“And what do you do here?”
He shook his head and grinned at me. “That’s not important.”
“Yeah, something tells me it is.”
“Think what you want, Red. In the meantime, follow me.”
We walked through a metal detector before passing by a reception desk. The man behind it didn’t even glance up. Liam used his badge to open a set of elevator doors separated from the others. Once inside he pressed the button for the fourth floor.
“Ah, the penthouse,” I said jokingly.
“Only the best.” The doors opened directly into a massive yet empty laboratory. “Wait here. I’ll grab you a coat and goggles.”
“Oh, I get to play dress up?”
“For now, these are for your safety. If you want to role play after, I won’t say no.”
“Wow,” I said taking the coat from him. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
He shot me a smirk. Damn. He was sexy even in the goggles. “I don’t know, Red. There’s something about you that relaxes me. Not much does.”
“Really? I usually make everyone uncomfortable. Most people normally can’t wait to get away from me.”
“Most people are idiots.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” We shared a smile as he led me over to a long table full of various lab equipment and supplies. “So, I assume you’re testing them for drugs?”
“Correct,” he muttered as he began the process.
There wasn’t much for me to do, since I knew nothing about lab equipment. I mean I’d taken science in school but ask me the difference between a beaker and a cylinder and I’d go blank. So, I sat on a stool and watched him work.
When he finished, he removed his goggles and turned to me. “It should only take a few more minutes.”
“Do you think someone laced them?”
“Yes. Without a doubt. We are waiting to see which drug shows up positive.”
“Oh, well that was fast.” I leaned in to get a closer look at his experiment. His natural woodsy musk was soft but made me want to bury my nose in his neck.
I sat up to push my stool back, but I froze when I heard him inhale. Did he just sniff me? I thought as I stared at him. I cleared my throat when his lips twitched.
“Um, uh… I’m betting it’s Wolf’s Bane.” He’d flustered me. No one had ever flustered me.
“It’s a decent assumption. Though, it’d have to be a lot of it to incapacitate them as much as it did.”
I nodded. The timer went off and he turned away to examine his results. “Wolf’s Bane.”
“You know, now that I think of it, Chris could not have been working alone. There’s no way. He wasn’t smart enough to figure out how to get Bane into a piece of candy. I should have realized that when Jocelyn and Pamela mentioned the chocolate.”
“All nine assault victims named Chris as their attacker. It makes sense to have focused solely on him.”
Not feeling any better about missing it, I didn’t respond to his statement. Instead, I asked, “Now what?”
“These will go to my techs for further evaluation. I’ve also reached out to some associates who may be able to help us find whoever is behind all of this.”
Confused, I furrowed my brow. “More lab nerds? How can they help?”
“This is not my only business.”