by Sarah Lovett
alchemist: feds?
redrider: no
alchemist: who?
redrider: you know them
alchemist: what do they want?
redrider: evidence
alchemist: nothing to find
redrider: they want to dissect you insult you / just say the word
alchemist: I can take care of myself
redrider: enemies appear in many guises
CHAPTER
12
"Caid to the bone," Sylvia muttered, shaking off rain as she and Sweetheart marched through the lobby of the stately Claridge's Hotel.
She was startled by the deep, resonating chime of a massive grandfather clock: 9:00 P.M. Tuesday, going on 1:00 P.M. Tuesday.
Try explaining time zones to your body.
Sweetheart shot her a glance, leading the way to registration.
She had to concentrate in order to keep from swaying on her feet. She was so numb, so tired she could taste clean sheets. She managed a spare smile for the bellman, who reminded her of a pug standing guard over their bags.
"Your key," Sweetheart offered, heading toward the stairs.
"Oh, no." She shook her head, making a beeline for the elevator. "I'm taking the lift." The bellman held the door open for her, then followed with the luggage cart.
Inside the brocade closet, the lift attendant gazed down the length of his nose. "Damp evening?"
"More like a bloody bathtub," she said, trying out the colloquialism.
"What was that, madam?"
"You're right, it's a damp evening." She smiled politely, resting her weight against the banister, mustering her energy when the elevator stuttered to a stop on the third floor.
She followed the bellman down the hallway to her room. Sweetheart was waiting inside.
"Adjoining suites," he said, looking pleased with himself. Incredibly, he still appeared awake and focused. "What took you so long?"
"Oh, leave me alone," she sighed. The bellman raised his eyebrows, and she shrugged. "He's not human. You've heard of those cloning experiments?" She tipped the man—"Is this enough?"—hoping she got the money right, pound for dollar, pence for cents—and watched the door close behind his back.
She shrugged off her jacket, tossing it over a chair. "What the hell happened today? I feel as if I'm traveling in a country where I speak just enough of the language to know I'm clueless." Moving restlessly, she surveyed her surroundings. The room was divided into sleeping chamber and parlor. The long curtains were drawn, and when parted, they revealed a view that was nothing but yellow mist. The door to Sweetheart's room was open and she glanced inside, catching sight of his jacket, a book, and files already spread across his double bed. She continued exploring—closet, tiny bathroom, extra blankets—speaking on the move: "Porton Down is terrifying, BioPort is creepy, and Paul Lang is a casebook study in morbid, pathological grief."
Looking through cupboards, she discovered the minibar hidden beneath the television and VCR. She took inventory, selecting the half bottle of French chardonnay and the Violet chocolate bar.
"The clincher was when Lang showed us his photo album," she decided, slumping onto the bed, coming to rest for an instant before she leaned down to attack the laces of her black boots. First left, then right, the boots flew across the room to smack against the old-fashioned radiator. Socks followed. She flexed her bare feet, flashing plum-enameled nails. "He was so detached from any real feelings—that level of denial is frightening. Lang scared me." She looked up at Sweetheart. "What I saw at BioPort scared me." She shook her head, but it was almost a shiver. "If I didn't know about Christine Palmer, I'd look long and hard at Lang as Samantha Grayson's murderer."
Sweetheart's eyebrows rose. "I admit the photographs were unsettling, but Lang is not a murder suspect."
"Believe me, after we considered the 'jeopardy surface'—the way Palmer moved Samantha Grayson into close proximity before her death—I don't doubt for a minute that Palmer murdered her." Sylvia sat still, then said, "What's your read on Harris Cray? When Palmer left for LANL, he remained at BioPort, but he strikes me as the type who's always second gun and resentful." She whistled softly. "No love lost between Harris and Samantha Grayson. And when it comes to Christine Palmer, he's beyond loyal, he's gaga. Lovesick." Sylvia's facial expression shifted between distaste and surprise. "Do you suppose they had an affair?"
