Free TrackingDesire by Elizabeth Lapthorne Page B

instant Julian was standing beside her, his hand at
the small of his back, ready to draw his gun if need be. When he looked inside
the lit fume hood, it took him only a moment to realize what she had found.
    “That plastic bag of ochre powder,” he said instantly, his
tone high with eager excitement. “Do you think it’s…that could be the antidote,
couldn’t it?”
    “We don’t know what the antidote looks like,” Liv reminded
him. “Jolt itself is a lilac-purple color, but the antidote could be anything,
really. We don’t have any means of testing this, do we?”
    “Not here, we certainly don’t,” Julian agreed. “And we’d be
insane just to leave it behind. Not when it could be exactly what we’re
searching for. Why the hell are they keeping it down here ?”
    “Maybe it needs to be kept in a certain climate? Or maybe it
smells after a while and they need to keep it in the fume cupboard. It’s
impossible to know, but I really think we should take a sample of it. I’m not
sure I like the idea of taking the whole bag. That would be far too noticeable
and they’d know their security had been breached. It could easily lead back to
us and backfire. The whole point of this course of action is to remain under
the radar.”
    “Agreed,” Julian said briskly.
    Liv pulled out one of the plastic baggies they carried for
exactly this purpose from a zippered pocket in her jacket. They had all packed
the snap-lock style bags to take any samples they believed would be helpful, so
the lab could analyze them. Liv pulled off the leather gloves she had worn to
keep from leaving fingerprints and to protect her hands.
    Quickly, she tugged on a pair of latex gloves instead. They
did not know whether the powder was corrosive or dangerous in any way—Will had
even suggested that the drug might be absorbed through skin contact—so despite
the time ticking away, she knew caution was far more important than losing a
minute or so being careful. She had decided to not keep her leather gloves on
for protection as they were porous, and she didn’t want the possibly dangerous
drug to contaminate her favorite—and very expensive—pair of gloves.
    “We’ve found something,” Julian said into his comm unit as
Liv snapped the second glove on. “An ochre powder, possibly the antidote, down
in the basement. It’s a horticultural laboratory, by the looks of it, but
there’s drug paraphernalia in one of the fume cupboards and we’re about to take
the sample to be on the safe side. Liv is going to take it and we’ll bring it
with us.”
    “There’s a walk-in safe up here in the en suite,” Kelly
replied over the comm. “It has wooden ceremonial masks, likely illegally
brought through customs. No sign of the drugs. We’re almost done here. We’ll
need five minutes to go through Erik’s office and we’ll meet you at the
rendezvous point.”
    “Got that,” Julian answered and grinned happily at Liv. An
answering surge of happiness rushed through her system and suddenly she felt as
if she could conquer anything. The high had returned and she had discovered her
second wind.
    Feeling like the proverbial conquering heroine, Liv lifted
the glass door of the fume cupboard and reached inside for the plastic baggy of
ochre powder. Her hand had barely closed around the bag before Flame broke in
over their comms, her voice low but her tone urgent, her words sharp and
rapidly spoken.
    “Abort. Repeat, abort. Silent alarm has been tripped. We’ve
been notified over the Enforcer frequency. It’s in the basement. Julian. Liv.
Get the fuck out of there right now.”
    “Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Liv swore vehemently and
looked around the glass door of the fume cupboard, expecting to see a red
flashing beacon or some indication that she had tripped a wire or something.
    Julian grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently.
    “We have to move. Right now,” he rapped out insistently, all
softness and sweetness drained from his