Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) (27 page)

David took a moment to wash the blood from Nico’s sad mess of hair; they’d have to get in here and cut it when it was safe to have scissors around him. It wasn’t ugly on him; quite the opposite, in fact. But it needed evening out, preferably by professional hands. By the time it was all shaped into something normal-looking it would be perhaps two inches long. David imagined that they had cut it off both for convenience and so they could shave it and access the Elf’s skull, but it didn’t look like they’d gotten any farther than the first step.

Work done, David took a pretty significant risk and leaned over to kiss Nico on the lips. “Rest, my lost one,” he whispered to the Elf, touching his face very lightly. “You’re home now, and we’re here for you. Rest and come back to us.”

Then he rose, tucking the blanket around Nico’s inert form, and left the cell, dimming the lights and locking the door securely behind him.

Part Two
The Wind-Swept Cliff

Chapter Eleven

SINGER MIRANDA GREY SUSPECT IN AUSTIN HOMICIDE

GREY’S ATTY: ALLEGATIONS ARE “LUDICROUS”

GRAND JURY HEARING SET FOR NOVEMBER 14

FANS: WE’RE STICKING BY MIRANDA GREY

GREY’S HUSBAND TO REPORTERS OUTSIDE COURTROOM:

“STEP BACK OR EAT YOUR OWN PANCREAS”

David had to admit the last one was fantastic.

The casual, noisy ebb and flow of humanity in the coffee house was a bit distracting, but it was also far more comforting than being home these days. He’d claimed he wanted to do this in a location completely unconnected to anyone in Miranda’s life, on a disposable computer that could not be linked to the Haven, which was why he’d chosen Houndstooth; and while that was true it was also true that he just needed to get out of the house before he lost his damn mind.

“Mouse, are you online?”

A pause, then a voice in his ear:
“Yes my Lord. Already in the building, waiting for instructions.”

“Good lad. All right—remember the number one rule of industrial espionage?”

“Look like you belong there, walk like you own the place, and no one will blink.”

“First you’ll come to the fingerprint scanner that lets you into the secure elevator. Right thumb.”

“Yes sir.”

Mouse had been working for Hunter Development for a few years, and he had that awkward-teenager vibe that covered up his brilliance; he was a programmer, not a forensic scientist, but what David needed here was someone smart who could follow orders but think on the fly. Mouse was highly plausible as an employee at IntelliGenetic Labs. David had reviewed the files of every employee to build a profile for what he needed, and Mouse was almost a perfect match.

Getting into APD itself, or their forensic lab, was a bad idea, though it would be child’s play. There were few enough employees that anyone he sent in might stick out. IGL had a staff of nearly 500 and ran 24/7, serving half the state of Texas. It was better to go to the source in this anyway.

“Sixth floor,”
Mouse said.
“Lab 42 is to the right. Heading that way.”

“You’ll see a security panel in front of that door that requires another print and retinal scan. Don’t hesitate.”

David pulled up the next set of data, Mouse’s retinal information, and slotted it into the gap he’d created in IGL’s records. By the time Mouse reached the scanner, the system thought he’d been working there for 24 months.

“I’m in.”

He watched the little dot that represented Mouse on the grid move through the building, approaching their target: Sample Prep and Extractions.

“Ready?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay, we’re looking for ATX-APD-MIR-GRE-4095437262-187. The APD samples should all be in the fridges to your left, far end of the room, adjacent to the sink.”

He waited, glancing at the internal photographs he had of the room. Mouse, clad in a white lab coat with the IGL logo embroidered over the breast pocket and a badge identifying him as Dr. Nick Tesla, would have to locate a single set of samples among thousands. Even a contract lab like IGL had a backlog of weeks, if not months, for the police. The technology had advanced to the point that a test could come back in 90 minutes, but it could still be months before prosecutors and defense attorneys had their data.

“Found it,”
Mouse murmured.
“Removing now.”

“Double check the Chain of Custody form and make sure you’ve signed it before you swap it for the original. Make sure every vial is positioned exactly as its partner.”

“What about the cassette? It has custody seals.”

