CHAPTER 1
Stephani Robbins looked up from the slides of tissue cultures she
was checking for signs of necrosis. Her back ached. She leaned forward and
rubbed it.
Nina Mumszuk, her friend and co-worker, set down the cultures she’d
seeded on the white bench top and pulled down her face mask. “I spent the
weekend looking at houses in Mesa
Stephani saved the results of the latest round of tests. “I should
be buying, as there are still some bargains buys, but I’m not exactly sure
where I want to live.”
Three capped and masked heads turned towards them.
“People used to say that you couldn’t lose with real estate.”
Richard Dixon, her colleague and head tissue engineer, said. “Coffee anyone?”
“Just what I need. I’ll sort through the mail.” Stephani said.
Fred Lincoln returned to calibrating the injection robot.
“I’ll go,” Nina said. She glared at Fred’s back. “The usual,
Richard?” When he nodded, Nina asked Stephani.
“Same here.” Stephani bypassed bench tops and let herself into the
glass corridor that led to three offices. They always reminded her of linked
rows of goldfish tanks, like the ones she’d longingly pressed her face against
as a small child at the local mall. She tugged at the face mask ties that had
caught in her black hair as she strode to her office.
Her forgotten morning cup of coffee was on her desk. She started to
sort the mail into two piles, one for Richard and the other for herself, until
she came upon a pink envelope without a return address or company logo,
addressed to her:
Doctor Stephani Robbins, Senior Tissue Engineer
Rigby Research Inc.
55-78 Desert Sun Drive
The envelope had an embossed edge like an invitation.
Richard strolled in with two coffees and paused when he spotted her
abandoned cup. “You already have a take-out.”
“That’s from this morning. Thanks. Just put mine on the desk.”
He took a sip and leaned over her shoulder. “Any of that for me,
Doc?”
“Stop it. Just because I’ve got a few letters after my name.”
“Just teasing.” He grinned. “You’re always so serious. I’d do
anything for a smile.”
If he could call her “doc” because she had a doctorate, then she
could do the same for him. “Sure, Professor Dixon.” That didn't come out the
way she'd intended. It sounded like she was being sarcastic. God, she wished
she could be glib like Iantha, her half-sister from her mother’s second
marriage, and get away with it.
“Now…now. I see you’re still getting loads of stuff forwarded from
our L.A.
She took a sip of her coffee. The aroma reminded her of when her mom
used to have one on the go as she got ready for work. Stephani had to be up and
have her nose in her books.
“I’m not working two jobs for nothing. You’d better study hard and
get a degree,” her mother had always said.
Stephani looked up to see Richard rake his fingers though his unruly
black hair. He was always trying to tame it. A Harvard graduate, Richard had
been headhunted by Rigby.
His hands were large with prominent veins on the back and his
fingers were almost squared off. And she remembered from when they’d first met,
he had a handshake with a sure grip.
“I’m beginning to wonder if our suppliers bother to update their
records. I emailed them two months ago when I transferred,” she said.
“Obviously, none of them are
as organized as you.”
“It doesn’t feel like that. After five years of research into
healthy endothelial cells in stromal breast tissue, I should have made a
breakthrough, not be agonizing that if I’d taken a different approach I’d be
registering a patent for us now.”
“Shoulda, coulda. You’re too hard on yourself. We knew that finding
a biological alternative to silicone wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Maybe I’m not committed enough.” Her phone rang. The girl at reception
told her that Jack Theed, the representative from West Labs Equipment, had
arrived for their meeting. “He’s early. Tell him I’ll be down in ten.”
“So after the fire at the lab in L.A.
‘Mm,” she shrugged. She should be grateful that the project still
had funding.
“How are the RT241 trials looking so far?”
“It’ll be another thirty-six hours before we know anything.” She
opened the pink envelope and found a letter on matching embossed paper.
“What have you got there?” Richard asked.
“An invitation, I think.” She unfolded the letter.
Dear Stephani,
You are my Princess,
My only Princess,
I’ll make you happy,
When you are sad,
I’ll always love you
And treasure you forever
Though others won’t
understand,
No one loves you more than
I do,
So my Princess be true to
me,
In your heart, you know I
love you,
Soon, we’ll be together,
And you’ll be mine
eternally.
