get her thoughts together, he concluded.
She took a nightshirt from the drawer. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told him, and went into the bathroom.
He wondered how much more there could be as he heard the water running, and decided there was no point in speculating. Instead, he turned down the bed, lowered the lights.
When she came out, she got two bottles of water out of her cold box. She offered him one, then sat on the side of the bed. “I think, if I were you, I’d wonder why I’d never tried to go to the authorities, tell everything that happened.”
“You didn’t know who to trust.”
“That’s true, at least initially. And I was afraid. For a long time I had nightmares and flashbacks, panic attacks. I still have occasional anxiety attacks. Well, you’ve seen. And even above that—though it took me time to understand it, I believed I had to do what John told me. He died protecting me. It all happened so quickly, so violently, and was so urgent, so insistent. I realize now we were both very much in the moment. And in that moment, my survival hinged on escape.”
“If you hadn’t run, you’d be dead. That’s clear.”
“Yes, I’ve never questioned that. In those first day, weeks, it was all panic. Get away, stay away, stay concealed. If the Volkovs found me, they’d kill me. If the authorities found me, and they were involved with the Volkovs, they’d kill me. If they weren’t involved, they might arrest me for murder. So I ran, and I hid, the way I told you.”
“No one could blame you for that.”
“Maybe not. I was young and traumatized. No matter what the intellect, seventeen is still immature, undeveloped. But after some time had passed, I began to think more clearly, think beyond the moment. There had to be others like John and Terry. Others who’d believe me, who’d listen, do whatever they could to protect me. How could I keep running, hiding? How could I do nothing when I was the only one who’d seen Julie’s murder, who knew the truth of how John and Terry had died?
“So I hacked into the FBI’s and U.S. Marshals’ databases.”
“You—you can do that?”
“I do it routinely, but I learned a considerable amount in the first year or two after I went into hiding. Some from the boy I told you about, some on my own. I wanted to learn everything I could about Cosgrove and Keegan, about Lynda Peski, too. She’d called in sick that day. Was that true? Was she another Volkov mole? Her medical records showed she’d been treated for food poisoning, so—”
“You accessed her medical records?”
“I’ve broken many laws. You said sometimes it’s necessary to break the law.”
He rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, I did. Let’s put that on the shelf. You were, what, about nineteen or twenty, and capable of hacking into the files of government agencies?”
“I would have been a very good cyber investigator.”
“Law enforcement’s loss.”
“I believed, and still believe, Lynda Peski wasn’t part of it. I can’t be sure, even now, but there’s nothing to indicate she was anything but a marshal in good standing—retired now, married with two children. I suspect Cosgrove put something in her food to make her ill that day. But I can’t prove it, and I didn’t feel safe contacting her. I believed, and still believe, Detectives Griffith and Riley are good, honest police officers. But I hesitated, as they’re Chicago police, not federal, and federal often takes over from the local police. Added to that, I worried I’d put their lives in danger. It seemed more productive, safer, to research and study. At the same time, I needed money. I had fifteen thousand when I ran, but there are expenses in flight, in generating documents, in transportation and clothing and so on. As my primary skill was in computers, I worked on programming. I developed some software, sold it. It was lucrative.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, and I developed a computer game, actually three connecting games. It was more lucrative.”
“What game?”
“It’s called Street Wars. My research indicated most game players are male and enjoy battle- or war-type games. I—”
“I’ve played that game.” Eyes narrowed, he pointed at her. “Russ and I used to have marathon tournaments whenever I came home from Little Rock. It’s bloody and brutal. And really cool.”
“My target demographic enjoys brutal and bloody in their gaming. Having three was also key. If the first gains popularity, the target audience will want, and pay, for a follow-up. I was able to sell the three-part package outright for a considerable amount. It seemed less complicated, under my circumstances, than a royalty-based contract.”
“You rich?”