“The kit you have should have dummy custody seals as well. Replace their cassette with yours and seal it the same way. Don’t try to open the cassette.”

“Gotcha.”

It was the nature of their lives that David had vastly over prepared for every emergency he could think of, but it turned out it wasn’t necessary; even the techs bustling around the labs, ducking into Sample Prep and out again, paid absolutely no attention to Mouse. Why should they? He’d passed external and internal security at six checkpoints, had a badge that unlocked the doors, and obviously knew what he was doing. There was not one case on record of DNA evidence being tampered with at the laboratory level in Texas. Most criminals didn’t have the resources, let alone the brains.

“Replacing the case.”

The case in question, a flat rectangular box containing vials of DNA separated from APD’s blood sample as well as vials that had already been extracted and prepared for analysis, also had a vial that had been inserted into a plastic carrier cassette that could be plugged into an autosampler—a closed system free of contamination. That would be the first thing they ran; if they got a hit on that, there would of course be additional tests run to verify it. Nobody wanted to put someone in prison based on a single test.

Mouse reported in frequently as he finished his errand and pushed the case back into its neatly labeled slot in the fridge; he placed the original vials in an empty case from a stack nearby, and slid both the vials and the paperwork into it. He couldn’t exactly shove the bottles in his pocket and walk off; there were cameras on all the labs, though where he was standing would give a limited view. Much less suspicious for him to take the case out of the lab like he did so every day, put it in a transport cooler, and walk out of the building without missing a step.

“Good work,” David said. “I’m keeping an eye on the security system for a while, but so far you haven’t so much as raised an eyebrow. You know where to go now.”

“On my way, Sire.”

Now that Mouse was clear of the building, David pulled up the IGL database and summoned the records for the sample they’d replaced. The police had an extensive list of tests ordered, including phenotyping that was so detailed it could provide hair and eye color of a subject. He accessed the preliminary markers and switched each one for the quantities in their replacement sample, as analyzed by Dr. Novotny’s team. From here, IGL could run whatever test they liked.

He made sure to follow the data flow both in and out of the system just in case those few markers had been sent anywhere else, but they weren’t considered admissible in court or even definitive, just enough to track the samples as they moved through the lab.

The chair across from him slid out, and Mouse dropped into it. He’d ditched his coat and was now in a nondescript hoodie and jeans.

“Twenty-seven minutes from door to door,” David said. “Nice.”

Mouse grinned and slid his badge across the table. “Dr. Tesla signing off.”

“Well done, Mouse. I’m glad Novotny suggested you—you are kind of a ninja, especially for a human.”

Mouse held out a shopping bag from Whole Foods; inside would be ice cream, Stella’s favorite pesto and bread, a case full of vampire blood, some of the chocolate fudge that Miranda had vapors over…and even a package of candied ginger, which had been Nico’s favorite…before. Mouse had also included a smaller bag containing the gloves he’d worn in the lab so they could be destroyed.

“So you said what they had was going to degrade,” Mouse said, bringing him back to the room. “Degrade how?”

Glancing around to make sure no one was looking—of course not, everyone else was either waiting in line for a drink or staring into their phones or both—David opened the case and removed a single vial. Protocol was to keep the samples out of bright light, at temperatures less than 6 degrees Celsius.

“There’s a reason you can’t DNA test a vampire,” he said quietly, opening the vial and turning it over. Mouse started, jerking his hands back from the spill, but what came out of the vial was thick and gloppy, and as a single drop hit the table and the overhead lights hit it, the blood began to essentially burn, though with only a tiny bit of smoke. It was ash in seconds. “As soon as it leaves the body the proteins begin to clump up. By the time they got to the PCR it was probably already badly coagulated. They’d get the prelim markers and that’s it. It would never make it to the final analysis. The effect you just saw was caused by light. Ultraviolet is the worst, but any light of sufficient brightness causes rapid degradation. Novotny has had a lot of luck prepping the samples in a dark room, but there’s no reason a normal lab would even try that.”

“I’m guessing what we put in there was human, then.”

“It was indeed. I ran facial recognition software on as many humans in Austin as I could find, then expanded the search to adjoining states. I looked for someone with the same general appearance as Miranda, then got hold of her DNA.”

