Cold As Ice: Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 3) by M.K. Gilroy Page B

enough to kill, in proportionate measure. He was working on an Ebola vaccine but we suspect he discovered a better delivery system in the process.”
    Anything strong enough to cure is strong enough to kill, in proportionate measure. I need to remember that. I’ve never had a way with words. Maybe I can throw that into a conversation sometime with inconceivable, which this whole conversation has become now that the word Ebola has been used.
    Austin is looking at his watch, which means he’s desperate to get away from me and join the meeting. He’s looking at me like I would have been looking at my mom if we had talked face-to-face. Yep, he’s preoccupied. And seriously uninterested in me.
    “Listen, I got to get in there, Kristen. In the morning I’ll be on a plane to California to turn the PathoGen offices in Redwood Shoresupside down. But I need to make sure I’m up to speed on what happened here before leaving town.”
    He’ll be on a military jet to California and I’ll be on a flight back to Chicago; my love life in a nutshell. I can’t help but wonder again if I made a mistake when I turned down an offer to work for the FBI and decided to stay with Chicago PD. This is big stuff. I hate not being back in that conference room.
    I look at my own watch. I’m running out of time if I want to get back to Chicago tonight. I have to roll, too.
    Reynolds and I stand up and walk toward the front door, putting on our coats.
    “Why don’t you stay over another night?” Reynolds asks. “Let me take you to dinner at Peter Luger’s, the best steak house in America.”
    No hug, but he does know my prodigious and legendary appetite.
    “I’m getting chewed out by the boss. Zaworski is back and I’m in a little trouble. I’ve got to get back.”
    “Well, we need to figure another time to sit down and talk. We really do need to talk.”
    “About?”
    “A lot of things . . . but now isn’t a good time.”
    He looks at his watch yet again and pushes the door open. We walk out. I stay in the doorway out of the wind. He steps on the sidewalk and I watch him pull his coat up to cover his neck and face.
    “Catch you later Special Agent Reynolds.”
    I wasn’t trying to be dramatic but my tone stops him from stepping off the curb and jaywalking through a break in the traffic to the front door of the precinct. He walks back over and gives me a peck on the cheek.
    “We gotta talk,” he says one more time over his shoulder.
    We gotta talk? That sounds ominous, same as Zaworski saying there are things I’m not going to burden you with. We gotta talk. Whatdoes that mean? If he’s calling it quits, I don’t blame him. How do I feel about that?
    I’m standing on the street, still soaked in blood, feeling sorry for myself. I never did get that hug. Just get moving, I tell myself.
    Time to get back to the hotel and pack. I look at my phone. Two missed calls from Klarissa. She wants to know what the heck is going on with my stuff cluttering the room, I’m sure. I’ve got to call her back. I am incredulous that I’ve missed another call from Don as well. Something must be up for my partner to call all weekend and on a Sunday afternoon. He’s probably going to clue me in on what Zaworski didn’t want to burden me with.
    The screen lights up and I see a New York number.
    “Conner,” I answer.

13

    “SO THINGS DIDN’T go as planned this morning. That happens. But why are you here in my home, Medved? What makes you think you can come here?”
    “I found something that I thought you might want to see, Pakhan.”
    “Then you take it to Pasha. Pasha brings it to me if he feels I should see it. You know how we work. You are never to come to my home. Med, are you listening? Look at me.”
    The Bear looked up. “Pasha wouldn’t listen.”
    Aleksei Genken was about to dismiss him with a nod to his bodyguard but paused. He traced the scar under his right eye, a physical habit that helped him think. Genken was longtime Pakhan