Kiss Me, Kill Me

by Maggie Shayne

  Maybe, just maybe…her mother’s horrendous parenting skills had given her something of value after all.

  10

  Sam emerged from his staredown with the passing darkness long enough to say, “Thanks for driving, Gabe.”

  “What’re you? Kidding? I love driving this thing.” Sam had insisted on taking “The Beast,” but he’d apparently known better than to think he could drive it himself tonight.

  From the passenger seat, Carrie sent Gabe a surprised look. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a fan of oversize, gas-guzzling phallic symbols.”

  “Hey, I’m a supporter of hybrids and all, but I’m still a guy.”

  She made a face, as if in disapproval, but he knew it wasn’t real. The look behind her eyes was grateful, thanking him without saying it aloud, for being there, for trying to help her kid. Maybe…his kid.

  And damn, but he knew the look in her eyes was going to change when she finally found that out. It wouldn’t be soft or tender or wanting or grateful. No, it would become feral. The look of a lioness protecting her cub. And he would become the enemy.

  “Gabe? Are you all right?” Carrie asked softly after a quick peek back at her son, who’d returned to gazing out the window at the passing night in anguished, stony silence.

  Gabe snapped himself out of the grim place his mind had taken him and tried hard to focus on the here and now. Here and now she liked him. A lot. Right now she needed him. And that was going to have to be enough.

  “Fine, I’m fine. Worried, just like we all are.” He looked at Carrie beside him, then at Sam in the backseat, and he ached for them. And that was when he knew he was starting to feel a whole hell of a lot more than simple affection for them. He was starting to fit into this intimate picture a little too well. As if he belonged there, somehow. And it was way too soon to feel that way. He didn’t even know for sure that—

  But something inside him did. Sam had the same jawline. The same eyes. The same dimples in his cheek when he smiled. But he wasn’t smiling now.

  “I’ve phoned Marcus at home,” Carrie said. “He’ll meet us at the lab.”

  “That’s the owner? Marcus?” Gabe asked.

  She nodded. “He’s a friend.”

  “That’s some friend.”

  “It’s not like that. He trusts me, that’s all. He’s worked with me enough to know how…anal I am.”

  It was self-deprecating, that last bit, and he wasn’t going to let her get away with that. “You’re thorough. You’re a perfectionist. And you’re brilliant. Those are not bad qualities, particularly in one’s doctor, Doctor.”

  “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment,” she said.

  “I know you weren’t.” That wasn’t who she was, he thought. And then he wondered how he knew her so well, so soon.

  “Take this exit,” she said, and he did, following her directions from there, until the big SUV’s headlights were illuminating a one-story brick office in a suburban village sprinkled with them.

  Carrie opened her door. Gabe stayed where he was, but she poked her head back in. “I need you with me,” she said. As if it should have been obvious to him.

  He nodded and told himself this was idiocy. Insanity. Stress, maybe, or his old habit of being drawn to needy women. She hadn’t fit that mold—until now. She was strong and confident and capable. But she needed him right now. And that made his heart go soft.

  Maybe, too, this surge of protective instinct was some kind of testosterone-related reaction to being this close to his son. Maybe his son. God, he needed to know for sure.

  Swallowing, he got out and, with Sam trailing silently behind, walked with her to the back door. As they did, a tall man with a shaved head got out of his car on the other side of the lot and walked over to meet them.

  “I owe you big for this, Marcus. Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll collect. This is on the Q.T., I take it?”

  “Oh, I intend to tell the police what I know, just not how I know it. At least they won’t be hog-tied waiting for results from the state crime lab.”

  “You could get into trouble.” Marcus frowned at her. “That’s not like you, Carrie.” Then he looked at Gabe, and his eyes were suspicious. “Is somebody making you do this?”

  “No.” But Marcus was still looking at Gabe. Carrie snapped her fingers under his chin. “Hey, Marcus. No. This was my idea.”

  Marcus looked her in the eyes somewhere between “hey” and “no,” and his expression finally eased.

