“What is it?” Lynch asked.
“Nothing, except…” She turned the picture around to show that the back of the canvas was covered with several purple splotches.
“Paint?” Brantley asked.
“I don’t think so.” She dabbed her finger into one of the splotches. “It’s still sticky.’
Lynch pulled two more pictures from the walls and spun them around. The backsides were covered with splotches that matched the ones on the first. He put them on the floor and continued down the hallway, pulling pictures off and setting them on the floor with their rear sides exposed. All ten pictures had the same markings.
“They’re fresh,” Lynch said. “All of them.”
Brantley picked up one of the pictures and examined it more closely. “I don’t get it.”
“Join the club,” Lynch said.
Kendra picked up the smallest of the pictures. “I want to take this one with us. The FBI lab might be able to tell us what it is.”
KENDRA AND LYNCH DROVE back to the Big Bear Airport, and as arranged, they left the car parked outside the main departure building with the keys in a magnetic box tucked under the rear wheel. Kendra held the picture carefully in front of her as they boarded the plane.
“What do you think you have there?” Lynch asked.
“I have no earthly idea. Just like everything else we’ve run across… Lots of questions, but no answers. And I don’t feel like I’m any closer to finding Waldridge.”
He placed his hand in the small of her back. “You’re closer than anyone else. And at least you’re out here asking the questions.”
His touch should have felt casual. But somehow it didn’t. There was a warm comfort, an intimacy, about the way his palm was-
She stepped away from him. “And you’re asking them with me.” She put the picture down and settled on the large leather sofa in the plane’s main compartment. She smiled wearily. “Thank you, Lynch.”
“You’re very welcome. We’ll find him, Kendra.”
There was something so definite about his tone that, for the first time since they’d found that body in the snow, she felt genuine hope. “Sure we will.” She leaned back. “I guess I’m tired.”
“It’s been a long day. We’ll get in the air, and I’ll take you home.”
She suddenly remembered. “My car… It’s at your place.”
“You’re welcome to stay with me, and I’d certainly prefer it. But I know you well enough to know that you’ll be more comfortable in your own bed.”
“You do know me well.”
“I’ll drop you off at your place and pick you up tomorrow. The FBI lab may have some answers about that substance you found in Waldridge’s hotel room. And while we’re there, we can give them that picture to work on.”
“Oh, they’ll love that.”
“They’ll do it. Not because of the pressure I can put on them, but because they owe you. And they’re smart enough to know that they’ll need your help again sometime. You’re the one with the real capital, not me.”
“If that’s true, I’ll use it all if it will help me find Waldridge.”
“I know. Waldridge is a lucky man.” He picked up a throw blanket and draped it over her. “Get some sleep. I’ll have you home in no time.”
Intimacy again, she thought drowsily as she watched him go into the cockpit. The way he had tucked the blanket around her, his smile, the comfort that he had managed to instill. He had sensed that slight withdrawal and moved to reassure.
Why?
It didn’t matter. Better just to accept the complications that made Lynch the man he was.
Just as she’d learned to accept the complications of Waldridge all those years ago…
5
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital
London, England
Nine Years Earlier
“ENJOYING YOUR TIME in London, Kendra?”
It was Dr. Waldridge’s voice, she realized with relief.
It had been almost half an hour since she’d been wheeled into the surgical theater, and she was beginning to wonder if Dr. Waldridge was even going to show. He could have changed his mind, couldn’t he? She smiled up from the operating table. “Nice of you to drop by. I hope I’m not cutting into your breakfast time.”
“You are, but I’ll try not to hold it against you. I’ll make up for it at lunch. Did you get a good night’s sleep?”
“Good enough, I guess.” She was lying. She had been too tense, too aware of what this day could hold for her. But now he was here and, as usual, she felt calmer, more able to cope. “I’m surprised they didn’t knock me out. They told me there isn’t even an anesthesiologist in the room.”
“That’s right. No need. You’ll be awake the entire time. I don’t want you to miss a second of this.”
“What kind of surgeon are you anyway?”
“The cunningly brilliant kind. Most of the difficult work has already been done. We’ve already combined stem-cell cultures with cells from your eyes, and we’ll be secreting them back in with a formula we’ve developed to help your damaged retinas regenerate. Your body will be doing most of the work over the next few weeks, my dear.”
“We hope.”
“The human body is an amazing thing. You can sew on a severed finger and all those thousands of nerve endings will work furiously to reattach themselves within months. Incredible, isn’t it? The body wants so very desperately to make itself whole. In this case, I’m just giving it a helping hand.”
“Well, you do your part, and I’ll do mine.”
“It’s a deal.”
She cocked her head as she heard more footsteps entering the surgical theater. “But if this is such a simple procedure, why the big production?”
“Production is right. We have video cameras covering this from several angles. We’ll be trying this a few different ways in our various subjects, and we need to see what works best.”
“As long as mine is the one that works best, I’ll be happy.”
He chuckled. “So will I. By the way, your mother is watching. She’s sitting in the observation booth above us.”
“I told her she should go see Stonehenge or something.”
“Well, maybe soon you can go see it with her.”
Possibles. All those wonderful possibilities teasing her on the horizon.
Kendra smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to manage my expectations? You told me yourself this was a long shot.”
“And it is. But I have a good feeling about you.”
“A ‘good feeling’? That’s funny talk coming from a research scientist.”
“Agreed. And I can guarantee that I will never repeat it in any paper I write on the project. But instinct can be a powerful thing.”
“If you say so.” Anything he said at this moment was going to be fine with her. She was trying to fight the fear and the excitement and not show him either.
But evidently she hadn’t been totally successful. “I say so,” he said. “But you’re something of a skeptic, so I brought you something to remind you while I give you the benefit of all my cunning brilliance.” He took her hand and placed something in her palm. “Shh, don’t tell anyone. It’s not sterile.”
“Are you trying to sabotage me?” Her fingers were probing, exploring. Tiny. Metal. Shaped like a-“Fish.”