Page 14 of Devil
“And I have eyes on the place already,”Cyn said. Devil almost felt sorry for Joe. With her lighter fall schedule, Cyn was looking for things to entertain herself. Which, when it came to Cyn, generally wasn’t a good thing. Except, in this case, it was.
“How busy is it?”Devil asked.
“About half the labs have staff in them. Pritchard is in her lab, arrived about three hours ago,”she said.
“Take a walk to the DeMarcos’, and I bet by the time you get back, it will be emptier,”Six suggested. Lucy and Brian lived on Beacon Street. The walk, and no doubt the visit that would ensue, would kill an hour or more.
“Great idea. Cyn, can you ask Lucy or Brian if they have something I can use?”She had her own devices, but she’d left them at home in her go-bag. Her go-bag that she hadn’t used in nearly a year, since the ministry hadn’t called her into service.
Frowning at that realization, she decided she might need to give that a little more thought at some point. She hadn’t left the ministry, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t have been called up for at least a small job in the past year. But perhaps they’d made the decision themselves to cut her out and hadn’t bothered to mention it.
Interestingly, that thought didn’t cause as much panic as it once might have. She’d still look into it. It would be nice to know if her government had pushed her out. But if it had, she didn’t think she’d be too sad.
“They’re expecting you,”Cyn wrote, because of course, she’d already managed to put everything in place.
“I’ll need your eyes on the lab when I go in,”Devil said.
“On it,”Cyn replied, and the others jumped in with their agreement as well. With a few more texts, a plan was in place. Nora would watch the entrances, Six the stairwells, and Cyn the fourth floor.
Grateful for her friends’ willingness to help, Devil ended the call, then started closing up her lab for the night. When everything was clean and put away, she changed out of her bunny suit. After swapping her heels for a pair of sneakers she kept in her locker, she grabbed her phone and purse and headed out.
It wasn’t quite a night curled up in bed with a roaring fire. But a little breaking-and-entering wasn’t a bad alternative.
CHAPTEREIGHT
“Now?”Devil asked. She had one earbud tucked into her left ear, and Cyn was on the other end of the line.
“Nora and Six are clear,” Cyn responded. “Let…me…yes, you are good to go now. The fourth floor is all clear.”
“Heading up,” Devil replied. Exiting her office, she headed straight for the stairwell, then up one floor.
“Still clear,” Cyn said. She had Nora and Six on a different line and was coordinating their watch activities.
Trusting her friends implicitly, Devil didn’t slow down or hesitate as she made her way to Dr. Pritchard’s lab. Using the master key she had that got her into all the labs except the top-secret ones, she pushed inside.
The door shut behind her, and she paused to survey the room. Deciding the top of the window ledge was the best spot to put the tiny device she’d picked up from Lucy and Brian, she pulled on a pair of gloves and extracted it from her pocket. Carrying a stool to the window, she climbed up, and twenty seconds later, she and her friends had ears in the room.
“It’s in place,” she said to Cyn. “Do you have the signal?”
“I do, but let’s test it before you leave. Mute your phone and say something.” Devil complied and ran the test. “Got it, loud and clear,” Cyn confirmed.
Devil left her phone muted so that Cyn wasn’t hearing her twice, and said, “I’m going to have a quick look around while I’m here.”
“Have at it. At least you aren’t alone,” Cyn said, her tone dry. In January, Cyn had gone gallivanting off on her own in search of a few terrorists and had come back with a stab wound. A few months later, Six had also gone off on her own to scout a piece of property owned by her murdered friend. Thankfully, Gavin had followed her. Not only had they found the property, they’d also found Abyasa, Candra, and Shinta as well as a couple of hitmen who’d been sent to kill the three women.
Yes, it was nice that she wasn’t alone, even if her friends were only with her virtually.
Surveying the space, Devil noted that Lab 14 was larger than her lab, although it was divided into two smaller parts. The back half was a clean room, most of which was visible through a large observation window. While the front half appeared to be used for the kind of research done with books and technology.
Deciding to skip exploring the back half—getting into and out of a clean room wasn’t conducive to a quick search—she paused at the window and scanned the area. Standard equipment was carefully laid out, a detox wash station was in the corner, and several oxygen tanks lined the left wall. Test tube racks were stacked under one of the hooded tables, and a machine she didn’t recognize was processing something.
With nothing obvious catching her attention, she switched her focus to the other half of the room. Three computers, three desks, and a large bookshelf occupied the space. The very messy space.
Devil wrinkled her nose. Papers were scattered across the countertops, the stack of science magazines was piled to an alarming height, and books were haphazardly shoved into the shelves with several resting horizontally on top of the vertically stacked ones. Taking it all in, she had to wonder if Sonia and Nadia hadn’t found what they’d come looking for because it was buried in the mess.
“Um, you may want to hotfoot it out of there. Nora saw Dr. Pritchard walk in,” Cyn’s voice came through her earbud.
Devil frowned. “What’s she doing here this time of night?”
