| Hybrid 15 Chapter 9 |
Luke hung up the phone with a tired sigh. He had managed to get the phony documents into place with a little help from a few old friends of his father's and Rick was set to spring the trap on Lawrence Pascal in the morning. Everything that could be done, had been done and all that was left to do was wait. It had been a complicated process and involving the federal government had been a necessity, but he had to protect himself as well as Leslie and their baby before he had been able to contact them. Removing the documents of his creation as well as the personal journal of Dr. Jenkins from the file that Rick had given him had only been a start. There were also copies at the institute that needed to be destroyed, but that wasn’t a plausible idea since Lawrence Pascal had already sold some of that information to a foreign government, so they had been forced to come up with a way to discredit Pascal's information. They had decided that the easiest plan had the best chance of succeeding and had started with the circumstances surrounding Luke’s own birth. It had meant finding Frederic Jenkins sister or, more accurately, the documents stating the cause of her death thirty years before. Her death had been the only thing that was able to pull Frederic Jenkins away from his research at the time. He had been forced to travel to Elizabeth, Kentucky to identify his sister's body after she had been killed in an automobile accident. The records had been difficult to find, but on the pretense of searching for his family roots, Luke had gotten access to the old files at the hospital and Rick had been able to do the rest. Les had been right when she had said that his father deserved a lot more credit then he had been given and Luke felt disloyal to his father for having to sabotage his research even further, but he no longer had only himself to consider. Luke laid back on the couch with his feet propped up on the opposite end as he wondered what Les was doing at that moment. He checked his watch and discovered that it was almost midnight. She was probably tucked up in her bed at her apartment, hopefully dreaming about him. He tried to keep thoughts about her rendezvous with Bill from his mind, but on the nights that she was to meet him, Luke would have liked nothing more than to burst in on them at the motel and beat Bill to a pulp. He knew that it was a ridiculous urge. He should be thanking Bill for helping him to protect the woman that he loved and the child that they had conceived, but Luke was jealous of the time that Bill had with her. It had been just sort of two weeks since he had last seen Les and he missed her more with each passing hour. The time that it had taken to make the necessary contacts and to find or create the documents that they needed, had been longer than Luke had anticipated. But the rewards would be sweet. Each time that he felt the need to see Les, even for a moment, he would remind himself that they would have a lifetime together once everything was over. The thought of her at his side, sleeping next to him, having her across the table from him at every meal, watching her trim figure grow fat with their love, was enough to keep him hard at work on disrupting Pascal's plans for them. They would make up for these few precious days that they were losing. Luke bolted up from his half-doze on the couch when his front door opened with a jarring slam. His heart was in his throat as he stared at Rick standing in the doorway. "We've got a problem," Rick announced, crossing to the center of the room to block the front door. He knew how Luke would handle the news and he had to find a way to stop him. "Leslie's dad and brother came into town today." "Well, why is that a problem?" Luke asked, drowsily rubbing at his eyes as he sat on the edge of the couch. "Les has nothing to do with the completion of our plan. Why should her family visiting worry you?" "I'm not worried about her family," he admitted cautiously. "I'm worried about what you're going to do." He watched Luke's eyes lift to his slowly. He had to tell him. Luke would never forgive him if he didn't, but so much was at stake for his friend. All of their careful work could be lost if Luke was to do or say the wrong thing, but he still had to know. "Les went into the hospital this morning," he said quietly. "She collapsed at work today and the doctors seem to think that she's going to lose the baby." Luke felt his life slipping away as he stared wordlessly up at his friend. He couldn't think. He could only feel the horrific sense of helplessness as his child was torn away from him, ripped out of the perfect picture that he had perceived of their life together. But what of Les? Would she be taken away from him as well? What had happened to cause her collapse? How was she now? Did she know about the baby? The questions flew through his mind as he worked passed his emotions. His heart was throbbing through his entire body and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his face and palms. "Les?" he whispered, searching his friend's face for the answers that he needed. "They don't know," Rick responded. "She was hemorrhaging when they