things to follow. Yes, that would be a wonderful antidote to her frustration with Alley Thing. “Let’s lock up.” She gave Janet a loving smile.
* * * *
Caleb Wald waited until the women had locked the lab door after themselves and disappeared into the elevator before he cautiously emerged from the office across the hall in which he had concealed himself. He used his passkey to open the locked door and slipped into the laboratory they had just left.
Though he was the owner of Wald-Med Pharmaceuticals and Jackle and Hyde’s employer, it was part of his agreement with the two scientists that he had to keep his distance from the laboratory and their work. Melissa had insisted on that from the beginning: no interference, no nosing around. She would be the one to decide when she had something to give him. In the meantime, they must be free to pursue their goal without any oversight from him. Thus, the need for his stealth.
That agreement, however, though he had sworn to it, was one that it troubled him not at all to violate, at least clandestinely. He was paying for what they were doing, after all, and in his opinion that entitled him to nose around all he wanted, though he was not about to say that to Melissa. At this stage, he couldn’t afford to have her get temperamental. He knew how stubborn she could be if she got her back up.
Nevertheless, he snuck into the lab often when they were absent, to check on their work—though for all his efforts he had yet to learn much about their progress.
As usual, he paused as he came in to admire himself in the mirror along the front wall. It was practically impossible for him to pass any mirror without a moment or two of self-admiration. He knew that he was good looking. Tall, maybe just a little heavier than might be considered ideal. I really will have to cut back on the carbs, he thought, but without much conviction.
Still, he always liked what looked back at him from the mirror. His thick mop of wavy black hair was truly beautiful, and he had undeniably sexy eyes. Every woman he had ever been with had told him that. Even his nose, which was admittedly a little large for his face, could almost be described as beakish in fact, had been complimented often.
“It gives your face character,” was the opinion most commonly offered. He turned sideways now and rolled his eyes hard to the left, to get a better look at his reflection. Yes, it was assuredly true: his nose gave him a noble profile. No wonder broads adore me, he thought with a sense of satisfaction.
Reluctantly—he could spend hours admiring himself, and often had done so—he turned his attention from the mirror to the laboratory reflected in it. Almost the first thing that he saw was a syringe and a vial lying on the counter. He picked them up and glanced at the labels: B12.
At least they were making progress, then. On his last visit, they had just started on the B series. And truth to tell, at this stage, progress was direly needed. His backers were getting increasingly impatient with the delays, and the last thing he wanted was their displeasure.
He removed the cover from her cage to check on She Cat. Jesus, he thought, his eyes going wide. The beast had gotten bigger since the last time he had looked, and that had been just a couple of nights ago.
The cat caught sight of him and spat at him furiously. By now, he and She Cat were old acquaintances, and not of the friendliest sort either. As he always did, Caleb took a broom from the nearby storage closet and used the stick to reach through the bars of the cage and poke at the cat. She yowled in anger and swatted at the broomstick, trying to get a grip on it. It was all he could do to hold on to it. Obviously the Cat had gotten stronger too, and smellier: she smelled like burning hair.
He wrinkled his ample nose and pulled the broom out. She Cat hurled herself against the door of the cage with a loud thunk, trying to get at her tormentor, and he felt a little nip of fear zigzag up his spine. Was it only his imagination, or had the bars of the cage actually bent when she rammed into them? If that animal ever got out, there was no telling what damage she could do. He was pretty sure, too, that he was one of the things she would want to damage. She eyed him with burning hatred.
Nervous, he put the cover back on her cage, careful to stay out of reach of her straining claws. He returned the broom to the closet, looking around to be sure he hadn’t left any signs of his visit, and gave another glance at the vial of serum. He was tempted to take it with him and have it analyzed elsewhere, but the women would be sure to notice that it was missing. They would know he had been here and had violated their agreement and there would assuredly be hell to pay. He had too much riding on this project to want to risk a major clash with them now.
Instead, he left the vial and the syringe on the counter exactly where he had found them, and let himself out of the room, pausing for just one more admiring glance at the mirror.
* * * *
They popped into her mind all of a sudden: the vial and the syringe!
It was not until they were in the car on their way home, an Ella tape scatting into the semi-darkness, that Melissa Hyde remembered them. “We left the vial and the syringe lying on the counter,” she said.
“It’s all right, don’t worry about it. There’s nobody there at night. No one’s going to be in the lab,” Janet said with an unconcerned yawn.
“The janitor will be there, won’t he?”
“That pansy?” Janet snorted her disdain. “He can’t get his mind off his silly frocks long enough to get into any kind of trouble. Stop fretting, my pet, they will be just fine where they are until morning.”
* * * *
“Pansies! That’s it!” Peter Warren cried aloud.
“Pansies?” Teri Warren paused in buttoning the blue tunic of her police uniform and gave her husband a puzzled glance.
“Pansies,” Peter repeated. He pointed at the drawing board before him. “The ball gown I have been working on. That’s what I want. White silk, with red pansies cascading over the bodice and down the skirt.”
“I don’t know, honey,” Teri said in a doubtful voice, “It sounds a little, well, off the wall, don’t you think?”
Peter grimaced and tossed his pencil aside. It hit the wastebasket and bounced to the floor. “Well, if I am ever going to make a name for myself as a dress designer, I’m going to have to establish my own style. I’m sure never going to do it by copying what everybody else does.” He gave a disconsolate sigh and, getting up from the drawing board, popped a movie into the DVD player—Fantasia, his favorite—and dropped into a chair in front of the television as the movie began to play.
“You sound beat, honey. Shouldn’t you be taking a nap?” Teri asked. “You’ll be walking in your sleep by the time you get to Wald-Med.”
“Oh, it’s just cleaning—sweeping floors and dusting. It’s not like I couldn’t do it in my sleep.” He watched her strap on her holster and fit the Smith and Wesson into it. “God, I wish you weren’t out there at night with all that violence I hear about on television. I worry about you, you know.”
“Ah, it’s not as bad as you think, believe me,” Teri said. “Most nights it’s every bit as boring as your janitorial job, if you want to know the truth. Riding round and round, up and down, back and forth, all over town, and then just occasionally you get to chase down some punk or bust a dealer. It mostly comes down to five minutes of adrenalin and eight hours of boredom.”
“If only I had a
