Chemical Attraction (25 page)

“Yeah, he wanted to manipulate the subject to follow simple instructions by tapping into their emotions. This vial could contain something so small that it’s undetected in the blood stream.”

“That doesn’t sound safe,” Matt said.

“Our government underwrites research in nanotechnology for about a billion dollars a year, but only a small percentage of it goes into health and safety concerns.”

“Damn,” Matt replied, sitting back in his chair.

“These nano-molecules can be useful, but it also makes them potentially dangerous. Foreign material can silently enter our body without our knowledge. We still don’t know how they affect our chemistry,” she said.

“I think I need another beer,” Joe said.

“I just proposed more funding to test on lab animals. From what I’ve just heard, those animals may have been injected with a type of nano-drug. What happened to their bodies?”

“Incinerated,” Matt replied.

Joe took all of their empties and set them on the counter. He grabbed the last four bottles. “We’re going to need more beer, especially if we discuss a way to get you back into your lab with me tagging along.”

“The sheriff did nothing to check this out?” Eva asked, handing her bottle back to Joe. He popped off the top. Madeline slid hers over to him, too.

“He called Bill Bennett, who laughed about this supposed research. He denied it, saying that John needed a vacation,” Matt replied.

“That can’t be right.” Madeline picked up her open bottle. “John hasn’t worked there for two years.”

“He hasn’t worked at BennTech or your lab for two years?” Joe asked.

“I haven’t seen him there. I assumed he moved on from BennTech, but I don’t know now.”

“Did the guy kill Patricia Simko on purpose? Or did he make a mistake, and his real target was Madeline?” Joe asked, scratching the back of his neck.

“Madeline, did you know all the men with red ties?” Eva asked.

“I wrote the names down, but I don’t know that much about most of them.” She handed Eva the list and slipped on her sandals that Matt had set on the floor earlier.

“I’m going to buy you five pairs of those,” Joe said under his breath. Madeline looked at him. “I love those sandals. That’s how I knew it wasn’t you.”

“What are you talking about?” Eva asked.

“Even though they had the same body type and hair length, Pat wore heels and that’s how I knew it wasn’t Madeline.”

“Oh, Joe,” Madeline whispered, reaching for his hand. The group ate a quiet dinner of goulash. Madeline and Eva stifled their yawns. Between the beer and the fatigue of the last few days, Joe called it quits for the night.

“Do you have any ideas on how to get into your lab unseen?” Joe asked as they stared at the ceiling in the Blue Room.

“I think if we go in early, we can avoid most people, but that’s as far as I’ve got.”

“We’ve already used the tour excuse.” He chuckled. “And the moving in together excuse.”

Madeline turned on her side facing him. “Joe, I’m just so tired.” She moved closer and put her head on his chest.

“I’ll think of something,” he replied, absently playing with her hair.

TUESDAY

STILL DARK AT FIVE A.M., Joe started his car outside Sylvia’s B & B. “Do you want breakfast first?”

“No, let’s get this over with. My stomach’s in a knot. Are you sure that excuse will work?”

“Sure, a lie close to the truth works the best,” he said, driving down the empty street.

“Do you lie a lot?”

“Never to you,” he replied. Madeline rolled her eyes.

After pulling into the BennTech parking lot, Joe followed her up the steps to the main entrance. He surveyed the area, over-exaggerating his movements. She tried not to laugh. He looked like an idiot.

“Dr. Pierce, you’re here early,” June said. “I just started my shift.”

Madeline stood by the counter while Joe stood three feet back ready to pounce on anything that moved. With a quizzical look on her face, June watched Joe’s odd behavior. Madeline leaned in. “Someone was killed in my building yesterday and he’s become my protector.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard.”

“He’s determined to be my bodyguard for the day. He’s being really sweet and I haven’t the heart to tell him it isn’t necessary.” She smiled. “I have to leave early to be interviewed by the chief. I wasn’t even there, but he wants it official.”

“I understand,” she replied, handing her a visitor’s pass for Joe. “Who died?”

“Pat Simko, she lived next to me.”

“Oh wow. I didn’t know her that well. Why are there so many deaths all of a sudden? The whole town is going berserk. I don’t want to leave my house.” When Joe checked the small trash receptacle and chairs, June raised her eyebrow.

She smiled. “What can I say? I’m crazy about him.” June laughed as Madeline and Joe walked toward the elevator. “You’re a dork,” she said in the elevator.

“What do you mean? There could have been someone in that trash,” he replied.

