Two Weeks' Notice tr-2

by Rachel Caine

  The two uniformed men ignored him. One went to the wall just at the edge of the camera’s view and hit some buttons on a control panel, and a low rumble sounded. It was hard to see details on the video, but Bryn could see a gauge light up, and an indicator begin to climb.

  The second man pulled out a silenced semiautomatic pistol and put three bullets straight into Jason’s forehead. It killed him, of course. Temporarily. Bryn held still for that part. She knew how it felt, dying from a head wound. It wasn’t so painful. Stay dead, Jason. Just stay dead.

  But of course he wouldn’t. Fifteen minutes or so, and he’d be back.

  It took ten for the gauge on the wall to rise far enough that the man operating the controls nodded, and then he and his companion unstrapped Jason’s limp form, hit another button, and a small, square door opened in the wall. A metal drawer slid out from it, and the two men dumped Jason sloppily on it, then pushed it into the square opening.

  Before it closed, fire began to roar inside as the incinerator started its work.

  Bryn took in a deep breath as the first screams began. Through a small glass window, she could see Jason thrashing and fighting his death.

  Pansy stopped the video with a single, fast punch of the space bar and sat back, still staring at the screen. She said, “It goes on as long as the last one.”

  It took twelve minutes for one of the Revived to die in that incinerator, then. Five minutes of screaming that grew softer and softer, and then seven minutes of…noise. Random and desperate noise, until finally the body just couldn’t hold itself together enough to fight.

  Bryn had no idea if the brain was conscious through all that, or if, mercifully, awareness was the first thing that was burned away. She hoped so.

  “How many files?” she asked.

  Pansy couldn’t tear herself away from the still image on the screen for a few long seconds, and then she minimized the window and checked. Another soft ding reported a file decrypted. “Three,” she whispered. “If they’re all like this…”

  “At least three of the Revived have been murdered,” Bryn said. “By fire.”

  Chapter 9

  Bryn was shaking as she got back in her car, with an unencrypted copy of the thumb drive tucked in her purse.…She felt cold, icy cold, even though the air was still warm and moist. As she drove toward Davis Funeral Home, she couldn’t seem to get warm even with the heater blasting on full. Her skin felt cool, pallid, and damp.

  Of course you’re feeling bad, she told herself. It’s horrible. What’s on the video is horrible.

  But she couldn’t help the feeling that it wasn’t just the idea of the death of those three people.…It was more. It was something shifting inside her, tectonic plates moving, friction building energy that had to release somewhere, somehow.

  Bad things. Very bad things. Pharmadene employees were disappearing.

  She knew where three of them had ended up.

  Her nerves seemed all on edge now, the bright edges of things as sharp as blades. She had to fight not to flinch when someone blew a car horn at a light; she had an unreasoning, trembling impulse to get out, find whoever had done it, and beat him—or her—to a bloody pulp. Stop. Stop pushing me.

  A sudden, tuneless noise startled her into hitting the brakes with a screech, almost causing the car behind to rear-end her. It was her phone. Had it always been that loud? That annoying?

  “What?” she snapped as she hit the hands-free call button on the steering wheel. “What is it?”

  “Bryn? It’s me.” Patrick. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to slow down her racing heartbeat. “I just wanted to be sure you’re okay.”

  “Oh. I’m—I’m fine,” she said. She wasn’t, and she was starting to realize that, but she didn’t want to let Patrick know. “On my way to the office.”

  “Did Manny help?”

  “Not really, but at least he didn’t shoot me. Pansy did the work.”

  “You got the files decrypted. And…?”

  “We can talk later,” she said. She really didn’t have the stomach for talking about this, not now. “I’ve got to go, Patrick.” She hung up on him without waiting for another word. She knew he could sense how off-balance she was just now, and she didn’t want his sympathy, or his concern. She wanted to fight back to the place she’d been when she’d left the estate: strong. Energized. Ready.

