Page 49 of The Mech Who Loved Me
She filled him in on what she and Dr. Gibson hadfound.
"Something is vexing me," she admitted, pushing thoughts of Kincaid's mouth and body out of her mind. "If someone killed Mr. Thomas, then that someoneknewhe was a blue blood. How? Was it someone watching the clinics? The same person who tampered with the vaccine and set the bombs? Did they tamper with all the vaccine vials and track every single victim down? The lack of bodies on the ground suggests otherwise, as there were at least ninety-eight other patients through the clinic during the time period we've nailed down, and there's been no outcry. We'd have noticed if people were finding more bodies. So why Mr. Thomas? Why Marcus Long? Why Francis Jenkins, John Redmond, or Quentin Longbow? What made these gentlemen stand out as mentodie?"
"Can't help you, I'mafraid."
She sighed and lowered her head, resting her hands on one of her benches. There were no answers to that question, not yet. But if she kept asking questions, then maybe she'd jog loose whatever thought kept teasing her. "I'm missing something. I'm sure of it. There's something about this case I feel Ishouldknow."
His hands settled on her shoulders. "You've done an amazing job already. I'm in awe of your thoughtprocesses."
Awe?She swallowed a little, still feeling the weight of a thousand other rejections over the years. "It's nothing, really. Dr. Gibson helped me figure out mostofit."
Kincaid turned her around, his black brows drawing together. "Ava, I've been at your side for most of this case. Dr. Gibson might be an accessory to the thought process, but you're the one in charge. You're the one who's putting this altogether." He arched a brow. "I feel fairly bloody useless, to behonest."
"You're not useless," she protested. "You saved my life at the clinic when the bomb detonated. I wouldn'tbehere—"
"It wouldn't have detonated if I hadn't opened the backpanel."
"Yes, but then whoever set it could have triggered the detonation at any time they wished, and we'd know no better." She glared up at him. "I wouldn't have even made it to Mr. Thomas's house in the first place without getting caught inthatriot."
"So I'm to provide some muscle,amI?"
"I'm sure you'll come in handy," she replied, not quite looking at the breadth of hischest.
"Aye, when someone needs a bunch of fives," hesnorted.
"WhenIneed you," she said quietly, and the night he'd put his coat around her shoulders at the Garden of Eden sprang to mind. "I couldn't do this without you. I grow hysterical sometimes, when I cannot even help it. Here, looking at vaccines, and evidence, and bodies, I'm in my element. It all makes sense to me, and I'm in control. Out there"—she gestured to the windows—"I'm fighting to keep my equilibrium. You know London like the back of your hand. You know its people and the way they think. I'm merely a bystander, plucking clues from what they leave behind. You're more important than youthink."
The intensity of his gaze burned her. "You're my anchor," she whispered, "my link to a world I sometimes don'tunderstand."
Kincaid twirled something in his fingers; a flash of color, quickly contained. "I'm not going to keep arguing over which one of us is more useful than the other. You win. You couldn't dowithoutme."
A laugh escaped her, but he reached out, brushing the curl of hair that had escaped her chignon back behind her ear, and when he removed his hand, there was something else tuckedthere.
Ava tugged it free, catching a hint of its dark, sultry scent. Brilliant magenta petals draped lushly over her palm. "Cattleya labiata," she breathed. "Oh, my goodness, where did you get this?" Then horror dawned. "Youcutthe flower off theorchid?"
"I told you I was busy today. Do youlikeit?"
"Yes!" Even if he'd beheaded it. Ava cupped the precious bloom in her palms. "This was the first orchid species Mr. William Swainson sent back from Brazil in 1818. I've seen it in books, but never...." Never inperson.
She felt almost breathless. He'd picked a flower for her. No, he'd gone out of his way to find an orchid, because he knew she adored them, and had a fascination with plants. Ava looked up, a smile spreading across her face, and that's when the tickling knot at the back of her mind suddenly unraveled, almost as if she'd pulled a thread. Suddenly her mind made one of those leaps of intuition it sometimes did, and Ava's gaze drifted past Kincaid and settled on thebookshelf.
A bookshelf groaning beneath the weight of over a dozen books on rare plants from various parts of the worlds, some with healing properties, somepoisonous....
"That's it," she whispered, and hurried toward the bookshelf, still cupping the orchid. Excitement bloomed. Where the devilwasit?
"What's it?" Kincaid followed her, but Ava paid himnomind.
She let her fingers run over the leather-bound spines of the books, pulling them out and then discarding them on her desk until she had a pile. She was going to crush the orchid, so she tucked it back behind her ear, flipping throughabook.
"I kept thinking it's not a disease that killed Mr. Thomas. There's no viral or bacterial interference, and no other agent can cause such destruction within a blue blood's body. It has to be a toxin or a poison, and I remember... there was something Ireadonce...."
A poison, herb, or toxin that affected blue bloods and their evolved cousins thedhampirin a different way than it didhumans?
Maybe her interest in obscure plants could be the make-or-break lead this case needed? Ava tossed the book aside, and pulled down another. "Rare Plants from the Himalayas." Kincaid picked up a book and read the spine as she flicked through the pages of hers, before his wordspenetrated.
Ava stole the book from his grasp and turned to her reading desk in the window, rifling through the careworn pages.Himalayas...that rang a bell. "We're searching for a toxin," she told him, "one that strikes down bluebloods."
"Hemlock—"