Sweetheart gave her an odd look. "You heard the results of the MOSAIK search. Nothing came up in Cray's history to indicate a relationship with Palmer—in fact, there's some question as to whether or not he's gay."
"He's not gay, I'm telling you. But forget sexual preference for the moment. Something's going on with Cray—maybe he's a closet gambler, maybe a drug addict. He's got something up his sleeve, even if it's his rigid ego."
She stretched, easing the tension in her shoulders and neck. She was studying Sweetheart intently. But now she picked up a hotel postcard from the table beside the bed and guided it gently through the air. "If Samantha Grayson had been a diabetic, I would've used the new super insulin—drain the contents of her regular script and refill it with double potency. The next time she injects, bam."
"Nice touch."
"Or, even nastier, steal a tampon from her purse, open it, dose the cotton with heavy metal, reseal the paper wrapper with some wax and an iron, sneak it back into the purse, and"—she snapped her fingers—"be in another country when she dies by a self-administered dose."
Sweetheart's eyes narrowed. "Then you'd miss out on the experience of watching her die. Don't forget, Christine Palmer has an insatiable curiosity."
Lifting the telephone receiver, Sylvia scanned the labels on the various buttons, punched one, and waited. "Yes, hello, that's me. I need a pot of very hot, very strong tea and a sandwich of some kind that's not too fattening so I'll be able to fit in my wedding dress back home. No—oh—yes, grilled ham, cheese, and tomato is perfect. A glass of milk and something sweet." She waited, then said, "Just a tiny serving of trifle, that would be lovely. You have my room number—twenty-five minutes? Please hurry, I'm famished, I may die of hunger."
"Trifle?"
"It's light. All that whipped cream." She replaced the receiver and eyed Sweetheart. "Order your own. I'm headed for a hot bath, after which I'm going to open my wine and slide under the covers." She fell back on the bed and, after a moment, spoke to the ceiling. "Lang is lying or at least censoring. Watley's lying. What's all this about BioPort and Dr. Thomas? And my feet hurt."
"They're lying, you're whining."
"I know. But my feet really do hurt."
"I can fix that." He had seated himself on a green silk love seat and smiled slightly when she raised her head to stare at him. "Nothing more exotic than shiatsu massage."
"Pressure points, right?" She rolled over, burying her face in the knobby spread.
"Right." He moved to the edge of the bed.
She felt his weight shift the mattress and her equilibrium. When his fingers slid knowingly along the arch of her left foot, she melted. "Oh. That's good." Her words were muffled by a mouthful of fabric. "Wheredidyoulearn—"
"Japan." He pressed the tip of her big toe, then whispered, "Shindeshi, eh."
"Yeow." She squeezed her eyelids tight. She could hear his breathing, feel his other hand begin to enclose the heel of the same foot.
"You're holding too much tension," he said, his voice soft.
She didn't answer; she was too busy dissolving into liquid. Her body was disappearing. Electricity traveled from her feet up her legs, butt, shoulders, neck; her brain tingled.
"You can adjust the entire body through the feet," Sweetheart said.
"Mmmm." As he worked, she drifted to the edge of consciousness. Here and there, something pulled her back. His hands moving to her other foot. His fingers sliding around her ankle, returning to her toes. She floated away again.
Almost missing his quiet words, "Why are you getting married?"
Still caught
in the liminal space between sleep and waking, she let the question settle, thought about answers, took her time. I'm getting married because it's time . . . because we want to try for a child . . . because I need family . . . because I want to be normal, lead a normal life . . . because I'm in love, because he makes me content.
Because there was no single answer—and because Sweetheart was really asking another question altogether—she didn't respond.
The knock on the door brought her around.
She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. Alone. Had she slept?
Her stomach growled. Room service.
"I'm coming," she mumbled. Second knock. She stumbled toward the door, calling hoarsely to the next room, "Sweetheart?"
The waiter set the tray on the table in front of the green love seat. He removed stainless steel covers with a flourish, explained that the Lapsong souchon was steeping, adjusted the single pink rose in the narrow vase, and disappeared when she blinked.
