Chapter Thirty-One
Kini studied the handcuffs keeping her attached to the metal chair she sat on. They looked…substantial, not something you could easily pick. There wasn’t anything in the room to use as a tool, anyway.
She slumped and tried to calm frayed nerves, but her heart rate didn’t slow; in fact, it sped up. Tears flowed down her face and a sob snuck past the tight ring of fear around her throat.
Poor Jim. When the second security guard returned with water for her, the guards realized Grandfather Smoke had disappeared. They’d forced Jim and her from the first-aid room and farther into the building. She’d lost her sense of direction after the second or third turn and had no idea where they were in relation to any of the exits.
Jim and she had been shoved into a room that had a conference-style table, a dozen metal chairs, and little else. They’d both been handcuffed to chairs.
The security guards left, then came back with Deputy Blackwater. He smiled with practiced ease, a smile that didn’t reach past his nose, and said he wasn’t tolerant of trespassers.
She’d tried to tell him they didn’t know anything, but the creep just smiled and gestured at Jim.
The security guards had beaten him in front of her, all while Blackwater demanded to know what she knew about the farm, the drug lab across the canyon, and the hantavirus outbreak. What had she told the CDC about all three things?
She told him all she knew, denying any previous knowledge of the farm and revealing the limited knowledge she had of the drug lab. The CDC, being a public company, had a duty to inform the public about outbreaks, so telling them what she’d told the CDC, and what the CDC would do about it, wasn’t breaking any oaths.
He didn’t believe her.
She wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but the fire alarm started going off. Blackwater talked to the two guards for a moment, then he smiled at her, but it was the most evil expression she’d ever seen on a man’s face.
He stroked her cheek with one finger, letting it trail down her neck and collar bone to her cleavage. “I suggest you consider becoming more honest and forthright in your answers to my questions,” he’d said in a soft voice that was so cold, she shivered. “Otherwise, I might have to resort to a more direct form of punishment.”
The guards took her out of the room. She’d fought, yelling at them, screaming for help, but none came.
They hustled her down the hallway and into another room. An office. Unoccupied.
They’d handcuffed her to the desk then left her alone in the stark room with nothing but the harsh ring of the alarm.
For a few moments, all she could do was cry. The exhaustion, pain, and violence were too much. Eventually, her brain began to work again and sort through the questions he’d asked, and the ones he hadn’t asked.
Who was he? Who were these people? It was obvious this farm was the window dressing for something else. Something that required a lot of money, if they were using Bruce’s drug lab to finance it.
More drugs? Designer drugs?
Were they being impacted by the hantavirus outbreak? Was that why they were so worried about the CDC? They didn’t want law enforcement to discover what they were doing?
The alarm shut off, and she stared at the door. Blackwater would come looking for her soon, and she still had no idea what she was going to tell him. She’d only gotten here because of bad luck and the actions of idiots. Something he wasn’t going to believe.
The door flew open and Blackwater came in, breathing hard. Had he been running?
“You wouldn’t know what happened to one of my guards, would you?”
Was he kidding?
She jiggled the handcuffs, making the chains clank. “When have I had time to do anything to your people? If I’d miraculously gotten loose, believe me, I’d run, not hang around looking for an opportunity to do damage to them. So, no.”
“Someone is playing a very nasty game with us,” he said, one corner of his lips curling up in a snarl. “We shot and captured a man riding one of my ATVs near the canyon earlier, and now he’s missing.”
She couldn’t hide her joy at that news fast enough. Blackwater saw it.
He strode over to put a hand around her neck and squeezed. “Who is he? Is he Smoke?”
She tried to take in a breath to give some kind of answer to his question but discovered she couldn’t; he held on to her too tightly. She kept trying to talk—it might be the only reason he’d stop choking her to death.
Finally, he reduced the pressure, allowing her to suck in some air and speak.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Is he a cop?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
He used his grip on her neck to slam her against the back of her chair. “He was hog-tied and left on his belly. A man with a bullet still in his leg.” Spittle flew from his mouth to land on her face. “It was Smoke, wasn’t it?”
The door behind Blackwater popped open and one of the other guards said, “Sir, the man who came in with her”—he jerked his head at Kini—“the one we questioned, he’s…gone.”
If she’d thought Blackwater was angry before, it was nothing to the rage he displayed now. “Gone?” he screamed at the guard. “What do you mean gone?”
“I mean, he’s gone, but one of our guards, Ferguson, was handcuffed in his place.” A wince. “He’s been roughed up, too.”
Blackwater kept opening and closing his fists. “So, now we have two unknowns running loose around the place?”
“Three, actually, sir. There’s an old man we can’t find, either.”
Sounded like the Smoke family was living up to their name.
Blackwater’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “Find them and get this place locked down, or heads will roll.”
The guard’s face lost all color. “Yes, sir.” He left as quickly as he’d come in.
Blackwater paced for a several seconds then turned a narrow-eyed gaze on her. She watched him watch her and saw the moment he made a decision come and go across his face. A decision she was sure she wasn’t going to like.