“You’re going to frame somebody?”

“In theory, perhaps, but in reality this particular redhead was in Oregon at the time of the murder, and there are documents and witnesses of her entire trip. She works for a very prestigious law firm. APD will have the DNA of a woman who looks like Miranda but couldn’t possibly be the killer, and they’ll have DNA from the body that matches neither woman. Not to mention Miranda will have an alibi by then — she said she didn’t remember the night of the murder, but her credit card records will remind her where she was, which was nowhere near that alley. The case will run round in circles and go cold.”

Mouse was just staring at him. “Remind me never to try and screw you over. You screw back really really hard.”

“That could be the title of my autobiography.”

Mouse shook his head, impressed. “Well, scary as the whole thing is, I’m glad I could help. It was actually kind of fun.”

David smiled and turned the laptop screen toward him. “There you have it: first payment of nine thousand, with one per month until you die, waiting in this account. You’ve got the card for it already.”

The boy nodded. “Nine thousand — so the IRS won’t flag it?”

“They won’t anyway. But better anal than annoyed. If you need an advance on it at any time just call the number in your packet.”

Mouse’s face got a distant kind of happy expression, and David asked, “Planning to retire from Hunter?”

“Nah…not yet. I love my job. It’s just… One of the first assignments they gave me was to run my own family tree to show how good I was at hacking records and analyzing data. I found my grandma. I didn’t even know she existed. We met, and we’ve been spending time. She’s in a shitty nursing home, or she will be for another week.”

David smiled. “Well done, Mouse. Well done indeed. Now get out of here.”

“Yes Sire. Again, thank you. I’m really glad I could help.”

“You’re welcome.”

He watched the lanky young genius weave his way out of the coffee shop. Miranda would be happy to know that something good had come out of all this.

Speaking of which…he checked his inbox and found the video Miranda had just made for her fan site. Just like when she’d been shot, she wanted to reach out to her fans, both to thank them for their support and to encourage them not to harass the police. She was worried that Maguire in particular might be a target—not that they’d do anything violent, necessarily, but the poor detective’s life was already hard enough without his car being egged or worse.

The camera system had improved by leaps and bounds. He’d refined the video to where once it was recording, it was almost crystal clear, albeit with periodic glitches and a slight graininess with too much zoom. It was certainly good enough for a home movie of the Queen at her piano, talking into her laptop and then playing an exclusive song for her fans.

He switched the audio output to his com, where only he could hear it, and hit play.

“Hi guys,”
Miranda said, looking up into the lens. She looked tired, and vulnerable…perfect.
“I know you’ve been hearing a lot of crazy stuff about me lately…”

He adjusted the picture and ran a few filters over it to clear it up a bit and adjust the color.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the implicit lie.
“I can’t say much about the case, but I want to make one request: please let the police do their jobs. I’ve dealt with APD a lot over the years, and the detectives involved are good men who want justice. There are always false leads and exonerated suspects. I’m confident I’ll end up being one of those. Anyway, I love you guys and I’m so grateful for every one of you. If we got through my being shot together, we can get through this too.”

Miranda offered the camera a smile, then reached up and tilted it down from her face to the piano.
“Since we’re here, I thought you might like to meet my piano—if you’ve seen me onstage you’ve seen her twin, but this is my great love, the Empress. She was originally part of an inheritance of my husband’s, but over time, she became mine. And just for you, here’s a little bit of music.”

David grinned. Fans who watched this would be overjoyed.

He played the whole thing through another couple of times, tweaking settings here and there, before converting it to the format needed on the website and uploading it. Then, he reached into his coat and took out a USB drive.

It took a few minutes to completely wipe the laptop—it would have been easier to destroy it in some decisively violent manner, but he really hated to waste a perfectly good computer. That meant a bit more effort to make sure there were no fragments of data left anywhere, no strings of characters, nothing but a blank slate without so much as an operating system. The version of OSX he used was not exactly the bog standard model; he had it reinstall the original operating system, putting it in a state of cheerful readiness for whoever owned it next. It had, in fact, another owner lined up; Stella’s friend Lark was in desperate need of a new machine.