Changeling (5 page)

My throat squeezed. I was so taken aback by his anger, I couldn’t utter a word in my own defense. His voice had a dry, sandpaper quality that was at once commanding and frightening.

Trance took a step forward, unafraid. “She isn’t a journalist anymore, sir, she’s one of us.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “I remember you,” he said, still glaring at me. “You caused a lot of trouble a few years ago. What is it with you, girl? You get off on this?”

“Hey!” Trance snapped her fingers. A violet orb the size of a grapefruit hovered above her hand, twirling and crackling, and finally got his attention. “That’s better. Now, if you would curb the attitude for a minute, I will reiterate that Ember is a member of my team. She is not a reporter, and if you deny her access, you can just explain to Detective Pascal and the LAPD that you are not cooperating with an official investigation. Understand?”

He narrowed his eyes at Trance, then at the orb. “Put that thing away. We’re not here to fight, just share information.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Turns out he
was
Dr. Abram Kinsey, head of the biogenics lab and our tour guide for the afternoon. Trance introduced everyone; Kinsey barely nodded in our direction. Trance was in charge, which made her the one with whom he wanted to speak.

“You’re here about Ronald Jarvis,” Kinsey said.

“Yes, we are,” Trance replied.

“Then let’s take this into my office.”

He gestured at the elevator, and we boarded it one by one. I hid in the back, trying to stay away from Kinsey and his angry eyes. Just because I’d tossed around some careless accusations two years ago did not mean I was the same person. I knew better now. Knew to have evidence to support my claims, and I knew the devastating effects of not having any.

No one spoke during the ride up to the sixth floor. The doors opened on a corridor as silent as a tomb. Sky-blue linoleum floors, ivory walls, and intermittent oak doors lined the hall. Polished brass nameplates hung on each door, and we passed half a dozen before Kinsey produced a plastic card from his pocket, swiped it, and pushed open a door.

His office was homier than I expected. A heavy walnut desk took up half of the open space, flanked on both sides by wall-to-wall bookshelves overloaded with texts—books, binders, manuscripts, all sorts of words on paper. More than I’d read in my lifetime. Thick blue drapes were pulled back from the room’s twin windows, letting in shafts of afternoon sunlight.

Kinsey sat in a high-backed leather armchair and waved his hand at the only other two chairs in the room. Tempest
and I stood by one of the bookshelves, allowing Cipher and Trance to sit. They were there to engage; we were backup.

“You mentioned the LAPD before,” Kinsey said, leaning forward on his elbows. “I thought the L.A. County sheriff was handling the Jarvis investigation.”

“They are,” Trance said. “But our contacts are in the LAPD.”

Not quite a bald-faced lie. She was playing him, hoping Cipher could tell if Kinsey was playing her. They had a system worked out, which I had witnessed only once. Cipher sat loosely in his chair, right ankle on left knee, hands flat on his thighs. If the interviewee was lying, his left hand clenched into a fist. If it was the truth, he kept his palm flat. If he couldn’t tell, he curled the fingers up.

Kinsey seemed to buy her explanation. “So, has there been any headway into Mr. Jarvis’s death?”

“Not so far.” Trance settled back, getting comfortable. “Tell me about Mr. Jarvis, Doctor.”

“He was a lab assistant, a position that is two rungs up from janitor. He had no enemies that I knew of, and everyone seemed to get along with him. Dr. Morrow was his supervisor. He never attended social functions, but I think it’s because he suffered from acute adult acne. He wasn’t an outgoing man.”

Cipher’s palm remained flat.

“Did he have access to any of your projects?”

“And what projects would those be?” He smiled, but it was disingenuous and very creepy.

“You tell me, Dr. Kinsey.”

“No, I don’t think I will, Trance, not without a warrant.”

“Warrant?”

He nodded, a slow tilt up and down. “Yes, a warrant. You see, our success here at Weatherfield requires a certain amount of discretion. Our work is often under contract, and our employers count on secrecy. If we started chatting up top secret work to everyone who asked, we’d be out of a job very quickly.”

“We’re trying to capture a killer,” she said. “Isn’t a little indiscretion worth a man’s life?”

“Not to me, no. Jarvis is already dead. His life is now worthless to me.”

