He sat down as well. Not too close, she noted with a mingling of both relief and disappointment, but sedately apart, like any courteous host.
“To be honest,” he admitted, “I’m not a fan of Sampson’s, either. But Isabel needed an escort.”
“And you didn’t have any better offers for the evening?”
“No.” He picked up a slice of beef, and his straight white teeth bit neatly into the pink meat. “Not until you turned up.”
Kat set the plate down on the coffee table and slowly wiped her fingers on the napkin. “You can flatter me all you want,” she said. “It’s not going to change things. I still have a job to do. Questions to be answered.”
“And suspects to be suspicious of.”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t bother me, being a suspect. Because I’m not guilty of anything. Neither is my company.”
“Still, the name Cygnus does keep popping up in all sorts of places.”
“What do you want me to say? Confess that I’m manufacturing some secret drug in the basement? Selling it on the streets for a profit? Or maybe we can come up with a truly diabolical scheme, say, I’m single-handedly trying to solve Albion’s crime problem by killing off the junkies. The ultimate drug rehab! And that’s why I was at the mayor’s benefit. Because Sampson’s in on it, too!” He leaned forward and smiled. “Come now, Kat,” he said. “Doesn’t that sound the slightest bit ridiculous?”
He did make it sound ridiculous, but she refused to back down. “I don’t discount any possibilities,” she said.
“Even wild and crazy ones?”
“Is it so wild and crazy?”
He was moving closer, but she was too stubborn to give up an inch of territory on the couch. She sat perfectly still, even as his hand reached up to touch her face, even as he stroked her cheek. Even as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.
“Don’t,” she said, as the sudden heat of desire flooded her face and roared through her veins. She said again, louder, “Don’t,” and pressed her hands against his chest.
He pulled away, his gaze searching her face. “What’s wrong?”
“You. Me.” She pushed off the couch and rose to her feet. “This won’t work, Adam.”
“I thought it was working just fine.”
“You thought. Did you ask me how I feel about it? Do you even care?”
He gave a sheepish laugh. “Man, I guess I misjudged that.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I need an excuse for kissing an attractive woman?”
“You’re trying to distract me with flattery, aren’t you?”
“If you knew me, you wouldn’t ask these questions.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know you. Except as a phone number in the hand of a corpse, and that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
The phone rang. Reluctantly he broke off eye contact and rose to pick up the receiver. “Hello, Grace,” he said. A pause, then: “We’re on our way.” He turned to Kat. “The results are back.”
They found Grace sitting in front of the computer terminal. A readout was just rolling out of the printer. She tore off the page and handed it to Adam. “There you have it, Mr. Q. A little booze. Traces of decongestant. And that.” She pointed to a band on the chromatographic printout.
“Did you analyze this band?” asked Adam.
“I ran it against mass and UV spectrophotometry. I’m not a hundred percent sure of its structure. It’ll take some more noodling around. But I can tell you it’s a morphine analogue. Something new. Levo-N-cyclobutylmethyl-6, 10 beta-dihydroxy class.”
Kat looked sharply at Adam. He was staring at the printout in shock.
“Zestron-L,” said Kat.
Grace glanced at her in puzzlement. “Zestron-L? What’s that?”
“Check with the research wing,” said Kat. “They’ll help you run the immunoassay. That should identify it once and for all.”
“You mean our research wing?” Grace looked at Adam. “Then it’s …”
Adam nodded. “The drug is one of ours.”
LOU SYKES LOOKED BLEARILY ACROSS HIS desk at Kat. He hadn’t slept much last night—domestic homicide at two A.M.—and his normally smooth face was sprouting the bristly beginnings of a new beard.
“It’s gone beyond a simple trio of ODs, Lou,” Kat said. “We’re talking corporate theft. An untested drug, out on the streets. And maybe more deaths on the way.”
Ratchet shuffled in, looking just as shaggy as Sykes. He carried with him the definite odor of McDonald’s—a sausage and biscuit, which he eagerly unwrapped as he sat down at his desk.
