Page 22 of Devil
Darius turned to get Lily’s perspective on the idea. There were benefits to that approach, but if they had no real evidence to bring to the women—nothing that could frighten them into talking—he doubted they’d get anything. Lily started to respond but cut herself off when Cyn’s phone dinged.
Darius’s heart rate kicked up when all eyes shot to Cyn as she dug her phone from her pocket. Tension filled the room like toxic sludge, although Darius didn’t understand why. People received notifications on their phones all the time. Why was this different?
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Lily pulled her attention from her friend and looked at him. “Other than Franklin, the only people who have Cyn’s number are in this room. That ding is an alarm of some sort,” she answered.
“Alert?” he asked.
“There’s someone in Lab 14,” Cyn said, rising from her seat as she spoke. And she wasn’t the only one. In a flash, Lily was at the dining table, her laptop open and powered up. Gesturing for him to sit beside her, she slid the device over and without a word, he knew what she wanted. Logging into the security feed at the research center, he waited for the application to open as they listened to someone rustling around in Lab 14 over Cyn’s phone.
“Maybe it’s Dr. Pritchard,” Nora suggested. They only heard movement, no voices. With no cameras in the lab itself, they had no idea who or how many people were inside.
“It’s not,” Darius said, shifting the computer so they could all see the feed he’d brought up. Again, with no cameras in the lab, they still didn’t know who was inside, but right outside the door was an unattended cleaning trolley.
“I thought you said you locked down the security on the cleaners?” Six asked.
“I did, and you can be sure I’ll be looking into this,” Darius responded, not taking offense at Six’s accusatory tone. She had every right to be frustrated. He definitely was.
“Got it.” A voice suddenly came through the feed projecting from Cyn’s phone.
“Let me see,” said another voice. There were sounds of shuffling feet and the scrape of a chair on the floor.
“Do you know what it means?” the first woman asked.
There was a pause before the second woman answered. “I do, but let’s talk about it later. I don’t want to be in here any longer than needed.” The pronouncement was followed by the sound of someone running a fingernail over a piece of paper, as if they’d folded it and were tightening the crease.
Three seconds later, the two women appeared on camera as they emerged from the lab and returned to the cleaning cart. One of them was tucking a piece of paper into the front pocket of her jeans.
“That’s not Nadia or Sonia,” Cyn said. And it wasn’t. These two women were of Chinese descent.
“Cyn, can you get a close-up on their faces and we can run them through facial recognition?” Lily asked, leaning closer to get a better look. So fixed on the screen in front of him, he hadn’t noticed that Cyn now had her own computer open and was watching the same feed. With a few clicks of the mouse, she isolated images of each woman’s face and created two distinct image files.
“Six,” Lily said. She said no more, but in that way that women had of communicating without words, her friend seemed to know what Lily was asking.
“Calling the DeMarcos now,” Six responded with the phone already pressed to her ear.
“I’ll call security,” Darius said.
“Wait,” Lily said, placing a hand on his arm to still him as he reached for his phone.
“Lily, I can’t look the other way on this. Not this time,” he said.
She turned her eyes on him, and he knew he’d made a tactical error. Without her and her friends, he wouldn’t even have known what was happening in Lab 14 right now. His new security procedures were supposed to prevent it from happening. Only they hadn’t, and now the only reason he knew they’d failed was because of the work she and the club had done.
Fuck. This was her op. Not his. He didn’t have a right to issue orders and make the calls.
Before she could say anything, he raised his hands in surrender. “Old habits,” he said. “It probably won’t be the last time you’ll see them rear their heads, but I know this is your op, not mine. What do you want me to do?” His gut roiled at the thought of the two intruders in the lab, but he had to trust Lily. Not only did hewantto trust her, his orders had been clear on who was in charge.
He felt several sets of eyes on him, and he was certain Gavin muttered something like, “Good save, Washington,” but it was a bit lost when Six elbowed him and he grunted.
Even though he was aware of the scrutiny he faced, he kept his attention locked on Lily. Her eyes searched his, then after a beat, she nodded. “We’ll have them followed. We don’t know what they have, but if we stop them and confiscate it, there might be others who will step in and try again. If we follow them, it’s our best chance of figuring out what’s going on and who all is involved.”
It wasn’t easy, but he nodded. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked again.
She shook her head. “Not right now—”
“If it was printed from a computer in the lab, you might be able to access the printer’s network and find it in the archives,” Cyn said. “It might be a fool’s errand because the paper could have come from anywhere, but it might be worth a shot.”
