“Caitlyn, it pains me on several levels to break this to you, but my relationship with Stacy has absolutely nothing to do with you. I realize that must come as a shock, so give yourself all the time you need to process the implications.”
“Aw, shut the hell up. Where’s Dmitri?”
The Boss shrugged. Oh, sure. Like he didn’t know every movement the Wolf was making.
The Boss must have read her mind—like he didn’t have enough bad habits—because he added, “I really don’t. He can fool all our tracking devices. Believe me, I’d like to know. But he could be standing in the next room and I wouldn’t know it… and neither would you.”
Caitlyn opened her mouth, then shut it when she remembered that on her nanoscans, Dmitri showed up as a regular guy. When he most certainly was not.
“Run along,” the Boss told her cheerfully.
“Listen. About Stacy. I’ll tell you what. Break up with her and I’ll stay here and work for you for… um… a year.”
“Ten years.”
“Two years.”
“Five years.”
“Fine, fine, five years. But you’ll break up with her? Call her. Gall her right now.”
The Boss looked at her for a long moment, then said, smiling, “No.”
“What?”
“N-o. As in, I decline. As in, I’d rather have Stacy in my life and you out of it.”
“But… but you want me to work for you! It’s what you’ve been after since day one!”
“Yes, but not that badly. Not badly enough to hurt Stacy.”
“But it’s for the good of the country!”
The Boss shrugged.
Now she was really confused. Say what you will about the perverse nut-job sitting in front of her, all his odious actions could be traced back to his scary patriotism. “But… but… but…” But that would mean that he had other motives. It would mean that maybe Stacy was in his life for reasons that had nothing to do with her. It would mean…
It couldn’t mean.
“You’re not her type,” she said at last. “Her type is college football players and Oceanaire waiters.”
“Ah, the Oceanaire . Her favorite restaurant. That woman can eat thirty raw oysters in five minutes, did you know? And then… what she does afterward… let’s just say it’s a good thing I’ve stayed in shape over the years.”
Caitlyn realized, in despair, that the nanobytes would not let her vomit. Instead, she put her hands over her eyes and sagged into a chair. “Oh, God. Please kill me right now.”
“Nonsense,” the arse said briskly. “You’re much too expensive to be struck dead by the wrath of God. Frankly, I’m amazed you weren’t struck dead by the wrath of the Wolf. Now, what are you doing here other than trying to bribe me to break your best friend’s heart?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Her heart wouldn’t have broken. It wouldn’t have even been bruised. I’m looking for Dmitri. He’s not in our—I mean, he’s not at the suite anymore. When I woke up, he—never mind. And his laptop’s gone. I thought he might be here, looking for clues again.”
The Boss shrugged. “I’m afraid there’s not much to look for now. Dr. Miller’s body is gone and the room has been processed.”
“You know, people are dropping like flies all around you. Death could be lurking around the corner for any one of us.”
“Yes, I know,” he said absently, flipping through the files on his desk. “I’m sure the situation is in good hands with you and the Wolf.”
“You are not!”
“Caitlyn, go away. Go find the Wolf and solve my murder and save the world, and get me some coffee while you’re at it. Oh, and if you see Stacy this afternoon, tell her she forgot her razor at my place.”
Caitlyn gagged, and fled.
Chapter 33
Caitlyn stormed out… and nearly knocked Dmitri down. He cut off her apology with a kiss, swinging her off her feet and pressing her to him for a long hug. “Huh,” she said when he finally put her down. “Someone’s in a vastly better mood.”
“Sadly, you’re in the exact same mood you were when we left this place earlier,” he teased, tugging on a hank of her hair. “Blue streaks?”
“I felt the need for a change.”
“I’ve never meant anyone with hair attention deficit disorder before.”
“Oh, shut up. That’s what they tell me at my salon. That reminds me, what’s your favorite color?”
“The color of your eyes.”
“Oh.” That was kind of sweet. And to think, she’d been considering going to purple contact lenses one of these days. “Well, I’m not sure I can get the streaks exactly right…”
“A weighty problem for another day. So, share the bad news. Which of your friends has he started sleeping with now?”
