by Rachel Caine
A giant glow-in-the-dark poster of a marijuana leaf decorated the wall over the sagging couch, and another of a long-dead singer looking the worse far wear. Heroin chic, the entire apartment.
McCarthy finished the last of the dead bolts and turned toward her. She met his eyes and smiled slightly. "Jazz said you were worried."
"Worried?" Something flashed in his eyes. "Worried doesn't quite cover it, Lucia. Where the hell were you?"
"I don't know." It hurt to say it, and a bubble of panic formed somewhere just below her stomach. "All I remember is going to sleep in my apartment and waking up in the hospital."
"Nothing else?" He took her arm and guided her to the couch. "You're sure?"
"Dreams," she said. "Impressions. Nothing—" She remembered a quick flash. Bright lights, a smothering feeling of panic, her limbs heavy with sedatives. Smeared voices.
Violations.
"I'll find out," she said flatly. "If it's the last thing I do, I’ll know what happened to me."
He helped her to the couch, assistance she didn't need but didn't resist. Unlike Jazz, she knew when to control her independent impulses. Instead, she reached up and covered his hand with her own—not to remove it, more a confirmation that she was really touching him. The heat of his skin against her palm, the caress of his fingers…the longing in his eyes.
The care with which he touched her made her shiver. "Jazz said wherever you were, you had medical care. The…"
"Anthrax," she supplied, with a flash of a smile. "You can say it. And it's gone. I don't think Dr. Kirkland would have allowed me out of bed if I hadn't been healthy."
Ben slid his hand from her arm, to fold her fingers in his. "Anything else?"
"What?"
"Did they find anything else?"
She frowned. Violations. "No. No, nothing."
He let out a slow breath. "Good." He smiled, heavy on the irony. "Good as it is to see you, I hope you didn't risk your life to come out here to visit me."
She had, mostly. But it wouldn't sound precisely smart to admit it. "I need to talk to Susannah," she said.
He nodded and, without a word, turned around and walked into the bedroom.
Lucia got up from the couch and moved to sit on a battered wooden chair. It looked less likely to harbor fleas than the grimy plaid cushions. It took a few minutes, but McCarthy reappeared, bringing with him a sleep-creased woman whom Lucia barely recognized as Susannah Davis. She looked considerably better. The swelling in her face had gone down, and the bruises were fading to blotches. She'd be pretty when she recovered, if not beautiful.
The scared expression in her eyes had faded, too. She looked different now. Desperation had made her seem honest, but the truth was emerging, and it wasn't entirely reassuring.
"Susannah," Lucia said. "How have you been?"
"All right," she answered, and slid into the chair opposite, across the battered kitchen table. She yawned and pushed her sleep-disordered hair back from her face. "I heard you were missing or something."
"Or something." Lucia let that sit for a few seconds to close the topic. "Someone tried to kill you, I hear."
Susannah looked down at her hands. She was picking at her cuticles. "Well, it damn sure wasn't Leonard." Cold, Lucia thought. Very cold.
"Maybe Leonard's business associates," Lucia said. "Right? You told us in the beginning that you knew things about his business dealings. Maybe they don't want you telling anyone what you know?"
She didn't reply. Her nervous picking continued. She'd had a good manicure once, but it had grown out, and the polish was halfway up her nails. Seashell-pink. When she'd had that manicure done—three weeks ago, at a guess— she'd also had a haircut. The shape was still there, even if she'd done nothing to style it. The clothes Susannah had on weren't her own, but the shoes were, and they were good ones. Not a woman who did her shopping at discount stores, but one who'd taken pride in herself, up until recently.
"Susannah," Lucia said, and drew her eyes in a direct gaze. "You know something. You knew Leonard would come after you, and you were afraid he'd kill you. He or his associates."
Susannah nodded and looked down again, picking furiously at the offending cuticle. She tore off a strip of skin. A bright bead of red appeared in the corner, next to the nail bed.