No one loves you more than
I do
No one!
Yours forever.
Who the hell’s this from? She slumped into the hydraulic chair and edged backwards from her
desk. Why would anyone send this corny
poem to her? It wasn’t even Valentine’s Day.
“What’s wrong?” Richard asked.
She shoved the letter back into the envelope. “Nothing.”
“You sure?” Richard raised an eyebrow.
“How’s the new iPhone?” She needed time to think this through.
“Still working out all those Apps. I tell myself it can’t be that
hard if a five-year-old can manage it.” Richard glanced down at her
quizzically.
She fumbled with the jumble of envelopes trying to cover the one
with the poem inside, but everything cascaded to the vinyl floor. Jesus, I’m a klutz.
He gathered them up.
“I can do that.” Dismayed, she watched him pile them onto her desk
and swallowed as the letter fell out.
It was in his hands before she could reach for it. “Mind if I take a
look?”
“Tell me is it okay for someone to send this to me?”
Richard glanced down at her. She found she had nowhere to hide from
his searching gaze.
He read the poem. “Is this from someone you know?”
She shook her head. “I’m too old for star-struck teenagers to be
writing me a love poem.”
“This is disturbing. Especially, since this guy thinks that you’ll
be his forever.”
“Oh. Let me look again.” This time, she took in each word.
“I can’t think of anyone who would write this stuff.”
“My conclusion is some weirdo’s got a fixation on you.” Richard
frowned.
“No one’s been following me. At least I don’t think so. Maybe we’re
overreacting.”
“Call security.”
“But what if it’s just a prank?” She’d had a couple of strange calls
recently on her home phone even though her number was unlisted. Stephani picked
up the phone but put it down when she saw, through the glass wall, Nina leave
Laboratory 1 and come along the corridor towards them.
Nina knocked on the door and entered. Strands of her blonde hair had
worked their way out of the disposable cap and fell across her face.
“I’ve almost finished loading the incubator, and wanted to check you
still want me set the timer for thirty-eight hours.”
“Yes,” Stephani said. “Let’s see if the enriched mixture will
improve the cell growth.”
Nina glanced at the letter Stephani held. “Wedding invitation?”
“Someone’s sent me this poem. It’s not like the sort you’d get from
an admirer but from….” She let Nina read it.
Nina stared open-mouthed. “Oie
Boczi. Sorry. That’s 'Oh God' in Ukrainian. What is in their head? What
are you going to do?”
“We’re going to inform security,” Richard said.
“Let’s go talk to the staff and see if anyone’s got any clues,”
Richard said. “You could have yourself a stalker.”
Stephani, capped and gowned again, scarcely noticed the familiar
smell of growth media and disinfectant as a moment of panic gripped her when
two capped heads turned her way. She took a deep breath before she spoke. “Hey,
guys.”
She swallowed the hesitation welling in her throat. “Can I ask you
something?” Why did she have to deteriorate into a nervous wreck when it came
to something personal?
She turned to go when Richard gave her a look that said ‘if you don’t, then I will’, so she
pressed on, “I received a poem in the mail today. I don’t know if this is meant
to be a joke. If it is, it’s not funny.”
“What’s the problem?” Melissa Toomey, the tissue-engineering
graduate, closed the glass fume hood, peeled off her disposable gloves, stepped
from behind the bench, and slipped down her mask to reveal a heavily made-up
face.
“Have a read.” She slipped the poem from the envelope.
“Do you think he’s stalking you?”
“I hope not. Now I’ll be looking over my shoulder every time I go
out.” She should secure the front door of her apartment at night. However, the
thought of being in a locked space scared her more.
“Have you seen anyone suspicious, Fred?”
Fred added incubation media into an injection robot. A soft whizzing
sound punctuated the air as a measured amount of medium squirted into test
tubes.
Finally, he lifted his head and eased down the mask that covered his
bulbous nose. “What?”
She repeated her question.
He raised his eyebrows. “As if I'd send you that! I’m here ‘till
eight o’clock most nights. When would I have time?”
