“The other two victims were male. Approximately twenty-five and forty-five years of age. In the first two—the girl and the twenty-five-year-old male—death occurred in much the same way. Inhalation of the bio-agent, paralysis, dissolving of facial tissues, and then death due to massive hemorrhaging.”
“You learned all of that without seeing the bodies in person?”
Lucy sat back in her chair, and Dean felt suddenly—inexplicably—lonely.
Lucy rummaged in the bag and pulled out the BLT. “Yeah. The third vic died differently, though. The question is, why.”
Dean eyed Lucy as she bit into the sandwich, then stared back at the picture, then back at Lucy.
“What?” She paused mid-bite. “You told me to eat.”
Dean turned back to the images, tried to put on his agent brain. The guy appeared dead, and he wouldn’t be having an open casket funeral. In fact, his family would never see this body. What happened to the good old days when you eyeballed a vic and figured out what kind of gun he had been whacked with?
“He doesn’t have much skin. Looks the same to me.”
“You can do better, Agent Dreiser.” Lucy finished her half sandwich, stood and stretched, then began rummaging through her bag for a change of clothes.
Dean drew a shaky breath, had a sudden need for a cigarette though he’d quit three years ago.
Lucy smiled. She reached across him for her drink, long hair that had escaped from her clip brushing his cheek, perfume lingering after she shifted away. “You’re staring, Dean.”
Dean groaned. He was man enough to admit when he was in over his head.
“What’s different about the pictures, Dean?” Focusing again on the images, he ignored the fact that she was walking back toward him, behind his chair, leaning over him. Then her brown arms draped around him, hands working the keyboard, rearranging files.
“This is victim number one. Compare her to vic two. What difference do you see?”
Dean knew she’d already figured it out. Knew it must be right in front of him.
He stared at the pictures, forced himself to look past the horrific scenes on the screen.
Seeing the answer to her question, he snapped the laptop shut, placed it on Lucy’s chair. He ran his hand down her arm, pulled her around to sit on the stool in front of him. He needed to look in her eyes. “The woman has burn marks on her throat. The man doesn’t.”
She nodded. “Very good, Dreiser.”
Some hair had escaped the clip. He tucked it behind her ear, but didn’t let go of the hand he held. Didn’t stop rubbing his thumb over her palm. “What does it mean?”
“It means they’re experimenting with the dosage. The man died before the bio-agent entered his respiratory system. In vic one, we estimated the total time from contact with the weapon until death to be fourteen minutes. In the second, they sped up the process to approximately three minutes.”
“Three minutes?”
“Right. He died almost instantly. One massive hemorrhage. The facial skin dissolved, but as you saw, it left no marks on the throat.”
Dean glanced down at her hand, nails filed to a practical length. He knew he should let go, realized this couldn’t be personal. It was an op. Soon, they would both be off on different assignments. They’d probably be in different parts of the globe. But today, it seemed important they hold on.
“What about the third?”
“The third seems to be in the middle. Burn marks exist around the throat, but they are less intense. Estimated time, nine minutes.”
“I don’t understand what difference it makes. If their goal is to kill massive amounts of people, and with this weapon they can, what difference does it make whether it takes three minutes or nine or fourteen?”
“I have a theory.”
Lucy’s eyes had become impossibly round, and Dean again thought of those Northern Lights. Suddenly he wanted to go there, to leave today, walk away from this place. He’d never gone AWOL, and he wouldn’t start now. Yet, a veil of evil surrounded everything about this mission. It made him want to take Lucy as far from here as he could. Alaska seemed a safe distance.
“Go ahead.”
“They don’t want it to be quick—three minutes is much too fast. If their goal was to kill quickly and efficiently, they could do so with a bomb.”
“Agreed.”
“They also don’t want it to be too slow. Fourteen minutes would allow emergency medical personnel to arrive on scene.”
“But they couldn’t help.”
