Beast in the Tower

by Julie Miller

  “Hello, darling.”

  “You continued with the regeneration therapy. Even though you know it’s toxic to your system.”

  “Yes, one of these days we’ll have to talk about how you failed me.” She smiled. It was cold and fake and lacked the compassion he’d seen shining in dozens of Kit’s smiles.

  Damon felt nothing inside but guilt and regret. “I see you disabled the sprinkler system. Again.”

  “Not me, darling. I hired a brute who could do more than just bed me on the weekends.”

  “Kronemeyer?”

  “Bravo. You figured it out. Nearly two years after the fact. All brains and not a lick of sense when it comes to dealing with people. Just like always. It’s a wonder SinPharm has survived without me.” She motioned him out of the elevator with a sharp movement of the gun. “Now come inside. I need you to do something for me. And this time you’re going to get it right.”

  The gun barrel pressed to Damon’s skull hardly bothered him anymore. The flames creeping closer to the K26 experiment—Kit’s Formula now, no longer Miranda’s—did.

  “I’m telling you, that’s the code.”

  Miranda seemed incensed that the numbers could be that simple. “My birth date? In a rotating sequence?”

  She hadn’t figured it out. Her dead hacker hadn’t figured it out. But Damon hadn’t hesitated to tell her. He wanted her out of the growing fire, away from the melting walls and burning pockets of chemicals. He didn’t want any more deaths—even hers for a second time—on his conscience.

  He pulled up the regeneration formula on his computer screen and stood, defying the press of the gun. “There’s your damn formula. Unfiltered. No codes. Take it. Sell it for millions. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “I have this face because of some sentimental crap you came up with?”

  Her chest rose and fell in shallow, quick breaths. But the wheezing told him it was the fumes gathering in the air, not the stress, that was getting to her. He reached for her arm. “C’mon. The smoke’s starting to affect your breathing.”

  “Get your ugly hands off me!” She shook him off and jabbed the gun into his stomach to hold him at bay while she typed in an e-mail address. “Send it all to this mailbox.”

  “Fine.” She shifted the gun to his kidney as he bent over the keyboard and sent the equations. He swiped the sweat from his face as he stood. “Done. Now we leave. Your lungs are already damaged. We need to get out of here.”

  “Not we, darling. Me.” She stroked her long fingernails across his cheek. When Damon flinched at the repulsive imitation of a caress, she ground the gun into his waist, looped her hand behind his neck and forced his head down for a kiss. Damon spat her taste from his mouth as she laughed. “Now be a good boy and die.”

  She raised the gun to his empty eye.

  “Damon?”

  Son of a bitch.

  Kit’s hopeful voice reached deep into his heart and squeezed it in a fist when J. T. Kronemeyer dragged her into the lab at gunpoint. The bastard had his hands on her. The angle of his gun could pierce a lung or stop her valiant heart.

  But she was the one who apologized. “I’m sorry, Doc. I told him the elevator code. He was going to shoot Matt.”

  “You did the right thing, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

  “Sweetheart?” Miranda’s mocking laugh came out as little more than a wheeze. She pressed her palm to her temple as she turned around. “Dear Kit, you give me such a headache.” But she unleashed her anger at Kronemeyer. “I told you to get rid of her.”

  The black-haired brute fought right back. “Hey, you had two chances to kill her and screwed it up. At the hospital and at that café. So now we’re gonna try it my way. It’ll look like an accident if she dies in the fire.”

  “You two are way beyond making anything look like an accident.” Kit only fueled the tension.

  “Shut up!” The contractor jerked her arm, and Kit yelped.

  “Kronemeyer!” Damon’s warning was met with a gun in his face.

  But Miranda’s wrath was all for her lover. “I don’t pay you to think, J.T. I pay you to do. Exactly as I say.”

  “Maybe that’s why I haven’t seen any of my money yet. I intend to speed the process to get those millions you promised me.”

  With the fire behind him hot enough to singe the skin on his back, two guns, greed and maniacs surrounding him, Damon realized reasoning wouldn’t work to get them out of there. But bargaining might.

