He scrolled through the readout. Such a virus had been engineered to deliver genetic therapeutics. What the hell was a genetic therapeutic doing in a nutritional supplement?
Picking up the bottle, Ross examined the label again. The paper sticker claimed to improve infant health by ensuring optimal nutrient transfer between a mother and her child still in the womb. Even after birth, the little pill assured mothers their breast milk would be filled with all the proper vitamins, antibodies, and amino acids to guarantee their baby developed healthy and at an above-average mental and physical rate.
Good God. A supplement containing an unidentified substance meant to alter someone’s genes found in a product that could affect infants.
His blood ran cold as he wondered if this contaminant might be in the supplements Emma took. None of the tests he performed on the pills she’d taken had shown up with what he’d uncovered, but he shot her a quick message telling her to stop taking her Blackbird pills immediately.
He’d simultaneously scared the hell out of himself and stumbled on journalism gold.
Now he needed to finish the analysis on what the virus contained. He wondered if it would hold the genetic material responsible for the neurodegenerative disease he’d been following. If it did, he’d get the book deal for sure, and he and Emma could tell all the debt collectors to screw off.
Ross froze as he stared at the results projected on the display. If a contaminant compromised Blackbird’s production line, it meant the company was pumping out supplements with potentially disease-causing agents. Other mothers and children would be at risk. He needed to tell someone what he’d found. Maybe the FDA.
But he wasn’t sure exactly what he’d unearthed yet, and to be honest, the mother and child he cared most about were Emma and Kelsey. He wanted a story worth telling, something to preserve his job if he was to keep Kelsey’s treatments flowing and her cancer at bay.
The squeak of an office door spoiled his introspection.
“Hello?” he called out.
No one responded.
His pulse quickened, but he repressed an insatiable urge to sprint out of the office. Stop being so paranoid.
“Hello?”
Again, no one responded. Maybe he was hearing things. He’d forgone an adequate night’s sleep the past few weeks working on this story, and the clock on his comm card showed 2:20 a.m.
A smile tore across his face.
After all his efforts, he had finally found something worth looking a bit deeper into. He could spare another sleepless night, and he didn’t want to lose any of the details of his findings.
Ross strode back to his desk so he could record the results from his ad-hoc experiment. He squinted around the darkness to be sure it was his mind playing tricks on him. He saw no unidentifiable silhouettes moving against the soft lights glowing in through the windows. No movement, no sounds.
Where’d I leave the notebook?
He moved the black, baseball-sized holodisplay and a couple paper books. No notepad. He swore he had left it there and sat down in his office chair. Maybe exhaustion had caught up to him.
But the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he shivered. Stop being so crazy.
He opened his desk drawers and rifled through the contents. No sign of the yellow legal pad. Had he left it in the makeshift laboratory? He laughed at himself. Of course, it must be right where he needed it. He’d been so tired that he forgot about it.
Ross stood and turned. The smile dissipated from his face.
“Don’t say a damned word,” the man said, his face hidden behind a black mask and his lips barely moving. In the intruder’s left hand, he held the notepad. With his right hand, he aimed a pistol at Ross’s face. “Where else do you store your information?”
Ross’s teeth chattered. “What?”
“Come on, man. Don’t play dumb. You don’t have shit on your computer. You didn’t put anything on any cloud server. Where else are you hiding your story?”
Ross froze, incredulous. The man wanted Ross’s scoop on Blackbird. Of course. Human journalists and news agencies had gotten increasingly desperate. He’d expected hacking but not an outright robbery. “Come on. We can work something out. I’ll share the byline, if you want.”
“What I want is for this investigation to disappear.”
Ross’s heart sank. This was no daring, cold-blooded journalist. He had stumbled onto something, a conspiracy, a corporate plot of sorts. Something worse. Images of Kelsey’s cherubic face and the dimples on her cheeks appeared in his mind. Those moments when she wasn’t crying, when she wasn’t in pain from her treatments and disease. Those moments he hoped would last forever when she recovered. “That notepad has everything.”
