Dan's gaze skimmed to the ceiling over Cordy's shoulder, and then back down to her face. "Why don't I show you the grounds? It's a lovely day for a walk."

As they exited the room, Cordy's eyes trailed to the ceiling and found a camera's unblinking eye staring down at her. Not a safe place to talk, then.

They made the return trip to the lobby in silence. By the time they got to the sidewalk that led around the side of the building, Cordelia was sweating. At least Angel didn't monitor every little thing she did. Well, outside of occasionally stalking her on a date, but she'd almost welcome that over this Big-Brother feel.

Dan slipped his hands in the pockets of his khakis and strolled with her through the grounds. The sprinklers were on, and the sun reflected thousands of rainbows in the mist. Cordy slipped on her sunglasses and hung her fake glasses in the collar of her shirt.

"Tell me what you know about Kevin," Dan said under his breath.

"I work for a private detective who specializes in the paranormal. Our client asked us to check into Kevin's death."

Dan let out a long, shuddering sigh. His shoulders dropped and his head slumped. "You can't go around here saying that you know about PEZ," he said. "That's the sort of thing that causes trouble." He raised his eyes to her. "I think it's what got Kevin killed."

"Candy got Kevin killed?" she asked, her eyebrows rising about as high as they could go.

Dan's forehead wrinkled. "I thought, when you said-- I mean-- I thought you knew." He closed his mouth and made a "please explain" motion with his hand.

"Kevin died on Caritas' doorstep, asking for sanctuary. The last thing he did was write PEZ in his own blood."

Dan stopped walking and closed his eyes. "I knew it." He looked as clammy as Cordy felt.

"So, what is PEZ, if it's not, you know, Pez?" She shifted her briefcase from one hand to the other and followed when he started walking again.

They passed a landscaper, spreading mulch on a flowerbed. Dan waved and the landscaper nodded and went back to shoveling. "I shouldn't be telling you this." He walked until the man was out of earshot before he replied. "PEZ is a genetic experiment," he said quietly. "With worldwide military and financial implications."

Ahead of them Cordy could see a pond, round and flat as a silver coin. "What do you mean, military and financial?" She glanced at Dan in time to see him take his hands out of his pockets and pick one of the camellias blooming on the bush next to the path.

He handed it to her almost absent-mindedly and she twirled the hot- pink bloom between her fingers.

"PEZ stands for Proprietary Encapsulated Zygote," Dan said. He shifted and his face went into shadow. The sun haloed his head, turning his blond hair to a bright gold crown.

"Propri--what?" Cordy asked, squinting at him.

"Proprietary Encapsulated Zygote," Dan repeated, shifting so the light hit his face again. "It basically means you can take a zygote-- a fertilized egg--and encapsulate it in a sort of genetic container. The container allows the zygote to be replicated thousands of times without harming the DNA."

Cordy wrinkled her brow, trying to piece it together. "So, that means, what, exactly?"

"That with the right environment, you can take one egg and reproduce it as many times as you want without using up the genetic material. It's like cloning--to the nth degree."

"You mean, instead of one person, you'd have thousands?"

"Hundreds of thousands—even millions. It's all still in the experimental phase." He shoved his hands in his pockets and rattled his change. "Kevin discovered it by accident. He was experimenting with stem cells for one of the cancer research grants."

"So you think someone is trying to raise an army with this?" No wonder this place gave her the willies. They weren't just trying to cure cancer; they were trying to rule the world.

He shrugged. "It's possible. The thing is, this works on all DNA, human and demon." He glanced out at the pond.

Cordy followed his gaze, startled when the fountains in the middle turned on. Arcs of shimmering water poured up from the pond's depths, cracking the glass-smooth surface into a million ripples. "Why Kevin? If he's the guy who invented this thing, why kill him?"

Dan glanced at her, and his eyes had gone from sad to afraid. "I think Kevin tried to sell the information on the open market to someone he met at Caritas."

***

"Damn. Cordy wasn't kiddin' about that stuff bein' evil, was she?" Gunn asked.

Wes drew the Porky Pig head back with his thumb and peered down into the dispenser. "Nothing too evil that I can see," he said, showing Gunn the empty plastic.

"Huh. What do you think it means?"

"I have no idea," Wes said, dropping the dispenser back to the desk. He leaned down and flipped on the hard drive. The computer powered up.

Gunn left him at it and followed the hall past the bathroom and to the larger of the two bedrooms. It looked out over the back yard and the open curtains let the bright morning sun turn the room a cheery yellow.

