Chapter 15 Darla
Darla
Icrept up the hallways, using a through-the-wall sensor to look for heat signatures indicating that someone was inside the lab.
It looked clear, but these walls were thicker than we’d anticipated, so we could have missed someone at the back of the space.
If that happened, we’d just have to deal with it.
Automatically I touched the butt of my gun in my holster, reassuring myself it was there.
“Ready?” Wanda’s voice was soft in my earpiece.
“Roger.”
Down the hall around the corner I heard the squeak of wheels. It was Yuri’s mop bucket, a sign that he was in place and ready to keep an eye out for visitors.
Wanda removed a small device from her pocket, pressing some buttons and holding it front of the keycard scanner.
A few seconds later the lock clicked and we carefully stepped inside.
Our eyes moved across the space, looking for evidence of motion detectors.
Finding none, we stepped farther inside, turning on the small penlights we carried so we didn’t have to risk turning on any lights.
It was like a meat locker in here, super cold, and I wondered if they turned down the heat at night or something. The smell of antiseptic cleaner was overpowering.
The lab was a large, mostly open space, with tables of equipment running through the center, and several shelves and supply cabinets. A row of workstations ran along one wall, with the treatment rooms on the opposite site. A large private office and file room were at the back of the space.
Wanda headed for the workstations while I crept towards the windows on the north side, knowing those were the rooms where Kathryn had found her murdered friend.
The first two rooms appeared to be empty.
I swept through them quickly, looking for anything helpful but they looked like typical medical exam rooms, with only an examination table and cabinets full of basic medical supplies.
I hit pay dirt in the third room. A body lay strapped to the table, frozen halfway into a shift.
He was male. Just like Kathryn’s friend Seth, his arms and legs had shifted while his torso and head still looked human-shaped.
The male’s face was a mask of pain, visible despite the layer of fur that had sprouted over his cheeks and jaw.
His fingers were curled into claws like he was trying to get away.
Pulling on a pair of latex gloves and a mask, I did a quick exam.
The man looked to have been dead for several hours or more, his entire body stiff.
Quickly I took several pictures, documenting the condition of the body.
I was tempted to see if I could get a blood sample to see what chemicals they’d injected him with, but I didn’t want to risk opening cabinets or releasing any potential biotoxins that were in the man’s blood.
Looking down, I noticed a vial of Epinephrine on the table along with an empty syringe.
Clearly the man had been in cardiac distress.
It could be that whatever they gave the test subjects to make them shift was too taxing on their hearts, causing them to have heart attacks.
I wondered if the man had children he was leaving behind and felt a stab of sadness as I remembered Kathryn telling me that most people who signed up for these experimental drug trials did it either because they were really sick or they needed money.
Drawing a deep breath, I looked around for any other evidence of how they’d treated the man, or any clue as to who he was.
Finding none, I checked out the other two rooms, but they were empty and looked untouched.
I made my way back to Wanda. She’d picked the lock of Dr. Xi’s office.
The doctor’s laptop was gone, so Wanda was attaching a small tracker to the cords at the back of the docking station.
“How’s it going?” I asked quietly.
“Almost done.”
I pulled out a couple of the small listening devices we’d brought and stuck one under Dr. Xi’s desk, then re-entered the main lab and installed two more, one on either side of the room.
It was a risk, but we were betting that they weren’t sweeping for bugs here, at least not regularly.
They weren’t super powerful, but the mics would definitely pick up any conversation in the general vicinity.
“You’ve got visitors,” Lois’s voice came through the earpiece. “They’re exiting the North elevators.”
Why would someone be coming to the lab on a Sunday night? Had we triggered some alarm we hadn’t been aware of?
“We’ll take the south door,” I said as Wanda exited Dr. Xi’s office and gave me the ‘ready’ signal.
Running as silently as we could, we headed for the back door, the same way Kathryn had done the night she discovered her friend Seth here in the lab.
Closing the door quietly behind us, we slipped out the emergency exit.
We’d disabled the alarm earlier just in case we needed this as an escape path.
Wanda and I flew down the stairs as we listened to what was happening on the comms.
“You! What are you doing in this hallway?” Dr. Xi’s imperious voice carried through my earpiece as she encountered Yuri.
“I clean floor,” Yuri said, making his accent thicker than normal. “Boss say make clean.”
“The floor’s all wet. You’ve got water everywhere, what the fuck?” This voice wasn’t one I recognized. It was male. I hoped that Yuri could get his picture with the tiny camera we’d attached to his hospital ID badge.
“Must make wet for cleaning,” Yuri said slowly, as if he was searching for the words in English.
There was a crash, then I heard swearing in both Mandarin and English as Yuri apparently tipped over the mop bucket.