brought her in. She was delirious." Luke was off of the couch in the next second, moving quickly toward the door when Rick caught him by the arms. "I have to see her," he said, trying to push past Rick. "You can't!" Rick huffed, using all of his strength to keep Luke from moving further. "There's nothing you can do, Luke." He shook his friend's shoulders, trying to make him see reason. "The doctors will do everything that they can, but you have a job to do as well. We have to get Pascal and his buyers off of your back." "Do you think that I will give a damn about Pascal if I lose Les?" Luke hissed as he broke free from Rick's hold and headed for the door. "What are you going to do if Les and the baby survive?" Rick challenged him, causing Luke to pause in the doorway. "How do you think Les is going to feel if she loses her baby to strangers because we didn't finish what we started?" He knew that he was hitting Luke hard with his callous words, but he had to make his friend think before he acted on pure gut instinct. Luke looked at him, a thousand responses leaping into his mind, but he knew that Rick was right. "You know what to do," he said quietly, then disappeared out the door. <*> Luke walked through the darkened hospital corridors swiftly, responding only to numbers painted on the walls to keep him moving in the right direction. Once he had found Leslie's room, he froze outside the door. What would he see when he went inside? Would Les be in there sleeping on one of the hospital beds with their child still nestled safely within her? Or would she be awake and grieving for what they had lost? Would Les be happy to see him? Or will she even know that he was there? Rick's words haunted him all of the way to the hospital. Was he making a mistake by coming there at all? Would Les ever forgive him if their child were to survive only to have it stolen away because he couldn’t keep from seeing her? But what if Les didn't survive? How could he ever forgive himself for not being there with her when she needed him? "I figured that you would show up sooner or later," a voice growled from behind. Luke spun around, his heart lodging itself in his throat as he looked into the enraged eyes of Leslie's father. "John told me what happened between you and my daughter," Charlie whispered angrily. "You have some nerve showing up here after the way that you treated her." "Is Les...." He swallowed hard on the words. "Is she...." "Don't even pretend like you care what happens to my daughter," Charlie warned him. "She's no concern of yours." He squared his shoulders to make his lesser stature appear more menacing. "I'll bet that you were the one that got her using that psychedelic drug as well. What is it? Some sort of concoction that you mixed up using your daddy's lab equipment?" He stepped up to Luke and poked his finger into his chest. "You had better tell the doctors what's in that stuff because, if I lose my daughter..." His voice became thick with emotion and he had to pause to swallow back the tears before continuing. "I'll kill you," he promised. Luke remained silent as he thought over Charlie's words. Les was still alive, but something was definitely wrong. Apparently the drug that Pascal had put into the soft water tanks at Leslie's apartment house wasn't as harmless as it was suppose to be. But Les had promised to switch to bottled water to protect her and the baby from further consumption of the drug. Had coming off of the substance so abruptly caused all of this to happen? And what of the people at the apartment house that were still taking the drug unsuspectingly? Were they in danger as well? Too much was at risk for Luke to keep the information to himself any longer. "Tell the doctors to check the soft water tanks at her apartment," he whispered to Charlie and saw from the flash of hatred in his eyes that there wasn't any point of trying to explain how he knew. "It makes me sick to my stomach that I told Les that I liked you. I would have never let her become involved with a man like you if I had only known. Now get out of my sight before I call hospital security," he hissed. There wasn't anything that Luke could say. In the brief time that he had known Charlie, he had come to respect him and his words found the mark that they had been seeking. No matter how he looked at it, Les was in trouble because of him and he couldn't blame Charlie for being so angry. In the end, all that he could do was turn and walk away. <*> Lawrence Pascal bent over the cabinet drawer, nervously running his fingers over the tabs of the forgotten files. He was certain that Rick had only been bluffing when he had come into his office that morning, but he couldn't take any chances. Even if he had been right about Dr. Jenkins adopting his sister's son after her accident, he could still pull off the deal if he could only find the files and dispose of them without anyone knowing. His buyers would simply think that their drug hadn't worked, that it was there fault. With Leslie Collins in the hospital because of the unknown drug, they wouldn't be able to think anything else, but he had to find that file. He wasn't about to let that much money slip through