Driven to Ink

Chapter 21

“What are you doing here?”Colin Bixby demanded.As though I were stalking him or something. I hadn’t even tried to reach him after thinking he was trying to kill me a few months back. I respected the fact that he wanted nothing else to do with me.

I hadn’t forgotten, though, how hot he was. Long and lanky, with spiky dark hair, green eyes that flashed sexy all over the place.

He’d folded his arms across his chest, and those sexy eyes weren’t quite so endearing today. I shifted from one foot to another, wondering how to talk to him.

Bitsy noticed the tension and spoke up. “We’re looking for the Laboratory Animal Care Services department.”

He noticed her then. “Oh, you.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Bixby,” Bitsy said, and I recognized her tone. Uh-oh. “We are merely looking for directions. We would appreciate it if you could help us, and then we’ll leave you alone.”

His eyes slid from Bitsy back to me.

“Are you on some sort of wild-goose chase again?”

Caught.

But I’d never admit it.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“A man named Dan Franklin,” Bitsy said.

“Another victim of your crazy imagination?”

I didn’t want to get into it. So I’d been wrong. He didn’t have to keep bringing it up.

“Listen, Dr. Bixby,” I said, hoping that keeping things formal might convince him I hadn’t meant to run into him. “We’re supposed to meet with Mr. Franklin. He came into the shop for a tattoo, and there’s a problem.”

Immediately Colin Bixby’s hand went to his chest. I knew what was under that lab coat. A small Celtic knot just over his left nipple. I’d tattooed it myself, when he was still speaking to me and I thought that maybe we were connecting in more ways than one.

“What sort of problem? Does he need medical care?”

“We’re not sure,” Bitsy said quickly. “That’s why it’s imperative that we find him as soon as possible.”

“Why doesn’t he go to the emergency room?”

He was asking valid questions, but we had to keep up the charade.

“Maybe if you could come with us,” I suggested.

Bixby rolled his eyes. “All right, fine. But you know, we don’t usually let the public into that department.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s just say the animal rights people don’t like us doing research on animals. Even though we are complying with all guidelines for those animals’ care, according to federal regulations.” He sounded like a brochure for the Humane Society.

But who was I to say anything? He was leading us down the hall toward an elevator.

“So what are you doing here?” I asked. Last I knew, he was an emergency room doctor at the University Medical Center.

“I teach a class once a week,” he said as he pushed the elevator button.

“It’s lucky we ran into you,” Bitsy said.

He pushed the button again, as if he couldn’t wait for the elevator to get there. It was clear he didn’t feel lucky.

Inside the elevator, he swiped his card and pushed a button for a floor that didn’t have a number, only LL. As the elevator jerked downward, I asked, “How’s your mother?”

He looked at me as if I had three heads. I knew, however, that his mother lived down the hall from him in his condominium building, and I was just making small talk, thank you very much.

He was having none of it. Until the doors slid open, his eyes watched the floors drop away on the little flashing sign.

We were in the basement. LL. Lower level, most likely.

Steel doors flanked the hallway.

“Don’t the critters need sunlight?” Bitsy asked, indicating the concrete walls and fluorescent lighting that made our skin look jaundiced.

Colin Bixby snorted. Not a pleasant sound.

“Those animals are being tested on,” I said in a stage whisper. “They don’t exactly need sunshine and three meals a day.”

“Those animals, as you call them, are treated humanely. They have a sleep schedule, an eating schedule. We make them as comfortable as possible.” Bixby’s tone was definitely frosty. And he was staring at my arm. The one with the koi that Jeff had tattooed.

“That’s new,” he said matter-of-factly.

I nodded.

He leaned over and studied it so closely I could feel his warm breath on my skin. But it seemed as though I was the only one getting all hot and bothered. I was only a specimen to him.

“Are you going to get another?” Bitsy asked him.

His head snapped up so fast I thought he’d give himself whiplash.

“Another what?”

“Tattoo,” Bitsy said, exasperation lacing the word.

“No.” Colin Bixby might as well have been playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? because I knew that was his final answer.

But I also knew people should never say never.

A sound like thunder echoed through the hall, and at the very end, where the hall came to a T, a large stainless steel cart came into view. A person dressed in blue scrubs and a yellow smock was pushing it. The person-and I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman because of the white cap that looked like a shower cap and a surgical mask-rolled the cart, which had several steel shelves lined with cages, toward us.

When he-or she-saw us, the cart jerked to a stop.

“Who are you?”

Bixby stood a little taller, held out his ID card, and said, “Dr. Colin Bixby. These women are looking for…” He looked back at me, the question in his eyes.

“Dan Franklin,” I said.

“Dan Franklin,” he repeated.

“Do you know where we can find him?”

The person gripped the cart, and I noticed now that he or she was wearing rubber gloves. They matched the rubber boots.

What the heck was on that cart?

I took a step closer and peered at it.

Tiny quick movements and a few whiskers indicated rodents. But why would he or she be wearing all that stuff? Were they contagious with something? Maybe we shouldn’t have come down here. We had no idea what was going on behind those steel doors.

A glance at Bitsy told me she was thinking the same thing.

Dr. Bixby, however, looked more relaxed now that we had some company.

“Haven’t seen Dan today,” the person said. “You could check with Roz. She’s in room seven.” The person paused. “You know, they’re not authorized to be here.”

“I’ll take responsibility,” Bixby said, although from his tone, I could tell he was already regretting it.

We hadn’t even gone out. Okay, so we’d shared one kiss. And it was one fantastic kiss. But that was all. There had been no promises made. I’d jumped to a conclusion that wasn’t right, and he was making me pay for it.

He did live down the hall from his mother. Maybe it was better this way.

The cart rattled past us, and now we had a clear view of those cages. They were most definitely rodents, rats or mice or both. I didn’t much make a distinction. Rodents were rodents.

Bitsy started walking down the hall, and Bixby and I followed, noting all the numbers by the doors until we found number seven.

“Here it is,” Bitsy said, then pointed to a small metal box next to the door where someone would have to swipe an ID card. She looked at Bixby. “Can you get us in here?”

Colin Bixby looked as though it was the last thing he wanted to do. His mouth was set in a stern line as he gripped his ID card.

“Let me do the talking, okay?” he asked, looking from me to Bitsy and back to me.

We nodded, and he swiped his card.

As we heard the latch click, Bixby pushed the door open, and we stepped inside.

I’d thought a stainless steel cart full of rats in cages was bad.

This room was a hundred times creepier. Rows of cages were lined up on stainless steel shelves, which stood in three rows to our right. A stainless steel sink on steroids was in the center of the room. A row of steel cabinets hung above a shelf with boxes of latex gloves and wipes and other implements that looked like something out of Frankenstein.

I wanted to set all those rats free. They could all live in my trunk if they wanted.

Bixby read my mind.

“Brett, have you ever had a family member or friend with cancer?”

Immediately I thought about my grandmother in hospice, covered with the patchwork quilt she’d made when first married to my grandfather way back during the Depression, her bony, transparent fingers clutching my hand as she told me she was going to be okay, that I could let her go.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“These animals-the testing that’s done on them-they can help. They can help us find cures, treatments for all sorts of illness and disease. You have to look at it that way.”

I could see both sides.

“Excuse me?”

A woman had come around the corner of one of the banks of steel shelves. She wore the same scrubs and yellow smock as the guy in the hall, and as she pulled off her mask, I caught my breath.

Roz was Rosalie. Rosalie Applebaum Marino.