A Shot of Red (21 page)

“I do—an ivory and silver one—but I’d like a couple more—maybe for gifts.” Mia raised her eyebrows playfully. “Maybe for me.”

If Gio hadn’t known she was nervous, he’d never guess it now.

“Ivory and silver?” Katia asked.

Gio looked at Mia curiously and she scrunched her face. “I wish I would’ve brought it. What was I thinking?”

“That you’d have a new one to wear.” Katia smiled. “I don’t get too many of the ivory ones. As you can see, the red beads are more common.”

“I kind of like the uncommon.” She gave Gio a flirty look. “Right?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.

“Where did you get the ivory one?” Katia asked.

Gio’s heart hammered.

Mia glanced at Gio, then bowed her head and hesitated to answer. “My ex.”

Katia’s eyes widened behind her black-rimmed glasses and she shifted her knowing gaze to Gio. “Oh, then I see why you’d want to pick out some new ones.”

“We can give the other one as a gift,” Gio joked and Mia shook her head.

So far, so good.
But they hadn’t learned anything they didn’t know already.

Mia scanned the jewelry. Not just bracelets, but earrings, necklaces, and rings, too. “It’s all so beautiful—and different, I don’t know how I’m going to choose.” She picked up a bracelet strung with green beads and tiny gold ones in between.

“You do like the uncommon ones,” Katia said.

“Where do you get these from?” Gio picked up a delicate ring with a single ivory bead in an antique-looking silver setting. “I don’t see a lot of jewelry, but these pieces seem really unique.”

“I manufacture them in China, and export them to exclusive buyers in countries all over the world.”

“Where in China?” Mia asked lightly. “Some friends of ours just went to Hong Kong.”

“My operation is in Zhejiang.”

The city where the delayed shipment of vaccine syringes came from.

Mia furrowed her brow. “Never heard of it.”

“Not many people have,” Katia said.

“It’s pretty impressive that you’ve got buyers all over the world.” Mia returned the green and gold bracelet to its spot and scanned the rest of the jewelry. “And you’re taking time to meet with us to sell just a couple of pieces.”

It struck Gio as odd, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. Or maybe he’d underestimated the cost of her jewelry.

“I should correct myself, in the interest of full disclosure,” Katia said.

Now she really had Gio’s attention.

“I do have buyers all over the world, but I’ve had some issues with recalls from the UK.”

“Jewelry recalls?” he asked.

Katia nodded, frowning. She made a sweeping gesture across the display. “These beads are poisonous.”

Gio and Mia both faked their surprise.

“What do you mean?” Mia asked.

“They’re
Abrus precatorius
, to be technical,” Katia said. “Also known as jequirity, Gunj, rosary pea, Akar Saga, gidee gidee, and at least a dozen other names in languages you might never have heard of.” She picked up a red-and-black-beaded necklace and strung it between her fingers. “Whatever people call them, they’re used to make jewelry, but they’re also used in ayurveda and siddha medicine. The oil from the white beads is supposedly an aphrodisiac.”

Gio cast a sidelong glance at Mia and offered her the white-beaded ring he held. “I’ll let you know if it works,” he said to Katia with a grin.

Mia’s eyes sparked with interest and she took the ring from him. “Wow. That’s gorgeous.” She glanced up at Katia. “But it’s poisonous?”

“Only the powder that’s on the inside,” Katia said. “And only if you ingest it, inhale it, or you’re injected with it.”

Injected with it?
Gio fought to keep an even expression on his face and he dared not look at Mia.

Mia slipped the ring on her finger and gazed at it approvingly, impressing Gio by not missing a beat, considering what Katia had just said. “So it’s probably unlikely anyone would get poisoned from your jewelry, right?”

“There’s never been a case that I’m aware of,” Katia said. “But try telling that to the UK. There have been reports of people dying after they pricked their fingers boring the beads for stringing, but I have mine drilled by machine, so there’s no risk of that.”

Mia kept the ring on and picked up a pair of black-beaded earrings. She rolled one of the beads between her fingers then looked up at Katia and scrunched her face. “Is it awful? I mean the poisoning. How do they die, exactly?”

