"He's most likely okay. It's just temporary safekeeping."
"All the more reason I'm not leaving till I see Kristen."
"There's no way you're going to get into where they're keeping her, Ally."
"All right." There was no arguing with him when he was this freaked. "What do you want me to do?"
He pulled a plastic card out of his jacket pocket. It was white, with the gerex corporation embossed on one side and a magnetic strip on the other.
"This is a master key to this place. Because of security, you can't just go out the front, through the lobby. But if you take the elevator down to the first floor of the basement, where the lab is, there's a fire exit there, in the back, that opens onto a path down to the lake. If you'll go out that door and wait right there, I'll come around and get you to the parking lot. I know a way that will miss their surveillance cameras. I'm scheduled to go back to the city now and I'll take you with me."
"But if I wanted to see Kristen?"
"You'd have to go into the laboratory and then take the elevator that's inside there. Don't even think about it. It's way too risky."
She looked at him, trying to gauge his sincerity. Had he become a new man, finally caring about somebody other than himself? Or had a glimpse of whatever had happened to Kristen scared the hell out him and awakened the specter of being part of a felonious enterprise?
"Why are you doing this?"