The Chemist

“Alex?” he asked quietly.

“Right here.”

He turned toward her gingerly, moving his legs under the blanket, checking to see if he was still bound.

“What is happening now?” he asked cautiously, his eyes still struggling to focus.

“I believe you. And I’m very sorry for what I did to you.”

She watched him process that. Carefully, he raised himself up on one elbow, then clutched at the blanket, realizing again that he was naked. It was funny how nonmedical people reacted to that; physicians were fairly relaxed about nudity in general. She felt exactly the same about nudity as any other doctor, but he wouldn’t assume that. She should have put on her lab coat.

“You do believe me?” he asked.

“Yes. I know you’re not the person I thought you were. I was… misled.”

He sat up a little farther, moving warily, waiting for something to hurt. He should feel fine, though – just tired from the muscle spasms. And his upper thigh would be a little sore when the local wore off.

“I —” he started, and then froze. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s a long story. Can I say something before I get into it?”

His expression was full of concern. For her? No, that couldn’t be right.

“Okay,” he agreed hesitantly.

“Look, Daniel, what I told you before was true. I don’t like hurting people. I didn’t like hurting you. I only do that when I think the other option is much more horrible. I have never in my life done this before – hurt a totally innocent person. Never. Not every person I’ve been asked to interrogate was as depraved as the rest, but all of them were at least part of the plot. I’ve long since realized that my old bosses will stoop to almost anything, but I still can’t believe that they set me up to interrogate someone entirely guiltless.”

He thought about it for a few seconds.

“Are you asking me to forgive you?”

“No, I’m not asking for that. I would never ask for that. But I wanted you to know. I never would have hurt you if I hadn’t truly believed it would save lives. I am so sorry.”

“And what about the drug dealer? The virus?” he asked anxiously.

She frowned. “I’ve received some new information. Apparently, de la Fuentes was taken care of.”

“No one is going to die?”

“Not because of a weaponized virus spread by a drug czar, no.”

“So that’s good, right?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I guess that’s the silver lining of what happened here.”

“Now will you tell me what happened to your face? Did you have an accident?” Again with the concern.

“No. My injures are related to that new information I mentioned.” She wasn’t sure how to break it to him.

Sudden indignation. His shoulders tensed. “Somebody did that to you – on purpose? For hurting me?”

His mind certainly didn’t work like someone in her line of business. Things that would be obvious to anyone who had ever worked on any facet of a mission were totally foreign to him.

“Essentially,” she answered.

“Let me talk to him,” he insisted. “I believe you, too. I know you didn’t want to do it. You were trying to help.”

“That’s not really the issue. Um, Daniel, you know when I was showing you those pictures before and you recognized the person in them but you didn’t want to tell me who it was?”

His face closed up. He nodded.

“You can relax. I’m not asking you to confess anything; this isn’t a trick. I didn’t know you had a twin. They covered that up in the file so I wouldn’t —”

“No, but it wasn’t Kevin,” he interrupted. “That’s what I didn’t understand. It looked just like him, but it’s impossible. Kevin is dead. He died in prison last year. I don’t know who it could be unless we were actually triplets, and I think Mom might have noticed that…”

He trailed off, watching her expression change.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m not sure how to tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

She hesitated for a moment, then stood up and walked around the table. His eyes tracked her, then he sat up, bunching the blanket carefully around his waist. She stopped and looked down. His eyes followed hers.

Kevin Beach’s face was turned toward the table where Daniel sat. It was curious how much more he looked like Daniel when he was unconscious, all the tension in his expression erased.

“Kevin,” Daniel whispered, face going white, then flushing bright red.

“Did you know your brother worked for the CIA?” she asked quietly.

He looked up, aghast. “No, no, he was in prison. He’d been dealing drugs.” He shook his head. “Things got bad after our parents died. Kev went off the deep end. He self-destructed. I mean, after West Point —”

“West Point?”

“Yes,” he said, face blank. Obviously the significance was lost on him. “Before the drugs, he was a different person. Graduated near the top of his class. He was accepted to Ranger school…” Daniel trailed off, assessing her frown.

Of course. Alex suppressed a sigh, upset with herself for not worrying more about the file’s gaps in information, for not taking the time to find a faraway library where she could have safely searched all Daniel’s family connections.