She grabbed a half of sandwich, devoured it in a minute, and downed the milk, only then beginning to feel human again.
She heard faint sounds in the other room. Sweetheart moving around. He appeared at the door, entered the room. "I fell asleep," she said, dazed.
"You're still asleep." He looked at her in a way that left her self-conscious. The look wasn't inappropriate, it wasn't sexual, but it implied intimacy—and he was reading her again.
"It's too late to call home right now, isn't it?" she asked hurriedly, feeling exposed. "Too early, I mean." She caught it now—his expression was almost needy, definitely vulnerable behind the tough-guy warrior.
"You have a yellow dot on your chin."
"Cheese," she said, dabbing herself with the napkin.
"It's gone." Still he stared at her, his mouth softening. "You look like a shindeshi, a new recruit. Sumo." He almost smiled.
"Chow Yun Fat," she countered. "In The Killer. That's who you remind me of tonight. That's a compliment." If he responded she didn't hear him, because she'd retreated into secret thoughts. She knew almost nothing about Sweetheart's life, his past, his family. What was it that he pursued so desperately? He'd made a life tracking down the bad guys.
For his part, he knew what his research and his database told him about her, which was not enough. She'd made a career of trying to understand what drove people to do bad things.
Which meant they were most closely related through their obsessions, a dark connection: the drive to go after the pathologically narcissistic, those who are very dangerous to the world, the twisted and the greedy.
And greed brought Sylvia right back in a tight circle to Samantha Grayson.
She picked up the fork from the tray, examined the tines, and guided them gently through the air. "Maybe Samantha was an industrial spy."
"Maybe she was. Gretchen and Luke are running the background checks—queries into her financial affairs, et cetera—through MOSAIK," Sweetheart said, referring to the assistants in his California office.
"Good. To see if she was buying Ferraris, caviar, and diamonds on a technician's salary? I'd like a Ferrari. What do you think of Lang?"
"I don't think, I know," Sweetheart said. "Gray and red: he's a repressed British bureaucrat, a gray man, who had his world turned upside down by a sexually adventurous woman. The red is passion, and now a hunger for revenge. That's Paul Lang."
"In other words, a Brit on emotional steroids," Sylvia said. "I have a stomachache."
"You ate too fast."
She sighed, picking at the remaining sandwich. "What do we know about Lang's work, his area of expertise?"
"Among other things, his speciality is the analysis of international weapons trafficking: NBC—nuclear, biological, chemical."
Sylvia yawned. "What did Samantha Grayson see in him?" She followed up with a stretch. "I got the definite impression, she was attracted to the more obvious pleasures of life. Lang doesn't strike me as the type she'd go for."
"Then she was drawn to the allure of MI-6."
"So, Samantha liked her fiancé's connections."
"Social?"
"Professional." Sylvia considered the idea. "You said it: the allure of MI-6. It's possible, the fact he worked in international affairs—even if it was a desk job—"
There was a sharp bleat from the cell phone clipped to Sweetheart's belt, and he put it to his ear and grunted a greeting. Reading conversational fragments, Sylvia realized he was talking to Luke or Gretchen, his assistants in Los Angeles.
"She said she was from where?" Sweetheart asked.
Indecipherable noise from the phone; it actually sounded as though tiny chipmunks were trapped inside the earpiece.
"Save the rest for later, but put her through now," Sweetheart said, abruptly pushing a button on the phone. He turned toward Sylvia, opening his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a voice emerging from the handset. A woman's voice, heavily accented, breathless. "Don't say my name."
"Fine. We'll do this in a way that makes you comfortable," Sweetheart agreed.
"I hear an echo—is this a conference call? Are you alone?"
"I'm here with my associate." Sweetheart nodded, as if the speaker could see him, then said, "I understand that you were a colleague of a certain party at a Danish lab." As he spoke, he scrawled on a piece of notepaper so Sylvia could read: Gisla Schmidt—worked with Palmer.
"Yes." Schmidt hesitated, then relayed a shorthand history of her association with Palmer. They'd worked together five years earlier. Zootoxins. A project with several employees logging in too much sick time.
