Working Stiff

So he had; she looked back to find the bulldog snoozing away, comfortably curled in his fluffy new bed. And truthfully, she was tired. Aching, actually. She caught herself yawning. “What about the shot?” she asked.

“When we get there,” he said. “Rest.”

It didn’t take much for her to drop into a dark, uneasy sleep filled with flashes of nightmares. Fast Freddy leering at her. The decomposing, impossibly moving corpse in the mortuary. Her own image, dead on a TV screen, until it screamed.

Last, she dreamed of her sister Sharon the final time she’d seen her—carefree, laughing, heading out on a normal afternoon and walking right out of the family’s life, forever.

Only this time, Sharon wasn’t laughing.

She was screaming as someone carried her away. Reaching out for help, while Bryn stood frozen and silent.

Life-challenged.

Chapter 7

The sound of voices outside the car woke her, finally. Bryn yawned, made a face at the horrible taste in her mouth, and blinked to clear her eyes. She couldn’t see much. Is it already dark? No, it couldn’t be. A jolt of shock and fear went through her. My shot. Is it late?

Then she calmed down and realized that she could see daylight in the distance. McCallister had parked the car inside a windowless building, something like an open, deserted factory. She could dimly make out an empty expanse of concrete, some dilapidated wooden crates, and a few bolts where large machinery had once been installed.

It didn’t look like anyplace she’d have voluntarily visited.

Bryn listened more carefully. She heard McCallister’s voice, and saw him standing outside the car talking to … no one. Wait. He was addressing a speaker grille set into the wall next to a solid metal door.

“… message, Manny. I know you don’t like it when I bring strangers, but I didn’t have a choice. Open up. It’s dangerous to let her sit out here.”

“No, it’s not,” the speaker said, with a faint crackle of static. “We intercepted the tracking signal half a mile out and jammed it. Your satanic bosses will be looking in all the wrong places by this time, especially since I ghosted the signal out to some repeaters. They’ll get random blips through half the state for as long as I want.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, Pat. As far as I’m concerned, you can take her and go.”

“Manny, we talked about this. You said you had something for me.”

“I do. And I’ll give it to you. But she’s not coming inside— Wait. Pansy, Jesus, don’t go and—” Manny fell silent, then sighed. “Well, crap.”

A light switched on above the door, and it opened with a heavy scrape. On the other side was a small-framed woman with dark hair cut in a pageboy style; she had a lovely, heart-shaped face, and a wicked smile for McCallister. “Well, bring her in, Pat. I can’t stand to hear the two of you yammering at each other anymore, and I know how stubborn you both can be.”

McCallister leaned forward and kissed the woman on the cheek. “Thanks, Pansy.”

“Don’t thank me yet. He’s going to pout for days about this, and he may not help you at all now. You know that, right?”

“He’ll help,” McCallister said, “once he meets her.”

Pansy lifted a shapely eyebrow and shot an amused glance at the car. Bryn suddenly felt far too unprepared for whatever was going on. Damn it, why couldn’t McCallister part with details once in a while? What was so hard about that?

He turned and motioned to her, and Bryn got out of the car. Mr. French woke up and started barking in confusion, but she shut him inside and told him to be quiet, for all the good it did. When she turned around the woman—Pansy, God, what a name—was offering her a hand to shake.

“Pansy Taylor,” she said. “You must be Bryn.”

“You know who I am.”

Pansy smiled. “You’ve been a hot topic around here, believe me. Come with, and bring the dog. Oh, and ditch the guns, Pat; you know the rules better than I do.”

McCallister sighed and took out his own guns—two of them—and placed them in the glove compartment of the car. He silently demanded Bryn’s, and she handed it over. Reluctantly. Once the weapons were locked up, Bryn grabbed Mr. French, who wiggled excitedly, and Pansy led them up a narrow, featureless concrete staircase as the door boomed shut behind them, and at the top of the steps entered a complex code into the keypad, then put her hand on a scanner.

“In case you’re wondering if you can cut my hand off and use it to get inside, you can’t,” Pansy said. “It checks pulse.”

“I wasn’t wondering,” McCallister said. Bryn was, but she didn’t say so.

“Who exactly are we going to meet?” she asked. There was something vaguely mad-scientist about all this, crossed with evil-villain. It was surprisingly disturbing.

“Manny Glickman,” Pansy said, and frowned at McCallister. “What, you didn’t tell her?”

“I didn’t want to broadcast it to anyone who might be listening.”

“Jesus, you’re as paranoid as he is. Get help, man.”

The door hissed open with a puff of cool air, and Pansy held it open as they passed before locking it behind them.

Bryn had expected a decrepit warehouse environment, like the floor below, but this was … high-tech. The floors were concrete, but clean and glossy; to the left she glimpsed a kitchen gleaming with tile and aluminum. Ahead was a series of tables, equipment, humming machines, and computers, all in clear-walled rooms.

At the far end hung floor-to-ceiling burgundy velvet curtains, which seemed very out of place for such a laboratory environment.

Pansy saw her looking, and winked. “The bedroom,” she said. “Trust me—it’s nice. Manny would crash on an air mattress in the corner if someone didn’t keep him civilized, but I do my best.”

Bryn had been so caught up in all of the busy detail of the place that she’d failed to see the man bending over a complicated-looking lab setup in the corner until he said, “Oh, come on. Really? A dog?”

Mr. French growled, right on cue, an aggressive reply that made Bryn wince and quiet him with a hand on his head. “Sorry,” she said. “He’ll be good.”

The man sighed. “Dog owners are so gullible. ‘Oh, he won’t bite. He’s perfectly friendly.’ They say that right up until their pit bulls rip your throat out. Has she been searched?” He was, at first glance, not very remarkable. Frizzy dark hair, body swathed in a white lab coat. That was all she could tell about him, because he didn’t turn around or even glance their way.

“I’m vouching for her,” McCallister said. “She’s all right.”

“Just like her for the dog?”

“Manny, turn around and at least say hello,” Pansy said. “They came a long way.”

“Then they should turn around and go back.” Still, the man straightened up and turned to face them. He was bigger than she’d expected, broad shouldered, with surprisingly green eyes. He didn’t meet Bryn’s gaze for more than an instant, though, before he transferred his attention to McCallister. “Pat, you can’t just drop in. It’s not safe. What if you were followed?”

“You jammed the trackers. You just told me that.”

“Physically followed.”

McCallister shook his head slowly. “In all the time you’ve known me, have I ever been that careless?”

Manny stared at him for a long moment, then turned back to his chemistry set, or whatever it was. “There’s a