Shadows Fall (34 page)

“Understood,” he said. “Earlier you mentioned immunology. Would your research have any applications with communicable diseases like HIV?”

The hallway dead-ended at a trio of elevators. Dr. Keyes pressed a button, and one of them immediately opened. She gestured for Charlie to get on ahead of her. His heart leapt into his throat, beating and all. He hated elevators as any good claustrophobic should, but an elevator descending into parts unknown? Terrifying.

Not seeing any other option, he nodded to himself and stepped inside the elevator car. There were only two buttons on the control panel with the exception of the emergency call, which Charlie tried to pointedly ignore. He took it to mean that there was only one stop.

“We primarily focus on genetic disorders and auto-immune diseases, but we have done some studies in which we’ve tried to isolate genetic markers that could possibly indicate a predisposed susceptibility to HIV and other immunodeficiencies.”

“I see,” Charlie said.

“Why do you ask?”

“The victim who had the SevenTek card was HIV positive—he’d been living with it for about two years. I thought that might be a connection.” Charlie wasn’t ready to play the chimera card yet. He didn’t want to tip his hand if it was something SevenTek might want to cover up.

Dr. Keyes’ brows drew down over her eyes momentarily before she shook her head. “We haven’t conducted any of the AIDS studies in the last two years. There must have been some other reason he had the card.”

Before Charlie could say more, the elevator doors opened and he gratefully stepped out into some cold, artificially moving air. Dr. Keyes came up behind him and gestured to several long panoramic windows, each revealing a bird’s-eye view of a different lab. All of the scientists within them were wearing some sort of white jumpsuit that covered them from head to toe.

“This part of the facility is technically a couple of stories underground. It reduces the amount of environmental by-products, such as radiation and cosmic rays, that might affect the results of the tests, and gives us greater control over temperature and climate.”

The underground lab was a whole other level of intricacy compared to the ground-floor facilities. For a moment, Charlie had horrible visions of alien autopsies and mice growing ears on their backs. At Dr. Keyes’ quizzical look, he tried hard to pull himself together. It wasn’t necessarily sinister; her reasons for the underground lab seemed entirely plausible. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of two stories worth of dirt, brick and mortar, and metal pressing in on him from all sides.

Charlie took a deep, slow breath in through his nose and then blew it out audibly. “Is that…common? To have a lab built underground?”

She gave a delicate shrug, as if it was really of no consequence. “It’s a fairly regular practice, though I’ll admit you’ll see it more often with facilities researching dark matter or neutrinos. When we broke ground, we had the capital so we decided to go ahead and dig. It would make later expansion into areas of astrophysics easier, should we go that route in the future.”

“Ah. Um, well can we go in? I’d like to hear more about the types of experiments that go on down here.”

Dr. Keyes frowned, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Detective, I’m afraid this is as far as I can take you. These labs are class-1000 cleanrooms, meaning the airflow is ionized and strictly controlled to reduce the introduction of particulates and microorganisms that could contaminate the experiments. It is also a static-free zone. For you to be able to tour this facility, you’d have to go through an exhaustive decontamination process—one to which we are not willing to afford the time or the resources to perform,” she said with an apologetic smile. Though when Charlie turned fully to face the lovely scientist, her face had hardened into an immovable mask; a mother bear protecting her den.

“I need to know what studies are currently being performed involving human testing. This is a homicide investigation, and failure to cooperate could be considered obstruction of justice,” he said.

“I am well aware, Detective Hale. I am also well aware that in order to file such charges, you would need to first issue a warrant for the information you’ve requested. You show me one of those, then we’ll talk. I believe we’ve been more than accommodating during this
unscheduled visit
of yours, have we not?”

Charlie could tell he was being shut down and given the brush off. He’d more or less figured this would happen. He was actually surprised she’d taken him this far. He reached out to shake her hand. “Of course you’re right. I appreciate you showing me around. One last question?”

