In Plain Sight

No. Leslie had just talked to Iggy, and he told her about the police cars. Alex took a deep breath and tried to focus. What he needed was a sandwich and a cigarette.

When he reached the entrance, there was no uniformed officer there, another good sign, but his gut was telling him something was wrong. It wasn’t until he saw the tall, blond man in the gray pinstriped suit loitering in the hall that Alex realized what form the danger had taken. He plastered a smile on his face and kept his pace steady.

“Agent Warner,” he said, when he reached the young FBI man. “If you’re looking for old books, I hear the University’s library has a few.”

Warner’s eyes narrowed at the sight of Alex.

“Shouldn’t you be helping some little girl find her lost balloon?”

Alex chuckled and clapped Warner on the shoulder. “That’s what I love about you FBI types,” Alex said. “You’re all so witty.”

Warner snarled and batted Alex’s hand away.

“You’d better mind your manners, scribbler,” he snarled. “The boss lady may want to handle you with kid gloves, but that doesn’t mean I have to.”

“I think,” a new voice cut in, “that what Agent Warner meant to ask is, what are you doing here, Mr. Lockerby?”

Alex turned to find Agent Davis emerging from a door with the word Pathology panted on it.

“I’m here to see Dr. Halverson,” Alex said, putting on an easy smile.

Davis’s smile looked just as insincere as Alex’s. “What business do you have with the Doc?” he asked.

Alex took a deep breath and kept his smile in place. These two were really beginning to get on his nerves, which, when he thought about it, was probably just what they were trying to do. If he gave them any excuse, they’d arrest him and throw him in a holding cell for as long as they could get away with. Some other time it might have been fun to force their hand, but not today.

Too many people were depending on him today.

“Doctor Bell called me,” he said. “Asked me to come down right away, so here I am.”

“Who’s Bell?” Warner asked Davis. The elder FBI man checked his notes.

“The consultant,” he said after a moment. The two of them exchanged a long look, then Davis stepped away from the door so Alex could enter.

The room beyond was crammed with lab equipment, workbenches, burners, and beakers of every description — and policemen. Alex saw Lieutenant Callahan standing next to a gray-bearded man with immensely thick spectacles who wore a white lab coat. Alex ventured a guess that he was the famous Dr. Halverson. He seemed to be explaining something highly technical, since Callahan and his detectives kept stopping him every few seconds to write in their notebooks.

“Well, well,” a honeyed female voice washed over him. “You do turn up in the strangest places, Mr. Lockerby.”

Alex looked toward the back of the room and found Sorsha Kincaid leaning against a lab table with the air of someone who was waiting for something to happen. Unlike when she came to his office, she wore a dress with a white jacket over the top. The dress was pale blue to match her eyes, and it clung to her slender form in a very appealing manner. To Alex’s surprise, Iggy stood next to her with a warm smile on his face.

“Why, Miss Kincaid,” Alex said, slapping his poker face back in place. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

She smiled a warm, genuine smile and shook her head.

“Not for me,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for you for some time. It was very rude of you to keep me waiting.”

Alex had no idea what she was talking about and he had to keep reminding himself that the dazzling smile she kept flashing him was probably the one a shark shows just before it makes you its lunch.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, with a mock bow. “I wasn’t aware you were expecting me.”

Sorsha turned to Iggy and looped her arm in his. “Doctor Bell here simply wouldn’t explain Dr. Halverson’s results to me until you got here,” she said.

“And I stand by it,” Iggy said. “I hate having to explain things more than once.”

“You could have just asked Halverson,” Alex said. Sorsha frowned.

“No,” she said then, replacing the frown with a knowing smile. “I’m afraid that Halverson is far too brilliant to be clearly understood. Whereas Dr. Bell is so very eloquent.”

Iggy actually blushed.

“Well now that I’m here,” Alex said. “I guess Dr. Bell can explain.”

“Not quite yet,” Sorsha said. Alex felt the temperature in the room go down several degrees, figuratively at least. “This is the second time this week I find you tangled up in my investigation, Mr. Lockerby. I’d like to know why you are here.”

“You think this has something to do with your missing book?” Alex said. He hadn’t actually considered that this might be the work of some deranged runewright, but Iggy had said the disease was man-made. Could something in the Archimedean Monograph be that dangerous? Sorsha smiled but her ice blue eyes were hard.