Blood of Eden

by Tami Dane

  “Too risky.”

  “And trying to sneak this sample into the university isn’t?”

  He pointed at the envelope. “This might be our only lead.”

  “Or it might be grounds for dismissal. Maybe even grounds for being arrested.”

  “All the more reason to make sure whoever you get to run the test is trustworthy.”

  “I don’t know if I like this.” I left his car, heading straight for mine. I stashed the envelope under the passenger seat of my car.

  As I straightened up, somebody said, “What do you have there, Skye?”

  The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

  —Oscar Wilde

  11

  I whirled around and forced a smile, hoping the person behind me couldn’t tell I was absolutely petrified. Considering JT worked for the FBI, profiling criminals—and therefore a pro at reading body language—I doubted I’d be successful pulling it off. “Heya, JT. I was ... looking for my ... cell phone. It fell off the seat when I was driving.”

  “Can I help you look?”

  “Oh, no.” I dove into the car, shoving my hand under the seat. My fingers hit the envelope. It crinkled. “Wow, there’s a lot of trash under here. This might take a few. I’m sure you have more important things to do. You don’t need to be wasting time out here with me.”

  “Well, the sooner you get inside, the better. You’re a valuable member of the team too.”

  If you asked me, that was a bald-faced lie, but I decided calling him on it wasn’t the best idea at the moment.

  “Thanks.” I grimaced as my fingers brushed against something sticky. It had been a long time since I’d cleaned out my car. There was no saying what that might be. “If I don’t find it in the next few seconds, I’ll head inside, anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  I shooed him off with the hand that wasn’t elbow deep under the front seat. He loped away. And even though he was beyond my line of sight within thirty seconds, I kept up the looking-for-my-phone act for a while longer, trying to decide where else I could hide the envelope. I’d be stupid to leave it where it was. Granted, I didn’t think JT was the kind who’d sneak out to my car and look to see what I’d lied to him about. But I couldn’t take the chance.

  I glanced around the parking lot.

  Where could I hide the envelope? Where?

  I popped the trunk but slammed it shut right away. That was too obvious. I considered stashing it in a wheel well, then popped the hood and shoved it into the first crevice I found that was big enough. I took a few minutes to calm myself down before heading back inside.

  Everyone was in the conference room, except for Brittany Hough. They all stared at me as I joined them. I slinked to the closest chair. JT was on my right; Gabe was on my left. They both shoved a blank piece of paper and a pen at me.

  I muttered, “Thanks.”

  “And so,” Chief Peyton said, continuing a conversation I had missed, “I’m afraid we will be forced to split the team. JT will be lead for the first case. Fischer will take the reins on the second. Skye, you’ll continue with JT. Wagner will go with Fischer. I’ll be supporting both teams.”

  A second case. I wondered what it involved.

  “The next team meeting will be tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred. Good luck.”

  Evidently, the PBAU worked a seven-day schedule, including Sundays.

  I turned to JT. “I guess you’re stuck with me.”

  He didn’t look too put out. “We make a good team.”

  Gabe and I exchanged a look as he followed Fischer out of the room.

  “So what’s on our agenda this afternoon?”

  “I need to bring you up to date, since you were out today. Then I say we’ll call it a night.”

  “That’s it? You’re sending me back home? With someone else on the verge of dying?”

  “Skye, I’m doing you a favor. You can’t let this job take over your life. You won’t last long if you do.”

  I glanced at the countdown clock. It still displayed all zeros. Chief Peyton hadn’t reset it. “But women are dying so quickly. I feel guilty—”

  “Don’t.” He shook his head. “There’s no reason to. If you push yourself too hard, you’ll either get burned-out or sick. The bottom line is, how many people do you think you’ll be able to help if you catch the flu or stop caring because you’re just too damn tired?”

  “I guess I see your point.”

