Afterglow (7 page)

“Trying to go fast in this traffic is impossible, and since Monaco is the size of Central Park, it can’t possibly be necessary to kill someone to get wherever we’re going a little quicker,” she pointed out. Quite reasonably, she thought.

“Can you direct me if I give you an address?”

Dakota’s smile felt strained. “Afraid not. It doesn’t work that way. I’ll plug that into the GPS for you.” He rattled off the address, and she punched it into the system. They headed for a tunnel, and he passed half a dozen cars at an alarming speed. Although he handled the car like an expert race-car driver, she still dug her fingers into the center console.

He honked to let a white sports car filled with blondes know he wanted to pass. The car moved over, and the blondes waved and blew kisses. Irrationally, the gesture annoyed the hell out of her. “You always were a chick magnet, but it never crossed my mind to accuse
you
of cheating on
me
.”

“Because I never looked at another woman when we were together.”

“And I never looked at another man, so—”

His jaw tightened. “Shut up, Dakota.”

“I shut up about this before only because you slammed down the damned phone before I could challenge your accusation,” she said, her simmering annoyance at his shitty attitude starting to boil over. “You accused me of sleeping around. Where’s your proof? You had none!”

“If you’re going to bring up old news, I’ll drop you off at the airport.” His voice was cold and hard as glass. “I’m taking you along against my better judgment.”

“Let’s agree not to drag the past into the present,” she suggested tightly. “It’s inflammatory and counterproductive.”

“Fine with me.”

Fine. Perfect. Back to the business at hand. “Rapture is administered on a pullulan wafer—an edible, tasteless polymer paper made from starch that’s placed on the tongue or dissolved in liquid. So your theory that it was dissolved in the champagne makes sense. If everyone was out of control for only a couple of hours, it was a small dose, thank God.”

Dakota knew exactly what behaviors presented. She’d observed test patients in clinical trials. The program had been shut down, on her recommendation, that same day. “It would be a simple matter to carry the wafers in. Hundreds of wafers and a small vial of the drug would fit into a matchbox. It’s possible someone stole samples from the lab before the explosion and administered the drug here as a joke.”

“Or a form of blackmail.”

“Either would be a thousand times more acceptable than …”

“Than?”

“Than it’s being manufactured as a street drug.”

“Jesus.”

“I need to hold something belonging to whoever administered the drug. What do you have? I can get started while we drive.”

“I don’t have a damned thing.”

“Then you’re shit out of luck. As good as I am at what I do, even I can’t help you.”

THREE

A
nd so it begins,
Monk thought with satisfaction. Years of preparation and sacrifice had culminated in this, a very public first demonstration of a new drug that would soon sweep the world. He almost smiled. Perhaps he should call it Tidalwave instead of Rapture.

“The buyer was pleased?” he asked the caller, who’d sent him several minutes of raw video footage from the wedding reception the night before. Of course the buyer was pleased. The demonstration proved the product superior in every way.

Fast-acting. Addictive. Cheap to manufacture, with the potential of multibillion-dollar profits. A win-win for sales, manufacturing, and the worldwide tentacles of street dealers who’d all be clamoring to get onboard to sell Rapture through their own vast networks. None of them cared about the end users, content to suck them dry financially and spit them out when they became too far gone with addiction or died.

They all died in the end. An unfortunate result of Rapture that he had yet to remedy. Still, there would be no end to users. The world was a big place. Millions upon millions of potential users. More money than he could dream of and, far more important, power beyond his wildest imagination.

Calm and always contained, Monk rarely felt anything as human as excitement, but the potential for more buyers of the product—in one form or another—actually made his heart beat a little faster as he sat in the stillness of his austere cell. He closed his eyes as his man spoke solemnly.

“Yes, Father. Extremely so. He placed a large order.”

“Are we ready for the next demonstration?” This to the head of an Eastern European mob. The next level of use. Monk was able to offer buyers several options, including ingested and airborne, along with several price points. Like end users, there was no limit to potential buyers from the criminal element.

“Yes, Father. Everything is in place as you instructed. May I come to you now?”

Monk let his gaze rest on the muted colors of the ancient tapestry hanging on the far wall. Satisfied that the net he was casting would haul in more buyers as well as his ultimate prize, Monk disconnected without comment. After years of manipulation and sacrifice, Dr. North was being drawn into the elaborate web he was spinning just for her.

Monk leaned back, folded his hands across his belly, and sighed with satisfaction. Everything was going according to plan. He allowed himself a small smile.

SHE HAD HER BARE
feet curled on the seat under her shapely ass, her back against the passenger door. The sunlight turned her hair to living flame. It seemed brighter, more vibrant, more alive than Rand remembered. His memories of Dakota’s hair were pretty damned powerful.

He didn’t have anything. For her to hold, or channel, or whatever the hell she claimed she did. And he sure as hell didn’t want to remember the feel of those hot silken strands gliding down his body. “We’ll be at the hotel where they found the body in a few minutes. Start channeling your inner GPS.”

