Chapter 38 Sydney
Sydney
Four Days Later
Anxiety crackles through my synapses as Gabriel, Dave, and I step off the elevator and head down the corridor toward the lab where I used to work. When we turn the corner, I stop short at the sight of the kitten mural on the wall.
Despite everything, it makes me smile a little. I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on it. I’d come to a screeching halt, my sneakers squeaking on the shiny black composite flooring.
Rob had been with me at the time and immediately cursed under his breath. “What the hell, Syd?”
I’d shaken my head and protested, “It wasn’t me.”
But I’d had to force myself not to laugh. I’d turned to look directly into the security camera, given it my best “Be so for real” face. Then I’d dialed Gabriel’s number.
It’s a good memory in a place I suspect may hold at least one pretty bad one.
Today, Gabriel is the one beside me. And he’s even more tense than I am.
“Not too late to turn around,” he mutters.
I shoot him a sidelong glance. He’s more than willing to go the illegal route by breaking into my co-worker’s homes and hacking into their computers and records to find out what we need to know if it spares me some suffering.
He’s a good guy, but he’s not always a “good” guy. I wouldn’t have him any other way.
“I need to do it. For me,” I say.
“Be careful. You’re not trained for this,” he grumbles.
“But you and Dave are, and you’re here.”
He scowls.
“I’ll be careful. I promise. I’ll maintain a reasonable distance.” I try to lighten the mood by bringing his attention to the art on the wall, adjusting my stance and standing with my hands behind my back, as though the mural is a masterpiece in the Louvre.
Combined with my long hair in a low ponytail, a knee-length black skirt suit, sensible black pumps, and white blouse, I could be an executive or a tour guide, which isn’t typical for me. I wanted my appearance to be disconcerting. Like I was there in some official capacity to make heads roll.
Most of the time, my workwear consisted of a pair of loose jeans and a fitted long-sleeved T-shirt worn under a lab coat or baggy cardigan.
Something about the clothing I wore to work has been niggling at me for weeks now, like a word on the tip of my tongue or a memory just out of reach. I can’t figure out why my clothes matter, but they do.
I wore the red dress the Saturday I disappeared. My calendar had “brunch” at eleven and the name of a restaurant I never showed up to and didn’t have reservations for. Meanwhile, Gabriel was on a flight back from Tokyo.
With the time zones nearly reversed, according to him, the two of us hadn’t had more than a single groggy conversation with each other in thirty-six hours.
I’d planned to meet him at the airport when he got home that night.
At least, I had it in my calendar and had made arrangements with my driver, so I looked like I expected to see him.
Dave moves to my right flank to protect me should anyone emerge from one of the three blue doors lining the hallway, but I highly doubt protection is necessary. No one who works here knew we were coming ahead of time.
“What do you think of your mural?” Gabriel asks.
“The ‘hang in there’ is a clever play on words, while the flora and fauna form a peaceful background to juxtapose the kitten’s wide eyes and desperate position.
Overall, I find this much-bigger-than-life-sized depiction of a fluffy gray Felis catus domestica to be a moving allegory for both vulnerability and perseverance,” I say in a tone generally reserved for art history professors and museum docents.
“Also”—I turn and wink at him—“it’s cute as the dickens. ”
His tension eases a fraction, and he grins. “God, I love it when you talk nerd.”
“Genus and species isn’t nerd. It’s tenth-grade biology.”
“You probably aren’t aware, but I’m very interested in studying anatomy. Namely, yours. One-on-one,” he says. “It’s a very specialized interest.”
“Surprisingly, I did know that. I consider you an expert in the field.”
After a moment, the humor eases from both of our faces. I wrap my arms around his waist, burrowing under his suit jacket, as the weight of what I’m about to attempt descends. What if I remember something that devastates us both? What if I remember nothing?
Hope and fear and even impatience leave me emotionally dizzy, unsure what I should be feeling.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmurs, one last time.
