Page 60 of Saint of the Shadows

Tobias sighed and stared at the door. “What are we doing here?”

“She has something we could use.” Marisol crossed the bedroom to the closet and groped around the top shelf. Her outstretched pinkybrushed against a shoebox. She stood higher on tiptoe. “It should be up here.”

Tobias snatched the shoebox with one hand and gave it to Marisol with an annoying amount of ease compared to her tiptoeing and stretching.

“Thanks.”

“What’s in it?” he asked.

She set the box on Annie’s dresser and popped the lid. From inside, she pulled out a tranquilizer pistol and a dart with a feathery end. “Annie would sometimes take work home with her and that included critters that needed tranquilizing.”

She led Tobias to the kitchen. There, she fished out a double boiler from a box, filling one pot with water and stacking both on the stove. With a turn of the knob, she fired up the burner. As the water heated, she rifled through boxes, cabinets, and drawers, acquiring a pestle, bowl, and funnel. Tobias handed her the garbage bag of drugs. She emptied it across the counter and popped her bottles of painkillers. The capsule broke open with a snap into the bowl. Marisol ground the other pills with a pestle. Once she collected the powder, she dumped it into the pot nestled over the boiling water. The powder bubbled into a liquid, melting into a potent cocktail that she’d funnel into the dart. If this thing was like Vincent, perhaps enough tranquilizer to flatten ten mice could sedate it. The reinforced trap would hold it.

Tobias loaded the pistol with the dart and extended his arm, appearing to test his aim. “Surethe tranq’s necessary? A spring trap could crush the critter as we speak.”

“Not this one. When you see it, you won’t believe your eyes.”

“Access denied,” the computer voice said after Marisol tapped her keycard against the alley entry to the labs.

“What?!” Marisol cracked a knuckle, preparing to punch the screen. Did Vincent do this to punish her for leaving? What a petty brick of shit.

“I got an idea.” Tobias jogged to the back of his car. On the trunk was a silver foil sticker, a parody of a cop’s badge. It said, Coupon for Free Donuts. He scraped the edges with his car keys and peeled the rest of it off. “How long do people look at badges, anyway?” He stuffed the sticker into a plastic window of his wallet.

At the information desk of the hospital, Tobias asked the volunteer to let him inside the labs to review details of the crime. When he said “a mnemonic memory technique,” the volunteer nodded, a sign of how much he impressed her. He flicked out his wallet, handed his business card, flashed the silly sticker, and shoved it back inside his pocket.

“I’ll see what I can do.” The volunteer disappeared into the bowels of the hospital.

Marisol leaned against the desk and tapped her foot. The mousetrap poked into her, stored in aflimsy draw-string backpack. If she were pacing the floor in her scrubs, she’d feel right back at home, but on the other side of things, she felt adrift. “Are you sure this will work?”

“Nope.” Tobias scratched the back of his head.

The volunteer returned with an exasperated Dr. Foster.

Their plan was doomed.

Tobias greeted her with a handshake. Her frown did not budge. As Tobias rattled off, “a part of an ongoing homicide investigation,” and “mnemonic memory technique,” Dr. Foster stood with her arms firmly crossed. Tobias did the business card and badge maneuver. With the way she blinked, there was no way she bought that little piece of foil.

“Follow me,” she said. “The labs haven’t been open since what happened to Dr. Park. I think the scientists can’t bring themselves to come in. Some say they hear strange noises there.”

Strange noises? Must be the mouse.

Dr. Foster’s key card hovered over the security pad. One swipe, and they’d be in. “Dr. Park was your friend.” Dr. Foster smiled and quirked her eyebrows as if she studied a clown expressing sympathy. “Sorry,is. I suppose she will always be your friend.”

“Yes.” Marisol sighed. She needed Dr. Foster off her back as well as that mousetrap.

Dr. Foster swiped the card, and the doors to the lab unlocked. Marisol crossed to the other side while Tobias held the door open. They had made it.

“Wait!” Dr. Foster called after her. Uh oh, did she finally notice Tobias’s complete lack of authority? What gave it away? Donut?

Marisol froze, preparing for the worst. “Yes?”

“The system automatically booted you for two no-call/no-shows.”

Fantastic to know work held an inverse relationship with her. She did everything for them, and the system spit her out when she was broken and scared. Perhaps her unbridled rage would ruin their cover instead.

Dr. Foster continued, “But I can talk to people and explain your situation. This weekend is the Rooks’ Legacy game. Half the city gets blind drunk, and we’ll need all the help we can get. Could you work the second shift?”

Marisol’s mouth dropped open, so she turned to Tobias for some help out of the situation.

---