Page 21 of Devil
And “the club” reference had made him smile, too. Yes, it was a little pretentious. But he liked the fact that the four women, each of whom had earned a degree with the title of “doctor” in it, had claimed their achievements and referred to themselves as the “Doctors Club.” Or just “the club” for short. If he ever had a daughter, he’d want her to be unabashed about her accomplishments, too.
“Yes, everything,”Lily confirmed, which meant dinner would be an interesting affair. He hadn’t been asking if they knew about what was going on in Lab 14—he knew they did and knew they’d been involved in helping her plant the bug. What he’d really meant was did they know everything about how he’d treated her, from his initial dismissal of her at Smith House, to his bumbled attempts to try to talk to her, to his now-obvious interest—an interest he hadn’t bothered to hide. They hadn’t spoken of it, but there was no way a woman like Lily would have missed it.
“Should I bring anything?”he asked.
“I’ll pick up takeout on my way home. I’m headed out early. FYI, traffic can be bad heading north on a Friday night, so you may want to plan accordingly.”
“Maybe I should catch a ride with you?”
“Then you’d have no ride home.”
That was unequivocal; there’d be no overnights tonight. But that was also a challenge.“I’ll take a rideshare home.”
He could almost hear her sigh.“If you want to leave when I leave, which will be around two this afternoon, why don’t you follow me up in your own car?”
Sold. He’d get a few more hours with her and not have to pay for a rideshare. Not that he was worried, since the government was covering his expenses.“Good idea. I’ll meet you wherever you’re picking up the food.”
A few texts and exchanges of addresses later, the plan was set. There was no mistaking the importance in Lily’s life of the people he was going to meet later that evening. They were, for all intents and purposes, her family. He should probably be nervous. But oddly, he wasn’t. They were another piece of Lily and, like everything about her, he was looking forward to seeing how they fit into the puzzle that was her life.
* * *
“We have nothing to go on except two women who posed as cleaners in order to find something in Dr. Pritchard’s lab,” Cyn said. She was curled up on the couch in Lily’s living room, a foot tucked underneath her as she leaned against Joe. They’d finished dinner a short time ago and were now relaxing and getting down to the reason they were all there tonight.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Discussing the activities of Dr. Pritchard’s lab had ostensibly been the reason for the gathering. But not unexpectedly, Lily’s friends had refused to let the conversation touch on Lab 14 until they’d had a chance to grill Darius about everything from his Little League performance—he’d played in the Little League World Series—to his youngest sister’s recent wedding.
He’d answered their questions without reservation and even learned a few things he hadn’t known. He also discovered that he and Joe shared a navy connection and had worked with a number of the same people. And while Gavin was British and an officer in the British Army, they still bonded over military life and, of all things, cricket. Both sets of Darius’s grandparents had immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago, and cricket was a huge sport in his house.
“And the trackers?” Nora asked, referring to the GPS devices the DeMarcos had placed on Nadia’s and Sonia’s cars.
Cyn shook her head. “Trips to the grocery store, the salon, a dog groomer, that sort of thing. Any of those places would have been a great drop location if they were passing the information on, but we know they don’t have information to pass on.”
“What about the two women who are the actual cleaners?” Darius asked. He was sitting at the other end of the couch from Joe and Cyn, and he held a beer bottle loosely between his fingers. Lily sat in a chair to his left, her own hand fingering her wineglass that sat on the table between them.
Six made a face. “I looked into them and then had Anthony DeMarco chat one up at a bar one night. He got Debbie—that’s her name—to tell him that she’d recently been paid $200 to switch places for the night. She’s not totally without ethics, though. She said the only reason she agreed was because the cleaning staff doesn’t have access to any restricted areas. She figured no harm, no foul.”
“She might have some sense of ethics, but she’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer if it didn’t occur to her that law-abiding people would not want to illegally gain access to the lab,” Darius commented. Six inclined her head in agreement. “By the way, we’ve instituted new procedures around cleaning staff. The night security guard will be checking all IDs and carts both when they enter and when they leave,” he added.
“Since Sonia and Nadia were already in the building when the real cleaners left, how did they get in in the first place?” Gavin asked. “And isn’t Pritchard’s lab locked? How did they get in there?”
“They tailgated and followed two other cleaners into the building. They were dressed appropriately so no one looked twice,” Cyn answered. Darius gave Cyn a speculative look. Lily had told him that Cyn was the most tech-savvy in the group. He wondered how she’d managed to tap into the security feeds. He wasn’t about to ask, nor did he actually mind too much.
“And the lab itself?” Lily repeated Gavin’s question.
“They had a card,” Cyn answered. “I don’t know if it was just for Lab 14 or a master key card, but they had one.”
Lily looked at him. “I’ll reissue everyone’s cards tomorrow. I should have done it earlier,” he said. Her expression was empathetic, but she nodded in agreement.
“What is Dr. Pritchard researching right now?” Joe asked.
“She’s about to start a statistical study on the avian flu,” Darius answered.
“So she doesn’t currently have anything dangerous in her lab?” Gavin asked.
“Not from a biotoxin standpoint. But the information she has in her head and that she has access to is dangerous enough,” Lily answered.
Gavin nodded in acknowledgment of the truth of her statement. Knowledge truly was, or could be, power.
“Maybe it’s time to confront Nadia and Sonia?” Nora suggested.