“Hey, Vince,” said Sykes. “Hear the latest? You’ll be just thrilled.”
Ratchet took a bite of his breakfast. “What’s new?”
“Novak’s got a tox ID on two of our overdoses.”
“So what is it?” asked Ratchet, obviously more interested in his sausage.
“Something called Zestron-L.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Of course you haven’t. It’s something new they’re cooking up at Cygnus. Shouldn’t be on the street at all.”
“Somehow,” said Kat, “it got out of Cygnus. Which means they’ve had a theft.”
Ratchet shrugged. “We’re Homicide.”
“This is homicide. Three dead people, Vince. Now, you don’t really want any more bodies, do you? Or are you that desperate for overtime?”
Ratchet looked balefully at Sykes. “Are we chasing this?”
Sykes leaned back and groaned. “If only it was nice and neat, you know? A bullet hole, a stab wound.”
“That’s neat?”
“At least it’s cut and dried. Homicide with a capital H. But this is spinning our wheels. Folks who OD, it’s a risk they take, sticking a needle in their veins. I don’t really care where they get the stuff.”
“Would you care if it was strychnine they were shooting up?”
“That’s different.”
“No, it isn’t. In large doses, Zestron-L is every bit as deadly. How do you know we haven’t got some right-wing fanatic out there, some nut trying to clear the junkies off the streets? And by the way, he’s doing a good job.”
Sykes sighed. “I hate that about you, Novak.”
“What?”
“Your unassailable logic. It isn’t feminine.” He hauled himself out of his chair. “Okay. Let me arrange for us to duck out a couple of hours. We’ll head over to Cygnus.”
“Man, oh, man,” grumbled Ratchet after Sykes had left the room. “I should’ve stayed home in bed.”
The smell of Ratchet’s sandwich was making Kat’s stomach turn. She shifted in her chair and glanced down at Sykes’s desk. A reed-thin black woman and two kids smiled at her from a framed photo. Lou’s family? She forgot sometimes that cops had families and homes and mortgage payments. Another photo stood beside it: Sykes and another man, grinning like two hucksters on the steps of the Albion PD.
“Was this Lou’s partner?” asked Kat. “The one who got hit in South Lexington?”
Ratchet nodded. “Sitting in an unmarked car, can you believe it? Some guy drives by and just starts shooting. From what I hear, he and Lou, they were like this.” He pressed two fingers together. “We lost two down there, the same corner. Bad-luck spot. Got a lot of bad-luck spots in this town. Bolton and Swarthmore, that’s another one. That’s where my partner went down. Drug bust went sour, and he got boxed in a blind alley.” He put the sandwich down, as though he’d suddenly lost his appetite. “And we lost one down on Dorchester, just last month. One of our girls, a five-year vet. Perp got hold of her gun, turned it on her …” He shook his head mournfully and began to gather up all the sandwich wrappings.
That must be how every cop sees this town, Kat realized. An Albion policeman looks at a map of the city and he sees more than just street names and addresses. He sees the corner where a partner got shot, the alley where a drug deal went bad, the street wher
e an ambulance crew knelt in the rain trying to save a child. For a cop, a city map is a grid of bad memories.
Sykes came back into the room. “Okay, Vince,” he said. “Things are quiet for the moment. Might as well do it now.”
Kat rose. “I’ll meet you there.”
Ratchet fished his cell phone out of the drawer and clipped it to his belt. “We going to Cygnus?” he asked.
“No choice,” said Sykes. “Seeing as Novak here isn’t going to let it drop.”
“I’m just asking you to do your job, Lou,” she said.
“Job, hell. I’m doing you a favor.”
“You’re doing the city a favor.”
“Albion?” Sykes laughed and pulled on his jacket. “The junkies are killing themselves off. Far as I’m concerned, the biggest favor I could do Albion is to look the other way.”