The man shook the flimsy stack of yellow paper. “This is it? You’ve been at this for a month now, and this is all you have?” He lifted the handgun to eye level.
Ross gulped. “Yes.” He was losing his story, his scoop. Maybe his life. And this man mocked his worth as a journalist.
“Give me your comm card.”
When Ross hesitated, the man thrust the metal barrel against his forehead.
“Give me the damn thing.”
The card provided him instant communication with anyone at any time, and it contained his contacts, everyone from his wife to his business associates. It served as an electronic key to these offices and to his home, where Emma and Kelsey slept. He drew it from his pocket.
The intruder set the notepad down on the desk before taking the card. “Who else knows about this story?”
“Angelina Herold. My boss.”
“What about your wife?”
Of course he’d told her tidbits from what he’d suspected. He’d used her as a sounding board with every new theory or suspicion. But he feared what this man planned for her should Ross reveal she knew anything about the Blackbird case. “No. I can’t tell her anything. It’s part of my employment agreement with the Telegraph.”
It was a blatant lie, but he hoped it would hold.
“Fine,” the man said. “I’ll ask her myself anyway.”
Ross feared the man’s visit to Emma wouldn’t be a simple phone call or a friendly chat over tea. No, the coldness in this intruder’s eyes revealed enough of his intentions. “What are you going to do with me?”
For a moment, the man stared hard into Ross’s eyes. His blue irises seemed to gleam. “I think you already know.”
Another shiver escaped down Ross’s spine, and his stomach tangled into a painful knot. He wanted to crumple; he wanted to fall to the floor, to beg for his life.
There would be no pity. No sympathy from this man. He knew it. Far worse, he knew the same apathy would be given to his wife, maybe even his child.
He couldn’t allow that.
Ross dodged under the man’s gun and slammed into his chest. He shoved as hard as he could until the man hit one of the hip-high cubicle walls and fell backward over it. The thug dropped the comm card, and Ross dove to pick it up.
He had only the benefit of surprise and the momentary confusion of his attacker. It wouldn’t last long. He sprinted toward the exit. As he ducked between low-lying cubicle walls, he called Emma. The line rang. Come on, baby. Wake up. Please.
“You idiot,” the man said from across the room. His voice called out not in anger or in admonishment but with calmness, as if he felt sorry for Ross.
Emma’s tired voice answered. “Why the hell—”
“Go to the police. Now. Don’t ask questions.”
He was almost at the door. He glanced back. The attacker leveled his gun. Ross jumped for the door.
Something heavy slammed into his back. He staggered. Another impact tore into him. Pain coursed through him like lightning.
“You idiot,” the attacker said again. “You’ve made this a lot harder on everyone.”
Ross gasped for breath. He tried to stand but toppled over and cracked his head against the door. It swung open as if teasing him, showi
ng him the path to escape. He reached out and grabbed at the carpet, dragging himself forward.
A foot slammed down on his back, and he cranked his head up. The attacker thrust his pistol, now bearing a long silencer, directly at Ross’s face. The silencer hadn’t been there before. The intruder must have screwed it in as Ross scrambled for the exit. As his consciousness flickered with the agony in his chest, throbbing with each beat of his heart, he realized the only reason he’d made it this far was because the man hadn’t taken the time to put the silencer in place before.
And now he’d make it no further. He thought of Emma, of Kelsey. He hoped they’d get away.
The attacker eased back the trigger. There was a brief flash of light, and then Ross’s world disappeared.
Chapter 1
Christopher Morgan sipped from a glass of pinot noir and returned Robin Haynes’s smile. Her brunette hair spilled around a heart-shaped face, enjoining him to forget about the rest of the world and focus on the beautiful woman joining him for dinner.
But forgetting wasn’t so easy to do. The past year had devolved into multiple attempts on his life, his friends landing in constant danger, and the fear from almost succumbing to a terrifying disease spreading through Baltimore.
