Page 86 of Borrowed Pain
He was barely a shred of the man who'd once commanded university lecture halls. His hair had gone gray at the temples, and his clothes hung loose on a frame that had shed at least twenty pounds it couldn't spare. His eyes darted between my face and the shadows behind me like he expected gunfire.
"Dr. Rook, I'm here to help. We spoke on the phone—"
"Anyone could have made that call." He lurched sideways and caught himself against the container with a metallic clang. "They have my voice recordings. They could have synthesized—fuck." His legs buckled, and he slid down the container wall until he sat in the gravel.
I stepped closer. His skin had a gray pallor that meant circulation problems, and sweat beaded across his forehead despite the October chill. A tremor was noticeable when he lifted his hand to wipe his face.
"You're sick," I said. "Let me call for medical—"
"No!" The word exploded out of him. "No hospitals. No doctors. They have people everywhere." His breathing was rapid and shallow. "You could be one of them. Prove you're not."
"Rook, we need to get you somewhere safe. Whatever they gave you—"
"Gave me?" His laugh was bitter, edged with hysteria. "They didn't give me anything. I took it myself. Insurance policy." He pulled a small glass vial from his jacket pocket, empty."Engineered stuff. Slow-acting. By the time anyone looks, it won't show up on a standard screen. Better to die on my own terms than let them drag me back."
I froze. "You poisoned yourself?"
"They got to Patricia." His voice broke on her name. "If they can reach her, they can reach anyone." His gaze locked onto mine, desperate and pleading. "How do I know you're not here to finish the job?"
I crouched down to his level, keeping my hands visible. The gravel bit through my jeans, cold and sharp. "If I were working for them, you'd already be dead."
Rook's head lolled back against the container. "Tell me something only the real Ashcroft would know. Something that wasn't in any report."
My mind raced through memories of our original investigation. Official interviews, recorded statements, and documented meetings—all compromised if Meridian had federal contacts. I needed something personal, something that never made it into any file.
"You called Lucia at home," I said slowly. "The night before she died. Two-thirty in the morning. She was making tea in her kitchen, chamomile, because she couldn't sleep. You told her you'd found proof in the insurance filings but were scared to meet in person."
Rook's breathing stopped. "Anyone could have tapped her phone—"
"She kept a photo of her niece tucked inside your case file. Maria, eight years old. Lucia said it reminded her why the work mattered—protecting kids like Maria from the monsters." I met his eyes. "She was going to frame it after we closed your case. Put it on her desk next to her commendations."
The suspicion drained out of Rook's face. "Maria," he whispered. "Lucia was going to be her godmother. I never gotto tell her—" His voice cracked completely. "She died because of me. Because I was too scared to testify when it mattered."
"She died because they killed her," I said firmly. "Not because you were scared. They couldn't let her expose what you'd found."
Rook's body convulsed, a spasm that started in his chest and radiated outward.
"How long?" I asked.
"Started twenty minutes ago. Maybe less." He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "I figured six hours was enough time to get the information transferred. Didn't count on the paranoia kicking in so hard."
I pulled out my phone. "I'm calling for extraction. Medical team, federal protection—"
"No." His hand shot out, gripping my wrist with surprising strength. "You don't understand. If anyone official knows I'm alive, it destroys everything. Patricia can't testify. All her evidence becomes inadmissible."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm officially dead, Ashcroft. Car accident, closed casket, death certificate filed with the state of Virginia." His pupils dilated. "If the Bureau discovers I've been alive all this time, they'll charge me with fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy—"
Another spasm hit him, harder this time. When it passed, his grip on my wrist loosened.
"Patricia documented everything," he gasped. "But she can't use any of it without proving she knew I was alive…"
"How does you dying help her?" I asked.
"Because legally I'm dead," he said, each word a knife. "Death certificate filed. Benefits paid. The second any official admits I'm breathing, defense argues she hid me—harboring, fraud, obstruction. They subpoena her, force immunity deals, and a jury sees a co-conspirator, not a whistleblower. But if I'm acorpse, she can swear the evidence came through drops and third parties. Plausible deniability. Clean chain of custody. Me breathing makes her a criminal. Me gone makes her the person who blew the whistle."
He coughed, eyes rolling back. "Tell her the lighthouse still stands—it's the passphrase, the cover memo. She'll know how to prove the cache is mine without admitting contact."
