Beast in the Tower

His love wasn’t enough.

Wide awake, as he searched for a broom and dustpan, he saw the vision—as clearly as he’d seen it that morning at the asylum.

Miranda. Dead.

An empty bottle of pills beside her on the bed.

No stomach pump, no science, no miracle could bring his wife back to him.

The note she’d left him had been brief.

D—

I can’t do this anymore.

M.

Some lousy chromosome in her genetic makeup kept the miracle drugs that had earned his company millions from working. He’d even tested the tissue-regeneration formula on himself. The prototypes might be scarred and ugly, but he’d regained the use of his hands. The fingerprints hadn’t all come back, but he had sensation in almost every nerve, and most of his dexterity had returned. He could do his work. He could type his notes and mix his chemicals and write his equations. He could feel heat and cold and pain.

God, yes. He was a pro at that now. Through and through. Some days, pain was all he could feel.

Damon paused in the center of his new lab. He pulled back the front of his white coat, propped his hands at his hips, tipped his head back and roared at the soundproof ceiling.

It wasn’t fair that he should be alive while Miranda was dead. It wasn’t fair that he should have more money than some small countries and not know happiness anymore. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t find the solution to Miranda’s Formula—the tissue-regenerating miracle intended to save patients who shared the same genetic predisposition she’d had.

He couldn’t even honor her memory with that.

“So what are you going to do about it, Doc?” he asked aloud, breathing deeply and talking to himself in a way that had always cleared his thoughts and enabled him to concentrate. “For starters, I’m going to see if that persistent bastard has made any progress breaking into SinPharm’s restricted files.”

With something new to engage his brain, Damon was a happier man. He rolled a stool over to his computer and logged in to his company’s database. In just a few keystrokes, he located the illegal activity and grinned. The nosy SOB was back. “Welcome, Mr. Black Hole of the Universe.” Catchy online name. Appropriate since the hacker had tried a dozen different ways to download his research codes. In the middle of the night, when SinPharm’s corporate offices were closed and the satellite labs and production facilities had been secured, someone was trying to hack into Damon’s private files.

It had been another restless night a couple weeks back when he’d first detected the unknown computer geek trying to access his research through online channels. The hacker had broken in three different times to download codes that were misdirecting fakes to begin with. Once the false codes were applied to the data that had been stolen from his lab eighteen months ago, the thieves would realize that they’d been duped. Again. They’d wind up with cotton candy or a laxative—not any of his patented medicines or experimental drugs.

Though he’d had no luck tracing either the location or the identity of Black Hole yet, Damon had led the intruder on a merry chase. He sat and watched the screen as his opponent peeled away layer after layer of security protocols, getting closer to the translation codes that could turn Damon’s equations from gibberish into millions of dollars.

And just when the perp was about to reach the innermost level, Damon pushed a button and scrambled the codes all over again.

His laughter was rare, a rusty sound that stretched the scarred muscles of his throat. SinPharm’s security firm had their way of preventing industrial espionage, and Damon had his.

“That should keep you busy for a few more days.” Hell, if the enemy wanted to reproduce his formulas and market competitive medical treatments without doing their own research, then they were damn well gonna have to get past him. Unless he tracked them down first and introduced them to the FDA, the FCC and any other government organization whose laws they’d violated.

And if Damon discovered the hacker was in any way responsible for the theft and fire that led to Miranda’s suicide, then he would personally put him out of business.

Permanently.

While he relished the image of the unknown spy throwing up his hands and cursing at the computer screen, Damon knew he had problems closer to home he needed to deal with. He glanced at the broken glass and dissipating chemical on the floor. “Like you.”

Damon rolled his stool over to another desk, where two rows of monitors helped him keep an eye on the Sinclair Tower through adjustable interior and exterior security cameras. He typed in a command and brought up a view of the main rooms in the penthouse upstairs. Good. All was quiet. His housekeeper’s seemingly intuitive ability to know when he’d screwed up and needed a little extra help hadn’t awakened her from her sleep.

But by morning, if he didn’t clean it up tonight, then she’d somehow know. She’d be down here at first light, cleaning and tutting herself into a worried state until she verified for herself that he hadn’t been cut or injured in any way.

Corporate spies he could handle. But it was funny how such a tiny little woman, who’d once changed his diapers and sent him to his room, could transform six feet, three inches of brains and testosterone into a guilty little boy, as eager to please as he was to cover his tracks and stay out of trouble with her.

But the bonded cleaning crew he hired to sterilize the lab once a week brought their own supplies, and if there was a broom to be had, he wasn’t finding it.

Mental note: buy cleaning supplies for the lab.