“You act the dumb jock really well.”

“Are you calling me dumb?” he asked as the elevator door opened to the second floor.

“You’re one of the smartest guys I know, but you lie like the pro you are,” she retorted, walking down the hall to her lab.

“Yeah, I’m the King-of-All-Players,” Joe said under his breath.

Madeline scanned her passkey to unlock her lab. After setting her purse on the table, she walked over to a cage in the corner. “Hello Burton and Ernest,” she said, checking their water.

“That’s very sophisticated.”

“They won the maze challenge last month.”

“You use your lab rats to race?”

“No, these guys are tame.” From her purse, Madeline handed him his Hardballer handgun, which he stuck in the back of his jeans. She pulled out the vial. Last night, she had divided it into two parts. The other she’d left with Eva for safekeeping. In the far corner of the lab, she flipped on an enormous microscope, lighting it up.

“This isn’t your typical high school microscope, is it?”

“No, this is a nanoscope. It looks at molecules in the nanometers, which is one billionth of a meter.”

“Damn, that’s small,” he replied.

“Yeah, if you consider a red blood cell is 10,000 nanometers wide, we look at molecules the width of one.” She extracted a small amount for the slide. “Instead of looking through the lens, we can see it on that monitor.”

The flat screen and keyboard sat to the left of the large machine. He looked around while she set up the viewing. He had no idea what all this equipment did. His partner was a brilliant scientist and he suddenly felt like that dumb jock. He watched as she punched in numbers.

“This will take a few minutes,” she said. “It took me six months before I felt comfortable around these machines. It’s intimidating.”

“What’s this one?” he asked while they waited.

“It’s an ultrasound.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen Taylor’s ultrasound pictures of the kids,” he said, happy to know something.

“This is a little different. Ultrasound is used for diagnostic imaging, but this one’s used at much different frequencies.”

“Like the Brown Note?”

“Are you trying to impress me?” She laughed. “What do you know about the Brown Note?”

“I know that at a certain frequency it causes humans to lose control of their bowels due to the vibrations.” He laughed.

“That’s an urban legend. Besides, it’s not ultrasound frequencies, which are above 20,000 Hertz. It’s infrasonic.”

“Below 20 Hertz, right?” He beamed that he could hold his own. “Hey, I watch MythBusters on the Discovery Channel. It was totally busted in Episode Twenty-five.” He laughed. “Lily gave me the DVD set for Christmas last year. So what else is ultrasound used for therapeutically?”

“Ultrasound can treat kidney stones and dissolve blood clots. High-intensity ultrasound can interact with drugs to generate heat.”

“What do you use this one for?” he asked, looking at the knobs.

“Sonochemistry causes changes in the body by involving ultrasound. When our drug is injected into the body, it goes directly through the Blood Brain Barrier. Once there, we use the ultrasound to chemically change the amino acid chain, which repairs the neural-tissue of the brain.”

“Wow, you can do that? You’re actually changing the drug once it’s past the barrier?”

“We’re in the early stages, but that’s what we’re trying to do. Okay, here we go.”

She pushed a few more buttons, then a picture of tiny snowflake crystals with a royal blue background flashed up on the screen. She leaned over and flipped the switch on the ultrasound machine. The image changed like a kaleidoscope with a bright red background.

“Whoa,” she said, feeling the hot vial. She tapped off the switch to the ultrasound and the background of the picture went back to the blue. Madeline jumped up, knocking over her stool. “I’ve been working on something like this.” Her hands started shaking. “Oh my God, this is more advanced than I thought.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

She paled. “The crystal pattern of amino acids suggests a particular drug that can pass into the brain, and the color suggests what area of the brain it can penetrate. You know that brain manipulation Matt mentioned? Well, this makes it possible.”

He picked up her stool. “Okay, slow down. You’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring myself. I’ve never seen anything like this. When our lab used ultrasound, the drug never turned back to its original state, so it’s not that effective for treatment. This drug goes into the Limbic System of the brain, indicated by the red background. It can tap into a specific emotion like anger or fear. Joe, this drug can affect the body more than once because it changed back when the machine turned off. This is amazing … and dangerous.”

“How do you know the emotion it affects and what frequency it works on?”

“We need a test subject,” she replied, still stunned at the findings.

“Don’t look at me,” he replied, holding his hands up.

