Thank you, new followers, new favorites, and new reviewers. I recently put this up on AO3, and they almost got Chapter 10 early. Good thing I caught myself before that happened. You might all have gotten mad at me.
As usual, my beta, KayValo87, is responsible for making sure that I don't publish something rife with mistakes. If you find any, it's because I hid them too well for either of us to recognize. Supposedly, being able to outmaneuver yourself is a good thing...
After Detective Martinez left with the mysterious Meredith Keegan, Henry collapsed into a chair, deep in thought. She was in perfect health, better even than she should have been considering that she must have had weeks of inactivity and the crash had been severe enough to snap the neck of one of the marshals on impact. If nothing else, the young woman should have had a head injury from colliding with the window. But she didn't even have a mark.
And then there were those peculiar scars around her foot and ankle. It looked as if her foot had been mangled quite badly, and fairly recently. It was new scar tissue.
She certainly wouldn't have come to such harm while with the marshals, and they had no injuries other than the ones sustained in death. No matter how much he tried to stop himself from coming to that conclusion, there was no other explanation. Meredith Keegan must be immortal.
"Abraham, do you suppose I will get to speak to Miss Keegan again? I think there are some things we need to discuss with her."
Abe looked at his father over his reading glasses. "I assume that it's not just her sparkling personality that has captured your attention."
"Would that it were. It would certainly make some things easier for all of us. While she is a delightful person, if a bit reserved, I wish it wasn't necessary to warn her about Adam."
His book now abandoned, Abe sat forward in his chair. "So you're certain that she immortal?"
"Not certain, but I have enough reasons to doubt that she is an ordinary mortal."
The phone rang at that moment, cutting through any response Abe might have given his father. The septuagenarian picked up the receiver and answered in his cordial business tone.
"Hello? Abe's Antiques, Abe speaking."
A frown appeared on his son's face and Henry could see the worry in his soul when their eyes locked. Abraham took the phone from his ear and pressed it against his shoulder. "I think it's Adam."
Henry took the phone. If it was Adam, Henry was the only one he wanted to talk to, and Abe was merely a conduit. "Hello?"
"Hello, Henry." The smooth voice didn't sound menacing, but the immortal doctor was keenly aware of the danger this other man's existence posed to the people around him. "I heard you were working on a case with a rather interesting complication: a missing body. That's a problem we normally create."
"I've no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, come now, Henry. You of all people must know that I have lived long enough to tell when people are lying. I occupy my time in circles where knowledge is at a premium and the people I work with have long since learned that it is not a very good idea to approach me with anything less than the truth." Adam let out a small laugh before his tone became serious again. "So what is it?"
"Leave her alone." The vehemence in Henry's voice startled him. He hardly knew Miss Keegan but he did know Adam. The older immortal had a violent kind of curiosity and he had already demonstrated that he was not above putting others' lives at risk in order to achieve his own ends. The face of the man he had killed drifted into his head.
"Now, now, Henry. No need to get so upset. It's a woman, you say? How very interesting. I haven't met a female immortal yet." Henry stiffened at the sound of Adam's dark chuckle. "You should be careful around her, Henry. People in Witness Protection tend to still have people after them—people who would notice that their victims aren't staying dead."
The line disconnected, leaving Henry with questions and more than a little anxiety. Somehow Adam already knew about Meredith, and about the case that he and Jo—as well as the FBI—were working on.
"Let me guess," Abe said, reading the fear on his father's face. "He already knows about Meredith." He rubbed his forehead in exasperation and Henry could see that the anxiety he felt was catching. "Does he plan to do anything about her? Do we need to call Jo?"
"I'm not sure," Dr. Morgan admitted. "He didn't say anything about the girl except that he knew she was in Witness Protection and that her life might still be in danger." A sudden and unpleasant realization dawned on him. "I think there might be a mole in the investigation."
"Why? And how, with the FBI involved?"
"Adam said that he heard about the case from a source. Someone on site at the crash—someone who knew that Meredith was supposed to die in that crash—I think they're searching the city to make her disappear before anyone finds her."
Abe grabbed the phone and started dialing. "We need to tell Jo."
"Wait! What are we supposed to tell her? As far as the NYPD are concerned, the man who was stalking me is dead. And Adam, another immortal who would probably be willing to reveal my secret before slitting his own throat to escape custody, isn't exactly in our address book. Nor would he be easy to find or forthcoming about his sources." Henry held down the button in the receiver's cradle. "We don't have any proof; it's all conjecture at this point."
"She could be walking into a trap tomorrow morning," Abe shouted. "Don't you care about that?" The elderly man thrust the phone at Henry, angrier than the immortal had seen him in many years. "She trusts you. If nothing else, just ask her to trust you on this. You can tell her the truth, you can withhold something, or you can lie. Just tell her!"
Henry accepted the receiver. Just ask her to trust me. It's not that easy. But he dialed anyway.
"Hello?" Jo's voice sounded tired, though thankfully not as if he had woken her up.
