Harold Kleinbrenner who might have worked as a lab technician about fifty years ago? Is that you?”
No, that was Harold Kleinbrenner Jr.’s father. Harold Senior had died of prostate cancer twenty years ago.
Sorry, wrong Gerald Stowe.
Aaron Masters was dead. So was Lawrence Donaldson.
After an hour of calling wrong numbers and dead ends, Celia had written “dead” by half the names. Four had question marks. They either had unlisted numbers, or no relatives who could vouch for them.
Finally she came to the end of the list. A woman answered the number listed in the phone book.
Celia said, “Is this Janet Travers?”
“Yes?”
“Are you the Janet Travers who worked as a lab tech at a place called the Leyden Industrial Park about fifty years ago?”
The phone line hissed and whispered during a pause. Then the woman said, “Yes.”
Celia whispered a prayer of thanks to the data gods. “I’m working with the DA’s office tracking down some information. Do you think I could ask you a few questions?”
Her voice was steady, but soft, whispering almost. “About what?”
“What kind of research was being conducted there? What experiments were going on? I haven’t been able to find any formal lab reports.”
“That was a very long time ago. I don’t really remember.”
“Nothing at all?”
“I was a bench tech. I processed samples, that’s all. I wasn’t privy to the overall results, Miss … What did you say your name was?”
Celia wanted very much to skip over that part. “Ms. Travers, Simon Sito worked at that lab. Can you tell me anything about—”
Janet Travers hung up.
Well. There was a thread that needed following.
At the end of the day, she collected her notes, and headed to the penthouse to find out if the museum had been robbed yet.
In the elevator, she ran the key card through the reader authorizing penthouse access. The ride up would take a good long time. Plenty of time to consider her chances on the job market. Maybe there was still time for the trial to produce another scandal that would boot her out of the headlines.
The only thing she had to look at was her reflection in the brushed steel wall across from her: red hair pushed back with a headband, baggy sweatshirt and sweats, sneakers, file folder hugged to her chest, the whole image blurred and warped. She might have been sixteen again, coming home from school. She was grown up now; she just didn’t feel like it.
The lights flashed to abrupt darkness and the elevator lurched to a stop. She braced against the wall; an emergency light came on, making the steel walls glow red. Her face looked sunburned in the reflection.
She stood still, frozen, waiting to hear something—a groan of gears restarting, someone forcing a door. Her blood pounded in her ears; all else was sickeningly silent.
The Stradivarius Brothers couldn’t possibly infiltrate West Plaza. Impossible. Not with West Corp security, not with the Olympiad’s sensors in place. Seconds ticked by, and every one of them dragged.
She was trapped, and they were coming for her.
The intercom crackled on. She flinched.
“Hi, is anyone in there?” A young man spoke. He sounded almost friendly. “If anyone’s there, could you pick up the phone behind the panel?”
Under the floor buttons, a panel had a sticker with an image of a phone on it. Celia opened the door and found the receiver.
“Yes? I’m in here.” She spoke ever so calmly. Her whole body was clenched tight with nerves, but she made her voice calm.
“Okay, ma’am. I’m Jeff, in maintenance. We were running some routine checks on this part of the building when the power accidentally cut off. We’re working on getting the elevators restarted. We should have you out of there real soon, just a few minutes. You okay?”
She almost laughed, but for Jeff’s sake, swallowed back the insane cackles. “Yes, I think so. Thanks for telling me.”
“I didn’t think anyone was working today. You’re pretty on the ball, eh?”
She wondered if she should tell him she was Warren West’s daughter.
“I just had to pick something up,” she said.
“Well, ma’am, you hang tight and we’ll get you going any minute now.”
She still believed the kidnappers were waiting for her, even after the lights came back on and the elevator resumed its climb. When the car stopped at the penthouse, her heart started racing again. She expected the doors to open and reveal masked gunmen. Even here, even at the Olympiad’s secure headquarters.
The doors opened, and Arthur stood before her.
“I could feel your anxiety twenty floors away. I was coming to check on you.”
This time she did laugh, slumping against the elevator wall. “I’m just paranoid,” she said. “Stupidly, blindly paranoid. The elevator stalled, and I thought … I just assumed somebody was about to kidnap me.
Mentis said, “Come out of there. Have a seat and catch your breath, all right?”
The sun was sinking behind skyscrapers outside the wall of windows. She hadn’t realized how late it was. He walked with her to the living room, sat her on the sofa, then went to the wet bar in the corner, more of a decorative piece than having any real function, or so Celia thought. She was shocked and pleased when Mentis found a bottle of bourbon and poured a shot into a tumbler.
He brought it to her, and she smiled. “That’s exactly what I wanted right now.”
“I know.”
Simple as that. No questions, no snap judgments.
“Robbie would have tried to feed me hot cocoa, like I’m still twelve.”
“I think Robbie misses being the fun uncle. He hasn’t quite figured out how to relate to you as an adult.”
“You always just treated me like a human being. I preferred that, I think.”
He offered a fleeting smile, then indicated the file folder still clutched in her arms. “What have you got there?”
She regarded the folder, which now seemed insignificant, a piece of historical flotsam. “The next trail marker, I hope. I’ve been tracing some of Sito’s assets for the DA. He worked for a laboratory that was housed in a building that West Corp owned fifty years ago. Lucky for me, West Corp doesn’t destroy records.”
“Still working, even after being laid off?”
“This is plan B,” she said.
An alarm sounded—the usual alarm, which meant the usual trouble. Mentis touched a hidden panel in the wall; the piece of wood slid back to reveal a small computer terminal and a comm headset. He typed a few keys, and the alarm shut off, but the computer monitor still flashed red, and Mentis put the earpiece to his head.
Ah, just like old times. Celia waited for the verdict, quietly sipping her bourbon and letting it melt the fear from her nerves.
After a few minutes, Mentis shut down the computer and closed the terminal. When he turned back to her, even he looked somber. She couldn’t taste the bourbon anymore.
“That was your mother,” he said. “The History Museum’s been attacked. They didn’t take anything; we were ready for them. They’re in custody. But she said Chief Appleton is on his way over here to bring you in for questioning.”
She almost asked why, out of reflex. But she knew. She’d guessed right. She’d known what the bad guys were going to do next, and that made her a suspect. If she’d been one of the Olympiad, they’d have been patting her on the back for her insight.
But a former member of Sito’s operation? She was a suspect.