  Three dead. Three. And one she knew, had laughed and talked with. She felt responsible for him, somehow; he’d come to her for help in adjusting to his new unlife, and she’d let him drift away into the hands of his killers.

  A horn blasted behind her, and she realized that she’d been sitting at a green light, staring blankly at it for long seconds. She hit the gas and drove too fast the rest of the way to the funeral home, parked crookedly, and had to take a moment to suck in deep, ragged breaths before she got out and went in.

  The subdued smell of flowers hit her first; it was more pronounced today because someone had sent those damned daylilies for the main viewing room, and the sweet, musty scent made her throat tighten. The waiting room was empty for the moment, and Lucy looked up from her chair behind the reception desk to smile. “Well, hello, Bryn. I thought you were taking the day.”

  “Sorry I’m late. My appointment ran long this morning. Anything I should be on top of?” This was good. Lucy was calm, professional, unemotional; dealing with her was always steadying.

  “You had a couple of vendor calls. I put it all in the folder on your desk.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Joe’s out with the Chen burial. Ms. Kleiman is meeting with some new clients down the hall.”

  Bryn smiled, just a little. “Isn’t she Gertie yet?”

  “Not yet,” Lucy said. “That woman’s going to be Ms. Kleiman until she gets that stick out of her butt.” Gertie Kleiman was an older woman, newly hired, and she didn’t seem to have an informal bone in her body—which was fine most of the time, especially since Lucy steered the elderly clients her direction by design. “And I can’t be on any first-name basis with a woman who calls me ‘that colored girl up front.’”

  “She said that?”

  “On the phone. Not to me. I just heard it.”

  Bryn sighed. “I’ll talk to her. Sorry, Lucy.”

  “Not the first time I’ve run into it.” Lucy shrugged. “Oh, and William’s working downstairs. He’s pretty busy.” William was their new, very competent embalmer; all of them could, and did, pitch in, but William had a nearly flawless touch. He was the best Bryn had ever seen, with the exception of Riley Block.

  “New intakes?”

  Lucy’s voice dropped lower, just in case anyone strolled in. “Married couple sent over from Scripps Mercy. Car accident. The son’s coming over this afternoon; I had Mr. Fideli down for him, but if you want to take it…?”

  “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll meet him. What time?”

  “Four.”

  “Thanks, Lucy. You’re amazing. I’m sorry about Kleiman. Tell her I want to see her before my four o’clock.”

  “Okay. But don’t be too tough on her. I just want her to call me by my name, not my skin color,” Lucy said. The phone rang, but this time it didn’t startle Bryn quite so much; the funeral home’s lines were all muted to the lowest possible setting and the most soothing ringtone choice. Lucy turned to attend to that, and Bryn walked down the hall. She’d been hoping today would be a routine kind of thing, but already she had sensitivity training to deal with. The four o’clock would be raw and emotional, and that probably hadn’t been a good decision, either, but she needed to work.

  Work kept her from thinking too much about herself.

  The folder on her desk had a summary sheet on the top: schedule for the rest of the week, including a conference call tomorrow morning; phone messages from Bates Casket and one of the embalming suppliers; contracts to be signed. Bryn took care of those first and put them in her out-box, followed up on phone messages, and then kept herself busy sea
rching her laptop for e-mails to and from Jason Drake, formerly of Pharmadene, formerly Revived. The last one she had was dated over a month ago, and in contrast to the warmer tone of previous e-mails, that one was a simple notice that he wouldn’t be able to attend her meetings anymore and was seeking counseling services inside the company. On reflection, it didn’t sound like him…but then, she could have been (and probably was) coloring things with her own interpretation, given what she’d discovered.

  Bryn toyed with a pen, thinking, and suddenly realized something important. Jason was on Pharmadene shots. That meant he had to check in daily to get them. Unlike her own shots, remanufactured by Manny Glickman, the Pharmadene doses were administered in syringes that were fingerprint-locked to the technicians authorized to give them. Jason couldn’t have stockpiled any and self-injected.