He sat down on Kevin's queen-sized bed and tried to figure out who Kevin was. A guy who held a good job, sang karaoke with his friends, and hung framed prints of the Sawtooth Wilderness on his bedroom wall.

Gunn stood and toed the hiking boots in the corner. On the bedside table sat a hiker's guide to the San Gabriel Mountains. He poked it and let the quiet of the house overtake him.

He tried to imagine living in a world like this. Where you could afford to buy your own house, with neighbors who took yoga, and ate out with their kids once a week at the California Pizza Kitchen.

"It just doesn't fit," he said under his breath.

"No, it doesn't," Wes said.

"Gyah!" Gunn jumped. "Don't *do* that!"

"Sorry," Wes said. "It doesn't add up. Literally."

"What do you mean?" Gunn asked. He followed Wes back down the hall to the office.

Wes settled in behind the computer and started typing. Then he turned the monitor toward Gunn. "Look. His finances."

Gunn's eyebrows drew together. "Don't you have to have a password for that?"

Wes shook his head. "He didn't use any privacy controls. Look here." He pointed to the Quicken summary of Kevin's bank account.

"He sure wasn't depending on a dead guy to win the lottery," Gunn said. He whistled under his breath. "Remind me, in my next life, to come back as a biotech employee."

"He was doing well," Wes agreed. "But not as well as you'd think if he were accepting payments from an outside source." His body went totally still. He glanced toward the hall. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Gunn asked. Then he heard it. The scrape of a key in a lock.

***

Cordy's breath caught. "Do you think he was trying to sell it to a demon?"

Dan nodded. "We started going down to sing on a lark. But then one night a couple of weeks ago, Kevin didn't meet me until nearly closing time. Said he'd been stuck in a meeting. Now, we work a lot of overtime, but nothing that goes until one in the morning."

"What makes you think he'd been meeting with a demon?"

Dan made a face. "This is gonna sound crazy, but he...smelled."

Cordy nodded. "Like what?"

Dan looked out over the jetting water. "Pond scum," he said.

"Fyarl demon," Cordy said.

Dan's eyes widened. "You know them by smell?"

"Sometimes. There's one I've had a few personal run-ins with." She thought about Benny and his pond-scum-scented pals. "The ones I know are more what you'd call middle management, but I could see why they might want to buy PEZ. They're highly organized, violent. Have a good head for numbers. Multiply them by, oh, say, a few thousand, and they could rule the city."

"Do you know who killed him?" Dan asked.

"Pretty sure," Cordy said. "Demon mafia. They leave their mark."

Dan closed his eyes and took a couple of shuddering breaths. "Yeah," he said quietly. Then his eyes popped open and he glanced at his watch. "Crap. I gotta get back to the office before I'm missed. You think you can find your way back to your car?"

Cordy looked at the winding path that led off to her left. "I just take that one back around to the front of the building?"

Dan nodded. "Uh huh." He turned and started for the building.

"Oh, wait," Cordy said. "Let me give you my card." She fumbled in her purse and came up with a white Angel Investigations card. "Here you go."

Dan squinted at it. "Is that a lobster?"

She huffed. "It's an angel. Call me if you think of anything else, okay?"

Dan nodded. "Be careful." He glanced over his shoulder toward the building. "And Cordelia--" He touched her arm. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She watched as he made his way down the path toward the building then began walking down the lane toward the parking lot. The sun had risen high enough to make her suit warm, so she shrugged out of her jacket. The flower Dan gave her fell to the ground and when she bent down to pick it up, she noticed the landscaper from before had moved to a bed very near where she and Dan had been talking.

She shot him a friendly wave, picked up the flower and started walking toward the parking lot. Something flashed out the corner of her eye and she turned her head just in time to see the landscaper coming at her at a dead run. For three long seconds, everything around her stopped and hung suspended. Then it sped up again and she realized, oh, crap, she was about to go down under two hundred pounds of man-with-a-shovel.

She pivoted on her heel and tried to swing the briefcase toward him. Instead, it swung right into his chest, in the same direction the guy was coming from. Bad luck met good physics and the momentum spun him right past her. He went flying, ass over shovel, into a flower bed.

Cordy took off, cursing the heels and her full hands. She pounded down the lane toward the parking lot, heart in her throat. Don't look back, don't look back, she thought, knowing it would only slow her down. The hot prickle on the back of her neck intensified, and she nearly screamed. But she knew it wouldn't do any good.

