“The broken glass tube must have been the plague sample Foster stole,” VanCleave said.
“My conclusion as well.”
“What else did she say?”
“Two men showed up at the hostel with a picture of Foster asking if she’d seen him. Sophie lied to the men and said no. Then, she warned Foster and helped him escape out the back door.”
“Were they the Czech police?” Veronika asked.
“No. She said they looked like the mafia.”
“Any more info about the stolen vials?” VanCleave asked.
“She was light on the details. She said Foster was very upset because the tube had broken and the boys had touched it. Apparently, Foster had insisted that they all check into the hospital, which is why, when Miss Sophie started to feel symptoms, she called an ambulance.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” AJ asked rhetorically. “Unless Foster has another sample, he’s lost his leverage.”
“That’s nothing to cheer about, AJ. God help us if this becomes an outbreak,” VanCleave said.
“The Czechs are taking appropriate measures. The hostel has been cordoned off. Our two surviving victims are in quarantine, and according to Sophie, there were no other guests checked in at the time. It’s out of our hands,” Albane said.
“What’s our next move?” AJ asked, feeling again like the rookie without a clue. He looked to VanCleave, who sniffed, but said nothing. He turned back to Albane.
“It depends…”
“On what?”
“On whether we believe that our client has been telling us the truth.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Here we are,” said Julie, as she opened the door and turned on the lights to her apartment. “Home sweet home.”
“Cool place.”
“Thanks. I love it. And it’s in a great location. We’re in the embassy district of Vienna, near the Karlskirche.”
“Two bedroom?”
“Yep. I have a roommate. Helps with the rent.”
“Is she, or he, here?”
Julie laughed. “No, she is on holiday in Greece. She’s not supposed to be back until tomorrow night.”
“Oh. That’s good,” he replied awkwardly. “I mean it’s good that we don’t have to try to explain anything.”
“You mean like the time my mom walked in on us over Christmas break our sophomore year in college.”
He laughed. “Exactly.”
She motioned to a vacant wooden chair next to her tiny kitchen table. “Sit.”
“Okay,” he said. “Are you cooking breakfast? I’m starving.”
“Help yourself to anything in the fridge. I’ll be back in a sec.”
She went into her roommate’s bedroom and returned with a tiny syringe to find him gobbling down a leftover half of a sandwich.
His eyes went wide at the sight of the needle. He shuffled in his chair, almost toppling over onto the floor.
During his time in quarantine, he had grown to despise the hypodermic needle. Regular blood draws and injections, which in the beginning he viewed as a nuisance, morphed into something sinister. The hypodermic needle was designed for a single purpose: to violate. Pull the plunger to extract life essence. Push the plunger to impregnate with foreign material. For five months, he had been raped — again and again — by a twenty-gauge stainless steel hypodermic needle.
“What are you doing with that? No way you’re going to inject me!”
“Relax. I’m not going to inject you. My roommate is diabetic. This is an insulin syringe. Tiny needle. See?” she said holding it up in front of him. “It’s not designed for blood draws, but we’ll have to make do.”
He eyed her warily, but said nothing.
She sat down next to him. “Remember what we talked about in the car? With your permission, I’d like to take that blood sample now.”
He sighed and pulled up his sleeve exposing the white bare flesh of the inside of his elbow. This surrender was the ultimate act of trust. He would let her violate him — take a piece of him — but only because he did trust her. And because she had asked his permission.
She smiled, a sweet innocent smile, and scooted her chair next to his.
He turned his head to the side, averting his eyes from the needle.
She positioned his forearm across her lap. “Make a fist.”
He did as she instructed. She ran her finger gently over the yellowed bruises and needle marks dotting his arm.
“Remember the time you serenaded me in front of my entire sorority house in your underwear until I agreed to go out with you,” she said, distracting him, while she tapped her fingers on a swollen blue vein.
“I can’t take all the credit for that. Jack Daniels was involved.”
“Yeah,” she chuckled as she slipped the needle under his skin with practiced efficiency. “And thirty of your fraternity pledge brothers egging you on.”
He did not wince, but despondence washed over his face as he watched the syringe fill crimson. “What a rowdy bunch of hooligans we were.”
“No argument here.”
“Speaking of old memories, remember when we took our first road trip to Ashville, North Carolina?”
She flashed him a knowing smile. “Are you kidding… that’s not the kind of thing a woman forgets.”
Julie stood motionless and watched the rhythmic rise and fall of Will’s chest as he slept in her bed.
In her bed. She felt flushed. She had fantasized about this moment plenty of times since their break-up. Of course, in the fantasy, he was not asleep — at least, not until after the deed was done. A flood of old emotions she had tried to suppress had been reawakened in her. Her mind would run away from her, making plans, hopeful plans, about all things they would do together, until she reined her thoughts back in under the cool pragmatism of her scientific intellect. Yet no matter how hard she tried to deny it, a part of her could not help but trust to hope.
Like a bucket of cold water dousing a fire, the exigencies of the present shook her from her daydream. She was getting ahead of herself. She needed be cautious with him, emotionally distant. It had been years since they had been together. Why was she letting herself be so vulnerable? Before entertaining anything other than friendship, she had to deal with the strange and preposterous mystery he had embroiled her in. Suddenly, she felt like Little Red Riding Hood standing at the threshold of a dark and portentous forest. Every instinct telling her not to tread forward, but knowing that the dangerous journey was necessary if she wanted to reach the Happily Ever After.
She bent to kiss him on the forehead, but stopped short. A kiss, even the slightest caress of her lips, would probably wake him. He was in such a fragile state at the moment; he needed rest. She blew him a kiss instead and tiptoed out of her bedroom.
Julie’s roommate, Isabella, was on holiday with her boyfriend and was not scheduled to return for another day. Hopefully, that would give her enough time to run the necessary tests, develop a plan, and depart with Isabella none the wiser. She went to the kitchen and picked up the Ziploc plastic bag holding the syringe full of Will’s blood. She pulled out a second Ziploc and decided to double-bag it just to be safe. She wrapped the bagged syringe in a dish towel and placed it gently in her purse. She made sure to lock the apartment door deadbolt when she left.