"You need to tell someone," Lucia repeated softly. "Why not McCarthy?"
The woman gave a mute shake of her head. Lucia made an intuitive leap, and didn't like where it took her. McCarthy was in the other room, but she couldn't tell if he could hear. She had to assume he could. "Maybe you just don't like him," she said. "You wouldn't be the first."
Susannah's head shake this time was almost a shiver. She knew something about McCarthy. Nothing that would require her to scream bloody murder over being left alone with him, but something. Maybe she'd picked it up at KCPD; plenty of cops might have said things there. A detective willing to take bribes might be the last person she could trust.
"Will you tell me?"
Susannah's fingers stopped moving. Lucia didn't speak; she knew Susannah was arguing with herself, and adding her voice would only hurt.
"He—" Susannah's voice failed, briefly, then came back stronger. "Leonard was working for these people. They had some kind of plan or something—I don't know what it was all about. But he would get these messages, and he would do things for them. The last one…he bought a lot of chemicals. A lot. He rented a building somewhere. He said he was starting up a lab."
Ah. "A meth lab," Lucia said.
Susannah gave her an irritated look. "No, it wasn't a meth lab. I know the chemicals for a meth lab, and this wasn't— look, it was different. There were two things they were delivering there. Sodium cyanide and hydrochloric acid."
The skin tightened on the back of Lucia's neck. "Were they opening an electroplating lab? Those are chemicals used—"
"Electroplating? You've got to be kidding! When I say I know what chemicals you use for a meth lab, how do you think I know that? I'm not a damn saint, and he wasn't opening any damn legitimate business. This was something else. Maybe the paperwork says electroplating, I don't know, but it's a lie. Can't you use that crap for something else, too?"
"Possibly." Noncommittal was the best strategy. If Susannah got frightened—more frightened—there was no telling what she might do. "I can check it out if you want. Where's the lab?"
"In SubTropolis," Susannah said.
Lucia frowned. "I don't—"
McCarthy, sure enough, was within earshot. He walked to the bedroom doorway, leaned against the frame and said, "Underground business complex. It's huge. You're going to need more than that. A business name, a unit number…"
"I don't know, okay? He didn't tell me anything. When I asked, he got mad." Susannah pointed at her face. "I didn't ask any more questions."
Lucia looked from her to Ben. "We could track suppliers. That could give us the unit number."
"Or we could just give the FBI the information." He nodded at Susannah. "And her."
"I can make the phone call, but without some proof, I don't think Agent Rawlins is going to be giving it much priority. He's overworked. He barely responded when we had anthrax in an envelope." She paused, thinking about it. "I know somebody to talk to, but he's undercover. I'll have to arrange a drive-by meeting. Shouldn't take long."
McCarthy didn't look happy about it.
"How are you going to get there?" he asked. "To your meeting? I cant leave her alone here.”
"That's the wonderful thing," Lucia said, and pulled the cell phone from her purse. "If you have a phone and a credit card, you can get just about anything delivered."
"Get pizza while you're at it."
She called FBI Special Agent Roger Cole ten minutes later. Cell phone, not office phone. Two minutes of idle chatting, a simple thirty-second request, and silence from him on the other end.
"Is this going to bite me in the ass?" he asked her. He was in his car. The road noise nearly overwhelme
d his voice. "Because I'd like to know how, so I can get my will ready."
"It might make your day, Roger. If I'm right."
"Then you should give me everything you have so I can get to work on it. Or better yet, somebody else can. I'm a little busy. Maybe you've heard, somebody's been playing with funny little white powder in envelopes."
"I've heard," she said blandly; he knew perfectly well who'd gotten the envelope. "This could be connected." A lie, but a nebulous one.
"Yeah?" The road noise lessened; he was pulling over.
"Okay, give. What do you have, and why aren't you talking to your red-haired boy?"
"My red-haired boy isn't exactly jumping through hoops for me at the moment."
"Don't be that way. He had four guys on the street looking for you, you know. He was distressed."
