The research facility that Cordelia owned had to be the most hideous looking building in East Tennessee. On a good day it looked like a concrete block, with a round tower of glass in the front that had a dreary sheen to it and radiated a puke color. When June became a…oh what was it called? She still couldn’t remember the word for a cat scientist. She’d forgotten to look it up. Whatever it was, when June became the best one, her office would be colorful and cozy and it wouldn’t smell like rubbing alcohol all the time or make a prison look like an architectural masterpiece.

The building sat on the crest of a grassy hill, situated like a little island amidst tall grass and an endless tide of trees. There was only one narrow road in, leading to the small parking lot and roundabout at the front of the building. An iron security fence guarded the perimeter. It looked like the middle of nowhere, and it was—everything else was miles away.

Activity filled the tiny parking lot now: flashing lights, people in uniforms moving about. Though she’d been told he was gone, June still looked for Mr. Moseley, hoping to see him talking, walking, and drinking his usual cup of cheap coffee amidst the bustle.

June noticed a nervous energy in the air as they pulled through the gate. A uniformed officer immediately flagged them down. “This isn’t a tourist attraction,” he said stiffly. “Turn around please.”

Cordelia gave him a look that could have melted metal. “I’m Dr. Cordelia Robinson.” She pulled out her ID. “And this is my lab, if you would get out of my way.”

“Oh, yes, sorry ma’am. Go on through.”

“Bless your heart,” Cordelia said to the officer, and drove off. June smirked. That phrase was a backhand wrapped in grandmotherly syllables, and as good as telling someone to stick something somewhere unpleasant.

June heard the officer yell behind them “—call Detective Abernathy and tell him that Dr. Robinson has arrived.” He probably didn’t realize he’d just been insulted.

Cordelia parked the car. “Remember, pay attention to everything. Use that mind I’ve worked so hard to give you.”

June snorted. But before she could reply, an ambulance nearby caught her eye, its back doors open and the inside empty. A pit formed in her stomach.

“Let’s go see if we can’t figure out who did this,” Cordelia said as she started toward the building.

They were the last to arrive—June recognized each of the other scientists’ cars sitting in the parking lot.

Just outside the main entrance, embedded in the wall next to the front door, June noticed a peculiar slate-gray metal box. The usual card reader was nowhere to be seen. But before June could raise this, Cordelia held a badge up to it, then whipped open the door and stormed inside. A new security system at the lab?

June followed at her elbow into the round, three-story atrium. Mr. Moseley’s security-guard station sat empty. June squinted at the puke-colored glass portion of the atrium, and ran her hand along the red brick that formed the other part. Sunlight poured into the large, round space. June counted two unusual people at the far end, wearing nice suits and carrying notepads. Nothing else was out of the ordinary. June and Cordelia marched into the outer hallway that ran the length of the building, past the men in suits.

It ran straight to the other end of the building and split the actual lab on one side, marked by its exterior wall of glass—bullet proof, supposedly—and the scientists’ offices on the other, marked by a wall of red brick. Ugly red fire extinguishers were evenly spaced between every office door, leaving a red ghost reflected on the glass wall on the opposite side of the hall. But farther down the hallway, dark maroon spots on the glass weren’t the reflection of fire extinguishers. Her heart skittered. So that was the bloody message. Before she could reach it, Cordelia veered into the second office on the left and rapped her fist on the open door. “How could this happen Ivan?”

The Ivan in question was Dr. Ivan Crushov. To the surprise of no one—when they heard his name, that is—he was Russian. Whether he wore a suit, a sweater, or a polo shirt, he looked a whole lot like a well-dressed bear. Since he had brown hair, that made him a brown bear in June’s opinion.

That had been a funny thing until she let Cordelia in on the joke. The fire and brimstone that followed (joking about people looking like animals was a bit too close to the truth) ensured June never said anything about the resemblance out loud again.

Dr. Crushov looked up from his chair and mumbled something into the phone, which was being held to his ear by a thin, slate-gray metal arm connected to his desk. “End call,” he said, and the robotic arm hung up the phone with a smooth movement. That was pretty cool.

Where everyone else at the facility had one computer monitor, Dr. Crushov had three. His shiny new bookcase had a few books on it, and the rest of the shelf space was taken up with elaborate-looking trophies and awards. Several slate-gray metal boxes sat next to his cockpit of monitors, though it wasn’t readily apparent what they did except look like little squares from outer space. The room smelled of metal and machines.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He nodded. “Yes, the taking of Mr. Moseley. A terrible thing. I do not know how it could happen.”

Cordelia crossed her arms. “But you wanted to try a new security system that you built. And one week later, here we are.”

June stiffened. That was suspicious.

“Yes,” he said, looking down at Cordelia’s feet, “here we are. I do not know, but I do not think the problem is with the security system. I do know the criminal wanted something from you. You have been very quiet about your work lately.”

Cordelia did not like that answer. She rubbed her temples, and June recognized the look on her face. If June had been on the receiving end of that look, a lecture and a grounding would soon follow. Dr. Crushov must have recognized that look too. His fingers drummed the desk nervously. His mouth formed an awkward attempt at an innocent smile. June closed her eyes and focused on sorting through the noise around her: voices down the hall, breathing, the tinny drone from the gray metal boxes in the office. Finally, she singled out Dr. Crushov’s heartbeat—it was the only heart beating at the pace of a woodpecker hitting a tree. He definitely recognized the look on Cordelia’s face.

