Phelps took a drag from his cigarette, and then stabbed it out in the urn. “The hospital board is extremely conservative, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.” She did know, from Randall. “Sergeant, you said they found John Doe in Area Fourteen. What killed him?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. The body disappeared before the autopsy. But I saw it, and there wasn’t a mark on the man.”
Tracy almost feared asking her next question. “Could it have been chemical poisoning?”
“I’m not a doctor, but I’ve had some chemical training, and I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“Did you happen to notice John Doe’s eyes?”
“Ma’am?”
“Did you see his eyes?”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t.”
“What about the children’s eyes? The ones treated that night for chest pains?”
“Can’t say I noticed anything unusual, but I’ll check the records.”
“Thank you.” A bubble of tension swelled in her belly. “Sergeant, do you think someone substituted John Doe’s corpse for Adam Burke in the fire?”
Oh, God. This was too far out.
“No way. There’d have to be cooperation between the facility, the hospital, and Higher Headquarters. I can’t see any of them agreeing to do it-not with the damage to the facility.”
She had to agree. It involved too many people, too much property destruction, and it raised too many red flags that couldn’t be ducked. Most emphatically denying the possibility was Adam Burke himself. His face had been plastered on the nightly news and in the newspaper. If he were alive, someone would have seen and recognized him.
John Doe probably had been a vagrant with the bad luck of wandering into Area 14 at the time Alpha team had been killed. Or maybe … Could he have been hired to dispense the chemicals and somehow contaminated himself?
Something sailed over the stucco wall. It thudded against the inner wall, and then rolled over the concrete into the light, pouring out smoke.
Startled, Tracy jerked. It resembled a hand grenade, and it had a yellow band.
Chemical and biological resources require a yellow or blue band, to warn people they’re live, not training dummies.
Adam’s instruction replayed in her mind. She snatched her purse from the table.
“It’s chemical!” Phelps ran for the automatic door. Tracy ran behind him, doing her best not to breathe.
“It won’t open!” Phelps beat at the glass with his fists. “Damn it, why won’t it open?”
Terror rocketing through her veins, Tracy looked back at the lethal smoke. They were trapped.
Chapter 15.
Phelps panicked. He bent double, hyperventilating. “Let’s scale the wall!”
They were four floors up. Scaling the wall was a stupid idea. The smoke thickened, snared between the high walls, burning Tracy’s nose, stinging her eyes. They had to get out of there. “Try not to breathe,” she said, scanning through the haze.
Why, of all times, did she have to be sick and weak now? Phelps was too terrified to move. If they were going to get out of there-without going over the wall and freefalling four floors-she’d have to find the way.
Her purse strap snagged on a chair arm. It was metal, heavy. It could work. She dragged the chair over, heaved, slammed it against the door.
The glass shattered.
Her arms stung up to her elbows. “Phelps, let’s go.”
He hugged the wall, fingers spread, body stiff enough to snap. Shock. The man couldn’t move. “Sergeant, move your ass!” she shouted. “That’s a direct order!”
Back scraping the wall, he slid toward the door. She grabbed his sleeve and shoved him through the opening. As she crossed the threshold, her instincts nudged her, and she glanced over. The wall switch that controlled the door’s automatic sensor had been turned off. Someone had deliberately locked her and Phelps on the patio. That chemical bomb had been meant to kill them.
Her heart catapulted, stuck somewhere in her neck, and she held tight to Phelps’s sleeve, dragged him into the hallway. Finally, he seemed to get his legs back.
They ran down the long hall, legs pumping, sneakers squeaking in tandem. A stitch caught in her side. Tracy clutched at it and came to a dead stop at the staff elevator door. Sweating profusely, weak to the brink of collapse, she stumped against the wall and gulped in deep breaths of uncontaminated air.
Phelps stopped beside her, pale and shaking hard. “Who did you tell we were meeting?”
“No one.” The stitch in her side eased. She wiped at her sweat-soaked face. “You?”
“Not a soul.” He pivoted to look at her. “Who could have done this?”
Had her phone been tapped? Phelps’s?.She stared at the orange floor cone, certain she was about to throw up again. This time, not from flu but from knowing someone damn well meant for her to die out on that patio-and she might have.