“True and irrelevant. The point is terror, Dean. Emergency response time averages thirteen minutes. It’s not a coincidence the third vic died in nine minutes. They’re refining their technique. I would expect to find one or two more before they move on to a wider release. They’ll probably settle at ten or eleven minutes.”
“Sweet heaven.” Dean dropped his head between his arms, felt Lucy place her hands on the back of his neck.
“Either way, people are going to die,” she said. “But whoever has designed this knows our systems. They want people to realize no one can get to them in time. They want them to die alone and afraid.”
IT ALL CAME BACK MORE quickly than Lucy would have believed. Greet the customer, smile and leave some menus, check on your previous tables. Go back to take their order, slap it on the cook’s ring, and give it a spin. Pick up drinks and rolls while tossing a smile to the single guys at table three—a big tip couldn’t hurt. Above all, keep turning the tables.
She found her old rhythm in the first hour. By the time Dean showed for his shift at six, Sally had stopped watching her like a hawk.
“Hey, Dean.” Lucy slipped behind the counter, clipped table seven’s order on Jerry’s ring, and picked up three iced teas. “I need two Mooseheads and a house Chablis.”
“How’s she doing, Sally?” Dean poured the wine and pulled the drafts in a fluid motion, smiling as Lucy’s hands brushed his when she picked up her tray.
“Not so good since you walked in.” Sally sat at the end of the bar, well away from the food prep, but still close enough to keep her eye on things. She reached in her pocket for the Marlboros, scowled at the label, then shook one from the pack and lit up.
Lucy stuck out her bottom lip and leaned against the bar. “You said I was doing great ten minutes ago.”
“You were.” Sally studied her through the smoke for a moment, then waved her away. “Take those drinks and get back to work.”
“I thought you told me to take a break.”
“I changed my mind.”
Lucy settled the tray on the flat of her palm, rolled her eyes, and turned to go.
“Problem, boss?” Dean asked.
“The problem is trying to keep the help away from you.”
“I heard that,” Lucy said as she walked off toward her table.
“I hoped you would,” Sally called after her.
“I thought you gave up smoking.” Dean wiped off the counter as he studied Sally.
“I took it up again.”
Dean nodded and reached under the bar top for an ashtray. Finding one, he pushed it her way.
“Here comes another member of your fan club,” Sally said, as she tapped ash. They both shifted to watch Angela.
The girl was twenty-two and built like a model. Five-foot-eight, one-hundred-thirty pounds, tiny waist, long legs, and a shapely figure. Blond hair cut in a bob made her look too young to serve the drinks she carried. The right touch of rose-glittered blush and pink lipstick pulled the picture together. She knew how to use it all. At the end of the night, her tips always tallied highest.
For Angie the game stopped at the barroom door. It was all in a good night’s fun. The girl had a heart as innocent as a morning’s sunrise. She saw no harm in shaking and showing what God had given her.
Walking up to the counter, she leaned over and said, “Table twelve wants four Buds on tap.”
“Sure thing, Angie. How’s it going tonight?”
>
“Better now with you here.”
“I’m sure Paul has taken care of you all afternoon. He runs a good bar too.”
“Paul’s all right, but he’s like eighty-five. We like when your shift starts.”
Sally coughed, then inhaled more deeply.
“A bunch of us are going out to George’s Bar after we close tonight.” Angie picked up her tray, adjusted her posture to make the best of her assets. “Wanna go with us?”
“George’s Bar? Where is it? What is it?” Lucy was back. She set her tray on the bar top. “Two margaritas for the ladies in the corner.”
“You’d love it, Lucy.” Angie did a little two-step and grinned. “They even have a little dance floor. You should see Dean dance.”
Sally rolled her eyes and chain lit a cigarette. “Speaking of floors, get back to ours and tend your tables.”
“We’re waiting for our bar drinks, Sally.” Angie took the mugs of beer, gave Dean a once over, and winked at Lucy. “He goes with us most nights.”
