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When Gus finally looked at her again, the expression on his face was remote. And then his lids lowered a little.
At first, she thought he was going to get aggressive. But then his eyes went on a wander, traveling down to the top of her silk blouse.
As a flush of heat went through her, C.P. brought a hand to the mother-of-pearl button. Which was ridiculous. Like she expected the fastenings to spontaneously flip open?
He lifted his stare to meet her own. And then he abruptly got to his feet and returned to the bar with the glass and the bottle. He put them out of alignment with the display and came back to her.
Gus pegged her with his forefinger, like the thing was a gun. “You’re either lying to me or you’re lying to yourself. You’ve decided to sell, and I want to know where she goes.”
“I have made no decisions about anything, and in any event, I can’t promise you—”
“You’re going to tell me because you owe me that. It could be another five years before she comes back, and that drug is my baby, no one else’s. Not even yours.”
“And if hiring you isn’t my decision? Then what. Are you going to retaliate? Expose me? You’ve been just as illegal as I have in all this.”
“But I have less to lose.”
As he turned away and headed for the exit, she said sharply, “Don’t make an enemy out of me. Neither of us will enjoy what happens next.”
At the doorway, Gus paused and glanced over his shoulder—and for the first time, she saw the man, not the scientist. He was as tall as she was, which was saying something as she was six feet, two inches in heels. With his Afro adding even more height, and his shoulders being so broad, he was an imposing presence. This was not a news flash. What was a surprise was that for this moment, he took up so much space not because of his intellect… but rather because his hooded eyes and body were registering for the first time.
“I’ll say that right back at you, Phalen. You will include me in your plans, whether you want to or not. That’s where you and I are—and if that pisses you off, it’s okay. I won’t be in your face anymore after you sign her over.”
In the wake of his departure, C.P. pivoted around and stared out the window again. As her mind threatened to dissolve into chaos, she remembered what she’d seen on the security feed while she’d been on her phone call. Daniel had wandered out to the forest there a little while ago—only to come steaming back across the meadow in the wake of a beautiful wolf with a stripe down its back.
Or Lydia’s back, as the case was.
Reaching behind her, she hit the release under the desk, and as the monitor and keyboard elevated out of their hidden compartments on the surface, she faced them. With a sense of disassociation, she accessed her secured email, and called up the results of the scans that had been sent to her about twenty minutes before her call. She had to force herself to be objective, and it was a while before she was able to be.
It was such a shame, really.
Without a miracle, the patient in question was going to die. And there was nothing she could do about it.
SIX
THE FOLLOWING MORNING,Daniel woke up to the scent of hot coffee. As he opened his eyes, he was astonished to be in bed—not because it wasn’t where he had started the night, but rather because it was where the dark hours seemed to have ended. The last couple of days had begun not with Folgers in his cup, but his head in the bowl.
“Hi.”
He rolled over onto his back because it was easier than trying to sit up. Lydia was standing at his side of the mattress, dressed for work with a mug in her hand.
“Hi,” he said.
“I’m heading out.” She took a sip. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Okay. Did you have a shower?” Stupid question. Her hair was wet. “I mean, you did.”
What the hell was he saying? His head was so damned fuzzy.
“You were sleeping really hard.” Lydia glanceddown at the collection of pill bottles on the bedside table, the huddle of orange cylinders with white tops and labels the kind of thing that made his stomach roll on reflex. “Did you take some Ambien during the night?”
“No.” He stretched under the covers, his joints aching at the strain. “I didn’t.”
“What about the oral-morph, though?”
“Oh, well. That. Yes.”
In the back of his mind, he edited the conversation, changing the discussion from that oral suspension of morphine he took like water to what Lydia expected to accomplish during the day at the Wolf Study Project—maybe a quick review of her meetings, the winterization of the trails, perhaps a bet on when the first snowfall would hit the mountain properly. Then he dubbed in him reporting on…