“Hopefully we’ll find something useful there,” she said without responding to his sarcasm. “A shoe, or some personal effect in his pockets—there’s always something.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” His thoughts were anything but orderly, now that she’d shown up. Seeing her always short-circuited his brain, and today was no exception. He resented the power she had over his body. Fortunately, he’d managed to get her completely out of his system. Two years without seeing her effectively cured him. What hadn’t killed him made him stronger. Yeah. He was cured. It was just the kick to his chest that churned up old memories.

Rand glanced at the route on the GPS, then back to the road. That she claimed to have this extraordinary sixth sense was ludicrous. True, his friend made the same claim, following his ordeal in South America, where he’d been kidnapped, shot, and left for dead. He had excuses that no one could blame him for—trauma, PTSD, grief. Dakota didn’t.

Yet Zak had built a company based on his newfound sixth sense. Shit. Rand had no idea what or whom to believe. It pissed him off that he might need more than his own skills to crack this.

If she could help him find the person responsible for this, he’d bite his tongue and play nice. Which segued into the thought of him biting
her
tongue and playing naughty. He called himself six kinds of fool. She was everything he wanted in a woman, and pretty much everything he loathed in a human being.
Get a grip, Maguire.

“I’m hoping like hell that when we get where we’re going, there is
something
.” He was desperate enough to almost believe her. God. Her timing couldn’t be worse.

If this
was
the drug that killed his mother, having Dakota—a key member of the Rydell team—suddenly show up in the same place as its reappearance was dangerously fortuitous. What were the chances?

Slim enough to make him suspicious as hell.

“So you’re not a chemist anymore?”

Even her hair seemed to stiffen. “My lab was destroyed. People
died
… No. I’m not in that field anymore.”

“You were
fired
.
Then
the lab was destroyed.” More omissions. That had been almost two years ago. What had she been doing since? He didn’t give a damn enough to ask—to brave her prickly field of
don’t fucking bother
—and she didn’t offer. Fine with him. He heard her take a controlled breath before she spoke again.

“Right.” She turned those pale peridot eyes to him and waited out his sarcasm as she changed the subject. “Was anyone at the event
not
affected?”

“Other than my men and the majority of the waitstaff? No.
Everyone
drank the Kool-Aid, including the priest, the groom’s eighty-two-year-old grandmother, all the band members, and two of my security people.”

“How soon till we get the lab results back?” she asked.

“I asked them to put a rush on it. Later this afternoon, I hope.” He turned down the tree-lined street indicated by the car’s GPS. “What’s your angle, Dakota? You’re pushing hard to be involved. Why? You no longer represent Rydell, what possible interest could you have in the outcome of this investigation?”

“I was involved with every aspect of this drug. Why do you
think
I insist on seeing where this all leads?”

“We both know that’s not it.”

When her mouth tightened, deep lines furrowing between her eyebrows, he resisted every ingrained urge to reach over and smooth them away. Damn, she hadn’t lost the ability to bring out his protective instinct. He squashed the urge to touch her.

“You have something to prove,” he said mildly, when he felt anything but.

She shot him a fulminating glare, her chin tilted pugnaciously. “And what if I do?”

“Then your presence here is not only redundant,” he told her, tone cooling, “it’s a waste of everyone’s time.”

Her snort was eerily reminiscent of his. “Why don’t you ask what you
really
want to ask?” She widened her eyes dramatically, hand on her chest. “Did you do it, Dakota?” she demanded gruffly. “Admit it. You just happened to know where this wedding was taking place, despite the fact that not even the paparazzi knew, and you dosed a room full of Hollywood stars with a drug destroyed years ago! Confess!”

Her mimicry nudged a reluctant smile to his lips that he suppressed. Nothing about this situation was amusing. Even if she could help, he damned well didn’t want her here. “Apparently the formula wasn’t destroyed in the explosion.”

“Apparently not.” She deflated slowly, her expression suddenly … what? Sad? Heavy with guilt? Yeah, that one he’d believe. “Only two people who worked on that drug are still alive, Rand. All of our notes and files were destroyed along with the lab. I was minding my own business in Seattle when Zak called me in. Cole met me at the gate after a twelve-hour flight. There’s no way I could have done this. Even if I had the ability to be in two places at once,
why
would I have done it? To what purpose?”

He twisted the wheel and floored the gas pedal, overtaking two cars in the fast lane. He zipped in front of them, waiting a few seconds until the sounds of the car horns were lost behind them. “I have no idea how you think. I’ve
never
had any idea how you think.”

“Clearly, I had no idea how you think either, so we’re even.”

It didn’t matter what the hell the drug was—he wanted the person or persons responsible found and brought to justice. Dakota was right about that. “Blood work’s been sent to a local lab. Let’s see which of you is right.” He ran his hand over his hair.

“They’re wrong,” Dakota told him flatly. “I told you before, Ecstasy could cause that kind of euphoria, but that spike in libido and total breakdown of inhibitions indicates DL6-94. It’s not Krokodil, which is a completely different and dangerous drug, with completely different and dangerous side effects. The end result, however, is they both guarantee death. I can’t confirm that this is Rydell’s formula, but I’m taking an educated, well-informed guess. I won’t know one hundred percent for sure until I talk to some of the victims and see the lab report. You must’ve questioned everyone affected. I’ll start with any reports you’ve compiled—”