before this shit falls into this guy’s intestines.”
Max fetched the napkins and brought them to Ralph, his eyes averted from the still form on the table. Max was not good with corpses, and down here a casual glance was always an unpleasant surprise. An accident victim with no face. A homeless man found gnawed on by rats. An infant who had fallen from a fourth-floor window.
“Here, hold this.”
Ralph Edmund handed the souvlaki to Max and took hold of the napkins.
“Look, Ralph—”
“Hold up a sec.” Ralph wiped his hands and forearms, changed gloves, and took back the souvlaki. “There, thanks.”
Still fighting off the desire to look down at the corpse, Max said, “Willie told me you had the test results for Riccardo Martino?”
Ralph took another bite and nodded. “When you first asked me to run the tests, I didn’t understand the relevance. It was clear that Martino did not die of something AIDS-related.”
“I know.”
“I mean, AIDS had absolutely nothing to do with the cause of death. But then I saw that report on TV the other night — the one that said Martino and a couple of other guys with AIDS had become HIV negative — and I got to thinking: Twitch is up to something.”
“Ralph, I don’t have the time. Was Martino HIV negative, yes or no?”
Ralph smiled. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“As positive as Martino’s HIV test. I ran two Western blots and two ELISAs just to be certain. If Martino had been cured of AIDS, his tests had a funny way of showing it. I also ran a test on his T cells and the count was dangerously low.”
“Then you’re saying—”
“Riccardo Martino had AIDS.”
Max felt his legs go weak.
“Where’s the phone?”
“Over there.”
Max sprinted, picked up the receiver, dialed the safe house, and waited for Dr. Zry to answer.
Zry answered. “Hello?”
“You get those HIV test results on Krutzer, Leander, and Singer yet?” Max asked.
“Yeah, they check out.”
“All three of the patients are cured.”
“Yep. HIV negative.”
“You sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure. Krutzer, Leander, and Singer have all been cured of AIDS. It’s a miracle, Twitch.”
“How do they look to you?”
“Healthy as can be. Just a few side effects from the SR1.”
Max hung up, his mind spinning. Fragments flew about his head, but for the first time Max was able to reach out, grab them, sift through them, and piece the important ones together. The first three cured patients. The blood work. Grey’s patients. Riker’s patients. Eric. Sanders. Sara’s father. The senator. Markey. The blood work, the damn blood work. Martino HIV positive. Krutzer, Leander, Singer HIV negative.
The blood work.
Max reviewed the medical histories. Then he took out the chart he had made on board the plane:
Max put down the chart. He felt like he was trying to read a record while it spun on a turntable — Michael as Markey’s guinea pig. The night Michael was kidnapped. Sara seeing Eric Blake. Sara going upstairs. Taking something for Eric. Almost ruining everything for George and his employer. And George Camron said his payments came late, that he had finally been paid within the past few days…
“Oh no.”
Cold, dark fear rushed over him in high, crashing waves.
Ralph took another bite. “This Gay Slasher thing keeps getting crazier and crazier, huh, Twitch?”
Max shook his head slowly. “No, Ralph,” he began. “For the first time, things are beginning to make sense.”
Ralph stuffed the rest of the souvlaki in his mouth and licked his fingertips. “Do you know who killed these guys, Twitch?”
Max nodded and ran for the door. “I do now.”
Sara’s leg throbbed as she tried to hobble quickly after Harvey. Her heart fluttered wildly, as if a bird were trapped in her chest, but the fluttering was more from fear than exertion. She glanced sideways at Harvey. His face was set, his eyes straight and unwavering, his lips thin, his fists and jaw clenched.
“Did you tell Eric about the package?” she asked.
Harvey hesitated, then nodded. “He’s supposed to be setting up some tests right now.”
With his words they both increased their speed. Sara struggled to keep up with him, changing her steady limp into an awkward sort of one-step hop.
Harvey stopped in front of the lab door. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
He nodded and reached for the knob. He tried to turn it. “Locked,” he said.
“Is that normal?”
“Not if Eric is in the lab, it’s not.”
Harvey reached for his key, found it, and placed it in the lock. A moment later the door swung open with an unhappy creak.
“Eric?” Harvey called out.
No answer. The shades were pulled down, and the lights were out. The lab was blanketed in darkness.
Harvey flipped the light switch. The room was immediately illuminated with bright fluorescent lights. He stepped toward a table in the corner. “Damn!”
“What is it?”
“The blood samples are gone. I left them right on the table.” He checked under the counter and in the nearby vicinity. Nothing. “Check the refrigeration room in the corner,” he said. “I’m going to look in Eric’s private file cabinet.”
“I thought the private files were locked.”
“They are. I’m going to bust the damn thing open.”
Sara hobbled past several lab tables, past Bunsen burners, past test tubes, past the large periodic chart on the wall, past tables and adjustable stools, past countless charts and scraps of paper. The lab looked more like an eighth-grade science classroom than an ultramodern research center. Still, it had the feel of professionalism. Everything was spotlessly clean. The microscopes and other assorted gadgets looked hightech and expensive.
When she reached the door to the refrigeration room, she turned around for a brief moment. Harvey had found a metal ruler and was working on the top drawer of Eric’s file cabinet. She could hear him grunting from the effort. She turned back toward the door. She hoped the blood samples were in the refrigeration room. She hoped that her suspicions about Eric were wrong, that he had not done anything wrong, that he was still their friend…
The door handle was cold. She gripped it with her fingers and pulled back. The suction gave way and Sara was immediately greeted with a frosty breeze. Little pricks of terror began to rise on the base of her spine. She pulled the door all the way back, stepped into the doorway, and peered inside.
Sara inhaled sharply but could not move.
A scream built inside her throat, but only a strange, unrecognizable sound — a grunt of some kind — managed to push its way through her lips. She stared forward, her eyes wide and fixed.
Eric Blake’s bloody corpse lay twisted on the floor in front of her.
Almost a full minute passed before she turned away from the dead body and looked toward Harvey. He
