Tuckman went white, his dark villain's eyes widening with shock.
"You gave them permission and you put the weapon in their hands. One of them used it. There's nothing else that could have done it. One of them used the same power that levitated that table through the observation room window to throw Mark against a wall hard enough to crush his skull—”
He shook his head. "No. No, no, no. .”
I pulled him down into a chair and sat next to him, putting my face close to his and glaring at him until he met my eyes. I talked fast and low.
"Shut it down, Tuckman. Even if you don't believe Celia killed Mark, this damned thing is off the rails. I called around—Ken's lucky his legs weren't broken. Ian's got two cracked ribs and Cara one, plus the stitches from last week. It took a couple of sutures to put Patty's ear back together, too, and everyone else has cuts and burns from the lights that exploded. No one picked up that table and threw it. No one shorted the wires in the light board. No one made the temperature in the room drop and no one touched the stereo. You gave them permission and power to hurt one another and they did. But you have the power to pull the plug. So pull it.”
"No. I won't do it. This won't happen again—it can't.”
"It will! It will get worse as it's kept on getting worse. It started with petty theft and pinches and throwing things. Now you have broken windows and people in the hospital. Can't you see where this is headed? Are you going to wait until one of them is a red smear on the damned observation—”
"That's enough!" He stood up and stared down at me. He was breathing too fast, swaying, white-faced, and the people at the table outside the dining room turned to look at us. I got up and stood still in front of him, as still and quiet as I could manage, letting my face go neutral and my voice slide back to normal.
"It's a flawed experiment, Dr. Tuckman. It was a mistake. A miscalculation. If you shut it down now and clear off the paperwork that makes me and my contractor look like thieves, you can return some of the grant money and no one will look too hard at what you've done. So long as no one gives them a reason to.”
He turned a hopeful frown on me, licking his dry lips. He sank back into the chair and I sat down beside him again. It gave me the chills to do it, but I put my hand on his nearest forearm. Glutinous chill oozed up my arm and I stifled a shudder.
"I won't give them a reason to look if you shut this down now. If you do what I'm telling you, I won't have to defend myself from charges of theft and I won't need to give these reports to the police or your department chair. Just shut it down. Say there was a flaw in the protocol—write one in if you have to. Say it was a mistake. I know it'll be embarrassing, but a little pride isn't worth someone's life. It's just a mistake.”
I saw him swallow it. His posture straightened and the glaze of fear left his eyes. "It's flawed. I'll shut it down. I'll take care of it—the papers, the team. I'll call them and tell them we're done.”
I took my first decent breath in hours. Nodding, I said, "Good." I stood up one more time and put the envelope of reports in his hand.
"These are your reports—they're confidential and no one else has seen them. Just write a check for my fee and we can call this done.”
He looked at the bill, then glanced up, frowning as if he were confused. "I'm not going to pay this. You didn't do the job I hired you for.”
My mouth fell open in sheer surprise. "You have the biggest brass ones. . Tuckman—do you understand any of what I just told you? You're a thief and a liar and I can prove it. Do you think that's the only copy of my report? We have a contract for the investigation of a possible saboteur. I've proved there is no saboteur but you. Contract satisfied. If I need to call my lawyer, I'll have to tell her the whole truth about this—that's covered in the contract, too. You want to hear that in court?" I jerked my head back toward the dining room. "You want them to hear it?”
He glared. Old villain eyes again.
I sighed. "Don't even try, Tuckman. I have the cards. You don't. Shut it down, now.”
He dropped his gaze and pulled his checkbook from his pocket.
I left with his check in my purse. Tuckman was still looking at the reports. "A flaw. An oversight. .," he muttered, trying to convince himself it really was just a mistake.
CHAPTER 22
Maybe it somehow knew I was working for its destruction, or maybe it was just in a bad mood, but I spent much of Thursday night under attack by the poltergeist. Small objects in the Rover pinged against my head and face as I drove home. Flinching almost put me into the rail on the viaduct and I got a moment's vertiginous view of the waterfront below before I corrected my path back into the lane.
At home, I had never regretted my collection of books and funky objects until now. A dining room chair rushed at me like an angry dog as soon as I walked into the condo. A pair of bronze bookends soared off the shelf and came for my head. I yanked a bit of the Grey around myself and dodged, taking most of the impact on my shoulders.
Chaos ran back and forth in her cage, agitated by the activity. As I moved toward her, a hardbound book winged past me and crashed into the wall nearby. She's a tough little creature, but I doubted she'd have much of a chance against flying books. I snatched her from her cage and shielded her with my body as I ran for the bedroom. The phenomena followed me from room to room.
I put Chaos in the bathtub and rushed back into the bedroom. I dodged missiles while I dragged every heavy, pointy, or hard object out of my bedroom. I piled most of them in the hall closet and closed it, wedging the door shut. The objects rattled against the door until I moved away. I hauled the most dangerous objects out of the living room and stuck them in my mostly empty kitchen cupboards, tying the doors closed before I returned Chaos to her cage. It appeared shed be safe enough if I wasn't near her. Celia only had a connection to me, not my pet, but I still stacked pillows and cushions all around her cage before I ran back to my bedroom and closed the door. I slept in fits, roused by small objects throughout the night, but the ferret was fine in the morning and the poltergeist seemed to have wound down a little.
I called Sous first thing in the morning, and he insisted I meet him at Le Crepe—a business diner on Second—rather than discuss Tuck-man's project over the phone. So, of course, once we were seated at the same table, he was silent and inscrutable. His narrowed eyes and blank expression might have been caused by exhaustion and insomnia as much as thoughts or judgments reserved to his own mind, but I couldn't tell. I was nursing coffee after my bad night and feeling no more sociable than he.
I glanced past his shoulder to the midmorning lull on the street outside. "How's the investigation going?" I asked.
"Still open. Tell me what happened on Wednesday.”
"I can't tell much—I don't understand it myself—but Tuckman's shutting the project down.”
"Why?”
"The protocols were flawed—that's why things went awry. People have been hurt and it's just too risky. The details don't make a lot of sense, but the end result is that Tuckman is shutting it down. I still have a little follow-up to do with the participants, though. I thought I'd better let you know I'm not quite out of your hair yet, but I'm on my way.”
"I'd prefer that you left this to me.”
I sighed and lied. "Solis, I'd love to, but I have a job to do, too. Whatever's wrong with Tuckman's project is probably a common thread between our investigations, but I'm not going to just assume that and put the baby in your lap. I've been cooperative with your investigation—a little more than I had to be—so you'll just have to bear with my presence in your view a little longer. Unless you have grounds to lock me up.”