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Fine, someone else, then. Back at C.P. Phalen’s hidden lab. Where a possible cure that Daniel was refusing to try was still waiting for its first patient.
“Daniel, can you hear me?”
As she waited for a response, she pictured the love of her life as she had first seen him, coming into her office at the Wolf Study Project, knocking her off her feet even though she’d been sitting down. Candy, the receptionist, had given her a heads-up, but she hadn’t been prepared: Daniel’s face had imprinted on her brain before his features had even registered, and the sheer size of him, his big shoulders, his strong legs, his muscled arms, had made her aware of her own body from across the room in ways that should have gotten her written up for an HR violation.
“Daniel?”
Six months later, he was a fragile echo of thatprevious man. He was down fifty pounds, maybe sixty. After chemo, his hair was nothing but a shadow of new, lighter-colored growth on his head. His skin was sallow, and his eyes, which were a logy half-mast at the moment, had sunken into his cheekbones.
“Daniel—”
The door in from the garage flew open, and the woman who burst into the kitchen was another exercise in past-present, compare-contrast: C.P. Phalen, the corporate battle-ax, as Daniel called her, had downshifted from her black suits, stilettos, and precisely waved cap of blond hair, to sweatpants, sneakers, and all kinds of flyaway pinned down by a cheap barrette. She was going by Cathy now—not that Lydia had been able to make the name switch in her head.
Something about the woman screamed authority, even when she was in that fleece she seemed to wear all the time now.
Gus’s fleece.
“Oh, shit,” the woman said as she stopped short. “Is he dead?”
Can wenotuse that word, Lydia thought.
“No,” she replied in a croak. Not yet.
“Thank God. I’ll call Gus—”
C.P. shoved her hand into a pocket, but as the knee-jerk impulse went no farther—just as Lydia’s hadn’t—those cool blue eyes shot to thebloodstains on the carpet. As all the color in her face drained out, a twitch started to spasm in her left eyebrow.
“He’s not here,” Lydia croaked unnecessarily. “I even checked under the bed.”
As more SUVs pulled up outside, there was a long, tense moment while C.P. blinked fast. Then her expression tightened into a mask of composure and she followed through on taking out her phone.
“I’ll get Lipsitz for him, then,” she said under her breath. “The man’s got a bedside manner like a toaster, but he’s an excellent doctor.”
Not as good as Gus, Lydia thought as she refocused on Daniel. He was still breathing, thank God, and she told herself the fact that his lids were partially open was good. Even though it probably didn’t mean anything.
“Wake up,” she whispered. “Come back to me…”
She was so consumed by measuring his every inhale and exhale, she didn’t notice the men who entered through the garage until they filed past her. The heavily armed guards were in black uniforms without any state, local, or military insignia, and they wasted no time fanning out and going through the rooms. She wasn’t going to bother to argue that she’d already looked around. They wouldn’t take her word for it.
Glancing up at C.P., she said, “I need help getting him back to the lab—we came on the bike—”
“We’ll put him in the Suburban—”
“I’mnotleaving my Harley here.”
At the mumbled words, both of them looked down at Daniel. His eyes were open and his stare was more aware, though nothing much else had improved. His body was still in an awkward tangle and he didn’t seem to have the energy to straighten himself out.
But she’d take the consciousness.
“We’re not going to worry about that.” She smoothed a gentle palm over his brush of new-growth hair. “Let’s take care of you.”
As C.P. barked orders into her phone, Daniel tried to sit up—and of course, he fought the help that was offered, pushing Lydia’s hands away. When he finally managed to brace his upper body against his elbows, Lydia gave him some space and tried not to stare at him like she was searching for evidence that he was about to die. Right in front of her. On the pale wall-to-wall condo carpet. With there being nothing she could do to stop the Grim Reaper’s robbery.
A familiar helplessness settled on her shoulders like a pair of heavy claws, a crushing sense of inevitability causing her to collapse on the inside.
“I’m not leaving the bike,” he repeated with exhaustion.
“We have other problems—”
