Racing Against the Clock

by Lori Wilde

  “You’re one cold fish, you know that?” he had said. “You have no passion. You make a man feel small.”

  She had known right then she could never be a great lover. She didn’t feel the things other people felt.

  Was she a cold fish? Did she make men feel small? What was the matter with her? Why was she so different from the other members of her sex?

  Except Tyler made her question those old assumptions about herself. Lying in his arms in that motel outside of Abilene had been an eye-opening experience. That’s what truly scared her. Knowing she had been wrong about herself all these years. That her mother had been wrong. That there might just be such thing as true and lasting love. Discovering the need inside her, learning she indeed possessed a passionate nature, shook Hannah to her very core.

  “You don’t have to know all the answers,” Tyler said softly. “There’s no pop quiz. No right or wrong response. You aren’t required to be head of the class.”

  They passed through Taos, the small town sleeping quietly in the snow. Tyler slowed the car. “Where to from here?”

  Hannah frowned into the darkness. She’d visited Marcus only once. “Take a left at the bakery on the corner.”

  The bakery was the only building on the whole street with the lights on. The rich smell of yeast permeated the air, adding a cozy warmth to the otherwise dreary night.

  Tyler turned onto the side road and drove past a hostel and a campground filled with motor homes. The farther they went, the narrower the road became until at last it was just a thin snake of pavement etching its way up the mountainside.

  “Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Tyler asked.

  Taos was behind them. They met no other vehicles, nor were there even any other houses along the roadside.

  “Yes. Keep going. I told you he’s a hermit.”

  After another ten miles the road ended abruptly in front of a six-foot-high padlocked iron gate. Tyler’s headlights reflected off a metal sign posted with the unfriendly advice—Keep Out! Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. This Means You!

  “This is it,” she said. “We walk from here.”

  “But we’re not dressed for hiking in the mountains. No parka, no hiking boots. You don’t even have any gloves.”

  “I know of no other way inside, unless you can pick locks,” Hannah said.

  “How far to his house?”

  “A mile.” She guessed. “Maybe less.”

  Tyler frowned. “You’ve just now recovered from healing Angie Henry. I hate to think of you traipsing through knee-high snow in the wind and the cold.”

  His concern was touching but she would not depend on him. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Let me go alone,” Tyler urged. “I’ll introduce myself to Marcus, explain what happened and have him bring me back down here to pick you up in a vehicle.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know the way.”

  “Dammit, Hannah, would you listen to my advice for once?” His nostrils flared in anger.

  “I’m not accustomed to being taken care of,” she said.

  “As long as you’re with me, get used to it.”

  “I’d rather go with you,” she stubbornly insisted.

  “You’ll be safer in the car.”

  “And lonelier,” she admitted.

  That must have gotten to him. “All right. You can come. But I’m wrapping you up in the blanket that’s in the back of the car. No discussion.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll need a flashlight.” Tyler leaned over Hannah to open the glove compartment. His shoulder brushed against her knees. Her pulse scrambled wildly at the contact.

  His profile was shadowy in the wan moonlight and his breath came in frosty white puffs. She had an almost irresistible urge to kiss him but managed to squelch it by telling herself that within a few minutes she and Marcus would be face-to-face.

  But even that couldn’t stop a hot flush of sexual excitement from racing through her body.

  He got out, went around to the trunk and retrieved the thick blanket. He helped her from the car and wrapped the blanket around her until she felt as cozy as a papoose.

  “What next?”

  “We climb the fence.”

  They scaled the fence and started up the long driveway to the house. Already, Hannah’s feet were soaked from snow, but she wouldn’t worry Tyler with her minor discomfort.

  He kept his arm draped around her shoulders as they walked in step together. It was the dead of winter in New Mexico, but with this exceptional man at her side, her blood flowed so hot it could have been August in the Amazon. In that odd moment, on a mountain in the Rockies, under a starry night, Hannah felt happy for the first time in a very long time. And Tyler was responsible.

  How had she managed to stumble through her life for so long without his fingers at her elbow, his strong presence enveloping her in a warm cocoon? Ah, if she could only hold on to this precious moment for all eternity.

  “You’re excited,” Tyler commented. “And walking fast.”

  Hannah grinned at him. She was optimistic, yes, now that she was in touching distance of her old partner, Marcus, but that wasn’t what lifted her spirits and revived her soul. Rather it was the sensation of Tyler’s hand moving to the small of her back, where it felt so strangely right, it gave wings to her heart.

  Tyler guided her around a fallen log. Snow crunched as it packed beneath their shoes. Up ahead a gabled roof rose from the darkness, sharp and imposing as the House of Usher. Two tall stone pillars stood sentinel, glaring down at them like nightmarish creatures from a murky lagoon.

  The gloomy structure dispelled her earlier pleasure.

  Until recently, Hannah would not have entertained such foolish notions about inanimate objects. As it was, she was seeing enemies hiding in every corner.

  “Hannah?”

  It wasn’t until Tyler spoke that she realized she had stopped walking and was hanging back, staring at Marcus’s house. A bitter, metallic taste flooded her mouth and an eerie premonition of impending danger lifted the hairs at the nape of her neck.

