Passionate Immunity (8 page)

Kimber nodded, her heart thundering, blood pounding in her ears. The night seemed to open up before her as her senses heightened with the adrenaline spiking her system. The darkness wasn’t so complete, her night vision having adjusted. She heard the sounds of nearby cars, people talking a block or so away as well as the distant beat of music from a pub or club.

Glancing nervously around, she checked to make sure no one was nearby to notice them.

“Keep looking ahead of us,” Tristan cautioned her. “Lucas and I will both keep a discreet eye out. We need to appear normal. Acting oddly will only draw attention to us.”

The sudden warmth of Tristan’s hand encompassing her own took her by surprise. For an instant Kimber had to catch herself before she jumped or pulled away. Only a split second later she relaxed against Tristan, soaking up the strength he silently offered her. Hand in hand they turned down the small driveway-cum-alley beside the building as if it was the most natural place in the world for them to be walking in the dark of night.

Without hurrying they walked to the side door, noticing the small biohazard caution sign indicating low levels of pathogen waste could be found inside.

“Hold on a second,” Tristan said half under his breath as he released her hand. He dug two pairs of thin leather gloves out of the duffel. Without another word he handed her a pair and quickly pulled them on.

Following his lead, Kimber tugged the gloves onto her hands, adjusting the fingers so she could retain most of her dexterity.

A card scanner was at hand height next to the handle. Excitement mounting as Tristan nodded silently for her to proceed, Kimber swiped the card. The tiny LED swapped from red to green, a discreet beep indicating they’d bypassed the system.

Tristan opened the door and ducked his head inside. After a quick glance up and down he moved sideways, bracing himself to block the entrance open. He indicated with a tilt of his head for her to enter first. Kimber moved inside the doorway a few steps then paused to gather her bearings.

She had come into a long, dimly lit corridor. The outer door closed with a low
thunk
behind Tristan.

“We’re in,” he said.

Kimber frowned and turned to him, about to reply that of course they were inside, but she quickly understood he was speaking into his unit to let Lucas know what was going on.

Light came through from the far end of the corridor. Kimber walked towards it, confident in leading the way now they were effectively in her world.

“I would think the lab would be around the back here somewhere, probably with the nurses’ station where they draw blood or give vaccines.”

“Should we search the filing cabinets as well?” Tristan asked as he followed a half pace behind her. Kimber shook her head, frowning thoughtfully.

“If the nurses or other laboratory staff do their own testing they should have a cabinet or area near their desks to keep their reports in,” she answered. She slowly depressed the handle and cracked it open.

Half expecting an alarm to sound or for someone to shout at her, she paused with the door open just a few millimetres. When no sound broke through the air except for their own quick breaths, Kimber sighed in relief and opened it fully.

In a small antechamber were vaccination posters as well as general medical health and wellbeing posters colourfully displayed on the walls. A large calendar had small, handwritten notations in shorthand on many of the days. A small plaque half hidden under a pile of paperwork in the inbox on one corner of the large desk stated—‘Nurses are patient people’.

Kimber smiled at the pun.

An open entrance at the other end of the antechamber showed what Kimber assumed was the laboratory area. Moving into the room, and without touching anything, she took the cramped space in a glance. She noted from the corner of her eye Tristan closed the door to the corridor behind them. Cords on the table indicated a computer had been removed for the evening—presumably a laptop the nurses used to keep their appointments on and connect to the network of online medical files and patient data.

Requests for testing, however, always had to be printed out in hard copy and signed, as did laboratory results.

“Shall we start with the nurses’ station?” Kimber asked as she tested the filing cabinet next to the desk.

Locked.

“I just want to check the lab is clear, first,” Tristan said in a soft tone as he passed her and moved cautiously through the open door.

Kimber looked for the cabinet key, fairly certain it would be nearby. With casual staff, temporary staff and everyone presumably on rotation throughout the days and weeks it wasn’t logical that there would be more than a few copies of the cabinet key. It would be far more likely for there to be one communal key for the majority of staff to use and it would have to be kept in easy grabbing distance.

