Target On Her Back

But tonight, instead of inspiring or motivating or even feeling much like the familiar workplace she was used to, the darkened lab on the other side of the glass was filled with shadows. The vague outlines of tables and equipment took on menacing forms at night, like predators in a cave, lying in wait for their unsuspecting prey to wander inside to become dinner. All her imagination needed were a few blinking monitor lights to masquerade as eyes for the creatures, and the nightmare crawling over her skin and raising goose bumps would be complete.

Gigi startled at the brush of Jerome’s hand against her arm. “Sorry.”

She pushed aside his apology and stepped off the elevator. “My fault. I was letting my imagination get carried away with how creepy this place looks at night.” She followed Jerome across the hall, pulling her key card from around her neck as he unhooked the flashlight from his belt and shone it through the glass.

“It’s mighty dark in there,” Jerome pointed out. “I can’t tell if Dr. Lombard’s office door is open from here, but there sure isn’t any light coming from there.”

Gigi swiped her card through the lock, but nothing happened. “That’s strange.” She thought again of the shadowy predators inside. “There aren’t even any equipment lights glowing...” When her card failed to work a second time, she typed in her override code and opened the door. She paused, grabbing Jerome’s arm as he entered ahead of her. This wasn’t right. “There should be lights on. Monitors regulating electricity. Ongoing tests.”

Jerome nodded and flipped the light switch beside the door. Nothing. He went to the nearest table and turned the manual switch on a lamp. No light. “Do you think we blew a fuse?”

She glanced up at him. “We don’t use fuses anymore. The lab and research offices are on a self-contained, computer-regulated system.”

His blank stare told her she’d missed the point. “Figure of speech, Professor.”

“Oh. Right.” Her trepidation turned to concern about the stability of the millions of dollars of sensitive equipment housed here. “The lab is on its own breaker box from the rest of the building, including security. A surge of some kind must have blown the entire circuitry. Otherwise, the backup protocols would have engaged.” She shook her head. “Nothing’s on in here.”

“Take this.” Jerome handed her his flashlight. “I’ve got a light on my phone. I’ll go down to the basement and check the breakers. Will you be all right in here by yourself?”

Gigi nodded, turning the light to her closed office door near the front of the lab. “Everything I need should be in my backpack.”

Jerome hesitated a moment, surveying the dark cavern around them, including Ian’s closed door. “Apparently, Dr. Lombard did leave. Why wouldn’t he check himself out?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to wake you.” Gigi offered him a silent apology. “You were sleeping on your tablet.”

“I worked the night shift at KCPD for twenty years before I took this position. I have never fallen asleep on the job. Not like that.” His eyes narrowed as he considered an idea. “Will you be able to find your way downstairs okay? Once I reboot the system, I want to go back to my desk and smell my coffee.”

“Smell your coffee?” She swung her light right into his face. He squinted and put up his hand against the brightness before she quickly lowered the beam. “Sorry. Your headache.”

“Exactly.” He lowered his hand. “Call it an old policeman’s hunch.”

Gigi pretended she understood what he was talking about, even as her brain started calculating possible explanations. “You go ahead. As soon as I get my bag and keys, I’m heading home.”

“Okay.” His face softened with a wide grin. “Be sure to check with me on your way out. I don’t like losing track of people.”

“I’ll bring the ibuprofen down when I do.” She turned to her office and took a couple of steps around a stainless steel table before her deductive mind finally got what he’d meant by his odd comment. “Wait. Do you think your coffee was drugged...?”

By the time she reached the hallway, Jerome had already disappeared into the elevator. Gigi shook her head, realizing that solving one mystery had led to another. “Why drug that sweet old man?”

Maybe she was too tired, too drained from all the social interaction of the evening to fully understand anything tonight. She turned the light to her office door and made her familiar way through the maze of equipment to unlock it and head inside. She instinctively flipped on the light switch inside the door, then silently chided her foolishness when nothing turned on. She retrieved her backpack from her desk before opening the center drawer and tucking the bottle of pills for Jerome into a side pocket. She swapped out the flashlight for the reassurance of her own phone in her hand and turned on the flashlight app. Then she looped the bag over one shoulder and headed back to the lab.

