Her frown deepened. That sounded almost like a threat. "Yes sir."
Stephan signed off. She leaned over to collect her bag from beside the desk. Time to go collect a man mountain.
* * * *
Awareness returned slowly. At first, Gabriel felt nothing beyond the pounding ache in his head. Gradually, though, he became conscious of something sharp under his side, digging into his ribs. Became aware that his shoulders burned, as if stretched back too long and too hard. He tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but couldn't, mainly because he was trussed up tighter than a roast for Sunday's dinner.He opened his eyes. The room in which he lay was enclosed in darkness. There were no windows, no chance of light getting in or him getting out. The air was still, and it tasted almost foul.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found the door. Heavy set and metal, it looked like something you'd find on a commercial refrigerator. He looked around his prison again. Saw the rails above him, hung with empty hooks. He was in a meat cold storage locker. No wonder the air held a mix of death and fouled meat.
He shifted his legs. The object under his ribs dug deep, biting into his flesh. He swore and jackknifed away. Glass, not stone or rubble, as he'd presumed. Probably the remnants of some drunk's cheap wine bottle. Judging by the amount of glass surrounding him, the drunk had spent a fair amount of time here. Obviously, the building in which the meat locker was housed had been abandoned long enough for street people to consider it a refuge.
Unless they were in the same building that he'd followed Rose into, the chance of immediate rescue was next to zero.
But the glass itself might provide a means to escape, if he could just free enough fingers to grab a piece. He shifted his shoulders and arms, trying to work some slack into the ropes. After a good ten minutes, he had to rest. Whoever had tied him had had done a damn fine job. He could barely breathe, let alone move.
The sharp tattoo of footsteps came from beyond the confines of his prison, and then the metal door screeched open. Brown leather boots appeared. He looked up and found himself staring into Emma Pierce's face. The sister, he thought. The elusive Rose Pierce.
"Good to see you're finally awake, Assistant Director." She stopped a good three feet away and stared at him with an expression that wavered between contempt and caution.
"What are you doing, Rose? None of this will bring Emma back. Especially not killing innocent adoptees."
Her smile was cold. "Especially when one of them was your sister, huh?"
Anger flashed through him, but it was useless, given the circumstances. He could no more attack her than he could fly right now. "What's the point of all this? We know who you are. We know who your next victims will be. You're insane if you think we're going to let you get anywhere near them."
She began to pace. Her walk was long and powerful, almost masculine. "I only realized how close you were when I cycled up the street and saw you all there. Up until then, I had thought the trail untraceable."
Which was pretty much the downfall of most criminals, he thought. They never thought they could be caught. "Taking me as a hostage will get you no closer to your victims. The SIU doesn't bargain."
Her smile was a slash of contempt. "I know that. I have no intention of going down that road, anyway."
"Then what do you intend?"
"You'll see soon enough." She hesitated, studying him almost too intently. "What, no other questions?"
She wanted him to talk, though he wasn't entirely sure why. He could see no harm in obliging though, especially if it gave him some answers. "Why are you killing these people? If you hold a grudge, it should be against Hopeworth, not the innocent by-products of their experiments."
"I have no grudge against the adoptees. I'm only carrying out my sister's final wish."
"Emma wanted her children dead?"
Bitterness ran across her face. "These aren't her children. They were never conceived by her, never grew to life in her womb. They're an aberration of nature, something that should not exist. So they die, as Emma wished."
"How did Emma find out about the adoptees in the first place?" He was pretty confident Hopeworth wouldn't have told her.
"A chance encounter with a reject from another project gave us the clue, though I reckon Em might have had her suspicions anyway. We formed a pact with the reject — we helped him, and he helped us."
"Then why cut out the wombs in the women, or the penis and scrotum in the men?"
For a moment, Rose didn't answer. She paced the floor behind him, long aggravated strides. "Do you know what it is like to be a twin? To share your twin's every thought, every desire, and every anguish?"
His smile was grim. He should, but he didn't. Perhaps he would regret it one day, but for now, he was happy to continue blocking Stephan.
"I spent half my life physically locked away from my sister," Rose continued softly. "It didn't matter, because even as a child, all I had to do was reach out, and she was there, in my mind, ready to comfort or talk."
So, even as babes, the two had known about each other. "What kept you apart as you got older? Hopeworth?"
Rose came back within sight. Her face darkened. "The bastards sucked her dry, and then they spat out the husk. They didn't care what happened to her once they'd finished with her. I was the one who had to pick up the pieces. I was the one who had to see and feel her agony as the cancers their treatments and explorations had left her with ate away her body." She hesitated and clenched her fists. "I was the one who had to watch her die and feel her relief as death sucked her soul away."