Bad Nerd Falling (5 page)

Just these items, not to mention their
gems—some of the best in the world—made Rurikstan a very tasty
morsel. If you factored in all those and added his brother Maks’
genius with investments you had a formula for disaster. Thinking of
Maks caused more key tappings. Vlad next watched kids playing
together in the nursery.

Apparently Tia had been surprised to
learn there was no formal childcare program here and she quickly
established a daycare like he had seen often in America. Now most
of the staff with children participated and it worked very well.
Emerson and Maks both had kids in the program. That left their
wives free to work or attend to other things on the days they chose
to participate. Emerson’s wife, Karis, was a nurse practitioner and
Sara, Maks’ wife, was a college professor. Sara returned to
teaching on a part-time basis.

He typed the commands to return to the
lab cameras. One area of concern was the lab. In an attack, there
weren’t many escape routes for the lab personnel. They had to flee
across the hall for the nearest route. That wasn’t acceptable.
Frowning at the screen, he checked out each camera’s view and
reassessed every area of the lab. In the back corner there was a
storage closet that none of them much used because there was a
stainless steel table in front of the door.

But one of the closet walls contained
a secret panel that emptied onto a small antechamber that in turn
offered at least two, but possibly three different escape routes.
Over the last week or so Vlad had seen every one of them use that
table, so the table was more important than the storage closet. Yet
hadn’t he seen at least one hazard in the current storage closet?
It was a lot smaller and cramped, and subsequently crowded with
reagents and supplies.

Why did they use that area rather than
the much larger one? He scanned both areas again. Ah, that was why.
The smaller one was located closer to the center of the room, while
the larger was on the outskirts of the lab. It would take more
effort to use the larger. Still, the table they all used would work
better in the center of the lab.

Now all he had to do was convince the
four of them that they needed to use the larger closet, and somehow
show, without showing, the secret escape route. His mother,
girlfriend, and the soon-to-be princess all worked in this
space.

It was ripe with potential to
unscrupulous men who needed money. How much would Aleksi pay to get
Tia back?

His heart dropped.
A lot
. How much would he
pay to get his mother or Helena back?
A
lot
.

Operation Closet Changing suddenly
became his top priority.

***

Helena’s heart stuttered
when Vlad entered the lab again.
Twice
in one day. Once this morning
and now again this afternoon. Her palms turned sweaty as she swung
around to stare at him head on.

“
Can we help you?” Her
voice was a little too eager she decided.

“
Vlad, love, what are you
doing here again?” His mother’s voice was every bit as
eager.

“
Hello, Mother,
Helena.”

Vlad didn’t seem to mind in the least
that they were eager. In fact, his eyes crinkled at the corners
just the way she liked. His lips kicked up and she discovered that
was because she was grinning like an idiot.

He glanced around the room. “Where are
Jorge and Tia?”

Oh, too
bad
. He hadn’t come to ask her on a
date.

“
They’re out taking water
samples.” Maria had the presence of mind to answer,
thankfully.

She swallowed, since her mouth seemed
to have filled with a lot of saliva. Once she accomplished this she
smiled at him again.

“
I see.” Vlad sent her a
slightly searching look.

To cover herself, Helena hurried to
the supply closet. She needed a moment to gain control of herself.
This was ridiculous. She was nearly thirty years old. There was no
reason to be an idiot about all of this. She was an
adult.

Maybe she should start acting like
one.

Anyway, she did need more pipets so
she opened the closet and paced to where they were stored on the
top shelf. Since she couldn’t brag about her height, Helena grabbed
the step stool and crawled on top. From the top step she could just
reach the shelf. Snagging the box she saw it was empty.

“
Hey, who used all the 1
ml pipets?” She stared dubiously inside the box but it was still
empty.

“
Is that bad?” Vlad asked
from below her.

With a shriek she jumped,
because she didn’t know he had followed her into the closet.
Oh,
a closet, and Vlad.
All she had to do was close the door and she
could jump him. Except that his mother hovered in the
doorway.

“
That box was full
yesterday. I only took one package from it.”

She upended the box. “It’s not full
now.”

“
And I just got that box
from the big closet yesterday. We use a lot of that size so I’m not
surprised.”

“
We do use a lot of these.
And we already moved that table yesterday.” She glared at the door
across the way.

“
I’ll help,” Vlad offered
and she turned a beguiling smile on him.

“
Thank you.”

Maria offered her own effusive
thanks.

“
Let’s move that table.”
Then without any warning whatsoever, Vlad circled her waist and
easily lifted her off the stool. No easy feat because she was
curvy. She was too surprised to shriek again. That was just as
well, because it wasn’t all that ladylike.

Instead he floated her to the floor
and she was hard pressed to say she didn’t enjoy the ride. To brace
herself, she placed a hand at each of his shoulders and enjoyed the
bulging muscles there.

For some reason her mouth filled with
too much saliva again.

By the time her feet connected with
the floor, Maria had already tapped her four inch heels across the
lab and stood in front of the table. “Really, this time we should
just take all of the 1 ml pipets and move them to the other closet.
Since we use so many of them.” Her hands planted on her hips, she
nodded.

She and Vlad stared at each other for
a moment before she shrugged. “She’s a mother. None of us argue
with her.”

“
Not even Tia?”

“
Of course not. We’re all
happy
someone
makes the decisions.”

