Devil's Due (Red Letter Days #2)

Devil's Due (Red Letter Days #2) Page 6

"What is it?" Lucia asked. She didn't move a muscle, though her heart had accelerated into a fast, nervous rhythm.

Pansy looked pale enough to pass out, but her voice was steady. "Just put it down on the desk and step away. Now."

It was too thin to be an explosive device, but there was something in Pansy's voice that warned Lucia not to argue. She set the letter, carefully, in the center of her clean desk, and backed up. Pansy stepped forward and laid the FedEx envelope, with infinite care, down next to it.

"Outside," she said.

"What is it?"

"Fine white powder grains in the FedEx envelope," Pansy said. "I think they leaked out of the red envelope."

Lucia was suddenly, acutely aware of her hands. Her fingertips. She rubbed them gently together and felt grit.

Oh, Christ.

"Go," she snapped, and held up her hands like a surgeon preparing to operate. "Move. Bathroom. You know the drill - scrub as hard as you can. Go, Pansy!"

"But you - "

"I'll be there in a second. McCarthy!" She yelled it, full-throated. He emerged from his office, half-glasses still in place. "I need you to dial the phone," she said. "I may be contaminated."

The glasses came off. "Contaminated how?"

"Envelope," she said. "Powder." She struggled to keep cool on the outside; fear was strangling her, making her breaths shallow and fast. "Dial this number for me and put it on speakerphone." She recited it from memory. He punched it in, short stabbing motions, and stepped back as it rang. And rang. And rang...

"Pansy?" Manny Glickman's cautious voice.

"No, Manny, it's Lucia," she said. Absurd, how useless she felt, unable to use her hands; she was holding them in midair, acutely aware of the tingling in her fingertips. Imagination, most likely, but, God. "I need you to get over here with some kind of testing kit. We may have been exposed to something hazardous. A fine white powder in an envelope."

Silence. A long one. She felt sweat beading on the back of her neck, under the thick fall of her hair.

"Have you called anyone else?" Manny asked. "FBI? Postal inspectors? The cops?"

"No. Just you. I want your opinion first."

"How many people handled it?"

"Just Pansy and me. It's FedEx."

"Lucia, I understand you don't want to jump to conclusions, but testing for anthrax isn't instant. You let that FedEx courier continue on his way, you could endanger hundreds of people. You need to call the FBI, right now. I'll come, but you need to call. It's probably nothing, but just in case. Report it."

He was right. She hadn't thought about the courier, and she should have. "I will," she said. "Manny - "

"Did Pansy open the package?"

"Yes."

"Ungloved."

"Yes."

"And you?"

"I opened the inner envelope."

He hung up. She looked at McCarthy, who raised his eyebrows.

"You want me to find the number for the FBI?"

"Yes. Ask for Agent Rawlins. I know him."

"Fine." McCarthy locked eyes with her. "Go. Scrub."

She did, elbowing through the bathroom door to find Pansy still at the sinks, scrubbing with handfuls of thick, milky soap. Lucia used her own elbow, to turn on the hot water - thanks to whatever industrial designer's foresight had caused them to put in long-handled faucets - and began to do the same.

Pansy was crying. Not noisily, just silently leaking tears that trailed down her face and splashed into the roiling water in the sink.

"It's going to be all right," Lucia said. "We're all right."

Neither of them believed it, but Pansy gave her a shaky smile.

Lucia scrubbed until her hands felt raw.

When she and Pansy emerged from the bathroom, McCarthy was right outside, pacing. "FBI's on the way." he said. "They're getting to the FedEx driver and they've alerted the regional sorting center to back-trace. Agent Rawlins is sending a team, and Hazmat's coming, but it'll be a while. I told them about Manny. They're okay with him working the scene, providing he's careful and he leaves everything in situ."

They would be, Lucia thought. Manny had an even higher credibility within the FBI than to the outside world.

"I got hold of the building maintenance people and shut down the air ducts. They're finding the mailroom people and getting everybody together for testing."

