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  “Mr. Appleton?”

  Mark blinked and glanced up.

  Owens motioned for him to join him at the front of the room.

  Mark made his way to where the detective was standing.

  “Thanks for comin’ in. I apologize for not tellin’ you about this meetin’. After we talked on the phone, I decided to get all the people who had a family member killed in the explosion together, so I could fill everyone in on the investigation at the same time.” Shutting down his laptop, he put it under his arm and walked toward his office, motioning for Mark to follow.

  “I wanted to get a statement from ya and go over what you saw that day. You were one of only four people who survived the explosion.” Setting his computer and papers on top of other stacks of paper, he pointed to a chair.

  Mark took a seat. When he sat, his ribs came alive with a pain so intense he could barely breathe. He took a shallow breath and sat back, even though that position hurt as well. “Well, there isn’t much to tell,” He grunted through the cutting pain. “I had just dropped off… um—well, my wife and daughter…” He dropped his head into his bandaged hands and stopped talking as a vision of K and Sam walking into the store filled his mind.

  “Take your time,” Owens said.

  Mark looked up. The detective was leaning on his elbows, looking intently at him with what appeared to be real concern. First, there was the happy person calling herself a New York cop at the front desk and now a Texan who actually seemed to care.

  He regained his composure and continued. “I was headed to Office Depot, but just as I turned away from the Super Mart, the building exploded and flipped my car upside down. After I got my bearings, I ran toward the building, trying to find them. That’s about it.”

  He paused to let the detective, who was taking notes, catch up. “There was one thing unusual, though. Right before the explosion, I saw a man running from the building, looking scared, as if he knew the explosion was going to happen.”

  “Hmmm…” Owens’ eyebrows lifted. “Can you remember what he looked like?”

  Only because the memory of the fleeing man had been burned onto his brain cells did he have any idea of what the man looked like. “He had on a red ball cap, a blue jacket, and blue jeans. I think he had dark hair. It was sticking out from his ball cap on the sides. He looked to be in his early twenties. Just a kid.”

  Owens scratched his head, making his blond hair flop as if it was made of yarn. “I’ll have my folks look into it. His body would have been outside… We might be able to ID him.”

  “So you really think it was just an accident? I mean, it is sure hard to accept that your whole world can be taken from you because of an old gas line.” This time, he didn’t blink back the tears, and something about letting them fall made him feel better.

  Detective Owens leaned back in his chair, which squealed in protest. “I’ll do everything in my power to find out for sure, but I’m afraid it looks that way.” He played with his fingernails. “I’m so very sorry, Mark. If there is anythin’ I can do…”

  Mark shook his head and stood up. It was too much to process right now.

  The detective stood and stuck out his hand.

  Mark shook it.

  “Thanks a bunch for comin’ in,” said Owens. “I’ll be keepin’ in touch with you about that guy you saw. If we find him, I may need you to come in to ID his body.”

  Mark nodded.

  “And if you remember anythin’ else, I mean anythin’ you think might help, give me a call.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a business card. ”This has my cell number on it as well as the office number.”

  “Thank you. I will,” Mark said. “Please let me know if anything turns up.”

  “I guarantee it.”

  He made his way out past the front desk, where the receptionist smiled and waved at him as he passed. The meeting had turned out a lot different than he had thought it would. Now he had to try to figure out what he was going to do. He didn’t feel like living anymore, not without K. A part of him wished he had died in the explosion with her and Sam. Poor little Samantha. She must have been so frightened…

  The sun hit him in the face as he left the police station, but he couldn’t enjoy it. He looked at the people walking, living, yelling, and cursing around him and thought of K, who couldn’t get mad or cry anymore. She and his innocent little girl, who had never done anything to deserve a violent death, were both gone.

  He walked past his car in the parking lot and crossed the street, dodging an SUV. The driver of the white Escalade honked, but Mark ignored him

  A couple blocks uptown, he found a small park with a slide and a swing set, where kids played and parents watched and looked at their watches. Sam would have loved the park. It had a big swing with green rubber seats. He could see her laughing and calling out to him to push her higher and higher. Seated on a faded wooden bench, he broke down and cried. And cried, not caring who saw him or what they thought.

  “Sam, my sweet, beautiful Sam.”

  * * *

  A KNOCK SOUNDED ON Kirk’s door. He stirred but didn’t respond. All he wanted to do was sleep in for a change. No one knew where he was, and he hadn’t asked for wake-up service, so what crazy, suicidal person would have the audacity to knock on his door so early in the morning?

  The knock came again. He blinked. The sun splitting through the curtains glared into his eyes like a nagging wife. Groaning, he pushed himself to an upright position. His feet hit the floor with a thud. “Bah!” He wasn’t a morning person. For that matter, he wasn’t a night person. And, for sure, he wasn’t a people person.

  Finally, he got to his feet and dragged himself to the door, where he found a newspaper and a list for the different breakfast options on the floor. This hotel was a few steps up from the last one. It even had a little fridge filled with bottled water and liquor. If you touched it, you bought it.

