Waking Nightmare

by Kylie Brant

  Shrugging, Han said “Like I said, trace amounts. If he was going to mix his own drug cocktail, so to speak, I can’t figure why he didn’t use a form of scopolamine, which also could have been tweaked to produce the paralysis and hazed memory. It would have been a lot easier to access than TTX.”

  Ryne recalled scopolamine from his early days working narcotics undercover. He’d once infiltrated a gang-related drug ring selling it, along with roofies and GHB, as date rape drugs.

  “What would be the major outlets for TTX?”

  The chemist smirked at him. “The Indo-Pacific Ocean.”

  Looking past the man to the clock on the wall, Ryne was reminded that he didn’t have much more time before his meeting with Dixon. “Can you be a little more specific?”

  “Sure.” Han grabbed the notebook from him and looked through its pages, until he found the one he was seeking, tore it out, and handed it to Ryne. “Tetrodotoxin is found in several forms of marine life, but the most common is the puffer fish, otherwise known as fugu or blowfish. They’re considered a delicacy in Japan, which not coincidentally leads the world in TTX-related deaths. It’s even used in voodoo to create zombie poisons.”

  Ryne eyed him askance. “Get out.”

  The chemist slapped a hand over his heart. “Swear on my mother’s grave. That’s mostly in Haiti, I think.”

  “So I just need to start tracking down voodoo queens, sushi chefs, and geeks raising puffer fish in their home aquariums.” Ryne’s tone was sardonic. “Thanks, Mark. This is really helpful.”

  “You can skip the home aquarium enthusiasts. The fish don’t produce the TTX on their own, a bacteria does it for them. And the bacteria is only present in the marine world. Puffer fish cultured by humans don’t carry it.”

  “That really narrows it down.”

  “Probably not, but this should. There has been some recent interest by the pharmaceutical community regarding the use of TTX for medicinal purposes.”

  That buzz of adrenaline was back. Ryne stared at the other man, his mind racing. “How much interest?”

  Han shrugged. “Couldn’t say. But I know I’ve seen periodic studies in journals for the last few years on the possible medicinal benefits, primarily for pain suppression or anesthesia.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ryne interjected. “This perp isn’t giving something to the victims to lessen the pain. Just the opposite.”

  That familiar impatience was back in Han’s expression. “TTX has a relative molecular mass, right?” Han flipped through the notebook to find a formulaic drawing and stabbed a finger at it. “Pharmaceutical scientists regularly make derivatives of drugs that produce desirable effects while minimizing or eliminating the unwanted effects. They change the structure of a drug slightly to see if this makes it more effective or reduces side effects. They’ll add or remove a methyl, a hydroxy group, or some other functional group here or there on the original drug molecule and then see how it changes its effectiveness.”

  “Then how could you identify it as TTX anymore?” Ryne asked. “It’s properties or whatever would be altered, right?”

  Han looked smug. “You can still determine the drug it was synthesized from, but that wasn’t the tricky part. Another chemist would have used a scheme of acid and base extractions. But TTX breaks down in strong acid or strong base. A neutral extraction was needed, and that isn’t common.”

  It took Ryne a moment to realize that he was supposed to be impressed. “So you must have had an idea of what you were going to find.”

  “There are no screening tests for TTX or its derivatives. But I thought of it when you first described the effects to me. The structure of this drug is very close to the original compound, with slight changes that must have been deliberate. Someone spent a lot of time experimenting with minute alterations until the desired effect was achieved.” There was a shade of admiration in his tone. “Like I said, scientifically speaking, it’s genius.”

  “And designed with one specific purpose in mind,” Ryne said grimly.

  Abbie rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms and turned away from the ViCAP notebook. She’d take a break from the tedium to focus on Larsen for a while. She’d want to talk to her again, but not before she was armed with as much background as she could compile on her.

  She put the cap back on the highlighter she was using—she still owed Ryne for that dig—and got up to sit behind his desk to run a check on the woman.

