Even D.A. Hedlund was grudgingly impressed.
The door swung open automatically as someone buzzed him in from within the maze of corridors that wound through the thirteenth floor. And as he turned toward the Watson side of the labyrinth, Reid remembered the day he and Sturgeon had been called out for an assault and attempted rape on this very floor.
Reid had been moved by the white-coated woman covered in blood and crumpled beneath a stainless-steel sink. He had been glad to see that Genie Watson was breathing and almost conscious when they carried her out of the tiny room on a stretcher. He had been annoyed at the number of feet that had tracked the blood evidence around the room, and he had been dreading the phone call he would have to make, canceling yet another date with Yvette. But then again, shed been getting clingy. Making noises about commitment andgulpkids. He remembered thinking that maybe it wasnt a bad thing he was canceling on her again. Hed pushed his way out of the developer room, turned toward a knot of murmuring white-coated technicians to begin the necessary round of questioningand felt like hed been shot point-blank in the chest while wearing a Kevlar vest.
She was so tiny the lab coat swallowed her up and didnt even hint at her figure. Her curly red hair was so vivid that it had looked out of place against all that sterile white, and her wide, worried eyes had looked like wet jade.
Suddenly Yvettes five-foot-ten seemed gargantuan, her expensive hair too blond and her clothing too tight and colorful. He hadnt had the heart to tell Yvette about his waning desire for her, but shed figured it out soon enough.
Detective Peters?
And there she was again. Dressed in a lab coat.
He looked around. Somehow, his feet had brought him to Stephanies bench. She was standing, staring up at him with a sheaf of printouts clutched to her chest. The pages crinkled as her fingers tightened on them. They were already badly wrinkled, which was unusual for the military precision of the Watson lab.
Can I help you, Detective Peters? If not, Im quite busy. I have work to catch up on from yesterday. Though not quite rude, her tone certainly wasnt friendly. Tension seemed to emanate from her in waves, and as he watched, her eyes slid to a shadowy corner of the lab.
A tickle traveled across his left shoulder blade.
Seeming convinced there was nothing in the shadows, she brushed past him. The starched white cotton of her lab coat feathered across the back of his hand, leaving a hot wave of arousal in its wake and reminding him that about a year ago hed developed a thing for lab coats. For redheads wearing lab coats and nothing else
Test results, he reminded himself, youre here for test results. Then, when he took in the tense set of her shoulders and the nervous darting of her eyes, his reasons for being there suddenly seemed less important than they had a moment ago. The tingle centered on his spine.
Something was up.
Hows your daughter? he asked casually. Any ill effects from her field trip yesterday?
She flinched, as though fearing he knew something she didnt, then shook her head. Um, no. She seems fine. In fact, I think shes come through this better than either Maureen or I. Im still a basket case though, thinking of what might have happened, and if Maureen even lets her step foot outside the house today Ill be surprised.
There was a quick tremble in her voice, and she fiddled with a mechanical pencil as she spoke, clicking the lead and then tapping the point on the hard lab bench until the fragile graphite snapped. Reid wondered whether that was all there was to it. Leftover nerves? Or something more?
He didnt have much experience with kids, but hed heard the fierceness in Sturgeons voice once or twice when one of the guppies had been threatened in very minor ways. Stephanie had been so determinedly tough the day before he supposed she might be suffering the backlash.
But if she looked over into the darkness next to that big machine one more time
Are you okay? he asked, jerking his head at the corner. You seem nervous.
She shook her head in quick denial. Nonot nervous. Im fine. Everythings fine.
He nodded slowly, not believing her for a second but still not sure whether her daughters disappearance had freaked her out or there was something else. Okay, then. He paused. Clearly today wasnt a good day to ask her out for lunch. Then again, Reid thought, never would be a better time to ask her outshe had a kid, and Sturgeons success aside, no kid needed a cop around.
So he shrugged, pushed aside the image of her wearing a lab coat, a pair of red high heels and nothing else, and said, I need to pick up the latest DNA results for Sturgeons and my cases. Thatd be Makepeace, Garcia and Roberts. He knew it was careless of them to name their DNAs rather than numbering them so the results were blinded for the researchers, but really, what interest did a lab tech have in messing with police work?