To add to his growing list of hardships, he knew Vincent, his former cellmate in prison and the leader of the criminal organization responsible for a significant portion of Baltimore’s illegal genetic enhancement business, had disappeared since his presumed death. But he’d discovered the man was alive.
Chris stared at the giant sailfish adorning one wall of the restaurant and wondered whether it was a legitimate result of taxidermy or a plastic replica. For all he knew, it might be a hologram produced by a high-resolution projector.
“What’s on your mind?” Robin asked, her brow furrowed and her fork midair holding a chunk of pink salmon.
“Do you think that’s real?” He nodded to indicate the fish’s yellow and green body.
“Well, I see it too, so at least it’s not a hallucination.”
“Thanks for that,” Chris said, catching her deep brown eyes. She wore a hint of mascara that made her eyelashes pop, and her irises glowed, a far cry from the usual exhaustion drawing heavy purple bags under her eyelids. Still, he’d always thought she looked beautiful without being done up and wasn’t quite used to seeing her hair flow across her bare shoulders instead of tied up in a ponytail over her white coat and scrubs.
“You’re distracted, aren’t you?” She pointed her fork at him, the bit of fish still on it. “You promised we’d enjoy ourselves for one night.” With her other hand, she held up her index finger. “That’s one dinner, one evening, where we don’t think about all the crap.” Her smile drooped for a second, a flash of pain in her eyes, but she regained her optimistic demeanor. “Come on, Chris. I intend to make good on my promise and enjoy your company without worrying about work, genetic enhancements, or hit lists with our names on them.”
Chris knew she was trying to pass her comments off as joke, but the truth stung. He couldn’t ever escape his past as an illegal enhancement manufacturer, and she couldn’t forget about working beside him in a lab for weeks, imprisoned and cut off from the outside world and forced to labor on behalf of a faceless criminal organization.
Screw it.
“You’re right,” he said. “We deserve one night to ourselves.” He waved their waiter down. “Can we get a bottle of the Pinot Arc en Ciel?”
“Rainbow wine?” Robin laughed. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
The waiter nodded before flitting away. He returned with a bottle of color-changing wine and gave it to Chris for his approval before pouring a taste. Chris took a sip and nodded. The server filled two glasses and set the bottle on the table.
Robin swirled her drink around. “This stuff is so hokey, though.”
“It absolutely is.” His glass glowed blue then green and settled into a brilliant purple. The wine originated from grapes infused with jellyfish genes that enabled the liquid to change colors if fermented properly. Chris held his glass up. “To the glory of science and all its benefits.”
Robin smirked, and her elfin nose twitched. She suppressed a slight chuckle and eyed the bottle. “We’re going to finish that whole thing tonight?”
“We promised to enjoy ourselves.”
“Fine,” she said. She met his glass with hers. “Here’s to hoping we’re not throwing up rainbows tomorrow.”
As the sweet drops of wine hit his tongue, Chris found he didn’t want to worry about tomorrow at all. Robin was right. They deserved one night where they didn’t fret over the past or the future. The subsequent splashes of the color-shifting drink helped allay his anxieties. Near the front of the restaurant, a band played the first notes of a classic rock song. He closed his eyes and absorbed the music.
Fingers wrapped around his wrist, and he opened his eyes. Robin batted her eyes at him, her lips spread in a wry grin. “You ready to hit the road?”
Disappointment welled up in him. “Already?”
“Your place isn’t too far.”
“Oh, I suppose it’s a bit more of a walk for you.”
“I hoped I wouldn’t have to walk home.” Her face contorted in a melodramatic, sad expression.
“You want me to call you a cab? I can—oh.” His eyes widened.
Robin laughed. “Come on. Don’t act so surprised.”
“No, it’s just—”
“I’m a grown woman, Chris. I don’t often get to enjoy the company of a gentleman.”