She rounded a corner and leapt off the pavement. Cutting across the lawn would significantly shorten her trip. She didn't count on her heels sinking in the wet grass.

"No, no, no," she said, going down hard. Her glasses and briefcase tumbled off in opposite directions. She managed to collect them in one hand and push to her feet, but then her heels sank again.

"Shit!" She dropped the briefcase and glasses, kicked off her shoes, scooped them up, and ran like hell.

"Stop!" someone yelled behind her.

She was out of breath and panicked, but she ran faster. Finally she burst out of the gardens and into the lot. Pavement flashed beneath her, eating her pantyhose and pounding into the cut on her heel. She ignored all that. Instead she wove in and out of parked cars, jumping parking barriers, and trying desperately to remember where her car was.

The pounding sound of boots on concrete spurred her on. A flash of red caught her eye in Lot C--oh, thank God. She stumbled to a stop at her car door, fumbling in her purse for the keys. Just as she got them out, someone yelled again. The keys hit the pavement with a metallic clatter.

"Dammit!" Luckily they landed at her feet instead of going under the car. She jerked them up and shoved the key in the lock. When she looked up, the guard from the front door was running down the sidewalk, pulling his walkie-talkie from the holster on his belt. The landscaper hurdled a parking barrier and was only two lanes away.

She yanked open the door, threw her stuff in and fired up the engine. Then she burned rubber, weaving in and out of parking spaces, until she got to the guard shack. The old man at the station stepped out the door and waved his hands at her.

"Stop! Stop where you are!"

Instead of slowing down, she revved the engine, blasting through the wooden barrier and hurtling down the driveway. She didn't catch her breath until she was back on the 210. Then she fumbled for her cell phone and hit number one on the speed dial.

***

Gunn tensed. "Crap." He scanned the room. "Closet," he mouthed, pointing toward a door on the other side of the office.

They scrambled into a small, black space filled with sports equipment and out-of-season clothes. Gunn pulled the door shut. Wes's chin poked his shoulder and his foot twisted awkwardly against something that felt like a free weight.

The muffled sound of footsteps told him that someone was entering the office. File drawers opened and slammed then the chair hinges creaked and the plastic crackle of fingers on a keyboard filled the small room. Gunn tensed.

"Computer," Wes mouthed in his ear.

Gunn nodded but then realized Wes couldn't see him in the darkness. "I know."

The typing stopped and Gunn went totally still. Then the mouse-squeak of the disk drive started, like whoever was out there was saving something to a disk. There was more paper shuffling then the disk drive stopped. The room went silent.

Gunn and Wes stood, frozen, listening. A minute, two passed. Nothing.

Gunn's nose started itching. Oh, no. Not now. The sneeze climbed and his eyes watered. He reached up and rubbed his nose, trying to stop the itch. His body tensed. Sweat crawled down Gunn's back and under his arms.

"Gunn?" Wes's voice was so quiet he almost didn't hear it.

The tickle went away. "Thought I had to sneeze," he said in Wes's ear. Then it hit him again, full-force. "AHHH-chooo!"

They stood, frozen, and waited for the door to open.

Nothing happened. He could hear his heart thundering in the quiet and behind him Wes was a column of tension. The room stayed quiet and Gunn eased the door open. A crack of light and a cool rush of air filled the closet. He blinked to clear his vision, then peered out and found the room empty.

His body went limp with relief. "Damn flowers."

"Mercy, that was close," Wes said.

Gunn shoved the door open and ran to the window. A blond-haired guy with glasses got into a white BMW and pulled out of the driveway. He never even looked back.

Gunn sank into the office chair. "Remind me to bring my Benadryl next time we break and enter."

Wes came out of the closet looking pale and sweaty. "I'll make a note of it." His phone rang.

Gunn jumped again. "Gyah!" he said, pressing his hand to his racing heart.

Wes collapsed against the edge of the desk and thumbed the phone on. "This is Wesley." He arched an eyebrow at Gunn. "I'm sorry, Cordelia, did you say a landscaper chased you out of Genesys?"

"What's she saying?" Gunn mouthed.

Wes made a just-a-minute-motion with his finger. "Why don't we meet at the office. You can tell us what--" Wes frowned. "Twelve-forty- five? Cordelia, that's two hours from now. Are you sure you're all right?"

He glanced at Gunn and his brow wrinkled. "All right. We'll meet you at the office in two hours." He closed the phone. "Cordy was chased off the premises at Genesys."

