Infected (2 page)

It was bad enough to have a security detail at your loved one’s funeral; knowing it was going to be broadcast around the country was downright depressing. Carina checked her watch: still ten minutes to go. She pressed her hand to her
forehead. She’d been feeling light-headed and feverish all morning but had chalked it up to the stress of the funeral and the delayed sense of loss and grief. But now her pulse was racing and a strange, jittery sensation had taken over her nervous system.

Maybe if she went to the restroom, splashed cold water on her face, she’d feel better. She scanned the people gathered at the front of the crowd and spotted Sheila standing with the minister and the mayor. When they had arrived for the memorial, Sheila told her at least twice to let her know if she needed anything, and not to go anywhere without telling her, but Carina couldn’t catch her eye. She sighed—she was seventeen years old, not five, and perfectly capable of going to the bathroom by herself.

Still, when she got up and started to make her way down the row, Meacham hastened toward her, looking worried.

“Miss Monroe, is something wrong?” he asked, taking her arm so that they blocked the aisle. His grip was light, but Carina bet he could break bricks with that hand. She stared into his sunglasses, seeing only her own face reflected back, and tried a smile on him. Unlike Baxter, Meacham didn’t fall for her smile; his expression—or lack of an expression—didn’t change.

“Oh, hey, Meacham. I was just on my way to the ladies’ room.” She stared into his sunglasses, challenging him to look away.

“I’ll be happy to accompany you.”

“I’m not sure that’s allowed,” Carina said, her temper beginning to fray. “They usually don’t let men in there.”

This was getting ridiculous. At every event sponsored
by the Calaveras National Lab—even company picnics—you could spot men like Baxter and Meacham. The lab was surrounded by high-security electric fencing, even though it was disguised to look like iron scrollwork at both entrances, and there were two separate guard booths that you had to pass to gain admission. Carina had made a joke once that the second guy was there in case you shot the first guy, and Walter had looked startled and failed to laugh along with her.

Ordinarily, the security staff took pains to stay in the background, but today there were at least two dozen of them, and Carina had seen several of their vehicles—dark-windowed SUVs with the lab’s parking sticker on the back window—parked close to the event.

Meacham didn’t respond to her attempt at a joke, so Carina gave up and started down the aisle to the main building, threading her way through the guests while he trailed after her. She scanned the crowd for Baxter and found him at the other end of the row, his hands behind his back. He glanced over at her with a hint of a smile, and she gave him a covert little wave.

When they got to the restroom, Carina put her hand on the door and turned to face Meacham. “Seriously, Meacham, I think I can take it from here.”

“I’ll be right outside.” He took off his sunglasses, revealing cool gray eyes, and leaned against the wall, focusing on the people walking up and down the corridor. He glared suspiciously at a man pushing a cart stacked with coffee cups.

“Hey, Meacham …” Carina paused in the doorway, her
curiosity winning out. “Why are you following me around? No offense, but I can’t believe there’s much of a security risk. I mean, my uncle wasn’t exactly a celebrity or anything.”

Walter might have been high up in the lab’s hierarchy, but at heart he was a geek, a guy with not one but two PhDs, from MIT and UCLA, who had trouble making conversation at parties but could talk for hours about DNA-binding proteins. He was usually dressed sloppily and had to be reminded to get haircuts, and he misplaced his car keys almost every day. He’d done pioneering work with viral genomes and lectured all over the world, but he couldn’t name a single celebrity or popular television show. The lab had hired a coach to help him with his media appearances, but the man Carina would always remember had an awkward smile and wore wrinkled shirts, the kind of guy who could disappear in a crowd or even a packed elevator.

Meacham squinted at her, his mouth turning down in a faint frown. “His work was highly classified.”

Carina rolled her eyes. Of course people paid attention to her uncle’s project because of the jobs it would bring to the community, but she doubted that anyone cared very much about modifications to the diet of armed services members.

In the bathroom, two women were touching up their makeup at the sink. Carina thought she recognized one of them from some social function, and when she saw the woman’s look of sympathy reflected in the mirror, she bolted into an empty stall rather than have to deal with making small talk. She’d had plenty of that already today, accepting the condolences of everyone who’d approached
her at the graveside service. She’d have to grit her teeth and get through more socializing after the memorial, but at least Tanner and Nikki and Emma were out there somewhere, and they would be at her side the minute the official part of the program was over and they were allowed to mingle. Once she was with her friends, everything would be easier.

When Carina emerged from the stall, the bathroom was empty. She washed her hands and dabbed her face with a dampened paper towel. The feverish sensation hadn’t faded; she didn’t really feel ill, just sort of … hypersensitive. Her pulse was still racing, her nerves buzzed with electricity, and everything seemed magnified. Sounds were louder, colors brighter; she could make out the conversations of people many yards away.

She stood for a moment looking in the mirror, not yet ready to go back outside and deal with Meacham. She thought she looked okay, especially considering she’d cried most of the night, once she was alone in Sheila’s guest room with the door locked. She’d expected her eyes to be puffy this morning, but they weren’t—the facial she’d had yesterday must have worked wonders on her skin.

Sheila wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy person herself, and Carina figured it was easier for her to book four hours of hair and beauty treatments at the most luxurious spa in town than to actually ask her about her feelings—but she appreciated the gesture. Besides, it was better than sitting around a strange apartment thinking about Walter and the life they’d shared, the life that had shattered overnight when his rental car hit an embankment on his way from the Houston airport to give a talk at Rice University.

Carina’s long chestnut hair had been trimmed and accented with highlights. Her brows were shaped, and she’d had a steam facial and exfoliation, as well as a pedicure and gel manicure.