A typical answer from someone who still lived with his mother and
wore pants up to his waist with two pleats that were perfectly formed on each
side.
“Can you glance at this and see if it sounds like anyone you might
know?”
“Why?”
“Oh, why did I even ask?” She turned from him. Fred, the resident
guru in cancer cell research, had an IQ that was probably off the scale, but possessed
no people skills.
“Give it to me,” Fred snapped.
“See the way he talks to me,” she said.
“Fred, that was out of line,” Richard said.
Fred flung the poem at her. “Let me get on with my work.”
“I hope someone will-”
“Stop your babbling,” Fred said. “I can’t concentrate.”
“Richard, are you going to let him get away with that?”
“Quit it, Fred. We’re adults and should behave as such.”
“I apologize. Happy?”
Did he even realize that
he’d upset her and pretended to be contrite?
“No,” she said, knowing that it would have little impact on Fred. “Richard,
how are the RT251 tissue cultures coming?”
“Promising. Still, it’s too early to say for sure.” He glanced at
her with a questioning look.
“I’m fine.”
Fred adjusted his mask and picked up the tray of test tubes partly
filled with media and ambled, with a loaded tray, to the incubator. “Maybe,
this guy’s obsessed with you.”
Her Mary Janes encased in disposable shoe covers made a shh shh sound on the floor as she
followed him. “My God, Fred! What makes you think that?”
“The choice of words,” Fred opened the incubator door and began to
put the trays inside.
“Are you okay?” Richard asked. “You’ve gone very pale.”
Clutching the poem, she rushed to her office, picked up the phone
and realized she couldn’t remember the number. She looked it up on the computer
and dialed security. When someone answered, she told them about the poem.
After she hung up, she gulped some cold coffee, called the police
and was told someone would be over that morning.
“I’m glad you did that. If you hadn’t, I would have,” Richard said.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to see you make that call.”
“I should be doing something.” She left her seat and paced to the
window, which gave a view of cacti and succulent gardens with a backdrop of
cloudless blue autumn sky against a scattering of eucalyptus trees, and back to
where Richard was standing beside her desk.
“Easy now. Just calm down,” he said. “What did you plan to do this
morning?”
She drew her palms up. “I don’t know. I can’t think.”
Richard hugged her. “Let me get some photocopies of that poem so I
can ask a few people.”
“Thanks,” she said. His aftershave smelled of musk, and his shirt
had the scent of freshly washed laundry that made her think of her mother, who
spent her nights doing washing and ironing for the extra cash. It was
comforting. “I should get back to work.”
Back in Laboratory 1, she picked up the slides and put them down
then picked them up again. Maybe, she was making too much of this, and it was
just a joke. If that was so, then why did this poem make her feel
uncomfortable?
After a few moments, Stephani tried to view the slides and
discovered that the microscope wasn’t working. She turned it off and on, to
reset it. The images on the screen showed some minor bacterial growth. That was
good. Two done and another twenty-two left.
God, the gloves felt wet on the inside from her clammy palms.
Usually, she had no trouble concentrating. She forced herself to scan all of
the slides and save them to the computer. She’d go back to them when she could
focus.
Stephani deposited the slides into the refrigeration unit, binned
the rubber gloves and face mask, and retreated to her office.
When her phone rang, she wrenched it from its cradle, dropped it and
then finally uttered a flustered, “Good morning!”
She was told Jack was still downstairs at the reception waiting to
see her.
“Shoot, I’d completely forgotten. Tell Jack I’ll be down in five.”
After a quick inventory check to see if the lab needed any more test
tubes or other equipment that West Labs carried, she shrugged out of the lab
coat and hurried into Richard’s office. “Can you call me when security or the
police arrive?”
“Where are you going?”
“Jack’s waiting for me downstairs. Just call me when they arrive,
and I’ll terminate my meeting with him.” She hurried out the door and was at
the elevator when she remembered the order sheet and rushed back to retrieve it
off her desk.
As she stepped back into the elevator, a chill ran through her. How long
had this anonymous poem writer been stalking her?
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