  Her cell phone rang, and checking the number, she saw it was Ryne. Answering it, she said, “You lied. You don’t have any blue highlighters. That’s going to throw my whole system off.”

  There was a pause, then a low chuckle. “Sorry about that. I’ll have to make it up to you. Does that mean this isn’t a good time to ask for a favor?”

  Abbie leaned back in his desk chair, enjoying herself. “I’ve learned a little about you, too. Enough to avoid making any promises without knowing up front what the favor is.”

  “Usually a wise choice, but this is related to the case. I just left Mark Han and he’s got a lead on the drug.” Humor fled, and Abbie straightened as he went on, “He thinks it’s a derivative of tetrodotoxin”—he spelled it for her and she jotted it down on a paper on his desk—“which has drawn the attention of the pharmaceutical community, and I was wondering if you could do a quick Internet search, see if you come up with anything.”

  She moved to her own computer again and opened the search engine, tapped in the subject, scrolled the page rapidly. “Lots of articles on its origin . . . it comes from puffer fish?”

  “Among other things. Try medicinal effects or something.”

  She obeyed and a moment later let out a whistle. “Bingo. Looks like a press release from Ketrum Pharmaceuticals.” She scanned the page. “They’re currently in stage three of clinical trials—whatever that is. Looks like they’re having some success using it for a heavy-duty pain blocker.” She frowned. “That’s not how it works on the victims.”

  “I’ll explain later. I’m just pulling in to meet Dixon now. See what you can find out about the parent company and where their labs are located. And if you could discover the location of the specific lab involved in this testing, that’d be great.”

  “No problem,” she said wryly, eyeing the ViCAP binder. On top of everything else she’d been involved in today, what were a few more hours of research?

  They disconnected and Abbie got up to position her laptop on the edge of her desk. She could use the two computers simultaneously, running checks on Larsen and Cordray while searching the web for more facts on Ketrum. Maybe she’d discover the answer to the most urgent of the questions she hadn’t had time to put to Ryne.

  Like how a poison from a marine animal could be found in the veins of each of their rape victims.

  “Abbie. Check this out.”

  She looked up to observe Officer Joe Reed walking by, jerking a thumb behind him. Craning her head, she tried, and failed to see what he was indicating. But now that her concentration had been interrupted, she could certainly hear the commotion that she had previously tuned out.

  “I’m not leaving until I see him, so the sooner you get him back here, the sooner you’ll be rid of me.” As the woman’s voice filtered back to her, Abbie pushed away from the desk and headed up front.

  “Ma’am, I already told you. Detective McElroy is out and could be all day. If you’ll just leave a message . . .”

  Abbie walked up to where the weary-sounding desk sergeant was addressing a dark-haired woman dressed completely in black.

  Which was a little like describing the Sphinx as piles of interesting rocks.

  She was clad in a skintight cat suit and thigh-high black boots with pencil-thin heels that added a good five inches to her height. She wore studded leather fingerless gloves, a matching choker, and a palpable fury that threatened to erupt at any moment.

  “Is there a problem, Sergeant Foster?” Abbie asked pleasantly.

  “Not at
all.” The officer replied with remarkable composure. “I was just trying to explain to this . . . lady . . .”

  “Mistress Chan, you miserable worm,” the woman snarled.

  “. . . that Detective McElroy isn’t here and may not be back for hours. She was about to leave a message.”

  “I was about to do no such thing. Get him on the phone.” She slammed a hand on the policeman’s desk and leaned forward threateningly.

  Foster’s tone was still even, but his face had reddened. “You’ll want to step back, ma’am, before I have you cuffed and put behind bars again.”

  Mistress Chan. Abbie flipped through her mental Rolodex until she recalled where she’d heard the name before. The dominatrix that Cantrell and McElroy had interviewed. She observed the woman with renewed interest. Nothing in the detectives’ notes had jumped out at her when she’d reviewed them, which in itself had seemed curious. It was hard to believe that a woman who made her living as this one did had never run across an S&M client who had come to her with bizarre demands.

