“So you think this graduate degree arrangement I’ve been offered is just a distraction, then,” Lacey said, startled at how hard it was to say that in an even tone, and how violently she’d begun trembling. “A way of buying my silence.”
“In part, yes.” He paused. “I put in a call to the Genetics department head at U of A when I first heard of it on Monday. Finally heard back from his secretary yesterday. She knew nothing about it, and could neither confirm nor deny because Dr. Essex and the whole department’s on vacation while a new ceiling is being put in. No one will be back for two weeks, at least. Which I find just a bit too convenient given what’s going on.”
“She didn’t give you a contact number?”
“Essex is backpacking in the Sierra Nevada. His phone sent me straight to voice mail, and so far, he’s not responded.” Again he hesitated. “I’m sorry to say I also find it extremely doubtful anyone at the U of A would risk their reputation by entering into any kind of arrangement with Parker Swain.”
“But we’ll learn the truth in two weeks, so what would be the point?”
“I’m not sure. But Swain’s obviously seeking to pull you into his orbit.” He glanced over his shoulder as if he’ d heard something, then stepped to the side, pulling her with him as a third security guard, this one in a small electric cart, wheeled silently past.
She’ d heard not even a creak of its approach, though given all the racket made by the booth workers, that was hardly surprising.
Reinhardt stepped back to the middle of the path, and she moved again to his side.
“Did you read the articles I left you last night?” he asked.
“I didn’t get any articles.”
“They’re on a disk. I put them in a manila envelope with some other stuff. Left it on your desk, under the proposal.”
She didn’t recall it. “I must’ve thought it was one of mine.”
He grunted. “Well, you should read them.”
“All right.” Her thoughts turned to why she might not have noticed the new envelope, and a wave of guilt rippled through her. “For what it’s worth, I had no idea they were saying all these ridiculous things about you until last night. It wasn’t like I was just ignoring it.”
He said nothing at first. Then, “Even if you’d known, would it have made any difference? Would you have backed out of Swain’s offer?”
“Well, no. But I sure would have protested. . . .” She trailed off, knowing how little good that would have done.
“What if I told you Manny really was dead and they’re covering it up?” He glanced down at her. “Would you go in there today and tell him you want to leave?”
“You’re not leaving.”
“It’s not that easy for me.”
“But it would be for me,” she said dryly, “because I’m not the great Cameron Reinhardt with the fancy career.”
“You’re not the one who’s being framed for murder,” he said quietly.
She stopped in the path. He kept walking, though, and after a moment she hurried to catch up. Coming up beside him, she reminded him quietly, “There is no murder without a body.”
“And as soon as one turns up, there is.”
She felt as if a chill wind had blown through her flesh, separating each cell from the other, and that any moment now they would all collapse in a heap on the path. “Oh, sweet Lord . . . Is there a body?”
Instead of answering her question, he said, “We need to talk, Ms. McHenry, but not here, and not now. Maybe we can meet up tomorrow night at the open house. There’ll be plenty of people around, so it shouldn’t look too conspicuous. . . .” He glanced up at the zig now looming ahead of them as they’d come round the circular path. “I hope you’ll read those articles before then. They’ll give you some context for what I’m going to suggest. Oh, and when you’re done, destroy the disk.”
“Destroy it?”
He nodded. “And since they haven’t found your frog-eating friend yet, I’d suggest you stick with the weight room treadmills for your exercise. That may not be totally safe, either, but it’s better than this. Good day, Ms. McHenry.”
With that, he broke into a jog and pulled swiftly away from her. Soon a bend in the path took him behind a screen of trees and out of sight. She followed more slowly, struggling to process what he’ d said. His articles would give her context? What kind of context? And what was he going to suggest? Why did he tell her to destroy the disk? Why had he not answered her question about Manny, yet made all those comments about his maybe being dead. Did he really mean to imply Swain was hiding Manny’s corpse somewhere in order to blackmail him? For what purpose?