  “I’m Gabriel Cain,” Gabe said, kind of liking the guy’s caution. And his guts. He must’ve had twenty pounds on the guy.

  “Marcus Kenyon.” He shot a glance at Carrie that was intended to be furtive.

  “He’s a friend, Marcus.”

  Marcus eyed Gabe again. “Sorry. You’re just—you’re not her type, man. It threw me.”

  “Oh, really?” Gabe pretended that was news to him, then shrugged it off.

  “Here are the samples, Marcus. I want you to look for everything you can think of. I need to know what killed him.”

  Marcus took the small picnic cooler with the samples inside from Carrie’s hands. “I’m not gonna ask. I think I know anyway, but I’m not gonna ask.”

  “How fast can you do it?”

  “For you? Three hours.”

  She nodded hard. “Three hours, then.”

  She turned to leave, and Gabe and Sam were turning to follow, like loyal soldiers, when Carrie stopped so abruptly that they nearly bumped into her. Whirling, holding up a forefinger, she said, “Marcus, wait!”

  He stopped with his hand on the door, tipping his head skyward, as if he knew something unpleasant was coming.

  “I have reason to suspect there was blood drawn from…from this person before his death.”

  “You found a puncture wound?”

  “Lots of them. But one was bigger and right here.” She pressed a finger to her forearm. “It looks like someone either started an IV or drew blood.”

  “And?”

  “If they drew blood, what would they be drawing it for? And I’m thinking that if it were for any reason other than the killer thinking he’s a vampire, then that blood might have ended up here.”

  Gabe swung his gaze to Carrie, stunned by how easily she’d figured that out.

  “You’re the only private lab around, Marcus.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “You might have a killer’s name and credit card number in your files, for God’s sake.”

  Marcus shook his shiny head, then lowered it. “We guarantee confidentiality.”

  “A kid was killed, Marcus,” Gabe said.

  “And now my girlfriend is missing,” Sam added, stepping forward.

  “Sadie?” Marcus looked horrified when Sam nodded. “When? I haven’t heard anything about that.”

  “Tonight. A few hours ago,” Sam said softly. Then he turned away, choking up again.

  Marcus sighed, then nodded. “All right. I’ll get your samples running, and then I’ll look through the files. Okay?”

  “Any blood work from a new client in the past seven days where the sample was O Negative,” Carrie told him.

  “That won’t be very many.” Marcus tilted his head to one side. “In fact, I do recall one, about a week ago. O Negative isn’t all that common. I should be able to pull it right up. Hold this and follow me.”

  He handed Carrie the cooler, unlocked the door and strode into the back hall, flipped on a light switch and bent to unlock an office door. Then he pushed it open and froze.

  Gabe noticed right away that the file drawers were open, a few files lying on the floor beside them. Next he realized that there was probably supposed to be a CPU somewhere on that desk, where a high-end flat-screen monitor and an ergonomic keyboard sat alone, attached to nothing, unplugged cables lying in a tangle around them.

  Marcus spun around, shocked. “What the hell?”

  “Carrie must have been right,” Gabe sai
d. “Whoever took that kid drew blood and sent it here for testing. Then they came in to clear out any evidence they left behind—your file on them, the test results. Everything.”

  “But—” Marcus took a single step forward.

  Gabe caught his arm, stopping him. “They could still be here. Carrie, Sam, wait here.” He met Marcus’s eyes. “Let’s you and me take a look around, huh?”

  Marcus looked reluctant, but he nodded. Carrie clasped Sam’s arm to hold him by her side, and Gabe and Marcus moved slowly into the lab.

  It was a mess, papers strewn everywhere, but nothing seemed to be broken, Gabe moved amid machines and equipment whose purposes he couldn’t have begun to guess, along with more familiar test tubes and microscopes. They searched the entire place, but whoever had broken in was apparently long gone.

  They returned to the rear exit door and pushed it open, scanning the lot. “There’s no one inside,” Gabe said. “But we’d better not traipse around in there any more than necessary.”

