Good Chemistry (9 page)

Joanna screamed.

Lewis made a lukewarm effort to extricate himself from Bernie’s grip. Andrew read a stopwatch, scribbled a few last-minute notes, and then put the notebook down. He produced a syringe full of the antidote and injected Bernie.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as she pretended to lose consciousness. She feigned another bout of the shakes and then pretended to come around. “Oh, where am I? How did I get in here?” Bernie got up and dusted herself off as she continued to play the innocent. Joanna looked at her with an expression of shock and puzzlement. Lewis looked at her with an expression of shock, puzzlement, and arousal.

“It’s all right, everyone.” Andrew assured them. “We were conducting an experiment. Apparently, there are still a few kinks I need to iron out. I’m going to have to narrow the activator down to a smaller set of genes that are specific only to the target individual.”

“Oh, does this mean it doesn’t work?” Bernie pouted softly as she took his arm to console him.

Andrew’s mom and dad looked at each other and then back at their son. At the exact same moment, they asked, “Just what the hell are you working on?”

Chapter 9

Debra woke up even earlier than usual. It was only three-thirty in the morning. She was in a state of inner turmoil the instant she awoke. Her rigidly disciplined mind reasserted control over her volatile brewing emotions.

She sat down in the kitchen and had her usual glass of orange juice. Then she headed out the door for a ten-mile run before heading off to work. Her mind had wall-papered-over most of the last few days.

Debra was already regaining her single-minded focus. She was going back to work today. If for no other reason, than to deny her coworkers the satisfaction of believing they drove her out, with their constant barrage of harassment.

Debra’s finely tuned body was cranking out the miles. Her heart rate never broke a hundred. Her breathing remained slow and even as she glided effortlessly along. On the outside, everything appeared normal, yet in Debra’s head; she was fooling herself into believing that she could push all the stuff back inside her heart and lock it away there. There were just too many things changing all at the same time. Debra felt like she was juggling one too many balls, and the whole thing was threatening to come down on her.

She was stitching together a whole new picture of her father. All the clues down through the years were falling into place. An offhand comment here or a dirty look there. Her mind was weaving together a completely new tapestry of her father and the picture it was forming was painful to say the least.

Everything she had always put down to discipline she saw in a new light. A true light. The jarring revelation of hatred Debra got from her father was no drug-induced anomaly, in fact, quite the opposite. The drug only served to remove the veil that had always hung over the truth. When it finally fell away all of her gut-hunches and half-realized insights came sharply into focus.

The only human connection Debra had known for most of her life had suddenly vanished. In reality, only the illusion of it vanished because that’s all it ever was. Debra was a strong woman, but to realize that no human on the planet had ever loved her, even she wasn’t strong enough to cope with that.

The loneliness that had always hung around on the periphery of her existence was rapidly taking center stage. Debra felt utterly empty inside. Throughout her life, during the rough times, when the loneliness threatened to break through and overwhelm her, Debra always had a fantasy of her long-lost mother. She consoled herself with it. It centered on that one magical day—always sometime in the future—when Debra would finally find her.

She always imagined that her mom would be incredibly proud of her. Proud of the strong woman she had become. Proud of all she accomplished. Now, even that was shattered in one quick stroke. In perhaps the cruelest twist of fate of all, she found herself thinking about the Doc Robber and remembering their encounters. He was a man who seemed completely antithetical to Debra’s very being.

He was everything she was against. He was everything she had committed her very existence to combating and defeating. He was
supposed
to be everything she loathed and hated. Yet, instead of all that, deep down in her heart, she knew he was not everything bad. If fact, it was beginning to feel like he was simply
everything
, period.

It took every ounce of Debra’s will power to keep from admitting that to herself. She hated the very idea of it. Every time his words played through her mind, she would let out an indignant huff of frustration, trying to prove to somebody that she felt deeply insulted by his arrogant presumptions.
That he was the only man strong enough to love her.
My God. What sort of a pompous ass even thinks that way? Debra let off another angry huff.

The problem was that there was no one around to express this to; frankly, there was nobody around who cared. Still, Debra’s cheeks heated with fiery indignation. Besides, that name, Johansen Davenport! What the hell sort of alias was that?

All of this Debra was able to push from her mind. Johansen Davenport might well be handsome and mysterious, but he simply did not have the foothold in Debra’s mind the way her father and her work did.

No. That was what was meaningful to Debra. She was determined to put that part of her life back together. She knew what had to be her first step. Debra put her hands on her knees, and took a few deep breaths as she finished her run back by the kitchen door.

She got her phone and called into work. She gave her best impression of someone getting over a head cold. Debra intended to go back to work, but before she could even think about that, she had to go back to that spot on the beach, wade into the Atlantic, and find the blue diamond. When she finally nailed Johansen Davenport’s ass to the wall, there couldn’t be any rumors of lost evidence to cast a pallor over her righteous bust.

Debra showered and put on her black, two-piece bikini. Over that, she wore jeans and a sweater. The sun would be coming up soon and she wanted to be the first person on the beach when it did.

Debra stopped off for a quick breakfast and a few much-needed cups of coffee. She repeatedly caught herself dropping the edge of her paper to look and see if Johansen would pop up but he never materialized. She just kept reassuring herself that she would bust him cold the next time he mysteriously appeared.

Debra felt the need to come out on top and prove a man wrong more keenly than she ever had. The poor arrogant fool Johansen Davenport had made a serious miscalculation when he set his sights on conquering Debra Manning.

At last, the sun began its spectacular emergence from the Atlantic depths. The distant waves took on the appearance of molten metal. The waves gave off a blinding glint as they shuffled through every color of the hot end of the rainbow.

Debra found her way back to the exact spot as near as she could figure. She found a stone of the same approximate size and weight as the blue diamond. She hurled it as far as she could, as far as she did the night before in the heat of anger.

