Thicker Than Blood (19 page)

Rachel reached for a bottle of soy sauce and applied it liberally.

The packet of selenium from Lonnie’s apartment looked like drugs. Apparently it could kill like a drug overdose. The envelope of selenium behind Jason’s executive toilet tank had looked like drugs. The broken packages in the downed airplane had looked like drugs. Two people were already dead, one from an overdose; the other, she was increasingly certain, was murdered.

Related? Coincidence?

If there were some new designer drug made with selenium, someone was manufacturing it, and probably not in a laundry tub. Probably in an existing laboratory, by a chemist who did some very lucrative moonlighting. Rachel left her tasteless bowl of vegetables and rice and went to the window.

Across the street, the InterUrban office complex rose in the waning glow of the sun—a sort of geometric insect, spreading its rectangular wings toward the bordering side streets.

Lonnie’s connection to InterUrban was minimal, but he did keep an eye on the cars in their motor pool and deliver packages from time to time.

Jason’s connection to the water agency was obvious.

As for the plane, well, it had crashed near an InterUrban reservoir. She couldn’t connect the dots better than that. And the line they made was weak.

But Rachel was becoming more and more certain that under the guise of water quality, one of the best equipped laboratories in the world was producing designer street drugs.

333

It was well after midnight when for the third time that night Rachel stepped outside the side pedestrian exit from the garage and listened to the automatic lock click behind her. This outing would be riskier. Much riskier.

The first time, she had walked over to InterUrban when the cleaning crew arrived. Goldie had agreed that when the crew finished up and left the building, she would leave a matchbook cover wedged over the tongue of the latch at the water agency’s north door.

At eleven-thirty, a tense phone call had come from Goldie: all the building’s outside doors, except those that opened into the reception area, were fire exits. All were locked to anyone outside, but opened easily with a bar from the inside. A stenciled sign warned anyone leaving that an alarm would sound if the door was opened.

So Rachel had crossed the street again, and together the two women had canvassed the exits. At the door that led from the cafeteria kitchen to the parking lot, they found the alarm wire held in place by steel staples. But when they traced the wire’s path, it came to an end just above their heads. “We’ve got to test it,” Goldie said.

Rachel stared through the door’s small diamond-shaped window at the Dumpster just outside, counted to three, and opened the door.

“Jesus!” Goldie hissed, just above a whisper.

But no alarm sounded.

Rachel said, “It was your idea to test it.”

“I didn’t know you were going to just up and do it without thinking about it.”

“What’s there to think about?” They stepped outside onto pavement covered with cigarette butts.

“Kitchen help copping a smoke,” Goldie had concluded. “I’ll bet they kept setting off the alarm, so someone cut the wire.”

Now, with only a few windows still lit, the building’s front offered an odd lopsided face to the street. The window washer’s platform, a few stories above ground, cut across one cheek like a scar.

This time, instead of crossing in front of the garage, Rachel turned left, crossed at the corner, and followed Olympic Street until she could see the Dumpster.

A small cardboard square fluttered to the ground as she opened the door to the kitchen and stepped carefully inside.

Darkness, broken only by a weak glimmer through the window in the door, engulfed her.

She switched on her Maglite and moved through the kitchen, then the dining room. The escalator, motionless now, climbed toward a pale light glowing from somewhere above.

Something about the parallel steel treads on the stationary stairs made her a little queasy and she was glad to leave them behind on first floor, and take normal stairs, reached through a door next to the elevators.

On the fifth floor, Rachel’s steps faltered when the beam of her flashlight bounced back eerily from the double steel doors that led to the lab. Did they lock those doors at night? She hadn’t thought of that.

But the one on the right swung open when she pushed against it.

Inside, the lab was as serene and neat as a church, as if a little disarray might denote a sloppy soul.

Rachel glanced at her watch: seven minutes since she had crossed the street. This was going to be easy.

She traced her way along the center aisle, between the rows of counters, to the wall where the storerooms were. The first was unlocked but appeared to contain only two sinks and rows of glassware. The second was not a storeroom at all, but a sort of locker room for staff.