  “I found a tissue regeneration formula that works with your chromosomal makeup. It’s in the preliminary stages, but it works. I don’t know if it can repair the brain damage that’s been done, or affect the hormonal levels in your system—”

  “Brain damage? Hormones?”

  Damon didn’t back away from the gun or Miranda. “It can’t give you your personality or your heart back. It can’t make you give a damn about anyone besides yourself. But it could give you back your face. It could make you physically beautiful again if that’s what you want.”

  “What I want…is the money that I earned for you. For your company. What I want is what’s rightfully mine. Instead of giving away your fortune to hapless charities, pouring it into dying neighborhoods—thinking of nothing but research when we could have been rich—”

  “We were rich. We had each other. We had a future.”

  “Your future. Not mine. They were your millions, Damon. SinPharm’s millions. We were supposed to be equal partners. Where were my millions?”

  A section of the ceiling crashed to the floor behind him, and Damon jumped. Miranda retreated a step.

  Kit interrupted. “Could we have this discussion somewhere else?”

  “Miranda,” Kronemeyer prompted.

  But the wildness in Miranda’s eyes made Damon think that the fire scared her as much as it scared him. It was the first glimpse of humanity he’d seen in her. She seemed confused, lost, as the emotion crept in.

  Seeing her as a lost cause, Kronemeyer turned his attention back to Damon. “You’ve got a formula that works?”

  “Yes. Right here in the lab.” He nodded toward Kit. “Let her go and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Get it first, and then I’ll think about letting her go.”

  Damon glanced over his shoulder toward the exit leading up to the penthouse. There’d be no escape that direction. The smoke that had been gathering above the ceiling panels rolled in, eating up the oxygen in the room. The fire was cutting an unforgiving path straight for them. And he was about to lose his bargaining chip.

  “Fine.”

  “Be careful.” Kit’s words strengthened him, sharpened his senses and tore away any last concerns about what he had to do.

  He crouched beneath the smoke and crossed to the row of microscopes. The fire was already heating the metal table. Damon used the hem of his sweater as a hot pad to retrieve the K26 petri dish.

  “Here.” Miranda was coughing now, a shallow, wretched sound. Damon moved past her and extended his arm and the K26 to Kronemeyer. “Now let her go.”

  “I don’t think so, Doc.”

  In the split second it took Kronemeyer to tuck the plastic dish into his shirt pocket, Damon charged, twisting his body between Kit and the gun.

  “Damon!”

  Kit went flying and Damon and Kronemeyer crashed to the floor. This was the monster who’d taken a lead pipe to Helen’s skull. He damn well was going to duke it out with someone his own size this time.

  The two men rolled and punched. They hit a table leg, and dozens of beakers and vials shattered on the floor around them. Kronemeyer’s fist connected with Damon’s jaw. Damon knocked the gun from his hand. The contractor clawed at Damon’s eye and came away with nothing but eyepatch. Damon shoved the man off him and lunged at his throat.

  But there was no fighting left to be done. One of the glass shards had severed the artery in Kronemeyer’s neck. The man was bleeding out. Even if Damon wanted to, it was too late to save him. Kronemeyer�
��s terrified eyes glazed open and still.

  “Maybe you’ll clean up the mess you make next time.”

  Winded from the fight, and finding little oxygen in the air to revive his strength, Damon was slow to react to the ominous click of a bullet sliding into its firing chamber. He knew it wasn’t pointed at him. But he’d have given every penny in his bank account to have it that way as he slowly stood and turned to see Miranda, coughing blood into her handkerchief now, but keeping a steady enough hand to aim the bullet at Kit’s temple.

  He raised his hands in surrender.

  But she wasn’t interested in negotiating. “What’ll it be, Damon? A bullet through her brain like the sap I hired to steal your formulas in the first place? Or should I let her die by your hand?” She pocketed the handkerchief and pulled out a syringe. He had no doubt it was loaded with the deadly 428 serum.

  He looked hard at Kit, focused every ugly inch of his expression on her, willing her to understand that he would die before he’d allow that woman to hurt her any more.