  They had arrived.

  Hannah was afraid to go in.

  “Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

  Tyler squeezed her waist. “It’s all right. I’m here.” He moved her toward the front porch, pushing her the way a fall breeze pushes autumn leaves from a tree.

  She stood at the door, huddled beneath the blanket. Forcefully, he stepped forward and banged on the door.

  They waited.

  And waited.

  No answer.

  Tyler knocked again. Hannah’s nerves stretched taut.

  The door swung open of its own accord, creaking on its hinges like a ghost-house portal.

  He strode forward.

  “No.” Hannah grabbed for his wrist. “Don’t go in.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Danger.”

  “You wait here. I’ll check it out.”

  “Please,” she whimpered, but he was already inside the house. Hannah brought a hand to her mouth, swallowing her fear.

  “Hello!” Tyler called, his voice echoing hollowly. “Anybody home? Marcus Halpren?”

  No answer.

  He must have found the light switch for the entry way was suddenly awash in illumination.

  “Geez-us,” he exclaimed.

  “What is it?” Hannah cried, rushing headlong inside, awful images of Marcus’ murdered body running through her mind. Blinded by the brightness, she charged straight into Tyler’s back.

  “Whoa.” He caught her, pulled her against him to keep her from falling.

  Blinking, Hannah steadied herself against his lean body and stared at the mayhem surrounding them.

  “Oh my,” she whispered.

  Marcus’ living room, which was not decorated like most living rooms with couches, chairs and television sets but rather resembled a miniature lab with sturdy tables, microscopes, computers, printers, Bun
sen burners and the like, had been completely demolished.

  Shattered glass lay embedded in the short Berber carpet. A large poster of the periodic table had been ripped in half. The smell of chlorine and sulfur filled the room. Purple solution used for gram staining was splashed across one wall, looking obscenely like splattered blood. The legs of a stool had been broken, as had a chalkboard covered with chemical symbols. The chalk itself was crushed to powder on the floor.

  “Marcus,” she whimpered and nausea filled her throat with harsh brackishness.

  Terrified for her friend, Hannah ignored her earlier cautiousness. She raced from the living room to the adjoining dining room, which also held experiments and laboratory accoutrements instead of a dining table. This area, too, had been ransacked.

  Tyler followed as she went from room to room, surveying disaster after disaster. The bathroom pillaged—towels in the bathtub, toilet paper unrolled across the floor, toothpaste squashed from its tube. The bedroom despoiled—feather pillows sliced open, clothes torn from the closet, the bureau mirror smashed. The kitchen plundered—food flung from the refrigerator onto the floor lay rotting. Dishes were broken, chairs overturned, the flour bin upended in the sink.

  Dizziness assailed her at the savagery of the damage.

  This destruction had been more than a mere search. It had been malicious and mean-spirited. Whoever had wrecked Marcus’s house had done it for fun.

  “The lab!” Hannah ran for the door leading from the kitchen into the basement. She flung it open, turned on the light and took the steps two at a time.

  Stunned, she stopped and turned in a slow circle. This was where Daycon’s men had done their worst. Hannah had no doubt Daycon was responsible for this. Everything had been annihilated. Marcus’s computers lay smashed, books and papers had been set afire in a trash can in the middle of the room. Microscopes were dismembered, scales broken, tubing severed. There were fresh scars on the heavy Formica tables. Numerous vials lay overturned, the contents spilling onto the cement floor. The odor of a dozen different chemicals metabolized into one odious, overpowering stench that made her nose burn and her eyes water. A lifetime worth of work had been senselessly ravaged.

  And all because of her.

  She was dazed. Numb. Dumbfounded.

  Hannah felt the same way she had at age six when she had fallen backward off a swing and knocked the air from her lungs. She had lain on the ground, twigs and dirt in her hair, staring dizzily up at the frothy white clouds floating against a background of blue sky. The memory came with startling clarity. Her mother, squatting beside her, a chiding expression on her angular face. “That’s what you get, Hannah, for playing instead of doing your homework. I told you not to go outside. Now get up.” Her mother had not held her, nor comforted her. She had stood and walked away, leaving Hannah alone.

  Gulping, she splayed a hand over her heart. Her breath hissed inward with a rattling wheeze. Hannah burst into tears.

  “Aw, honey. I’m so sorry.”

  She hadn’t even noticed that Tyler had come downstairs to join her. He pulled her to him and held her while she wept against his chest. After several minutes of serious sobbing, she raised her head, accepted the handkerchief he offered and blew her nose.

  “I’d hoped against hope that Daycon didn’t know about Marcus,” she said, sniffling.

  “You’ve been through so much.”

  “Look what I’ve brought down on my friend. If Daycon would do this to Marcus, I hate to think what he would do to you.” Her bottom lip trembled.

  “Don’t you worry about me.”

  “How can I not worry? You can see for yourself what they’re capable of.” She swept a hand at the room.

  “Why would they wreck the place? What were they looking for?”

  “Me? The formula? I don’t know. But I do know Marcus wouldn’t tell them anything. He hated Daycon. That’s why he quit.” She met his eyes. “Oh my God, Tyler. Where is Marcus?”