Schmidt explained, "I'd been sick for three days—muscles rubbery, pains in my chest, it hurt to breathe, my legs half numb, scared to death—and I get this call from her. She's sympathetic, she asks how I am, I say I feel lucky, because I'm alive. She starts asking me questions. When did I first feel sick? Where did the pain start, in my stomach or in my head? How quickly did my illness proceed? Did I vomit? She even asks how much I vomited and how many times. How did my head feel? What was I feeling? I mean, she wants exact symptoms, precise symptoms.
"When I tell her it upsets me to talk about it, she apologizes. But she insists. She says it's for documentation, a requirement of the lab's internal safety, standard operating procedure. Well, that makes sense to me.
"And I don't think anything about it until two days later, when someone from administration calls me. He has a report to file. 'Standard,' he says. When I tell him I've already done the SOP questionnaire for her, he says he doesn't know what I'm talking about. He says she must be doing her own research, because he's never heard of a lab questionnaire."
"Did you report the incident to anyone else?" Sweetheart asked.
"Sure." Schmidt hesitated. "The division director was all worked up, said he'd go to the lab's deputy director." She went silent, then said, "I don't like talking about this."
"I understand, but the circumstances are exceptional."
"I shouldn't have called."
"We appreciate your candor and your concern."
Schmidt took an audible breath. "It stopped there."
"We didn't get that."
"Nothing happened. It was all written off, blamed on a defective fume hood. Aerosol accretion of toxic cultures. A month later, she announces she's going to England. She was gone two weeks after that."
"And there was never any other feedback from your supervisors?"
"Nothing," Schmidt said. "She did it to others. She made them sick, and then she asked for intimate details about their illness, their symptoms. She's like a cannibal—one who treats you like an honored guest, who offers you food and drink—but all the time it's a way to fatten you up for the kill."
"Let me get this straight. You're saying the director of the lab ignored the complaints against your colleague."
This time the silence stretched almost forty seconds. "After I hang up, don't try to reach me. I can't talk to you again." The sound of her breathing filled the space; finally she relente
d. "How do you say it? Friends in high places? Somebody up there likes the doctor."
After Gisla Schmidt had disconnected, both profilers sat for almost a minute. Finally, Sylvia said, "I'm beginning to get the feeling that once Christine Palmer touches your life, it's never the same again. You're never the same again."
Sylvia is alone. Her house. Her hands shake as she reaches out to open the closet door. Her clothes hang neatly, pants on the left, shirts in the middle, jackets on the right. Her shoes are lined up in rows, eleven pairs. Everything's just ducky.
She closes the door—comes face-to-face with her own reflection.
Not her face, not her hair.
Who are you?
Pale golden skin; blond hair; long, slender neck—a hand reaches out, fingers curl around a hypodermic needle.
What are you looking for?
Trespassing!
Someone is banging on the door. She wants to cry out for help—too late—they're going away. She's alone with this woman . . .
Sylvia sat up abruptly. She was breathing fast, almost hyperventilating, and she was damp with sweat. Dreaming. It was only a dream. Catch your bearings.
Hotel room. London. Sweetheart.
A noise drew her attention. Turning to look, she caught sight of red numbers on the digital clock: 2:31 A.M.
She stood, steadied herself, and moved like a sleepwalker toward the door. Another sound, a sharp click, outside in the hallway.
Her fingers closed around the doorknob, turned, pushed.
She stared out into dim green light and silence. Felt a presence. Looked right. Saw Sweetheart standing outside his door. He was dressed in a black silk robe. His hair was loose, gleaming black around his shoulders. His feet were bare, callused—funny what one notices in odd moments.
And he was staring at her bare feet. No, at the carpet. She followed his gaze and saw the package just inches from her toes. A box.
Sweetheart closed his door quietly. He crossed the short distance and knelt to examine the package.
"What is it?" Sylvia whispered.
He shook his head. "How lucky do you feel?" With great care, he balanced the box between his fingertips, carried it into her room, and set it very gently on the floor.