I bristled, standing up straighter.
Son of a bitch, how dare you call a human being’s life worthless!
Tempest clamped a hand over my wrist. His perfect calm kept me cool.

Trance sat up straight and slid forward in her seat. “What if I said it was no longer just about Jarvis’s life, Doctor? What if I said there was a second victim?”

Kinsey’s face went slack. “Who?”

“We don’t have a positive identification yet, but it’s another male. If I were you, I’d start checking if any other employees never showed up this morning.”

“Jarvis has a coincidental connection to this place,” Kinsey said. “You have no proof that the killer has anything to do with Weatherfield, and until you have more to go on than the suspicious nature of a former reporter”—he glared directly at me—“you should watch what accusations you’re throwing around.”

Cipher’s fingers curled, tapped on the leg of his jeans. He was uncertain, confused by mixed signals.

“I apologize if I offended you,” Trance said. “But the second victim was killed in the exact same fashion as Ronald Jarvis. Skin left behind, every bit of blood, organs, and bone completely disintegrated. Or removed. The point is, we don’t know how or why or who, which means there’s a chance the killer will strike again.”

Kinsey settled. Some of the fight drained away, and he just seemed tired. “Why are you involved in this?”

“The nature of the deaths means it could be Meta related. We have to follow every lead.”

He snorted. “Follow every lead, or try your best to prove it wasn’t one of yours by making up stories about this facility?”

“Touché, but to be fair, I don’t know what this facility does.” Trance stood up and clasped her hands behind her back in a demure pose. “Perhaps you could enlighten us. Change my mind, Dr. Kinsey.”

Kinsey’s mouth opened, closed. Trance had spun a perfect web and captured him in it. “If any of this shows up on the front page of some—”

“It won’t. You have my word.”

He stared at me. “Mine, too,” I said. “I’m not a reporter anymore.”

“Fine,” he said after a brief pause. “Come with me.”

We took the
elevator down to the second floor. The doors opened on a very different scene, a waiting room decorated with vivid colors—blues and greens and reds and yellows, splashed on the walls and chairs and carpet. Picture books
and games were stacked neatly on tables shaped like insects. On the other side of the room, novels and magazines littered a simple oak coffee table.

A lime-green front desk guarded a set of double doors, all steel and reinforced glass. The attendant, a woman in pink nurse’s scrubs, smiled when she spotted us. No one was in the waiting room, but I caught the faint hum of music.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Kinsey,” the woman said. “You brought visitors?”

“Yes, I did, Sasha,” he replied. “These Rangers are looking into Ronald’s death, and they wanted a quick look around.”

Sasha’s face fell. Sadness bracketed her round eyes. “So sad, what happened to Ronald. He was such a good guy, you know? He brought cookies for the kids.”

“What kids?” Cipher asked.

“No one’s out here now,” Sasha said. “It’s therapy time, so everyone’s together, but sometimes they have to come out of the rooms for a while.” That explained the little waiting room.

“Is it okay if we go inside?” Kinsey asked.

“Sure, just don’t go into the rooms. Like I said, therapy time.” She looked past him, at us, like she was sharing a secret. “We don’t like to disturb therapy. It could contaminate the results.”

Kinsey swiped his card, punched in a code, and the doors unlocked. He pushed and went inside. Tempest and I continued bringing up the rear. I liked the support role; it gave me time to observe.

We walked down a short corridor and stepped out into a circular room at least thirty feet in diameter. The curved
walls were glass panels, marked every couple of yards by a glass door. Curtains were drawn everywhere, cutting off any view into those rooms, but I suspected that’s where the therapy happened. The center of the room held an assortment of tables and chairs. Chess and checkers games, stopped mid-play. Card games equally interrupted. Drawing paper and stubby crayons, storybooks and construction paper littered the floor nearby.

“This is our psychiatric ward,” Kinsey said. “All of our patients are volunteers, or are here under the written consent of family members. We use unorthodox methods to reach adults who are mentally handicapped through illness or accidents, and our results are promising.”

“What does unorthodox mean?” Trance asked.

“It means we don’t feed them stimulants, get them to talk about their feelings, and then call it treatment. Beyond that, until we have enough research to patent those methods, you’ll need your warrant.”