  “The file’s on my desk. Let’s get you up to speed and then I want you to go home and get a good night’s sleep.” JT followed me to my desk, pointed at my phone, which I’d forgotten had been sitting in plain view when I’d gone out to the parking lot. Stupid, stupid, stupid. “Well, look at that.” JT raised his brows, motioning toward the phone.

  “I swear, I don’t remember bringing it in.” I shoved the dumb thing in the front pocket of my laptop case.

  “You didn’t sleep today, did you?”

  If the phone thing didn’t make me look sleep deprived, I supposed the enormous bags under my eyes did. “I slept. For an hour. I had a little problem to handle at home.”

  “I swear, if you come in tomorrow morning looking like you do today, I’ll turn in a recommendation to the chief to put you on sick leave immediately.”

  “That wouldn’t be very nice.”

  He gave me a squinty-eyed glare. “Don’t make me do it, Skye.”

  He used my last name. He must mean business.

  “Fine.” I was tempted to do something nasty behind his back when he turned and sauntered toward his desk. Of course, I didn’t. Instead, I plunked down in the chair he’d pulled up to his desk and waited for him to give me a rundown of what he’d been up to since we’d parted ways.

  “At this point, we don’t have much on this unsub. DNA analysis was inconclusive. The samples were all tainted with foreign DNA. About the lead I was following last night, turns out Debbie Richardson’s best friend was sleeping with Chapman for the last six months. They got married last night in Vegas.” JT handed me a thick file. “I haven’t had a chance to dig into the friend’s background yet. Been too busy. I’d have Hough do it, but she doesn’t work weekends. We spent most of the day collecting information about the latest victim. Name’s Patty Yates. She lives in the same subdivision as Debbie Richardson. Age, thirty-four. Married. No kids. A nurse. COD, complications of dengue hemorrhagic fever. Hasn’t traveled recently. We’re looking into the possibility that she was exposed to dengue at work, though the bite marks suggest she was infected the same way the other victims were. She showed no symptoms prior to collapsing.” JT paused for a moment. “So we’re up to four victims, most of them living within a one-mile radius of each other, all of them displaying the bite marks, and all of them dying from infectious diseases while showing no symptoms prior to death. Now go home.”

  “Okay.” I tucked the file under my arm and stood. “I guess I’ll do some reading tonight. That’s allowed, right?”

  JT caught my arm as I turned. “Skye ... Sloan ... I’m not trying to be a prick. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure.” I pulled my arm out of his grip.

  “I haven’t been with the Bureau long, and yet I’ve seen two good agents burn out and walk away from it all. Everyone suffers when that happens. The unit. The agent. The victims. You’ll make a damn good agent someday, and you’ll save lots of lives, but only if you learn to pace yourself.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. In one respect, what he said made a lot of sense.

  I thanked him, packed up my stuff, and headed out to my car. I popped the hood and fished out the envelope before climbing in. I didn’t notice the broken window until I sat. One piece of glass stuck me in the ass. I lifted my laptop case to find the majority of the remains of the passenger-side window lying in the front passenger seat. The rest of it was scattered on the floor, the center console, and, unfortunately for my ass, the driver’s seat.

  Someone had broken in
to my car. Who? And why? Had they been looking for the envelope? Or something else?

  I’d left the unit before JT had. He couldn’t have done this. But if not him, who had? I cleared my seat with a snow brush and sped out of the lot, watching my rearview mirror for a tail. I took a few turns, going out of my way to make sure nobody was following. After the fourth turn, I noticed the car.

  I knew that car.

  I pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot and waited for the tail to park next to me. I knocked on the window. “Mom, what are you doing?”

  Mom adjusted her very large, very dark sunglasses. If that was her idea of a disguise, she was in for a big surprise. If I made her, anyone could. For one thing, the copper penny hair was a little hard to ignore. “I’m following you.”

  “I see that.” I pointed at the sunglasses. “Nice disguise.”

  “It was the best I could come up with at the spur of the moment.” As if she read my mind, she added, “I didn’t think it would work.”