Her handshake was more tentative than the first but she acquiesced, giving him a polite smile. “Sure. I’ll answer if I can.”

“To the best of your knowledge, has anyone named Brandon Meyers ever been involved in a study here?”

Dr. Keyes sighed and fiddled with the end of her ponytail. “Not in any of the research I’m privy to. Each of the investors has their own area of interest or expertise, and we aren’t necessarily required to share with each other, as long as the experiments remain within the margins of our bylaws.”

Charlie nodded, though she’d said a whole lot of nothing and made it sound pretty. He hadn’t expected her to incriminate herself. Hell, maybe SevenTek wasn’t involved at all. It was just a hunch, after all. Or if they were involved, maybe Dr. Keyes had no knowledge of it. Charlie decided to quit while he was breaking even. Besides, he’d found what he really came to find anyway—a back door.

* * * *

“You want to
what?
”

Sonny DeRossi had agreed to meet at Uptown Java, because what Charlie was proposing definitely shouldn’t be mentioned within earshot of anyone else in the PD. He wasn’t sure bringing his partner in on it was the right thing to do, but Charlie had always been able to count on Sonny in the past. He missed the easy camaraderie they’d had before this rift had formed between them.

“I want to break into a genetic research facility and I’d like you to come along and cover my ass.”

Sonny smacked his head into his palm and leaned on it, pinching the bridge of his nose before squinting up at Charlie. “This is wrong on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“No, look, just hear me out,” Charlie pleaded. He pushed a business card across the table to Sonny. He’d swiped it from a holder at the reception window on his way out of SevenTek. He assumed it was identical to the one Titus had ‘seen’ at Brandon Meyers’ place. “I have reason to believe that Brandon Meyers was in possession of a card like this.

“It might not mean anything, but I find it hard to ignore the fact that Meyers—possibly along with the other vics—had this rare genetic anomaly, and he just happened to have a business card for a genetics lab. I can’t believe that’s a coincidence.”

Sonny raised a brow. “‘Reason to believe’ like you actually have verifiable evidence that suggests it?” He flicked a glance over Charlie’s shoulder at Titus, who was busy helping customers behind the counter. “Or ‘reason to believe’ because your little ‘psychic friend’ said so?” He even did the air-quotes.

Charlie sighed heavily and couldn’t meet Sonny’s stare. He knew he couldn’t lie to the man any more than he already did for personal reasons, but he also knew that Sonny would discount anything Titus said outright. “Yes, Titus was the one who told me… but it’s not only that. That place, it just has this creepy mad scientist vibe—partially because Dr. Keyes was trying so hard
not
to project that vibe.”

Sonny closed his eyes, almost as if in a moment of prayer—for patience maybe?—and opened them again. “Hale…”

“I know, okay? Just listen… When I was touring the place, I just got this feeling—”

“A feeling? Like McGinty has feelings?”

Enough was enough. Charlie knew how Sonny felt about Titus working as a consultant on the case, but this was starting to move into different territory—the territory of questioning Charlie’s intuition. He’d realized the restless, apprehensive feeling he’d gotten as he was led further down into the lab hadn’t been entirely caused by his claustrophobia. Foreboding akin to descending into the bowels of hell had filled him, and he knew there was more down there than what Dr. Keyes was telling him.

“No. A feeling like the instincts of a good cop, DeRossi.” It came out harsher than Charlie had intended, but he couldn’t find it in him to lighten the mood. He was sick and damn tired of his partner’s attitude.

Lowering his eyes in an expression that might be considered contrite, Sonny nodded. “Fair enough. But I need you to look me in the eye so I can make sure you understand what you’re asking. If we get caught, not only will the Captain have our badges, we’ll probably be prosecuted on top of it. Is it worth it to you?”