  Those pale-gray eyes were just as intense. And that bravery frightened him more than the gun or the syringe.

  “That would be poetic justice, wouldn’t it?” Miranda was oblivious to the silent exchange. “A rich man, devoting all his time to saving lives. Your work will kill her, and I’ll have your money. Fitting, I think.”

  Damon shifted his attention to the shell of the woman he’d once loved. “Did I do this to you?”

  “Do not blame yourself for this wacko, Damon. Look how she’s hurt you, used you, betrayed you. All you did was try to help her. You nearly lost your life trying to save hers. I’ve seen you dead inside with grief for her.”

  Damon shook his head. “I don’t feel that grief anymore. My wife is long gone. The woman I once loved couldn’t have killed your parents or Old Henry. Or Helen. I don’t know this woman. But I swear to God, if she hurts you—I’ll kill her myself.”

  “Oh, save the soap opera.” Miranda raised the syringe.

  “Save yourself, bitch.” Kit rammed her fist under Miranda’s arm, knocking it over her head and sending the liquid death flying through the air.

  “Kit!”

  The syringe hit the floor and shattered. The serum caught fire. The toxic fumes it would release would be poison to both women.

  Damon lunged toward them. “Get out of here!”

  But Kit whirled around with a roundhouse punch and knocked Miranda back into the flames. Her screams were instant. Strident.

  And Kit’s momentum carried her into the flames right behind her.

  “Kit!” A wall of roiling smoke shot up between them, and Damon couldn’t see her, couldn’t reach her. “Kit!”

  “Damon!” That was Miranda’s voice, her wrenching cough. “Help me!”

  He hesitated a moment, staring his nightmare right in the face.

  “Damon!” Miranda was dying. “Help me!”

  Then he heard Kit’s voice. “Go! Go, Damon. Save yourself. You deserve to live!”

  “Damon!”

  “Take care of Matt for me. And Germane. Take care of yourself.” She was coughing now. “But go. Just go!”

  Damon Sinclair had plunged into the flames once before to save the woman he loved.

  He’d do it again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Kit?” Matt stuck his head through the kitchen door, and she looked up from the vat of coleslaw she was mixing. “You’d better come out here.”

  “What now?” She covered the slaw with plastic wrap, wiped her hands on a towel and followed her brother into the diner.

  Two weeks had passed since her release from the hospital for treatment of minor burns and smoke inhalation, and other than his late-night visits to the hospital to sit with her while she slept, Damon hadn’t made an appearance. He’d carried her from the fire, dragged Miranda out, too. He’d showered Kit with kisses, promised to make everything right, then had disappeared from her life.

  She’d heard from Easting Davitz that Damon was spending some time getting Miranda settled in a new psychiatric hospital. She’d be held there until her trial, though her lawyers planned to plead insanity. She’d be spending whatever was left of her life in a prison for the criminally insane. Ken Kenichi had gone back to Japan with his son’s body. The building and arson inspectors had certified that the first floor was safe for business and living. All but the lab itself—and the smoke-damaged penthouse above it—had passed inspection. So long as one didn’t mind taking the stairs. The elevators were off-limits until every inch of the shafts, cables and cars had been screened for Kronemeyer’s sabotage.

  The snow was melting. Business had picked up at the diner. And Matt had shown up for work every day, and come home every night like clockwork.

  Kit should be feeling better than this.

  Missing Damon made her moody. But she was a champion at coping, at sucking it up and diving into her work feeding the new construction crew that Easting Davitz had hired.

  Damon had saved her life, saved Matt, helped her and the police find answers to the mysteries surrounding the fires and thefts and murders at the Sinclair Tower—and he’d taught her how to love with her whole heart.

  She believed, deep down, that he loved her, too. But maybe it was asking too much for him to come down out of his lofty world and live in the reality that was hers.

  The reality of a busy diner and a missing brother. “Matt?”

  He popped up from a booth on the far side of the restaurant. “There’s someone here who wants to meet you.”

  Curious.

  But when Matt stepped aside, Kit’s perplexed frown turned into a smile. “Helen.”