  She climbed out of the car. She was wearing sneakers, a black T-shirt, and jeans. I can’t remember the last time I saw my mother wearing jeans and a T-shirt, let alone tennis shoes. Of course, they all looked very familiar. Ironically enough, I owned a pair of black canvas shoes just like those. And my drawers were full of black cotton T-shirts. And ... now that I got a better look ... those jeans were familiar too. I hadn’t worn them in ages. Way too tight. Yet, I couldn’t make myself part with them. Wishful thinking, I guess. What bothered me more than anything—she looked good in that getup. Decades younger than she had earlier today.

  “Mom, did you happen to borrow those clothes from my closet?”

  Mom hurried toward the store’s entry. “It’s a good thing you stopped here. I’m in the mood for a Slurpee. Do you want one too?”

  I followed her into the store. “Mom.”

  She made a beeline for the Slurpee machine in the back, pulled a cup from the stack, and then started filling it. “Yes, Sloan. I did borrow the clothes. I don’t have any good PI clothes. I didn’t want to take the time to go shopping. It can take hours to find a pair of jeans that fit right, you know.” Wasn’t that the truth? “Plus, I’m a little short of cash until my next Social Security check comes. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No, I guess not.” I decided a Slurpee sounded good. Standing next to her, I began dispensing yellow banana–flavored frozen beverage into a paper cup. “So ... you’re a private investigator?”

  “Yes, I am. And I’m on my first case.”

  “You are?” I was confused. And slightly worried. “Who hired you?”

  “I can’t tell you that. I have to respect my client’s privacy.”

  “Okay. So, can you tell me what I have to do with your case?”

  “Sorry. No.” Mom snapped the domed lid on her cup and carried it to the cash register. At the counter, she motioned toward me. “My daughter’s taking care of this.”

  “Yes, madam,” the clerk said, punching buttons on the cash register. When I strolled up to the counter, he announced, “That’ll be two ninety-eight.”

  I stuffed my hand into my pocket, withdrew my cash, handed him three singles, and headed for the door. “Put the change in the ‘Feed the Hungry’ jar.”

  “Thank you,” the man mumbled, dropping the two pennies into the jar.

  I felt a little guilty and went back to the counter. I shoved a dollar into the jar and headed outside.

  Mom and I stood between our parked cars, sucking down ice-cold frozen drinks.

  “You can’t tell me who you’re working for, or what you’re investigating. What can you tell me?” I asked.

  Mom smacked her lips. “I can tell you ... this is very delicious.”

  Argh! “Mom, you know that’s not what I meant.” Slightly perturbed, I yanked open my car door.

  “Where are you heading now, Sloan?”

  “Home.” I slid into my seat, started the car, and rolled down the window. “Mom, were you watching my car in the FBI parking lot?”

  “No, of course not.” She strolled around the front of my vehicle. “What happened to your window?”

  “Someone broke it.”

  “Well, that’s not very nice. Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know. Unfortunately, I don’t have time ...” A lightbulb blinked in my brain. “Would you like to take on another case?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The one I have now is going to keep me pretty busy... .”

  “I’ll pay you.”

  “How much?”

  I didn’t have a lot of expendable cash at the moment, thanks to Mom’s antics. But I had to wonder if hiring her would keep her away from her so-called experiments, thereby saving me money in the long run. I didn’t believe for one minute that she’d been hired by anyone, yet. She was just telling me that, so she could follow me around and make sure I stayed safe ... and alive. “A hundred dollars.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Mom slurped. “My other client’s paying me a lot more. But I might do it for you at that price, as a favor. Since you are my daughter.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow.” She got into her car and smiled. “Ready to head home?”

  “Yep.” I pulled out of the store parking lot, with Mom tailing behind me. She followed me into my apartment’s parking lot, parked the car, and met me at my apartment door.

  “I thought, since I was here, anyway, I’d join you for dinner.”

