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“Sure.” At this point, what did she care. “And I think I know what it is.”
“Oh?”
“I gave Vita-12b to Gus because it’s really his. That compound is his work. I just provided him with a safe place and the resources to develop it. I’m the catalyst, but I’m not the creator, and I guess… I want to go out knowing that it is where it belongs.”
“Out? Phalen, are you retiring, then?” The surprise was not hidden in the slightest. “I realize that I may have been a bit aggressive with the talk of your financial difficulties, but surely you know that bankruptcy is just the first stage in fiscal recovery. With your contacts and reputation, you can turn all this around. I myself have had my difficulties, from time to time. It happens.”
Cathy took a deep breath. Funny, she was almost tempted to tell the truth. But in the end, she knew that was not wise. No one outside of Gus, Lydia, and Daniel knew about her illness. Well, those three and her medical team.
She cleared her throat. “I just think I’m going to pack up my dolls and dishes, as my mom used to say, and move on to something new.”
“Well, good for you, I suppose. Although imagining you doing anything but what you are now seems like a waste. In any event, I shall keep you posted concerning any developments with Dr. St. Claire, and I expect you to do the same for me.”
“Roger that, Rhobes.” When the man did not immediately hang up, she said, “Something else?”
After a moment, the man murmured, “There was one strange thing about that bodyguard.”
“What was that?”
“He only worked at night.” A dismissive sound percolated over the connection. “But I suppose that was just a personal preference.”
TWENTY-FIVE
AS GUS GOTinto the lab’s main elevator, he wasn’t sure where he was headed.
Nah, that’s a lie, he thought as the doors shut and he hit a button on the panel. He knew exactly where he was going, he just didn’t want to think about it too much.
When nothing moved, he punched the button again. And then many times—
Things finally got rolling, and the ride up out of the earth to the house level was a slow one, slower than he remembered. To pass the time, his brain toyed with his last ascent in this Otis box. When he’d headed home that night, he’d known he wasn’t coming back to work here anymore, and that had struck him as kind of shocking. Little had he known what would be waiting for him at his condo.
And now here he was, the prodigal researcher returned—
A muscle spasm gripped the hamstring on his left leg, and he cursed as he switched his weight tohis other foot. When that got him no relief whatsoever, he tried shaking things out—and that just caused him to lose his balance and bang his sore shoulder into the brushed steel wall. Fucking hell, talk about your deck-chairs-on-the-Titanicsituation. It was probably way too soon for him to be up and around, especially without a crutch or a cane. If he’d been just any patient he was treating? He’d have slapped every available wrist and ankle with slip-and-fall risk bands.
But that was the beauty of being your own doctor: You could suck at your trade and not have to worry about malpractice. If he passed out or went into a vertigo spiral and cracked his head open on this slick, hard floor? Who the hell was going to sue him—
Bump. Bing.
There was another pause. Like he was being vetted in some new way by the security types. And what do you know, the shame that washed over him made him want to vomit—
Whrrrrrrrr.
As the doors opened, he looked up and wanted to apologize to all the guards who were staring back at him from the camera that was mounted in the upper left-hand corner. But that was stupid…
Before memories he couldn’t bear to go back to threatened to derail him, he stepped out and breathed in deep. It had been a lifetime since he’dbeen in C.P. Phalen’s black-and-white house. Or at least it felt that way. But as he walked forward into the foyer, the stupid modern art sculptures still looked like a waste of money to him.
The judgey conviction was a bit of a relief because it was familiar, and right now, everything about him, except for the most basic timeline of his existence, was veiled by an amnesic fog. Sure, he could recall the born-here, schooled-there, lost-his-sister-when, soldiered-on-how stuff, but even those big tentpole things, even the childhood loss that had shaped his entire career in oncology, were all stereo instructions, no emotion tied to anyone or anything.
An autobiography that hadn’t been written well—so the reader just didn’t give a shit.
Maybe that was why he was up here in this stone fortress decorated by Magnus Carlsen. He was seeking the only thing that made him feel… anything… when he thought about it.
Heading to the left, he told himself to turn around, go back to his hospital bed, etc. etc. etc. But all that good advice was just a frontal lobe reflex, nothing that he took seriously and certainly nothing that caused him to pivot back around.
And then he was standing before a closed door, and remembering when he’d opened it without knocking before—and what he’d seen on the other side: C.P. Phalen and the blond guard.Well, first C.P. Then the guard in the private bathroom, looking like he’d had an orgasm—or three—that he’d really enjoyed on his goddamn lunch break.
Fuck.