Metal clanged against metal and she froze. Had the shadowy predators awakened? “Stupid imagination,” she muttered. She swept her light across the lab, although it wasn’t bright enough to reach every corner. She’d heard one sharp clank, then nothing. Was someone here? “Jerome?” No way could he have gotten down to the basement and back so quickly. But was that...? She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would sharpen her hearing. Was that someone breathing? Gasping? Her eyes popped open again. Now the only thing she heard was her pulse throbbing in her ears. She wasn’t alone. “Ian? Are you here?”

She pulled her door shut and turned toward Ian’s office at the back of the lab. She’d gone five steps when her hip smacked into the corner of a cart that had rolled out of place. Ignoring the stinging bruise that was already forming, she moved the cart back into its proper position and stepped around it. “Ian?”

Was that what she’d heard? The cart bumping against a table? She knew enough about physics—a lot about physics—to know that the cart hadn’t just moved on its own. Had they had a break-in? Was that why someone would drug Jerome? Why the lights would be out? She quickened her steps, watchful for any other carts jumping out to attack her. There didn’t seem to be anything missing. Although she could imagine Ian had brought his latest conquest here to his office, and they’d knocked into tables and equipment trying to get at each other, unable to keep their hands to themselves until they made it into the privacy of his office. At least, that’s what she imagined a truly passionate encounter to be like. Losing track of space and time, knocking into things, laughing, touching, loving...

Gigi shook those longing thoughts out of her head and concentrated on the facts. A clandestine meeting wouldn’t require flipping the circuit breaker—or drugging the security guard who had no reason to question Ian entering the building, with or without a guest.

“Ian? I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting, but if you’re here, answer me.”

Her shoe crunched over broken glass and she stopped. Her blood chilled away that brief shot of annoyance and left fear in its wake. “Ian?”

Something was wrong. Ian might have a weakness for a pretty face, but his pride in his work, maintaining a state-of-the-art showplace and feeding his ego, took second place to nothing and no one. Something was very wrong. “Ian!”

She slid on something slippery and she grabbed a nearby table for balance. This was not good. She pulled her foot up from the goo she’d stepped in, hating the gross, sucking sound it made.

Righting herself against the table, she turned her light to the puddle of red on the floor. A soupy brown liquid coated the top of it. Was that a chemical spill? She couldn’t identify the faint acrid smell that stung her nose. The lab had been in pristine condition when she’d left for the reception. Ian would never allow a mess like this. “Dr. Lombard? Are you in here?”

All at once, the lights kicked on, blinding her momentarily before she blinked her surroundings into focus. Now the damage was clear. She was walking over jagged shards of glass stained with... “Blood.”

She gasped a fearful breath. “Oh, my God. Jerome!” She shouted an alarm for the security guard to return. “We had a break-in!”

As if she could yell loudly enough for him to hear her through steel beams and cinder blocks. Gigi didn’t wait for the guard to come to her rescue. There’d been a struggle here. And someone was hurt.

“Dr. Lombard!”

For a split second she hoped that whoever belonged to this trail of blood had gotten himself to a hospital. But then she heard the sounds coming from Ian’s office. Something falling to the floor. Groans. Curses. Another crash. “Ian!” Gigi punched in 911 and skirted her way around the blood to reach Ian’s office. “Ian? Are you here? Are you all right?”

He wasn’t.

She shoved open the door, dropping her bag to the floor before she raced across the room and knelt beside her boss. “Oh, my God. What happened?”

Ignoring her attempt to get him to lie flat on the floor, he flung his arm up to pull a stack of books off his desk. He cried out when they hit his stomach and fell to the floor. A crumpled notepad dotted with blood lay on the floor next to him, the blood soaking into the paper and blotting out some of the numbers and symbols written there. He pushed away Gigi’s hands and flopped what seemed to be his one functioning arm at the desk again, pulling more things onto himself and the floor.

“Ian, stop. Lie still.” She pushed him onto his back, trying not to gag at the wounds puncturing his tuxedo shirt and turning the white pleats red. He was hurt badly, maybe dying. “What do you need?”

“Pen,” he muttered, spitting blood when he made the p sound. “Find...finish...”

The dispatcher had answered her call and was talking to Gigi on the phone. But she ignored the questions and pulled down a pen from the top of his desk. She pressed it into his hand and tugged a velour throw blanket off the nearby couch, wadding it up to press it against the worst of his wounds. He was weak, but struggling with her, determined to scribble something on the paper beside him.