Before the salon visit, they’d gone to a boutique downtown, the kind where the clothes have no price tags and they offer you herbal tea or champagne while you shop. The saleslady had studied Carina and then brought her things to try on without ever asking her size. Carina had chosen a dress that she’d never have picked on her own but had to admit looked good on her: a deep shade of navy blue, close fitting but not tight, with a wide neckline that showed her collarbones and a skirt that flared out to swirl above her knees.

When the saleslady rang up the dress—and high-heeled navy sandals to go with it—Carina was shocked by the cost. But before she could protest, Sheila laid a hand on her arm and handed over her credit card.

“For Walter,” she said. “Let’s send him off in style.”

Now Carina turned to check the back of her dress in the mirror, appreciating the smooth fabric, the way it draped over her hips. It was probably wrong to be thinking of Tanner at a time like this, but she was looking forward to him seeing her in the dress. Especially after last night.

Coloring at the memory, Carina took off the ring she had removed to wash her hands. It was the only jewelry she wore, a gift from her mother on her seventeenth birthday, a couple of months before she died. Carina didn’t often wear it because it was bulky and tended to spin on her finger, but the large green stone looked perfect with the navy dress.
Green had been her mother’s favorite color, and the jade was veined with several shades from pale celery to deep pine.

There was a knock at the door. “Miss Monroe? Everything okay?”

Meacham. Of course. Carina sighed before answering. “Just dealing with a feminine issue,” she said maliciously. Maybe that would embarrass him enough to make him go away.

“I’ll be right here,” he said after only a brief hesitation. Okay, so maybe they covered that at secret agent school.

Carina picked up her ring and examined the stone, which was carved into a hexagon and polished to a bright shine. One of the prongs looked a little crooked, and Carina tested it with her fingernail.

It seemed to give, and Carina’s heart sank. That was all she needed today, to lose the stone from the ring, but she had brought only a small handbag without a secure closure and she didn’t want to risk storing the ring in the bag. Trying to decide whether it was safe to wear the ring, she slipped the tip of her polished fingernail under the prong, looking for damage along the small, sharp bit of white gold that held the stone in place.

As she brought it up close to her eye, she noticed that the prong wasn’t like the others—it was hinged at the bottom, a minuscule clasp lifting away as she tugged at the tip. She caught her breath when it snapped backward and the stone popped out.

It didn’t fall all the way out. Carina gingerly tapped the
stone. Solid: something was keeping it in place. Holding the ring under the fluorescent light, Carina looked underneath at the flat surface of the setting.

It wasn’t entirely flat. Etched into the gold were characters of some sort … numbers. They were so tiny that Carina could barely make them out, but as she squinted, they came into focus. Two rows of numerals, with a few letters mixed in. There were fifteen or twenty characters in all.

“Miss Monroe? I’m going to need to come check on you if you don’t come out now.” Meacham sounded annoyed. Carina hastily pushed the stone back down, and it snapped into place. She slid it onto her finger just as the door to the ladies’ room opened and Meacham stood in the entrance, glaring at her with suspicion.

“So sorry to keep you waiting,” Carina said, forcing a smile. “Little wardrobe malfunction. But don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control.”

Pushing past Meacham before he could respond, she hurried back toward the crowd, which seemed to have doubled since she’d been gone. She waved at her friends, but they didn’t see her. She scanned the people filling the seats and standing along the aisles and in the back, searching for Tanner, but there were easily a few hundred people assembled and she didn’t see him anywhere. Baxter was hovering at the other end of her row, looking anxious.

She allowed Meacham to help her to her seat, giving him her best innocent look, eyes downcast. While she waited for the service to begin, she took a plain white envelope out of her purse for the third time since leaving the house, running
her fingers over the smooth surface, tracing the letters of her name. She couldn’t bear to read its contents yet, not here, not alone. She returned it to her purse and picked up the program from where she’d left it under her seat, and stared at her uncle’s photograph. He was looking directly at the camera and laughing, wearing a suit and tie—a photograph that did not reflect the shy man she’d known and loved.

Carina concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even. All around, the buzz of murmured conversations failed to cover up the fact that this was one of the loneliest days of her life.

Carina heard very little of the eloquent speeches during the service. The director of the laboratory spoke, as did several of the people Walter had worked closely with over the years. He hadn’t had many friends—work was his life. Sheila spoke, and Carina tried to focus on her words, but her mind kept going back to the last few occasions she and Walter had really spent time together. He’d been especially distracted in recent months, staying late at work nearly every night, his thoughts a million miles away when he was at home. Carina was focused on other things too. There was her relationship with Tanner, her friends from school, and a part-time job at the mall over the holiday break. Once track season had begun, she’d had practice every night.

As the months passed, Walter worked longer and longer
hours, and they barely saw each other. Carina had noticed that something was different—okay, something was
wrong
. There, she admitted it, though doing so caused tears to well in her eyes. Something had been wrong with Walter, but he—like her mother—was not the sort to talk about his feelings, and Carina had been too preoccupied, too selfish, to ask him what it was.

Memories started surfacing, like the time he’d come home after two in the morning, and Carina happened to be in the kitchen getting a glass of water. He looked so exhausted and anxious as he set down his briefcase that Carina had finally asked him if he was feeling all right, and he’d produced a weak smile for her and said that it was nothing. So she’d let it drop, never mentioned it again.

Carina struggled not to cry, squeezing her elbows against her sides and curling her toes inside the expensive shoes, ignoring Sheila when she stepped away from the platform and walked down the aisle to their seats. She pretended to pay attention during the rest of the service, standing when everyone else stood, bowing her head when the pastor gave the final blessing. At last it was over, and people began to gather their things and make their way over to the refreshments.