Shadows to Light (Shadows of Justice 5) (18 page)

Cleveland exchanged a glance with Cali and the two of them put their heads down to figure it out.

"Doesn't matter. I'm a macro-girl," she muttered.

"What does that mean?"

She didn't look away from the knife wound splitting one man's side just under his ribcage. "It means my dad has an uncanny understanding of cause and effect at the cellular level."

"You must too." He stepped closer. "The way you fixed my brother's infection."

"It's different."

She didn't seem inclined to explain further, so he backed up and let her work. He watched her pulse a little light into a gunshot wound and he half expected it to seal itself up.

"Find out if there are any hemophiliacs in here." He turned around to ask when she stopped him. "No, wait." That light moved a bit deeper into the wound and Jameson struggled to keep his stomach in its rightful place. Seeing her work that bit of light was only marginally better than if she'd stuck her hand inside the guy. "Blood clot related deaths."

He relayed the request to Cleveland who grumbled while he inputted the search.

"The evidence van log just hit the system," Cali said. "Everything from Montabano's stunt was brought here."

Mira stopped moving.
"In this room 'here'?"

"No."

Mira went back to whatever she was doing.

"Why bring evidence here?" Wary, Jameson activated his recon contacts and double checked the immediate area outside the room.

Cali's thumbs were flying over her handheld. "I'm tracking it down now."

The hallway was clear, but Jameson's battle instincts were running high. Something was off. He stood with one hand on the door, the other on his weapon, braced for anything.

"The evidence is two doors down, in some kind of lab," Cali said after another moment.

"We're alone down here," Cleveland added. "Everyone is right where the system says they should be. Next guard is due to walk the rounds in fifteen minutes."

Jameson looked at Mira. "Do you need that blood?"

"Better if I go to it," she said, without looking up.
"Less chance of getting caught tampering with the chain of evidence."

He knew she wasn't telling him everything, but he couldn't push because Cleveland was opening up another body drawer.

"Here's your blood clot guy. A Navy vet."

"Then why is he in a John Doe morgue?" Jameson rolled the steel gurney closer to the dead gang member Mira was evaluating.

"According to the system," Cleveland said, "he died yesterday at the VA hospital, no family to notify yet."

Jameson watched Mira as her hands hovered over the coroner's ugly Y-incision. Her hair was damp with sweat at her temples. He had to wonder if the effort was worth it.

"Take it easy, this was just an option. We can come at Montalbano from another angle."

"No. It's here. I'm close." She closed her eyes, shutting him out along with the rest of the world.

Feeling offended was stupid. He knew focus was key to her success. They'd asked her to do something completely different from her previous experience. He put a muzzle on his frustration and tried to pin down just what was making him edgy.

"We've got a contact."

Jameson frowned at Cleveland. "The guard's early?"

"Not the guard. Headed this way," Cleveland whispered.

"How many?" Jameson nodded to Cali. She moved to the door as he shifted to cover Mira.

"Just one."

"Is there another visitor in the system down here? Employee maybe?"

Cleveland's fingers were flying over the keyboard, but his head shake signaled 'no'.

Jameson didn't like it. "Feels wrong."

Obviously, Cali agreed with him as she braced for the likely interruption.

He didn't believe in coincidence. Not one thing had gone easy since this damned operation started. Clearly it was too much to expect this particular field trip to break the pattern.

Three sets of eyes watched the door, waiting for the light on the lock to change. Only Mira kept working. He could feel her moving behind him, doing her thing. He hoped to God she was making notes, or memorizing the information, or something. Anything that would justify what he might have to do to get them out of here.

His contact showed the person stopping on the other side of the door. His mind registered the change in the status light before his ears could absorb the click of the electronic lock.

Cali let the door swing open, let the man step over the threshold. When he hesitated, Cali reached around and jerked him all the way in, holding him in another of those moves Jameson wasn't quite sure he could mimic. She kicked the door shut and pu
shed her prisoner to his knees.

Chapter 11

"Conrad," Jameson growled, recognizing the enforcer as Mira let out a gasp behind him. He stuck an arm out, preventing her from moving closer to the threat.

"Mira, thank God you're alive."

"Luke, what –"

"Where's Dr. Luther?" Jameson interrupted.

"Safe. He's safe, I promise." Conrad twisted around to plead with Cali. "I mean you no harm, Guardian."

Cali wasn't buying it. "Why are you here?"

"To help.
Dr. Luther almost has an antidote, but even so." He gulped as his gaze traveled over the bodies surrounding Mira. "There was a-a-"

"Stop order," Mira finished. "Yes. I found it."

Jameson wanted to cheer when she moved just enough to stand by his side and link her hand with his.

"But it didn't kick in in time."

"Quantity probably. Too much of the bleed-out serum too fast."

"I'll tell him."

Cali gave Conrad a hard shake. "Why don't we all tell him together?"

