Night Watch (Kendra Michaels #4)(100)

“Enjoying this, Dyle?” Waldridge took a step toward him, but one of the armed guards motioned him back with his gun. “Yes, I think you are. You want to grandstand in front of a new audience instead of our usual more intimate sessions? I’ll play along. You wanted to point out that you’d killed Shaw, a brilliant man who wanted only to make his work mean something? We get it.”

A flash of anger crossed Dyle’s face. “Perhaps if the three of you hadn’t left with my intellectual property, it wouldn’t have been necessary.”

“It was never supposed to be just a vehicle for your pharmaceutical-sales division.”

“I have a right to earn back my investment.”

“You already would have done that thousands of times over,” Biers muttered.

“Thousands of times versus millions of times,” Dyle said. “What sounds like a more prudent business plan to you? Especially if the second questionable option requires even more research and development.”

“I told you we could do it,” Waldridge said. “No side effects, no lifetime dependence on our medication.”

Dial shook his head. “I made a financial decision. Sorry you didn’t agree. My only regret is that I let you squirrel away our project’s formulas.”

“You didn’t let me do anything. The project is virtually mine anyway. I had to protect it. I could see where this was headed.”

“You’re holding the process hostage. We could be helping people right now.”

“And then hold them hostage. How many times have we gone over this? You’re not getting it until it’s finished,” Waldridge said. “My way.”

“You son of a bitch.” Kendra could see that Dyle’s sleek mask had vanished, and he was practically trembling with rage as he stepped closer to Waldridge. “Always have to be the great man, don’t you?” He was glaring at him. “You’ve always been so quick to take the credit for Dr. Michaels’s miracle of sight. But too often, you’ve happily ignored the fact that none of it would be possible without funding.” Dyle turned toward Kendra, and she took an instinctive step back as she saw the sheer malevolence in his expression. “I paid for those eyes of yours, Dr. Michaels. If your idol here doesn’t see fit to give me what’s mine…” Dyle turned back toward Waldridge, and spat out, “I must insist on taking them back.”

Kendra recoiled in shock. She couldn’t breathe. She could only stare at Dyle.

Nightmare. Her worst nightmare …

She was barely aware that Waldridge had gone still beside her. “What are you saying?”

Dyle smiled. “Do I really need to say it? I believe I’ve made myself clear.”

“Yes,” Kendra said unsteadily. “Say it.”

“I’m certain you’ve already researched me enough to know who I am, Dr. Michaels. I’m a man who gets what he wants. And if I don’t get what I want from Dr. Waldridge, I’m going to take your eyes.” His voice was soft, full of venom. “First your right eye, then your left eye. Is that clear enough for you?”

“You’re a monster,” Biers said. “We were right about you. That’s why we left.”

Dyle ignored him. His gaze was fixed on Waldridge’s face. “One hour,” Dyle said. “Then I’ll come back and take Kendra’s right eye. No anesthesia. I want both of you to feel every cut. If you want to stop me, you’d better get to work, Waldridge.”

He turned and walked toward the door, his whole bearing brimming with arrogance and self-satisfaction. He thought he’d played the winning card, Kendra could see. He didn’t care that card was hideous and the stuff of her worst nightmares. Perhaps he had won, she was too shaken right now to tell. But she couldn’t let him leave this room with a complete victory.

“Wait.” Kendra stepped toward Biers. “Take your errand boy with you, Dyle. If you intend to blind me again, I don’t want one of the last things I see to be this scum. I can’t stand to look at him.”

Dyle turned. “Excuse me?”

“Biers has been working with you.” She stared at Biers. “I don’t know for how long, but I’m guessing it’s been since before these three men left England. It’s how you were able to find Shaw and Waldridge so easily.”

Waldridge’s gaze was narrowed on her face. “Kendra?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, Charles. You trusted the wrong man. Biers is in Dyle’s pocket. He’s playing you.”

Dyle smiled. “What makes you say that, bitch?”

“I know he’s been here before,” Kendra said. “He probably even set up this lab. For all your precautions with the hood over my head, I know we’re about ninety miles east of San Diego, somewhere in the Anzo-Borrego Desert.”

“Interesting,” Dyle said. “I hadn’t heard that an uncanny sense of directions was among your gifts.”

“It isn’t. Everyone who has walked in this room has been tracking in a coarse sand that is only found there, at least in this part of the country. The remains of thousands of years of underwater life. It’s very distinctive. There are granules wedged in the ridges above your soles.”

Dyle looked down. “What does that have to do with—”