They had been exposed; no ifs, ands, or buts about it. So had portions of the hospital. Thankfully, being under construction, the immediate area was empty of people. But what chemical was it? How far did its reach extend?
She didn’t know, but she had to find out-now.
“Captain, who do you think did this?” Phelps asked again.
“Someone with access to chemical bombs who didn’t want either of us to survive the meeting.” Damp hanks of hair clung to her sweat-dampened face. “Unfortunately, how-to instructions are available everywhere. It could be anyone-legal or crazy, in or out of the system.
Lingering here wasn’t wise. Whoever had turned off that switch could still be around. She moved toward the elevators, cautious, watchful, alert. “We need to get checked for exposure.” From all she had read, it was probably too late, but there was a chance the unknown chemical wasn’t lethal. A small one, but a chance.
“Not here.” Phelps’s voice pitched to a screech.
“Somewhere, then.” Tracy passed the elevator door, then peeked down the adjacent hallway. Empty, thank God. Phelps had a point. In light of what he had told her, either of them going to this ER would be giving his boss, if so inclined, a license to commit murder. That gamble, she wasn’t willing to take.
Dr. Kane popped into her mind. So did Randall.
Figuring Randall was the lesser of the two evils, she decided to go to him. Someone had to warn the hospital of the exposure, and it sure as hell didn’t appear Phelps had any intention of doing it.
She passed a window. Dawn was breaking. Randall always came to the hospital before dawn, but she doubted Dr. Kane was here. He didn’t strike her as the obsessive type.
Phelps paused at the elevator. “I’m going to Saint George’s. You wanna ride with me?”
“I think it’s better if we split up.” Tracy had more to do. To retrieve and report the bomb.
Worry flicked through the sergeant’s eyes. “Don’t be long. This exposure is serious.”
He knew her plans, but had no intention of becoming involved. After what they’d just experienced, she couldn’t fault him. She’d like to, but he had children to think of, a wife. He had a life outside of his work. “I won’t. you go on now.”
Looking relieved by her dismissal, he stepped into the elevator.
When the door slid shut, she retrieved the bomb, praying whoever had flipped the switch had long since gone, and then headed for the stairwell. As rotten as she felt, the idea of being closed in on an elevator just after being locked out on a patio aroused more claustrophobic feelings than she’d ever experienced walking through Cell Block D. And right now she felt too damn fragile to fight them.
Midway down the first flight of stairs, she paused to rest. Footsteps sounded above her.
Gripping the iron banister, her knobbed knuckles scraping against the rough wall, she looked up, strained to hear any sounds. Nothing. And no shadows on the white walls or the concrete steps. The stairwell was as silent as a tomb.
Doing her damnedest to get a grip on her fears, she snaked through the maze of corridors down to the pathology lab. Someone was really trying to kill her. Not warning her off, like before, but trying to kill her. God, what a hard concept to grasp. Everything in her wanted to insist it was a mistake, the product of an active imagination, of too much TV. But rationalizing was a good way to wake up dead. Weakening her Caprice’s hood latch had been a warning. This bomb was definitely attempted murder. And if the chemical proved lethal, murder.
Her murder!
Shivering, she entered Pathology. Randall sat on a stool at his lab desk, his white-coated back to her. “Randall.” Her voice sounded as weak as a beggg’s, and scared and just sick enough, she didn’t care if he realized it.
“Tracy?” Clearly startled to see her, his blond brows shot up on his forehead. “What are you doing here?”
Feeling an intense urge to be held, to feel safe for a moment, she locked her arms around his waist and hugged him hard.
Surprised by the demonstrative gesture, he lifted his arms around her. “Hey, what’s happened to you?”
She told him about the bomb.
His hands trembling, he cupped her chin and checked her eyes. “No signs of mitosis, but I’d feel better if Steven Kane took a look. He’s far more experienced.”
Randall reached over the lab desk and grabbed a phone.
After a brief conversation, he hung up. “Steven’s on his way.”
“Good.” Tracy’s mouth felt desert-dry. “Could I have a glass of water?”
“Better not, until we’re sure you’re okay.” Randall led her to the stool he’d vacated.
For all he had done wrong before in her eyes, in this, he was responding exactly right. “I appreciate your help.” As soon as the words left her mouth, doubt filtered into her mind. Would he help her if he knew her meeting had been about Adam? She doubted it, but she had no intention of finding out, Randall patted her arm. “Just relax, okay?”