Gigi punched the speaker button on her phone and set it on the desk, freeing her hands to stanch his wounds. But there were so many. There was so much blood. “Ian? Stay with me.”

“Ma’am?” The dispatcher’s voice was louder now. “Tell me what’s happening. Are you all right?”

Shoving at her glasses to keep them from falling off her nose, Gigi leaned over Ian. She shouted to the dispatcher. “I’m okay. My boss...” She swallowed her panic. She needed to make sense. “There’s been a break-in at the Williams University Technology Lab. My boss, Ian Lombard, he’s been stabbed. He’s bleeding badly.”

So much blood. She could see now that the pool of blood she’d stepped in earlier had become a trail of red dots across the carpet in here, and then a smear that led right to Ian’s desk. He must have been attacked out in the lab, then made his way in here to call for help or to escape his killer or to... “Damn it, Ian, stop messing with that paper.”

“I’ve dispatched an ambulance and the police to your location. Ma’am? I need your name. Can you tell me your name?”

“Virginia Brennan. My friends call me...” She stopped that useless sentence and wiped the perspiration from Ian’s forehead before returning the pressure to his wounds. Not that she could cover them all. But she had to try. “Professor Virginia Brennan. I work with Dr. Lombard. Please hurry.”

The blood was coating his lips now, trickling from his mouth as he tried to say something to her. “Safe...”

“Who did this to you?” Gigi tried to decipher his babble. At least he’d given up on writing his last will and testament or whatever note had been so important that he’d risked his life to put pen to paper instead of calling an ambulance himself. “He’s been stabbed multiple times,” she reported to the dispatcher. “Abdomen and chest. He’s losing a lot of blood.”

“Is the victim awake? Responsive?”

“Must finish...work...” he spat out. “Go...”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised before answering the dispatcher. “He’s conscious. But he’s incoherent. Ian, I don’t understand—”

With a strangled gasp, he grabbed a hank of her long hair and jerked her down to gasp in her ear. “Finish it.”

“Finish what? What are you talking about? You’re not finished.”

He rolled his head from side to side. “Made deal... But I couldn’t... So sorry...”

“Sorry for what? What deal?” His life was seeping through her fingers.

“My prize...” His rheumy eyes tried to focus. “Too damn...smart... Smarter...than me.”

“Don’t talk. Save your strength.” She cursed the urge to cry and extricated his fingers from her hair to speak to the dispatcher. “There are too many wounds. I can’t stop all the bleeding.”

“I thought she...my own fault... You must...”

“An ambulance is on its way.”

“Listen to me!” Fluid bubbled up from his lungs and Gigi’s eyes burned with tears. Help wouldn’t get here in time. Where was Jerome? Where was that stupid ambulance? “Take...” He wadded up the paper he’d scribbled all over and, with a monumental effort, dragged his hand onto his stomach, nudging it into her blood-stained fingers. “For you... Trust no one...” She glanced down at the words that were so important to him and saw nothing but random letters and numbers. “Finish...”

“Finish what?” Gigi whipped her gaze around the room, desperate for help. “Help me!”

“You’ll...understand...”

“Understand what?” When he kept batting against her hand, she took the paper and stuffed it into the pocket of her sweater. But even in those few seconds that she’d eased the pressure on his wounds, his eyes drifted shut. “No! Ian!”

She patted his cheek, urging him to open his eyes again, mindless of the bloody fingerprints she left on his skin. “Stay with me.”

But he was gone.

Ian Lombard was dead.

Gigi sat back on her heels, eyeing her soiled hands, feeling the tears burn down her cheeks. She heard someone hurrying through the lab behind her. Help. At last. “In here!” She turned her head, catching a shadowy movement from the corner of her eye. “Jerome—”

Pain exploded in her skull. Her glasses flew off and she crumpled to the floor beside the dead man. The room spun and blackness consumed her.

Chapter Two

“Whose honor were you defending this time?”

Detective Hudson Kramer touched his bruised knuckles to his lips, wiping away the blood that trickled down his unshaven chin, and gave his amused partner the stink eye. He stepped away from the two dazed men lying in a puddle on the asphalt. “Make yourself useful and get out your handcuffs.”

