Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century 5)

While she watched, a light came on, revealing that yes, the stain was an incriminating shade of brownish red.

This light had all the cold brilliance of a surgical lamp. She briefly winced against it, but there was no time to close her eyes. Along with the light came the sound of footsteps—the determined, hasty sort of someone who had someplace to be. It was not the pace of a dead thing, but that didn’t mean it was friendly.

Maria went to the observation room door and shut it. She was relieved to see that it locked from within, unlike the cells she’d passed before. She was furthermore glad to observe that it was sealed like the emergency door, for the safety of its occupants.

She returned to the window just in time to see Katharine Haymes arrive, stop, and stand beneath the brilliant overhead light. Their eyes met through the glass, and locked.

Haymes carried a carpetbag and was dressed for travel, in a smart brown suit and gloves. The bag was unfastened, as if there was one more thing she needed to stuff inside it before she was on her way. One last item she simply couldn’t leave without.

Maria broke eye contact first, but only to look down at the console before her. Lying beside it was a short stack of files. She looked up again, and this time she smiled.

Haymes glared murderously at Maria. “Open that door,” she said. Maria couldn’t hear her, but she could read the woman’s lips clearly enough.

She shook her head in response, and in doing so, she saw a button out of the corner of her eye. It was labeled, “Control Room Communication. ” She pressed it, and a small panel slid open, revealing a round black screen.

“Open the door!” Katharine said again, and this time Maria heard her. The little circle of mesh transmitted her voice quite well, passing along the enraged tone with perfect clarity.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. ”

Haymes stood stiffly, ramrod straight, as if she were so filled with anger that the smallest movement would cause her to shatter on the spot. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re playing with. ”

“I have an idea, thanks to you. This is where you did the rest of your research? After Tennessee, I mean,” Maria asked coolly, gliding her fingers over the assorted buttons and making some guesses about what they did and did not do. “After you killed all those prisoners. ”

“I know what you mean. And yes, this is … my laboratory. ”

“You say that like you’re some kind of scientist. ”

“I am some kind of scientist,” Haymes objected.

Maria disagreed. “You paid people to do your dirty work. ”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Real scientists,” she countered. “Did they even know what they were doing? Or did you lie to them?”

“Eventually they knew. Some secrets are hard to keep. ” Haymes’s grip on the carpetbag’s handle tensed.

“By then, I suppose, they were in too deep to leave even if they wanted to. I understand that’s your preferred method for keeping people in line. ”

“One of several. Now, open that door. I won’t ask again. ”

“Good. Though if you mean that you’ll come and open it yourself, I doubt that very much. I see there’s a spot for a key,” she said, glancing over at the door to make sure. “But there’s a handy-dandy dead bolt, too. Very secure, this room. Practically a tiny, clean castle. ”

“Get out of there. ”

“No. ” Maria sighed heavily, with great dramatic effect. “I really am tired of saying that. So why don’t you tell me where you’re going? Or where you think you’re going?”

“I’m leaving. And there’s not much you can do about it from in there,” Haymes said smugly. “You can keep me out, but that’s the sum of it. I want the last of the research notes, but I don’t need them. ”

“You’re arguing awfully hard for something you don’t need. ”

“I paid for them. They’re mine, and they should come with me. ”

Maria took her time responding, as if considering the possibility and then discarding it. “It’s funny … You set me up to say something clever, there. I ought to have replied that all of it—you included—would be coming with me instead. But I don’t want to take you with me. I don’t have to. In fact, the warrants for your apprehension read ‘dead or alive’—did you know that?”

“No warrant reads that way. ”

“Not the usual kind, no. You were tried in absentia and found guilty, and sentenced to death. You must know that. ”