  More than that, the Pharmadene shots were regulated so strictly that if Jason hadn’t shown up for a shot, it would have triggered a red flag at the FBI.

  Riley. Riley Block must have known about this—or, at least, known three of her Pharmadene addicts were missing. Son of a bitch. Zaragosa had been right not to trust her. She hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t asked for help about it. Hadn’t given Bryn any indication at all there was something going on out of the ordinary—it had taken the Pharmadene CEO to do that.

  Bryn picked up the phone, dialed part of Riley’s number, then slowly put the receiver back in the cradle. If Riley didn’t want her to know, there had to be a reason for it—one that Bryn wouldn’t agree with, either. Zaragosa had warned her not to trust her.

  An ice-cold chill swept over her, and she stared blindly at her computer screen. What if they’ve had an order to end the project? That would, in fact, explain everything. The contractors, hired to abduct and destroy Returné addicts. Maybe Zaragosa didn’t know. Maybe Riley herself didn’t know. But sooner or later, Bryn had fully expected the government to tire of the expensive job of hiding the truth; this was a neat way to end their problems. Neat for everyone but those going into the incinerator, anyway—especially in a budget-cutting economy.

  She couldn’t trust Riley, or Zaragosa, or anyone with government ties. They had to know these three had disappeared, and if there had been an investigation, surely they would have involved Patrick, at least.

  Would Patrick have told you?

  Yes. Yes, he would have. Bryn had no doubts about that.

  Unless he is protecting you, or thinks he is.

  God, this was a circular cycle of paranoia.…She could implicate everyone, and no one, but the only real proof she had was seven dead people at Graydon and video of three Revived—like her—burned alive.

  Bryn took the thumb drive out of her purse and stared at it for a moment, then slotted it into a USB port. Maybe watching it again, blocking out the horror, she’d gather some little detail, some hint to follow. Tonight, she’d find out if Patrick knew anything.

  Tomorrow, she’d go after Riley Block and find out what she knew about it. If it was the government cutting their very substantial losses, then they’d have a fight on their hands. A public and bloody one—the very last thing they wanted. If word of Returné hit the streets, things would go insane. Everyone would want Revival—for themselves, for a loved one. And that was a cycle that never stopped, and would destroy governments, crush economies, and lead to chaos like nothing she could imagine. People were genetically selfish, and they were panicky. A bad combination when something like this was dangled in front of them, a life preserver to the sinking ship of their mortality.

  Bryn didn’t want to see that happen, and in truth she’d try her best to keep Pharmadene’s dirty secrets, but the threat was significant enough to force the government’s budget-cutting madmen off their backs.

  Hopefully.

  She lost track of time staring at the video files; even with the sound muted, the images made her feel trapped, mired in a nightmare. The calm efficiency of the killers was chilling; it said they’d done this, or things like it, so much that it was just another day on the job. That utter lack of empathy reminded her of soldiers at concentration camps and Rwandan butchers chopping up innocents. The human race, alive or Revived, was a terrifying thing.

  Bryn flinched when she heard a knock at the door, and slammed the laptop shut on the video. She hastily put it away, pressed her sweating hands on the desk for a moment, and tried to still her racing heart. Wasn’t entirely successful. “Come in,” she said.

  It was Gertrude Kleiman. She was a tall woman, with pale hair going imperceptibly gray; she wore it in a teased style that reminded Bryn strongly of her mother’s prom picture from high school. Not a warm person, but a competent one, and she dressed better than Bryn did—old money, the break room gossip said. Not that Bryn listened—much. “You wanted to see me, Miss Davis?”

  “Please have a seat,” Bryn said. She’d never had to give anybody a dressing-down outside of her time in the military, and she figured it probably wouldn’t be wise to approach it the same way. “Would you like a glass of water?”

  “No, thank you.” Kleiman—even Bryn couldn’t really call her Gertie—sat down primly on the edge of the chair, knees together and at just the correct angle. Not a wrinkle in her expertly tailored suit. She had dark blue eyes, and a very direct gaze. “Ms. Kleiman, I had a report that you’ve been referring to our office administrator in a less-than-appropriate way.”