Madeline smiled at how well he could calm her down. “Since we don’t have any test rats on hand, I’ll have to use Ernie,” she said. She scribbled in her notebook and tossed it back into the drawer. She walked over to the cage and pulled out Ernest. “Here, hold him while I move the cage over.”

“No way, I’m not touching a rat. I’ll move the cage.”

She held Ernest up to his face. “Give him a little kiss, Joe.”

“Get that rodent away from me. Eva and I had a run in with an escaped rat in high school biology and we still haven’t recovered.”

She smiled. “Yeah? What happened?”

“We didn’t shut the cage well enough and our lab rat jumped on Eva. It got tangled in her long hair and she freaked out. When I tried to help, it bit me and I screamed like a girl. Someone took pictures and tacked them throughout the school.”

Madeline laughed while he cringed as he remembered. He moved the cage closer to the ultrasound. She injected Ernest with the liquid and put him back. As she dialed the different frequencies, Ernie became agitated and ran around the cage. Burt cowered and hid in his paper towel tube. Ernest killed him within seconds, tearing him apart. When she turned off the machine, Ernest calmly drank from his water bottle.

Matt left early for work with Eva by his side. He had given his wife a choice of either going with him to the station or bringing his officers to the house. He could be just as stubborn. There was no way he would leave her alone again. She said he was being overprotective. He agreed, but it didn’t change a thing. “I know it’ll be tough facing the guys, but they’re crazy about you. A little too much, if you ask me.”

Eva smiled with a purplish-yellow jaw. “How long are we staying?”

“I want to check my messages and get updates on a few cases.” He opened the station’s front door. She took a deep breath before stepping through.

At six in the morning, Brayland was sitting at his desk for the last hour on his shift. “Hey, Chief, Mrs. Connor, you’re here early,” he said, standing.

“Calm night?”

“Yes, sir. How are you, Mrs. Connor?”

“I’ll be just fine,” she replied, walking into the kitchenette to make a fresh pot of coffee.

“Brayland, when Bobby gets here, send him into my office. I’ll be here for a little while, then I’m taking Eva back home.”

“Yes, sir. You have a pile of messages.”

He walked into his office, leaving the door open. Sifting through the stack, he found that most messages were either
Sorry to hear about or Call me, I’m curious
. He tossed those, which left three. Two were Bobby’s notes to see him ASAP. The third was from the sheriff letting him know that he was still looking for the missing boys. Picking up his phone, he quickly went through his voice messages. Eva walked in with two mugs of coffee. She passed one to him and sat down in the chair across from his desk.

“We have many so-called friends who want the details of your abduction. I never liked those people and this just confirmed it,” he said, hanging up his phone. He picked up his coffee. “I think you should become my assistant so I can protect you from them.”

Eva smiled. “We’ll talk when you decide to become mine.”

“I’m contemplating a change in profession. Any perks with the job?”

“The best kind.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “Bobby, come in and shut the door.”

Bobby sat down in the chair next to Eva and smiled at her, but said nothing.

“Hi Bobby, I’m glad you’re here. Matt says you’ve been a huge help.”

“Thank you.”

“So what’s new?” Matt asked.

“Oh, um.” Bobby looked back at him as Matt nodded to continue. “Well, before the sheriff took all our explosion evidence, I took pictures and copies of everything. My biggest curiosity was the large three-gallon containers. They had no labels, so I fingerprinted both. I got some off one.”

“Yeah, and you have a name?”

“We have two names,” he said, looking at Eva.

“Bobby, would you be more comfortable if I left?”

“No, he wouldn’t. Stay put, dear. What are the names?”

“Kenny VanKampen has a record for breaking and entering. He works at BennTech in shipping.”

“That is very helpful,” he said as Eva nodded. “And the other?”

“Uh, Larry Murphy.”

“What?” Eva asked, sloshing her coffee. She set her mug on the desk and wiped her hands on her jeans.

“Does he have a record?” he asked.

Bobby squirmed in his chair. “Yeah, um, for domestic assault.”

Eva laughed and then covered her mouth. “Sorry Bobby, I know this is uncomfortable for you, but it’s okay, really.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied. “I haven’t done anything with the information yet.”

“Good work. I want to check on a couple more things before we proceed. Until then, this is between the three of us. If you need me, I’ll be at home,” he said, standing. Bobby nodded and quickly left.

“I’m sorry, Matt. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Let’s go,” he said, escorting his wife out of the station.

“How do we use this information?” she asked in the car.

“We’ll discuss it with Joe. I have a feeling there’ll be a major bust soon.”