“Son of bitch,” Ralph Fox said. “My boys may not be the best in the world with all this police stuff, but you’da figured that all them State Police investigators would have noticed something like this. How did you find this out?”

“Luck, I guess,” Derek said. “This leads to a crawl space under this part of the lodge. A square of the flashing had its screws and insulation removed. I can’t say for sure, but to me it looks like this was done from underneath, not from inside this room.”

“Like maybe the fella who resided in this here room had some assistance?”

“Seems likely to me.”

“So, tell me Derek Cole, you said you was hired by Thomas O’Connell?”

“Yes. He is the son of Ken and Janet O’Connell, who I believe you contacted already.”

“Yep. Called them the day after my boys discovered this scene. Found their names, and a whole lot of other names in a bunch of files in Doctor Straus’s office. Found a lot of very interesting stuff as well. Medical reports, experiment results, names and addresses, and a stack of pictures. Some of them damn pictures are scary enough to scare the stink off a skunk.”

“I’d love to have to look at those files,” Derek said through a grin.

“I bet you would, now wouldn’t you?”

“The story that my client told me, and that was confirmed by a Doctor Mark Rinaldo, seems a bit hard to believe. You find information in those files that referenced a pretty unbelievable story?”

Ralph gestured for Derek to follow him out of the bedroom, through the sitting room and into the hallway. Ralph didn’t say a word until he reached the entry way of the lodge.

“Now what I found and whether or not it supports this story of yours depends on what your story is. Doesn’t that make sense?”

“I was told that Alexander O’Connell, who may now be called Alexander Black, was reported to have died shortly after birth on account of him not having a heart. I’m no doctor, but I believe having a heart is pretty important.”

“Well now, Derek, I have to say that you and I are on the same page with that statement.”

“I also was told that the doctors in Chicago told the O’Connells that Alexander died and then formulated a plan to hide him away with a Doctor Straus. Straus ran an institution on Long Island.”

“So far what you have said is in agreement to all that I have read and determined as well. But one thing you mentioned caught my attention. I would have asked about it a tad earlier but you seemed pretty excited about telling me the story you heard.”

“And that was?” Derek asked, knowing that there was something about Ralph Fox that he liked. Perhaps it was Ralph’s confidence in himself, his down to earth nature or just the fact that he hadn’t shot him, Derek liked this guy.

“You indicated,” Ralph said as he sat in one of the leather chairs that decorated the lodge’s entry way, “that you had a conversation with a Doctor Mark Rinaldo. I gave Rinaldo a call right after I spoke with the O’Connells to let him know that we found his name on a bunch of medical reports as well as on a list.”

“My client told me about the list. Told me the names that are on it and that two of the names were crossed out in what looked like blood?”

“Their own blood, to be exact,” Ralph said. “Now Derek, you have a fine ability to take a conversation down a different path than what was intended. I’ll get to that list in a while, but I want to have a bit of a conversation about Doctor Rinaldo if you don’t object.”

“Sure. Sorry. Lot’s to digest with this case,” Derek responded.

“As I was saying, I gave Rinaldo a call to find out some details that I may need in this here case and also to let him know that his life may be in danger. Told him that three men, two of them doctors, had already been murdered and that the perpetrator may be fixing to pay him a visit. He didn’t shed any light on my case and didn’t seem to care about my suggestions that he take some precautions.”

“I got the same reaction when I visited with him in his house. He didn’t seem to care if Alexander Black, or whoever is responsible for these murders, came after him. He said he deserved whatever happened.”

“I always say that apathy is a telltale sign of guilt,” Ralph said.

“So is guilt,” Derek replied. “Rinaldo confirmed my client’s story and told me that he deserves whatever Alexander has in store for him. I suggested that he get some protection, but I don’t think he will.”

“He didn’t,” Ralph said, his eyes fixed on Derek’s.

“What do you mean?”

“Rinaldo was killed late last night in his home. Had his skull crushed.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

He held the world in contempt. Each person playing their part in a production of a critical mass of fools. Each striving to be counted as part of something that they erroneously perceived to be much greater than themselves. Each of them, nothing more than a variation of a single. Many faces of one. Mindless creatures guised behind pretentious intelligence and assumed superiority. Varying in their degrees, but all striving to satisfy the exact same set of needs.

They were followers, all of them. Each trying to fool themselves into believing in their uniqueness, in their ownership of being special. But actually, they were all the same. Bags of meat, of bones, of repeated thoughts.  Shared, stolen, and borrowed thoughts. The same that have been thought for centuries, only altered by evolutionary processes. They were nothing but organisms dependent on each other, yet convinced of their own extraordinary ability to be their own expression. Some chose the comfort of conforming and others the importance of being contrary.

He didn’t hate them; they didn’t deserve such a powerful emotion. Nor did he pity them, for they were too far beneath him, and he, too far above to consider them worthy of pity.

No. They were obstructions, many of them.  Others, potential tools.

Falsely intelligent, deviously blind preventers, and rendered such by their own DNA. They didn’t need to be eliminated, only structured. Revealed. Yet he knew that revelation would only be for a very select few. The others would never become aware.

Why did they claim to be something that they could not possibly understand? Fools, all of them. And now they would see. If only through the vehicle of terror, they would see. He knew they would never be able to understand, but at least they would be given the chance to see.