Far from resolving the issue, their conversation had only left her with more questions. She wished she’d never spoken to him at all.
Upon returning to the zig, she considered going straight to her sixth-floor office to look for the envelope he’d supposedly left there last night. But her ambivalence was so great in the end she stuck to her routine—returning to her room to shower, then going to breakfast with Jade. When she finally did reach her desk, she decided to focus first on putting a few final touches on her proposal.
Thus it was a good two hours before she found the envelope hidden under some pages of scribbled notes she’ d tossed upon it last night, having indeed assumed it was one of her own. She pulled its sheaf of papers partway out and fanned through the top edges, finding Reinhardt’s disk sandwiched between stacks of gel readouts and research abstracts. Pulling it out of its cardboard sleeve, she slid it into her drive. The directory listed various files of old stories from the Tucson Citizen on the disappearances of Andrea Stopping and five other girls, all associated with the Institute. The dates on some of them, though, were close to eight years ago, when Frogeater would have been only a boy and could not have been responsible for their fates. So, if not Frogeater, who? Swain? Reinhardt had remarked about the director trying to draw Lacey into his orbit. . . .
Suddenly queasy, she removed the disk from her drive and considered shredding it right there. The articles were old news. Why torment herself with the doubts and nasty suspicions they would surely sow?
But she couldn’t make herself toss them outright. I’ll read them later, she told herself, and then decide. For now she returned the disk to its sleeve, slipped it back among the gel readout pages, and shoved them all back into the envelope. Pushing it aside, she went back to fine-tuning her proposal.
At 10:15 a.m. she rode one of the atrium elevators to the ninth floor, filled with trepidation and hope.
An hour and a half later, she floated back, struggling to believe all that had just happened. He’d approved the project! More than approved it, raved about it. Leapt up from his chair to pace about before her in his excitement, gesticulating his wholehearted endorsement of the potential of an investigation into the effects of HGH on cloned baby mice. To hear him speak, this was the greatest project to ever come along, one that would unlock myriad mysteries and generate a boatload of innovations.
Besides that she’ d done a “smashing” job on the proposal. So good he’d need only tweak a word or two before faxing it off. Most likely that very day. And though Dr. Essex at the U of A had unfortunately just left on vacation, Swain was absolutely sure he would approve it when he returned. “Only a matter of time, my dear,” he’ d said with a wide grin. “Only a matter of time.”
He was so confident of that development that at lunch he introduced her as K-J’s newest independent researcher and their first doctoral candidate actively pursuing her degree under K-J’s auspices in arrangement with the University of Arizona. In the midst of the general light applause, Jade and the other research assistants with whom Lacey had been sitting cheered wildly, whistled, and a couple of them even pounded the table. After all the grief she’ d endured, it was a sweet moment.
“Well, I guess you won’t be sitting with us peons anymore,” Aaron teased when she was back in her seat.
She shook her head. “The whol
e thing still has to go through all the channels at the U of A, so it’ll be a while. In the meantime I’ll split my time between assisting Dr. Viascola in Human Resources and working on the nuts and bolts of supply and requisition for my research, so I don’t think I’ll be changing tables anytime soon.”
They were interrupted by Doctors Slattery, Poe, and Yuen coming by to congratulate her, followed by a steady stream of others. Dr. Reinhardt was conspicuous in his absence.
Since Swain had given Lacey the rest of the day off and a free pass for the health resort across campus, she went directly there—worked out at the gym, sat in the steam room, and got a massage. By the time she left, she was so relaxed and sleepy she took a shuttle back to the zig, wanting nothing so much as a long and well-deserved nap.
Cutting through the atrium en route to the basement elevators off the Madrona Lounge, she ran into Jade, who told her Manny’s resignation letter had arrived. Director Swain had spoken with him by phone and was flying out that afternoon to Guadalajara, hoping to win him back. “It’s just what we all thought,” Jade said, shaking her head in disgust. “He walked out on us like a first grader. Frankly, I hope he turns down the director’s offers. We really don’t need the likes of him around here.”