“I do. But if you need me to wait a little longer, we can. It hasn’t even been a week since you got out of the hospital.”
He gives a disbelieving laugh. “I’m solid as a rock. This isn’t about me.”
At my look of concern, he shrugs. “Yeah, I’m angry with your co-workers and the situation in general, and I’m worried about you. But if you think you’re ready to walk back into the lab, then I’m not disrespecting you by not backing you up.”
“I need to remember what happened here. Amelia roofied you.” I want to do more than remember. I want to make her pay.
“We don’t have proof it was her,” he reminds me.
The security video exonerated Frederick Granthy, who never got close enough to drug my drink. It did catch Amelia standing behind Gabriel, but his body blocked her actions from the camera.
He indicates the nearest door. “Lab first or break room?”
The break room would be a soft target. I could ease into things by checking out that space first, but I don’t think it has the answers I’m looking for. “Lab. Let’s see if this location and these people can knock some memories loose.”
My first thought when the door swings open with the swipe of my new keycard is that the place feels wrong. Watching intensely boring security footage from the past several weeks wasn’t enough to prepare me.
Everything built-in remains the same as it was when I worked here.
The counters and cabinets along the walls, the workstations, the bank of lockers, PPE and eyewash stations, a safety shower, and the glass-walled isolation chamber at the far back, are all where I’d expect to see them.
But virtually everything that wasn’t structural or nailed down has been rearranged.
The computers are along the opposite wall, a frankly stupid choice.
Even the white and blue box of plastic pipettes is in a different location.
“I know next to nothing about how you did your job, but I remember what this room looked like, and this isn’t it,” Gabriel says.
“You think Rob changed things as a way of giving me the middle finger?” I ask.
“The last time we spoke about the lab, Rob had convinced himself you were never coming back. I don’t think it was done for revenge. More to mark territory.” He sucks on his eyetooth in irritation. “I should’ve had him fired years ago, but especially after you started your medical leave.”
“I’m the one who hired him. It was my call.” None of this is Gabriel’s responsibility.
I stand just inside the doorway and survey the space, tension pulling me taut as a piano wire.
The smell in here tickles my senses. It’s unique.
Ionized air, stainless steel, plastic, the sweet undertone of resin, a hint of the sharp sting of isopropyl alcohol and acetone, a mild rubbery odor that feels oddly comforting to me.
The very human scent of someone’s stale coffee.
“Does that expression mean nothing rings a bell or are you remembering?” he asks quietly.
I turn in a semicircle. “Nothing new about that night or anything sinister leading up to it.”
“You should put your lab coat and safety goggles on. To get the whole sensory experience.” Gabriel wiggles his eyebrows and leers at me.
I smirk. “You just want to make a joke about role-play.”
“Putting on a nurse costume and offering a prostate exam with a blow job is role-play. Dressing in your own lab coat as a sexy scientist”—he indicates one of the recently installed security cameras—“is reality television.”
Standing near the doorway, Dave pretends he didn’t hear a thing.
I trail my fingers across the stainless-steel countertop. “It would’ve been more likely to trigger my memories if I’d worn one, considering the way this place doesn’t look the same. The more sensory details I can access, the better. I should’ve planned ahead better.”
“Plan any further ahead and you’ll be in a different time zone.” He glances at his watch and the notice that just came through. “Rob is back from lunch,” he says quietly.
Game on. Swallowing down my fear, I put myself in the zone, step over to my old locker, and jiggle the latch.
“Did someone change the lock?” I shout, making sure I sound good and pissed. To be fair, I am.
“They must have,” Gabriel says.
“I’ll get maintenance to take it off with bolt cutters,” I yell.
After I wrecked the lab, the investigators removed my lock. According to security, no one replaced it, since I hadn’t come back, and it held nothing of value in it, except my necklace, which Annabel returned to Gabriel.
“That one is mine now,” a male voice calls from the doorway.
No shit, Sherlock.
