I hung my star around my neck, drew in a big breath, and went through the door.
Hallway was well lit, the walls freshly painted. I took the stairs two at a time, up to the second floor and 2-C, where the Hothams resided. Their door was also open a few inches. I nudged it with my shoulder, peering into the apartment but keeping my face well away from the crack.
I heard static, then, “Car seventeen, this is base, please copy.”
“Police,” I announced. “I’m coming in.”
I eased the door open, still not daring to breathe the air coming out of the apartment.
I saw the legs first. Male, black shoes, sidearm still in his rocker holster.
“Seventeen this is base, what’s your twenty, over.”
He lay on his back, bloodshot eyes wide, mouth hanging open and coated in froth and mucus. I didn’t see any movement, but I knew I needed to check for a pulse to be sure.
The problem was, I didn’t want to go into that apartment.
I parted my lips, still not breathing, but trying to taste the air, to see if it was safe. I didn’t taste anything.
“Is anyone inside this apartment?” I said loudly.
No answer.
My options were to call for backup, or go inside and look for possible survivors. If this was the Chemist’s apartment, it could be booby-trapped.
“Car seventeen, this is base, please respond. You there, Smitty?”
I let in a tiny bit of air. It seemed fine. No strange smell. No physical reaction, other than a strange sense of déjà vu that I’d been in this same situation before, which wasn’t déjà vu at all.
But this time, I didn’t have a space suit.
I went in, crouched next to the fallen cop, probing his carotid. Nothing. So I reached for the radio clipped to his chest.
“This is Lieutenant Daniels, Chicago PD. We have an officer down at 1730 East Thirty-first, apartment 2-C. Request immediate assistance.”
The radio crackled a response, but I wasn’t paying attention; my eyes focused on the two people sitting on the couch.
A man and a woman. Early sixties. She had brown hair, cut short, with gray highlights. He was mostly bald. Both wore glasses. Both stared straight at me.
Both were dead.
It took a moment to realize that. After the adrenaline startle, I stood erect and took a few steps toward them. Their eyes were dry, lifeless. Their faces devoid of color. They held hands, and I noticed the lividity blush to their fingers, where the blood had pooled.
What killed these people?
My paranoia kicked up to near panic, and I looked up, down, left and right, in every direction I could, for traps, for gas, for IEDs, for poison, for anything dangerous or out of place.
Cobwebs on the ceiling. A clean carpet. An easy chair. Two floor lamps, glowing. A window air conditioner. A large floor-model humidifier, silent. Photos on the walls, of the old people. It was their house.
“Is anyone in here?” I shouted.
No response.
I walked past the fallen officer, through the living room, nice and easy, aware of my center, my footing, my balance, eyes sweeping the floor for wires and fishing line.
Another cop was in the kitchen, facedown on the tile floor, a pool of vomit surrounding his head like a green halo. Gun clenched in his fist. No signs of any injury, just like his partner.
Had they surprised the Chemist, and he dosed them all and then ran out?
Or had they run into some of his improvised traps?
Or was the Chemist still inside, waiting with his jet injector?
The phone rang, and my finger flinched. I was a millimeter away from shooting the dead cop before I caught myself and eased back on the trigger.
It rang again. I stared at the phone, one of those older desktop models the phone company once called “Princess,” on the kitchen counter between a coffee machine and a tabletop humidifier-apparently the Hothams preferred a humid household.
I moved in closer, searching for trip wires or switches attached to the phone. It seemed untampered with. On the third ring, I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?” A male voice, whispering.
“Lieutenant Daniels, of the Chicago Police Department. Who am I speaking with?”
A pause. I could hear him breathing. Slow and even, like a metronome.
“You know who this is, Lieutenant. Did they assign you a new partner yet?”
Anger overrode anxiety. “Why are you doing this?”
“You’re the cop. You figure it out.”
I clenched the phone so tight, my knuckles turned white.
“You’re killing innocent people.”
“No one is fully innocent,” he rasped. “Especially not the police.”
“How about these people in this apartment? What did they do to you?”
“Unfortunate, but I needed the car. I believe the government would call them casualties of war, or collateral damage.”
“We’re not at war.”
“I am.”
I waited. An old police trick. Give a suspect silence, and he’ll fill the silence with talk.
“Are you wondering if I’m a terrorist?” the Chemist finally said. “I’m not. I’m not out to cause terror. I’m out to cause pain. An eye for an eye. And I might as well make a little money along the way. Have you decided to pay me?”
“Yes. The ad will run tomorrow. If we pay you, you’ll stop this?”
He chuckled.
“You’re very attractive. Not like that younger woman, the blonde. She had a better body, but she didn’t have that look that you have. The haunted look. You’ve seen things, I bet. Done things. Any sins to confess, Lieutenant?”
I knew I could get the phone records, trace this number, but he probably knew that as well. Why did he call? To ask about the money? To see if there were survivors?
“If you come in voluntarily, we can work out a deal. I know the assistant state’s attorney. We could waive the death penalty.”
“Lieutenant Daniels.” He was speaking normally now, no longer whispering. “I am the death penalty.”
I had talked to my share of psychos, but this one was really freaking me out.
“Why did you call here?”
“For two reasons. First, to get your phone number. You’re the person I want to deal with from now on. What’s your cell?”
I didn’t like that much, but I gave it to him.
“What’s the other reason?”
Another chuckle. “It’s awfully dry in there, don’t you think?”
I glanced at the tabletop humidifier, noticed that the green light was blinking.
“Perhaps you should leave, Lieutenant. A dry environment isn’t very healthy.”
I dropped the phone and backed away, stumbling over the corpse, almost losing my footing, forcing my throat closed in mid-gasp. Back in the living room, I heard the faint humming of the floor-model humidifier next to the sofa. It had been off before, but those things had sensors and timers and started automatically. Now it was running full tilt, billowing lethal steam throughout the room.
I clamped a hand over my mouth and sprinted, still not breathing, and ran out into the hallway into a band of Cicero cops storming up the stairs.
Four men trained their weapons on me. I exhaled, raising up my hands, saying, “I’m police.”
And then my stomach twisted, and my vision got wiggly, and I grabbed on to the railing and thought Oh my God no just as the vomit escaped my lips.
CHAPTER 20
AN OVERLY HAIRY MEDIC named Holmes stuck an electronic thermometer in my ear as I sat in the rear of his ambulance, breathing into a plastic bag.
“Ninety-nine point one,” he declared.
The plethora of unpronounceable poisons, toxins, and diseases I’d been exposed to in the last few days raced like a stampede through my mind.
“So I’m sick?” I asked, my voice small.
“BP is normal. Reflexes are normal. Headache or stomachache?”
“Both.”
“Open wide.”
I opened, self-conscious about my breath after throwing up.
“Throat looks fine.” He shined a penlight in my eyes. “Pupil response normal.”
“So what have I got?”
“Nothing, as far as I can tell.”