  “Meaning?” Kleiman said without even a blink.

  “I believe the phrase was ‘that colored girl up front.’”

  Now Kleiman blinked, as if that wasn’t at all what she was expecting. “Excuse me? I don’t understand the problem.”

  “The problem is that she’d like you to refer to her by name, not by her skin color. She’s also not a girl; she’s older than I am. I realize that the phrase used to be appropriate years ago, but—”

  “I was trying to be polite!” Kleiman said, and, if anything, looked more rigid and cold. “If you’d like me to say what I really think, I think that…that woman is taking great advantage of you. She’s hardly qualified to run something as complex as a business like this.…”

  “Actually,” Bryn said, “I’m fairly certain I don’t want to know what you really think, and neither does Lucy. Lucy works for me, not you, and I’m the final judge of her performance in the job, as I am of yours, and it’s your job performance we’re discussing, not Lucy’s. So consider this a warning. If you use inappropriate terms toward any of my staff again, the next time we talk about this will be the last.”

  “This is ridiculous! What I said was not in any way offensive!”

  “In your opinion,” Bryn said. “And the point of something being offensive is that it was offensive to someone else. We’re done now. Thank you.”

  It was a clear dismissal, and Kleiman took it that way. She also slammed the door on the way out, which was damned difficult, since the doors were on hydraulics to make sure they didn’t make a lot of noise. Impressive. Bryn sighed and called Lucy’s desk phone. “Incoming,” she told her. “Kleiman’s on fire. Let me know if she comes after you.”

  “She comes for me, she’d better be wearing asbestos,” Lucy said. “Nope, she just passed me by and went to her office.”

  “If you have any problems…”

  “Come to you, yes, boss. Your four o’clock’s not here yet. I’ll ring you when he comes in.”

  “Thanks.”

  Bryn looked at the clock, stretched, and decided she was too restless to sit still for twenty minutes. She stood, put on her white lab coat from the closet, and took the back stairs down to the preparation area.

  William Nguyen looked up as she came through the frosted glass door and gave her a big, warm smile. “Hey,” he said. “Busy day, eh?” He nodded down at the body lying on the table in front of him.

  It was gruesomely damaged, but from the part of the face that hadn’t been mangled, the man was in his fifties, with short-cropped graying hair. There was another body on the second table
, covered with a clean white sheet.

  “Are these the accident victims?”

  “Yeah, it was a nasty one—rear-ended by a drunk driver at a stoplight, pushed their car into a dump truck. The drunk must have been going about a hundred; the car looked like it already went through the cube crusher. This is Mr. Lindell. I’m just doing gross examination right now. I’ll e-mail you the general outline of what it’ll take, but if the son wants open casket, this is going to be a pretty intricate job.”

  “Thanks,” Bryn said. “Just let me know as soon as you can. Hey, William…”

  “Yeah?” He didn’t look up from his close analysis of Mr. Lindell’s cheekbone. “Damn, this is all splintered in here. Gonna be tough to find good anchor material for the reconstruction.”

  “Have you had any problems with Gertrude Kleiman?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Except she won’t talk to me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Never says a word. Even when she comes down here, she hands me paperwork, or picks it up, and leaves. If I say hello, she just ignores me. I don’t know. I just figured she was shy.”

  “Huh,” Bryn said, which was about as neutral as she could make it. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “For what?” He still didn’t take his attention from the dead man in front of him, gently palpating torn tissues.

  “Just thanks.” For being cheerfully oblivious, she thought. But the idea that Kleiman was rude to him, too, made her burn. “See you later.”

  “Yeah, see ya.” He finger-waved her off, and she went back upstairs, wondering exactly what to do about Gertrude now.

  She didn’t have much time to think it over, because as soon as she’d hung her coat back on the rack in the closet, Lucy paged her to let her know her four o’clock had arrived. Bryn checked herself in the mirror—habit—and went out to greet him.