Lacey agreed they didn’t, and wisely ignored her friend’s “we knew all along” remark. In truth, after all the fear and speculation, her relief was so great it was almost more than she could handle in her present state of fatigue, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk about it all. Thus she excused herself and hurried off, hoping Jade hadn’t noticed how the tears had welled in her eyes.
When she neared the basement elevators across from the Madrona Lounge, she was still so rattled she nearly ran into Dr. Reinhardt as he left the lounge’s coffee bar. He swerved to miss her, and thankfully only a little of his coffee sloshed onto the floor.
After apologizing profusely, she lingered to say, “I just got the news about Manny’s letter. You must be a happy man!” She lowered her voice. “You have no idea how relieved I am to know you didn’t actually see a body.” She chuckled a little at her foolishness.
His already somber expression went completely stony. “I’ll bet you are,” he said dryly. “I’d feel better if someone besides Swain had spoken to him.”
The words hit her like a slap in the face.
He leaned closer. “As for the meeting in Guadalajara, for all we know, Swain could be taking a two-day vacation in his penthouse.”
Her shock gave way to irritation. “Director Swain is right,” she said sourly. “You are paranoid. Why can’t you just let this go?”
He cocked a brow at her. “So you did ask him about Manny this morning.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Why else would Swain tell you I was paranoid?”
She frowned at him. “He said the idea Manny was dead was ridiculous and that you may have some serious mental problems. That you have a history of them, actually.”
“Naturally he’ d say that.”
“He mentioned Dr. Essex being on vacation, too, by the way.”
“Of course. He knows I called over there, and probably guessed I told you of it this morning.”
She felt her frown deepen. “I can’t believe the contortions of logic you go through to make this into something sinister and covered up.”
“Contortions of logic?” He snorted. “I’m not the one contorting logic here, Ms. McHenry. He’s given you a stake in his vision now, and you just don’t want to believe the truth—when you more than anyone should be able to see how it works: the problem never lies in what is actually happening, only in those who have the misfortune to see things they shouldn’t. Suddenly they become mentally unstable, sleep-deprived, stressed-out. Paranoid.” He paused. “Did you happen to notice which way that telescope in his office was pointing when you were up there?”
When she only glared at him, he shook his head ruefully. “He’s played you perfectly, Ms. McHenry. I just hope you come to see that before it’s too late.” With that he stepped around her and strode off down the walkway.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“He’s played you perfectly, Ms. McHenry. . . .”
Reinhardt’s words echoed through Lacey’s mind as she watched him walk away, her irritation swelling into outrage. How dare he say such a thing! It was not only ridiculous, it was insulting. Both to her and to Dr. Swain. Did he think she was an idiot? Did he have that low an opinion of his employer? Played me perfectly, indeed!
“Was Dr. Reinhardt harassing you again, my dear?”
She startled at Dr. Viascola’s voice sounding directly behind her and turned. Her supervisor had apparently just left the coffee bar’s cash register and now stood before her, cup in hand. Slattery was paying for his own coffee in Viascola’s wake. They must have come from the same meeting Reinhardt had.
“Harassing me?” Lacey asked.
“You looked angry speaking to him,” said Viascola. “You look angry now.”
“Oh.” Lacey shrugged and smoothed the irritation from her expression. “We just had a difference of opinion.”
“I heard about how he tried to persuade you to go alone with him to Tucson last week,” Viascola added, “even though you didn’t have leave.”
“That was just a misunderstanding on my part,” Lacey assured her. “Besides, I stopped to talk to him just now.”
Slattery came up behind Viascola and stood at her elbow sipping coffee from his cardboard cup, watching Lacey with his electric blue eyes.
“You don’t need to cover for him, dear,” said Viascola. “I outrank him by several degrees.”
“I know, ma’am. I’m not covering.”
Viascola regarded her speculatively. “Well, if he bothers you again, you let me know and we will deal with it.”
“Of course I will, ma’am.”
