The Carbon Trail by Catriona King Read Free Book Online Page A

it up. ”
    He stood up briskly, making it clear that the discussion was at an end. “Now, let’s go and view the tapes for Wednesday evening. That way we’ll find out if I’m losing it completely.”
    ***
    Karen wandered aimlessly around the law library, lifting books and flicking idly through them, then replacing them without reading a single word. Finally she gave up, too preoccupied with her feelings to concentrate on Tort, and decamped to the coffee-shop on the corner to make sense of her week.
    Jeff had seemed so much happier in the past two days, different somehow. Karen searched for the words to describe it and stumbled onto one; kinder. He was kinder. Jeff had never been cruel to her exactly, well not physically, but his sharp words had made her cry plenty of times. Not enough to make her leave him, or even to stop loving him, but enough to make her wish that he would change.
    Karen loved her husband but even she knew that he was a rigid man, cool and organised to the point of being obsessive, but that was to be expected from his job and his time in Iraq. He’d gone over as a surgeon on a short commission but left in 2003 to go back and study biophysics, finishing his PhD at Harvard and starting a career in research. Scrabo Research Enterprises had head-hunted him in 2008 and then their life together had changed. Jeff had become secretive, disappearing without a word, sometimes for days. He always returned, but without a word of explanation, refusing to answer her questions, even about the smallest things. Eventually she’d stopped asking, learning to be grateful for whatever she got.
    In the past few months there’d been something more; Jeff had been vague and forgetful, always complaining of a headache that tablets wouldn’t shift. She’d watched him, worrying silently but knowing that there was no point asking him how he felt. His answer would always be the same; silence.
    She’d loved him anyway, even as he was, but in the past two days she’d seen a different Jeff, a softer man, and she liked the change. Karen closed her mind to the bloodied shirt she’d found in the laundry basket the day before, and prayed to whatever God was listening that the change was here to stay.
    ***
    The video footage in the Tower’s main reception was unambiguous. Mitchell peered at the images again but there was no doubt; it was definitely him. He’d walked through reception’s metal detector at 4:35 on Thursday morning and exited the building through the West Street door.
    After he’d logged-on to his office computer around six p.m. he hadn’t hit a key, yet he’d been in the building for another ten hours. What had he been doing for all that time? Had he worked on someone else’s PC instead of his own? And if so, why? Mitchell banged his hand against his head in frustration. Why couldn’t he remember?
    Devon watched his boss’ confusion helplessly. Something was wrong with Mitchell but Devon was certain that even he didn’t know what. They entered the elevator and descended to the basement laboratory on the lower-fifth floor, exiting into the cold air. As Devon walked towards the lab’s door, he missed Jeff Mitchell’s expression change from confusion to blind rage.
    Devon punched in a code and scanned his retina and the steel door slid back quietly, revealing the high ceilings and low lights of the best equipped lab in New York. As he punched in a second set of numbers the lights brightened automatically and a soft whirring started, signalling the machines awakening from their sleep. There were millions of pounds of equipment and even more valuable knowledge locked inside this room.
    Devon gestured towards the cameras overhead. “Let’s take a look at the tapes. Maybe you came down here to work on Wednesday after I left?”
    Mitchell felt himself coil like a spring. Something had happened here on Wednesday night, he was sure of it. His instinct said that it hadn’t been good, and that it had to stay a