his fingers. He could kill Dr. Jenkins for pulling such a hoax on his uncle, if he wasn't already dead, that is. Still, he had to admire Dr. Jenkins technique. Uncle Gordon hadn't even suspected that there had been a switch made and that the doctor had substituted his own nephew for a failed experimental fetus. It was brilliant! Something that he would have come up with himself. He only wished that he had known about the scam before he had involved the foreign investors. They weren't going to be very happy with him if this were to get out. Lawrence turned around quickly when a faint pop echoed in the dusty old storage room and he darted his flashlight from one darkened corner to another. It was evident from the amount of dust coating every surface that the hospital didn't use that room anymore, but his nerves had him jumping at every little noise around him. "Damn rats," he muttered, figuring that the area was crawling with rodents, then turned back to the file cabinet. His flashlight only just caught the grotesque features of the creature beside him before it dropped to the floor and Lawrence felt himself being propelled into the cabinet behind him by the beast. Lawrence put up a frantic fight, trying to shove the claws that gripped his shirt away even though they were the only thing that kept him from falling and it wasn't until the flashlight stopped spinning on the floor, that the figure in front of him was finally illuminated. He stopped his struggle almost immediately as the face before him became clear. With the twisting shadows cast from the poor lighting, the man in front of him appeared almost demonic, but he was only a man and Lawrence smiled perversely up at his assailant. "Well, well, well. If it isn't the hero himself." He pulled out of his grasp and straightened the wrinkles in his shirt studiously. "Shouldn't you be off with your helpless damsel or something?" "I'd prefer to be watching you standing in front of a firing squad at the moment," Luke returned vindictively. "Yes." He searched Luke's face carefully. "I believe you would," he responded, seeing the genuine hatred mirrored in his eyes. "But," he smiled once again, "isn't it a shame that we don't do that sort of thing anymore." "I'm sure that the Germans would make an exception in your case even if our own government wouldn’t." Luke offered him a sneer of his own. Lawrence balked slightly at his words. He had no idea that anyone even suspected what he was doing, but that bumbler, Rick, must have been smarter than he looked. "So you know," he said, fighting to regain his superior attitude that had come so naturally to him in the past. Luke Jenkins was beneath him. He didn't deserve the attention that a bug received as he squashed it underfoot. "It will make little difference when my buyers come to collect." "Oh, they'll come to collect all right, but I doubt if you will like the payment that you'll receive. I understand that they haven't been too happy with your performance up until now," he remarked almost conversationally. "They'll get what they deserve! Nothing!" Lawrence snapped. "Just like I received when I inherited that money trap from dear Uncle Gordon. All I have to do is get rid of the little paper trail that Dr. Jenkins left behind and I'd be just as happy to torch this place with you in it if I have to." Luke stepped up to him, bringing his face to mere inches from Lawrence Pascal's. "But it wouldn't do you any good," he whispered menacingly. "The file isn't here anymore. Your friends stopped by and picked it up yesterday." Lawrence glanced at the file cabinet, understanding for the first time why his search had taken him so long, but he still had enough bravado to meet Luke's eyes again. "I don't believe you," he stated firmly. "I knew that Rick was lying when he came into my office this morning. There never was a file to begin with." "Guess again Larry!" he spat, grinding the mocking nickname out from between clenched teeth. "By now your buyers know how you were going to try to con them by giving them a baby that you had gotten from the black market. Just like my father did when he duped your uncle by passing off his sister's baby as one of his genetic experiments." "I wasn't getting any baby from the black market," he corrected him. "I wouldn't even know how." "Not according to your personal journal in your office." Luke smiled insolently. "A journal, I might add, that the FBI, the CIA, the DEA and whatever other sort of federal agency concerned are reading as we speak. You were so concerned with covering my father's tracks that you didn't think to cover your own." Lawrence shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said shakily. "They won't be able to convict me just on what's in that computer. There's not enough evidence." "You don't sound so sure of yourself anymore, Larry," he taunted him. "Maybe you're right. Maybe there isn't enough evidence there. Maybe they won't be able to convict you, but then you still have to deal with your foreign buyers. I doubt that they will go to all of the trouble of a trial. They seem like men of action to me." When Lawrence made a hasty dash for the door of the storeroom, Luke