She cursed her ex-husband for not taking her to his apartment again. He was supposed to take her twice a week but rarely did, though she never seemed to lose hope. Every time her eyes would light up and she’d spend the day jumping around the motel room, screaming and laughing. Then seven o’clock would come and he wouldn’t be there, and slowly she’d get the picture again.
Bastard, Natasha thought bitterly, shaking her head as she turned back toward the papers on her desk.
A year ago she’d made partner in the law firm of Mayer, Summers and Soul. It hadn’t been terribly long after that that the third partner had left, along with two corporate backers and the majority of the firm’s funding. There had been layoffs and pay cuts galore, so much that she couldn’t even afford a steady apartment anymore. She and Gwen rented a motel room most nights, though on the two nights that Paul was supposed to have her, she just slept in the office to save a little money.
Tonight they’d both be sleeping there.
She let out a heavy sigh as the drum in the back of her head began to fade away, but the tightly-coiled knot in each shoulder remained. She bit her lip as she reached up and began to kneed her own muscles, staring back down at the files and folders that were scattered across her desk.
There were blood tests, psyche analysis reports, IQ test scores, weight classifications, legal documents, all on one man: Adam Genblade.
The files had been faxed to the office the day before, though nobody had been quite sure why at the time. A few of the kids in accounting had been ruffling through it for fun when she’d walked in and seen it and if Gwen hadn’t been with her she might have chewed them a new asshole. Even as it was, they knew they’d been dressed down and were still walking around with their tails between their legs today.
She’d read the original stories in the report Tom Drake had done on them. She’d even gotten a look at Tim White’s police report on it before he’d been promoted, albeit briefly. She’d picked up the file assuming it had been sent by the family of the guard that had been mutilated by Genblade at Coral Beach Pen. They’d decided to sue and rightly so, from what she’d read of what had happened to him. But nobody from either the guard’s family or the prison had sent the file.
It had sat on her desk for only an hour before she began to thumb through it.
She’d thought it would be clear-cut murder story, but the more she read into his case, the more oddities appeared to perk her curiosity. The police still had no idea who he was, besides the name Adam that was believed to merely be an alias. He had no record of birth, no passport... no fingerprints, even. A few people had suggested CIA, but Genblade himself had debunked that claim almost instantly.
Not that that meant it wasn’t true anyway.
The oddest thing by far though was that he had maintained his guilt for the duration of his arrest and in early interviews, but had always maintained his innocence to the guards. Had teased them with it, one of them had said, used to even sing about it when they sprayed him down for his shower. It was only after the D.A. had insisted on his receiving the death penalty that he had changed his tune and publicly claimed his innocence, turning what would have been a no-contest case into a circus.
Frowning, she picked up the transcript of the last psyche evaluation that the penitentiary’s clinical therapist had done and skipped down to the center of the second page.
WO: Are you saying you aren’t responsible for the deaths in Coral Beach, Adam?
AG: Responsible?
WO: Did you kill those children, Adam?
AG: (laughter). Ain’t ya heard? It’s a funny, funny story. I’m innocent.
WO: Who is responsible, Adam?
AG: Directly responsible?
Natasha repeated those words in her head as she stared at Genblade’s black and white file photo. His cold, piercing eyes seemed to stare right at her and follow her no matter where she was sitting. They didn’t just look at you, or even through you. They dissected you, cut you open in his mind until you were nothing but a shriveling worm of rendered flesh. She shivered, covering up the photo with another sheet of paper.
The door to her office swung open, tapping off of the far wall with a thud. She slammed the file down to the desk like a child caught doing something wrong, her breath shallow for just that one moment. She laughed at herself, realizing that she was on a coffee high and had no sleep these past few days, as her partner, Nate Summers, strolled into the room.
Nate was a tall, skinny man with silver hair and a rough, unshaven chin. He smiled at Natasha as he entered, a playful swagger in his step as he walked.
He looked her up and down, pursing his lips together tightly. She was tall and thin herself, coming in an inch or two above him when she was wearing her heels. Her hair was short and brown and usually pulled back in a bun, though today it draped in front of her eyes every few moments as she examined the papers. Her cheeks were covered in freckles and her eyes were just a little red, though he wasn’t sure if it was from being tired or sad or both. He let his eyes move over her slender frame for a moment before stopping himself, hoping that she hadn’t noticed.
He handed