“God, don’t even go there. Where the heck have you been?”
“I have some preliminary data. Did you know Dr. Roe was the state pistol champion six years ago?”
“Uh, no. No, that little factoid must have escaped me. Good with a gun, huh?”
“Extremely good.”
“Well, let’s throw the book at her.”
He quirked a small smile at her. “I doubt it will be quite that simple.”
“Fine, whatever. Listen, you were gone when I woke up.” She pouted. “I hate that.”
“I do apologize. I was doing some research on Dr. Roe, and you looked so angelic, sleeping in my bed, I didn’t have the heart to disturb you.”
“Hmf,” she said, mollified. “Well, what are you doing here?”
“A twofold reason: sharing my findings with Gregory Hamlin and—what’s the phrase?—hooking up with you.”
“Oh,” she said, further mollified. “How’d you know I was here?”
“I picked you up on my long-distance scans.”
“What? You mean you can find me but I can’t ever find you?”
“Apparently not,” he said cheerfully.
“No fair! You’re gonna teach me how to do that too.”
“Certainly.”
“And I’m not going back into that office. I promised Stacy I wouldn’t fold, spindle, or mutilate Him.”
He laughed. “Best not to try your word too quickly. Will you wait for me?”
“Sure.” She glanced around the secretary’s office. “I wonder where his assistant is? No matter what time I’m here, she’s here too.”
“She’s doubtless a price beyond rubies. Wait for me,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead and then disappearing into the Boss’s lair.
“Stay alive no matter what occurs,” she announced to the empty room. “I will find you.” Best movie ever. Although, when Daniel Day-Lewis was making out with Madeleine Stowe and all that black hair was flying around, it was hard to tell who was who…
She paced around the secretary’s office area, again idly wondering where the uber-efficient Rebecca had gone to. It was past lunchtime but too early for quitting time.
Bored, she went behind the desk, looking for candy and maybe a quick game of computer solitaire, and saw Rebecca’s day planner was sitting right in the middle of her desk calendar.
It’s none of my business, she reminded herself, eyeing the black leather cover.
Right. And minding their own business is something O.S.F. is soooooo good at.
So I want to be rotten like them? Besides, what difference does it make where she is? She’s not your secretary.
No difference. But something’s bugging me… niggling at the back of my brain, and I hate that feeling… Why isn’t she here? Isn’t her boss in the middle of a crisis? So where the hell is she?
Sneaking a guilty glance over her shoulder, she picked up the planner and flipped it open. Glancing through the pages (”Order flowers for T.B.” “Lunch with Miller” “Mom’s birthday”), she found today’s date.
There it was: 2:45 P.M. “Check on Dr. Roe.”
“Oh, fuck,” she said, dropping the planner.
Chapter 34
Rebecca tapped on the door, shifting the Burger King bag under one arm. The door opened and she nearly shrieked… she was staring down the barrel of a pistol.
“Dr. Roe, it’s me! Rebecca, from the Boss’s office!” She cowered in front of the barrel. “He sent me over to get your lunch order! Please don’t shoot!”
Before she could back away, an arm shot out, grabbed her, and hauled her inside. The door slammed and she leaned against it, panting.
“You’re carrying a Burger King bag,” the bespectacled, dark-haired Dr. Roe said suspiciously. Poor Dr. Roe! She looked quite stressed, with bloodshot eyes and wearing yesterday’s clothes still. But the hands steadying the pistol (still in her face, Rebecca couldn’t help but notice with increasing alarm) weren’t shaky at all. “How can you be here to get my lunch order?”
“That’s my lunch. You know how it is around there… I eat when I can. um, Dr. Roe, could you please put the gun down? Actually, I was sort of wondering… where did you even get a gun?”
“Never mind,” Roe grunted.
“I didn’t know you had a… a pistol? Revolver? Whatever that thing is.”
“It’s a thirty-eight snub-nosed revolver, and I don’t have a pistol, I have three pistols.”