grasped him by the shirt once more and slammed him into the file cabinets. "I'm tempted to take the problem off of their hands," Luke hissed. "Hold it!" a voice called out as the overhead lights in the room blinked on. "Just back away slowly, Mr. Jenkins. We'll handle it from here." Luke glanced over to see two men in suits and ties steadying themselves in a half crouch as they trained their pistols in his direction before turning to Lawrence once more. "If anything happens to Les, there won't be a rock big enough for you to hide under." <*> Luke watched silently as a federal agent questioned Charlie and Jeremy in the hospital waiting room concerning Leslie's involvement in the scandal at Pascal Institute. He had tried to keep her name out of the investigation, but one of the men that had been Lawrence Pascal's contact had been captured and told the story behind her involvement. Charlie had been able to answer honestly that he had no idea what had been going on, but Jeremy had squirmed restlessly under the questions. Luke had been about to intervene when Charlie had exploded at the official, stating that his son had been with him at a baseball card convention and had no knowledge of the incident. Reluctantly, the official had to accept Charlie's statement that the boy was only concerned about his sister and he didn't press Jeremy further. Luke had told his version to the federal agents, stating that he hadn't wanted to alarm Les and that he had broken up with her to protect her. And, as agreed, Rick had given his statement to concur with Luke's, that Les didn't know about any of it. Still, one of the agents persisted. "I will need to get a statement from Miss. Collins when she wakes up." He snapped his note pad closed as he stood, looking around at the three men before stepping up to Luke and extending his hand. "We appreciate the call, Mr. Jenkins. It looks like Lawrence Pascal will be spending quite a lot of time in one of the government's finest facilities thanks to you and your friend. I hope that everything works out for you." Luke nodded his thanks as he watched the man exit the waiting room, then he turned back to Charlie Collins who was standing only a few feet away studying him carefully. Charlie only took a few moments to piece some of the fragments together. "Les knew about all of this, didn't she?" He scanned Luke's closed features, then nodded. "This was all a scam, wasn't it? The fight, I mean. It was the only way that you could get Les out of the picture, wasn't it?" Charlie's eyes narrowed. "Or was it the baby that you were trying to protect?" Luke remained silent. He wasn't able to acknowledge Leslie's involvement in any way, even now that their little project was completed. He didn't want to see her dragged in front of a jury at Pascal's trial. That was something for Rick and himself to finish. "Maybe you'll be able to tell me about it one day," Charlie nodded, understanding Luke's reluctance to defend himself or explain the situation more fully. "Maybe when my next grandchild is born?" He gave Luke a knowing grin and extended his hand. Luke accepted the peace offering with a smile of his own. "If not the next, maybe the third or fourth," he joked. <*> Luke sat at Leslie's bedside toying with her fingers as the hushed sounds of the hospital continued outside the door even in the early hours of the morning. He had been more than willing to sit with her and give Charlie the chance to get some sleep at her apartment. It had been a very long three days for all of them, Jeremy included. Sometimes Luke wondered just how much the thirteen year old understood about what had been going on. There were times when Jeremy looked at him and Luke could see the wheels turning in his mind. Jeremy had known without asking that there had been more at stake than Morse or Hy's safety. But could he have figured out that Luke himself had been a part of the equation? Or the unborn child? Sometimes Luke thought so. "You look terrible," a husky voice remarked sarcastically. Luke's head snapped up to see Les staring back at him, her eyes little more than slits in the dimmed lights. "Welcome back, sweetheart," he whispered in return and stood to lean over her, gently stroking her face with his hand. Les blinked several times, slowly looking around the room as she tried to recall what had happened to her, then her hand slid over her still flat stomach. "The baby?" she asked pleadingly as she looked up at Luke. "He's still there," he answered as he smiled down at her. "But you're going to have to take it easy for awhile." She released a relieved sigh, then nodded her assent. She had done far more than simply taking it easy to protect her child. Some time spent in bed seemed a small price to pay. "What about Pascal?" "In custody," he answered succinctly. "Everything worked out better than we expected. Now all you have to do is concentrate on becoming a mother." He lightly kissed her brow, then gave her a teasing grin. "Of course, you can give a little thought to becoming a wife as well." Les closed her eyes as a smile drifted across her face. "What a pleasant dilemma to have." |
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