She nodded. It sounded as if he'd done everything she'd have done, plus a step or two more. Authority and decisiveness came naturally to him, even after two years of enforced subordination. She was shakily relieved; she liked being in command, but at this particular moment, it was good to have someone else there.

"Look, I know you're worried, but chances are this isn't anthrax or some other pathogen. Ninety-eight percent of these kinds of things turn out to be jokes. Carelessness. Somebody spilling their baby powder on the desk. You're going to be okay."

"I know." She gave him a fast, reassuring smile. "Although I think my manicure is beyond saving. Did you lock down the office?"

"Yeah." He held up the keys, which he'd evidently found in Pansy's desk. "FBI will be here any minute."

"Manny will be here first," Pansy said. "Trust me."

Pansy was right.

Manny arrived in just under fifteen minutes, dragging a wheeled case full of stuff. He was a big, unkempt man -  not as unkempt and wild-eyed as he'd been when Lucia first met him, but Manny was no one's poster child for stability. He wore a black T-shirt with FORENSICS on the chest and a huge white fingerprint on the back. Obviously not standard issue from any agency, but probably as official as he had, these days. He'd trimmed his bushy hair recently, and the blue jeans he had on didn't look too ancient. All in all, a much improved Manny Glickman.

A more focused one, as well. He mumbled a hello to Lucia, gave McCarthy a genuinely delighted smile and a handshake, and held Pansy off from a full-body hug with a warning gesture. "Clothes," he said. "Off and in the bag." He handed her a yellow plastic sack marked with a red biohazard symbol. "Put these on." He'd brought blue jeans and a red sweater, as well as a pair of comfortable-looking flat black slippers and, in a separate plastic sack, what looked like underwear. "I got them from your place."

She nodded.

"Everything in the bag, understand? Rings, watch, necklace, earrings. Underwear. Everything. Nothing that touched you stays on."

Pansy's eyes filled with tears for a second, and then she blinked and pasted on a grin and said, "You just want to get me out of my panties." Before he could answer, she took the sack and pile of clothes and headed for the bathroom.

"Where is it?" he asked Lucia.

She nodded toward her office.

"I didn't have any clothes for you, but I brought scrubs and booties."

"Thank you," she said gravely. "The FedEx envelope and the red envelope are on my desktop. No other papers there, thankfully."

"Red envelope?" Manny raised his eyebrows.

"I slit it open, but Pansy stopped me before I could do more. I don't suppose there's a way we can take a look...?"

"What if there's something in it to aerosolize the substance? Even a paper clip and a rubber band would be high-tech enough to spread a cloud of powder."

That was a scary thought. She nodded mutely, took the scrubs and ducked into Jazz's office to change. The scrubs - maroon - were far from what she'd think of as couture, but they served. Her clothes went into a plastic Hazmat bag, which McCarthy had prelabeled with GARZA in big block letters.

She hated the booties.

"Cute," McCarthy said when she came out. She gave him an ill-tempered glare. "No, honestly. I've always had this nurse thing."

"Shut it, McCarthy."

"I've got this pain right - "

"You don't want to know where you're going to have a pain if you don't shut up."

He grinned. She perched next to him on the reception desk, bootied feet swinging aimlessly, pulse still driving fast. McCarthy's attempts at humor were soothing, but not soothing enough.

Pansy reappeared from around the corner, Hazmat bag in hand. "Where's Manny?" she asked. McCarthy nodded to the closed office door. "What do we do with these?"

McCarthy checked that the names were clear on each bag, and then bundled both into another, larger one. He labeled that one with both their names and the date. Evidence handling was something he was obviously just as good at as managing in a crisis. Lucia wished he'd let her do it, but could understand why he was keeping her exposures to a minimum. Still, waiting was hard. Her hands - freshly scrubbed - felt cold. She rubbed them on her legs to warm them, saw McCarthy watching, and gave him a quick smile to show that there was nothing wrong, nothing at all; being exposed to a hazardous substance was an everyday occurrence.