  “Eggs and toast, or a breakfast sandwich, served until eight a.m.” He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Eight thirty. Oh, well. He didn’t want their dry, lukewarm breakfast anyway.

  He decided a shower would wake him up. On his way to the bathroom, he clicked on the television, turning it up loud, so he could hear the news through the sound of the water. After he undressed, he took the bandage off his leg and looked at the gunshot wound. It was scabbing over and would heal quickly. Just another scar to add to his collection.

  The water felt good and even made him smile for a brief moment. Until it hit his wound, that is. He could hear the anchorwoman jabbering on about some high-pressure system that was coming in.

  “And in other news, the NYPD is investigating cooperatively with the FBI on the food poisoning incident out at David’s Island last week. They have no new leads as to how the food was contaminated, but they assure the citizens of New York that our food is safe.”

  “Safe. Ha. I bet they’ve still got their agents chasing around family members, asking about what kind of childhood they had.” Grumbling, he finished shampooing his mostly

  bald head, then dripped water on the bathroom floor when he reached from the shower to

  the counter for a razor to shave. He pulled the curtain back and thought about what he knew about the case so far.

  He had a bunch of dead inmates but no dead guards, tags with the letters WJA on them, and a mystery woman involved in a food drop. The woman had to be connected with the WJA thing. WJA. Was it a code or the name of a terrorist group?

  He turned off the water. What would Deb have to say about this one? He pushed the curtain open. Why was he suddenly thinking about his ex-wife? Granted, she was nice to think about, but their marriage had been one raging fight after another.

  Stepping out of the shower, he shook his head. Maybe it was because she was great at helping him crack cases. She was a great sounding board.

  He’d stayed married to the fiery redhead longer then he should have, but then again, he should never have gotten married in the f
irst place. She always spoke her mind, a little too much, which was not a good combo with him.

  Finally, the fighting got to be too much for her, and they’d split two years ago, no kids. A clean break, he told himself, like he’d told himself dozens of times, but he still loved her. He just couldn’t bring himself to change the way she wanted. It was better this way, he reminded himself. But then again, he had told himself countless lies.

  As he dressed, he reminisced about how he’d met Deb in front of a stand of tomatoes during one of his rare visits to the local supermarket. She was only five-feet-tall and not even a hundred pounds. For a second, he’d thought she was just a kid. But then she’d turned and smiled at him, and it was all over. Four months later, he asked her to marry him.

  His cell phone vibrated on the nightstand like a rattlesnake ready to strike. The sound jolted him back to the present. He didn’t recognize the number, but decided to take the call anyway, after he turned down the blaring TV.

  “Detective Weston.”

  “Hello, Detective. This is the crime lab. I mean, this is the lady from the prison. I gave you my card.”

  Kirk tried to remember her name. “Ah, yeah, hi, uh…”

  “Cassy Meyers.”

  “Right. Cassy! How ya doing?”

  “The FBI gave me your phone number yesterday morning. I’ve been so busy with everything going on, but I remembered you wanted to know when we found anything new.”

  Kirk grinned. She must have asked the FBI for his number before he ticked off the big dogs.

  “So, what did you find?”

  “After testing all the food samples and coming up empty, I decided to look into the guards’ blood work and found something very interesting.” Her voice became animated.

  “The guards?”

  “Yes. I thought since we didn’t find anything in the inmates’ bodies or in their food, that maybe we would find something in the guards’ blood that the inmates lacked—and we did! Are you ready for this?”

  “Yeah, hit me with it.”

  “Okay. The guards all had traces of Dypethline in their systems, a drug used specifically to protect the immune system.”

  “Okay… So the question is—why would they need a protected immune system? And protected from what?”

  “Wait. It gets more interesting. This drug is—well, it’s pretty experimental, and still in test form. As far as we know, it’s never been tested on humans. We don’t even know who else would have access to it besides the government.”

  Kirk fought to process the information. Stick with the facts. “So, how did they get this drug into their system?”

  “I’m not sure. However, this opens up more options. If they were protected, then, like you said, they were being protected from something—something that would have the exact opposite effect of Dypethline.” The phone was silent as she waited for the information to sink in.

  The picture started to clear up. “What you’re saying, Cassy, is that this drug, Dypethline, has a partner drug that is its polar opposite. If a good drug helps the immune system, the partner drug kills the immune system. And from the looks of it, it seems they also can cancel each other out.” He paused for a moment. “So, basically, whoever did this poisoned all the food, but it didn’t affect the guards or whomever had Dypethline in their blood.”

  She laughed like a child who’d just learned to ride a bike for the first time. “Very good, Detective. You catch on quick. All I have to do is find out what its partner drug is, and we have our killer. I’ve been searching but haven’t found it yet.”

  “This Dypethline—who manufactures and supplies it, and who has access to it?”

  “I’m not sure of the source, or if they’re still testing it, but I read an article about it a year or so ago in a medical journal.”

  A thought ran through Kirk’s mind, almost too much to believe. Did the government or the FBI have something to do with the killings? Was that why they had all the misfits running the investigation?

