“I thought we were the team,” Lorenzo says, a bit drily.

“That’s what Mr. Poe means,” Morgan says. His eyes dart toward the big man standing next to him. “Right, Mr. Poe?”

“Exactly. Any other questions?” He doesn’t wait. “You’ll each go through a security checkpoint when you enter the building and when you leave. The building is staffed around the clock.” Poe nods once to Morgan before turning his back on us and leaving the way he came in. Quietly.

“Okay.” Morgan claps his hands together once, as if he’s calling an unruly class to order. “Let’s get to work. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you around the lab.”

We file out of the conference room, past fat Jack, who is slurping down a Coke, and back through the windowless main door. Morgan opens this with his key card, which, unlike mine and Lorenzo’s and Lin’s, is blue. Ours are white.

Lin pulls me back as we walk down the hall toward the elevator bank. “That Poe. Silent-but-deadly type,” she says.

“Very,” I say. “What’s with the segregation and the deadline?”

“Don’t know. But if we’re on our own at lunch, we’ll have a chance to talk. Lorenzo seems like he knows something.”

“Come on, ladies,” Morgan calls from the elevator he’s holding open.

We pick up the pace and arrive at the open doors. Morgan walks in first, Lorenzo last. When we’re inside, he reaches behind and squeezes my hand.

“Very exciting day,” Morgan says.

Yes. It is.

Chapter Twenty-nine

TWENTY-NINE

The first thing I hear as we walk the ten feet from the elevator to the lab complex is the squeak of mice. The animals are a necessity, but I still get squeamish about injecting the tiny beasts with untested sera. They’re so helpless, like babies. I can’t stand holding them and looking into their oil-drop eyes and squeezing whatever my latest potion is into their innocent veins. Lin has no problem with it; maybe her medical background makes her immune. I’ve always let her administer the injections.

“They’re mice, Jean,” she would say, back in our Georgetown lab. “You’d set traps for them if they invaded your pantry, wouldn’t you?”

Well. She had me there. But the traps were passive devices. I could deal with them better than I could deal with needles full of chemicals. I’ve always been a textbook kind of a girl when it comes to anything brain related. Let the MDs fiddle with the practical stuff.

Morgan is poised with his key card at the door, then reconsiders. “Might as well try one of yours, to make sure it works. Dr. McClellan? How about you do the honors?”

Lorenzo chuckles. “Come on, Gianna. You won’t know what’s inside until you open it.”