After checking on top of the filing cabinet, under the potted plant on the desk and on the carpet either side of the cabinet she opened the top drawer of the desk. It was clearly a ‘junk’ drawer. She was greeted by pens scattered everywhere, sticky notes, a half-filled box of tea bags, numerous latex gloves and an assortment of astounding proportions of day-to-day debris.

In one corner under a pile of over-the-counter, low-strength painkillers were two shiny keys on a ring.

“Ha!” she crowed, amazingly proud of this small achievement. When Kimber tested the key in the lock it fit perfectly and turned easily.

Tristan returned as she pulled open the top drawer. She threw him a brilliant smile, riding high on the thrill of success.

“This is awesome fun,” she gushed. “Do you think we’ll get really lucky and find a folder titled Project Immunity?”

“I doubt it,” he replied before kissing her forehead. “But you know what they say about beginners’ luck. Budge over a bit so I can see too. Do you have that list, love?”

While they prepared themselves for this very moment, Tristan had jotted down the list of nine names from the folders Emma Henley had copied. Kimber felt certain she could recall them all, but Tristan had insisted that they write them out.

“You’d be astonished how oddly people react to a small thing like breaking and entering,” he had warned her. “In the heat of the moment people forget their own names, let alone small details like this. It’s better to have everything organised as much as possible. That way you keep errors to a minimum.”

Kimber pulled the scrap of paper out of the back pocket of her jeans and read the names aloud.

“Jeremy Bowmen, Karol Oldfield, Olive Carragher, Ennis Farlough, Talone Ondra, Abigail Turner, Asher Wevell, Dolores Kienl, Mather Niese.”

“Right. You take Neil through to Talone and I’ll take Abigail through to Mather,” Tristan said as he bent to the task of searching the records.

Kimber placed the paper on the corner of the desk where they could both see the neatly printed names. Struck by an idea, she pulled a random file out to make certain it was personal files. She opened ‘Alcock, Jean’.

A hasty mental calculation told her the fifty-seven-year-old mother of four had most recently had her flu vaccination along with her annual pap smear four months ago here at the nurses’ station. After putting the file away she then pulled out another quickly, to confirm her suspicions.

‘Brandy, Steve’ had last been in three years ago according to the notation and had had blood drawn for an iron and haemoglobin count as well as a general battery of tests like cholesterol and blood glucose levels.

His sample had been contracted out and the official report was stapled behind the doctor’s standard form, which encompassed the request for testing—but which didn’t include any of the doctor’s consultations or notes.

“These are just the nurse’s records,” she explained. “These will all be the copies of requests for testing, vaccinations, anything the nurses themselves do.”

“Oh. Well it can’t hurt to look while we’re here,” Tristan replied as he continued to search the names.

They fell silent, focusing on flipping through the folders filed in the nurses’ station. Periodically one or the other of them would glance at the scrap of paper to confirm the name.

After a minute or two Tristan broke the silence. “Excellent. Abigail Turner is here,” he said as he pulled the file, stuffed it in his duffel and closed the bottom drawer. “Asher Wevell isn’t here, but I still have Dolores and Mather to check.”

“Olive, Ennis and Jeremy aren’t in this drawer,” Kimber replied. She closed the top drawer with a thunk. She felt surprised at none of them being present.

Tristan opened the middle drawer and they both bent to look inside.

“I still have Karol and Talone though.”

They both fell silent again while they searched. It only took them another couple of minutes to scan through the remaining folders.

“I wonder why none of the rest are here?” Tristan mused. He closed the drawer. Kimber stretched out her back, faintly sore from leaning over the cabinet.

“It seems a bit unusual that so few of them have seen the nurses,” she agreed. “One or two missing I might put down to chance, but all except this one? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe they’re all in the laboratory and it’s chance that this woman’s file is here?” Tristan suggested. Kimber nodded but she still wasn’t sure.