She pulled her snorkeling mask down over her eyes as she marched like Poseidon, set out to conquer the sea. She got to where she believed was the likely spot. She waited for the sand to settle down. Like the morning before there were already people milling around.

Sea birds began their daily ritual of caterwauling and dive-bombing runs for fish as another day in the eternal struggle for survival got underway.

Debra scanned the seabed for anything blue and shiny. She didn’t expect it to be that easy, but still there was always a slim chance. Then Debra got down to business. She began raking her fingers through the sand feeling around for the telltale sensation of cut stone.

A few hours went by without any luck. More and more people crowded the beach. They pushed their way into the water and right into the middle of Debra’s search grid. She was becoming discouraged. She was already well outside of the area where the blue diamond could have possibly landed.

Now she was laboring under the fanciful notion that the tides might have pushed it this far. Debra kept her face below water searching every square inch. She didn’t notice the commotion going on all around her until it was already winding down.

She finally stood up for a minute to adjust her mask. It was only then, that she noticed all the commotion and animated tourists. Something had happened. Everyone seemed to be crowding around a portly middle-aged woman in a blue one-piece suit.

As she finally held up her prize for all to see, it twinkled in Debra’s direction. In the woman’s hand, as she held it aloft for all to admire, Debra glimpsed her prize. The blue diamond had been found. She immediately started to wade back toward the beach intent on grabbing her badge from the car and relieving the woman of her trophy.

When she was still about thirty yards away, blundering down the sandy beach in leather dress shoes came Kane and Meacham, who quickly closed in on the woman as soon as she was out of the water. While she was raving about what she had found, someone must have recognized the gem and called the police.

Instinctively, Debra dived back into the water and swam in a wide arc, hoping to get around Kane and Meacham unseen as they took statements from everyone at the scene. They were doing their usually inept version of police work. Debra should have gotten away clean. Kane was leering at every woman on the beach, so when Debra emerged a few hundred yards away; he immediately ogled the most attractive body out there, which was Debra’s.

As she edged her way by, Kane made out her profile. Debra didn’t notice.

He whispered to Meacham, who discreetly checked out the direction Kane rolled his eyes. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Well. Now that can’t be a coincidence.” Meacham glanced over Kane’s shoulder and watched as Debra backed out of her parking spot.

She tried to drive away discreetly, with her head as far down in the seat as she could get it and still see to drive.

That was all the confirmation Kane needed. “Well, I’ll be damned!” Kane shook his head as Debra disappeared around the first available corner. “No wonder she never got anywhere with the case. She was chasing herself all along.” Meacham just kept nodding his head, like he’d just proven the Earth was flat.

“Finally, we get to knock that bitch off of her high-horse.” Kane punched his cholesterol-laden fist into his palm.

“What? What the hell are you talking about?” Meacham squinted at Kane like he was a fool.

“What the hell do you think I mean? We’re finally going to put Miss High-and-Mighty Super-Cop in her rightful place.” Kane sneered like a rat.

“What do you mean?” Kane shook his head and glared at his douche-bag partner. “What the hell do you mean?”

Meacham sputtered as they climbed back into their unmarked Crown Victoria.

“What I mean, is we just hit the jackpot! We’re not going to arrest her. Why in the hell would we want to do that? Don’t you realize how much cash and loot that broad has stolen?” Meacham looked over at Kane with a blank expression on his face.

“Don’t you see? She’s our ticket out. She’s our retirement. We put her under surveillance and let her lead us straight back to all that jewelry and cash.” Kane smiled as he looked over at Meacham, who was softly shaking his head no.

“We can’t do that. If we got caught with that stuff she could turn around and say we stole it.”

“You dumbass. She won’t be saying anything after we both empty a clip into her.” Meacham’s eyes got big as he realized finally, what Kane had in mind.

“My God. You’re serious aren’t you?”

“As a heart attack!” Kane nodded and grinned with a sinister gleam in his eyes.

“We need to sit on her for a while. We need to see if she’s working with anyone.”

“What makes you think she’s working with somebody?” Meacham assumed that Kane believed as a woman Debra wouldn’t have been able to pull this off alone. Ordinarily, his assumption would be correct, but not today.

“Because Roberts had her with him on stakeout when two of the robberies went down. Kane studied his partner’s eyes, waiting for the light bulb to come on. Kane hated to admit it when Debra was proven right about anything. However, when she told Meacham point-blank that she couldn’t believe he was a police detective, Kane nearly had to bite a hole in his lip to keep from laughing.

They pulled into the parking garage. As they made their way to the elevator, Manning pulled in and parked in her spot. She would have to feign having the last remnants of a head cold, but she needed to get inside and see what the fallout from all of this was going to be.

Kane pushed the button to close the doors as soon as Meacham got in. He needed a few minutes alone with Meacham to help him get his head on straight.

“Now listen to me and listen to me good!” Kane poked Meacham in the stomach to get his attention. He knew what a blabbering idiot Meacham could be.

“What?” Meacham looked crestfallen, like a little kid who had been thrown out of the neighborhood clubhouse.

“You can’t say a word to anyone about us finding this diamond. Understand? You have to pretend like it never happened. The only person who knew it was there is Manning. And she’s in no position to say anything to anyone.”

The wheels started turning in Meacham’s head. “Yeah, but what about the lady on the beach? The one who found it, I mean?”

“Don’t worry about her. We’ll go back to her house, tell her it’s just a routine follow-up, and then let it slip that she found a counterfeit the thief intended as a replacement. He must have lost it at the beach somehow.” Meacham nodded his head. He was finally beginning to understand.

Kane looked his partner over closely. He was ninety-nine percent certain that he would have to shoot Meacham after all this was said and done.