Devil s Due Page 0,24

it. "Better get moving, Manny. The FBI's downstairs. They know you're here, but if you want to avoid questions..." Which she knew he did. Manny would always choose to avoid questions.

His face was wet with sweat. "Yeah. I'd better get this sample back to the lab. Sooner I get the tests started, the sooner..."

She nodded. Manny paused, gazing at Pansy. She tried for a smile, and he looked as if he badly wanted to touch her, but neither of them managed to pull it off.

"See you," he said, and headed for the stairs. Pansy's gaze followed him. Lucia got back on the phone with Jazz.

"Manny's coming out," she said. "He's got a sample of the powder. Maybe you can ride herd on him...?"

"Done," Jazz said crisply, and hung up. That was Jazz: minimum talk, maximum effort.

"So," McCarthy said. "What do we do now?"

"Anybody want coffee?"

It took hours. Not a surprise; Lucia was well accustomed to the pace of investigations. But it still rankled. She was tired, exhausted from adrenaline, and starving. To her disappointment, the FBI hadn't exactly stormed the building. Agent Rawlins was present and accounted for, but he'd only brought one other agent and two technicians, one of whom was on loan from the Kansas City PD. One Haz-mat suit, which none of them bothered to put on.

"So," Rawlins said, and pulled up a chair next to Lucia as his men got to work. "Who's out to kill you this week?"

"Agent Rawlins, you wound me."

"Can't say as I'd be the first, ma'am."

"Cut the folksy bullshit."

He had a lived-in face, too many lines for his young age, and the bright hair made him look tired. His dark brown eyes didn't give away much except his general intelligence. Rawlins liked to pretend he was a hayseed. Lucia knew better. The man had graduated top of his class from Quantico, had piled up a string of high-profile cases and was in the running to be moved up to D.C. on his next rotation. If ever a man was going to make it out of the FBI bush leagues, it was Agent Rawlins.

He nodded, rubbed his big hands together and looked down at the floor. "Want to tell me how this happened?"

She told him the facts, as briskly as possible.

"I won't ask who has a grudge against you, because I know damn well that the list is about as long as the phone book. Including a couple dozen drug dealers and some very unhappy terrorists from the old days." He looked up, directly into her eyes. "You know who the envelope's from?"

"Gabriel, Pike & Laskins," she said. "Our attorneys."

"I'm the first to believe lawyers are evil, but why would they want to kill off their own clients?"

"I doubt they would. Anybody could have slipped an envelope into their FedEx bin at their offices. Wouldn't be too difficult."

"Good enough." Rawlins nodded. "You get a lot of correspondence from these lawyers?"

She smiled thinly. "A fair amount, yes. Legal matters."

"Mind if I take a look?"

"It's privileged."

"Miss Garza, you sound like a guilty party."

"I sound like someone who understands how you work. You're on a fishing expedition, Agent Rawlins."

"Am I close to catching anything?"

"Not even a minnow."

He smiled and looked away, toward the office door. His tech was coming out, holding a sealed bag marked EVIDENCE, with the standard biohazard symbol on it. Rawlins gave him a thumbs-up and stood.

"The lab's backed up," he said. "Might take a few days to come back with a result on this. My advice - close down until we get back to you. Take vacation."

"You're checking the air handlers in the building?"

"We're taking swabs. My guys are doing field tests, but just so you know, field tests aren't that reliable. False positives in a lot of cases. The lab's got some kind of growth medium it uses that can give us a determination in twenty-four hours."

"Once they get to us."

"Yeah. Once they get to you." It was unspoken, but he knew Manny would get to them first. Of course.

"Your techs already did field tests, right? What did they say?"

Rawlins was impossible to read. "Like I said, field tests aren't really reliable. They're just indicators. We don't base any kind of decisions on what they say."

McCarthy, who'd sat quietly through this entire conversation, said, "Listen, friend, I haven't even been out of prison for one full day yet. Don't make me assault a federal agent. I'd like to spend at least one night in a decent bed, watch a little television...so