“Would you please put this in the fridge?”
Smiling, she entered.
The men all smiled and nodded to her as she took the cooler from Chris.
After she left, Chris leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I knew Melanie and Dr. Kimiko were probably resting and assumed you guys wouldn’t feel comfortable helping Marcus get the baby to latch on every two or three hours when it’s time to feed her.”
Didn’t babies just latch on naturally? Zach thought, then blinked. Wait. Newborns fed every two or three hours? “If you’re going to bottle feed her, why do you need Linda?”
“Dr. Harris suggested we let the baby nurse for a bit first, then bottle feed her the milk. Something about avoiding nipple confusion, whatever the hell that is, and reducing the chances of the baby refusing to breastfeed later when Ami’s milk comes in?” Chris said, phrasing it as a question, as if he were as clueless as the rest of them.
Only Seth seemed to know what it all meant.
“Any luck tracking the vampire?” David asked.
“Some. He’s holed up with nine others in a house outside of Pittsboro. One that’s too small to be the main lair.”
“Are you sure there aren’t extensive tunnels beneath it like Bastien’s?” Seth asked.
“Yeah. I had one of my contacts do a satellite thermal-imaging scan. There were only ten men, all with the cooler body temperatures of a vampire, so we’re waiting to see if they’ll lead us to the lair once the sun sets.”
Zach frowned. “Won’t they find the tracking device in the meantime?”
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Seth murmured. “Their minds will yield no information. And moving in now and killing them will net us nothing.”
Nevertheless, it didn’t sit well with Zach.#p#分页标题#e#
“Was that why you wanted to see us?” Seth asked Chris.
“No. I need to show you something. Darnell, can I use your laptop?”
Darnell opened a laptop on the corner of David’s desk and, moving some medical texts aside, slid it toward the center.
Chris circled the desk and stood beside David. Pulling a small metal device from his briefcase, he connected it to the computer and began dragging his finger across the smooth touchpad on the keyboard.
Seth waved Zach forward.
Zach joined them behind the desk.
David sat up straighter as the blood went to work restoring his strength.
The image on the computer screen changed from a tranquil Zen garden to what appeared to be a hallway in network headquarters. Zach had visited the network several times during his stint as “Temporary Seth” and recognized it as the fifth sublevel.
Chris straightened. “I’ve been pouring over surveillance video, wanting to see if Cliff ventured anywhere else he shouldn’t have while he was off swiping the tracking devices.”
“Did he?” Seth asked.
“No. Here’s the video, in slow motion, taken from every camera he passed on his foray.” He pressed a button on the keyboard.
Zach watched the blurry, indistinct form (which moved too quickly for the camera to catch clearly) zip from the fifth sublevel up to the room the tracking devices were stored in on the fourth floor. Once the vampire pocketed the devices, he raced back to the fifth sublevel, making no other stops.
Chris pressed a key and paused the video just as a shot of the lobby appeared. “I wanted to make sure he didn’t make any other excursions later on, so I kept looking and found this.” He pressed the key again, restarting the video.
The lobby was decorated in shades of gray, the only color provided by potted peace lilies. The central focus of the camera was a large granite-topped security desk. Half a dozen guards sat behind it, their eyes fastened to monitors hidden from view. A few yards beyond them, over a dozen more guarded elevator doors.
A tall figure, garbed in a long black coat, suddenly appeared in front of the security desk.
The men behind it jumped and reached for their weapons.
Before they could draw them, the figure waved a hand.
The guards’ expressions went blank. They retook their seats, their posture relaxed.
One of the guards nodded and spoke to the figure.
“The cameras don’t record audio,” Chris mentioned apologetically.
The dark figure strolled over to one of the elevators. The guards there didn’t appear to see him.
The doors slid open. The figure stepped inside.
The scene cut to surveillance footage of the elevator.
The figure kept his head turned away from the camera. Bearing the dark hair, height, and build common among immortal males, this man could have been any of them.
The video cut from scene to scene, following the mysterious figure to a room full of file cabinets.