Nothing happened.
“Pretty please, Saturn? Just let them wake up?”
Nada.
Maybe I needed red rage to reach Saturn, but at the moment, I was too terrified to be angry. I never wanted to enter these bowels of hell again. Scientists with needles and hidden cellars were a Frankensteinian death trap if I ever saw one.
Leo had the gurney halfway down the hall and was hitting buttons to summon a hidden elevator he must have discovered in his search, when we heard a shout.
“Wait a minute!” We heard footsteps pounding from the other end of the corridor—just as the elevator door opened.
This was the reason I hadn’t dared rescue Bill, too. He was too heavy for running like hell.
I glanced at Schwartz. He nodded and, clenching his jaw, shoved the gurney into the elevator. Remembering his request that I not get him fired, I hit the up button and prayed to escape from the antiseptic depths of hell. Not that I expected prayers to be answered.
7
“Gas mask.” I pointed at Schwartz’s, reminding him to cover his face. “Security clearance.” I held up my purple badge.
I could tell he got my message because he scowled as he adjusted his mask, and I whipped out my phone. Did cell reception even reach through this bloody building? Better yet, would the Zone let me call out?
I hit Andre’s number. I got voice mail for a cheese shop in Wisconsin. Worried that I was about to blow this, I tried to think of some way to carry Sarah out of there without better transportation than Leo’s cop car.
She seemed pretty pale, and my gut knotted. What had they done to her? She was the only person remotely like me that I knew, and I felt more than a little protective. Schwartz had managed to pull the gloves over her paws, because one dangled outside the sheet. I had just carefully tucked it under when my phone played “Here Comes the Judge.”
Unhappy with the inappropriate interruption, I seriously considered getting the hell out of the Zone if this electronic comedy routine continued. Wondering how Acme operated computers if I couldn’t even use a phone, and realizing that I could not
My employer’s secretary spoke in clipped tones in my ear. “Clancy, Judge Snodgrass needs you to research a case this afternoon. Can you be here by two?”
I glanced at my watch as we rushed the gurney down the main hall of offices. It was after one already, and it was just research. On a weekend. “We’re having a bit of a public emergency down here, Jill,” I told her. I knew she wouldn’t like it. She didn’t like me. She liked men and didn’t think women ought to be attorneys—or near her favorite judge. But I needed this job. “Can this wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m not coming in on a Sunday,” she said acidly. “And you don’t have clearance for office keys. If you want this job, you’ll be here by two.”
She cut me off. I generously refrained from damning her to hell, but for a minute there, she hung on the precipice.
One more stressor added to my day.
A couple of security goons in uniform were coming at us, looking mean. Since they hadn’t hurt anybody, I couldn’t wish them to Hades or anywhere else any more than I could Jill. Apparently, my attempts at anger management were working. A pity, that.
I kept talking loudly into my phone as if it hadn’t gone dead. “Yes, Senator. Of course, Senator. Is the ambulance outside yet? Your cousin is in good hands, I assure you. We’ll let you know as soon as we arrive.”
I stalked past the guards as if they weren’t there. Schwartz stoically propelled the gurney. If anyone could read my pulse, they’d know I was running on terrified and pushing a heart attack, but I’d had a lifetime’s practice faking it.
“Wait a minute!” one of the guards shouted as we passed.
I held my purple badge over my shoulder, waggled it, and kept on walking, talking to my imaginary friend.
Behind us, I heard them consulting some authority on their phones. Schwartz muttered incomprehensible curses and pushed faster. Getting arrested wouldn’t do either of us any favors.
We burst into the reception area at a full run. The receptionist glanced up in surprise. I shouted, “Emergency!” and hurried ahead to open the doors.
The clowns in uniforms spilled into the lobby just as we hightailed it out. Without a word, Schwartz hoisted our patient over his shoulder, abandoned the gurney, and raced for his car.
Whatever worked.
The worst of the pink and green cloud had dissipated, leaving a thin film of pink confetti particles everywhere it had touched. Schwartz’s cop car had been parked elsewhere before the explosion, so it was relatively unscathed in comparison to the parking lot and streets. I opened the back door, Leo practically flung Sarah across the backseat, and we both dived for the front just as the guards tottered after us. They were on the brink of corpulent, not joggers by any stretch of the imagination, and they were struggling with gas masks as they ran.
No way was I letting them have Sarah. Thank Saturn, our Zone cop apparently felt the same.
Schwartz gunned his engine, backed up, swung the car around, and hit sixty before he reached the gate. The guard didn’t dare close it, especially after Leo turned on the siren. I do love a siren.
The police barricade allowed one of their own to pass but blocked the path of the Keystone Cops rattling after us in their security truck.
“Win one for the Duke!” I crowed, pumping my fist in the air. We rocked!
Leo sent me a strange look. Obviously, he didn’t watch old westerns. Taking my triumph where I could find it, I checked on our patient. Despite all the commotion, Sarah lay still as death. That worried me, but I was no doctor. I’d done all I could do. Except rescue Bill. That burned. Triumph was fleeting.
I glanced out the back window, but the gates had closed. There wouldn’t be any going back in. Telling myself I wasn’t responsible for anyone but myself, and that I had to focus on keeping my job, I clenched my teeth and plotted how to reach the judge’s office by two.
Leo took a right off Edgewater away from the harbor, as if we really were heading for a hospital. Once out of the Zone, he switched off the siren, swung down a garbage-strewn alley only a policeman would dare drive, and maneuvered us back to the hill and Andre’s warehouse.
I glanced at my watch. One thirty. The judge’s office was almost half an hour away, depending on traffic. Sarah needed help I couldn’t give her. I had to let others save the day.
“I love and adore you, Leo,” I said appreciatively, “but I have to run or get canned. If I bake you a cake, can you take it from here?”
“I can take it from here without the cake,” he said grumpily, parking behind the warehouse. “And if anyone took my license number and I get called to the carpet, you better bring out the big guns.”
Meaning Dane/Max. I didn’t want to ask favors of a man I could barely talk to, but I nodded. “You got it, big boy.” I leaned over, smooched his bristly cheek, and scooted out before he could react. He hadn’t had time to shave or shower this morning, and he smelled like hot male—not a bad scent, all things considered. I tried not to think what I smelled like after a night of partying and a morning of running on terrified. I needed superhero deodorant.
Dashing for my Harley across the street, I ran through a mental checklist: Milo safe upstairs, messenger bag over my shoulder, blazer and khakis okay for a weekend, ditch lab coat . . . keep computer tablet!
I’d apparently shoved the pretty toy in my pocket while running. Ooooh, cool. Who needed the devil to