She shook her head and clutched the papers tighter to her chest. Theyre not ready yet.
That was not the answer hed been looking for. Not ready? What do you mean, not ready? They needed those results for court dates, damn it. Sturgeon got a message on his voice mail that theyd be finished this morning. Something go wrong?
The itch intensified.
Stephanie shook her head. You can have Garcia and Roberts, theyre all set. She gestured at a pair of folders on her desk labeled with the names. But the other isnt finished yet.
An empty folder labeled Makepeace lay open on the desk. What happened to it? Is there something wrong with the sample? Please dont let anything be wrong with the sample, he thought. D.A. Hedlund would have a cow and shifty, scummy Makepeace would walk on the one rape theyd managed to pin on him, out of a series of six.
Though the links between the ex-con handyman and little Mae Wongs rape were largely circumstantial, theyd been enough to arrest him and warrant the DNA sample. All they needed to get a conviction was a DNA matchbut they needed that match. The case was a no-go without it.
Sorry, she said, not looking sorry at all. Technical difficulties. There was a problem with the thermocycling temperature, so the DNA didnt amplify correctly and I couldnt finish the test. Ill rerun the experiment today and have the results later in the week, okay?
No, damn it. It wasnt okay. Reid didnt like the look in her eye, and he didnt like that the test wasnt done.
Steph? Another techs voice interrupted, Genies on the phone for you. She wants to talk about the last batch of sequencing.
Steph glanced from the lab phone and back to Reid, scowling as though she wished he would disappear. When he didnt, she made an irritated noise and stalked over to talk to her boss.
Reid couldnt have asked for better timing. Hed have to thank Dr. Watson the next time he saw heronce he asked her what the hell was going on in her lab. After making sure Steph was busy on the phone and had her back to him, he shuffled through the two finished folders shed given him. The proper paperwork was therealong with the computer printout of the scanned film results and the calculated probabilities for and against DNA matches. They were both matches, thank God. Reid only hoped they went three for three.
He looked at the Makepeace folder again. It was still empty. No paperwork, no printout.
He looked at the Makepeace folder again. It was still empty. No paperwork, no printout.
What had she been crumpling against her lab coat? Makepeaces results?
Reid shifted a few papers on her desk and uncovered an X-ray film of the type Genie Watson had once tried to explain to him. One side was labeled Makepeace, the other side Rape Kit Sample, along with a bunch of other stuff, labeled Ladder and CEPH and a few he couldnt even read.
Couldnt finish the experiment, eh? Reid murmured as he slid the film onto a flat lightbox and clicked it on the way Genie had shown him. The gray plastic sprang to life and he saw two rows of dark lines marching down the length of the film like grocery-store bar codes.
We test thirteen highly variable sites within the human genome, he remembered Genie explaining the DNA tests that could free or condemn a criminal with nothing more than a shadow of a bloodstain. Through chance, its possible that two people share the same size marker on one or both of their chromosomes. But the likelihood of two peopleunless theyre identical twinsbeing the same at every one of those thirteen markers is so low as to be non-existent. She had paused, then grinned. Unless you were on the O.J. juryin which case that point-zero-nine-percent of a chance is enough to cast doubt.
Reid remembered chuckling at the joke. But he wasnt chuckling now. Even to his untrained eye, it was clear that the Makepeace side and the rape kit side of the film didnt even come close to matching.
Damn it. He and Sturgeon had been so sure James Makepeace had abducted little Mae Wong, raped her and left her for dead in a Dumpster down by the Science Museum. Shed livedbarelybut she would never be the same laughing, happy child Reid had seen in the pictures pressed on him by Mrs. Wong. The detectives had been fiercely glad to pin the crime on Makepeace, a slimy, basement-dwelling handyman who had access to the Wong home, priors for assault and sexual misconduct, and no alibi.
This had been the first of the rapes with DNA left behind, and the first involving a child. Though the break in pattern had bothered Reid, there were enough similarities that he and Sturgeon had hoped to nail down the one case and build up the others. They had done their jobs and come up with Makepeace.
Though hed howled his innocence to anyone whod listen, the wriggly piece of excrement had been held on Reid and Sturgeons say-soand lack of bail moneypending the DNA results and a trial.