“Clumsy bear!” Xi yelled. “You’ve ruined my shoes with that filthy water. These are Louboutin!”
“Very sorry lady,” Yuri mumbled. “Please don’t get me fired.”
“Just clean this up, you imbecile,” the man yelled. “Fucking Russians, you can’t do anything right.”
“Not Russian,” Yuri shot back, a touch of temper in his voice. If there was anything the brothers hated, it was being mistaken for Russians. He mumbled something under his breath that I was pretty sure was Belarusian for ‘asshole’.
“Just clean up all this water and get off my floor!” Xi said angrily, her voice farther down the hallway now. “I’d better not see you down here again.”
“Yes ma’am.”
When we got back down to the conference room, Lois and Martha were packed and ready to go.
We would debrief at the office where we had more privacy.
The four of us took to the emergency stairs, separating in the parking garage and pulling out in two cars with our lights off.
As I drove past the stairs, Yuri popped out, diving into the backseat of the SUV before I’d even come to a complete stop.
I turned my lights on as I exited onto the street, heading for the office. None of us spoke. We’d have to debrief with Lois anyway so there was no point in repeating ourselves. When we got to the office, Wanda took a detour to get her laptop, tapping away while Yuri and I did our report outs.
“I won’t be able to tell if we’re in their systems until someone does something on a computer,” Wanda reported. “But the mics are transmitting.”
She turned up the volume on her laptop, and we heard the faint sound of voices, though we couldn’t make any of it out.
“We need them to be closer to the mic for us to hear anything,” she said. “I’m guessing they’re in one of the exam rooms.”
“Probably trying to figure out how to dispose of another body,” I said.
“Who is the dead guy?” Lois asked, studying the pictures I’d taken. “Did he have an ID on him?”
“Not that I saw, but I didn’t look in his pockets or anything,” I said. “Maybe Kathryn knows who he is though.”
“Yes, show the picture to your mate,” Lois directed, “and if she doesn’t recognize him, we’ll do facial recognition.”
“I will.”
By the time I was on my way back to the safe house, exhaustion was setting in fast. It always happened this way – once the danger of a mission was past, the adrenaline dumped and the desire to sleep came on its heels.
Fortunately after working five twelve-hour days in a row, we had a three day weekend, so both Kathryn and I were off work tomorrow.
Kathryn and my coworkers were gathered around the kitchen table when I got back, the three of them engaged in what looked like a very competitive game of rummy. They all dropped their cards when I came in through the garage.
“Well?” Bella asked.
My mate stood up and placed her hand on Bella’s arm. “Let her sit down first, she looks exhausted. I’ll get you a drink and a snack.”
Kathryn bustled around, making me a thick sandwich and bringing it back with a bottle of water.
“Do you need a shot of blood?” she asked.
I looked at her in surprise. “You’d bring me blood?”
She shrugged. “What’s the difference? Blood, milk, a protein drink… it’s all nourishment, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said around the lump in my throat. “That would be great, thanks.”
It had been a long time since anyone tried to take care of me. My sister read my thoughts, leaning close and murmuring, “You’d better mark her soon and lock this down.”
Kathryn slid the sandwich in front of me, returning a second later with some blood. I drank it down in one gulp, sighing as I felt the nutrients flow through my body. When I looked up, my mate was staring at my mouth.
“What?”
“Sorry, I’ve just never seen your fangs descend all the way before,” she replied. “It’s fascinating. Does it hurt when they do that?”
I shook my head as I took a bite of my sandwich. “No, they kind of tingle though.”
“What does it feel like when you drink the blood? Can you feel it working?”
I thought about it for a second. “It’s kind of like blowing up a balloon, like everything gets a form.”
At her confused look I added, “Well, it’s more like I can feel a jolt of energy that starts in my belly and radiates out to all my limbs. Like a shock or something, but a good shock.”
“Hm. I really want to study more about supernatural physiology,” she said. “Maybe we can go to the medical school library tomorrow.”
“No.”
Kathryn’s head snapped up at my harsh tone. “Excuse me?”
“Uh oh,” Bella muttered.
I took another bite of my sandwich before answering. “We need to stay here at the safe house. It’s not safe to go out.”
“The library is probably safer than Chipotle,” she shot back.
I ignored my sister’s curious look. Across the table, Cassie was smirking at me. I should have known that Chipotle stop was going to come back and haunt me. I’d been so dazzled by my trip to Target that I wasn’t thinking clearly. And then I had that delicious burrito bowl…
“Can’t you do your research online?” I asked.
“No, I need the physical textbooks. Most of the older books aren’t digitized and the U-Dub library is one of the best in the country.”
“We are not going to the medical school library, or any other library or public place, not until we figure out what’s going on with Xi,” I said firmly. “That’s final.”