“Okay.” Someone was trying to kill her, and she was supposed to relax?
She began sweating. Whether from the flu, fever, or exposure to the chemicals she had no idea. Within minutes, her mind fogged, her vision fuzzed, and more and more disoriented, she latched onto the lab desk for stability. Symptoms, she realized. All the symptoms Adam had described feeling out in Area 14. “Randall, what if I’ve contaminated you?”
“You rest until Steven gets here. I’ll go decontaminate. We have a chamber.”
The smells in the lab sharpened, pungent and strong. Her stomach rebelled, pitching and grumbling, and her neck felt too weak to hold up her head. A strong wave of nausea rolled up to ‘her throat. Fighting it, she rested her head on the cool lab desk and closed her eyes.
The next thing she knew she was awakening to voices. Randall and Steven Kane conferring, sounding as if they stood at the far end of a long tunnel. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt leaden. She couldn’t seem to lift them. God, she was tired. So … tired.
When she next awakened, her mind had cleared. Had her fever broken?
“Tracy.” Dr. Kane gave her one of those special smiles Janet had raved about. Unmoved, Tracy straightened on the stool, stiff and sore and achy all over. The fever hadn’t gone, and her tongue felt as big as a boulder. Why was she hearing Adam’s “fluff” in her head now? “You aren’t wearing protective gear.”
“It’s not necessary.” Dr. Kane frowned, clearly worried. “The bomb wasn’t chemical.”
Tracy feared believing him. “But it had a yellow band.”
“That surprised me, too. But it was a dummy. I ran the tests twice, just to be sure.”
She grabbed a paper towel from a stack at the far end Of the lab desk and dabbed at her damp forehead. If Adam’s men had been killed with a supposed dummy, and she’d been threatened with a dummy someone had tagged as live, that opened the door on some scary possibilities. Someone could be substituting live chemical/ biological ordnance for dummies. Could be abusing the bands. Someone could be committing treason.
Dr. Kane snagged her attention. “From all we can determine, you’re fine except for a strong case of the flu. Definitely no mitosis.”
Enormously relieved, she again posed the question she’d asked him the night she’d identified Adam’s body. “Was there evidence of mitosis in Burke’s men?”
“Tracy,” Randall interceded. “I asked Steven here to help you, not to be interrogated.”
She ignored Randall. “Was there, Dr. Kane?” Knowing Phelps would never again risk involvement, she asked a second question. “The night of the Alpha team incident-the children treated in the ER for chest pains. Did they have symptoms of mitosis?”
“No, of course not,” Randall said sharply, clearly tense and irritated.
“Dr. Kane?” she persisted. “Did they? Any of them?”
He looked away.
“Tracy, that’s enough.” Randall raised his voice. “Between the flu and this scare, you’re jumping at shadows. No one had mitosis, okay?”
She swiveled her gaze-and saw the truth in Randall’s eyes. He was lying to her.
A frown knit his brow, and his hand trembled on her cheek. “Who did you meet up there?”
“That’s confidential,” she said without heat, still reeling. Why would he lie to her? Why?
“It’s important, Tracy,” he persisted, softening his voice.
“It’s still confidential.” She backed up a step, out of his reach. “I would tell you if I could, but I can’t. Not without breaching security and ethics.” Dr. Kane dragged a fingertip over his temple, decidedly uncomfortable. “Well, I’d better get back to my office. I’m glad you’re okay, Tracy.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I appreciate your help.”
He nodded, then left the lab and closed the door.
“Tracy.” Randall sounded determined. “I’m worried about you, and so is Paul. He called me last night looking for you.”
Her ex-brother-in-law, it appeared, still hadn’t accepted that she was going to live her life heir way-without his dominating interference, or his help and support. She admired his willingness to sacrifice a loving marriage to care for his brother’s widow. But, damn it, she wanted to stand on her own feet, and on her own merits. Sooner or later, Paul had to accept it-hopefully, before his refusal to accept it drove a permanent wedge between them. “I’ll call him.”
“soon, I hope.” Randall slid her a look laced with reprimand. “Paul is a powerful man with a lot on his mind. He really doesn’t need you adding to his worries.”