“Enjoy the rest of your day, then, dear.”
They walked off with their coffee, leaving her more out of sorts than ever. She didn’t like it that they’d been watching her so closely they’d seen she was angry. Nor that Viascola had offered to deal with Reinhardt. Nor that Reinhardt’s paranoia seemed to be rubbing off on Lacey herself.
She continued to the basement elevators and finally reached the sanctity of her small dorm room, where she dropped her gym bag onto her bed. As she started toward the bathroom, her eye caught on the manila envelope she’ d left on her desk earlier: the one with Reinhardt’s disk full of articles. Anger washed through her again, and she turned away from it, determined to shred it as soon as she finished in the bathroom.
But his words continued to surface, niggling her conscience: “Did you happen to notice which way that telescope in his office was pointing . . .”
Which of course she had: positioned at the western window wall, the scope was precisely where it would need to be for Swain to have watched her and Reinhardt on the path.
It burned her that he’d been right about the telescope, and even more that he’ d predicted correctly Swain’s interest in their conversation. The director had pounced the moment she’d stepped through his door, wanting to know all about it and why she was talking to Reinhardt at all. He’ d startled and unnerved her, especially when he’ d gone on to condemn Reinhardt as volatile, paranoid, and quite possibly a murderer, and urged her to stay away from him.
Moreover, it was only now as she actually thought back to the early part of their meeting that she realized Swain had blown off her questions about Manny and Frogeater altogether and countered by asking if Reinhardt had given her those ridiculous ideas. When she didn’t answer, he’ d nodded smugly, repeated his warning about the man, then assured her Manny had simply walked out on them.
She hadn’t had the chance to ask him why he was so interested in keeping Reinhardt on if the man was as volatile, paranoid, and dangerous as Swain claimed. The words had been on the tip of her tongue when he’d switched subjects and asked her to present her proposal. Caught completely off guar
d, she’ d given a disjointed presentation with a dry mouth and trembling voice and was horrified to find herself almost babbling in her attempts to answer his questions.
As he’ d skimmed through the written material afterward, she was sure he’ d suggest she take an extra week to work on it. Instead, he bowled her over with an onslaught of praise, and she’ d forgotten all about the business with Manny and Reinhardt. Suddenly her dream was all but being handed to her by a man who was telling her she was brilliant, valuable, pretty, and a very nice and principled girl, to boot.
For all the euphoria those words had generated in her, they’d also planted a sense of obligation and a strong resistance to thinking ill of him who had praised her so highly.
“He’s played you perfectly. . . .”
Was that why she’ d gotten so angry with Reinhardt? Because he spoke the truth?
Her eyes went again to the envelope with its disk full of copied articles on the disappearances of six girls. Beside it sat her black cube, more or less ignored since last Sunday night when she’d played her silly Magic 8 Ball game with it. There’d been no answer in the window— there was no window at all—but there had been an answer. For right after she’ d handled the cube, the idea for her HGH effects on cloned mice had come to mind. Wasn’t that exactly how Dr. Viascola said it was supposed to work?
She picked it up, marveling anew at its silky feel and calming weight—and at the way it completely absorbed the light. Not a glimmer of reflection showed in its flat surfaces, no matter which way she turned it, or how close she held it to the lamp. As she sat down on the side of her bed, the cube drew her into its darkness, melting her tension as it chased away her confusion. Before long, she felt renewed, more clearheaded, and increasingly inclined to believe Swain over Reinhardt. And why not? She was a nobody, barely worthy of working at Kendall-Jakes. Swain didn’t have to do any of this, and Reinhardt’s claims just made no sense.
The next thing she knew she was being jolted out of a very strange dream by the clacking of the door lock and the sudden tumultuous entrance of her roommate. Jade had indeed noticed Lacey’s weepy reaction to learning of Manny’s resignation letter and wanted to know what was going on. Lacey passed it off as fatigue after a week of frantic work and intense emotional seesawing. She wasn’t sure whether Jade bought her claim or not, but her friend let it go.