  She raked the woman’s form with her gaze and smiled inwardly. Bizarre, of course, was in the eye of the beholder.

  “Perhaps I can help you, Mistress Chan,” she put in smoothly, edging her body between the woman and the desk sergeant. “If you want to step over here with me, we can talk about it.”

  Chan straightened, stared at her suspiciously. “The only way you can help is to get that bastard McElroy here so I can take him apart.”

  “A tempting prospect,” Abbie muttered under her breath. From the corner of her eye she saw the sergeant smother a smile. She took the woman’s elbow gingerly in her hand and steered her toward her desk, saying in a louder voice, “I think I can give you an idea of when to expect Detective McElroy.”

  On the way to the desk, however, Abbie noted the avid interest in the detectives and officers around her, and abruptly veered off course, showing Chan to the conference room where Ryne conducted the task force meetings.

  “Have a seat.”

  “I prefer to stand.” Chan clutched the back of a chair and shot Abbie a narrowed glare. “Are you a detective, too?”

  She dodged an explanation by saying merely, “I’m with the task force Detective McElroy is working on. That’s how I can be fairly certain that Sergeant Foster was correct. The detective isn’t expected back here for hours.” She prepared herself for another outburst from the woman but Chan had an arrested expression on her face.

  “You’re looking for that guy, too. Whattaya call him. The Nightmare Rapist.”

  Abbie inclined her head. “I believe you answered some questions from Detectives McElroy and Cantrell a couple days ago, but I wonder if you’d mind if I asked you a few.”

  “Not Cantrell.” Visibly calmed, Chan released the back of the chair to prowl the room. “I don’t know him. Only Nick.”

  “Detective McElroy”—Abbie gave the words faint emphasis—“asked you about any clients of yours that might have had unusual tastes.”

  The woman turned and smiled over her shoulder, real amusement on her face. For a moment Abbie felt like she was glimpsing the real person behind the S&M persona she cultivated. “Honey, in my line of work, they all have unusual tastes, y’know?”

  “Can you think of anyone in the last several months who seemed to take it a bit more seriously than others? Maybe got too rough, or wanted you to do things even you weren’t comfortable with?”

  “Most of my visitors want the fantasy.” Chan had lost interest and was on the move again. She rounded the corner of the table, picked up the carafe of day-old coffee, and sniffed it, before grimacing and putting it down again. “And I’m usually the dominant. That’s the way I like it.”

  “You said you’re usually the dominant.” Abbie kept her voice steady even as she seized on the woman’s words. “What about your visitors who have other demands?”

  “There is one I can think of. Likes to inflict pain, sometimes with what he penetrates me with.” She sent a sidelong look at Abbie, as if to assess whether she’d shocked her. “It excites him that I fight. That I give as good as I get. Occasionally he gets carried away.” She lifted a shoulder, continued around the table, trailing her fingers sporting long scarlet nails over the tops of the chairs. “I never really thought about it until I started hearing all the news about that guy you’re looking for. What he does to those women. Got me to thinking . . .”

  “Thinking what?”

  “About this client of mine. And that’s when I started to get a little afraid of him. I’ve seen him lose his temper, and it isn’t pretty.”

  Abbie threw a longing glance at the door, wishing she had her tape recorder. Or her notebook. “You’d better tell me the name of this client, ma’am. We’re going to want to talk to him.”

  When she glanced back at Chan, the woman’s sly smile had caution rearing. “You already know him. It’s Nick. I’m really afraid that Detective McElroy might be the Nightmare Rapist.”

  Chapter 17

  “You stupid son of a bitch.” Ryne tried to control the fury seething through him, but it was a losing battle. Every time he looked at Nick McElroy’s face, he wanted to plant his fist in it.

  “Robel, you’ve got to talk to Dixon, get me reinstated. Tell him I’m necessary to the progress of the case.” The big detective swallowed, his usually ruddy complexion pale. “I need this job. It’s the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.”