  Kit hurried across the diner as Matt helped the petite, white-haired woman to her feet. A stylish red hat covered the stitches on her head, and her small, fragile fingers reached out to greet Kit with the strength of a healthy woman. “Kit, dear.”

  “It’s so good to see you. How are you feeling?” She wrapped the older woman up in a gentle hug, then sat down across the table from her.

  Helen pushed her tea aside to reach for Kit’s hand. “I’m fine, dear. I’ve been talking to that brother of yours. He needs to comb his hair, but he’s quite charming. I asked him to send me his address when he goes to school in the fall.”

  “Oh?” Helen was adopting Matt? Matt was adopting her? This neighborhood truly was becoming the family Kit had envisioned it could be.

  “Germane may know how to barbecue, but I bet I can bake a better cookie.”

  “Oatmeal chocolate-chip?”

  “If that’s what he wants. Damon always loved when I sent him care packages. I’d like to think my cooking was one of the things that made him so smart.”

  Kit adored this woman. “He loves you, period.”

  “I know. But let’s talk about you, dear. You had some questions for me?”

  “I did?”

  “In the hospital. And I do hope we can continue reading those books. Maybe we could meet for tea and discuss them.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Helen smiled, then crooked a finger and asked Kit to lean in. The older woman whispered, “He has one on his behind.”

  He? One what?

  “You’ll have to see it in the light. It’s a hydrogen molecule—one proton, one electron. Evenly balanced and always together.” Oh, my God. Was this woman talking about a tattoo? “He did go through a rebellious phase. Nothing got pierced, though. I think it fits you two better than he ever imagined.” Helen patted Kit’s hand, her pale blue eyes deeply sincere. “And if you’ll be patient with my boy, I think you’ll find that he loves you very much.”

  “He does.” The gruff voice caressed her ears from the booth behind her. “I do.”

  Kit’s heart hammered in her chest as she slid from the booth and stood to meet him. “Damon.”

  He was here. In public. In daylight.

  Towering over her in the same black sweater and jeans. Same eyepatch. Same broad shoulders and r
ugged face.

  Different expression shining from his eye.

  “I hear you’ve got good barbecue here.”

  Kit would have thrown herself into his arms and kissed him right there on the spot, but she suspected there were enough curious glances aimed their way. And he’d already taken a risk by coming here during the noontime rush. She’d give him his space so he wouldn’t disappear into a shadow somewhere.

  “The best in K.C.”

  “I’ve got a bet with Germane that I can figure out the ingredients in his sauce. It’s strictly a matter of reducing it down to its chemical components.”

  Kit couldn’t contain her smile. “Good luck with that one.” Or her tears. “Why are you here?”

  “Ah, don’t do that, sweetheart.” He reached out and caught a teardrop with the tip of his finger and brushed it from her cheek. “That’s almost tougher than watching you lie in the hospital, fighting for your life.”

  “I’m tough.”

  Now he smiled. “Don’t I know it.”

  “Can I get you something to eat?”

  He gestured to the table where he’d been sitting. “Well, I wouldn’t mind coming down from the penthouse to share lunch with a good neighbor. If that’s what you want.” Kit held her breath. She wanted that, yes, but so much more. “But I think there are some discussions that are still best done in private.”

  Kit thumbed over her shoulder. “The kitchen’s empty right now.”

  “The kitchen it is.”

  “I’m proud of you for coming out to the diner like a regular—”

  As soon as the door shut behind them, Damon turned her into his arms and kissed her. Kit looped her arms around his neck and held on, hungry for his touch, aching for his heat.

  Several minutes passed before they came up for air. Kit was sitting on the kitchen counter. Damon stood between her legs, his hands on her hips, their foreheads touching as they breathed deeply to regain their composure.

  “I love you, Katherine Snow.” The gruff confession skittered along every nerve and suffused her with warmth.

  “I love you, Dr. Sinclair.”

  The scrunchie that had held her ponytail in place had vanished and he was stroking his fingers through her hair. “You’ve healed me more than any doctor or formula I can devise could. You forced me to live. To be part of the world again. To be human.”