PROTOCOL #: 85477892
GENETIC MUTATION IN THE NORTHERN CHUPACABRA.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of evidence I’d hoped for, but really, what was I expecting? It wasn’t like Paul Davis was going to apply for university approval for his real research program. Methodically, I made my way through the room, mentally dividing it into a grid and searching every square from ceiling to floor, wall to wall.
Whatever Dr. Davis was doing for Chimera, he wasn’t doing it here.
Determined to find something, lest my latest stint as a hardened criminal be for naught, I made my way from Davis’s lab to the attached office.
Filing cabinets.
Computers.
Papers covering every available surface.
Bingo.
I started with his desk and looked for anything with Chimera letterhead. Nada. I looked through every scrap of paper, every Post-it note, the passwords taped to the bottom of one of his drawers. After committing that last one to memory, I moved on.
All I needed was a lead—the location of the main lab, the name of the project, Davis’s contact at Chimera … anything.
A light flickered somewhere in the distance, and I glanced out through the thick, opaque window separating the office from the hallway on the other side.
Someone was coming.
I pressed myself back against a wall, willing my body flat, hiding my face in the shadows. I waited—and whoever it was walked right by. As the sound of footsteps became softer, more distant, I set back to work, all too aware that the next time, I might not be so lucky.
It didn’t take me long to find the keys to the filing cabinet, but the files they contained weren’t exactly what I would call helpful—more protocols, long printouts of data, medical information for the graduate assistants who worked in the Davis lab. Next, I turned my attention to the desk drawers, the credenza, the cushions in his black IKEA sofa.
And that’s when I hit pay dirt: a cell phone, presumably Professor Davis’s, was wedged in the crack between the cushions and the back of the sofa. I pried it loose and started scrolling through the recent calls.
BETHANY.
BETHANY.
BETHANY.
I tried not to feel guilty, seeing Beth’s name, and forced myself onward.
ADELAIDE.
HOME.
And then, finally, a number that wasn’t in his contacts. Two numbers. A third.
There had to be a way to trace the phone numbers to a location—and if I was lucky, that location might give me something: if not the actual lab where they were holding Zev, at least another name, another person whose office I could rifle through, more laws to break.
This time, the sound of footsteps treading through the exterior hallway was crisp and pert, and it stopped right outside the door. Pocketing the cell phone, I leapt for the door to the lab space, squeezing back through it and shutting it behind me an instant before the door to the hallway opened.
“Honestly, Paul, that’s the third phone this month. You can hardly complain about Bethany’s overage fees when you can’t keep track of a BlackBerry to save your life.”
In the time it took me to recognize that voice as belonging to Bethany’s mother, her father was already speaking in reply. “What our daughter doesn’t know won’t hurt her—and the phone isn’t lost. It’s in here somewhere. Here, give me your phone.”
It took me a second too long to realize why a person trying to locate their phone would ask to borrow one from someone else—and in that second, Paul Davis called his own cell.
It lit up a second before it rang. I didn’t have time to figure out how to silence it, how to turn it off. Moving on instinct, I did the only thing a person like me knew how to do.
I killed it.
Snapped it in half like a twig, held my breath, waited.
“Did you hear something?” Through the thick metal door, Paul Davis’s voice was muted, but I had no way of knowing how soft it would have sounded to a human. Maybe they wouldn’t have been able to make out the words at all; maybe, on the other side of that metal door, the Davises wouldn’t have heard that half of a ring, the crunching of plastic and metal, at all.
Or maybe this time, I’d get caught.
I thought of all the laws I’d ever broken: the trespassing, the slaughter, obstruction of justice, cruelty to creatures who’d died choking on my blood. I thought of Zev, caged in concrete, and of my father, lecturing in the building next door.
And then the door to the lab space opened, and a familiar woman with strawberry blonde hair peeked in. She met my eyes, and for a moment, hers glossed over, and I wondered if Bethany’s mother was seeing things again: the boy her son had been, ghosts of everything he wouldn’t ever be. For a moment, that faraway glint in her eye gave way to focus, clarity.