she was running on fumes.
Her stomach lurched as she eyed the bodies laid out on a series of slabs. A morgue attendant and three pathologists worked the tables, engaged in the thankless task of separating the cultists from the massacre victims. The killers were civilians too. All races, ages and religions were represented and connected by one identifying mark — the binary tattoo etched on their forearms.
A clear pattern was emerging among the attackers. The majority of cultists worked at Omicron. This couldn’t be a coincidence. There had to be a link to the tech company.
Making things worse, the whole case had gone nuclear. It was world news now and only a matter of time before the FBI and Homeland Security joined the party. Serrone was almost hoping they’d pull her off the investigation and assign some hotshot Fed to head the case. What she’d seen at the Apple Store wasn’t like anything she’d ever experienced or wanted to experience again. At least her partner, Grell, was now in stable condition.
While the brass figured out what the next official move should be, Serrone was going to check out their sole true lead. Omicron. She was going to visit the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley and begin asking the hard questions.
With any luck, those questions would make the right people uncomfortable and someone would start talking. No way all these employees belonged to a cult without someone else at the company being aware of the situation.
She nodded at Detective Dawson to join her. The man was in his early forties, a good cop but a bit too by-the-book for Serrone’s taste. A close friend of Grell’s, he was itching to get to the bottom of these murders. That made him a perfect ally.
As they drove to Omicron, Serrone called her house and managed to get her daughter on the phone. Seven-year-old Casey was getting ready for school. Serrone’s mother had been nice enough to watch Casey last night when it became clear she would be pulling overtime.
“Hi Mom, is everything okay?”
It was great to hear her daughter’s voice. The kid seemed to have the wisdom of someone five times her age. “Honey, mommy is fine. I just need to wrap up something at work. By the time you’re home from school I’ll be back, I promise. We’ll grab dinner tonight, your pick.”
Casey paused on the other end, almost as if she doubted the veracity of her mother’s words. It broke Serrone’s heart. Sometimes she hated being a cop.
As she hung up the phone, Serrone fought back a wave of anxiety. How could she do this to her daughter? The poor kid had already lost her dad. Why did she have to be cursed with a mother who carried a gun to work?
She bit her lip and took another sip of coffee, welcoming the bitter taste on her tongue. She eyed the officers in the car and realized that she missed Grell’s entertaining banter. He could be an opinionated ass, but he made her laugh. They were a good team.
Unfortunately, despite his good intentions Dawson was blessed with the personality of a valium.
About forty minutes later, they pulled up to Omicron and got out of the vehicle. Sunlight sparkled on the company’s logo, above the main entrance. Plenty of people in Serrone’s circle swore by Omicron’s technology. Omicron is even better than Apple! Whatever. In her mind Omicron was just another Silicon Valley tech conglomerate making stuff that encouraged people to stare at their devices instead of paying attention to each other.
After some back and forth with Omicron’s overeager security staff, they were finally escorted to the offices of Travis Hockney, Senior Vice President of Public Relations. Serrone planned to ask him if the leadership at Omicron was aware of a cult recruiting their workers? Had Hockney seen any employees sporting the binary tattoo?
As they crossed the vast atrium of the high-tech palace, Serrone marveled at the building’s breathtaking architectural design. The bright and airy environment struck her as the ideal workplace, a far cry from her cramped gray quarters at the police department.
They walked through an entertainment room where workers depressurized. There were foosball and Ping-Pong tables alongside arcade games from the 1980s. Another doorway led to a large office space lined with cubicles.
A young, attractive woman stepped up to them. “Hello Detective, my name is Stacy and I’m Hockney’s assistant. He’s taking a call but will be right with you. Would you care for a water or juice while you