Detective Todd Sweeny could not sleep. He did not like the hospital bed. It was not even remotely comfortable. He did not like the nurses coming in to check on him. He could not stand the food. He hated the sounds that came from the hallway outside. Keeping the door shut did not help. It did muffle the sounds, but that only seemed to make it worse. He could still hear voices and foot traffic. To not be able to clearly hear the conversations only made him more interested to know what was being said. Why was there so much conversation going on outside his room? Was there something he needed to know? No, with all of this, there was no way that the detective could sleep.
More than any of the external factors, though, the real reason that he could not sleep was because of the mad thoughts racing around inside his own mind. He could not believe that Wraith was his son, and yet the young man did not seem to be the type to make things up. But Gloria Harper was James' mother, not Wraith's. It was hard enough to think that he could be James' father without knowing it for all these years. But James was the right age to be the child his sweet Jessica had been carrying when she quit being willing to see him. So unless she had been cheating on him, and he had to admit that he had always wondered if she had left him for another man, then that would mean that James really was his son.
The more he thought about it, the more he could see a resemblance between James and how he was as a younger man. There really couldn't be much doubt. The boy was the right age and had the right looks to him. Now that he knew who James' mother really was, he had to admit the truth. He was the young man's father. He wished that he could have had more to do with his son's life up to this point, but maybe he could make up for it now. It was a long shot, but Sweeny couldn't help but crave it. The aging detective had never had a family and while he did not have any choice over Jessica's decision to keep him out of the loop, there was still time to try and rectify it on his part.
Sweeny felt an itch on his face as he contemplated the fact that he had been unaware of the boy's relationship to him. At first he could not understand why this would be the case. He only got these itches when he felt like he was on to something. Usually if his face itched like this and he was not actually thinking about something case specific, he had only to retrace his thinking until it occurred to him where there was a break to be made. Sweeny decided to do this and replayed both his line of recent thought as well as his conversation with Wraith until it hit him square in the face. Ironically it was something that he had been pursuing at the onset of the case and had dropped.
It was thinking about the similarity between himself and James that really started his thinking on the right track. That was what had set his face itching. Wraith seemed to view James as an imposter and claimed to be the real son of Gloria Harper. Sweeny did not know how much stock could be placed in that idea, but what really resounded in his mind was the fact that Wraith and James were very similar to each other. In fact if it were not for Wraith's ability to disguise himself, the argument could be made that the two of them were identical.
The idea of twins came to mind, but Sweeny did not put too much thought into it. Both men claimed to have Gloria Harper as their mother, and neither of them said anything about having any other siblings. An identical twin would definitely be something that would have caught the notice of somebody while they grew up. That meant that either one of them was lying about who they really were and were playing on the uncanny resemblance to put themselves into a family they did not belong to, or they were the same damn man.
Sweeny had no idea why Wraith would target himself for all of this destruction and misery, but it seemed pretty clear that he was not aware of sharing a body with another personality. James was not aware of Wraith either. Perhaps it was just a random coincidence that Wraith had decided his next target would be a man he thought was stealing from him, but was actually just another manifestation of his own self. It was actually a pretty funny thought. Sweeny wondered what would happen if Wraith figured out all of his recent work had been in vain. That his beloved Vixen had died at his own hand while attacking somebody that he also loved.
This was a very troubling thought in spite of the humor to it. When Vixen had died, Wraith's reaction to it had meant the deaths of a number of women in horrible ways. There really was no telling how somebody as deranged as this young man would react to this. In spite of his lack of mental stability, Wraith was incredibly smart so he could be capable of nearly anything. The body count could rack up to a level that the Grand Valley would never recover from. As it was, the news sources were beginning to press for information on the number of dead bodies that had been turning up. It was only a matter of time before sensationalism took over and fear of Wraith consumed the city.
It also did not help that the death of Agent Hook had brought the feds in. Once again they were taking over and Sweeny was not sure that he would be allowed to continue pursuing the killer that might actually be his son. He was damned if they would keep him out of it this time. Everything was entirely too personal right now. He knew on a purely logical level that it was best for him to step back due to the possibility of his emotions getting in the way of responsible police work, but he was not in the mood to be completely logical. People were dying in his town. His town, for god's sake. Horrible deaths. And he was the father of the killer. Or at least it seemed to be the case.
Feds or no feds, gunshot wounds or not, he was going to track Wraith down and put an end to his murderous ways. He knew now that there would be no way to bring him in. Wraith would never throw up his hands and surrender. Even if he appeared to be doing so, it would only mean that he was looking to get into close quarters in order to draw more blood. There was only one way to deal with the young man. He needed to be brought to justice in the old way. He needed to have his blood spilled on the ground in order to wash away his filth. Sweeny has seen similar men before, but nobody as ruthless and uncaring as Wraith. Even with those men, death was the only way to stop them from inflicting their poison on the public.
The real question was if Sweeny could bring himself to do it. He was a very good detective, hell he was the best. He had put down and arrested countless fiends, but he had never had to go up against his own flesh and blood in order to do so. He knew what had to be done, but he was not sure that when the moment came, when he was looking into the eyes of his boy, could he pull the trigger? He knew for certain that if he did not, Wraith certainly would. There would be no way that he would keep Sweeny alive for any more of his games. The detective was fairly certain that Wraith had milked him for all the fun he thought he could squeeze out and their next encounter would surely end in the death of one of them.
Sweeny could see no point in continuing to mull this over from a hospital bed. Nothing productive could be accomplished lying around without being able to sleep. He rolled out of the bed and nearly fell on his face. He had not really been prepared for the amount of pain that would shoot through him from trying to put weight on his injured leg. This was not nearly enough to discourage him, however, and so he grimaced but remained on his feet. The first move was to get out of the ridiculous hospital gown and put on his clothes that were sitting on a chair next to the bed. With his damaged hand and leg this proved to be a difficult, yet not an insurmountable task.
With a lot of pain but even more resolve, Sweeny moved out the door and into the busy hallway. He would not even bother with trying to check himself out. There was no way that they would let him stroll out of here just yet. Instead of getting himself into a debate with a doctor or nurse, Sweeny elected to just move as nonchalantly as he could down the hallway. He knew that the feds would come up empty handed, and he did not have faith in the rest of the police force doing any better. No, if Wraith was going to be brought down, he needed to be the one to do it. It was time to perform a father's duty.