Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(134)

Their footsteps echoed in the silence. Dr. O swiped a card, and put his eye up to a machine that shot a beam of red light into it.

The door hissed, clicked, opened. He led her into a big room with no windows, shut the door, and looked into the retinal scan thingamabob again. Big bolts slid, deep into the heavy door. Ka-thunk.

“My lair,” he said, in a joking tone.

She tried to smile. “Uh, wow. It’s an amazing place.”

He perched on the edge of a table. “Welcome to the Haven, Cynthia.”

The words sank in. She had to fight to keep from passing out.



Davy didn’t bother to knock on Beck’s door. He just turned the knob and yanked it open, using a tissue he’d gotten out of the car.

It struck Miles as strange that it wasn’t locked, but the McClouds just pushed on into the house. He scurried after them. Davy stopped, turned, waved his hand at Miles to go back outside. Like hell. No way were they cutting him out of the action now. He sidled along the wall after Con, ignoring the squinty glares and the frantic hand gestures.

They rounded the corner. Marble steps led down into a vast sea of pale beige, with couch and chair islands adrift in it. The main island had a huge black coffee table. A vase was knocked over on it, pointy red flowers scattered across the light-colored rug—oh. No. Oh, shit.

A foot stuck out from behind the coffee table. Bare. Bluish.

They circled the room in absolute silence, and stared down at what had once been Professor Beck.

His head was half gone, and part of his face. His blood and brains were scattered in a dramatic, fanlike arc behind him.

Con let out a long, careful sigh. “This, we did not need.”

“No,” Davy agreed. “I don’t think things could get much worse.”

Miles swayed on his feet. This was the second violent, bloody death he’d seen that day. The first one, on tape, had been bad enough.

But at least he hadn’t had to smell it.

His stomach lurched. He bolted out of the place in a stumbling run. Out the door, across the grass, and he tumbled onto his knees, heaving coffee-flavored gastric juices onto the ornamental shrubs.

He was trembling and tearful and embarrassed when his gut finally stopped spasming. He dragged himself up onto rubbery legs, wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve of Sean’s Armani. His phone chimed, in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the text message.

mina went 2 meet mindmeld. sorry.

haven in arcadia. took a beacon. code 42BB84 follow the bread crumbs if u feel like itwish me luck pretending I have a brainyrs cin



The world spun. Darkness slopped up over his mind.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump and shriek.

“If you’re done depositing genetic material on Beck’s lawn, could we get the f*ck out of here?” Con said. “Before they haul us in?”

Miles straightened up, and held out his cell. “Davy. You know how you said you didn’t think things could get any worse?”

Davy’s eyes sharpened with dread. “Yeah?”

He passed over the phone. “You were wrong.”



Pain, pain, and more pain. White hot screaming stabs of it, slicing right through him like a hot knife through butter. He was strapped into some sort of chair. Pain was everywhere, but the molten epicenter was in his right shoulder. A guy with a bloody lab coat was holding a scalpel and tongs. He went at Sean’s shoulder with it. Gouging and rending.

“Fuck,” Sean hissed, bucking and straining.

The guy displayed a dripping bullet clamped in his tongs. “Just a flesh wound,” he said, his tone reproving.

Sean stared at the guy, baffled. “I’ve died and gone to hell?”

The guy grinned. “Not quite yet. Think of me as a preview, if you like.” He moved to the side, displaying the room with a flourish.

Sean’s chest clutched around his heart. Liv lay there, inert, hands and ankles fastened with tight leather straps to the frame of the gurney.

T-Rex stood there, fondling her. He licked his thick lips as he ran his hand up the inside of Liv’s thigh. “Nice,” he said. “Warm and soft.”

“Not yet, Gordon,” Lab Coat said sternly. “I have other plans for her. You can play with the other one. After we’re done, of course.”

Other one? What the hell? Sean could turn his head just far enough to make out a slender girl curled up on the floor. Her hands were fastened to the radiator, her hair hanging over her face. She looked up.

Cindy. That poor, silly chick. Fresh sadness welled up inside him. “Aw, shit, honey. I cannot tell you how sorry I am to see you here.”

“M-me, too,” she stuttered. “Right back atcha.”

Sean strained in his bonds, rattling the chair. “So, then. You must be Osterman. The shit-eating maggot who killed my brother.”

Osterman tipped a gallon bottle of alcohol, letting it glug out onto a cotton swab, and swiped the soggy thing, urgently, over Sean’s arm. Sean convulsed with a fresh bolt of agony. “Yes, I am Osterman,” the guy said. “Hold still while I stitch this up.”

Sean struggled with that. “What’s the point of stitching me?”

“I’m not killing you yet,” Osterman explained. “I’ll keep you alive as long as I can. I don’t want you dying of a stupid infection.”