Showdown in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law, #3)(80)

Dr. Breaux shook his head. “I was hoping I was wrong about you, Raissa, but some things just never added up. And when Dr. Spencer told me you went to the police after the abduction, I was afraid my worst fears were right. You have a certain way of moving, of watching people, that’s familiar to me from my war days. You’re a well-trained machine.”

“How long has this been going on?” Raissa asked.

Dr. Breaux kicked both of their guns into a corner, then studied her for a moment. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I tell you. You’ll be the only people left who will know everything, except me, and that will all change in another couple of minutes.

“It started after the war…during the war, if you want the real beginning,” Dr. Breaux said. “I was captured in a village in Vietnam. There was an outbreak of influenza. Thousands of sick people and one doctor. When they found out I was a doctor, they put me to work in their makeshift clinic.”

“This wasn’t about the flu,” Raissa said.

“No. We cared for flu patients all day long and well into the evening, but at night, a Vietnamese doctor worked his own magic in nothing more than a pop-up tent and not even five thousand dollars’ worth of medical equipment. Pretty impressive, when you consider he made the first huge theoretical strides in building a superhuman race. He’d barely started work on human embryos, but if he’d had the equipment and more time, he might have been successful. His theories were mostly sound, and decades ahead of anything I’d ever seen.”

“So you and Dr. Spencer re-created his research in the States after you were rescued and returned.”

Dr. Breaux laughed. “I killed him for his research and escaped with all of it. Do you really think I was going to let someone beat me to this discovery?”

“You impregnated women without their permission. You genetically altered the embryos before implanting. You knew what you were doing was illegal on so many levels, not to mention morally reprehensible.”

“We needed a test sample, and we couldn’t afford for all the children to be raised in the same location or someone might clue in on complications. Mothers wanted children. And I had several potential investors lining up to make me a very wealthy man.”

“I thought Hank was a success. You could’ve cut and run,” Raissa said.

“Yes, Hank was a success, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t duplicate the results with girls. No girls, no deal with investors. With Melissa, I’d finally isolated the problem and was ready to move forward with a new round of babies, when Helena got cancer.”

Raissa felt the blood drain from her head. “Oh, my God. It was you who killed Helena.”

“I could hardly have her asking Hank for a bone-marrow transplant, then finding out he wasn’t her son. She would’ve made things very messy.”

“And then you kidnapped Hank,” Raissa said.

“Of course. I knew where Monk had kept an extra alien suit, but never figured on having to use it. It was quite a bit of fun, though, the look on Hank’s face.”

“And Melissa?”

“She’ll be safely home tomorrow—just like the others.”

“Why kill Dr. Spencer?”

“He was a liability. He was in a panic, ready to confess everything, and had forgotten entirely what a crack shot I was in the military. I’ve always kept in practice. You never know when you might need to kill something.”

Raissa stared at Dr. Breaux, his eyes cold and calculating, and realized this was the end. This man had been working toward a single-minded purpose for over half of his life. He believed he was God and wasn’t going to let anything get in his way.

She reached for Zach’s hand and held it tightly in her own, regret washing over her. “I am so sorry,” she said.

Zach shook his head. “I’m not.”

“Touching,” Dr. Breaux said. His finger tightened on the trigger, and Raissa closed her eyes, waiting for the end.

Suddenly, the door to the records room flew open and Sonny Hebert burst in. Sonny fired one shot at Dr. Breaux and caught him in the leg, but the doctor managed to squeeze off one of his own and caught the mobster in his arm. Sonny dropped his gun and launched behind a bookshelf to protect himself from more fire. Raissa and Zach hesitated for only a moment, then dove behind the computer desk.

Raissa pulled her pistol from her ankle holster and fired off a shot at the doctor, who slipped behind a set of bookcases just in time to avoid her shot. “Checkmate,” she whispered to Zach. “Two of us and two of them.” Raissa had no doubt that Sonny would only delay coming after her long enough to kill the doctor.

Raissa peeked around the side of the desk and gasped in surprise. Helena Henry was dangling from a ventilation pipe, pushing as hard as she could against the bookcase Dr. Breaux was hiding behind. The bookcase rocked back and forth, almost to the tipping point. Raissa tugged at Zach and pointed to the bookcase. “Helena,” she whispered.

Zach nodded and perched on the other side of the desk, prepared to dive for his weapon as soon as the bookcase toppled. Raissa held her breath as the bookcase tipped forward, then backward, then forward, and seemed to almost pause before it crashed into the bookcase in front of it, setting them off like dominos all the way to the front of the office.

The fallout was immediate. Sonny popped up from behind the desk, dove for his gun, and opened fire at the doctor, who in turn had opened fire at everything in the room. Zach grabbed his weapon and ran for the emergency exit at the opposite corner of the room, Raissa close behind.