“It’s a secured area,” said Adam. “Only our cleared personnel are allowed in this wing.” He punched a keypad by the door, and the words PASSCODE ACCEPTED flashed onto the screen. Adam swung the door open and motioned for his visitors to enter.
Ratchet and Sykes went in first, then Kat. As she passed Adam, he reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. The unexpected intimacy of that contact and the whiff of his aftershave made her stomach dance a jig of excitement. He had seemed all business when he’d greeted them, so sober in his gray suit. Now, seeing that look in his eye, she knew the spell was still alive between them.
“I’m glad you came,” he murmured. “How did you manage?”
“Wheelock’s covering for me. I took the day off. Told him I had to buy a new car.”
“Why not the truth?”
“He’d prefer I dropped this case. So would they.” She nodded toward Sykes and Ratchet, who were peering curiously at a blinking computer screen. “I think I’m being conscientious. They think I’m a pain in the ass.”
They all moved to a door marked AREA 8.
“This is where Zestron-L’s being developed,” said Adam, leading them inside.
Kat’s first impression was that she’d stepped through a time portal into a future world of black and white and chrome. Even the man who hurried to greet them did not violate that color scheme. His coat was a pristine white, his hair jet-black. “Dr. Herbert Esterhaus, project supervisor,” he said, reaching out to shake their hands. “I’m in charge of Zestron-L development.”
“And this is the area you manage?” asked Sykes, glancing about the lab where half a dozen workers staffed the various stations.
“Yes. The project’s confined to this section—the room you see here and the adjoining three rooms. The only access is through that door you entered, plus an emergency exit, through the animal lab. And that’s wired to an alarm.”
“Only authorized personnel are allowed in?”
“That’s right. Just our staff. I really don’t see how any Zestron could have gotten out.”
“Obviously it walked out,” said Sykes. “In someone’s pocket.”
Dr. Esterhaus glanced at Adam. There was a lot said in that glance, Kat thought. An unspoken question. Only now did she realize how skittery Esterhaus seemed, his bony fingers rubbing together, his rodent eyes noting Sykes’s and Ratchet’s every move.
“How well do you people screen your personnel?” asked Ratchet.
“When we hire someone,” said Adam, “we’re interested in scientific credentials. And talent. We don’t do polygraphs or credit checks. We like to assume our people are honest.”
“Maybe you assumed wrong,” said Sykes.
“Everyone in this project is a long-term employee,” said Adam. “Isn’t that right, Herb?”
Esterhaus nodded. “I’ve been here six years. Most of the employees”—he gestured to the workers in white coats—“have been with Cygnus even longer.”
“Any exceptions?” asked Ratchet.
Esterhaus paused and glanced at Adam. Again, that nervous look, that silent question.
“There was my stepdaughter, Maeve,” Adam finished for him.
Sykes and Ratchet exchanged looks. “She worked in this department?” asked Sykes.
“Just cleanup,” said Esterhaus quickly. “I mean, Maeve wasn’t really qualified to do anything else. But she did an acceptable job.”
“Why did she leave?”
“We had some … disagreements,” said Esterhaus.
“What disagreements?” pressed Sykes.
“She … started coming in late. And she didn’t always dress appropriately. I mean, I didn’t mind the green hair and all, but all the dangly jewelry, it’s not really safe around this equipment.”
Kat looked around at the two-tone room and tried to imagine what a splash of color Maeve Quantrell would have made. All these white-coated scientists must have thought her some wild and exotic creature, to be tolerated only because she was the boss’s daughter.
“So what?” said Sykes. “You fired her?”
“Yes,” said Esterhaus, looking very unhappy. “I discussed it with Mr. Quantrell and he agreed that I should do whatever was necessary.”
“Why was she coming in late?” asked Kat.
They all looked at her in puzzlement. “What?” asked Esterhaus.
“That bothers me. The why. She was doing her job, and then she wasn’t. When did it start?”
“Six months ago,” said Esterhaus.
“So six months ago, she starts coming in late, or not at all. What changed?” She looked at Adam.