Gunn's heart stuttered. "Is she all right?"

"She says she is, but she sounds pretty shaken up." He glanced out the window. "Blast. I can't believe all of us were nearly caught." He hit the keyboard in frustration then stared open-mouthed at the screen. "Unbelievable."

Gunn glanced down and instead of Quicken all he saw was the blue screen of death. "He wiped it."

"Evidently." Wes opened a file cabinet. There were several empty folders hanging on the rack in the drawer. "Cleared these, too."

Gunn shook his head. "I wonder what he took."

"No idea." Wes turned off the computer and stood. "We should go."

Gunn glanced around, studying the half-open drawers, the shuffled papers and the now-empty computer. "Good idea. This place is giving me the creeps."

Wes picked up the Pez. "Don't forget this." He flipped Gunn the dispenser.

He pocketed it. "Thanks." His fingers brushed the plastic and he realized that he might be holding a child's toy, but they were doing anything but playing a game. "I think we need to go check on Cordelia. This could be serious."

***

"Dude," Matt said. "That must have been some audition."

Cordy limped up the stairs, hose torn to shreds, knees grass-stained, dragging her purse behind her. "Yeah," she said, her sense of humor at an all-time low. "It was a real killer."

Matt's eyes widened. "Can I do anything to help?"

Cordy shook her head, and it took everything she had left to put on a polite smile. "No, thanks. I'm fine."

"That's good." He rocked back and forth on his tennis shoes. "Well, then, guess I'll be going," he said, and he jogged out the breezeway.

She leaned her head on her apartment door. "Dennis," she whispered. "A little help here?" The door swung open and she stumbled across the threshold.

"Oh, my God," Wes said, dropping his book to the couch beside him. "Are you all right?" He rushed to her side and hovered like a mother hen.

Gunn stuck his head out of the kitchen. "Damn, girl, you look like you got dragged through a hedge. Backwards."

All she wanted to do was take a bath and have a good cry. Not necessarily in that order. Instead she got a roomful of testosterone. "I thought we said two hours. At the office." Her temper, which had dropped back to simmer, started bubbling in earnest.

"Yeah, well, we were worried." Gunn eyeballed her suit. "You seemed upset."

Cordy set her shoes and purse on the entry hall table with sharp, controlled motions. "A crazy guy with a shovel tried to kill me," she said around gritted teeth. "Even now, he's probably cackling and rubbing his hands with glee over my briefcase and glasses, which I *lost* while I was running for my life."

She paced toward Gunn, feeling like one of those foamers on an espresso machine: set on high steam. "My father gave me that briefcase! And my shoes!" She pointed at the mud-stained leather. "They're Prada! Granted, they're two years old, but they're my last pair. Do you understand what that *means*?"

"More flip-flops from the Penny Saver?" Gunn asked.

"No, you idiot! It means someone at Genesys wants to kill me!"

Gunn squinted at her. "Uh, how'd we get from shoes to murder?" He looked to Wes.

Wes shot him a look. "Actually, she may not be far from the truth." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you go and change clothes. I'll make you some tea. Then we can talk about it."

She stared at him, open-mouthed. "Big Brother tried to hunt me down like a dog, and you want to make me some tea," she said flatly.

Wes's mouth opened.

"Fine!" She said, throwing up her hand to stop him. "I'll just go get cleaned up. You stay here and be all-- all *English*." She dumped her shoes and purse on the couch and padded back to the bedroom.

And there was Angel, sitting on her bed. "Gyah!" she yelled, jumping back into the hall. She pressed her hand to her speeding heart.

He leapt to his feet. "Sorry, sorry! Hey, are you all right?"

She looked at her skinned-up feet and knees, her ruined power suit, and her sweat-stained shirt. "Do I look all right?"

Angel put her copy of the latest Nora Roberts book back down on the bedside table very carefully. "No, you look-- What I mean is, you seem to be--" He gestured awkwardly. "Can I do anything to help?"

She marched into the room, grabbed him by the lapels, and shoved him into the hall. "Why is everyone always asking me that?"

He backed up and hit the wall. His hands flew up in front of him. "All right, all right," he said. "I'll just--be in the living room. With Wes and Gunn. You won't even--"

"Oh," Cordy said, feeling a familiar pinch behind her eyes. Her hand flew to her head. "Not now!" The vision popped open like a movie on a black screen. She pitched forward and felt her head snap painfully on her neck. Her teeth clacked together even as the vamp in her vision buried his teeth into the neck of his victim.

