Page 46 of Devil
Once he was done, she tossed him a towel, then undressed herself as he dried off. She went through the same process of stripping down and getting hosed off. After she’d dried herself and all their clothes were in the garbage bag, they picked their way in bare feet to her car. Using more towelettes, she wiped down the few spots she’d touched earlier. Once the area was clean, she opened the trunk and tossed both the duffel and the garbage bag inside.
A few minutes later, they were dressed in new clothes and as clean as they were going to get. She reached into the car to grab her phone but paused when Darius spoke. “We need to isolate ourselves,” he said.
She gave a jerky nod as her fingers wrapped around her phone. “I saw Jennifer yesterday at the hospital and she had zero symptoms. I’m going to take an educated guess and say she wasn’t infected until she returned here after visiting her father last night. Maybe not even until this morning if the accident in the lab occurred today. That means the time frame from infection to death is less than twenty-four hours.”
“Could she have been infected at the hospital and not know it?”
Devil started to shake her head, then stopped. “When a virus is strong enough to kill—when it’s strong enough that a person goes from having no symptoms to death in such a short time—a long incubation period is unlikely. I don’t have enough information to make a concrete call, but based on what I know, I’d say the incubation time is probably measured in hours. This is a new virus, though. One that neither I nor anyone other than Jennifer Pritchard knows anything about, so there’s definitely a margin for error in my assessment.”
“Are you going to call Six now?”
She nodded and dialed the number as she walked several feet away. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep the conversation from Darius, but she was still disquieted by the fact that he hadn’t mentioned his injury. Or that he’d been unconscious. A sharp sense of betrayal had lanced through her when she realized he probably hadn’t planned to tell her about the incident. Admittedly, there were valid reasons he might not have dumped the info on her as they’d been examining Jennifer’s creepy stalker room. But she still felt…hurt by his omission. It wasn’t particularly rational—which only added to her irritation—but the complexity of her emotions made her want space. Both physical and mental.
She glanced over her shoulder as she spoke. Darius had his arms crossed, and he was leaning against the bumper of her car, watching her. Turning her back to him, she refocused on Six and relayed everything they’d found. She answered a few questions, then, a few minutes later, she ended the call. Pausing before she returned to the car, she inhaled the clean, crisp air and pulled herself together. Another breath later, she started walking.
“Six is going to call her contacts at the CDC,” she said as she approached Darius. “We should clear out of here and start down to DC. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to stay in a hotel, so we’ll have to see if we can find a secluded safe house or something like that.”
“Any chance you have any friends who could run some blood tests for us to be safe?”
She tipped her head. “That’s a good idea. Let me see what I can coordinate while we drive.”
“I’d offer to drive, but I have a feeling you might take my head off if I do,” he said.
His attempt at levity failed, and it took everything in her to simply nod in response. His eyes searched hers, then he pushed off the car and made his way to the passenger side.
Once he was seated, she took one last glance at the area around the house. The tracks they left in the drive would likely be erased when the CDC arrived. There was no way to disguise the puddle of water where they’d hosed off, but hopefully, the authorities would simply think it was a leak. Other than trespassing, they hadn’t done anything wrong, but the CDC wouldn’t take kindly to them being out and about in the population after having been exposed to the lab. With the president arriving the next day, though, they couldn’t risk staying in shadows longer than necessary.
With one final deep breath of the crisp autumn air, Devil pulled her cloak of cool around her and climbed into the car. Without a word, she navigated them to the main road and then to the highway that would meet up with the New York State Thruway. From there they’d head south toward DC.
Once on the Thruway, she made a call to Franklin, who, hallelujah, answered his phone. She updated him on what they’d found and asked that he get word to the powers that be on the president’s security team. He readily agreed and by the time they disconnected, Devil was already planning her next call.
Like her and Darius, the only law Sonia, Nadia, and the Lam sisters had broken was when they’d trespassed into the lab. Everything else that they suspected was only conjecture. Which meant that no judge would issue a warrant for any of them, and they’d all remain free to go about their daily lives. She might not be able to prevent them from moving forward with their plan, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep track of them.
Which led to her second call.
To date, Six and Cyn had been the primary liaisons with Stella regarding the people she had on the Lam sisters. But Devil wanted to update her on their most recent adventure and ask for her assistance with a few other matters.
“Hey, Devil,” Stella answered on the second ring. “The sisters are taking in a show this evening and are booked back on the train tomorrow morning.”
Devil frowned. “Aren’t most Broadway shows off on Mondays?”
“They’re actually attending a comedy show. Jasper Lin is a Chinese American comedian. He’s amazing, and he’s doing a weeklong stint in New York.”
“Okay,” Devil drawled, not sure if that piece of information was important. “We’re on our way down to DC,” she said, switching topics to the reason she’d called, “and I was hoping you could help me with a couple of things.”
“Name it,” Stella answered without hesitation.
Without fanfare, Devil launched into her first question. “I’m traveling with Commander Darius Washington, and we need a place that we can fully isolate for twenty-four hours. I seem to recall you might have a safe house or two in the area?”
“We have a few. Let me see what’s open. Hold on.” Devil listened as Stella typed something into her computer. “The place in Alexandria is open. It’s a townhouse with its own garage. There’s a rural place in Maryland. And last, we have an apartment in town, near Dupont Circle.”
“The Alexandria place sounds the best since we can park in the garage but still be close to the action. If it’s not a problem?”
“Not at all. We have it to use and while I may not know everything going on, if you’re involved, I know it’s important.”
Devil smiled at that. “Thank you, it is. Now, on to the second more hair-raising question.”
Stella chuckled. “Lay it on me. I love hair-raisers.”
