Page 37 of Penny for Your Saints

Frank gives me a warning look, but we’ve already decided. The plan was to get to the bottom of the Zeitnot virus, and while the path appears to be diverging from our original course—our goal remains the same, and so we must press on.

“From your hard drives, we were able to see that you’d been looking into Covartis—the rival drug company of Bronson & Bronson—the mega bio-corp that you believed to be your parents' employer at the time of their death,” I continue my illumination as Louise leans, cross-legged, to the edge of her seat on the sofa, reaching for one of the cigarettes and a lighter, her eyes never leaving me.

She’s quite the distraction in the skin tight velvet sweat suit pants and sheer tank top that Frank and I picked up for her on our errands before the raid; her perfect pink nipples hard against the thin fabric of the white camisole as she lights the cigarette—her lips pursed around the filter in a way that makes me re-cross my legs yet again—my cock threatening to get more than just half hard as I watch a thin ribbon of pale blue smoke dissipate into the air between us.

“Well, your parents weren’t actually employed by Bronson & Bronson at their time of death—for starters,” I lay that out for her and wait to see if she’s ready to hear more, or if this will be our first stopping block.

True to form, Louise sits back—stretching her arms up and over the back of the ratty sofa—the entire 3 cushion couch still left entirely for her use. I’m strangely reminded of Frank as she lets her head loll back over the top of the cushions, cigarette dangling from her bottom lip as she raises one scarlet brow at me as if to say, ‘So? You gonna say the rest?’

“Your parents, much like yourself, were employees of the government,” I clarify, waiting for an objection, but all I get is a girlish titter.

“Oh really? Who were they working for?” she scoffs. “The CIA? Don’t tell me—they had a lab at Area 51; they weren’t actually murdered—they were abducted by aliens!” she crows before dissolving into semi-hysterical laughter.

Caz, a die-hard UFO enthusiast, winds up to defend the idea that intelligent life exists beyond us in this universe; but I cut in before he can aid in derailing this necessary conversation.

“They were working for the department of Reproduction,” I answer flatly.

That takes the smile off her face.

Louise’s entire body rocks forward until she’s barely seated on the edge of the couch. Her whole body turns toward me, elbows on her knees,her cigarette—pinched between her first and middle finger—forgotten as the ash grows longer.

“Bullshit.” Louise seems to barely have enough breath to make the sound—her chest rapidly expanding and contracting with panicked breaths.

I shake my head solemnly.

“Believe me, or don’t. They were working for Jim Roach when word of the nature of their research made it back to the Windmill.”

My eyes flit down to her hands as her cigarette burns closer and closer to the golden line of filter; the nearly two inches of ashfalls to the floor in slow, lazy spirals like moths in a column of streetlight.

“From what we can tell, they were murdered for their findings—their work.” I reach forward and pinch the still burning butt from her fingers, placing it between my own lips before taking a drag—my lips pressing to the place hers had been a moment ago; an indirect kiss.

“Then they put Roach out to pasture and installed Martin Penny in his place—the brother of the late Doctor Landon Penny.”

I watch as Louise Penny’s iron countenance—which she has so fearlessly held up since the moment we took her captive—crumbles,her face twisting with the ugly outpour of tears.

“Why?” she wails.

“What the hell could have been worth—?” She chokes on her own gasping sobs, covering her weeping face with her shaking hands.

“You felt the suppressant melters firsthand,” Frank reminds her, muscular arms barred across his chest in a black t-shirt, his raven hair a mess.

“I’ve seen worse than that in the field. It doesn’t merit splattering their brains across our fucking dining room table.” Louise shoots to her feet, eyes bright and full of the flames of fury—Lucifer with her resplendent halo of righteous anger—her skin glowing as if lit from within with the beacons of purest hatred.

“It’s not just the suppressant melters,” Sébastien’s soft, musical voice cuts in.

She whirls on him—the morning star—bright and brimming with violence.

“I’ve had limited access to samples… but based on my tests and what we found from Cazzy’s digital forensics work, your parents are the point of origin for the Zeitnot virus—and notrecently, either. As far as we can tell, the virus has been around since the early 90’s—even if there haven’t been any public cases until the past two years.”

Louise’s knees begin to buckle—her whole body gently swaying as she blinks more tears from her eyes, her lips distorting into a wobbly line—as she struggles to make her mouth move.

“That’s not possible,” she bleats hopelessly.

“It’s very possible. We can show you the proof,” Sébastien counters flatly.

“Don’t believe me—you should ask your pal Susan Lowry,” Frank growls threateningly—the last straw before Louise collapses back into the couch, all the fight gone out of her.

“And why the fuck should I believe any of you?” she spits venomously, tears streaming down her face. “Why not fucking come find me on one of my runs in the cemetery—or on a park bench behind a fucking newspaper like the hack wannabe ‘secret agents’ you’re trying so desperately to play at being?” she wails, beating her fists against the couch cushions on either side of her.

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