She tasted blood. "Nnnnooo," she groaned. Then her consciousness shifted, and the dark alley became her hallway.

"Cordy?"

Her breath started again, and with it came lightheadedness and a sharp pain in her mouth. She opened her eyes and found herself face- to-face with Angel. She pressed her face into his neck and took a breath, waiting for the post-vision agony to bloom.

"You're bleeding," Angel said.

His voice sounded far away. The gong of pain reverberated through her head. "What?" She pulled back.

"You're bleeding," he repeated. His eyes were dark, panicky.

Her fingers brushed her lips and came away bloody. "Bit my tongue," she said, finally realizing what the sharp, pounding edge meant.

"Is she okay?"

Her head turned and she focused on Wes and Gunn, standing shoulder-to- shoulder, less than two feet away. Behind Wes's glasses his crystal- blue gaze showed the memories of a long winter of visions without a warrior to fight them.

"I'm fine," she said.

Gunn went into the bathroom and she heard water running. He came out with a washcloth and pressed it to her face. It was hot and damp and she leaned into it, feeling the throbbing ache behind her eyes recede slightly. She took the washcloth from Gunn and held it to her lips.

"Okay," she said, taking a step back. Every time her heart beat the gong rang again, the pain so great she could almost taste it. "Your usual vamp in need of dusting. Lady's walking out of a stop-and-rob at the corner of--" She closed her eyes and waited for the image to snap into focus. "Olympic and Burlington." Her eyes opened. "No rush; not gonna happen till after sundown."

She drew the washcloth away and the bright splotches of blood shocked her. Her gaze flew to Angel's, but instead of the hunger she expected to see, she saw a deep, sad ache. It looked a lot like guilt.

"I think she needs to rest," Angel said quietly.

"Yeah," Gunn said. He took the washcloth from Cordy's hand and led her into the bathroom, where he sat her on the edge of the tub and turned the water on. "Bath first, then a nap," he said quietly. He dropped the plug in the tub and adjusted the water temperature.

It was an intimate moment, but the three of them had weathered more than a season together; they'd taken on the visions and fought the good fight, side-by-side.

"Thank you," she said, glancing toward the door. Angel hovered outside, and even in the shadows of the hall she could make out the dark shine of his eyes. He was on the outside because he'd put himself there, and now he wanted back in. She wasn't sure she had the energy to make room in her life for him again.

"Wes and I will take Angel back to the office. We'll do some research, okay?"

She nodded, grateful that he understood her need to be alone.

"I'm not sure we should leave her," Angel said, stepping toward the bathroom door.

Wes held him back with a hand on his shoulder. "Best thing you can do for her right now," he said. He turned him toward the living room. "C'mon. We'll go check out the police reports. Then you can take care of the vision."

Angel dug in his heels and stared at her. "Cordelia?"

She waved her hand. "Go. Call me when you're done."

Gunn and Wes moved Angel down the hall and she heard the front door close. Her head dropped to her hands and the sound of running water and her own pain rang in her ears.

***

"Cordelia, it's Wesley." He sat at the desk in Angel Investigation's small office, pen in hand, doodling on a note pad.

"Hey, what's up?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but I needed to know...what happened at Genesys?" He listened while Cordy told him the story. "So, what you're saying is that Dan told you everything about a top-secret project?"

"Uh huh."

He twisted the pen between his fingers. "And you didn't find that suspicious?"

"I thought he was trying to help save Kevin. I-- I didn't really think too much about it, to be honest. The landscape guy came after me right after Kevin left. But now that you mention it, after I told him about the mob hit, he ran off like a scared rabbit--and that's when I got a load of Mr. Shovel."

"Okay, thanks." He paused while he let the pieces shuffle around in his brain. "You didn't happen to find any Pez dispensers in his office, did you?"

"No. Why?"

"We found one at Kevin's." He glanced over where Gunn worked, head down, over the dismantled piece of plastic. "It had a listening device in the head."

Cordy sucked in a breath. "I told you candy was evil."

Wes chuckled. "Gunn said exactly the same thing."

"Why would Kevin's house be bugged?"

"I have no idea," Wes said. "But it seems like some sort of inside joke."

"Call me crazy, but I don't find murder very funny."

"Mmm," Wes said. "Well, I'll let you go, then. Are you getting any rest?" Gunn glanced up from the broken bug, eyebrow arched.

back to part two // on to part four