Page 64 of Lust
“Why?”
“Daisy was unfortunately left behind when we escaped from the lab, and the Syndicate took her. But she’s come back to us now.”
“That’s her?” Joe pointed to the paper in Liza’s hands of Daisy’s face sketched in angry, painful lines.
“Yes, this is her.” Liza’s gaze darted between Evan’s sketches and the Ripper crime scene shots. “It’s all starting to make sense now. They’re kidnapping runaways. The Syndicate needs stem cells to finish replicate experiments—clones.”
Joe blinked. “Did you just say clones?”
“Trust me, I know how it sounds, but we’ve seen them.”
“Do you have any proof? Anything I can bring back to the director?”
“Unfortunately, Evan destroyed the last lab we know of. There was a black site where the plant came from, but it was heavily guarded and sanctioned by some sort of military connection. We infiltrated once, but apart from some experiments, incriminating files weren’t on site. It seemed more of a Plan B sort of place. We need to find the clones.”
“I want the address of that place,” Joe said. “Anything I can get to build a case.”
Liza nodded and wrote it down. “I’m not even sure if they’re still there. After we made them, they abandoned the site. But, who knows, you might get lucky and find something.”
Joe rubbed his day-old scruff. “What about those sketches? Why does it look like Daisy is in pain?”
She winced, not wanting to tell him despite every instinct saying she must.
His eyes tracked across the line-up Liza had created and paused at more sketches. His finger touched the sketch, then lingered on the one of her. “These look familiar. Also in pain.”
“Misha, and... me.”
Intelligent eyes crossed to hers. “You’re in danger?”
“It’s fine.” She pointed at the Ripper crime scene shots. “The killer has been removing organs, including the uterus. Have they been screened by forensics to see if the victims were pregnant?”
“Liza.”
“The report says there were traces of chloroform around the mouths of victims, meaning the killer knocked them unconscious before—”
“Liza!” Joe took her shoulder and lifted her from the floor to face him as he studied her. “Are you in danger?”
“I’m more in danger of becoming unbalanced. But with this sort of stuff, I can take care of myself. You know that.”
He didn’t really. As far as he could see, the pictures told him nothing about the sort of danger she was in, except she’d end up in pain. It was Liza who hoped he’d assume the pain was physical, and nothing to do with her internal battle.
But her words did little to assuage the concern turning to cold, hard resolution in his eyes. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and paced away.
“You’re always going to be a target until this Syndicate organization is taken down, aren’t you?”
From the way he waited for her reply, she knew she had to keep opening up. She had to trust him with everything. Lying to him would come back to haunt her.
“Yes. They invested billions of dollars in creating us. There are representatives around the world who want us in their custody. And if they can’t have us, then—” she pointed at the sketches of her and Daisy. “Then they’ll use us for our biological matter, study us, and create replicates that will actually do their bidding. We can’t allow that to happen. Can you imagine an army of us, only with no conscience, and no mate to balance them out?”
“How can this not be on our radar?” he murmured to himself.
She ignored his comment and went back to the murderer. “The Ripper killer could be harvesting cells, whether the victim was pregnant or not. There is more than one type of stem cell, and perhaps the Syndicate needs them all. They’re also in our spine, our brain, our—”
“Enough,” he snapped. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
He strode away and disappeared into his bedroom. Liza cocked her head when she heard strange scrapings and strained her hearing. It sounded like tape, or paper being ripped.
Hesitantly, she followed him to his room. “Joe?”