In the meantime, he could raid his housekeeper’s private stash. Damon draped his lab coat over a hook beside the rear exit, swiped his key card through the lock and hurried up the back stairs to the penthouse where they lived on the top two floors.

His plan was simple: sneak into her unguarded kitchen to borrow a broom and dustpan, then dispose of the evidence and hide the fact that he’d spent yet another sleep-deprived night working in his lab.

Yet as he tiptoed past the darkened hallway that led to her quarters, something made Damon stop. Everything was as neat and tidy as it had appeared on the monitor downstairs. But something was off. Perhaps it was the absence of any familiar sound that pricked his senses and put him on alert. There was no humidifier running, no television chattering on after his housekeeper had fallen asleep. He heard no soft, denasal snore. Damon leaned the broom and dustpan against the wall, turned the corner and gently knocked on her door.

There was no answer. The woman had raised him after his mother’s death, had stayed on after his marriage. She’d been there through his father’s passing. Had remained with him past her own retirement, the accident and Miranda’s suicide. They were as close to being a family as two people who shared no bloodline could be. Squashing a flare of panic beneath cold, rational purpose, Damon opened the bedroom door to check on her.

“Helen?”

“MISS SNOW?” A nurse joined Kit at the ICU window, looking through the criss-crossed steel filaments inside the glass to the fragile, wan woman in the hospital bed on the other side.

“There’s no change, is there.” Kit had stayed as close as the hospital staff would allow while surgical and neurological teams stitched up the elderly woman’s head wound, monitored cranial pressure and vital signs, and tucked her into the sterile room for observation. Until she regained consciousness, there was no way for the doctors to completely assess how much damage the three attackers had done. No way for the police to get any more information on the mugging beyond Kit’s concise—but all too incomplete—statement.

“We’re doing everything we can.” The plump nurse shrugged. “The rest is up to her.”

The mysterious Helen didn’t look strong enough to fight off a pesky fly, much less fight for her life. We’re all dead?

Where was the hope in that? Was that going to be Helen’s last, despairing thought? Kit splayed her fingers at the edge of the cool glass, wishing she could hold Helen’s thin, bony hand again, and share whatever warmth and encouragement the woman needed to survive. Truman Medical Center was already a dim, ominously quiet tomb at three in the morning. Walking away and leaving the elderly woman in the care of staff who knew even less about her than Kit did felt like abandonment.

Kit’s parents had been found holding hands when their bodies were discovered after the fire, with debris from the explosion blocking their escape. According to the arson team who’d combed through the diner afterward, Matthew and Phyllis Snow had most likely succumbed to the toxic smoke long before they’d been burned or crushed by the collapsing ceiling. But they’d had each other—they’d known love and a hopeful connection to something outside themselves—right until the end of their lives.

Kit curled her fingers into a fist. Someone should be in there, holding Helen’s hand, giving her hope. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

But the nurse hadn’t come to give a medical report, and she had no clue about Kit’s frustrated sense of justice for all. “It’s long past visiting hours. And since you’re not family, well…I’m sorry.” Her apologetic frown didn’t ease the sting of dismissal. “Our Jane Doe needs her rest.”

“She’s not a Jane Doe,” Kit insisted, fighting for her neighbor the only way she could. “Her name’s Helen. She lives in the Sinclair Building. You put Helen on her charts, didn’t you? I can’t imagine how disoriented she’d feel if she woke up and you started calling her by someone else’s name.”

“Yes. We have her listed as Helen Doe. Sorry to alarm you. We passed along all the information you gave us to the police. I’m sure they’re checking their missing persons files right now.” The nurse’s rueful sigh recaptured Kit’s attention. “Go home. It’s late. You’ve already done more for her than most Good Samaritans would.”

“Someone had to be here to answer questions.” That was the practical excuse she’d given for climbing into the ambulance while the paramedics worked on Helen.

“I heard you chased away her attackers. It’s all over the hospital. She might be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” Kit had left Germane back at the diner to wait until Matt showed up. She intended to call him before she left, to see if her brother had gotten home safely. In the meantime, Helen’s needs had been more pressing. Kit had held the older woman’s chilly hand until the staff chased her away. Now all she could do was keep her distance and watch and wait. “People shouldn’t be alone. Especially when they’re hurting or afraid. Someone needs to be here for her.”

Her brother might not appreciate her vigilance. The neighborhood might think her more busybody than philanthropist. But the unconscious Helen couldn’t stop her from caring.

The nurse nudged her toward the lobby. “One of the staff will check her regularly throughout the night. But until we get word from her family, or visiting hours resume at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait someplace else.”

Kit exhaled a deep breath and finally acknowledged the aches and fatigue of her own banged-up body. “I should have lied and said I was her granddaughter, shouldn’t I?”