Stephenie Meyer - The Chemist

She located the woman and child dawdling along the trail. A larger group had caught up to them and flowed around them from both sides. Alex could see the woman’s face clearly now – it was definitely Carston’s daughter. Erin had paused to offer Olivia a sippy cup.

The path was getting more crowded. It was hot, and the wig was making her head itch and sweat. The straw hat wasn’t helping.

Alex focused on an empty bench about ten feet ahead of the duo. There was another large crowd behind the first. If she timed it right, she could intercept Erin at the bench while the second crowd was passing.

Alex moved purposefully back the way she’d just come, watching through her dark glasses to see if anyone was paying attention to her. The first group – a loud extended family, it looked like, with several toddlers, multiple parents, and one older woman in a wheelchair – enveloped her for a moment. She dodged through them and then slowed a bit.

The second crowd was all adults – foreign tourists on a day trip, she guessed, many of them wearing fanny packs – and they reached Erin as she was almost to the bench. Alex moved against the flow until she was just ahead of her quarry. As Erin passed a foot away from the bench, Alex turned, twisting around an older man, and pretended to stumble. She reached out and grabbed Erin’s hand on the stroller handle. Her palm mashed the pouch of clear fluid and forced it empty with one strong squeeze.

“Hey!” Erin said, turning.

Alex ducked back, twisting partially behind the closest guest. Erin came face to face with the bald septuagenarian.

“Excuse me,” he said hesitantly to both of them, not sure how he’d become entangled. He pulled free of Alex and stepped around Erin and the stroller.

Alex watched as Erin blinked once, then again. Her eyelids seemed to get stuck on the second blink. Alex jumped forward and grabbed Erin around the waist as she started to crumple, then jerked her toward the bench so that they fell heavily onto it together. Alex jammed her elbow against the wooden back; it would leave a bruise, but one she could easily cover. Erin was taller and weighed more than Alex, so Alex wasn’t able to keep them from slumping awkwardly. Alex loosed a slightly manic laugh – hopefully anyone watching would think they were playing around.

The little girl was singing to herself inside the stroller. She hadn’t seemed to notice that she’d stopped moving. Alex extricated herself from the mother and pulled the stroller closer, angling it so that Olivia was facing away from Erin.

Erin lolled on the bench, her head falling onto her right shoulder and her mouth hanging open.

A third conglomeration of visitors moved past them. No one stopped. Alex was operating quickly, so she couldn’t keep close tabs on any reaction, but no one had raised an alarm yet.

She pulled the bucket hat lower over Erin’s face, shading her lifeless expression. Out of the side pocket of her backpack, Alex drew the little perfume bottle. She reached around the edge of the stroller’s shade and pressed the nozzle down for two seconds. The singing ceased, and then Alex felt the light thud through the plastic frame of the stroller as the child fell back against the seat.

Moving as casually as she could, Alex patted Erin’s shoulder, then stood up and stretched.

“I’ll get her some lunch, you go ahead and rest,” Alex said, smoothing the wig under her hat in case her tumble had disarranged it. She glanced around, eyes hidden behind her glasses. No one seemed to be focused on the little tableau she’d created. She grasped the stroller’s handle and started moving back toward the parking lot. At first she kept the pace easy. She looked toward the animal cages like the others were doing. As she got farther from the bench, she began moving faster. A mother with an afternoon appointment.

Outside the bathroom at the visitors’ center, she parked the stroller and pulled Olivia into her arms. The child had to weigh over thirty pounds and felt heavier because her body was slack. Alex tried to arrange the unconscious child into the same position she’d seen other parents use – straddling one hip, legs on either side, head cradled on the shoulder. It didn’t feel like she’d gotten it right, but she had to move anyway. She gritted her teeth and walked as quickly as she could through the gate. She wished she’d been able to park closer, but eventually, with sweat soaking her T-shirt, she reached the car.

Alex hadn’t had time to get a car seat. She glanced around surreptitiously to see if anyone was watching, but the area of the parking lot she was in was mostly full, and the people arriving now were far away. The early quitters had already left; she was alone.

She laid the child on the backseat and wrapped a seat belt around her waist. Then she covered Olivia with a blanket to conceal her.

Alex straightened up and checked for witnesses again. No one was nearby; no one was watching her. She pulled a syringe from the inside pocket of her pack and leaned in to administer the drug to the sleeping child. She’d calculated the dose for someone weighting thirty to forty pounds. It should keep Olivia under for about two hours.

Alex turned the car on and cranked up the air-conditioning. She started breathing again for what felt like the first time since she’d entered the zoo.

Phase one was successful. Erin would wake up in forty-five minutes, more or less. Alex was sure that paramedics would be attending to her by then. When she woke, she’d sound the alarm about her missing daughter. The zoo would be searched first, then the police would be brought in. Alex had to be in position when Erin realized her daughter had been taken, that she’d not merely wandered off while her mother was having some sort of seizure. Alex was 85 percent sure which call Erin would make first.

She really hoped that Val would be done working her magic by the time she arrived at the new hiding place so Alex would know exactly which plan was moving forward – not because she’d made up her mind as to which outcome she wanted most. Going in alone… that was suicide. But taking Daniel… was that murder-suicide?

Maybe Val’s confidence in herself was misplaced. Maybe Daniel would just look like himself in a wig.

Alex could do it alone. She’d just make it very clear what would happen to Olivia if she, Alex, didn’t live through the night. That would keep Carston in line, wouldn’t it?

She didn’t want to think about the things Carston could set in motion. The traps he could lay so that once he had Olivia back, Alex would be his.

Alex called Val as she approached the new building, and when she pulled into the underground garage, Val was waiting by a set of elevators with a wheeled cart – it looked like something a hotel visitor would receive room service on. The garage was otherwise empty of other people. Alex couldn’t spot any cameras, but she kept her body between the open back car door and the best view inside. Neither Val nor Alex spoke. Alex shifted the sleeping child to the bottom shelf of the cart, then rearranged the blanket around her so her shape was obscured.

This elevator was more normal than the one that led to Val’s penthouse – just a silver box, as in most of the buildings where Alex had lived. It made her nervous that the box would suddenly slow and the doors would open, exposing them. Val must have felt similarly. She kept her hand on the button for the sixteenth floor, as if holding it down would guarantee them express service.

While the elevator climbed, Alex noticed Val’s expression for the first time. It was… a little too stimulated. Alex hoped Val wasn’t heading into some kind of power-mad version of a sugar rush.

The elevator doors opened to an empty hallway. It was a nice building, with fancy moldings and marble floors, but it looked pedestrian after Val’s other place.