Chapter 75
“Do you mind if I use your computer for a moment to drop a line to my colleagues about what we just saw?”, I asked as the door of the lab closed behind us
“Sure, and I’ll treat you a nice coffee after that”, Mori said, tapping my shoulder
I reckoned I must have looked like a wreck, I attempted a smile but all I could produce was a grimace
“Everything will be fine at last”, he tried to reassure me
“Thank you, we really appreciate all you’re doing”, Jack said for me.
He was walking behind us and hadn’t spoken in a while
Mori stopped and turned around.
“I myself want to know what happens if a polymer like the one Iris produced can affect the human body, and I also want to know why. This can help me in my own research. There is no need to thank me”
“But if the heart doesn’t recover its functionality it will become useless for your own research…how long does it take you to produce a new one?”, Jack asked
“About three months if everything works well”, Mori told us
“And so now your own projects might be slowed down…”, I said, realizing this for the first time, worried as I had been by the last facts up to this moment to think of it earlier
“Not really. We actually have other two hearts I haven’t showed you”, Mori reassured us
“You do?”, asked Jack, and he was astonished
“Yes, we do”, Mori replied quietly
We had reached Mori’s office at that point, and he let me in.
“Take your time, I’ll go chat with the people in the lab for a moment”, he told me
I thanked him, let him log in the computer and sat on his chair, which was plush just to the right point, and large. In spite of everything, I felt comfortable sitting there.
Jack sat on the other side of the desk, looking out of the window.
I hadn’t been reading my emails since we had gotten to Milan, and the list of unread messages had reached a disturbingly high number. I browsed through them rapidly and stopped on one from Brad.
“Brad emailed me, I wonder what he says…”, I said out loud.
There was no subject on the email, which was odd because Brad had a sort of compulsive precision for things like this
Iris, write back to tell me you are fine as soon as you read me. McMurrich died. She has been run over by the car during the night, whoever did it ran away. It does not seem like an accident, Mariam Avery came here this morning to tell me. She could not reach you on your cell, call her when you can. Will they kill us all?
B.
I cupped my hands over my face and stood still for a moment, taking in the blow.
“What?”, Jack asked, but I couldn’t get myself to speak, so he walked up to my side and bent to read the email for himself. He craned his neck, re-reading the lines.
When Mori got back to the office he found us that way, me with my face still half hidden between the palms of my hands, and Jack reading the email, his face practically glued to the screen. He stood at the door for a moment, and when we finally looked at him he asked, “What else happened?”.
I read him the email to him.
He pulled up the receiver of the phone, handed it to me and said, “Phone the detective you’ve been speaking with”
“But she must be sleeping now”, I objected to the unnerving “blip…blip…blip” sound waiting for me to punch in the phone number.
“That’s no matter, call nonetheless”, Mori said firmly and so I did, unable to think too much in depth at that moment
Avery picked up the phone almost immediately, and from the tone of her voice I felt she had been only half sleeping, likely she had been trying to but was tossing around in bed.
“Hello Iris, I have been trying to contact you, it’s good you called”, she said
“Brad emailed me and told me…”
“He did”, she said, the question sounding like a statement
“Things have happened here too…”, I began, and told her about how I felt the cleaning lady had been following us, about Ronny and the dead body at the hotel, about the fact that there seemed to be something odd about how the matter was handled. And at last I described what we had just seen in the lab.
“You should have called me earlier”, she said, her voice tired
“All this has happened in the last 24 hours, not even”, I told her, realizing the fact in the moment I phrased it
“I will try to find out what happened down there. But you should fly back as soon as you can”
“I cannot. Why?”, I said panicking before I could understand the reason for my huge psychological reaction to the perspective of flying off back to the states in such a great rush
“Because I want to make sure you stay alive but I do not have the power to give you any protection if you are in Italy. And it seems like some of your friends managed to follow you there”
I felt nauseous. I looked at Jack and said, placing a hand over the receiver,“Mariam Avery says we should fly back as soon as possible because that’s the only way she can give us protection”
Jack nodded
“Ok, I will see when we can get back”, I told Avery
“Let me know the details when you know them, I will find you at the airport when you land”
“Ok…”, I replied, knowing I should thank the detective but somehow hating her for what she had just told me to do
Mori was standing back against the door, leaning against it with his hands on the back.
“So you must fly out soon”, he said
I turned my palms up, making a vague gest of impotence with my hands.
“I don’t know anything anymore”, I told him, feeling I was about to have a nerve crisis
“You fly back home and make sure you’re safe, and I can run the other tests for you”, Mori told me, and smiled
“Why are you so nice with me?”, I asked, tilting my head slightly, my tone too warm for the time we had known each other
“Because I see the circumstances”, he replied, his hand tracing an semicircle around the word “circumstances”
“Because I understand how stressed you are”, he continued.
“Well, thank you”, I said
“So, I suppose you can call the airlines to see when you can get back. At least we’ll know right away how much time we have and we make a plan”, Mori stated calmly
I was surprised at the way he was guiding me, and pleased because I was too shaken to take decisions for myself. Jack too seemed somewhat plunged in a stunned state, although he still retained his composure.
After holding and speaking with a representative from the airline and holding again I managed to change our departure date to the next morning, for an additional fee of 300$ per person. I wasn’t keeping track of the expenses piling up on my credit card and wondered how much money I would have to pay the next month to cover up for the mess that was happening. Good thing the insurance had taken care of most of my time at the hospital.
“So you still have an afternoon here”, Mori said once I hang up
“What other tests do you have in mind?”, Jack asked
“The first thing I have in mind is the coffee we had planned before Iris opened her mailbox. I’ll tell you what other experiments I believe are worth trying over the breakfast I still haven’t had this morning”
“Fair enough”, Jack said, finally smiling
I smiled too now, and we headed to a bar a block away from the research center, walking the street already warm and buzzing with urban life.