A grin spread across his face, and he didn’t bother trying to conceal his anticipation. He had never believed she’d actually give him the time of the day, and now she was even giving him her night.
Robin stood and yanked him up with her. She grasped his hand in hers and led him out of the restaurant. They exited into the late summer evening, and the breeze wafting over them from the nearby Chesapeake Bay did little to assuage the hot humid air.
Chris had met Robin at the beginning of the summer. In a couple months, the trees lining Baltimore’s streets and parks would turn the colors of fire and earth before falling. The city would cool, but he hoped his relationship with Robin would not. As one season ended, fading into another, he clung to the dream—any dream—that reminded him what it would be like to live a normal life away from the underground world of black-market biotechnology. Robin might be the person to help him on that path.
They walked down a brick-paved street, and he kissed her cheek. She clasped his hand tighter, and he prayed none of this was a dream.
Chapter 2
“Come on,” Bio Unit detective Ana Dellaporta said. “You ready for some federal hospitality?”
Ana glared at Senator Arthur Sharp. Though Doctor Robin Haynes had successfully cured the cancer that almost killed the man, he still appeared like a shriveled husk of his former self. Where once the man had exhibited an almost unstoppable charm and stubborn demeanor, he now looked as confident as a scarecrow flagging in the wind.
“You should’ve let me die.”
“And lose my star witness?”
The senator met her eyes. “I’m not yours any longer.” He gave her a crooked leer.
She furrowed her brow, but he was right. She knew he would never be hers. She’d led the sting operation that ended in the senator’s arrest and eventually brought him into Baltimore PD custody.
But the feds laid claim on Sharp. He had been nothing but a puppet to the criminal organization using Tallicor Consulting Group as a business front for an illegal genetic enhancement business.
Since arriving at Baltimore PD, Sharp hadn’t said a word about his involvement with Tallicor despite Ana’s lengthy interrogations. Even the FBI hadn’t convinced the man to squeal. Ana expected and feared Sharp planned to work out a plea deal with federal officials once they transferred him to a federal facility. She wanted the bastard to rot in a maximum-security state penitentiary but knew h
er hopes were nothing but unattainable daydreams.
No, the senator had undoubtedly covered his ass with a legal team to rival that of any major corporation, likely because of the senator’s intimate involvement with biotech companies in both lawful and allegedly unlawful relationships.
“I hope you meet a pissed-off enhancer,” she said. Two U.S. marshals moved into the cell with Sharp and handcuffed him. She imagined an imprisoned enhancement user, muscles bulging and vessels dilating as he pummeled the senator. Sharp deserved it. A trusted U.S. congressman making deals with the biotech mafia—maybe Sharp would learn a lesson or two when faced with the results of the underground genetics market.
The senator’s teeth, still obnoxiously white, gleamed in the murky glow of the cell’s lights. “I am and always will be a man of the people.”
The marshals yanked him up to his feet.
“And those people will never respect a woman like you,” Sharp said.
Ana’s nose scrunched, but she made no reply. Inwardly, she fumed at his misogynistic insinuations but wouldn’t take his bait. She’d said enough already.
“All right. Walk,” one of the marshals said.
Ana followed the trio. They joined a cadre of other officers and marshals. The feds had offered to allow Ana and several others in the Bio Unit of Baltimore PD to assist in escorting Sharp to Washington before a scheduled hearing. Ana knew it was more of a consolation prize for their efforts in bringing the senator down, but she took the opportunity anyway.
Still, she grimaced when she considered that the senator would soon be out of her hands. She knew he’d never spend the time in prison he deserved. He might lose his seat in Congress, but the wealth he’d accumulated and probably squirreled away in the Caymans couldn’t be taken away as easily.
“Vehicles are ready and to be loaded on my mark,” Lieutenant Rainier said, pointing at the officers milling about. The U.S. marshals ignored him as they hovered about in their own circles with Sharp, surrounded by a contingent of men wearing dark suits and serious expressions.
The Black Market DNA Series: Books 1-3 Page 52