The phone rang. It was Jazz.

"The FBI is there," she said breathlessly. "Bastards aren't letting us in the building. We're downstairs."

"I didn't want you to come, Jazz," Lucia said.

"Yeah, well, I came anyway. Borden, too. What do you want us to do?"

"Call Laskins, get him out of bed if you have to. Find out what GP&L sent us. Get them to fax over a copy of the text, if they sent it in the first place. I can't get to the red letter to read it."

"Which might be the point," Jazz said.

"True."

"Still...if the opposition could get to the envelope to doctor it, why not take the message? Why not replace it with one of their own and skip the anthrax scare? They have to know it would draw attention."

"All good questions. I don't know. I don't even know that there was an original message in the first place. All I know is that there's a FedEx envelope that came from GP&L's mailroom."

Jazz made a frustrated sound, like sandpaper rubbing stone. "But you're all okay, right?"

"It takes up to seven days to manifest anthrax symptoms," Lucia said. "Ask me in a week."

Manny came out of the office. He was carrying a square black case that was sealed with more bright yellow tape.

"Hang on," Lucia said to Jazz, and pressed the phone against her chest to muffle it. "Better get moving, Manny. The FBI's downstairs. They know you're here, but if you want to avoid questions..." Which she knew he did. Manny would always choose to avoid questions.

His face was wet with sweat. "Yeah. I'd better get this sample back to the lab. Sooner I get the tests started, the sooner..."

She nodded. Manny paused, gazing at Pansy. She tried for a smile, and he looked as if he badly wanted to touch her, but neither of them managed to pull it off.

"See you," he said, and headed for the stairs. Pansy's gaze followed him. Lucia got back on the phone with Jazz.

"Manny's coming out," she said. "He's got a sample of the powder. Maybe you can ride herd on him...?"

"Done," Jazz said crisply, and hung up. That was Jazz: minimum talk, maximum effort.

"So," McCarthy said. "What do we do now?"

"Anybody want coffee?"

It took hours. Not a surprise; Lucia was well accustomed to the pace of investigations. But it still rankled. She was tired, exhausted from adrenaline, and starving. To her disappointment, the FBI hadn't exactly stormed the building. Agent Rawlins was present and accounted for, but he'd only brought one other agent and two technicians, one of whom was on loan from the Kansas City PD. One Haz-mat suit, which none of them bothered to put on.

"So," Rawlins said, and pulled up a chair next to Lucia as his men got to work. "Who's out to kill you this week?"

"Agent Rawlins, you wound me."

"Can't say as I'd be the first, ma'am."

"Cut the folksy bullshit."

He had a lived-in face, too many lines for his young age, and the bright hair made him look tired. His dark brown eyes didn't give away much except his general intelligence. Rawlins liked to pretend he was a hayseed. Lucia knew better. The man had graduated top of his class from Quantico, had piled up a string of high-profile cases and was in the running to be moved up to D.C. on his next rotation. If ever a man was going to make it out of the FBI bush leagues, it was Agent Rawlins.

He nodded, rubbed his big hands together and looked down at the floor. "Want to tell me how this happened?"

She told him the facts, as briskly as possible.

"I won't ask who has a grudge against you, because I know damn well that the list is about as long as the phone book. Including a couple dozen drug dealers and some very unhappy terrorists from the old days." He looked up, directly into her eyes. "You know who the envelope's from?"

"Gabriel, Pike & Laskins," she said. "Our attorneys."

"I'm the first to believe lawyers are evil, but why would they want to kill off their own clients?"

"I doubt they would. Anybody could have slipped an envelope into their FedEx bin at their offices. Wouldn't be too difficult."

"Good enough." Rawlins nodded. "You get a lot of correspondence from these lawyers?"

She smiled thinly. "A fair amount, yes. Legal matters."

"Mind if I take a look?"

"It's privileged."

"Miss Garza, you sound like a guilty party."

"I sound like someone who understands how you work. You're on a fishing expedition, Agent Rawlins."