Angie turned back to Jerry, who stared at her through the pass-through. “Remember the time you were arrested for starting that fight at George’s?”
Jerry grinned at her, “You mean after you locked your keys in the car in Grand Junction?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to call you, so I hitched back.”
“Which was fine until the trucker from Central Freight thought he was on a date with you.”
“This isn’t Memory Lane,” Sally mumbled. “Could someone go back to work?”
“I’ve loved George’s Bar ever since that night.” Angie hustled off toward her table before Sally banned her from the bar area.
“You go most nights?” Lucy gave Dean her best smile. “Spanish girls love the flamenco, but I never would have guessed you to be a dancing cowboy.”
Dean refused the bait, shook his head, and began uncrating the longneck beers sitting next to the cooler.
While he bent over, Lucy whispered to Sally in a voice she hoped would carry, “He is so hot.”
She heard, more than saw, him hit his head on the bar counter.
Lucy pivoted toward her tables, followed by Sally’s familiar refrain of “Trouble. I might as well put it on the menu—special tonight: trouble.”
Since it was a weeknight, E.T.’s closed at eleven. Dean wasn’t sure how Lucy talked him into joining the regular night crew—Angie, Nadine, even Jerry. They’d agreed to meet at George’s Bar which stayed open until two.
He felt wrung out. The last thing he wanted to do was bop around a dance floor like some twenty-year-old.
“Dean, we’re supposed to act like one of the locals. Plus, I’m a college student, remember? College students do not go to bed at eleven. Trust me. This, I know.”
“Fine. We stay for one drink, and then we go. Remember, we’re meeting Martin at one-thirty.”
“So what is the point of going to bed beforehand? We can do some reconnaissance. Find out if anyone at E.T.’s knows anything.”
“New agents are so overeager.”
“You’re grumpy because I flirted with you all night.” They were in the truck again, driving down Main Street.
“It’s part of my cover, Dean. Sally wasn’t going to believe your UFO story. I already explained that to you.” Lucy had her feet propped up on the dashboard. Streetlights shone through the front windshield on bright pink toenails complete with two silver rings—nothing practical about that. The woman was an enigma.
Why did women paint their toes? Where did they buy rings small enough to fit on their toes? When did she get a Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment tattoo on her ankle? His mind started wondering what other tattoos she might have, and he made a sharper left than he intended. The screeching tires relieved at least a portion of his frustration.
They were government agents for heaven’s sake. His partner did not fit into his previous experience. Dean’s head hurt. In fact, it throbbed and his eyes were itching. He needed some sleep before tonight’s meeting. He did not need to go drink and dance with Lucinda Brown for two hours.
“One drink. One dance. Then we’re out of here.” He pulled the truck into George’s, shut it off, and rammed his baseball cap down on his head.
Lucy slid her sandals back on. “Okay, Dean.” They both got out of the truck and walked toward George’s. Music poured from the bar. Classic rock so loud it made the vein in Dean’s head pulse as his blood jumped with every strum of the electric guitar.
She gave him a long once over. The look left him tense and bristly—as if he had fur, and it had been rubbed the wrong way. Then she smiled. Her expression said she understood he was calling the shots, but this part they would do her way. He tugged his baseball cap down further, and opened the door to George’s.
Ω
The bar reminded Lucy of every other bar she’d been in. She found comfort in the familiarity. Whether you were in New Mexico or Massachusetts, the dance floor was always small and at the front of the room, the juke box old and to the side, and the tables scarred and dimly lit.
If there had been waitresses, they’d gone home. Dean walked up to the bar and ordered them both a drink while Lucy joined the rest of the group from E.T.’s.
“Lucy, Jerry says he’s too tired.” Angie was at least one drink in the lead, maybe more. “You come dance with me. I love this song.”
“Girlfriend, I can never refuse an offer to dance.”
