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The woman smiled, tapped into the computer, and nodded. “Sure thing, Ms. Evans. I’d be happy to do that for ya.”
Please don’t ask for picture ID.Please.
Fate was kind. Moments later, card clutched in her sweating hand, Becca floated down the corridor, disbelieving, over her own sprinting feet. Terrified that it had worked. She was getting ever more expert at digging her own grave. Look at those shovelfuls of dirt, flying wildly this way and that.
She let herself into Diana’s room. The door slammed shut behind her. She felt a moment of letdown. No immediate revelations. It looked and smelled exactly like a million other economy hotel rooms. Two beds, quilted synthetic spreads, bathroom near the entrance, TV, wall unit air conditioner, ugly art. Empty. No suitcase, no purse. The box, the box. She had to find that white box.
She found it in the bathroom, perched on the fake marble counter-top. She approached it with a feeling of dread in her belly.
Becca took a deep breath, and lifted off the top. OK. Not a human head, or an embalmed space alien. Just a rack, with seven neatly labeled vials of dark liquid suspended in it. She lifted one out, and realized that the liquid inside was blood.
Beneath the rack were several small containers containing clear yellow liquid. Urine, for sure. Then there was a handful of sealed plastic bags with big cotton swabs inside them. The blood, urine and bags were neatly hand-labeled. The numbers followed a pattern. TwoFs, the restMs, which she assumed referred to male or female. Then a six digit number that she assumed was a birthdate, a dash, and then a five digit number. No names.
If they were birthdates, then these samples came from children.
Some of them very small children.
A fresh shudder went up her spine. Shadows, monsters, slithering in the dark, out of plain sight. She was afraid to know the answer to this riddle, afraid it would be something very bad.
She wished, piercingly, that Nick were there. Then whipped out her phone, and snapped pictures of it all. Why, she had no idea. But it couldn’t hurt.
Rattle, fumble, click. Someone was trying to open the door.
Becca’s heart practically leaped out of her mouth, she was so startled. She looked around wildly for a hiding place. Closet? Bathtub?
She heard low, tearful cursing, a few futile thuds, as if someone were swatting the door in a fit of frustrated pique. The muttering receded.
Guarded relief flooded through her. Of course. Diana’s key card no longer worked since they had reprogrammed the lock for Becca. Thank God. Becca waited what she hoped was long enough for the woman to get down the hall, measuring time in galloping heartbeats.
She peered out the door and bolted like the hounds of hell were after her. The desk clerks had seen her and so had the security cameras. Chances were good that Diana would know in seconds that her privacy had been violated and would start making a big, fat fuss about it.
Becca really did not want to get into a catfight and exchange bitch-slaps with Mathes’s whining, weeping, urping mistress. Besides, if Diana wanted to call the cops on her, she would have the moral high ground. Becca would be printed and booked, have a record. Before Zhoglo subsequently slaughtered her, of course.
She plugged her phone back into Diana’s charger again and took off. Once she got on the highway, she fought to keep under eighty miles per hour, she was so eager to put distance between herself and that woman. She was so rattled, she shrieked when her phone rang. She checked the display. Mr. Big.
Hah. Why was she not surprised?
Ringing,thank God. Three rings, and she finally picked up.
“Hello? Nick?” She sounded wary.
“Becca. Where are you?” He tried to keep his voice expressionless.
All activity in the workroom abruptly froze. Davy swiveled his head from the computer screen. Seth, who was overhand chinning on the exercise bar, stopped mid-pull and just hung there, muscles locked, eyes slitted. Alex Aaro, the ex-Ranger from Brighton Beach whom they had just briefed, crossed his thickly muscled arms over his broad chest and listened, his broad Slavic face impassive.
“Uh. Well, it’s a long, complicated story,” she began. “I—”
“Where thefuckare you?” This time, anger and fear punched through, undisguised.
Becca was unnerved. “Calm down. I’m fine. And I—”
“You told me you were working at the club until midnight!”
“And what makes you think I wasn’t?” Her voice was tart.
“Your goddamn phone was off! The hell? We were messaging the entire goddamn day, and suddenly, you disappear. Don’t even try to jerk me around. Where did you go?”
Desperate subtext. Please do not lie to me. Do not lie. Do not.