Vlad followed her across the room and
he took one end of the heavy metal table while she and Maria
grabbed the other. He directed them where to move it and made the
process look easy. She and Maria were both puffing.

“
It’s heavier today than
it was yesterday.” She adjusted her grip, aware of Maria doing the
same beside her.

“
I think you’re
right.”

Vlad ignored them to easily swing his
end away from the door. After some puffing, they moved theirs,
finally. He opened the door to the larger storage
closet.

“
This is huge.” He stepped
inside and wandered around the space, checking things out. They
only utilized maybe a quarter of the capacity.

“
Yes, it’s a nice size,”
Maria agreed. She stepped to the pipet section and selected three
boxes. All of which she piled into Helena’s arms.

“
Thanks.” Except she
didn’t want
pipets
at the moment.

“
I have an idea.” Vlad
removed the boxes and stored them on the shelf again.

He tugged both of them from the closet
and back to the smaller one. “What, love?”

“
Why do you use this tiny
space?” He waved at the storage closet they used.

“
It’s a lot more
convenient.”

“
How? Wouldn’t it make
more sense to store everything in the larger closet and use this
smaller one as long term storage? You can park this table in front.
With wheels, it would be easy to move.”

“
That could work.” Maria
sounded unsure.

Vlad’s eyebrows bounced. “You and
Helena wouldn’t have to use a step stool all the time if you
shifted everything to the larger closet.”

They were interrupted by Tia and
Jorge’s return.

“
What’s going on?” Tia
inquired as she set her sample box on the nearest bench and trudged
across the room. In order to be ready for her wedding day Maria had
decreed that Tia wear high heels until the event, so of course the
poor woman tripped.

One corner of Vlad’s mouth kicked up.
“She’s the perfect woman for Aleski,” he murmured only to
her.

She smiled. “They’re made for each
other. And we love her.”

“
Tia, Vlad suggested that
we should use this closet and…” Maria explained Vlad’s ideas in the
background as she got lost in the dark depths of his
eyes.

It was a really nice place to get
lost. The man was beyond dreamy.

Behind them, Tia surveyed the space.
“I’ve been thinking about doing this too. It makes more sense to
use the bigger closet.”

“
You decided that
yesterday when all those loops fell on your head.” Jorge sounded
wise and very bratty.

“
That’s not all she said,”
she added, but Tia clapped a gentle hand over her mouth.

“
I didn’t swear.” Tia
narrowed her blue-green eyes.

“
No, but what you said was
funny. I’ve never heard the word fudge used in that particular
manner before.” Her stomach growled.

“
I learned words I didn’t
know you could put together in the English language.” Jorge sounded
musing. “Then I went home and asked for chocolate
fudge.”

They laughed, and Vlad smiled at her,
and she forgot all about her lab mates.

“
I would be happy to help
you move all these supplies.” Vlad turned toward Tia and his
mother.

The little bubbles of excitement
inside burst. While she’d grown all moony eyed, Vlad had been busy
rearranging their storage closet in his head. And here he and Maria
didn’t believe he fit into the family.

That right there was a strong Maria
trait if she ever saw one.

At least she was better off than Tia,
who looked horrified. She had the good sense to wear nice comfy
sneakers. The dirty look Tia shot her made her smile. At least her
feet were happy.

So far, so
good
, as his American friends would
say.

Vlad watched the industrious activity
in the two storage areas. He helped by planting himself on the
step-stool in the small one and took everything off the upper
shelves. Tia and his mother worked at placing lab items on the
shelves in the larger storage area.

While he removed items from the
various shelves and handed them to either Jorge or Helena, he
reasoned out various means of showing the lab staff where the
secret door was.

“
Isn’t that the last box
yet?” Jorge groused as he filled the lab cart with
supplies.

“
Not yet, but we’re
close.” He handed him more items.

Helena pushed a clattering cart
through the door. She exchanged a filled one for the empty. “I’m
happy to report that although we’ve been at this for days now, the
new storage area isn’t even halfway full yet.”

“
We’ve been at this for
just under an hour.” He smiled at her because he had to.

Jorge paused in stacking the latest
boxes. “Not even halfway full?” He didn’t acknowledge Helena’s
exaggeration of time, but instead homed in on the amount of
storage.

“
No. By the time we
finish, Tia believes we’ll have at least a quarter of the storage
area to add more stuff later on.”

“
And you’ll still have
this entire closet.” Why they hadn’t switched these closets long
ago he didn’t understand…

“
Yes. Tia doesn’t believe
we’ll use this one much.”

“
That’s the idea.” Jorge
took several of the boxes and stacked them on some of the lower
shelves.

“
Shouldn’t those go on the
cart?” He watched Jorge and Helena clear a few other things from
the full cart.

“
No, these stay
here.”

“
The things we use often
will be stored in the other closet. This stuff we only use a few
times a year.” Helena pointed out a few boxes. “Tia thought we
should go through all the cabinets in the lab, take inventory, and
then also move some of that stuff in here.”

Jorge nodded slowly. “It makes sense.
If we clear out some of those cabinets, we’ll have room for the
supplies we actually use.”

“
That was her thought. Who
knew she was so organized?” Helena’s face caught the light and he
caught his breath. The most breathtaking woman on the planet, right
here with him in a laboratory storage closet.

“
Doing all this will
really help our work flow.” His mother breezed in behind
Jorge.