He stepped behind her, released her from one handcuff, then unclipped the second one from the chair and put it around her other wrist.
“Get up,” he snarled into her ear as he wrapped his hand around her bicep and hauled her to her feet. “Make a noise, a sound, and I promise I’ll cut you up into little pieces while you’re still alive.”
His words hit her like a punch to the gut. “What kind of monster are you?” she asked, staring at him.
He smiled that evil smile at her. “A well-fed one.”
He was just trying to terrorize her by inferring that he ate…things people shouldn’t eat. Wasn’t he?
Nausea roiled her stomach, and she had to breathe through her mouth to prevent vomiting all over herself. On second thought, maybe that would quell his appetite.
Blackwater dragged her from the room and down the hall until they reached a dead end. On the right was a door marked mechanical. On the left was another marked storage. He opened the storage door using his ID then shoved her in.
Inside was a ten by ten room lined with shelves full of boxes, plant pots, bags of potting soil, gardening hand tools, and other stuff she didn’t have time to identify. Blackwater pushed her farther into the room and kept pushing until they were in front of the rear set of shelves.
He turned a knob. The shelving unit shivered then swung forward a couple of inches, more, until there was a wide enough opening for them to squeeze past.
This was something out of a Scooby Doo movie.
“You have a secret lair?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t.
His head jerked around and he stared at her coldly for a terrifying moment, then he started to laugh. “Of course. All the best villains do.”
Smiling, he pushed her past the hidden door then closed it behind them.
The room beyond was divided into sections by chest-high counters. Along the far wall was a series of upright appliances that could be refrigerators or incubators or both. On the counters was a variety of lab equipment: analyzers, a couple of microscopes, test tubes, other supplies.
Two chairs lay on their sides, while a third had been left in a corner. Used gloves, plastic containers, pipettes, and glass slides littered the counters and floor.
No self-respecting lab tech would leave a lab in this state. What the hell had happened in here?
“This is where I create the weapons that will destroy the world,” he said, his voice becoming more theatrical with every word.
She stared at him, dumfounded. “Really?”
His grin was back, slick, and in no way friendly. “A slight exaggeration. What I produce here will kill hundreds, maybe thousands of people, but not everyone.”
“Produce?” What was he talking about? Some kind of chemical or bio weapon? Was this man using the farm as a cover for some kind of black market biological and chemical weapons production?
He grabbed a couple of latex gloves from a box on one counter and put them on. Then he opened the door of one of the appliances taking up the back wall and removed a container usually used for viral samples. He showed it to her, tilting it up and down so the fluid inside sloshed back and forth.
“Is that,” she asked carefully, cautiously. “Hantavirus?”
He checked the label on the container. “Yes.” He put it back, closed the door on the incubator, and opened the next one. This time, he pulled out a petri dish. “This is one of those flesh-eating bacteria.” He put it back with a chuckle. “Those things will eat anything.”
This guy acted…unhinged. The knot of fear around her neck tightened, but she managed to ask, “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because the two people I had working here died, and I need new staff. Lucky for you, there’s a position open.”
“Lucky for me?” she asked. It would have been luckier to have been run over by an eighteen-wheeler.
He cocked his head. “Unless you’d rather I shoot you, because those are your choices. Work or die.”
Bruce had said almost those exact words.
From the look on Blackwater’s face, her choices were: die slow or die fast.
Stall. She had to stall him, figure out what was going on, create a way to escape. “Um, okay. What kind of work, exactly?”
“I run an online shop,” he said with a grin that had an edge of maliciousness. “Selling my products to anyone with enough cash to pay the fee. Sometimes they order just enough for a one-time use, but other clients want enough of one product to use in bulk.” He laughed at that.
“So, let me see if I understand all this correctly, because I’m not sure my brain is keeping up.” She paused, then asked, “You’re producing and selling pathogenic bacteria and viruses online?”
He nodded.
“Where did you get them in the first place?”
“This is what’s going to happen,” he said, ignoring her question. “You’re going to do what I tell you to do. If you don’t follow instructions, I will hold a bang party for a few of my guards with you as the main attraction. Then, I’ll put a bullet in your head and bury you in the desert. Understand?”
“I understand.” She was also going to be sick. She swayed on her feet. “Can I…?”
“Can you what?”
“Sleep for a little while?” She winced. “I haven’t slept much in the last day or so, and I don’t want to make a mistake with those organisms and accidently kill myself.”
Blackwater studied her for a moment. “A few hours. That’s it.” He grabbed her by the arm again and pulled her over to the door. On the wall next to the door was what looked like a long metal countertop. But the hinges were on the bottom.
“What happened to Bruce?” she asked.
Blackwater gave her a razor-sharp smile. “He’s dead.”
He pulled the metal surface down, revealing a camping mattress. A permanent cot. He released one wrist from the handcuffs then clipped the open handcuff to a small hole in the frame of the cot.
“Sleep well,” he said with a smile then left the room.
She stood, chained to a prison-style bed, in a room full of deadly pathogens.
“Well” wasn’t a word she’d pick to describe how she was going to sleep.