At least Keir Watson had had the good grace to even the odds in this lame excuse for a back-alley brawl behind the Shamrock Bar where Hud had been plying his dubious charm on a pretty blonde. He’d had about twenty minutes of doing all right for a thirty-two-year-old whose only luck with women was the bad kind. Twenty minutes of thinking he wasn’t going straight to the friend zone and that she might just say yes if he asked her out on a real date and kissed her good-night. Twenty minutes of sharing laughs and feeling like his luck just might be changing until Stinky Smith here and his wingman, I’m-With-Stupid Jones, decided that loud and drunk and hitting on anything with boobs was going to get them laid tonight.

Hud had been content to let the bartender handle the rowdy pair—a bar frequented by local cops rarely needed a bouncer on duty—until Smith and Jones had lurched over to his table, sat down on either side of Ricki and proceeded to horn in on the blonde and her drink. Hud had politely asked the two drunks to leave. But polite had no effect on their beer-soaked brains, and when one of them draped his arm around Ricki and her smile turned to a look of panic, Hud stepped up to get the job done.

“I identified myself as a cop,” Hud assured his friend, hauling the guy who’d taken a swing at him to his feet. Although polar opposites in dress and demeanor, Keir Watson was as close to Hud as his own brother—the entire Watson clan made Hud feel like part of the family, especially now that his own siblings had found their hearts’ desires away from Kansas City. So, he took great pleasure in flicking at the grime that dusted the damp lapel of Keir’s preppie suit before pulling his own cuffs out of the back pocket of his jeans and slapping them on the bruiser with more muscles than brains. “I escorted these gentlemen out the back door, offered to call a cab for them, warned them I’d cite them for drunk and disorderly...” He cinched the cuff around Stinky’s other wrist, securing them without being too tight. He looked up into Stinky’s unfocused eyes, making sure the young man understood they were going for a walk. “Then this bozo thought taking a swing at me was a good idea.”

Hud had stopped growing when he hit five foot eight. Despite his lack of height, a combination of martial arts and weight training often gave him an advantage over larger opponents in a fight. Besides, he didn’t have to be as street smart as life and his years as a detective with KCPD made him in order to outwit these two.

“But you escorted them out of the bar because...?” Keir was still trying to push his buttons as he followed Hud with his prisoner. They escorted them to the end of the alley where a uniformed officer would meet them with a black-and-white to drive the two perps down to the precinct to sleep off their out-of-control drunkenness. “I know there’s a woman involved.”

“Give it a rest, Keir. Jesse the bartender cut them off, and they got a little surly. When I asked for their ID, they started to raise a ruckus. I was not counting on...” Hud bit back a curse when his prisoner weaved to the side, doubling over to retch behind a row of trash cans that had been knocked over in their scuffle. “You okay, bud? Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Stinky drawled. Feeling a touch more sober, he stopped and tried to take stock of his surroundings. “Where’s Danny? He didn’t make it with that blonde, did he?”

Danny must be the guy in the prophetic I’m With Stupid T-shirt. He perked up at the mention of his name. “What blonde? Did I get her number?”

Keir laughed. “I knew there’d be a blonde. Now this little fracas is starting to make sense.” He grinned at Hud. “They said something crude. You took exception. When you asked them to leave, they didn’t cooperate. So, you encouraged them to do so. Is that about right?”

Hudson grumbled a curse at just how well his partner knew him.

They cleared the alley and headed toward the circle of light beneath a lamppost to wait for the black-and-white to pull up. “What’s your friend’s name, Danny?” Keir asked.

“Kyle.” Danny stumbled as he tried to turn and get a look at the detective in the suit and tie. “Who are you?”

“I’m the police, Danny. Detectives Watson and Kramer. Remember?” Keir’s patience in explaining the situation to the two men who likely wouldn’t remember much of this encounter made Hud shake his head. “You’re both going to spend the night in jail. You understand that, right?”

“Am I drunk?” Kyle asked, staggering ahead of Hud.

“Yep,” Hud assured him. When they reached the lamppost, he turned the young hotshot so he could sit on the concrete barrier beside it. “You’re going to be a little sore in the morning. I had to twist your arm and put you down on the ground to get you to stop trying to hit me.”

“I hit you?”

“Lucky punch,” Hud conceded.

“Did Danny hit you?”