“Alternative therapy seems legitimate to me,” Tempest said. “Why not put that in your brochure?”

“Because we don’t advertise for patients, Tempest,” Kinsey said. “The ones we can help have a talent for finding us without assistance.”

“So you have a flair for psychiatry,” Trance said. “What else do you do?”

“Research.” Kinsey smiled, as unsettling as the first time. “And development.”

The interview ended
soon after. I didn’t start to relax until we hit the sidewalk, back under the kiss of the afternoon sun. That place stifled me, like a hand closing in and squeezing tight. Some of their work sounded promising, but the things Kinsey wouldn’t talk about scared me the most. He was hiding something behind a warrant, and we had no grounds to get one.

“He was pretty honest,” Cipher said as we entered the parking garage. “He was probably protecting their other projects, but he wasn’t lying about Jarvis. I hate to say it—”

“But you’re going to,” Tempest said.

Cipher frowned. “He may be right about the coincidence. The killer could have no connection to Weatherfield, other than his choice of victim.”

“You know that from a ten-minute conversation?” I asked, unable to keep the snap from my voice. Amazingly, I didn’t blush or back down.

“First impression, Ember, that’s all. And it’s possible Jarvis wasn’t even the first victim, just the first one found. I imagine after a while, skin gets harder to recognize as human than an entire corpse would.”

My stomach clenched. “That’s so gross.”

“So what now?” Tempest asked.

“Home,” Trance replied, unlocking the SUV. “I’ll check in with Pascal, see if he’s got anything new, but—”

“What time is it?” I asked, a mental lightbulb flaring.

Trance hopped inside, turned the key, and checked the clock. “A few minutes after three, why?”

I slid into the back, sort of wishing I hadn’t asked. With two related deaths to investigate, my other assigned task
seemed superfluous. “I, um, still need to find us an electrician and most places close at five.”

“You wouldn’t rather concentrate on finding the manufacturer of human pillowcases?” Tempest asked as he climbed in next to me.

“Here I thought you and your singed fingertips would thank me.”

“Says the Human Fire Extinguisher.”

“Windbag.”

He winked. “Thank you for refraining from a very bad pun.”

Cipher twisted around in the front seat, amusement dancing in his silver-flecked eyes. “You mean by saying you’re full of hot air?”

I groaned. Tempest blew Cipher a kiss. Cipher blew a raspberry. The pair looked more like feuding siblings than adult superheroes. I started giggling.

“Children,” Trance said, watching us in the rearview mirror, “I will turn this car right around—”

“He started it,” we three said in perfect unison. A moment of utter silence preceded a long dissolve into laughter. After the horrors of the human skin and the unsettling nature of Weatherfield, the release felt wonderful.

I relaxed into the backseat, still grinning, and pondered our electrician problem. That, at least, I could solve.

Four

Scott & Sons

A
fter a quick change back into street clothes and a glance through an outdated phone directory, I left Hill House in one of our tinted-window Sport utilities, air-conditioning blasting full speed, and music pumped up. One of the things I missed most about my old apartment was listening to anything I wanted at any volume that I wanted. My neighbors were either deaf, stoned, or never at home, so no one complained. No one ever noticed my presence, as a matter of fact, unless rent was late. Then the landlord noticed plenty. Working for a struggling gossip rag and writing freelance articles is no way to earn a living in this gasping-for-life town.

Growing up here, I knew the area by heart and had no trouble navigating my way into West Hollywood. My intended destination was Scott & Sons Electrical, and I hoped it still existed. The ad had caught my attention and jogged my memory. I’d attended high school with a boy named Noah Scott, until I changed districts in the middle of my junior year. I vaguely recalled him saying his parents owned
an electric supply store. If I was going to trust our sanctuary to anyone, my first choice was someone I had a quasihistory with—as long as his parents hadn’t sold the shop to someone else, or closed down along with hundreds of other businesses during the post–Meta War years.

I turned onto Vine and spotted the colorful storefront situated between two discount liquor stores, each advertising the lowest prices in town. The walls were relatively free of graffiti and seemed freshly painted. The red-and-white sign over the glass-and-iron doors announced Scott & Sons Electrical.