No Show (15 page)

Terry made it through to lunchtime and sat in the staff lunchroom in a daze. Returning to work, he bumped into Kyle Hemple. Kyle wasn’t happy to see him and blanked him. He’d certainly lost an ally.

Terry checked his watch and was glad to see the day coming to an end. His cell-culture samples were completed and needed storing in the freezer. It was a walk-in affair with a six-inch lip
inside the door to prevent spills from escaping. Putting his samples on a bench, he eased back the meat locker-style door.

A blanket of arctic air smothered him, taking his breath away and crystallizing the blood in his veins. The freezer was kept at a soul-numbing minus thirty degrees Celsius. It wasn’t cryogenically cold, but it didn’t feel far off.

He didn’t like the freezer—nobody did. It was dangerous, and everyone was extra careful when entering the damn thing. According to the company grapevine, it had been expensive to construct, and engineers had pored over the design to ensure the refrigerant and the insulation were state of the art to guarantee Genavax didn’t run up a monstrous utility bill. So much effort went into this single aim that the safety-release handle inside the freezer was of secondary importance. A couple of years ago, a person had gotten trapped inside when the safety-release button failed with near-tragic consequences. If the door closed while someone was inside, the poor bastard would have about thirty to forty minutes before hypothermia killed him. The trapped person’s only hope was that someone heard him screaming and thumping on the door. After the near-fatal incident, Genavax took swift action to remedy the situation. Taking no chances, it made a door wedge from a packing case. So the lives of Genavax’s employees rested on a fifty-cent chunk of wood. Terry jammed the wedge under the crack of the door with his foot.

He snatched up his samples. He tried not to, but he breathed in. His lungs burned as if icicles were forming on them. His actions were swift. He didn’t want to be stuck inside the yeti’s jockstrap any longer than necessary.

The freezer was filled with shelf after shelf of microtiter trays arranged on mobile racks similar to a baker’s cart of loaves of freshly baked bread. Each cart was labeled with a project name and number, and each rack was labeled with the particular sample ID. Terry made sure that he knew which rack was set aside
for his test runs. With the skill of a well-practiced waiter, he slid batch 243 onto rack 243.

The tray snagged on something. Terry retracted it and dropped to his knees to clear the blockage. He breathed in and the arctic python constricted his chest. Glancing through the narrow slit between trays, Terry saw his problem immediately. There was a tray, half the size of his, already on his rack. He couldn’t quite reach it, so he pulled the cart clear of the others and removed the tray from the back.

Terry would have returned the tray to its rightful place, but the labeling and the tray size weren’t like any of Genavax’s other projects.

“What are you doing?”

Terry turned to find Luke Frazer standing in the doorway. He was Pamela Dawson’s right-hand man—so much so, some said he was perched on her middle finger.

“Do you know how long you’ve been in here?” he barked. “The temperature has risen ten degrees. You should be in and out in less than a minute. And what are you doing with that?”

Terry was shivering, and he hoped it didn’t look like he was quaking in his boots. His wavering voice didn’t help matters.

“I found a rack in the wrong place. I was trying to refile it.”

“Let me see,” Frazer said, barging into the freezer.

Frazer snatched the tray out of Terry’s hands and gave it a cursory glance. He tried to give the impression that he didn’t know what he was holding and that he had used his superior knowledge to solve the mystery, but it was obvious he recognized the rogue samples immediately.

“I’ll deal with this,” he said, looking down his aquiline nose.

Strangely, he didn’t seem to be affected by the extreme cold. No wonder he was dubbed Frosty Frazer, a nickname that went hand in hand with Pamela’s Ice Maiden persona.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing.”

“Then rack your test and get out before you ruin everything this company is working toward.”

If he weren’t so damn cold, then maybe Terry would have argued. Instead, he picked up his tray and slid it easily into rack 243. As he left the cold for what seemed to be the tropical heat of the lab, Frazer stopped him.

“Sheffield, if I were you, I wouldn’t poke my nose into business that didn’t have anything to do with me. Your wife did that and look what happened to her.”

Oscar’s 4Runner followed Terry’s Ford Focus into his driveway. Terry parked inside the garage and Oscar left his SUV outside. Hopping out, Oscar didn’t look too happy with Terry’s request to meet him after work.

“What’s so important that you couldn’t talk over the phone?” he asked as he entered the garage, the door closing behind him. “I do have a business to run.”

“After I left you at the mall, I had a message from Sarah’s editor. He said Sarah kept a private lockbox with her stories she didn’t want anyone to find.”

“And you found it?”

“Yes. And I think Sarah’s in real danger.”

Terry fiddled for the key to the door from the garage to the house. He didn’t normally lock it, but after last night’s discovery and the run in with the Honda, he wasn’t taking any chances. Excitement made him all fingers and thumbs.

“Hey, why all the security?” Oscar asked.

Terry told him about the Honda with the garage opener.

“But what if this person has keys to the house too?”

“No one’s managed to get into the house yet,” Terry remarked.

“Have you been to Holman about any of this?”

“No, not yet. I wanted to run it by you to make sure I’m not blowing things out of proportion.”

Terry found the key and stuck it in the lock. As he swung the door open, he knew something was wrong.

“Jeez,” Oscar said. “Did we have an earthquake?”

Terry stepped inside, with Oscar close behind. Oscar shook his head at the carnage of last night’s search. Terry cast his eye over the scene and his feeling intensified—something wasn’t right. This wasn’t how he had left his home this morning.