"Am I close to catching anything?"

"Not even a minnow."

He smiled and looked away, toward the office door. His tech was coming out, holding a sealed bag marked EVIDENCE, with the standard biohazard symbol on it. Rawlins gave him a thumbs-up and stood.

"The lab's backed up," he said. "Might take a few days to come back with a result on this. My advice - close down until we get back to you. Take vacation."

"You're checking the air handlers in the building?"

"We're taking swabs. My guys are doing field tests, but just so you know, field tests aren't that reliable. False positives in a lot of cases. The lab's got some kind of growth medium it uses that can give us a determination in twenty-four hours."

"Once they get to us."

"Yeah. Once they get to you." It was unspoken, but he knew Manny would get to them first. Of course.

"Your techs already did field tests, right? What did they say?"

Rawlins was impossible to read. "Like I said, field tests aren't really reliable. They're just indicators. We don't base any kind of decisions on what they say."

McCarthy, who'd sat quietly through this entire conversation, said, "Listen, friend, I haven't even been out of prison for one full day yet. Don't make me assault a federal agent. I'd like to spend at least one night in a decent bed, watch a little television...so please, answer the nice lady's question."

"I can't comment."

"What are we, the friggin' press? Right," McCarthy said. "Guess I'm on my way back to Ellsworth." He stood up. Lucia did, too, getting between him and Rawlins; she didn't like the vibe that was cooking the air between them. Dammit, nobody told me that Jazz was the calm one of their partnership...

"Back off, Ben," she said, and put a hand flat on his chest. She felt the contact like a physical shock, felt the tension in his muscles, and lowered her voice. "Ben. Please. Let me handle it."

He hesitated for about a second, then lowered himself back into the chair. Next to him, Pansy looked paralyzed with fright.

Rawlins said, "The field test kit showed positive for anthrax. But the field test kit shows bullshit results about thirty percent of the time, so I wouldn't get too excited just yet. Besides, both of you made all the right moves, even if the results are reliable. It's going to be okay. You barely had an exposure."

Pansy nodded. Her face was the color of old ivory, her eyes stark and scared. Lucia felt her fingers tingling again, and knew it was just nerves, just her mind playing tricks on her.

"Thank you, Agent Rawlins," she said. "Can we go?"

"We're going to take you to the hospital as soon as we're done here. By the way, this place is going under seal until we get the results back from the lab. After we find out, either way, you're going to want to line up a biohazard team to come in and do a thorough cleanup. Just in case. Good for business, anyway. It'll make those potential clients feel safer."

McCarthy looked as if he wanted to commit a federal crime. Lucia took Rawlins's arm and walked him a few feet away before she said, "Do I need to get Pansy on any treatments?"

"The two of you should be on prophylaxis, just to be safe. I've made a phone call. You'll be going to Saint Luke's. They're already set up for you. They'll start you on antibiotics. You can discontinue them if the tests show a negative."

Reality was starting to set in. She could feel it as a fine trembling in her nerves, a slight hazy edge to the familiar surroundings. "And if the tests show positive?"

"Antibiotics for thirty days, at least. Maybe sixty, depending on if you start to show any symptoms. Look, Lucia - " He stopped. One of the techs was motioning at him from down the hall. "Be right back."

He walked away, had a short conversation and came back. "Interesting news. My guys tracked the FedEx. Guess what? It doesn't exist."

"Sorry?"

"Officially, this tracking number doesn't exist. It never entered the FedEx system. Label looks genuine, but it must be a mockup. Pretty good one, too." He moved past her toward Pansy, who looked up at him with a determined expression. "Was it the regular FedEx guy today?"

"No. His name's Jim, but it wasn't him. It was a woman."

"We're going to need to sit you down for an Identikit, okay? We want to know what she looked like." He glanced back at Lucia. "FedEx didn't make any deliveries today to this office."

Pansy looked, if possible, even more pale.

"Let's get you guys to the hospital," Rawlins said.