“Chancellor McCullough?” Carter asked. He’d looked up the chancellor on Apex U’s website, and Carter was fairly certain this was him, but the Ryan McCullough in the profile photo on the website didn’t have the deep lines around his eyes or the thinning hair of Ryan McCullough in person.
“That’s me,” the chancellor said. “Are you—” He cut himself off, gaze shifting between Carter and Lincoln. “I spoke with someone . . . from DC.”
“That was me,” Carter said, dropping the Southern accent for the neutral, unaccented one he typically used for business calls, including the one he’d made to McCullough yesterday. Carter reached into his pocket and withdrew his FBI credentials. “Special Agent Carter Warren,” he said, holding the badge out to McCullough. “And this is my partner, Agent Lincoln Monroe.”
Lincoln likewise handed over his badge, which the chancellor cursorily glanced at before passing both of them back.
“Sorry about that,” McCullough said. “I mean, of course you’re them. You’ve got the key card I sent over with Susanne. I put it in the usual welcome package for new faculty, hoping she wouldn’t . . . This is just?—”
“Unusual,” Carter supplied.
“To say the least,” he said with a kind smile, and Carter thought perhaps he’d misjudged those deep grooves around the other man’s eyes. “And please, call me Ryan. I’m so sorry I missed the welcome party last night.”
Handshakes and pleasantries were exchanged, Carter doing most of the talking. Lincoln was relatively quiet, seemingly more interested in their surroundings. Part of the awkward agent bit? Or just the excited nerd?
Ryan picked up on it too and held out a ring of keys to Lincoln. “I’m guessing these are for you.”
Forehead wrinkled, Lincoln looked from Ryan, to the keys, to Carter. “I thought I was working at the library?”
“But it’s not just about the archives, is it?” Carter said.
With Lincoln frozen in some sort of shocked stasis, Carter accepted the keys from Ryan, opened the lab door, and gently pushed Lincoln inside.
Carter surveyed the room. Two long lab benches, desks at the far end along the windows, a principal investigator’s private office in one corner, and all the equipment Carter had requested. A fume hood in one corner, and spread out on benches: microscopes, chromatographs, spectrometers, a DNA sequencer, and all the necessary peripherals, plus other crime lab basics such as powders, brushes, and tapes. At the desks, two docking stations with keyboards, monitors, and mice awaited their laptops, and the office had been transformed into a temporary dark room, suitable for photo processing.
Carter tossed his coat on the closest stool. “Any questions about the setup requests?” he asked the chancellor.
Ryan shook his head. “Snagged the DNA sequencer from a genetics professor’s lab. He’s on sabbatical this semester. The rest will be perfect for the crystallography professor we’re wooing. He’s scheduled to visit later this month.”
A few feet in front of them, Lincoln rotated in place, taking in the space. “You remembered all this from class?”
The wonder in his eyes was intoxicating. So much so that Carter backtracked before he got drunk on it in Ryan’s presence. “Mostly, though I called your assistant a half dozen times to confirm.”
It’d only been one call, but the partial lie had the intended effect. Lincoln scoffed and hitched a hip. As much as Carter had enjoyed the look of awe, the praise he craved, prickly Lincoln was a comfort too, the professor back to his usual self.
“You’ve got what you need?” Carter asked him.
“Yep.” Lincoln dropped his bag on a bench and moved down the aisle. “Thank you, Ryan.”
“Can I ask who or what you’re looking for?” Ryan said.
“We can’t tell you that,” Carter answered.
The chancellor wrung his hands, then straightened his tie. Maybe the lines around his eyes were from smiling, but Carter would bet that receding hairline was equal parts genetics and worry about Apex U. “I just need to know if my campus is in danger.”
“It’s very unlikely,” Lincoln said.
“If that changes,” Carter added, “you’ll be the first to know.”
“Guess I’ll have to live with that.”
Carter withdrew his wallet and pulled out a business card. “My cell number is on here.” He handed the card to Ryan. “Call if you have any concerns. And thank you again for working with us and getting all this set up on such short notice.”
Pocketing the card, Ryan adjusted his tie once more, then glided his hands down the front of his jacket as if sweeping away his nerves. “It’s no trouble. We’re proud of our archives collection here. If it can assist you, if this can too”—he gestured at the lab setup—“then I’m happy to help.”
Carter escorted the chancellor out as far as the stairwell, then made a lap around the floor. A single hallway looped the rectangular space. Labs and offices made up the perimeter, clean rooms and dark rooms the interior. The other labs and rooms were mostly bare, just benches and built-in office furnishings awaiting their occupants. The only sign of life up here would be Lincoln tooling around in his makeshift crime lab.
Carter was pleasantly surprised at how fast this had all come together. Ryan had made a miracle happen, and that miracle would go a long way to preserving their cover, expediting their work, and making Lincoln feel more comfortable with this assignment. Sleeves rolled up, the professor was already situated on a stool at the end of the bench next to the sequencer, arranging a syringe, tube, and vial on a mat in front of him.