A rack held fresh lab coats. Most of the narrow metal doors stood ajar, and only one bore a lock. Flicking the flashlight beam along the shelves of the open lockers revealed little more than a worn pair of jogging shoes, a slim book of Shelley’s poems, a dusty King James Bible, and in a far corner on a top shelf, an unopened box of condoms. Like people everywhere, she mused: fitness, sex, religion, and forgotten hope.

The third room was as it had been when Harry escorted her through the lab: locked. Was this the chemical storeroom?

But when she opened some of the cabinets above and below the counters, her flashlight revealed dozens of brown-glass bottles, jars, and jugs holding liquids and powders.

If they didn’t lock up the chemicals, what did they keep under lock and key?

Rachel leaned against the wall in the dark to think. More than ten minutes gone. The guard probably made rounds, and she had no clue as to his timing.

Outside, a strong wind was whipping up and she started at the sound of something scraping against glass. It seemed to come from the bank of offices that lined the front of the lab.

Moonlight streamed through the windows, lending an eerie look to all the tidy desks. The scraping noise was loudest near the office where, a few days ago, she had begun her ridiculous performance for Harry Hunsinger.

The desk there was as bare of papers as a stage set before the play. Was such meticulousness a trait of chemists?

Whatever the noise was, it had stopped.

Only the sound of the air conditioning turning on broke the stillness. The rush of air from vents on the floor made the drapery sway. Her eye caught a glitter to the right of the window and her mind flashed an image of Harry reaching behind the drapes for the key to the filing cabinet.

She could hardly contain her excitement.

A solitary key hung on a brass cup hook screwed into the molding. She slid it into the lock on the filing cabinet. The lock popped out, the sound exploding the quiet.

She froze until the galloping of her heart slowed, then slid open a drawer: nothing but ordinary files with neatly typed labels, in hanging folders.

The second drawer was more of the same. The third held a coffee cup, a package of disposable razors, and a supply of rubber bands. This was the drawer where Harry had locked the package she delivered.

Returning to the second drawer, she thumbed the files there. Nothing seemed unusual. She went back to the first drawer.

This time when she opened it, something rattled. She flipped through the folders, then pushed them back and slid her hand beneath them.

Her fingertips struck a ring of keys.

She rolled the drawer closed and made her way back to the door that Harry had said led to yet another storage area.

The first eight keys she tried were either too big or too small.

The ninth wedged itself in the lock and the entire ring jangled to the floor when she pried it loose. “Damn.” Her foot gave an impatient stamp.

She began again. This time, the fourth key she tried fit snugly; the lock yielded.

Her flashlight cast an uneasy, blotchy pattern of heavy shadows and brightness. The room was smaller than the others.

Looking somehow naked and unaccustomed to light were a couple of boxes of new glassware, a bottle of Dawn dishwashing soap, two packages of clean utility towels held by brown paper bands, a case of paper towels, and half a dozen cardboard boxes.

Two boxes were still sealed; Niagara Laboratory Supply was stamped on the side. The third held an unintelligible assortment of wires and equipment parts.

A block of Styrofoam, wedged inside the flaps of the fourth box, gave a shrill screech when she dislodged it. Gingerly, Rachel lifted it out, exposing perhaps a dozen brown bottles labeled with long names. Nothing more.

The box scraped softly on the floor as she pushed it back into place.

In the silence that followed came an odd echo. Footsteps? She froze, hand still on the lid.

Yes.

The security guard must be making his round.

She clicked off the Maglite and stood in the alien darkness, listening to her own heartbeat.

And the footsteps.

For the first time, the full impact of what she was doing flooded her mind, swamping her resolve. She could very likely go to jail.

Terrors grew in the darkness like poisonous berries. The tops of her arms and the back of her neck went cold.

The footsteps stopped.

Had the guard left, or only paused to listen? Two more endless minutes passed before she decided he was gone.