A deepening feeling of unease settled over Rebecca. “um, okay. Well, I guess if it makes you feel safer…”
Dr. Roe threw back her head and laughed, laughed without enjoyment or humor. “Safer! Everyone on the team is dead. Except me.”
“Yes, but the Boss is taking every precaution—“
“The Boss! I told him to put everyone in P.C. after Dr. Tanglen was killed. He ignored me.”
“Oh, but it’s not what you’re thinking! He needed all of you—um, I mean, the rest of you—on the floor since Mirage was in the field. If something had happened to her or she needed help, the best team to help her—“
“Would be the team that made her.”
“Well, yes. He couldn’t—he couldn’t just leave Mirage out there on her own.”
“And never mind that it left us all open to be shot in the chest,” Dr. Roe said bitterly. “He risked us to keep an eye on her. The sorority slut.”
Rebecca stared. “How—how did you know they were—um—shot in the chest?”
Dr. Roe shrugged. “I’m team lead. I know everything.”
With growing fear Rebecca eyed the taller woman. Dr. Roe was formidable during the best of times, her with her no-nonsense haircut and Anne Klein wardrobe and brutal, bitter outlook on life. She usually wore dark suits beneath her white lab coat and did not suffer fools gladly. But now… now, with her back against the wall, she was… was…
What?
“So the Boss sent you to get my lunch, huh? Terrific. I could use some empty calories. Suppose the son of a bitch would mind if I starved to death in protective custody?”
“You’ve got him all wrong,” Rebecca protested, trying to back up but remembering, too late, that the door was closed behind her. “He works so hard… looks after all of us…”
“Drives us like cattle, you mean. Christ, and to think I was excited when he revived the Wagner project…”
“It made all your careers!”
“It made us all live at the lab. What home life? And for what? To cybernetically enhance that twit, that… that sorority chick, Caitlyn James. What a waste of six billion dollars.”
“But the advances you made—“
“Aren’t going to be common knowledge in my lifetime… any of our lifetimes. All that work… and for what?”
“Your work was good enough to win a Nobel Prize,” Rebecca said, shocked. “You’ve revolutionized technology with your nanobytes.”
“Yeah, too bad the O.S.F. won’t let me talk about my work just yet. And I know what ‘just yet’ means, you know. It means ‘it’s going to be classified forever, no hard feelings.”
“For the good of the country,” Rebecca added.
“My ass,” Dr. Roe replied rudely. “For the good of the Boss.”
“I didn’t know… didn’t know this kind of thing was so important to you.”
“I’ll never be published,” Dr. Roe said gloomily. “I thought I could get around that eventually, but the Boss won’t let precious Caitlyn be endangered.”
“Because he cares—“
Dr. Roe shoved her pistol in the pocket of her lab coat and glared. “My God, you’re too loyal to be believed. I thought if anyone knew what a crumb the Boss was, you would.”
“He’s not a crumb. He’s a fine man, a patriot. You just don’t appreciate him. None of you appreciates him. The time the Wagner project takes away from him… why, he’s devoted his entire life to the O.S.F.!”
“And for what?” Dr. Roe asked rudely. “So the latest product of the Wagner team can not work for us?”
“He saved her life. If we hadn’t taken her on, Caitlyn would be dead. She’ll realize that. She’ll come around.”
“You’re nuts,” Dr. Roe said, fingering the butt of her .38. “The whole thing was a waste… and now people arc dead.”
“That’s true enough,” Rebecca agreed with a nervous laugh.
Chapter 35
Dmitri stepped over the dead security guards without breaking stride, but Caitlyn couldn’t stifle her groan of horror. It was bad enough the men were dead, but scattered in the hallway like this, left sprawling like dolls a cruel child didn’t bother to put away…
Dmitri glanced back over his shoulder. “Steady,” he said kindly enough, but she could only look at him and shake her head.
With a sinking feeling she scanned the guards, because Dmitri would have stopped if there had been any hope. They had been brain dead for some time.
“Goddammit,” the Boss spat out.