Jameson didn't have time to agree with her before a flash blinded him. The whole room lit up as if the sun itself had joined the party. Instinctively he spun to shelter Mira, but she wasn't there. He shouted for her, but silence filled his ears like cotton.

His vision snapped clear again in an instant, just in time to see Conrad escaping with Mira. He shouted, and she glanced back, surprise taking over the worry on her face. But she didn't stop.

He paused just long enough to confirm Cleveland and Cali were still breathing and tore out into the hallway after her.

Conrad had surely promised her access to her father. Jameson checked his watch, gave it a shake. If Conrad had promised her anything it would've been of the telepathic variety. Jameson hadn't been blind and deaf for more than a minute. He used his contacts, but according to the display, he was absolutely alone.

So now she could disappear into thin air? No. He didn't buy it for a second. That blue shell she'd cast over herself in the explosion changed her, but not that much. She must have done something to the biometrics of his recon gear. He turned back to the morgue and confirmed it when neither Cali nor Cleveland showed up on the display. Pulling out his infrared scanner, he found them just fine.

He applied the infrared to the empty hall. Nothing. Well moving quickly, it was possible they were already out of range, but he wasn't out of options.

He walked slowly down the hall, away from the elevators, assuming Conrad had Dr. Luther stashed somewhere deeper in the warren of sub levels and sparsely populated facilities down here.

He pulled the Trident II tracker from its place on his belt. After a moment waiting for it to come online, he found the signal that could only be Mira. She was the only thing he'd tagged, her tag the only thing he'd programmed.

"Gotcha."

Smiling, he returned to the morgue, roused Cleveland and Cali, and explained the change of plans.

* * *

"Let me go," Mira demanded when they skidded to a stop around the second corner. Luke's grip was turning her hand to jelly. She could give it a pulse and make it better, but she wasn't ready to reveal the range of her new abilities just yet.

"I'm so glad you survived."

"Me too," she snapped. "I'm not sure you'll survive if Jameson catches up with us. He was already mad, now he'll be furious."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have fried his senses like that."

Mira didn't bother to disabuse him of the notion that she'd harmed Jameson. To be honest, the more time they spent together the more she wondered if anything could harm him now. Again, not a detail she intended to share with an enforcer who might very well be working both sides to trap her father in the middle.

"Where is my father?"

"The last place you'd expect." Luke grinned down at her and for just a moment, she remembered why he'd been her first hard crush. He'd been kind to her, had actually noticed her, despite his obvious dedication to whatever her dad had been working on at the time.

Then she remembered this
was
the one place she'd expected Luke to hide him. Though she'd meant to plead her case to the team and only go searching alone if they argued with her.

"Why haven't you aged?"

"I learned how to control my cell restoration."

"Right."

"When did you get so cynical?"

"Asking questions isn't cynical, it's the sign of a –"

"Curious mind." They finished one of her dad's favorite quotes together. "He's fine, Mira, but he could use your help."

"Which side are you on?"

"I'm dedicated to Dr. Luther."

She studied him, decided that was as honest an answer as she'd get at the moment. "Then you'd better lead on."

Luke hesitated. "Will you help? I won't take you to him if you plan to turn him over to your pals."

"They want to help him too."

"Not after he created a weapon."

"When did you get so cynical?" She realized her error when pain flashed in his eyes. What had he seen, what had he been pushed to do as an enforcer? "Okay, okay. Baby steps here since neither of us is big on trust at the moment. I went to the old college lab to heal his leg."

"I blew up the lab because he can't heal his own leg."

"Why not?"
She thought about her dad's history, the shunning Cali found, and wondered that he might have been stripped of his inherent gift.

"He took a hit of his own bleed-out formula. Sort of," he added when Mira gasped. "
Montalbano shot him and then poured an early version of the formula into the wound."

"Bastard."
Mira gritted her teeth, wishing for just a few minutes alone with the mobster. Not that she could harm him per se. Maybe a few minutes alone after Jameson took a little sparring practice. "Take me to him. I think I can help."

She would figure out how to get word to the others later. Right now, her father was her primary concern. He had the answers she needed. Answers about his formula,
Montalbano, and she hoped answers about what had happened to her.

"Your implant is gone?"

She nodded. "I'd be back in the inquiry room, or worse, if it wasn't."

"True." He led her deeper into the labyrinth of hallways. "When we were sent out, I didn't know you were the pick up until we got there. I was the newbie on that team."

Mira waved it off. "Water. Bridge. I get it. You had a job to do."

"Thanks for not saying anything."

"That wouldn't have helped either of us." She'd been resigned to her situation then, she wasn't feeling nearly so passive now.

They made the rest of the trek in silence until he stopped at the end of one hallway. She looked right and left, noting only windows, no doors in either direction.
A lab most likely. Which meant fire exits.