“You’ve been robbed, pal.” Oscar brushed past Terry. “I’ll call the cops.”

“No…don’t.”

“Why?”

“I did this.”

Oscar snorted. “Why?”

“I was searching.”

Terry answered Oscar’s questions, but his focus wasn’t on his friend. His mind was recounting his last actions before leaving for work. He’d done enough tidying to make a bed to sleep on and a shower to bathe in. He hadn’t bothered with breakfast, but what had made him late was packing Sarah’s notes into the box file and replacing it in the crawl space. Terry went to check the rooms.

“Hey, where are you going, Terry?” Oscar asked.

“Something’s wrong.”

“I know. You’re a crappy homemaker,” Oscar said. Terry disappeared into a bedroom and Oscar had to raise his voice to be heard. “I would guess you were never in the military.”

He caught up with Terry in Sarah’s office.

“What is wrong with you? You’re like a dog on a bone hunt.”

“Someone’s been here. I can feel it.”

Oscar blocked Terry’s path and gestured with his hands. “It’s hard to tell with your talents as a cleaner.”

“I know.”

“Okay, what’s been changed?”

“Nothing,” Terry said after a long moment.

“You’re losing me, man.”

Terry brushed past Oscar and walked back into the living room. “Something’s not right.”

“You’re telling me. You need to Febreze this place. It smells like dirt in here.”

That was it—the air. Terry raced to the closet by the front door. It was half open. When he left this morning it had been closed. Sliding the door back, he fell to his knees. The floor panel was to one side, exposing the house to the musty dirt scent of the crawl space.

“The box is gone,” Terry said.

Oscar hefted an easy chair back onto its feet. “Alicia Hyams’s name was on the list?”

Terry busied himself with the task of returning everything to its rightful place in the attempt to turn his refugee camp back into a home. “It was the last of the five names.”

“And who were the others?” Oscar turned his attention to the kitchen.

“They were like Alicia Hyams—ordinary people.”

“Not that ordinary. Alicia Hyams was murdered.”

“That’s what worries me.”

“You think the other four women could be dead too?” Oscar hefted a stack of plates into an overhead cupboard.

“Yeah.”

“And that Sarah could be the sixth?”

“Yeah.” Terry fell silent. The admission scared him.

Standing with a mug in each hand, Oscar asked, “Why didn’t you take the box straight to Holman?”

Terry shrugged. “I wanted an honest opinion. I wanted to see if you would see what I saw. You, I trust. Holman might not be straight with me.”

Oscar nodded and hung the mugs on the mug tree. “Okay, let’s take this step by step. You’re worried that the list was a list of victims.”

Terry nodded and slotted the couch cushions back into place.

“Did you find any obituary notices for any of these women?”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just a thought.”

“Go on.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“There’s not a lot I do like hearing these days. You’d better just tell me.”

“Okay,” Oscar said, frowning. “Sarah was long gone before you arrived, which makes it nearly three weeks.”

“Yeah.”

“And Alicia Hyams was snatched the week you arrived.”

“So?”

“So Sarah compiled that list before Alicia Hyams was a headline.”

Terry nodded. It was an interesting point and a frightening one. Had Sarah known what was going to happen to Alicia Hyams before it happened and been powerless to save her?

“I’m finished in here,” Oscar said. “Where next?”

“Sarah’s office.”

They shifted their attentions to stacking the papers and files in their rightful places, although Terry was guessing where everything went. He hadn’t taken any notice when he’d been pulling everything off the shelves.

“Okay, Alicia Hyams hadn’t been kidnapped at the time Sarah made the list, and let’s assume the other women aren’t dead,” Terry said. “What does that prove?”

“I don’t know,” Oscar said, shrugging.

“But what if the other women are dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“See. You don’t know. Anything could have happened.”

“You’re right, I don’t know, but it doesn’t mean we have to assume the worst. For all we know, the women on Sarah’s list might be old college buddies,” Oscar said.

“But she kept their information hidden. What does that tell you?”

“Okay, but consider this. Alicia Hyams’s murder may have nothing to do with Sarah’s disappearance. It could be purely coincidental.”

“Is it likely?” Terry asked.

“Maybe, maybe not, but we can’t nail our colors to any particular cause. Not right now. There’s so much we don’t know. You can’t just write Sarah off as dead.”

“I’m not trying to write her off, I just don’t know what to think.”

“Then don’t try. You’ll only drive yourself crazy.”

“I know.” Terry jumped up. “But it’s hard not to. My wife is missing. She has a murdered woman’s name in her files. Why wouldn’t I think she’s heading for the same fate?”

“I suppose you’re right.” Oscar pulled up Sarah’s office chair and sat. “There is something we can do that might help.”

“What’s that?”

“Talk to the women on the list.”

“We can’t talk to Alicia Hyams.”

“No, but we can speak to her family.”

Terry frowned.

“Don’t look like that,” Oscar snapped, but he wasn’t angry. He was more like a football coach trying to rally his players before the big game. “Do you want to find Sarah?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Oscar said. “Were these other woman local?”

“No, not really. One was in Oregon. Another was from Nevada. Alicia Hyams and two others were from California.”

“Okay, so we’ve got a lot of dialing to do. It’s interesting that these women aren’t geographically close. It might give some credibility to the fact that Alicia Hyams’s death isn’t linked to Sarah’s disappearance.”