"Jo, it's Henry." He honestly didn't know what he was going to say next.
"Henry? Jeez, it's almost one in the morning! Can't this wait?"
"You know I wouldn't call you unless it was really important. Who have you told about Meredith? Does anyone know that she's with you?"
"No one yet. It was late; I didn't want to interrupt Hanson or the lieutenant since they were already off duty. And I figured the FBI agents were doing whatever the hell FBI agents do when they're off the clock. Why?" He could hear in her voice as she sat up straighter.
"I think there might be a mole in the investigation."
"What? Do you have any proof?"
Henry grimaced. "No, I don't have any physical proof. It's slightly more than a hunch, but there isn't enough evidence for it to be a fact."
"Henry, I can't go to Reece with one of your hunches, good as they usually are. Not about this. Can you give me any more details?"
"I'm afraid not. What I have is merely conjecture from a statement made by someone over the phone. The names I know him by are almost certainly fake, I have no way to set up a meeting, or even to verify that he even has the information he claims to have. I do not even wish to have a rapport with the man, and for reasons beyond my control, cannot break contact with him. But he knows certain things about the investigation that were kept secret and claims that someone on the investigation knows that Meredith should have died in that car, someone that is willing to pay to make sure she doesn't reappear alive."
"I still can't go to Lieutenant Reece with this." Jo sighed. "Look, Henry, I'm a police officer. And this is just part of the hazards of the career."
"I understand that, detective. I have two fresh bodies in the morgue that bear that point out quite well. But this isn't just about your life or mine. This is about Meredith's. She certainly didn't sign up for these hazards—as you call them—and she is the one that will die if we don't take every precaution."
"I'll be careful. I promise. And I'll keep what you said in mind; your hunches have yet to fail me." There was a long, exhausted-sounding yawn from her end. "Now I need to go to bed if I'm supposed to be able to protect Meredith tomorrow. Goodnight, Henry."
This was all he was going to get—no investigation for the mole, no protection details to see the prosecution's only witness to the precinct from the NYPD detective's house. "Goodnight, Detective Martinez."
Abe had left the room some time ago, and now Henry went to look for him. He was certain the older man was still awake first because the conversation hadn't been that long, and second because Abraham was never one to turn in early. He more or less set his own hours in the shop downstairs, and could afford to sleep in late. As expected, he was in his favorite corner holding a book. He looked over his reading glasses at his father when Henry stepped into the room.
"So how did it go?" he asked, doing very little to keep the smug tone out of his voice.
"She says she'll be careful, but she can't approach Lieutenant Reece with one of my theories." Henry had to admit that Abe had been right—Jo did trust him. Any other police officer would have listened to his conjecture and dismissed it as paranoia.
"That's better than it could be. At least she knows now to watch her back."
"Yes," the immortal conceded, "but now she has to watch her own back and the girl's besides, not to mention their fronts as well."
Abe took off his glasses and set them down on the end table beside him. "Dad, I love you, but you are not Superman. You can't protect everyone all the time. They should be safe tonight. Worry about them in the morning."
Henry lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling and willing the minutes to pass by faster. While he was confident that Jo and Meredith would be safe for the night, as Abe had convinced him, the morning held more unknowns than the immortal could remember complicating his life in a long time.
What if she calls the exact person who wants to kill the girl? No, she would call Lieutenant Reece first, and I'm certain we can trust her. And Detective Hanson. But we don't know any of the FBI agents. They can't all be moles, but there could be more than one.
The probabilities of alerting the mole to Meredith's survival were calculating in his sleepless brain, endless permutations playing out into the worst possible scenarios. After all, someone with the gall to infiltrate the FBI and kill two federal marshals to take out one witness could be capable of anything, especially four or five more murders.
He didn't realize when he drifted off to sleep because the images kept coming.
Jo was bleeding out on the sidewalk from a gunshot wound—no, a stab wound—no, she was drowning in the river like the marshals.
Everything moved so slowly under the water. The detective looked at Henry; her wide, dark, frightened eyes locking with his. He could feel the weight of the water burning in his lungs, streams of bubbles escaping the corners of his mouth. At this rate, he would die before her and be resurrected too far to help her.
There was no escape. His eyes were quickly being hemmed in by that fuzzy darkness before he died of suffocation. Jo reached for him just as his heart stopped.
Henry awoke from the dream, gasping in air, disoriented for a few moments of panic in which he thought Jo was dying in the river and he had disappeared in front of her. He slowed his breathing, taking deeper and deeper breaths until his heart calmed down. Jo was in her bed in her house, just as he was in his.
He glanced at the clock—shortly after three in the morning. Henry knew that he wouldn't be able to get to sleep now, not with such dreams hovering on the other side of the veil. He lay back, staring at the ceiling and waiting for dawn to appear on the horizon.
Please leave reviews. The end is in sight, and your reviews always make me very happy. It distracts from the worry that I might be late with some of the chapters (especially the ones I haven't written yet).