Blood Pact

concerning this tragic incident is asked to contact Detective Fergusson at Police Headquarters.

    "Elsewhere in the city . . .”

    "Isn't it awful." Mrs. Shaw dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. ”That poor young man, cut down in his prime.”

    The guy looked dead. Dr. Burke's fingers tightened around the handle of her mug. The girl obviously has an overactive imagination. This has nothing to do with . . .

    "The other stations had a much more complete report. She said that he lurched when he walked, that his skin was gray and cold, and that his expression never changed even while he was strangling her boyfriend. Terrifying. Just terrifying.”

    It was impossible. "Did she say what he was wearing.”

    "Some kind of athletic clothing. A tracksuit I think. Dr. Burke? Where are you going?”

    Where was she going? She stared down at her coffee, then set the mug firmly down on the filing cabinet, the fingers of her other hand already taking a white-knuckled grip on the door handle. Thank God no one around the office expected her to smile. "I just remembered, I had a grad student running a program last night and I promised I'd check it this morning. Don't know why I bothered, he keeps getting it wrong.”

    Mrs. Shaw smiled and shook her head. "You bothered because you always hope they'll get it right. Oh, my." The smile disappeared. "Marjory's daughter will be coming by this morning.”

    Marjory Nelson's daughter, the ex-detective, the private investigator, was the last person she wanted to talk to right now. "Give her my apologies and . . . No. If she comes while I'm gone, ask her to wait. I'll be back as soon as I can.” Better to know the direction Ms. Nelson was heading in the search for her mother's body. Information was knowledge; ignorance, a potential for disaster.

    "There was a young man killed on campus last night. Do either of you know anything about it?”

    Donald spun around so fast he nearly threw himself off the stool. "Dr. Burke! You startled me!”

    She took another step into the lab, a muscle jumping in her jaw and her eyes narrow behind her glasses. "Just answer the question.”

    "The question?" He frowned, heart still racing, and sorted the words out of the fear. There was a young man killed last night. "Oh, fuck." In his memory, number nine staggered out into the light while screams sounded behind a building. "What, what makes you think we'd know anything?”

    "Don't bullshit me, Donald." Dr. Burke used the voice that could command attention from the back row of a seven hundred and fifty seat lecture hall. Donald tried not to cringe. "There was a witness. Her description drew a pretty accurate picture of number nine, and what I want to know…" her palm slapped down on the table, the crack of flesh against metal echoing like a gunshot, "is what the hell was going on down here.”

    "He didn't do it on purpose." Catherine rose gracefully from behind number nine's isolation box and stood, both hands resting lightly on the curved lid.

    "I was wondering where you were." Dr. Burke turned, nostrils flaring, the younger woman's calm acting as a further goad. Her gesture toward the box had a cutting edge. "As it has no purpose, being dead, it needs no defense. The two of you, however, have no such excuse. So let's begin with an explanation of why the experiments were taken from the lab.”

    "Uh, they weren't." Donald cleared his throat as she directed her basilisk gaze back at him but continued. He had no intention of being blamed for something that wasn't his fault. "They left on their own.”

    "They left on their own?" Her quiet repetition was less than reassuring. "They just decided to get up and go out on an evening constitutional, did they?" A sudden rise in volume slapped her words against the walls. ”What kind of an idiot do you take me for!”

    "He's right." Catherine raised her chin. "We locked the door behind us. When we came back, the door was unlocked, from the inside, and they were gone. We found number nine wandering on campus." Her fingers stroked the box comfortingly. ”We found number ten just outside the apartment building she lived in when she was Marjory Nelson.”

    "She went home," Donald added.

    Catherine sighed. "She merely followed old programming.”

    "You didn't see her face, Cathy.”

    "I didn't need to. I know the parameters of the experiment.”

    "Well, maybe they've changed!”

    "Shut up, both of you." Gray eyes suddenly snapped open, widening