Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

“I have,” Sam said, and Gabriel gave her a brief look of surprise. Why, she had no idea, when it was the logical next step. “But you and I both know I’ll only get the runaround. We need to catch this woman before she kills again, and we need you to help us.”

“I like you, girlie. You’ve got guts.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you intend to help us?”

“I’m not sure that I can.” Allars shifted slightly, bumping one of the remotes onto the floor. “But what’s in it for me if I do?”

“Maybe your life.”

Allars’s rheumy gaze met hers. In it, she saw a shrewdness that spoke of a sharp intelligence. The aging body was definitely no indication of the mind trapped inside.

“Now what makes you say that?”

“Do the names Hal White, Peter Lyle and Roy Benson mean anything to you?”

“Yeah. Benson lives a block away.”

“Lived,” Gabriel corrected bluntly. “He was murdered about an hour ago.”

The old man raised an eyebrow. “And you’re thinking I might be next?”

“We don’t know, Mark. Nor do we know if the murder of White, Lyle and Benson is related in any way to our serial killings.”

“But they could be?”

“Maybe.”

The old man sighed. “Lyle, White and Benson were three of the eighteen scientists involved in our project.”

“What about Cooper and Haynes?” Sam asked.

Allars nodded. “Them, too.”

So did that mean someone was going after people who worked at Hopeworth? And how did the death of Emma Pierce and the murder of the scientists link to the serial killings? Because Sam was sure they were linked. It was just too much of a coincidence for both these killings to be happening at the same time.

She leaned on the arm of the sofa and covertly massaged her temple. Her headache had sprung into high gear again. Maybe it was working in sympathy with her calf, which had at least died down to a muted ache. “What project were they working on?”

“In truth, I can’t really say. It was real hush-hush. All I know is that it went by the code name Penumbra.”

Penumbra? Where in hell did the military get these names? “How were you involved?”

Allars smiled. “I was a lab rat, much the same as the others. I provided cell samples, semen samples, stuff like that.”

If Hopeworth was taking cell and semen samples, they were obviously delving into genetics. “For what reason? Isn’t Hopeworth a weapons development center?”

“Yeah, they are. But there’s all kinds of weapons, girlie.”

Meaning Hopeworth was developing human—or rather, nonhuman—weapons?

Gabriel rubbed a hand across his chin, his expression thoughtful. “Were the other seven people involved in your project shifters as well?”

“No, I was the only shifter. David was a changer, Meg a werewolf and Alice a vampire. I’m not real sure about the other four. I didn’t really have a lot to do with them.”

Or he didn’t really want to talk about them, for whatever reason. She tried a different tack. “What about the other scientists on the project? You said there were eighteen in total.”

“Most died some fifteen years ago. A massive fire took out half of Hopeworth, and what wasn’t destroyed by the fire was taken out by a quake. There were half a dozen other projects destroyed as well, I believe. I think Cooper and Haynes survived, but I have no idea where they might be nowadays.”

She remembered her dreams, remembered the fire that had danced across Joshua’s fingers, and a chill ran down her spine. Were the two connected? Was she—were they—Hopeworth brats?