To her surprise, Luke used an employee badge to gain access. She really needed to learn who he worked for and get that information back to Callahan.

All those questions faded away when the door swung open and she saw her father bent over a microscope. There was a cane balanced on the table near his left hand. So Luke cared enough to help this much. It was a start, she supposed, to confirming his dedication.

"Daddy?"
Her voice wasn't more than a whisper with her heart lodged in her throat.

But he'd heard her. He made a careful notation first, but when he met her gaze, his eyes were shining with love. He opened his arms and she rushed into them as if she were eight years old again.

"Ah, sweetheart," he said, holding her tight. "I've missed you so."

Frustration, choices, disappointment, all of it fell away. She clung, and the fear she'd been carrying evaporated as she allowed herself be his daughter for the first time in too many years.

Easing back, she blotted her damp cheeks. "Are you still working on the antidote?"

"Vaccine, really.
Though I hope it's not necessary."

The burden of what he'd created for
Montalbano was clear in the dark circles under his eyes, the deep furrows across his brow, and the hard set of his shoulders.

"Let me take care of your leg. The pain isn't making your job any easier." She held up a hand, stalling his protest. "At least let me look."

He sighed and gazed longingly at the microscope.

"You'll waste time if you argue."

Behind her, she heard a little snort of what was surely laughter from Luke.

"Just pull off a bit of the pain. That was a big help at the lab."

She shook her head. "Do you need information from your wound?"

"No." His shoulders slumped another inch.

"Great. Then let me at it."

He gave in, rolling up his pant leg. She recoiled at the blood stained bandage covering the hole just above his knee. "What was the goal of this version of the formula?" She noted the lack of infection, but something clearly impeded the healing process. The wound looked almost fresh, aside from the lack of blood flow. "No granulation," she muttered, examining the torn tissue that showed no signs of healing progress.

"That was the point," her father admitted. "But it wasn't flashy enough for Montalbano."

"Why didn't you do something about it?" She
paused her study of his leg to search his face.

"I'm no longer allowed to heal.
Myself or anyone else." She didn't like the way he glanced at Luke when he said it. "Long story. But treating myself would be like sending up a flare. The order would have a team on me in no time. The government's not big on security breaches like that."

"So they didn't strip your gift?"

"They tried." He jerked when she pulsed a little of what she considered her 'normal' light at the wound.

"The bullet's still in there!"

He shrugged. "I was too busy to get it out the old fashioned way. Montalbano would've just shot me again and I was getting good information out of the process for awhile. Giving it a bit of a hit to keep it from festering worked in my favor." He jerked his chin toward Luke. "Even so, they sent enforcers to see what I was up to."

"Uh-huh." Callahan's theory rattled around in the back of her mind. She'd have to ask him more about that later.

"Can you handle it, Mira?" Luke was peering over her shoulder.

"Yeah.
But why didn't you?"

"Not my thing anymore."

"Great. Two healers who can't heal."

"Had to make a choice when I turned to the enforcer detail."
He shrugged.

"Enforcers are allowed to heal themselves, which helps," her dad said.

"Hooray." Mira didn't miss the pride in her dad's voice, but she was a bit wrapped up in the task under her hands.

"Do not move." She amped up the energy and slowly dragged the bullet to the surface. "Luke, grab something to keep this in."

He handed her a small plastic specimen jar. "A souvenir?"

"Evidence."

"I'll knit this back together and then we're going to have a long talk." She let her hands warm up and rolled a bit of her blue energy between her thumb and fingertips.

"Wait!" Her father manacled her wrist and held it wide of his leg. "What is
that
?"

She gaped at him.
"A bit of healing energy. I can set it inside and let it do the work while we talk."

"No.
Absolutely not." He nodded to Luke, who caught her around the waist and dragged her away.

Her father started to shake and despite the distance of several work stations between them, she saw the tears and pain welling in his eyes. "When...when did you..." He swiped at his face. "When did you change?"

His lip curled with disgust on the last word and her heart shattered into a million little pieces.

"The lab," she choked out. Tossing her head, she put the blame on Luke.
"When he blew it up. I didn't get to make a choice like he did. This just
happened
to me. Survival instinct or something."

"Get her out of here."

"You can't do this! I-I can h-help you!"

Her father turned back to his microscope. "I don't need your kind of help."

"I can help him." She pleaded with Luke now, struggling as he hauled her to the door. "You wanted me to help him."

"That was before." She felt Luke's shoulders hitch in a careless shrug. "His word is final. His mission is mine. Go find your friends and get out of here."

He shoved her into the hallway.

She stumbled, tripped over her feet and shock and dropped to the floor. The cold tile was a stark contrast against the hot tears streaking down her face, pooling on the unforgiving floor.

Logic crept in. She had to move. Couldn't be here without a badge when the guard walked his rounds. How long did she have? Where could she hide?