  “Necessary?” Ryne barked out a humorless laugh. “You’ve compromised the entire investigation. Every lead you followed is tainted, don’t you get that? It’s all suspect.” His gaze narrowed as a thought struck him. “Did Cantrell know about you and the prostitute?”

  Miserably, McElroy shook his head. “The bitch is just trying to stick it to me because I didn’t bail her out when she got picked up in a vice sweep last night. She wanted me to get the charges dropped and I blew her off. That should show I haven’t let my relationship with her affect my job. I didn’t use my position to get special favors for her.”

  Incredulous, Ryne stared at the man. “Yeah, that proves you’re a prince, all right. You really don’t see the jam you put us in here?” Driven to move, he rose to pace. “You let your dick do your thinking, screwing a prostitute for months. Chan suggested you were the rapist, you know that?”

  McElroy glowered. “She’s just trying to get back at me. Anyone can see that.”

  Ryne strove for a modicum of patience. It was a reach, when he wanted nothing more than to swing at the man. “That may be, but we have to waste valuable time disproving it, the same way we follow every tip that comes in. Besides which, we’re shorthanded. It’ll take at least a week to bring the new guy up to speed on the case.”

  “I’ve been replaced already?” McElroy surged to his feet, his expression ugly. “That didn’t take you long, did it? Must have had someone all picked out. You never wanted me on this investigation anyway. That’s been clear all along.”

  The other man took a step forward, and Ryne braced himself. With the fury churning inside him, he’d almost welcomed the opportunity for a brawl.

  The strength of that urge had him drawing in a breath, releasing it slowly. “We shouldn’t be talking,” he said, somehow managing an even tone. “Anything you have to say should go through Captain Brown.”

  McElroy deflated, the anger streaming out of him as quickly as it had come. “I figured you’d understand better. I need to keep busy. My wife . . . she left six months ago and took my little girl with her. She hasn’t let me see the kid in twelve weeks. Sometimes the job is the only thing I got, you know? I’ll go crazy sitting at home.”

  Ryne remained silent, but a stab of pity pierced him. He hadn’t realized McElroy had a child. Before he’d been placed on the task force, Ryne had only known him from seeing him around the gym.

  “For what it’s worth, I agree that it sounds like Chan is just jerking us around by fingering you. You’ll be off the hook for that as soon as we ch
eck out your alibis for the nights of the assaults. The rest of it . . .” He shook his head. “You’re going to have to wade through the disciplinary process.” And no matter how much he disliked McElroy right now, he could sympathize with what the man had ahead of him. “You have a meeting with your rep lined up?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “Listen to what he has to say. Find something to fill your days so you’re not sitting around brooding over this.” He’d become something of an expert on brooding himself, not that long ago. It solved nothing, merely paving the way to a deeper, darker, emotional hole.

  He went to the conference room door, pulled it open. “Once we double-check your schedule with the nights in question, you’ll be alibied. At least that will be one less thing for you to worry about.”

  The other man nodded morosely, headed through the door without saying another word. Ryne watched him go for a moment, noted the studied busyness of the others at their desks, and swung the door shut. Sinking into a chair, he rubbed the back of his neck wearily.

  News of Han’s findings and the possible pharmaceutical lead had defused a great deal of Dixon’s ire—at least until he’d learned of the development with McElroy. The man had gone ballistic, and Captain Brown hadn’t been any too happy either. What had started out as a promising day in the investigation had abruptly turned to shit.

  Bleakly, Ryne wondered if he was inviting trouble by figuring the day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  Abbie gave another insistent ring of the bell. Karen Larsen’s car was still parked in the drive, so she was guessing the woman was in there. The results from the database inquiries she’d made on Cordray and Larsen had been waiting when she returned from talking to Mistress Chan.

  The memory had her grimacing. Talk about a dropping a bombshell. The woman had known it, too, and Abbie would bet a week’s salary that she had leveled the accusation at McElroy to get just this sort of reaction. Unfortunately, they had to treat it as a legitimate accusation until it was proven otherwise.