  She nodded. “Marcus, what was his name?” Carrie asked. “What was the name of the person who brought you that sample?”

  Marcus shook his head slowly. “Something really common. John Brown or something like that. But he didn’t bring it to me. It came in the mail, so I never met the guy. If it even was a guy. Anyone could use a fake name. How would I know?”

  “Did you keep the envelope?”

  Marcus crossed his arms and looked at her as if she were crazy.

  “Well then—do you remember what tests he had you run?”

  “If I’m remembering right, it was a simple type and cross-match.”

  “Where did you send the results?”

  “I don’t remember the address! Jeez, Carrie, what do you think I am? A walking computer?”

  “Marcus, just try!” she pleaded.

  He shook his head rapidly. “I don’t know. I think it was a PO box somewhere. But I don’t remember.” He looked behind him toward the lab and the mess inside. “I’ve got to report this to the police. And I can’t be running these samples of yours when they get here.”

  “Then run them first,” Carrie said.

  He walked away, shaking his head. “No, no way, Carrie. I can’t—”

  “Marcus, you have to. Please. He’s got Sadie.”

  The bald man shook his head again. Then he looked at Sam, rolled his eyes and sighed his surrender. “Come back in three hours. Because you’re taking this—” he took the cooler from Carrie’s hands once again “—straight back with you.”

  “Three hours,” Carrie agreed with a nod. “Thank you, Marcus.”

  “I never saw you tonight. You understand? You never told me shit about any of this. Got that?”

  She agreed, and Marcus was still muttering to himself as Carrie, Gabe and Sam walked back to the SUV.

  “I don’t like this,” Carrie said, as she reached the car. “I don’t like this at all.”

  She looked scared, Gabe thought. More scared than she’d already been. And he didn’t know why. He felt as if she were in on something he wasn’t, and he didn’t like that feeling.

  “Is there something I’m not getting?” he asked, searching her face.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “And you don’t want to tell me.”

  “I don’t know what to tell. Something’s…niggling at me. I just don’t know what.”

  He frowned at her. “That’s more like something I would say.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

  “I want to get back,” Sam said. “What if Sadie calls?”

  “We’ve got reception,” Carrie told him, holding up her cell phone. “You’ve got yours?”

  He nodded.

  “And I set the home number to Call Forwarding before we left to look for her. So if she calls home, it will ring on my cell. We won’t miss a call. And we need to know how Kyle died. It’s the best thing we can do for Sadie right now.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “I hate this.”

  “I know.”

  “Three freaking hours when we could be out searching.”

  “The police said not tonight.”

  “Do you think I care?” Sam barked the words as they all climbed into the SUV.

  Carrie looked wounded, and Sam muttered an apology. It sounded sincere.

  “Look, what are we going to do for the next three hours? That’s what I’d like to know,” Gabe said, trying to change the subject.

  “It’s 3:00 a.m.,” Carrie said. “We can probably find a twenty-four-hour fast-food restaurant if we drive out toward the highway.” She shrugged. “Sit, eat, talk. Trade stories. I don’t know.”

  “I need to eat,” Sam said. “’Cause once we get back, I’m not coming out of those woods until I find her.”

  Gabe patted his shoulder, and they went to find an early breakfast. He could use the boost.

  They ate with surprising gusto, given the circumstances. But, Carrie thought, each of them felt the way her wise-beyond-his-years son did: that they needed to stay as strong as possible for Sadie’s sake. Because that son of a bitch who had taken Kyle’s life was not going to take Sadie’s.

  She wouldn’t let that happen.

  They killed two hours between finding a Denny’s, eating and stopping to gas up The Beast before driving back toward the lab.

  Carrie kept an eye on Sam in the backseat, and within a few minutes Gabe apparently grew curious to see why and peeked at the boy himself.

  Sam’s head was sinking slowly to one side, then bouncing up again, as he fought to hold off sleep. And again, and then finally, his head stayed down as he sank deep and fast.

  Gabe glanced at Carrie. “You put something in his decaf, didn’t you?”