There were two more cartons, both plain cardboard, unmarked and unopened. She found a place under the flap of one and gently pulled upward.

Inside were brown jars. She lifted one and shined the light on the label. Acetic anhydride. The next was sodium carbonate. Baking soda? No, that was bicarbonate. A slender bottle with a rubber collar and pressure cap was only a third full with liquid. The label was bright red: Ether.

The second carton was heavier. The flap sliced her hand as it opened. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut against the sting and put the cut to her lips.

Inside was another box. She tried to lift it out, but the fit was too tight for her fingers. Turning the carton on its side, she tilted it. The inner box slipped from its sheath.

Raw excitement nearly choked her.

The last thing she had expected was that it would be so obvious.

Chapter Thirty-one

The inner carton was marked DOUBLE UO GLOBAL, the red logo flanked by two slender black cats like a coat of arms—the same gaudy logos Rachel saw in the cargo of the crashed plane.

Her hands fluttered over the box, in surprise. She tore open the flap. A dozen slightly shiny, rich brown blocks the size of bricks winked back at her flashlight.

She needed to see nothing more.

She locked the storeroom and, muscles screaming with tension, tiptoed back down the laboratory aisle to the office.

Something was slapping against the outside wall. A tree limb? But this was the fifth floor. Spooked, she moved the drape, peered out the window. Nothing there.

Swallowing a growing urge to flee, she turned back to the file cabinet, fumbled in the dimness for the lower drawer, and slowly slid it open.

A hand closed around her arm like a vise.

Panic exploded. She tried to turn, but another hand closed on her other arm.

She shot out a foot, but only grazed the attacker’s ankle.

“Wha.…” His word ended in a hiss as she rammed an elbow into his midsection.

The hand grasping her right arm loosened, but the vise-like fist on her left tightened and slammed her into the file cabinet. A heavy book, from the top of the cabinet, smacked into her face.

She grabbed the book, turned, and stared into the face of Harry Hunsinger.

A gagging sound erupted when she shoved the edge of the book hard into his Adam’s apple.

He staggered and dropped his hand from her arm.

She dodged, trying to get the desk between them.

He lunged. Snatched at her shoulder. Missed.

Gulping air, she raced toward the laboratory’s exit door. But the security cop downstairs might have heard something, might be making his way to the lab.

Harry Hunsinger had a right to be here. She did not.

Rachel veered right down a cabinet-lined aisle, trying to remember where it led.

Harry might lift weights, but he was no runner: His footsteps did not seem to gain on her.

Was there another exit from the lab? She couldn’t remember.

The row of stainless steel cabinets seemed to go on forever. Her foot caught the base of a stool. Pain ripped into her ankle. She spun sideways and pitched headfirst into a cabinet door. Metal crashed against tile. The stool went down, striking Harry’s racing feet. He thudded to the floor.

Closing her eyes against a sudden dizziness, Rachel tried to regain her feet. Pain sliced up her leg.

She dropped to her knees and crawled, knowing from the scuffle behind her that Harry was rising again. And that she would be an easy target now.

Ahead, another stool jutted into the aisle. She grabbed its legs, flung it toward Harry, and was rewarded with a grunt when he failed to sidestep in time.

A cabinet door next to her swung open. Something rolled out and shattered on the tile. A strong acid odor rose from the debris.

Rachel’s eye caught on a square of blacker darkness between the cabinets—a place for the knees of the technician who perched on the stool.

Trap or hiding place?

Unable to run, she was trapped anyway. She crept in.

The space ran the full width of the cabinet. She crawled through into another aisle and again tried to stand. Her ankle would have none of it. She dropped to her knees and crawled toward the row of offices. From somewhere to her right came the sound of running footsteps.

She could move no faster.

Finding another stool in her path, she tugged it into the aisle, slipped into the knee hole behind it, and drew the stool toward her, clutching its legs as if it were a life raft.

With barely enough room to turn around, she ran her tongue across dry lips and tasted blood. Her fingers found the cut just beneath her eye. She wiped her hand on her jeans and closed her eyes to think.