Theyd been so sure of him. Even the D.A. liked the Wong case. But it wasnt Makepeaces genetic material that had been taken from the little girls torn body. He hadnt done it. Reid dropped the film back on Stephanies desk and swore viciously, helplessly, knowing that it wasnt enough.
They didnt have their man.
Sorry about that, Steph said, returning to her bench. The day Nick and Genie left for a conference in Hawaii, we had a breakthrough in the Fentons Ataxia project. We convinced her not to fly home, but She trailed off when she glanced at his face. Shrugged. But youre not interested in that, are you? Youre here for your results. She tapped the two files. Here they are. Ill have the Makepeace results for you by the end of the week. Sorry for the delay. Her voice didnt tremble as she lied straight to his face.
Reid felt his fist clench and wanted to hit something. This was a child they were talking about.
No problem, he lied right back. Ill catch you later in the week. Thanks for these. He lifted the finished folders in farewell and retraced his steps through the thirteenth floor to the elevator. He gritted his teeth and stabbed the elevator call button.
He didnt know what was going on, but he was sure as hell going to find out. And if Stephanie Alberts was screwing with his evidence, shed be sorry.
Very, very sorry.
Chapter Three
Steph was alone in the lab that night, just shutting down the last of the big machines, when the phone rang. The sound shattered the humming silence like a scream.
Damn! She put a hand to her thumping heart and stared at the instrument as it rang a second time. She imagined a dead-sounding whisper, a snarl of accusation because shed talked to a cop. A chuckle as he told her Jilly was gone.
The phone rang again. Its not him, she told herself. Just pick it up.
But she couldnt. Her feet were frozen in place, and she felt a sudden surge of the nausea that had been building ever since shed looked into Detective Peterss gorgeous golden-brown eyes and lied her ass off.
Shed lied to a cop about an investigation. She was going to hellor jail, whichever came first.
If the voice didnt get her before then.
The phone rang a third, fourth and fifth time as she stared at it. Then it stopped. The answering machine did not click on.
Hed hung up.
Steph felt a massive shudder crawl down her back and she fled through the lab, slapping at switches and grabbing her purse almost as an afterthought. She was halfway to the elevator when she remembered.
I know how you walk to work, bitch.
The phone began to ring again. She shoved at the door to the elevator lobby and caromed into the little space, frantic to be away from the ringing phone and the voice in her head. Frantic to get to her daughter. She punched her security code into the door lock with trembling fingers and turned to jab at the elevator call button.
The car was already moving up toward the thirteenth floor.
Hes coming, she thought hysterically, he knows I didnt tell Detective Peters that the Makepeace DNA was a match. Hes coming.
She pressed the other call button again and again, as though she could hurry the second elevator by doing so.
Eightnineten
Hes almost here!
Steph threw herself back at the security door and tried to key in the override code that would let her back in the lab after shed punched in All Clear for the Night.
Her mind blanked. What is it? She fumbled at the little round numbers. Oh-four-four-six-nine, right? The door didnt click. The light flickered red, warning her that another wrong code would freeze the lock for the night. Come on, you bastard, she snarled. I bought you. I programmed you. Let me in! She miskeyed again.
The lock buzzed angrily and the red light shone solid. She wasnt getting in before morning.
Eleventwelve
Steph suddenly remembered the little gray canister in her purserequired equipment for any woman working in or near Chinatown. She scrambled for it. Grabbed it.
Thirteending!
Screaming at the top of her lungs as her two-week self-defense class had taught her, Steph leaped for the widening crack in the elevator doors and aimed the nozzle directly at her attackers face with one hand while she swung her purse with the other.
And at the last moment saw the surprise in his familiar golden-brown eyes.
WHILE HIS MIND was still grappling with the sight of Stephanie Alberts attacking him with pepper spray in one hand and a leather purse in the other, Reid automatically chopped the canister out of her hand and tossed it toward a corner of the elevator, noting as he did so that it hadnt fired because shed failed to flip the safety. Once she was unarm
Bonk! The elevator tilted when something impossibly heavy thumped him upside the head, and Stephanies facenow looking more horrified than afraid, with her mouth making a big round O of surprise, loomed in front of him.