Dr. Crushov tried again. “But the police, they confirmed that only one door—”

“You let the police access the system? Did they have a warrant?” Cordelia asked.

Dr. Crushov’s mouth hung open. He rubbed the back of his neck. June guessed they did not have a warrant. And then he spotted her. “Oh, hello June! We are just talking about the grown-up things. How are you, little one?”

June’s eyes popped open, and she tried very hard not to let her face register what she thought of being called ‘little one.’ “Hey, Dr. Ivan. I’m good, thanks.”

“You are still getting the good grades, no? A little chip off the old block, no?”

June smiled. She wondered how Cordelia felt about being called an “old block” in her current mood. She didn’t have to wonder long; she could swear steam was rising from Cordelia’s ears.

“We need to see the rest of the building,” Cordelia said, turning to leave and pulling June with her. Dr. Crushov looked noticeably relieved they were moving on.

“Why were you so mad at Dr. Crushov for helping the police?” June asked in the hallway. “They’ll help find Mr. Moseley.”

“The police don’t need to be involved in this,” Cordelia said as they passed the next door, belonging to Dr. Violet Langley—Aunt Violet to June. It was closed, and June wondered if Aunt Violet was okay. June went to knock on the door when the maroon message on the lab wall caught her eye again, and like a moth to the flame, June was pulled irresistibly to it. Her stomach dropped two feet as she realized the letters really were scrawled in blood: they seeped downward in streaks and globs like something out of a horror movie. Blood turned a creepy color when it dried—like the red of life in it was returning to a brown dust. Her body tensed painfully as she read the message.

Cordelia: I have it and I have the security guard. Bring me the research at the place where it began, at midnight. If you do, I’ll tell you where to find him.

June sucked in a breath through her teeth. Mr. Moseley was still alive. Her muscles relaxed, just a little. Then Cordelia’s training took over. The grammar and punctuation struck June first. Was it normal to leave a message in blood that included punctuation and proper grammar? This couldn’t be typical kidnapping stuff, but Brendan would probably know.

Cordelia stood next to her, reading the message too. She must have understood it more than June because her eyes had gone as wide as June had ever seen them and her face was the color of white liquid eraser. “I should have known when people started disappearing,” she muttered.

“You understand the message?” June asked.

“Yes.”

“You know exactly what they want?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” A weight lifted from June’s shoulders. “And you can give it to them, right?”

“Not here.” Cordelia turned her wide eyes to her office and motioned slightly with her head. The two men in suits, who looked an awful lot like detectives, had walked down the hall. Her mouth turned into a hard, thin line, but June saw that her hands were trembling. That Cordelia seemed afraid also frightened June. What scared a nine-foot-tall owl?

“Let’s get inside the lab and see how it looks first,” Cordelia said. June found it confusing sometimes that the building was often called the lab, but then it held an actual laboratory inside, also called a lab. She preferred to think of the actual lab as the lab proper.

From down the hall, just outside the first office June and Cordelia had rushed past, a high-pitched, British-accented voice called out, “Dr. Robinson! I’m so glad you’re here. What a dreadful fright this all is.”

Dr. Hartford Chase. He’d arrived at the lab just over a year ago, fresh out of some PhD program in London. Cordelia said they were fortunate to hire him, but June wasn’t so sure. Cordelia didn’t acknowledge Dr. Chase, walking past her office (and past the two men in suits) and slipping through the door to the lab proper at the back right of the hallway.

June gave one last look at the bloody letters and realization hit her with a thump. It took a lot of blood to write a message like that, with its proper grammar and punctuation. Mr. Moseley had lost a lot of blood.

Dr. Chase waved to her. “Well, hello there, June!” He practically purred down the hallway. “Seeing you brightens even my dreariest days.” He burped, loudly, and covered his mouth. “Pardon me, my dear, the events of this morning have set my stomach in fits.” He didn’t make any effort to walk toward her, so June ignored him. On previous visits to the lab, Dr. Chase would strut around her in his white lab coat, strike random poses, and smile a little too widely, almost like he was being photographed for a magazine. June had no idea what kind of magazine wanted to feature pictures of a short, tan, goblin-looking man with a mop of brown hair and close-set green eyes in its pages. As such, June had gotten very practiced at ignoring him, and oftentimes wished he would trip and fall into the path of a laser beam or spill a bubbling beaker of something hot onto himself.

She scanned the area around her for any other clues. There, just before Cordelia’s office, a blood spot darkened the brick. A smear of maroon the size of a quarter darkened the white tile floor below. But that was all; there were no blood trails or blood puddles. Maybe the kidnapper had used the blood efficiently and Mr. Moseley hadn’t lost more than what she could see. June looked at Aunt Violet's closed door. Was she okay? June wanted to go and check on her, but Dr. Chase had begun moving down the hall. Before he could get any closer, June headed for the lab proper, hoping and praying she wouldn’t find any more blood inside. One of the men in suits watched her pass with sharp, knowing eyes. He whispered something to the other man, but the door swished open and covered his voice so June couldn’t hear him.