"So distressed he hasn't bothered to make a phone call to say hello and interrogate me about what I know? He's got bigger and juicier fish to catch just now. Look, all you have to do is track the shipments of chemicals to a specific address in SubTropolis, and I'll do the rest. If it checks out, it's yours. You get to be the hero." She read out the names of the specific chemicals as Susannah had given them. "Sound like anything to you?"
"Electroplating," he said. "And gas chambers. Fuck. You've done it again, haven't you?"
"Are you going to get me the information?" His sigh rattled in the speaker. "No. I'll get the info, but I go with you."
"I don't want a full team for reconnaissance."
"Relax. I'll make some calls, pick you up in…" he paused to check the time "…about an hour, okay?"
"Thank you."
The pizza arrived in forty-five minutes, and the driver looked nervous when Lucia met him at the door to hand him cash. She didn't doubt the apartment complex had a bad rep among deliverymen. She added on a considerable tip for his trouble, and hoped he wasn't mugged on his way back to his car.
Two slices later, her cell phone rang. Cole had a unit number in SubTropolis, including an entrance address. He'd even secured a Bureau van labeled as an electrical contractor; it would draw less attention in the SubTropolis tunnels than a private vehicle, especially since so much of the place was fitted out for industrial use.
"Where should I meet you?"
"You shouldn't," he said, amused. "I'll pick you up. Curb service and all that crap. Address?" She gave it. "Right, I'm close. Five minutes. I'll honk twice."
As she hung up, she realized that both McCarthy and Susannah were staring at her. "He's a decorated FBI special agent," she said. "I can vouch for him. He's the last person you need to worry about."
"Lucia, I don't like this, McCarthy said. He leaned back in his chair, frowning. "You just got out of the hospital, for Christ's sake. Let Jazz check it out."
"Jazz is looking into where I was taken while I was unconscious. That's not something I can put on the back burner. I need to know."
"Jazz hasn't slept in a week," he said softly. "You know that, right? She's catnapped a couple of times, when she fell down from exhaustion, but she's been living on coffee and Vivarin. Give her a break. Hell, give both of you a break."
"Hydrochloric acid and sodium cyanide?" Lucia asked, and raised her eyebrows. "What if they release it on a bus, Ben? In a shopping mall? You remember the Tokyo subway attack, right?
He said nothing, just shook his head.
"I'm going," she stated. "We're just going to check it out. If it's a legitimate operation, then no harm done. If not, the FBI will have a leg up. It's the best way to handle it. If it does turn out to be hinky, Susannah, you'll be in witness protection so fast the carpet will smoke on your way out the door."
She didn't look happy. "I don't like it here. Wouldn't it be better if I was someplace safer now? Someplace more— I don't know—fortified?"
"You've been fine here for days. You'll be fine another few hours."
Lucia got up and washed her hands in the kitchen sink, wincing at the state of the hygiene. McCarthy was going for drug-dealer authenticity. She hoped he'd changed the sheets, at least.
"Hey." He was behind her, close and warm, his voice low in her ear. She turned to face him. Behind him, the TV flipped on. Susannah was surfing listlessly through the channels, her face lit by the flickering glow.
"I know I don't have to say it, but for God's sake, would you be careful?" he asked. "You and Jazz, you're killing me. I was better off in prison. At least I didn't have friends to worry about."
She met his eyes. "Friends," she repeated softly. The sound from the TV was covering their conversation. "Is that what you want?"
"Of course not. Fresh out of prison, remember? But wanting more isn't all that smart between us right now. You're not—" He sucked in a breath and inclined his head, hiding his expression. His voice went very low in his throat. "You're not some cheap lay, okay? And I'm not going to use you that way. Or let you use me."
Oh, God. That was—powerful. She pressed back against the counter to keep from wrapping herself around him.
He raised his head and met her eyes.
"Do we understand each other?" he asked. "No matter what, I'm not going to use you."