“I can easily believe the laboratory files would all be kept separate, but if they’ve had a vaccine, or stitches, or anything the nurses would have kept records for, the files should still be here.”

“Let’s keep looking, we can think about it more later,” Tristan suggested.

She followed as he led them both back into the lab, her mind still puzzling over the missing records.

Maybe Tristan’s right
, she thought.
Maybe the nurse’s files were accumulated in the main laboratory files and we’ll discover them all together.

Then why is Abigail Turner’s file in the nurse’s cabinet?
a small voice whispered to her.

Kimber shrugged it off. She couldn’t afford to speculate. She was there to help, not make matters worse.

The laboratory was large and predominantly open-plan. One corner had been set aside for a series of workbenches and cupboards. The table was neatly ordered but filled with beakers, a small centrifuge, vortex and fume hood, pipettes, Petri dishes and piles of other regular equipment. Obviously that was where the rudimentary testing occurred.

Three gurney beds were set up along one wall, as were a number of chairs for patients or their families to sit on while waiting. Wash stations and a shelf full of disposable syringes, beakers, blood tubes and other standard paraphernalia were set up in a small area. There was plenty of space in the middle of the room—obviously most of the room being needed at a moment’s notice for ambulance trolleys to pick up patients, as well as needing a general walk-way for people to move around the different stations.

“There isn’t a filing cabinet,” Tristan spoke. His voice sounded hollow to Kimber, deflated.

Some expert consultant you’re turning out to be,
the negative part of her brain decreed.

She searched the room again, hoping to find inspiration.

Chapter Five

“We need to check the rest of the facility,” Tristan insisted.

“No, not yet,” Kimber replied. She scanned the laboratory for a third time. The workbenches with beakers and test tubes, the gurneys, the wash station, the long table evidently used as a desk with a few neat folders in a rack of in-trays…the stickers on the row of trays finally caught her attention.

’In’, ’To File’ and ’To Archive’.

“There.” She pointed to the desk, feeling a surge of triumph.

“To File,” she added. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the reason none of our other names are in the cabinet is because they’re really slow to put these things away.”

Tristan followed a pace behind her as she hurried across the lab. She wasn’t sure why but Kimber had the feeling that time was slipping through her fingers.

“We all clear out there, mate?” Tristan said, presumably into his comm. Kimber reached the desk and started flipping through the top tray, the one marked ‘In’ while Tristan tilted his head, seeming to listen to Lucas’ response.

Tristan gave her some space, but came to the side of the desk she stood at, remaining in her peripheral vision. She hastily flicked through the dozen or so files. None matched her list. Mentally keeping her fingers crossed she moved onto the ‘To File’ tray. This one was thicker, perhaps two dozen files.

“Come on, come on,” she murmured mostly under her breath as if her urging could make the files appear.

“No, we’ve only found one. We’ll still be a good few minutes,” Tristan replied to Lucas. “Let me know the minute you sniff something not right.”

“Damn it all to hell,” Kimber cursed as she double-checked the last name on the file. She could hardly believe her poor luck. None of the eight remaining names were there.

“What?” Tristan snapped.

Kimber turned to scorch him with a deadly look, only to see the tension and worry on his face. He glanced from her to their surroundings, his hand resting behind his back.

Kimber realised he had almost drawn his weapon at her curse. They were both on edge, but while she was feeling largely frustrated, he appeared worried about their safety. She surmised he’d thought her swearing was because they’d been caught out.

“None of them are here,” she said, feeling horridly exasperated.

“Then we check the main medical files,” Tristan replied and began to cross the room, heading towards the door once again.

“Hang on, I might as well check the archiving pile while I’m here,” she halted him.

Tristan paused at her words, tension rippling through his stance.

Kimber took a gamble that he wouldn’t leave her, looked back down and quickly rifled through the last dozen folders in the ‘To Archive’ pile.

As she had guessed, Tristan moved closer back to her, though still remained a few paces away. She could see the faint jiggle as he tapped his foot.