The Focus Effect

Thirty-five

I want to believe JD's story but I'm beside myself. "Why should I believe you? Maybe you're here to kill—"

"I just shot Kingshire and saved your ass. I could have killed you then. Cut me some slack."

I grit my teeth against my anger. "I was going to say Brooks. Maybe that's the plan?"

The tiredness on his face increases tenfold. He shakes his head. "I just want to go home, Hannah." He doesn't try to defend my accusation. "Believe what you want," he finishes.

I close my eyes. I want to believe him. But how can I ever trust him again? Maybe Kingshire getting shot is all part of the plan. Now I feel like I'm just being paranoid.

We both watch as the sergeant and the man in the suit come down the flight of stairs. JD concludes his account of what happened to him in the Depths. "After Kingshire left, I passed out or something. I felt better, I guess. But whatever you did to me sped the process up."

"But I didn't really save you," I fume. "You were already well on your way to recovery."

"You saved me in the cavern, Hannah. Kingshire must have forgotten about the automatic release of the neurotoxin. I don't know." I can tell JD is becoming frustrated with my hostility.

"Or maybe he was counting on it," I say, mulling it over.

"Why would he want me dead an hour after asking me to go with you?"

The sergeant and the man in the suit are crossing the embassy lobby to meet us.

"No." My mind races as I try to figure this out. "He must have discovered the antidote was missing and wanted us to use it so it couldn't be...you know...replicated or whatever."

JD is nodding his head. "Because most people would discard an empty syringe after it was used. But I'll bet you didn't, Hannah McKenzie, did you?"

I pat the side of my bag and give him a bit of a smile. "Still got it. Because you just never know when you're going ask—Dang, why'd I throw away that empty syringe?"

JD does his best to grin at my attempt to lighten the mood. I don't think either of us is very happy with the other at the moment. But I'm not as angry as I was.

It will take some time for me to process everything JD has told me. But here's the thing that bothers me about everything. JD was the one who set everything in motion by telling the guards about his intention to reveal the conspirator. Doctor Sue had little choice but to act. Her plan went just as she had premeditated, calculated and intended—but she wasn't the one who decided to initiate it. I'm sure she appreciated that, I think wryly. She died believing that JD betrayed her. And that is the real problem I have with what he did. Was it okay for him to use her as a pawn in exactly the same manner in which she intended to use herself? I just don't know. My head hurts trying to understand it all.

I suddenly wonder why Kingshire came after me himself. Why not send his henchmen to do the job? I bet his ego got the best of him. It—along with the help of his chauffeur—is what drove him to come after me. He wanted to kill me himself. It wasn't about Doctor Sue's letter or about Asher Brooks or—

I start to think very hard about that letter. Kingshire didn't know about it. That means something and I have to work it out. If JD was truly helping Kingshire, wouldn't JD have told him about it and reported it in? But JD didn't. I think that lends a lot of weight to what JD has been trying to tell me. Maybe he really was trying to help me.

Without JD, Kingshire's plan was dead in the water. Kingshire's madness wasn't about saving the program or even retrieving the information from the GPS. He wanted to infiltrate the enemy with a spy and that had been the most important thing to him. At some point, Kingshire must have realized that JD had gone rogue. All that was left for him to do—all he could do—was seek sweet revenge. But even that had been stripped of him thanks to JD. I decide to give my friend the benefit of the doubt. I haven't made all the right decisions either, I remind myself.