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“Sorry.” Chanti pulled out her phone. “Here she is.” She showed a picture. She flipped to the next one in her album. “Here’s the guy. His birthdate lines up with hers. His face is age-appropriate. Only one vial of formula was missing. He didn’t take it. Here’s the guy’s feed with lots of couple photos of them, looking smitten.” She flipped forward again. Then turned it to read. “He’s been on an island in the Java Sea, getting ready for a big project.” Chanti shrugged.
“So what’s with her adoring looks for Lionel?”
“Hero worship? Father issues? The pictures of this chick with Lionel were all in the before pictures on the timeline before the vial went missing.”
“Were they?” Piper asked. “I didn’t pay attention to that detail.”
“But you need to go to whistleblow and make this known. Because the Harcourts do have the written formula. And it would be very easy for them to produce it. They may well be producing it now, and selling it.”
“We’d have no way to track that,” Piper said.
“Right, so to hell with Lionel and Amanda, but anyone else who saw only the data that makes this formula look like the fountain of youth needs to be warned that it’s a death warrant.”
“I have to give a speech tonight. I could announce it then. I could tell the truth from the mic. There will be reporters there. It could go out.”
“You could. That’s true. But you need to talk to the lawyer before you accuse anyone of anything. Instead, you could talk about your medicine and who it would help. Then you could lean heavily into who it could harm, and go into detail about those harms and why the FDA process is so important. Actually, I think getting the basic info about the dangers out there would be good. But here’s the thing—” Chanti shoved her hand into her pants pocket and brought out a flash drive. “The lawyer needs key data about the spa and the plans.”
Piper reached for the flash drive.
“Tonight at the party, I need you to go into the computer room and plug this in, wait for the green light, then pull it back out and bring it to me, just like last time. But this time it will get me everything that’s in there about the plans for the spa. I can get those reports analyzed and ready, and I’ll go with you on Monday.”
“Do I need that password?”
“Not for this,” Chanti said. “Badge the computer awake and stick it in.”
“What if there’s nothing there?”
“That’s what we tell the lawyer. But if you give the speech tonight. At least that’s out there in the world. You did something to protect people.” Chanti made a give-me gesture. “Let me have the rest of your ice cream, I’m stressing.”
Piper handed it over. “I’m imagining the Alabaster sales pitch. ‘Nobody needs eye cream if they can just have a shot and take decades off their physique.’”
“Would you?” Chanti asked.
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
“Decades off your life would make you about fourteen?” She took a bite of ice cream. “You don’t look that young.”
Piper lifted a single brow. “I could be microdosing.”
“You could, but you said you wanted children.”
“That depends on whether the right partner comes along and whether I find a cure, so I know I won’t die from Runker-Bailey Syndrome or worse, hand down my crappy genes.”
Chanti took another bite. “There’s always the Knight of Swords.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Piper
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Chanti asked when Piper opened her door.
“I’m in a slip.”
“Okay, well it’s better than the Grecian toga thing they picked out for you.”
“Agreed. Why are you wearing a tux?”
“I’m going to a party at work. And I figured if the guys there all thought I was a butch lesbian, I’d have less trouble with them asking me for my number.” Chanti did a spin as she walked back to Piper’s bedroom. “I found it in a charity shop and thought I might turn it into a Halloween costume someday.” She flopped on Piper’s bed next to the seafoam-colored disaster Piper was instructed to wear that night.
