Stephenie Meyer - The Chemist

Alex waited for Kevin to start in on her, irrationally sure he had somehow sensed that she was failing; Way to drop the ball, Oleander, in the half shout that was his normal volume.

Kevin said nothing. She pulled the phone back to look at the screen. Had they been disconnected? Had he dialed her by accident?

The call was live. The seconds counted upward in the bottom corner of the screen.

Alex almost said, Kevin?

Four years of paranoia stopped her tongue.

She pressed the phone to her ear and listened intently. There was no ambient sound of a car or movement. No wind. No animal sounds, no human sounds.

Goose bumps erupted on the backs of her arms, raised the hair on her neck. She’d walked past her car, and now she had to keep going. Her eyes darted around while she kept her head still; she focused on a dumpster in the back corner of the lot. Her pace quickened. She was too close to the center of her enemy’s power. If they were tracing this call, it would not take them long to get here. She wanted to run, wanted it badly, but she kept herself to a quick, purposeful walk.

Still no sound from the other end of the line. The cold, heavy hollow in the pit of her stomach grew larger.

Kevin wasn’t going to suddenly start speaking to her, she knew that. Still, she hesitated for one more second. Once she did what she knew she had to do now, it was over. Her only connection to Kevin was severed.

She hung up. The numbers at the bottom of the screen told her the call had lasted for only seventeen seconds. It felt like much more time had passed.

She walked around the side of the dumpster, where she wasn’t visible from the parking lot. She couldn’t see anyone, which hopefully meant no one could see her.

She set the groceries on the ground.

In the lining of her purse, she had a small lock-picking kit. She’d never had to use it for its real purpose, but it came in handy now and then when she worked with some of her smaller reflux rings and adapters. She pulled the thinnest probe, then used it to pop the SIM card tray out from her phone. Both card and tray went into her bag.

Using the hem of her T-shirt, she carefully wiped the phone down, handling it only through the fabric. The tether of the shirt’s length made it hard to get the phone through the side hatch on the dumpster; it was too high up. She had to toss the phone when she couldn’t reach far enough, but she got it through in one try.

Alex grabbed the paper bags, spun back around, and walked quickly to her car. The minivan was just exiting the lot. She couldn’t tell if the housekeeper had noticed her side trip. She took the longest strides she was capable of as she hurried back.

The phone was gone, but she could almost see the seconds still ticking away in the corner of the screen. There were two possibilities now, and one of those possibilities gave her a very tight deadline indeed.

“Alex, he just pocket-dialed you,” Daniel argued.

“Danny’s right,” Val agreed. “You’re overreacting. It’s nothing.”

Alex shook her head, feeling the pull in her jaw as her teeth clenched. “We need to move,” she said flatly.

“Because the bad guys might be torturing Kevin for information as we speak,” Val recapped. She used the patient, humoring voice people used with very young children and the elderly.

Alex’s answer was cold and hard. “It won’t be a joke if they come for you, Val. I can promise you that.”

“Look, Alex, your own plan had just failed,” Val reminded her. “You were already upset. Kevin called you and didn’t say anything. That is all that happened. I think it’s a little bit of a leap to assume it was more than an accident.”

“It’s what they do,” Alex said in a slow, even voice. Even before Barnaby had gotten her the appropriate classified reading material, she’d seen some of this in action. “The subject has a phone with one number on it. You call that number and see what kind of information you can get from it. You track the signal you’ve just created. You find the person on the other end.”

“Well, there’s nothing to find, though, right?” Daniel asked encouragingly. “You tossed the phone. It can’t lead them to anything more than a parking lot that’s not connected to us.”

“The phone is a dead end,” she agreed. “But if they have Kevin…”

Doubt rippled across Daniel’s face. Val still wore a patronizing expression.

“Do you think they would have killed him?” Daniel asked in a voice that was almost a whisper.

“That’s the best-case scenario,” she said bluntly. She didn’t know how to sugarcoat it or say it in a gentler way. “If he’s dead, they can’t hurt him anymore. And we’re safe. If he’s alive…” She took a deep breath and refocused. “Like I said, we need to move.”

Val was unconvinced. “You really think he’d sell Danny out?”

“Look, Val, I would never question your understanding on anything remotely feminine. That’s your world. This is mine. I am not exaggerating when I say that everyone breaks. It doesn’t matter how strong Kevin is or how much he loves his brother. It may take a while, but he will tell them where we are. And for his sake, I hope it doesn’t take that long.”

It would, though, and she knew it. Rocky as her relationship with Kevin had always been, she had learned to trust him, to know him. He would buy her the time she needed to get Daniel and Val somewhere safe. Partly because he did love his brother, and partly because of his pride. He’d never give Deavers what he wanted easily. Kevin would make them work for every word they pried out of him.

She was glad it wasn’t her job to break Kevin. She was sure he would be the hardest case she’d ever faced. If anyone could do it – actually take his secrets to the grave with him – that person might be Kevin Beach. Maybe he would have broken her perfect record.

For a second, she could see it vividly – Kevin restrained on the state-of-the-art table in the old lab, herself standing over him. How would she have worked the case? If things had panned out just slightly differently – if her Pakistani subject had never murmured the name Wade Pace – the scenario she pictured could have been her reality.

She shook the image away and looked up at Daniel and Val. Alex could see that her tension – her intensity and dark certainty – were finally getting to Daniel, at least.

“If they did get Kevin… what do you think would happen to Einstein?” Val asked, still skeptical, but her lapis eyes were abnormally vulnerable.

Alex winced. Why had she learned to care so much about an animal on top of everything else? What a stupid thing to do.

“We don’t have time to figure everything out right now,” she said. “Do you have a place to go, Val? A place Kevin wouldn’t know about?”

“I’ve got a million places.” Val’s face hardened. Her perfect features suddenly looked like they belonged to a beautiful doll, cold and empty. “You?”

“Our options are a little more limited, but I’ll figure something out. Pack up the things you want to save – it won’t be safe to come back here. Can I keep the wig?”

Val nodded.

“Thanks. Do you have another car besides the one we’ve been using?” Kevin had taken the McKinleys’ SUV when he and Einstein had set off just after midnight.

“I’ve got a couple here. That one isn’t mine. Kevin was driving it when he got here.”

Val pivoted slowly, gracefully, and then sauntered to the stairs. Alex couldn’t tell if she was going to pack or headed up to catch a nap. Val didn’t believe her.

Alex’s mind was racing in a hundred different directions. They’d have to get a new car quickly and dump the one Kevin knew about. There were so many details she had to think through, and she had to do it fast.