  “Sure, come on in. Everything’s all cleaned up now.” I followed Mom into the apartment. It was dark, quiet. There was no scent of burned chemicals. No sound of clattering chemistry equipment. No Katie. The kitchen, I noticed, was spotless, just as I’d left it. No spilled liquids of unknown identity stained the counter. No powders collected where the counter met the wall. The kitchen hadn’t been used at all. I could actually cook in there, if I wanted. Not that I would. That was plain silly.

  I snatched the stack of take-out menus from the closest drawer—the one that most people kept cooking stuff in—and asked, “What’re you in the mood for tonight? Chinese? Thai? Italian?”

  “How about Mexican?”

  “We can do that.” I found the menu for the closest Mexican restaurant from the stack, scribbled down her order, and called it in. “It’ll be ready in twenty minutes. I’ll run out and pick it up in a few.” I headed for my room, anxious to change into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. I halted in my tracks, though, when I saw Katie standing just inside her bedroom, staring at the wall. She was so still—she looked like a mannequin. The light was off. She wasn’t moving. It was weird. “Hey, Katie. What’s up?” When she didn’t respond, I gave her shoulder a little shake.

  “Don’t touch me,” she snapped, her upper lip curled like a snarling dog’s.

  I jerked my hand away. “O-okay.” I half stumbled back out into the hall. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Katie didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She just stood there, staring at the wall.

  I headed to my room, changed my clothes. On my way back out to the living room, I checked on Katie. She hadn’t budged. “We’re getting Mexican for dinner. Do you want anything?”

  Katie didn’t answer.

  “Mom, there’s something wrong with Katie.” I checked the clock on the microwave. I needed to leave in a couple of minutes to get our food.

  “What’s wrong with her? Is she sick?” Mom looked concerned. Katie and I had been close for years. Her folks were both dead. Mom had basically adopted her before we’d finished our first year of college.

  “I don’t know. She’s staring at the wall, and I swear she snapped at me like Mrs. Heckel’s Chihuahua, Daisy, when I touched her. Her eyes look a little buggy too, like Daisy’s.”

  “She’s probably just stressed-out. School did that to you too.”

  “I don’t know.” I grabbed my license and debit card, slouched into a hoodie and stuffed the cards in my pock
et. “I’ve been living with Katie for years, and she’s been in school since I met her. She’s never acted like this.”

  “We all handle stress differently,” Mom said, following me out the door.

  Stress could cause some bizarre symptoms. And couple that with PMS, and the effects of whatever medication Katie might have taken for her migraine, and it was no wonder she was acting oddly. “I guess that’s possible. Are you going with me?” I asked.

  “No, I’m following you. I have a job to do, remember?”

  “Mom, I’m just going to the restaurant down the street to pick up our dinner.”

  “That’s okay.” She went to her car. I went to mine. She tailed me the half mile to the restaurant, parked a few spaces away from me, and waited as I walked in. Then she followed me as I drove home, parked in the lot, and followed me back into my apartment. It was silly. I wondered who in their right mind would pay someone to follow me 24-7.

  Nobody, that was who.

  “Mom, don’t you get a dinner break or anything? Do you clock out after six?”

  “Nope. This is an important client. An important job. If he, or she, wants me to follow you everywhere, then that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  “That’s fine and dandy, but the FBI might have a problem with you tailing me while I’m working.”

  “Not a problem.” Mom shrugged. She didn’t seem at all concerned. This made me even more curious who she thought her mystery employer was, and what he or she was looking for.

  I set us up with glasses of diet cola, napkins, plates, knives, and forks while Mom clicked through the science channels on television, looking for something to watch while we ate. She settled upon Mystery Diagnosis. Lately she’d become quite the television watcher. She’d done a complete one-eighty from a few years ago, when she’d vowed TV would lead to the ruin of our culture. Cell phones, social networking, and other portable gadgets had recently taken its place as the bane of her existence.

  Mom had the mystery illness solved before the first commercial break.