“I’m not really sure,” Katia said. “I stay focused on the beauty and intrigue of the beads.” She set the necklace she was holding on a velvet cloth, and arranged it in a narrow oval shape.

“I can’t argue with that.” Mia smiled.

If Gio didn’t know her, he’d say her smile was genuine. He glanced at his watch and then at her. “Better make your choices. We can’t miss last call for our lift down the mountain.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mia clutched Gio’s hand as they hurried toward the aerial cable car station just minutes before five o’clock. They turned the corner and entered to see a large, empty cable car moored there, but no one on it, and no one waiting.

She was hyped up enough from their meeting with Katia. But now that her theory about the vaccine was finally taking shape, she had to get to the bottom of the mountain, and they had to get home.

“Are we too late?” Mia’s heart lurched as she caught Gio’s worried gaze, then frantically scanned the station for an attendant. She glanced at her watch to see that they had four minutes to spare, but snow had started falling, the wind had picked up, and they might have shut down the entire operation early.

Gio looked nearly as freaked out as she was. He had his hand in his coat pocket, no doubt ready to use her gun. “We shouldn’t be, but—”

“
Untergehend
?” a man said from behind them.

Mia whipped around to see a heavyset bearded man bundled in thermal coveralls with a Pilatus-Lucerne logo embroidered on them. He wore a navy hat with earflaps, its strings undone and blowing in the stiff wind whipping in the open-air station.

“Yes.” Relief surged through Mia. “
Untergehend
.” She blew out a long breath, a plume of condensation in its wake. Meeting Gio’s worried gaze she said, “Going down.”

The operator gestured toward the entry platform and Mia and Gio headed over to the boarding area next to the bright-red cable car. Snow blew into the station, stinging Mia’s face and eyes. After a moment, the cable car’s electronic doors whisked open. Mia looked at the operator for permission to go in, and he nodded. They entered the car, which was the size of a small bus—without the seats—and had panoramic windows on all sides. Mia stepped to the front and looked down into an abyss of blowing snow. Day had turned to twilight, making a disconcerting situation seem even more ominous.

Gio joined her by the window. “Think it’ll be just us?”

“Part of me hopes so, and part of me doesn’t. We’ll be stuck on here with whoever gets on—suspended from a cable in a snowstorm.”

His expression told her he’d already thought of that. She nervously tugged up the sleeve of her coat and checked the time. “Let’s get moving.” Every second that ticked gave someone more time to decide not to run the cable car. As if the station operator had heard her, the doors swished closed.

“Thank God.” Mia leaned against Gio, who drew her close. Her stomach did a back flip as the car swung out of the station at speed. She reached out and gripped the handrail, the ring Gio had bought her clanging on the metal.

He looked at her wide-eyed. “Maybe this won’t take as long as we thought.”

“I hope not.”

Snow and ice ticked on the outside of the car as it swayed in the gusty winds, descending through the shifting clouds, darkness falling by the moment.

“I can’t believe they’re even running the thing in this weather,” Gio said.

“I can’t either.” Mia shivered. The warmth she’d felt from being inside had all dissipated, and cold air seemed to sneak in past her clothing through every little open passage. “But going up there was worth it.”

Gio pulled her hood over her head and held her tighter. “What are you thinking?”

She could tell by his tone he was asking about their meeting with Katia, but she couldn’t be sure he had made the same connections she had. The theory Mia had was so vile that she hesitated to voice it in its entirety for fear of alienating him. She’d have to lead him to it and hope he got there by himself.

“She’s connected somehow to the syringes that were delayed. It’s too much of a coincidence that they came by way of Zhejiang and she has a manufacturing business there. I think Brent made that connection.” Mia tried to remember exactly what he had written in his letter. She reached in her purse and pulled out the tattered envelope and torn paper, bracing herself against Gio as the cable car shimmied. “He wrote ‘new vendor for syringes, Picasso, Met with her, jewelry importer, bracelet, you to have it, in the vaccine
.
”

“You don’t think she connected you to him since she met with him and he bought an ivory-beaded bracelet?” Gio asked.