  Exhaustion claimed her. The pent-up adrenaline that had kept Hannah running from Austin to Galveston and on to Taos dissipated as reality dawned. She sank to her knees amid the chaos and anxiously twisted the tail of her shirt around an index finger.

  It was all over. Marcus was gone, his computers destroyed. For all she knew, Daycon’s men had found what they’d come searching for. Her e-mail. She could not come up with an antidote for Virusall alone, nor could she even replicate the drug. Not without the formula. She would not be healed, nor would she be able to heal those afflicted test subjects.

  She was going to die and there was nothing she could do to alter her fate. Even now her strength ebbed, her spirits spiraling downward into depression.

  The worst part of it was that she was going to die without helping anyone else in the process. Oh, she’d had so many dreams. In hindsight, they seemed silly and idealistic. Had she really believed she could eradicate all viruses and put an end to so much suffering? She had lived in her ivory tower, spinning her fantasies, completely unaware of the evil that existed in the hearts of men like Lionel Daycon.

  She was a ninny and the sad thing about it was she had dragged poor Tyler along on her fool’s quest. He had jeopardized his own career to assist her and she could reward him with absolutely nothing.

  Hannah had reached her goal only to discover it did not hold the key to her success. For the last several days she had clung to the hope that Marcus would be here, that he would help her recreate Virusall and manufacture an antidote, cure the test subjects and suspend her own death sentence. But that wasn’t going to happen. There would be no celestial reprieve.

  What now? She had no options left. She felt like a tightrope walker crossing the Grand Canyon on a string of dental floss.

  “Don’t despair,” Tyler said.

  They were so connected that he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. It unsettled her. She had never been this close to anyone and that knowledge alone set off warning bells in her head.

  He moved to embrace her in a hug, but she stepped back, breathing hard and fighting off the urge to fling herself into his comforting arms.

  “Hannah,” he whispered and patiently kept his hands extended. “Come here.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You’re bottom lip is trembling,” he gently pointed out.

  She clamped down on her lip with her top teeth.

  “Come.” He motioned to her with his fingers.

  Drawn by the force of his presence, she took a faltering step forward.

  “That’s it. You gotta trust someone, babe. Come on,” he cajoled again.

  And then she was in his arms clutching him around the waist as tightly as she could. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and softly kissed the top of her head.

  “It’s okay. We’re going to get through this,” he said. “Together.”

  How she wanted to believe his promise! But it was not within his power to grant such a wish. She shook her head, pulled back and stared up into his face. “Can’t.”

  “What’s that? You’re giving up?”

  “No use.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Hannah Zachary I’ve come to know,” he said.

  “Don’t you understand? It’s hopeless. Marcus has disappeared. His computers have been destroyed. I can’t retrieve the formula from his e-mail and I can’t create an antidote alone.”

  “You’re not alone. I’m here.”

  “Yes, but you don’t know anything about chemistry.”

  “I am a doctor.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I know you mean well but it’s not the same thing.” Her voice dropped in despair. “I’m doomed.”

  Tyler pulled back and leveled her a stern stare. “I never would have figured you for a quitter.”

  “And I never would have figured you for an ostrich.”

  “What’s that suppose to mean?”

  “Don’t you get it, Tyler?” She shook her head, then immediately stopped and placed her ha
nds at her temple to steady herself. She felt as dizzy as a drunk taking a spin on the Tilt-A-Whirl. “I’m dying.”

  “And don’t you realize that I’m going to fight for you, fight with you until the bitter end? It’s not over until it’s over, Hannah.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Man, are you ever a glutton for punishment.”

  “That may be.” He sank his hands on his hips. “But I’m here to stay. Now, are we going to sit here and feel sorry for ourselves or are we going to solve the problem?”

  A tentative hope flickered inside her. Maybe, with Tyler’s help, she could come up with some sort of antidote.

  “Well? What’s it going to be? Are we having a pity party or are we going to fight?”

  She smiled at him. A little wavery, a little uncertain, but still, a smile. “Fight.”

  Tyler took her palm, squeezed it, and then raised their joined hands in the air like a manager and his prize fighter.

  “Good choice,” he said. “Let’s start going through this mess and see if we can find any clues.”

  A few minutes later, Tyler cocked his head to one side. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” She looked up from her crouched position on the cement floor where she had been desperately searching through Marcus’s scattered research material, hoping against hope to find a printout of her e-mail.

  “Shh.” He raised a finger to his lips.

  His hair glistened like a raven’s wing in the light from the bare bulb overhead. Hannah’s heart caught in her chest at the sight. He was incredible. Strong, devoted, determined, loyal. She couldn’t look at him without this warm, mushy feeling squishing around in her stomach. Flustered at her thoughts, Hannah frowned in concentration and forced herself to listen.

  “Sounds like an engine.”

  “A car?” Hannah leapt to her feet, surprised by the mix of apprehension and anticipation rampaging through her. “Do you think it could be Marcus?”

  “No. Not a car,” Tyler said. “It’s a smaller engine. Like a motorcycle.”

  “Who would be riding a motorcycle way out here at three o’clock in the morning?”