“There’s one life sign in the room,” Caitlyn whispered. “But it’s… it’s…”
Dmitri kicked the door down and entered the room, Caitlyn and the Boss right behind him. She looked around wildly and saw the crumpled figure by the coffee table.
The room looked exactly like an apartment living room, complete with furniture and knickknacks. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting… a motel room perhaps? She didn’t know what protective custody looked like. What it looked like was an ordinary town house in Minneapolis.
One filled with dead people. And why was she thinking about town houses and dead people right now?
So she wouldn’t have to think about the poor lady on the carpet in front of her. The poor, shot—
Wait a minute.
“She’s alive,” Dmitri announced, bending over her. “Barely.”
“There’s an ambulance right behind us,” the Boss said. “Move over. What happened?”
“Love,” Dr. Roe croaked, blood bubbling down the side of her mouth.
“What?” The Boss and Caitlyn spoke in unison; Caitlyn couldn’t hide her shock. They had come here to save Rebecca. But it wasn’t Rebecca who had multiple gunshot wounds in her chest. It was—
“She did it for love,” Dr. Roe said. “She told me. Gun in the Burger King bag. Put mine in my pocket. Stupid. Stupid. Never thought… thought it was about love…” Dr. Roe laughed, a dreadful choking cackling that made Caitlyn want to put her hands over her ears and scream Stop laughing!
“Where is she now?” Dmitri asked, taking Dr. Roe’s hand and holding it gently.
“It was about love… and so she left. Caitlyn…”
“What about Caitlyn?” Dmitri demanded, his grip tightening.
“ … Caitlyn’s house… going there for love… for love, have you ever heard anything so stupid?” She laughed again, then her eyes rolled up and she quit laughing.
“Love,” Caitlyn repeated, more shocked than she’d ever been in her life. “Stacy’s staying at my house.” Her eyes widened as all the pieces fell into place. Then she turned and ran.
Chapter 36
“I don’t think you should drive,” the Boss said through gritted teeth, clutching his seat belt. ??
?Ever.”
“Shut up. I’ve lived in that apartment for three years. I know all the shortcuts.” She down-shifted and took the corner in third gear. “That bitch, that psycho! I don’t care if she’s the best secretary you ever had—if she shoots Stacy in the chest, it’s gonna wreck my week.”
“Drive faster,” the Boss croaked, struggling to sit up after they’d turned the corner.
Caitlyn obliged.
The three of them stood on the west side of the building, looking up.
“That’s it,” Caitlyn said, counting. “Fourth one up.”
“You can do it,” Dmitri said. “Just calculate the angle plus the distance, and jump.”
She stared at him. “Hi, we’ve never met. I’m Caitlyn.”
“Just jump,” the Boss said.
“What am I, trapped in an episode of The Bionic Woman? I couldn’t even climb the rope in gym class.”
“Caitlyn, shut up. Do it now. And one of you pick me up and take me with you.”
“I think not,” Dmitri sniffed.
“Do as you’re told,” the Boss ordered. “Now pick me up!”
“Don’t look at me,” Caitlyn said, because they were both doing exactly that when they weren’t glaring at each other. “I don’t know if I can do this by myself, much less with a passenger.”
Dmitri sighed and slung the Boss into his arms like the world’s biggest, meanest, scowlingest baby. “Watch me.” Then he crouched, and shot straight up as if he’d been fired from a cannon. He went up… ten feet, twenty, thirty… ducked his head, sailed right over the railing, and landed on her balcony.
“Show-off,” Caitlyn muttered, and crouched and jumped.
And knew immediately she’d screwed it up. She was going too fast, too high, she was going to sail right over her balcony and land on the fifth floor, maybe the sixth… and, frankly, she had to admit that if there was going to be a problem with her jump; she didn’t think it would be this problem.
She made a wild clutch and grabbed the railing of the fifth-floor balcony. She hung there for a moment, legs dangling, then let go and dropped, and made another grab, and then she was holding on to the metal railing of her balcony, sliding down.