“I doubt it,” Keir answered, helping Danny sit before he fell. “He’ll be a little sore, too. He tripped over the two of you and face-planted the asphalt before I could catch him.”

Kyle appeared to be nodding off. Hud gently tapped his cheek to force his bleary eyes open. “You don’t talk to a lady like that again. You don’t touch her unless you have permission. You don’t drink so much you can’t even tell me your name. And you sure as hell don’t get behind the wheel of a car when you’re like this.” Hud reached around Kyle and pulled his wallet from his jeans. “Let’s try this one more time. I’m Detective Kramer, KCPD. I’m going to check your ID. You got any weapons, sharp objects, drugs on you?”

“I don’t think so.” Kyle answered while Hud read his name off his license. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“For being a dumb ass?” He tucked the billfold into Kyle’s chest pocket as a pair of uniformed officers pulled up in their vehicle. “You’re not worth the paperwork. Just be safe. And be smarter about how much you’re drinking next time.”

After the uniforms drove away with the two drunks, Keir stepped back into the end of the alley beside him. “So you got those two idiots safely out of the bar and off the streets. How’d you make out with the pretty blonde they were so rude to?”

Hud swore again. “Ricki. I left her alone.” He checked his watch as he retreated toward the Shamrock’s back door. “I’ve been gone twenty-five minutes. You got this?”

He barely saw Keir’s nod before he ran back inside the Shamrock. By the time he cleared the polished walnut bar with its green vinyl seats and zeroed in on the empty table where he’d left Ricki, there was no point in hurrying. The only thing he could cuddle up with there was his worn leather jacket. A quick scan of the remaining patrons at the tables and pool tables told him his “date” had left.

He turned to the bearded bartender in the leather vest, hoping Jesse Valentine would tell him she’d just stepped into the ladies’ room. Jesse gave him an apologetic smirk. “Sorry, man. She got on her phone almost as soon as you went outside with the Blunder Twins. A guy showed up about five minutes ago. She left with him.”

Propping his hands at his waist, Hud tipped his face to the tin-tiled ceiling and let the suckage of this particular Friday night wash over him. He’d often been the friend his sisters or another woman called for that safe ride home. The irony of being the man the woman no longer wanted to hang out with wasn’t lost on him.

He startled at Keir’s hand on his shoulder before his partner pulled him back to the bar. Keir asked for a glass of ice water. He dipped his handkerchief inside and handed it to Hud to press against his mouth. “Everything all right?”

“You know, I gave up the prime of my dating life to raise my younger brother and sisters.” Hud perched on a stool and held the cold cloth to his split lip. “I don’t regret it for one second. We needed each other after Mom and Dad died. I was going to keep the family together, no matter what. But now they’ve all got college degrees and careers. They’re engaged or married and starting families, and I can’t catch a break with a woman now that I’m available and ready for some action.”

“Ready for some action? Seriously?” Keir pulled out the stool beside him but waved off Jesse’s offer of his regular drink. “Please don’t tell me that’s a line you’ve used.”

“Don’t judge me.”

“You’ve got no game, my friend.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Seriously, dude.” Keir clapped him on the shoulder to take the sting out of his words. “If she stood you up while you were taking care of business, then she’s not the one for you.”

Small comfort. Lonesome was lonesome. And Hud had spent far too many nights on his own or with a woman who wasn’t the one for him.

The fact that Keir had ventured out into the earlier rainstorm on their night off and wasn’t drinking pricked at Hud’s suspicions, giving him a respite from his pissy mood. It was no coincidence that his partner had come to the Shamrock looking for him. Something must be up at work, especially since he had a beautiful wife and baby girl waiting for him at home. Hud pulled out his wallet and asked Jesse how much he owed for the warm, half-drunk beers at his table.

“They’re on the house,” the bartender assured him, refusing his money. “Thanks for clearing out the riffraff.”

There were any number of things he’d rather be doing tonight than working, and all of them had to do with a woman. But since there were none in his life, he turned his attention to his partner. If something was wrong with the family, Keir would have mentioned it right away. This was KCPD business. Hud pushed to his feet and pocketed Keir’s soiled handkerchief before crossing the noisy bar to his table. “Why aren’t you home with Kenna making goo-goo eyes at that new baby of yours? I know you didn’t drop by just to back me up with Stupid and Stupider.”