  “Just the tiniest bit. Let him sleep now, while he can. It’ll wear off by the time we get home.”

  “You love him a lot,” Gabe said, and it wasn’t a question.

  Carrie gazed back at her son, and her heart went soft and warm. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. My miracle, that’s what he is.”

  “Your miracle. You’ve said that before.”

  She brought her gaze around, realized she’d probably said too much, but reminded herself that this was Gabe she was talking to. This man could be trusted; she sensed that to her core. And that was an odd thing for her to feel about a man like him. A drifter, like her father. But for once she was going with her heart and not her head.

  “I was told I couldn’t have children. I’d just about given up hope. And then he just…happened.”

  “He…happened?” He frowned at her. “You mean you got pregnant or you adopted him?”

  She shifted her eyes away from his, unable to look him in the eye and lie to him, yet telling the lie automatically. “Got pregnant, of course.” And then she added her long-practiced elaboration. “You mean you can’t tell? Most people think he looks like me.”

  He lifted his brows. “I don’t think he looks anything like you,” he said.

  She met his eyes, then looked away again. Okay, so the power of suggestion didn’t work on him. “I don’t, either,” she said with a false laugh. “But other people are always seeing something I don’t.”

  He seemed…almost disappointed. As if he were waiting for her to tell him something more, something real. As if he knew, somehow, that she had just lied to him. But that was ridiculous. That was her own guilty conscience playing with her mind. He didn’t know. How could he?

  She thought about changing the subject, gave up, and turned on the radio to fill the silence for the remainder of the drive back to the lab. And then she and Gabe were getting out, leaving Sam to sleep off his “decaf” in the backseat.

  Marcus came out the back door, handed the cooler to Carrie and said, “Good, I can call the police now.”

  “Why didn’t your alarm system do that?” Gabe asked, for the first time noticing the sticker advertising a security monitoring system in the window.

  “It we
nt down yesterday,” Marcus said. “Repairman couldn’t make it until tomorrow.” He glanced at the sky. “Today, that is. I doubt it’s a coincidence.”

  He shifted his attention to Carrie. “There was Benterol in the blood sample.”

  She blinked. “Benterol?”

  “That’s all I found. Benterol. I don’t have to tell you, it’s a powerful tranquilizer. There wasn’t a lot left, but it’s been a while. Traces fade over time. But by my calculations, he must have had enough in his system to kill him.”

  She nodded. “Thanks, Marcus. I’ll tell the cops.”

  “Oh, I’m not done. I forgot before, but I still had a frozen sample of that O Negative that came in a week ago. I always use what’s needed and freeze any extra, just in case a test fails for some reason. I only clean out the freezer once a month, so it was still there. And it matches the samples you brought in.”

  She stared at him. “Matches?”

  “Same source. The blood you brought me tonight is the same type as the blood that came in a week ago. I checked. It had traces of Benterol, too. Now, I haven’t had time to run DNA, of course, but I’d stake my life on it. Your hunch was right. Someone took the kid’s blood and sent it here for typing. That same someone fucked my alarm system and broke in here tonight to remove every trace he’d ever been here. But he didn’t know I still had this.” He held up a frozen vial. “Now get out of here so I can report all this, will you?”

  Carrie hugged him, then she turned and ran back to the SUV. “I need to see Bryan,” she said. “Drive fast, okay?”

  “You bet,” Gabe said. Once they were underway and her impatience and worry were increasing exponentially and visibly with every mile, he said, “You know something, don’t you?”

  “I hope I’m wrong. God, I hope I’m wrong.”

  “Are you ready to let me in on it yet?”

  “I don’t even know if there’s anything to let you in on, Gabe. But…when we get home… I’ll show you when we get home.”

  So he drove. And she felt a little badly for keeping her thoughts to herself, but they weren’t even fully formed yet, and she wasn’t sure where they were going. She had a feeling in the pit of her stomach—mother’s intuition? Or was she projecting her own deepest fears onto this situation when they didn’t really fit?