With a shriek, Angie pulled her to the hardwood floor. As they began to move to the blaring sounds of Los Lonely Boys, Lucy couldn’t help but envy the younger girl. More than Angie’s age, Lucy envied her innocence. Angie’s biggest problem was finding a dance partner for the current song. She seemed blissfully unencumbered by the weight and responsibilities pulling at Lucy, threatening to push her under.
Lucy had felt so free once, so lighthearted. Had it been only a few years ago? Before her brother had come home from overseas. Before she’d seen what war could do, up close and personal. Lucy pushed the images away. She couldn’t deal with them tonight.
Instead she focused on dancing with Angie. They lost themselves in the rhythm. They danced with abandon, allowing themselves to forget the group at the table, the dusty desert around them, everything except the sounds of How Far is Heaven.
When the last of the melody died, they made their way back to the table. Lucy’s mood was better. How could it not be? Laughing, she fell onto the stool beside Dean, but Angie had no intention of sitting back down.
“Come on, Jerry. I know you’ll dance to George Strait.” Angie pulled the big guy off his bar stool and out onto the floor. At over two hundred pounds, he still managed to two-step quite gracefully.
Lucy took the glass of wine from Dean and smiled. The drink felt cold and soothing as it went down her throat. She told herself not to notice the way his eyes lingered on hers.
“You’re sweating,” he said.
“Yeah. Get out there, Dreiser. You’ll work up a sweat yourself.” She shrugged out of her jacket.
“Lucy—”
“Dean.” Nadine leaned across the table, locked eyes with him. Dared him to deny her. “I didn’t get to come out last time, but I heard about you. Dance with me?”
Barely old enough to be at George’s, she had just celebrated her twenty-first birthday. Tiny and tired, she didn’t look as if she’d have the energy to make it around the dance floor. Lucy could tell from one night at E.T.’s that Nadine was the group’s favorite. Her older brother had walked away from his family a year ago, leaving a wife and two small children. Climbed into his sixty-five Mustang and driven out of town—never looked back. Nadine had given up a college scholarship to stay and help with her niece and nephew.
“You promised if I came the next time you would spin me around the floor. Remember?”
“Yeah, Nadine. Of course I remember. Come on.”
Before Lucy knew it she was dancing with Angie again, then with Jerry. Thirty minutes turned into an hour, and it was midnigh
t when she checked her watch. Suddenly Dean cut in, as Alan Jackson sang about the love of a woman. Lucy had finished her glass of wine and somehow the image of three victims in the desert had begun to hurt a little less.
“You’re beautiful. Though I doubt I’m the first man to tell you so tonight.” Dean’s voice in her ear caused every inch of her skin to come alive. He held her close, his arm easily encircling her, his hand barely touching her back.
She wanted to melt into him, wanted to believe he wouldn’t disappear in the night like her old dog Jake. More than anything, she wanted to rest, even if it was only for this moment. Instead she said, “You’re one smooth dancer, Dreiser.”
His laughter made her heart feel good.
She could almost believe things would be all right.
“We need to go, Doc.”
“Right.”
And then they were gone, speeding through the desert night. They rode with the windows down, and Lucy must have slept for part of the drive. When she woke they were bumping down a gravel road, and the lights of the old truck were off.
“GEEZ, DREISER. HOW in the world can you see where you’re going?” She scooted next to him in the truck, needing to feel his warmth.
“Compass.”
“How do you see it?”
“It’s in my head.”
She felt more than saw his wolfish grin. Had she really known this man less than twenty-four hours?
He slowed, then stopped the truck. Opened the door, and pulled her out on his side. She tried not to jump when Commander Martin stepped out of the darkness.
“Dreiser. Brown.”
“Commander.” Their response came in stereo.
“I received your report, Dr. Brown. Dr. Kowlson agrees with your analysis. Good work.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lucy said.
“Dean, we’re working through the list of names you sent us. So far, there have been no hits. What we can assume is these are not your traditional terrorists, so we need to broaden the field.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” Dean asked.
“Meaning anyone is to be considered suspect—man or woman, any age.”
Roswell's Secret Page 5