Mia shrugged, her shoulders barely lifting beneath all her layers. “I hope not. But we had to take that chance. If she has buyers all over the world like she says, then it would be a stretch for her to connect me, an ivory-beaded bracelet, and Brent.”

“Would it be safe to say she figured out he was investigating her involvement with the vaccine?”

Mia could tell he was leading her the same way she was leading him, both of them careful with their words.

“I mean, someone killed him.” Gio paused to let that sink in. “I’m not saying it was Katia, but my money’s on her at least being an accessory. It’s hard to ignore her proximity to the scene of the so-called accident.”

“I agree. I bet the person who murdered Brent was the same man who threw me off the bridge, and who shot at us last night.” Mia winced at the thought. “No way could Katia lift me as easily as that guy did, and I can’t see her slinking around the streets and shooting at people. But I imagine she’s got connections.” She almost stopped there, but then decided to go all in. “Like Thomas Sorensen and Matthew, my mother and Richard.”

Gio tensed. “You think
they
had Brent murdered?” He seemed incredulous at Mia’s suggestion, alerting her to back off.

“No, I’m just saying they were all together during the trip that Brent mentioned in his letter, which also ties into this somehow.”

The cable car slowed and neared a station that appeared beyond the snowy haze.

“We’re down already?” Mia furrowed her brow. The trip had seemed awfully fast.

Gio looked skeptical.

The cable car slowed to a stop in the dimly lit station and the doors slid open. A rush of frigid wind whipped in and dusted the floor with snow. They stepped outside, where a lone attendant bundled nearly beyond recognition directed them to an area of the station where a small four-seat gondola awaited them. According to the sign on the nearby wall depicting a scaled-down rendition of the mountain and its aerial transportation system, the large cable car had only taken them a third of the way down. There was yet another station between here and the base, but it looked as if they’d stay in the same gondola the rest of the way.

“Still got a ways to go,” Gio said, sounding about as thrilled as Mia felt about getting into the smaller gondola for an even longer time.

“But we’re a third of the way there.” Mia tried to sound positive despite her nerves.

They boarded the gondola, a bright-red pod that Mia would guess was fiberglass, surrounded with windows. Mia sat facing forward, the seat cold beneath her thighs, and Gio settled next to her, taking up most of the seat with his sheer size. The doors closed automatically as the gondola looped around the inside of the station and began descending.

“It’s even colder in here than it was in the other one.” Mia turned and put her legs across Gio’s lap, getting as close to him as she could. He draped his arm around her and rubbed her back. Sleet bit at the windows of the gondola, and they could still only see several feet in front of them. Every so often, the shadow of treetops appeared below in the darkening haze.

The extreme cold made Mia less patient with her plan to ease Gio into her theory about Katia and the vaccine, but she reminded herself that Gio had loyalties she had to consider.

“I’ve never seen Lila as upset as she was last night,” Mia said, “except when my grandfather and my dad died.” Mia pulled the strings of her hood tightly and tied them, desperate to keep out the cold.

“I’m sure she’s worried sick that the same thing might happen to you.”

“That was only part of it.” Mia let her words hang in the air.

“What do you mean?”

A heavy gust of wind sent the gondola pitching to the side and a barrage of ice sprayed against the windows like BBs. Mia tensed as Gio’s arm flexed around her in a viselike grip.

“I’m trusting you to keep this between us.” She looked at him pleadingly.

He narrowed his eyes, his expression harder to read in the near darkness. “Okay.”

“Lila’s worried that Moncure Therapeutics made a mistake in formulating the vaccine.”

Gio blinked a couple of times, but his expression stayed steady—his jaw set, lips slightly parted. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

Mia met his gaze. “One step at a time.” She took off her glove and smoothed her hand over his stubbly cheek, turning him to face her. “I’m telling you now.” She kissed him, his lips cold against hers, his breath warm. The kiss was a pact, not a come-on, so she drew away from him slowly. “People are dying despite being vaccinated,” she said. “Look what happened to Nora. She got her shot right after the launch.”

“There’ll be cases like that, unfortunately. I’m sorry it happened to be Nora. But I wouldn’t start doubting because of that.”

