She eyed him. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Then he wouldn’t have to show her the vault. “I want answers.”
The elevator doors slid open, and she stepped out, looking around for her knife. “Did someone pick up my knife? Did they put it in Lost and Found or something?”
“Sylvia might know.” Tony trudged to the vault, his movements dejected. “I actually want to know if you have the same status as me right now. Thanks to what happened.”
Eliana followed him. “What are you talking about?”
He waved at the panel. “It won’t let me in. Access revoked.”
Eliana leaned down to the eye scanner, but no light flashed in front of her. “It’s not working.”
“I guess you can’t get in either.”
“Because of what happened?”
Tony shrugged. “We screwed up. That’s where Sylvia is right now. In a meeting of the Board of Governors, deciding our fate.”
Chapter Twenty
Carlos stepped out of the elevator with a couple of other officers he knew, the hallway of the downtown headquarters building full of uniformed and plainclothes cops. Officers. Senior staff. Seemed like half the department had turned out for this.
He stopped at the door, and a sergeant with a clipboard said, “Name and badge number?”
“Carlos Ryson.” He gave his badge number.
The sergeant handed him a cotton swab in a sealed package. “Take a swipe of your cheek, slide it back in the package, and turn it in.”
“Testing for Elysium?” No doubt there’d be trace amounts in his system, something the test would surely show. Still, he didn’t like the idea of everyone he worked with knowing he’d failed the test even by a small margin.
“Everyone who got dosed yesterday is going to come up with a positive. We need a headcount of who was affected.”
“Right.” Carlos tore the package, swabbed the inside of his cheek, and handed over the sample as instructed.
“Thank you.” The civilian employee took his package with a gloved hand and checked off his name. She passed it to a medic, who squeezed two drips of the testing compound onto his swab.
“It’s pale. Put Ryson down as a two.” The medic looked at him. “Low dose of Elysium in your system. How are you feeling?”
“I don’t like being the victim,” Carlos said. “It’s why I’m a cop.”
A slight smile tugged at the medic’s lips. “That seems to be a recurring theme this morning.” He lifted his chin. “You can have a seat.”
“Thanks.” Carlos turned to the room, a podium at the front and rows of chairs with about forty or so cops already seated. He found an open spot, looking around for Detective Wallace so he could get an update about the second murder investigation.
The officer beside him leaned over. “Did you pass?”
“No, you?”
The guy smirked. “No.” He held out his hand. “Britton.”
“Ryson.” He spotted Halstood a few rows ahead of him, sitting with a couple of the third-shift guys.
“All right, everyone.” The uniformed officer who took the podium had dark skin, his features indicating he had Indian heritage. “If you’ve been living under a rock, or you’re still high and can’t remember, I’m Chief Deepak Chaudhary. Your boss.”
Several officers around him chuckled.
“You’re all here because you got dosed with Elysium yesterday to some extent, or you were involved. It’s been confirmed, the compound in those canisters was comprised of elements present in the narcotic Elysium as part of a more complex substance.”
He gripped the sides of the podium. “What we believe is that a group, or individual, directly attempted to undermine first responder infrastructure. Honestly, we’re lucky it wasn’t amassacre. We believe they may have been testing the compound with plans to further deploy it across the city. There have been some calls to shut down the city, put us on lockdown, and get more police presence in the streets, but no one wants to incite civilian panic.”