She nodded. She wasn't sure she could actually speak at the moment.
"Okay. Then don't get yourself killed, or I'll be very disappointed," he said, and moved out of the way. She didn't go. She reached out, took hold of the scooped neck of his wifebeater, and pulled him toward her.
It was a long, slow kiss this time. He moaned, low in his throat, and put his hands on her, sliding them warmly up her shoulders, her neck, burying his fingers in her hair. She was glad she'd let it out of the ponytail.
Two honks sounded in the parking lot. His lips looked damp and hungry, and she brushed hers against them one more time. "I have to go," she whispered. He nodded. "I'll be back soon."
He stepped away and let her leave the kitchen, then stopped her with an outstretched hand at the apartment door and checked through the peephole before flipping the locks and swinging it open. When she looked back, the door was closed and locked, the peephole dark.
He was watching her go.
She followed Jazz's excellent example, taking the steps fast, and saw the electrician's van idling in the parking lot twenty feet from the sidewalk. She crossed to it without incident, she checked for Cole's familiar face before opening the passenger door.
Cole was a medium guy—medium height, medium weight, medium complexion. He'd disappear into a crowd of two. He'd chosen the vehicle well; the paint on the exterior was sun-faded and the contractor's logo and information were chipped. Cole himself was wearing a denim shirt, blue jeans and a tool belt that had just the right wear on the leather.
She wouldn't have given him a second glance, and Lucia knew herself to be more paranoid than most.
He put the van in gear without any words being spoken, and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.
"Sorry," she said, and indicated what she was wearing, which wasn't exactly appropriate to the occasion. "I haven't been home."
"Yeah, I heard you were in the hospital." He gave her a long look. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. Any word on the origin of the anthrax strain?"
"Came out of a lab in California, and believe me, somebody's ass is cooking on a grill right now. Rawlins is pissed. He really doesn't like terrorists."
She grinned. "And you do?"
"I spend a lot more time rubbing shoulders with them. Hard to get a real hate going when you've met their wives and kids. You know you have to do it, but sometimes it gets hard."
"Probably the same for them."
"Yeah. It is." He glanced out the back windows of the van. "You armed?"
"Always."
"Good. Not that I figure we'll need it, but I don't want to get caught with my tool belt down, if you know what I mean. Your source was right, by the way. These guys are ordering in big amounts of sodium cyanide, and their next-door neighbors are shipping in hydrochloric acid. I can see why
you're not fond of the combination. It'd make a hell of a nice hydrogen cyanide cloud. In an enclosed space, it could kill hundreds, maybe thousands. Arrowhead Stadium's right down the street. The volume of gas we're talking about, you set it off in a place like that, you could count on major results."
"God," she whispered reverently. "How easy would it be—?"
"The stadium? Not very. I mean, we're talking about a lot of chemicals here, very high profile, and chemicals are bulky to move around. But you look at some of the high-rise buildings in the city? Pump some of this into the air handlers, and you're talking big numbers of bodies." Cole considered it, his light brown eyes distant as he rubbed his chin. "Unless they're making a hell of a lot of gold chains and pimping up the hubcaps of half of the country, I can't see how they could be using everything they've ordered."
"So we take a look."
"Wrong," he said. "I take a look. You watch my ride. Looking like you do, I don't think anybody's going to believe you're apprenticing as a cable puller, so you'd better keep out of sight."
He wasn't being judgmental, just practical. She nodded and settled herself in the grimy seat. It occurred to her that she should call Jazz, but truthfully, she didn't want to. She knew she was pushing her luck. Fresh from the hospital and already taking risks? Jazz wouldn't approve. Loudly. At length.
As if she'd conjured up a connection telepathically, her cell phone rang. She exchanged a quick glance with Cole as he turned the van down Eldon Road, heading toward the railroad tracks. The entrance to SubTropolis was just ahead. Lucia pulled her phone out and flipped it open, and winced as static blasted her eardrum.
