jersey shirt and denim slacks, simple gold earrings and a sports cap over ponytailed hair. No point in dressing fancy when she’d spend the rest of the day in that damn sweaty suit. Better to be comfortable.
Mother would faint dead away.
The thought gave her a small chuckle as she headed out to her car. Her amusement faded when she checked her comm. Her mother Amaranta left three messages the night before. The Colonel wanted to see her.
At twenty-six, Kylie was no longer subject to parental demands, but William Sanderson didn’t bear defiance. He ran his business—and his family—like a dictatorship. Living under his thumb in their luxurious home, with its servants and special privileges had taught her survival skills that served her at SIRT. Very few people had the power to intimidate her. Only the Colonel’s icy blue stare still shook her foundation. She did her best not to let him see it. Most of the time she just tried to stay away.
He’d just have to understand. She was just too busy with this case now. Stick-to-it-iveness. Laying that Sanderson work ethic on the line.
Her excuse wouldn’t hold him off for long.
When she opened the car door, a pleasant smell of baked, dry earth triggered memories of her interview with Griff in front of Hawthorn’s. What an odd scent. She sniffed again.
Next time she saw that creeper, she’d take him down.
Dr. Astrid awaited her at the morgue. After suiting up, Kylie joined her. “I’m sorry I didn’t message you last night, Sonya, but I found someone who understands what’s happening.”
Dr. Astrid looked over her shoulder at the door. “Did you bring them with you?”
Kylie caught her breath. “Ah, no. He got away. But let me tell you what he said.”
While they cut and stored samples of the women’s skin, hair and fingernails, Kylie laid out Griff’s explanations. The doctor slowly put down her instruments and just stared when the issue of the retrovirus came up. “So we were right. I mean, if what this man said is true.”
“It certainly sounded sincere.”
“So we need to set up direct focus assays of the cell lines to see if we detect any retrovirus particles.” The doctor scrawled illegible notes onto her electronic pad. “Once we find something we can use, we can amplify the sample for an extended bioassay. That will at least confirm the presence of the retrovirus as toxin.”
“Exactly, and if we’re lucky, where it affects the genetic strand.”
“If we can find the intersect spot, perhaps we can develop some kind of—I don’t know. An antidote? Or perhaps even a vaccine.”
But what about the ones already missing? “He said none of the transformations succeeded yet. It makes me wonder if these victims failed so miserably that they died. If others remain alive out there, we could save them. If we could find them.”
Troubled, the doctor frowned. “That’s the real question, isn’t it?”
Kylie stained the wet tissue slides with different reagents, trying to find anything that the bioscanner could differentiate. “No trouble finding changed cells,” she muttered. “Just not what changes them.”
The doctor’s soft laugh came from across the lab table. “Patience, my dear. The answers lie here before us. We must simply wait and work until our eyes begin to see.”
She stepped off her stool and stretched up onto her toes. Perhaps a run later would shake out all this lab time, what the other students used to call flab time. “Really? We’re going all wise man on the top of the mountain now?”
“Sounded better than, ‘Damned if I can explain.’”
It sure did. She hated running into walls. But frustration tended to inspire her. The doctor was right. The solution would come to them. Back to the slides.
* * * *
Eyes aching from the strain of hours staring at small dots and blotches of stain, Kylie spent her last few minutes downtown studying her comm logs from the team, but found no new material from Jaco or the other agents, so no need to stop by. Helping Dr. Astrid was as useful as beating the street for their suspect, anyway. As mild-mannered as he seemed, he’d slip up. Sooner or later.
She drove home as dusk set in. Hands full with her keys and a case containing analytical printouts, she ran up two flights of stairs to her tempartment. She juggled everything until she got inside then dumped it onto her tiny dinette table. She leaned down, unzipped her boots, kicked them off in the direction of the refrigeration unit, and went back to close and lock the door.
Delighted not to hunch over the scope, she rolled her shoulders and stretched from side to side. A click of the remote activated her music player. Ethnic drums played, joined by a flute and strings. There. Add fragrant candles and a nice drink, she’d transport herself to a dull but relaxing evening of reading bioresults. Ah, my thrilling life.
She poured herself a stemmed glass of a semi-sweet red vintage, not her favorite but Nissa’s. Her sister’d bought everyone a full case the year-end before. Rummaging through leftover cartons of takeout food, she smelled more bacterial cultures than she’d discovered today at work, and she pitched them. Settling for something with noodles and a mystery meat substitute, she jabbed a fork into the open serving-size box. Carrying her wine in her left hand and the box in her right, she headed for her living room.
Griff stood two meters from her, dressed in a black pullover shirt and slacks. Inside her locked apartment door.
She didn’t need him to tell her that her heart nearly stopped, then began to race. Her purse containing her firearm lay on the table where she’d dumped it. Much closer to him than to her. Her boots lay behind her on the floor. She could use the stiletto if her hands weren’t full. But shock froze her.
His face in shadow, he watched her. “I don’t mean you harm. I came to warn you—”
“Warn me? That you’re a psycho killer? I think I’ve got that much, thanks.” Her words loosed the terrible paralysis. She tossed the box into the single steel sink, keeping the fork, holding it tight in her hand. She expected he’d come for her, try to stop her, but instead he looked bewildered.
“Killer? No. No, Kylie Sanderson, I am no killer.” He showed her his empty hands. “I come only to help stop the killings.”
The edge of sincerity in his voice nearly stopped her. Boy, he was good. She took a swig of wine for courage and stepped back. “You want to give yourself up? That might be constructive.”
He moved toward her, his hands still out. “I don’t understand. I am not the one. X is the one. He wants to perpetuate our race. The majority of our females have become infertile due to a change in our star’s radiation output. X developed this plan to make breeding possible again.”
He kept coming closer. As big as he was, a fork was nothing. She dropped the glass on the floor, its shattering catching Griff’s startled gaze. While he was distracted, she lunged for the table. She hunkered down behind it, grabbing her bag. She ended with gun in hand, set for paralyze, not kill. “Get your hands up.”
He hadn’t moved, just stared at her. “I do not—I will not hurt you,” he insisted. “But women wait, in danger, now. I need your help.”
“I know you understand me! Put. Your. Hands. Up. Now. Or I’ll tag your ass.” She came to her feet, fingers closed tight on her gun’s stock, its aim fixed right at his heart.
His hands raised slightly.
“Where are the women?”
“In a warehouse,” he said, taking one step toward her. His face held no emotion. His voice sounded even, almost pleasant. “I can take you there.”
“I don’t think so, friend.” She pulled the trigger. The first blast staggered him, but he remained on his feet. It took two more shots of hot blue electric