The Collective

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ethan

Present day...

     I knelt on the side of the door, Regan on the other. I silently counted down from 3 on my fingers. I kicked the door in. She went in first. I followed close behind.

     We finished clearing the place in seconds. There was blood on the bed, more than anyone could stand to lose. There were stab marks on my couch and a butter knife on the drying rack. Other than that, things were glaringly, painfully ordinary. I stowed my gun, flicking on the lamp above the desk. I shoved the papers aside, ignoring them when they slid off. I pressed my thumb against the scanner on the chair. The desk slid into two pieces, a tablet sliding up. I grabbed it from its pedestal.

     I scrolled to the last login. Sarah logged in on the 17th and logged out less than 24 hours later. I rolled back the surveillance logs. Sarah, Alex and Sam wavered on screen. Sam looked off, but the quality was too low to really be able to glean anything about his condition. Alex took him to the bedroom. I fast-forwarded. Sarah shoved some papers at Alex while she dumped the butter knife into my peanut butter. She hated crunchy peanut butter. They argued. Alex went to Sam. Fast-forward a tiny bit more and Max was busting down the door. He drugged Sarah while she slept on the couch. He headed into the bedroom. He shot Sam in the chest twice. He dragged Alex off the floor. They argued. She tried to get away, and he injected something into her arm.

     She crumbled, unconscious. He placed the gun in her hand before dragging Sam off the bed. He headed out to the living room and nicked Sarah's arm with a hunting knife, scraping the blood into a tube. He drove the knife in and out of my couch. He slipped out the door.

     I shoved the tablet back onto the desk. I was going to rip his arms off and smack him upside the head with his own hands. I pushed back from the desk, knocking the chair over. I grabbed a sample kit from the bathroom cabinet. I snapped on gloves before ripping the sheets off the bed. I cut off a piece of the bloody part. Most of the viral cocktail Max injected Sam with should be dead, but I could still see if he was carrying it. Hopefully, we could get a viable sample and start getting a handle on this.

     "Ethan?" Regan called.

     I put the sample in my back pocket. I walked out to find her with her gun to the head of a well-built police officer. He was on his knees, arms raised above his head.

     "He's a friendly. Officer Warren, this is Regan." I hauled him to his feet.

     Regan looked him up and down. She put her gun away, shaking her head. "I'll meet you in the car."

     I offered Warren water, which he refused. I watched him, arms crossed over my chest. "You wanna tell me why you weren't here on the 17th?" Warren was with the local police department. He had ten years under his belt and a handful of awards and reprimands that made him ideal to have in the loop. He was supposed to check in every time someone accessed this apartment.

     He shot me a strange look. "I was in Tahiti with my wife. I cleared it with you two months ago."

     I knew that, definitely didn't forget, but Max broke in while Alex was here and that couldn't happen. "So, you just left this place unsecured?"

     He cracked his knuckles. "No. I asked a buddy of mine to cover it. Here's his address. You can ask him. I gotta go. Take care of yourself. You look like hell."

     "You too," I muttered as he walked out. I stared at the address. It was 8 minutes due east. It was one of the few low-income housing projects that hadn't been abandoned by the city.

     I swept all the papers into a bucket and lit them on fire. I took the tablet with me to the car. I would've loved to scrub the hard drive in the bottom, left drawer, but I didn't have time. I dumped it into the bucket on my way out.