  “Could you do me a favor, Cassy? Keep this conversation under your hat for the time being? I need to check into a few more leads, and the FBI isn’t too happy with me at the moment.”

  “Sure. Until I find out definitely what we’re dealing with, I’ll tell them the truth—that we still don’t have answers.”

  He folded his phone and put it into his pocket. This was getting more twisted by the second. He had a feeling his friends at the FBI were swimming in waters much too deep for them.

  CHAPTER 7

  MARK HIT THE BUTTON on the BMW’s key fob and opened the car door. He started to get inside but stopped when he saw a white envelope lying on the leather seat. He glanced around the parking lot. Someone had been inside his car. How did they get in? Who? Why?

  He checked the lock and the window, looked at the outside of the door. No evidence of tampering. He walked around to the passenger door. No dents or scratches on that lock or doorframe.

  After another scan of the cars in the police lot, he picked up the envelope and settled into the seat. The paper looked and felt expensive, probably linen. Frowning, he ran his fingers across the letters embossed in large print on the front. WJA. What does WJA stand for? Finally, he opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He unfolded it.

  NO ACCIDENT!

  No accident? What was that supposed to mean? A sickening feeling washed over him. Was someone telling him the explosion was not an accident? That it was planned, an attack of some kind?

  He crumpled the note and shoved it into his pocket. He wondered if he should show it to the detective, but didn’t have the energy to go back in and talk. Whatever it meant, he didn’t have the energy to think about it now. All he wanted to do was crawl back in bed and dream about his family.

  * * *

  KIRK BIT INTO THE juicy cheeseburger, then cursed out of the side of his mouth when sauce dripped down the front of his blue T-shirt. “Aw, man… This is my favorite shirt!” Holding the burger in one hand and steering with his wrist, he swiped at the drip with a napkin. The car swerved. He grabbed the wheel with the napkin and returned the car to the correct lane.

  He looked down. His cleaning job was only making the stain worse. It was hard to get a shirt to fit these days, with his abs turning into a one-pack. He had once been a gym rat, but then life, marriage, divorce... Now he couldn’t see his belt for the belly that hung over it.

  The road turned to the right, just like in the pictures he’d printed from the e-mail Mooch sent him. He wanted to see the old mill for himself. He probably wouldn’t find anything more than dusty tire tracks, but it was all part of being thorough.

  He could see the dilapidated building standing out against the horizon, a sleeping giant. It looked like the entire building had been constructed of plywood and old, tired planks. He slowed the car, popped the last fry into his mouth, and burped in satisfaction. Nothing like a burger to chase away hunger pains.

  Parking his Charger in the front of the mill, he turned off the ignition and pulled out his .45 from its shoulder holster. Pulling the action back, he checked the chamber. It made a clicking sound as it snapped back into place. He holstered the weapon, checked the perimeter one last time, and got out of the car. He checked his watch. One o’clock. He had some time to check the place out.

  He walked to the front of the rotted building. Chains and twisted boards crisscrossed the front doors . Most of the windows on the two upper floors were broken. A washed-out sign across the side of the building read: LAKELAND MILL.

  He pushed through the weeds to the back of the property and found what he was searching for. Multiple, wide tire marks, which wound around to the back of the building. He followed the tracks to the corner, where he stopped, leaned against the wall and drew his weapon.

  He listened for a moment, then slipped around the corner, stopped, and scanned the area—the doorways, the windows, the adjacent out-buildings, the trees behind the buildings. He’d been in too many situations to
assume he was alone. He lowered his gun. The area was clear, with only a few tumbleweeds stacked against the side of the structure like bums in an alley.

  Footprints were everywhere. Most of them, it appeared, belonged to Martinez, or a man with very wide feet. Then he saw what he was looking for—a second set of prints, smaller ones. The mystery woman.

  He checked his surroundings, then re-holstered his gun and pulled a digital camera from his pocket. He snapped several shots of the footprints and of the tire tracks.

  He saw where the second truck had parked behind the structure, just out of sight from the road. Squatting on one knee, he peered at the tracks, which looked weird, not like tread marks from a normal delivery truck. The rear tracks were about twice the size of the front ones. Probably some kind of armored truck… Like those banks use to transport money.

  He straightened and started toward the silo tower ten yards behind the main building. The tower was about fifty feet tall with a cone-shaped top and a rusty ladder strapped to the side that ran all the way from the bottom to the top. Though it was probably empty, the silo still emanated sawdust and dirt, a smell strong enough to make his eyes water.

  Then he saw the newly painted letters blazing in the sun high atop the tower: WJA. “What in the—?”

  He pulled out his camera and took a picture, thinking someone had spent some time painting the giant lettering. It was not a hack job, like what he was used to seeing from the local taggers back in Detroit. This was very professional.

  He dropped the camera back into his pocket and turned just in time to see a billy club crash down on his forehead. A flash of light filled his vision as he crumpled to the ground. He heard the thud of his head hitting the dirt as he grabbed for his gun. Before he could find the holster, another blow smashed the back of his skull.