Gabriel and I both turn to face Rob Sennett as he enters. Behind wire-framed glasses, his blue eyes hold a wary intensity. I shift my expression to give the impression of surprised welcome. Gabriel’s scowl is a lot less approachable. Anything else would be unbelievable.
“Oh! Good afternoon,” I say with a smile.
He pushes his glasses up his nose. “Syd. No one mentioned you’d be here today.”
“Surprise.” I step closer to him but stop within about five feet, remembering Gabriel’s earlier warnings about not getting too close to people who are suspects in aiding and abetting a horrific crime.
There’s no telling what someone could do if they felt cornered.
None of them have weapons handy, but we’re in a lab.
It wouldn’t be hard to find something that would work in a pinch.
His gaze skips over me to my husband, then my bodyguard, and finally back to my face. “I didn’t know you were coming back to work.”
I’m not. At least, not yet. I may be intellectually capable, but I’m not there emotionally. Not physically either. But he doesn’t need to know that. “I had a little rest and relaxation, but I feel great now.” I slap my hands together, then rub them enthusiastically.
He shifts awkwardly and sets down his cup of coffee.
I make a sweeping gesture with my arm and plaster that cheerful smile on my face. “You made some changes, I see. What was that about?”
A touch of color works up Rob’s face, all the way to his receding hairline. “The changes were a more efficient use of resources.”
I lean forward, bleeding curiosity to mask the burn of fury. “Really? Most of them seem more like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant.”
Gabriel clears his throat. When I glance his way, his face scrunches the tiniest bit. “Easy, sunshine. Too soon,” his face says.
Rob visibly bristles, his mouth tightening and brows lowering.
I twist my lips to the side, then give him a toothy smile. “Just kidding.”
Rob shakes his head. “I’ve never understood your sense of humor.”
“Did you put my stuff in your old locker?” I turn back to the five storage units as though I’m about to find out.
“No.”
I circle back toward him, my head poking forward on my neck like a turtle and wearing that same pleasant smile on my face. “No? What did you do with my things?”
“We didn’t think you were coming back. There wasn’t much in there. Just an old water bottle and a lab coat that didn’t fit anyone else. Amelia threw them out,” he says stiffly.
In my mind’s eye, I can see the interior of my locker like it was yesterday.
I didn’t just keep my lucky hat on the top shelf.
I kept a pair of sneakers in there that I wore exclusively in the lab and a cardigan sweater to ward off the chill.
Amelia called it my reverse Mr. Rogers routine.
Instead of putting on my sneakers and cardigan after work, I put them on when I got here.
My locker shouldn’t have been empty.
“If you believed I wasn’t coming back, why wouldn’t you send my water bottle and lab coat to my home?”
“Amelia said you were moving to a nursing home, full-time,” he says.
My mouth falls open slightly at the audacity. I laugh and scrunch my nose. “Really? Weird.”
I watch him squirm and tilt my head to the side. “I took the locker with the sticky latch, farthest from the door, to leave the better ones for you guys. Why would you move to the worst locker here?
The nearly purple hue of Rob’s face and neck can’t be safe. Dude looks about to stroke out in front of us. “I liked being closer to the window. Amelia wanted my locker.”
“I wish you’d told me that before. I’d have happily traded.
It would have been a good motivation for me to have the latch replaced.
It was one of those things.” I lean forward and plant my elbow on the counter and my chin on my palm.
“Irritating, but I could never be bothered to do anything about it. Do you know what I mean?” Do you hear the threat, Rob?
Rob grunts an acknowledgment.
I splay my hand on the cool counter and inhale through my nose slowly, focusing on the sensory input. “Well, Rob, go ahead and walk me through these changes you’ve made. You can explain why they function better than the old way. You know I’m all about progress.”
“Oh my God, the new guy at the deli downstairs is so slow—”
Right on time, the woman who just walked through the door halts abruptly when she realizes Rob isn’t here alone. “Oh.”
Gabriel and I both turn to face Amelia Webster.