Kid shifted on his feet and tucked his hands inside his pockets. “It seems like he wants to cooperate. Getting him to tell us what he knows about the Padre shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Marcus narrowed his gaze as he stroked his beard and dipped his head. “This time we record every goddamn thing he says. After, we examine everything. I don’t trust one piece of shit that comes out of his mouth. The task is to confirm what’s the truth and what’s a lie.”
Done waiting, Marcus turned on his heel and opened the door. The professor sat there, wiping his mouth with a white napkin, his plate empty. Marcus sat down and pressed his hands on the table.
“Okay, tell us from the beginning, Mr. Simon Cohen, what your position with the Padre entails. You see, Professor, when investigating Aidan O’Connor, there are certain traits that didn’t quite match. Your DNA, for example, or your fingerprints. Anyway, to cut to the chase, we know you are Simon Cohen. We know you’re a Canadian citizen. We know you were a promising genetics professor who claimed to be on the brink of making a significant discovery, but when your test subjects were revealed to the general public, you were disbarred from the medical board, publicly humiliated, and charges were pressed. But you conveniently disappeared.”
The professor smiled and slanted his head. “Of course, I see, how stupid of me. I should have realized beyond that alpha male shit lay a brain. I guess you have my complete pathetic family history, along with all my accolades and awards in that dossier you keep tapping on. Does it list the wealthy who invested in my hypothesis that we can successfully create a perfect human being by manipulating and modifying genes? It’s not so horrific when you have a child whose liver is failing, now is it? But creating a perfect race and separating the rest—well, everyone throws their hands up in panic. Even when we live in a world that is grossly overpopulated. The elderly are a burden on a health care system that is failing and cannot cope. I was simply doing my part in cutting costs.”
Marcus stared at the man, unable to respond at first to his blatant disregard for human life.
“What you did is murder. Your test subjects weren’t all elderly, Professor. You chose the most vulnerable. Those who were insane or addicted to drugs. Children pulled off the streets. You turned them into animals. Your experiments were barbaric, and performed on individuals who needed help. Anyway, I’m not here to debate your sins. Somehow you survived, slipped into the United States, and acquired a new identity. Where is Aidan O’Connor, by the way?”
The professor crossed his legs and folded his arms, refusing to answer the question. Marcus suspected the man in question rested in the earth somewhere. It was neither here nor there right now, just one more nail in this bastard’s coffin.
“The Padre recruited me. He made me a proposition I couldn’t refuse.”
“I bet he fucking did. Before we dissect what you did for the Padre, I have a question that is bugging me. Why did you tell Ella she had a brother?”
The professor’s mouth spread wide, into one of his slimy grins. “I thought we weren’t allowed to discuss the beautiful Ella.”
Marcus didn’t respond outwardly. He loathed this man to the point that hearing his wife’s name roll off this sick bastard’s tongue made him want to finish him there and then. The thought of what he put Ella and Nate through switched on the kill button inside him, which he found hard to resist. But he thought of her smile and soft touch, which calmed him.
“Just answer the question.”
“The Padre sent me a blood sample and asked me to analyze the contents. Along with the sample came a picture that made me blink. The startling resemblance to Ella made me check their DNA to see if there was a match. But if you know anything about DNA and siblings, it’s not easy to establish. Results vary as they both share half their DNA, which means they may have matches in certain markers or none at all.”
The professor positively gleamed with delight at his revelation, but Marcus flinched. Could this mean Ella did have a brother out there?
“And…”
The man shifted in his seat and sipped on his coffee slowly before glancing from one man to the other. “Well, like I said, the results didn’t prove anything conclusive, so I went a step further and managed to obtain DNA from Ella’s parents.”
Hearing his answer, Marcus tightened his hand into a round fist and longed to slam it in the man’s stinking face. Ella’s parents were dead. There was only one way he could possibly do that. It meant excavating their remains, and obtaining samples of their bones. Marcus gritted his teeth, but he swallowed his discomfort because there were still a few questions he needed to ask.
“I presume the results identified this man as her brother? Where is he now?” He closed off his emotions, keeping his face fixed on the professor to gain the answers he wanted.
“Yes—Issac Blackshaw is her brother, without a doubt. Once the Padre knew this information, he became fixated on them. Her brother is five years older than she is, and he possesses certain talents that have proved useful to the Padre. Not only can he detect non-humans, which is why he is the numero uno hunter, but his touch inflicts pain. Issac is involved in the killing spree. His
