Read Online City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte - Free Book Online

in the cab back to his apartment. “Do you know where Bettina has her lab? Maybe if I can catch her on the way in or out—”
    Sarah’s phone beeped and a text appeared. The number was blocked, but the message was clear. Sarah leaned forward and addressed the driver.
    “I’m sorry, but we need to change our destination!” She handed her phone to Alessandro, who read the message out loud.
    Sarah
—
can you come to my lab now? Must talk. Alone. —Bettina

SIX
    A lessandro directed the cab to leave them at Borschkegasse, and he pointed out the building where Bettina Müller’s lab was located, a newer, modern edifice tucked behind yet another row of Vienna’s white Neo-Baroque giants. Alessandro wanted to come with her, but the doctor had specifically stated that Sarah should come alone, so he loitered near a fountain on the campus
Platz
, nervously smoking a cigarette. By the time she returned, Sarah figured, he would probably have picked up a sophomore. Or three.
    There were still a couple of lights on in the laboratory building. Someone had put a piece of tape over the lock on the front door and left a card directing a pizza delivery to the third floor. Dry-erase boards and posters lined the walls of the entranceway, bearing testimony to the work being done in the building: schedules, reminders about safety precautions, a challenge from the Molecular Medicine team for a night of disco bowling.
    Bettina’s lab was on the second floor, at the end of a long hallway. Sarah had to use the flashlight app on her phone to navigate, as the overhead fluorescents were off. This made her a little uneasy. The previous night was bullets in a river, and Nico had said she should remain
en garde
. Difficult to do when dressed like a naughty beermaid. Sarah reached into her purse. Her choice of weapons was either a pen or the plastic sword from Nico’s Barbatini, which had somehow ended up in her evening bag. She wondered what he had taken in exchange.
    The door to Bettina’s lab was standing open, but the lights were off.
    “Hallo?”
she called. “Frau Dr. Müller?
Es ist
Sarah Weston.”
    No answer. Sarah felt for the light switch inside the door and clicked it, but nothing happened. She shone her phone around the room, getting partial glimpses of long tables, stools, cabinets, sinks, lab equipment. The room smelled powerfully of bleach.
    She jumped at the sound of scratching and a mechanical clink. She directed her light toward the noise and discovered a row of numbered cages. Sarah had seen plenty of white lab rats, but these were all gray, some drinking water, some sleeping, one little guy starting to exercise vigorously (or neurotically) on a wheel. Sarah stepped backward, slipping on a laminated poster depicting two soapy hands and the injunction
Waschen Sie Ihre Hände!
that had fallen to the floor. She heard a distinct tearing sound.
    Then she heard the elevator door opening and the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the hall, several voices speaking at once.
    “Hallo? Hallo?”
Sarah stepped outside the lab and was momentarily blinded by the beam of a powerful flashlight hitting her directly in the face. For the second time in as many days, she heard the click of a gun being cocked.
     • • • 
    A t least, Sarah thought, she wasn’t the only one at the police station in a dirndl, though hers was the only one with a side seam busted open. She counted a half dozen people in ball costumes, two of them in handcuffs, singing a spirited version of “Das Schönste auf der Welt” at the tops of their lungs. The officer who was transcribing Sarah’s statement looked up at the serenaders, frowned, then informed Sarah that the song was a fine one if sung properly, in tune.
    Well, she had definitely arrived in Vienna.
    There had been quite a scene with the police. After Sarah had explained to the officers what she was doing in the lab and they had holstered their guns, one officer had been dispatched to collect