“It’s not just Nora. We’re getting disturbing statistics on the number of people dying who’ve been vaccinated. Oddly enough, nearly all of them are in the fifty-five-and-older age group. The ones who get shots from the red syringes.” She wished she could better see his face. Was he putting things together as she hoped?

“I was worried that Lila might’ve been right,” she said. “Until we met with Katia. I hoped Brent was really onto something, considering he paid with his life to get what little information we had. But I never thought it would lead where it has.”

Gio gazed at her intently.

She swallowed hard and her breath hitched as she inhaled air so cold it burned her lungs. “I think a million red syringes were diverted to Katia’s manufacturing facility and somehow tainted with abrin. They were shipped to Moncure’s production facility, filled with vaccine, and distributed to the public. Those senior citizens who are dying aren’t dying from the flu. They’re being poisoned.”

The gondola suddenly stopped. Swaying on the cable, sleet ticked against it, blowing from one direction, then another.

Mia’s heart clamored.

Gio tensed and quickly looked out every window, but there was nothing to see except a miasma of snow and shifting shadows. “What the hell?”

“Maybe we’re near the next station?” Mia dared to hope but something told her they weren’t nearly close enough. “Or they had a power glitch?”

They sat quietly. The only sounds Mia heard were the whirring of the wind, the spattering of the sleet, and the thrumming of her pulse in her ears. She stared out the window, waiting for a break in the clouds or the glimmer of a light so she could judge their proximity to the ground.

Enough time passed for both of them to know that if a power outage had caused them to stop, it wasn’t temporary. Mia pulled out her phone. “I’ll call for help.” Her hands trembled as she took off her glove, held the phone and pressed the button to light the screen. “I’m not getting a signal.” A knot tightened inside her and she warned herself not to panic. “Try yours.”

Gio quickly did so with the same frightening result.

“They know we’re on here, right?” Mia asked, near panic. “There’s bound to be some kind of communication process they have, some safety protocol to make sure all the passengers are accounted for.”

“This has nothing to do with their communication processes or safety protocols. And I’m sure they have backup generators for a system like this.” Gio sounded as tightly wound as Mia felt. “Whoever’s been targeting us has to have a hand in what’s going on here. Maybe that’s who was in front of us in the tunnel up there. Son of a bitch probably plans to leave us up here to freeze in a brutal storm—because this is just the start of it, if the forecasters have it right. And if your theory is anywhere near the truth, they’ve got plenty of motivation to get rid of us. And no conscience to stop them.”

Mia couldn’t gauge what he thought of her theory, but that was the least of their worries right now. If they couldn’t escape from this freezing hell, what he thought wouldn’t matter anyway.

Gio leaned forward and buried his face in his gloved hands, as if he was trying to think. Outside, the clouds thinned just enough for her to see the shadow of a line of treetops to the left of the gondola.

Her muscles were already stiff from the cold, but she tensed even more. “Look.” She pointed to the trees, hoping they’d be visible long enough for Gio to see them.

He turned his head and squinted in the direction she was pointing. After a split second, a gust of wind blew, stirring up the snow. The treetops disappeared, along with her hopes that they were closer to the ground.

Gio sat up straight and faced her. “We can’t jump that far, but we can’t just sit here and hope someone’s going to rescue us, either—because they’re not.” He scanned the inside of the gondola, his gaze lingering on the doors, the windows, the ceiling. Glancing at her, he tipped his chin upward.

Mia looked up to see a small hatch in the fiberglass ceiling. Her heart hammered. “You’re not thinking…”

Gio was too tall to stand in the gondola, but he rose from the bench seat. Bent at his waist, he took off his glove, ran his fingers around the seam of the hatch, then sat down. “I think I could bust that panel out of there.”

Mia looked at him incredulously. “And then what?”

“Climb out.”

Was he serious?

“Even if that was a sane idea, you couldn’t fit through a hole that size.”

“I have to try, Mia,” he said. She noticed that he rarely called her by name, except when he was intensely serious or incredibly turned on. “And I have to do it soon. The colder I get, the more useless I’ll be. If hypothermia starts to set in, I won’t be able to control my shivering and—”