A/N: Hello again everyone! I'm back with a new chapter! As always, a huge thank you to everyone that read last chapter!
I'm glad that you all enjoyed the Kames! And although there is no James to be found in this chapter, his presence is definitely felt. You'll see what I mean ;)
I hope you all enjoy this chapter, which is dedicated to winterschild11! :)
James had left before the sun came up the next morning. Kendall rolled over, curled into the still-heated pillow and let the other man's scent keep him company in a bed that suddenly felt far too big and empty. Jett had been the last person to sleep in that spot, but thinking of how they'd ended didn't bring the same pang. Maybe he really had needed sex.
By the time he'd jumped in the car and headed to the office, he was back on task. The answers were buried somewhere in Kelly's files, but going through them was going to take a long time.
Much of Dalhousie's research had ended up on one of Kelly's other USB keys. It was in the third carton Kendall opened, and the information practically filled it up. A lot of it was number charts and weird graphs, of which Kendall understood exactly zilch. But he occasionally stumbled upon an actual report that he mostly understood.
...the considerable amounts of drugs in the subject's bloodstream. In this state the Transference Vector was largely ineffective. In order for the process to work at its best potential, we hypothesized that the subject had to experience severe emotional and physical stimuli...
Why couldn't there be a Rosetta Stone for non-scientists when it came to reading reports like this? She referenced the 'Transference Vector' multiple times, it sounded like a bad sci-fi, but nothing explicitly stated what it was. Or, if it did, the language went way over Kendall's head. Something about it had to important, otherwise she'd done a lot of research for nothing. And if it was important, he had to dig it out.
Dr. Dalhousie kept referring to specific variables, each one labeled with what she referred to as a "TVX call sign" and carefully cataloged with different numbers next to them. Almost like a descriptor.
Or an amount.
Lucy stumbled into the office, bleary-eyes, around nine-thirty. She looked accusatory at the empty spot on her desk where a coffee should have been and then up at Kendall.
"Long night?"
Lucy glared at him and sat behind her computer. "Don't ask."
Kendall smiled. "You deserve a long night, Luce."
"I deserve a raise and three Bradley Cooper clones too, but those are all clearly absent."
"You could take an extended vacation."
"I've already used my vacation time for the year. Unlike you. You have enough vacation banked to take a whole year."
Kendall shrugged. "What would I do with a year off?" Spend it with James living in pure self-indulgence. Dammit. He'd been doing so well at keeping his mind off the brunet. Thinking about James had him flushing again and he looked deliberately back at his screen. Focus, she's going to know...
"Get laid."
Happy that her exhaustion had prevented her from using her unusual Lucyness to figure it out, Kendall kept his attention focused on the screen. For some reason, jameslipskissingtouchingohmygod, he was having a lot of trouble concentrating. It wasn't like he'd ever see the guy again. It had been a, sweetamazingholyshititwasprobablythebestever, one-off. Kendall had his commitments to the Society to think about, and James had made it pretty clear that he wasn't into having an affair with someone who was already married to their job.
Of course, if anything had ever tempted Kendall to give it up...
Stop that.
"You are so out of it today." Lucy said.
Kendall looked up. "Pot, meet kettle. You two have so much in common."
"Don't try and distract me. Who is she? He? Is it Victoria from accounting?"
"Hush, woman! Let me focus." Yeah, because that response had been so totally effective in the past. He was lucky she was too tired to kill him.
He pulled open his notes from his previous investigation, briefly skimming over his findings. He'd tried to be more diplomatic than usual when he'd questioned the victims, especially since one of them had been particularly eager to physically express his intense dislike of the Society by ripping Kendall's arms free of their confining sockets, but he'd gotten a few usable statements.
...she was constantly forcing pills down my throat. This one time, I think I took close to fifty in one afternoon. I don't know what the point was. They never seemed to do anything.
Kendall checked the cleanup crew's inventory sheet. Sure enough, they'd found numerous unidentified pills and liquids in her labs. They were still awaiting testing results, the Society labs were pretty much had their hands full and he'd reported the initial case closed. Kelly hadn't gotten around to re-initiating anything. So that left him. Everything was stored in one of the evidence rooms downstairs. He jotted down the number and stood.
"I'm heading down to the storerooms. I think some of this stuff would make more sense if I put it in context."
"Try not to knock over any ancient relics. It took the maintenance crew forever to get the ghosts out of the rafters last time."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you ask me, we should be more liberal in our use of bubble wrap."
He had to stop and provide his credentials to the lone man guarding the storeroom door, becuase curse anyone who tried to get past him without signing in, and continued into the maze of hallways.
They'd stored the drugs in the second sub-basement. Kendall navigated the corridors, wishing for the thousandth time that they'd install a map. After passing the same door twice, he finally figured out the right turn. The room was easier to figure out than the hallway, each cabinet and shelving unit carefully coded.
"M4-5002... there's 4000... so 5000 should be right around here..." He wound around to another aisle, stopping when he reached the right area.
The storage bin was empty.
"You've gotta be fucking with me." He yanked out his phone. "Lucy? There's nothing on the shelf. Someone's cleared out everything we collected!"
"Hold your horses, it may have been misfiled." The sound of her fingers flying across her keyboard filled his ear. "Oh, Ken... you aren't going to like this."
Why couldn't they catch a break on this thing? "What?"
"Look at 5001. Do you see a headdress?"
Kendall shifted his attention to the adjacent shelf. "Is it supposed to look like a cast-off from Liberace's wardrobe?"
"That's the one. Don't put it on"
"But it goes so well with my red pumps."
"It's been catalogued as 5002. 5001's status registers as terminated. Someone went in and rearranged everything."
Kendall sighed. "So they could cover up the missing inventory. I don't suppose we're lucky enough that they left the access logs?"
"Nothing immediately obvious. But let me see what I can do. I might be able to drag up something useful."
"Thanks, Luce."
What now? The drugs were gone, it was going to be hard to figure out what Dalhousie was doing. Without the context, he doubted that their lab rats would be able to offer much help unless he released her files, and that was probably the fastest way to get yanked right off the case. He'd have to keep exploring the missing-eyeballs angle. If Dalhousie had any interaction with the people Kelly had investigated, he'd find out. Then, hopefully, it would simply be a matter of tracking them down.
Right, becuase things always go that smoothly for me.
He headed back upstairs. His feet were definitely heavier than they had been on the way down, and jittery electricity was fired under his skin. Part of it was the case, but if he was honest, most of it was James. This was why he generally chose not to date. If a one-night stand was having this sort of impact, then he could only imagine what dating the guy would be like. No... it'd be better to leave things as they were. He could look back and have some incredible memories and material to fuel future encounters with his right hand.
And if he sort of regretted that his position made having an actual relationship close to impossible well... that was his problem, wasn't it?
Done! So there you have it! Kendall's getting deeper into the case. And he also seems to have it bad for a certain brunet ;)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, especially Kendall's feelings for James!
Next chapter will be in James' POV, which I'm pretty excited about!
Again, I hope you all enjoyed! Especially you, winterschild11! :)
Until next time!
-Epically Obsessed