“Catching this guy? Absolutely. I’d gladly go to jail myself if it would keep this guy from mutilating any more people, but…I’ll understand if you can’t take the risk.” It was a bit of a jab to the guy’s ego, Charlie admitted to himself, but it was also true. He was essentially asking his partner to become a criminal—it wasn’t something Sonny should take lightly.

After a few more moments of tense silence, Sonny finally gave him a lopsided half grin, a shadow-glimpse into the man Charlie had been happily working with for the last few years, B.T.—before Titus.

“Relax, son, I’ll help you. What exactly do you need me to do?”

Feeling the familiar and welcomed ripple of adrenaline surging through his veins that accompanied an exciting development in a case, Charlie bit his lip to keep from all-out grinning. “I’m going to need to capitalize on all those skills you learned from Uncle Danny.”

Sonny’s uncle—his mother’s brother—Danny del Sol, had worked for Duke Power for over a decade before going into business for himself, first as an electrical contractor, then installing security alarms. Sonny had spent many summers apprenticing with him before deciding to go to the police academy. Danny was much younger than Sonny’s mom, so he and Sonny were only a few years apart and were as close as brothers. Supposedly Sonny was even named after his uncle, but he’d refused to ever tell Charlie his full name, so one could only speculate.

“Okay,” Sonny said after a brief pause, his brow wrinkling with suspicion. “How so?”

“From what I could tell when I was inside, SevenTek has a pretty decent security system—all the doors and windows are probably wired, and there are a fair amount of cameras. It’s not kitted out like Fort Knox, probably because that would draw too much attention to anything illegal they might be doing.

“What I want to find are patient records from their genetic testing or whatever they’re doing down there. I want to know if Brandon Meyers or any of the other Slayer victims have ever been tested there. It probably wouldn’t hurt to find out who the other six investors are. Dr. Keyes was obviously the mouthpiece, and she made a big deal about the others wanting to remain anonymous.

“We need to be able to get inside without tripping any alarms or being seen on camera. I’m not concerned with whether or not they know someone has been inside, as long as they don’t know it was us. Inside the observation room of the underground labs, I noticed a maintenance door. The main alarm panel is right beside it.

“I drove around to the far northeast corner of the facility and found a door that I think is the other end of a utility stairway that opens up to that maintenance door. If you can cut the power to the building from the meter, that should buy us some time to get down to that panel to disable the alarm.”

Sonny’s eyes took on an unfocused quality, and Charlie could tell the man was thinking over the strategy, working it out inside his head. “If we take out the control panel, we’d still have to be quick about it in case the system has a ‘crash-and-smash’ failsafe.”

“See, that’s why I need you. Not only to make sure I don’t get my ass thrown in jail, but to get me in there in the first place!”

Laughing, Sonny shook his head at Charlie, and for one shining moment, it was like they were partners again, brothers. And then that smile faded away like smoke from an extinguished candle.

“Just answer me this one question,” he said. “No judgment—this time, I just really want to understand. Why do you trust this guy so much? You’re willing to put your career and possibly your life on the line, based on nothing but his word. What is it about Titus McGinty?”

Following Sonny’s gaze, Charlie turned his head and looked over at Titus, who was busy wiping down the counter after serving a rush of the after-work crowd. Titus sensed Charlie’s attention and looked up. He seemed startled at first, like maybe he’d missed the moment the two detectives had come in.

Then he smiled, a secret almost-shy curve of the lips that gave way to a broader, more Titus-like grin, and a wink. Charlie couldn’t help the smile that bloomed across his own face, and his pulse did that erratic skittering thing that often happened in the wake of one of Titus’s smiles. The man was fucking beautiful, and Charlie no longer had the strength to pretend otherwise, even in public.

Charlie spared a small wave for Titus, then turned back to Sonny. For a brief but interminable shining moment, he entertained telling his partner everything. He was honestly running out of fucks to give about people knowing the truth. Charlie knew he should be more scared. He’d seen the hate-mongers in action year after year when he volunteered his time to police the streets during Pride.