He shook his head. “She was living on her own. I don’t know what was going on with her.”
“Strung out?” asked Sykes.
“Not that I was aware of,” said Esterhaus.
“She was angry, that’s what it was,” said a voice. It was one of the researchers, a woman sitting at a nearby computer terminal. “I was here the day you two had that fight, remember, Herb? Maeve was angry. Furious, really. Said she wasn’t going to take your … bullshit any longer, and then she stomped out.” The woman shook her head. “No control, that girl. Very impulsive.”
“Thank you, Rose, for the information,” Esterhaus said tightly. He motioned them toward the next room. “I’ll show you the rest of the lab.”
The tour continued, into the animal lab with its cages of barking dogs. The emergency exit was at the rear, and on the door was the sign: ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED.
“So you see,” said Esterhaus, “there’s no way someone can just walk in and steal anything.”
“But somehow the drug got out,” said Sykes.
“There’s one other possibility,” said Esterhaus. “There could have been simultaneous development. Another lab somewhere, working on the same thing. For someone to steal our drug, they’d have to break into Cygnus, through a secured door. They’d have to know our access codes.”
“Which all your employees know,” said Sykes.
“Well, yes.”
“One question,” said Ratchet, who’d been jotting things in his notebook. “Have you changed the access code lately?”
“Not in the last year.”
“So anyone employed here during the last year—say, Maeve, for instance—would know the code,” said Sykes.
Esterhaus shook his head. “She wouldn’t do it! She was difficult, yes, and maybe a little out of control. But she wasn’t a thief. For heaven’s sake, it’s her father’s company!”
“It was only an example,” said Sykes calmly.
Again, Esterhaus glanced at Adam. Suddenly Kat understood the looks that had flown between the two. They were both trying to cover for Maeve.
“Come on,” said Adam, smoothly redirecting their attention. “We’ll show you where the drug’s stored.”
Esterhaus led them into a side room. One wall was taken up by a refrigeration unit. “It’s not really necessary to store it in here,” he said, opening the refrigerator door. “The crystals are stable at room temperature. But we keep it in here as a precaution.” He pulled out a tray; glass vials tinkled together. Gingerly he remo
ved a vial and handed it to Kat. “That’s it,” he said. “Zestron-L.”
She raised the vial and studied it in wonder. Rose-pink crystals sparkled like tiny gemstones in the light. She turned the vial on its side and watched the contents tumble about, glittering. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
“That’s just the crystalline form, of course, for storage,” said Esterhaus. “What you’re looking at is almost pure. It’s injected in solution form. The crystals are dissolved in an alcohol-and-water solvent over heat. A little goes a long way.”
“How far does it go?”
“One of those crystals, just one, is enough to make, say, fifty therapeutic doses.”
“Fifty?” said Sykes.
“That’s right. One crystal diluted in 50cc of solvent will make fifty doses.”
Ratchet was busy studying the catch on the refrigerator door. “This thing isn’t locked,” he said.
“No. Nothing here’s locked. I told you, we trust our employees.”
“What about inventory control?” said Sykes. “You keep track of all those vials?”
“They’re numbered, see? So we’d know if any vials were missing.”
“But is there some way the drug could still get out? Without you knowing?”
Esterhaus paused. “I suppose, if someone was smart about it …”
“Yeah?” prompted Sykes.
“You could take a crystal or two. From each vial. And we might not notice the difference.”
There was a pause as they all considered the implications. In that silence, the sudden ringing of a cell phone seemed all the more startling. Both cops automatically glanced down at their belts.
“It’s mine. Excuse me,” said Sykes, and he retreated a few paces away to take the call.
“Well,” said Ratchet. “I’m not sure there’s much more we can do here. I mean, if two different labs can come up with the same stuff …”
“The odds are against simultaneous development,” said Adam. “Zestron-L isn’t something you just cook up in your basement. It took us years to get this far, and it’s still not ready for the market.”