The Chemist

“Here,” Daniel offered, turning one of the half-depleted bins upside down and dumping what was left into another. He took the now-empty bin and started organizing her pile inside.

“Thanks. I think I’ve got everything I want.”

Kevin secured the bins to the wall, then wiped down the door. She followed him again until he found a place to leave the truck and driver, behind a small strip mall. He quickly cleaned his fingerprints from the cab, and they were on their way.

When they got back to the apartment, Raoul the housekeeper had been and gone, and Val was lying across a low sofa watching a big-screen TV that Alex could have sworn was not there yesterday. It was playing a black-and-white movie.

Today Val wore a pale blue jumpsuit with short shorts and a plunging neckline. Einstein lay on the sofa beside her with his muzzle on her arm. She was petting him rhythmically, and he didn’t get up to greet them as they came through the door. He only pounded his tail against the sofa when he saw Kevin.

“So, how did all the spying go?” she asked lazily.

“Just boring groundwork,” Kevin said.

“Ugh, then don’t tell me about it. And don’t leave any of that new stuff in here, either. I don’t want the clutter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kevin agreed docilely, and he headed back to Alex and Daniel’s room to add to the storage pile.

“I’ll get you hooked up on my computer, Ollie,” he said as he stacked. “You can watch the playback from the cameras I’ve got on Carston. And you can listen – there’s a bug in the car and a directional mike on the office. The car has a tracker, too, so you can follow his movements for the past several days.”

Alex exhaled, already exhausted by the mound of intel to assess. “Thanks.”

“I’m starved,” Daniel said. “Anyone else for breakfast?”

“Yes, please,” Alex said at the same time that Kevin answered, “Hell, yeah.”

Daniel smiled and turned for the door.

Alex watched him walk away, then realized that Kevin was watching her watch Daniel.

“What?”

Kevin pursed his lips, as if he were looking for the right way to express himself. He automatically glanced at the bed – still rumpled; Raoul had not been allowed in here – and shuddered.

Alex turned her back on him and went to retrieve her own computer. She’d want to move the important files onto it.

“Ollie…”

She didn’t look up from what she was doing. “What?”

“Can I…”

She held her computer to her chest and turned to face him, waiting for him to finish. Unconsciously, she squared her shoulders.

He hesitated again, then asked, “Can I ask you some questions without getting any specific or graphic answers?”

“Like what?”

“This thing with Danny… I don’t want him to get hurt.”

“That’s not a question.”

He glared, then took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. “When we finish up here, where do you go?”

It was her turn to hesitate. “It… well, it kind of feels like a jinx to assume that I’m going to survive. I honestly haven’t thought about what’s next.”

“C’mon, this isn’t that hard,” he said disparagingly.

“It’s not what I do. You handle it your way, I’ll handle it mine.”

“You want me to take care of Carston, too?”

“No,” she growled, though if his tone hadn’t been so condescending, she would have been tempted. “I’ll take care of my own problems.”

He paused, then asked, “So… what? Do you think you’re just going to tag along with us after?”

“That wouldn’t be my first choice, no. Going with the theory that I’m still alive then, of course.”

“You’re a real pessimist.”

“It’s part of the way I plan. Expect the worst.”

“Whatever. Back to my point – if you go your own way, what about Danny? Is it just Good-bye, thanks for the laughs?”

She looked away, toward the door. “I don’t know. That depends on what he wants. I can’t speak for him.”

Kevin was silent long enough that she finally had to look back. His face was uncharacteristically vulnerable. Like always, when his features were allowed to relax, he looked a lot more like Daniel.

“You think he’d choose to follow you?” Kevin asked very quietly. “I mean, he just met you. He barely knows you. But… I guess he probably feels like he barely knows me, too, at this point.”

“I don’t know what he’ll want,” she said. “I would never ask him to make that choice.”

Kevin focused on the air a few inches above her head. “I really wanted the chance to make things up to him. To set him up in a life he could live with. I was hoping, after a while, we could be brothers again.”

She had an odd urge to walk across the space between them and put her hand on his shoulder. Probably just because he was still looking like Daniel.

“I won’t get in the way of that,” she promised. She meant it. Whatever was best for Daniel, that was the main thing.

Kevin stared at her for a minute, his face hardening and turning back to normal. He blew out a huge sigh. “Well, damn it, Ollie, I wish I’d just left that Tacoma thing alone. Millions of lives saved – really, what does that add up to in the face of my brother sleeping with Lucrezia Borgia?”