Eden Plague - Latest Edition Read Online Free Page A

on, to hold his hand and ease the confusion in his tortured eyes. She could see the pain underlying the bravado, with compassion hidden behind his need to control an uncontrollable situation.
    But as a scientist, she knew there were just too many variables.
    So she ran.
    But she didn’t want to.
    She’d driven Jenkins’ SUV to Markis’ neighborhood, so she had the keys. Where the usual controlling jerk would have insisted on driving, Jenkins’ privileged upbringing meant he liked to be chauffeured.
Serve me
had been the subtext of his every move. Just like his father, who was far more powerful, and frightening.
    They’d parked around the corner and out of sight. She ran to the vehicle, hoping that Daniel wasn’t so out of control that he’d try to chase her down with a gun in his hand in the broad daylight in a suburban neighborhood. She hoped he’d just accept what happened and calm down.
    I have a plan,
she thought.
Or the beginnings of one, if only he’ll cooperate.
He was exactly the man she needed. Her mind flirted with what that might mean for the future, then forced it away.
No time for such thoughts, Elise. Not now.
    She drove away briskly, checking the rear view mirror, seeing nothing following. A mile later she pulled into the back of a strip mall and changed out of her rags and into the nondescript clothes she had brought for that purpose. She looked over at the crisp suit hanging there on the back seat hook and a wave of nausea swept over her.
Thank God it wasn’t me that killed him, but Lord forgive me, I’m glad he’s gone and can’t hurt me anymore.
    She laughed at herself.
I guess I’m not much of an atheist after all.
    ***
     
    In Daniel’s teens, when he was young and foolish, he’d thought war would be fun, or would make him a man, when he went to Gulf One. In his twenties he went to Afghanistan to get some back for the Twin Towers, when Bin Laden seemed so near, just over the next mountain, and everybody in a turban might be Al Qaeda and he thought who cares, shoot them all anyway, let God sort ‘em out.
    If you listened to his shrink at Walter Reed, Dr. Benchman, you'd think he’d be having flashbacks right now. The doctor had convinced himself Daniel J. Markis was a full-blown PTSD case, a danger to himself and society, and nothing Daniel could say could convince him otherwise.
    He had had to start seeing the shrink because he’d clocked a Marine lieutenant who started mouthing off about Air Force “blue-suiters.” They’d both been drunk, and it had been a mistake, but it sure felt good at the time.
About broke my hand along with his pretty jaw,
he thought
. Of course, I never told Benchman about the serpent in my head. Thank God he never thought to try to get my carry permit revoked.
    Daniel was lucky, really, because he’d had more than nineteen years in, and by the time the whole JAG process was done, what with his lawyer successfully drawing it out and staving off the threat of a court-martial, he was happy to make a deal, sign that Article 15 and get his retirement orders. Twenty years, thirteen days, but it was enough to qualify, and life was much better as a retiree with fifty percent disability than as a disabled vet with nothing but the VA to help out.
    He sat there at the righted table and tried to concentrate on the present. The fog was closing down again, because the speed was wearing off. He wanted a drink. He wanted a nap. He was staring at a dead man leaking all over his old wall-to-wall carpet, and the body wasn’t going to resurrect itself if it hadn’t already, he was pretty sure.
Elise, if she was telling the truth, had said Jenkins didn’t have the healing drug, or whatever it was.
    But at least there were no sirens racing for his house, so no one had reported the gunshots or anything unusual. The basement walls were thick, cinder block set mostly below ground.
I guess no one heard the two extra pops when I…
his mind shied away
.
    On the other hand, Elise