Page 36 of Devil
“I considered it, but then figured Gavin would get involved and then things would get ugly. You know how I feel about ugly.” Six laughed, and Devil smiled at the sound. She might not like how her friends had pestered her, but she did love them. “Now go have your dinner. We’ll talk later.”
They waved, then turned and, hand in hand, walked away. She watched them go, the smile still playing on her lips. They were an attractive couple. But more than their looks, what held Devil’s attention was the obvious connection between the two. It hadn’t always been that way. Six had fought against the chemistry between them. But then, in typical Six fashion, when she finally decided to stop fighting, she embraced it with all the gusto and certainty she had. It hadn’t taken long for the chemistry to turn into something much more meaningful.
When the couple turned the corner, taking them out of view, Devil finished with the last pile of leaves and returned the rake to her garage. Unable to stand the smell of herself any longer, she stripped out of her clothes in the mudroom and threw them into the washer. Pulling on a long sweatshirt hanging from one of the pegs so she didn’t flash her neighbors, she then made her way upstairs to her shower.
Thirty minutes later, she was curled up on her bed with her laptop open, studying smallpox. The virus had a long and varied history of being used in wars. And based on what she was reading, it wasn’t far-fetched to think it could make a comeback. That thought was particularly poignant when she discovered the article she’d only vaguely remembered and discovered how easy it was to essentially re-create a similar strain. The good news was that the lab that had done the experiment hadn’t re-created the smallpox strain itself, but rather a less harmful version in the same family. The bad news was that the process it’d used could be modified for more nefarious purposes.
After reading through dozens of papers and articles, none of which made her feel any better about the prospect of Jennifer Pritchard playing around with the virus, Devil needed a break. Raising her arms, she stretched from side to side, then leaned against her pillows. Closing her eyes, she started to organize the information they’d collected over the past few days, if only in her head. There were still too many questions, but maybe she could find a pattern, or better yet, a lead they might have missed.
Random thoughts came and went through her mind; sometimes she followed one but didn’t force any in particular. But then her mind replayed her first conversation with Cyn, and she frowned. In her pique at her friends, she’d forgotten to call Will Barnhart. The smallpox idea might be a red herring, but they needed to know one way or the other. Picking up her phone, she started to dial Will’s number. If he didn’t want, or wasn’t able, to run the smallpox test, maybe he’d at least collect a tissue sample and let her do it. It wasn’t exactly legal, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying. Only her phone rang mid-dial and because it was Darius’s name that appeared on the screen, she delayed her call and answered.
“Did you know that it’s possible to re-create horsepox in a lab?” she asked, first thing.
“Good evening to you, Lily, and no, I did not know that. Do we need to be worried about it?”
“Not horsepox, per se. It’s harmless to humans. But the idea that it was re-created—stitched together using different viral genomes—is concerning. It hasn’t been done with smallpox, but I’d wager it’s only a matter of time.” As she spoke, a sudden sense of urgency gripped her. Theyneededto know if Gerard Pritchard had been infected with anything resembling any pox virus. And time was running out. No doubt he’d be released from the hospital soon if he hadn’t already. “I need to make a call. Can I call you back in ten minutes?” she asked.
“Of course—”
Whatever he said next, she missed. After ending the call, she immediately dialed her friend. And hoped she wasn’t too late.
* * *
Darius stared at the phone in his hand, then set it down. He had no idea what had caused Lily’s abrupt departure from their conversation, but given her promise to call him back in a few minutes, he decided it probably wasn’t anything life-threatening. When she called back, he’d ask her then.
Less than five minutes passed when his phone rang again. He’d just turned on a college football game and was sitting on the couch with a beer. He muted the broadcast and answered. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, sorry about that. Sometimes I get these weird—I don’t want to call them premonitions, because they aren’t. But I guess they are a form of instinct that comes from my years of experience.”
“Every soldier with more than one tour under his or her belt knows what you’re talking about. Did you get to it, whatever it was, in time?”
“I did,” she replied, and in the background, he could hear the rustle of her sheets. Not that he needed to be thinking about Lily in bed, but, well, he was thinking about Lily in bed. Although her next words put an end to his fantasies.
“When I visited Gerard Pritchard this morning, I discovered that a friend of mine is his attending physician. I suggested, without outright suggesting, that he run a smallpox test. It didn’t occur to me until this afternoon that the hospital might not have the right equipment to do that. I’d intended to call him earlier and ask but got distracted. I was dialing his number when you called. I figured he could wait, but then something told me I shouldn’t.”
“And did you reach him?”
“Yes, thankfully. Gerard is scheduled to be released in the next hour. My friend won’t run the test, but he said he’d get a tissue sample and let me do it.”
“That’s…well, in violation of any number of laws,” Darius said, though he wasn’t condemning the behavior. Especially not if Lily found anything.
“Yeah, Will, my friend, is a little bit of a rebel but with a huge heart and an even bigger sense of responsibility. I told him more than I wanted to about the situation to get him on board, but his mother was a high-ranking CIA official, and his father worked for the NSA. He knows how to keep secrets.”
“You want me to go pick it up?” he offered. The hospital was close by, and it would be easier for him to get it than for Lily. Unless… “Or do you want to come back into town and stay here tonight?”
She hesitated. He’d taken a chance, and if she said no, then he wouldn’t make a big deal about it. Although his body was already primed at the thought of her back in his apartment.
“I think that’s a good idea,” she said, though the words were spoken slowly, as if she wasn’t quite sure but was willing to be open to the possibility. “Would you mind if we start the test tonight after I pick the sample up from Will?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Swing by and pick me up? Or do you want to meet at the lab?”
“I’ll leave here in the next thirty minutes, pick you up, then we can go straight to the lab from the hospital.”
“Do you have what you need there to run the sample?”
“I have enough. I’m sure the CDC’s equipment would be more efficient, but I can make do. I want to run a couple of blood tests on the two of us as well. Neither of us is having any symptoms so no tissue samples, but I can run an antibody test.”
“Should we be worried?” This was exactly the scenario he’d been concerned about the night before. He understood that Pritchard was nowhere near fatally, or even severely, ill, but mutations were always possible.
