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“So,” she said with greater command. “About patient one. You reviewed the medical records, including the most recent physical?”
“You need to tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Now her blue eyes shot over to him, and they were crystal fucking clear. “Do we have a good candidate.”
As his stare roamed her face, it was hard to switch tracks to the subject that they always wanted to talk about—proof, not that he needed it, of how distracting Catherine Phillips Phalen could be.
“I didn’t take a long time with the records.” He cracked open the Coke. “But the AML is right, and the patient is healthy enough. The return of the diseasehasn’t been addressed yet, so the data will be clean. How’re we going to get consent? When can they get here?”
The patient’s history was significant for acute myeloid leukemia, but the real bitch? They’d had a bout with a Wilms’ tumor when they were four years old, and carboplatin had been given for a recurrence about a year thereafter, following surgery. Anyone who received one of the platinum-based drugs was at an increased risk for AML, although typically the risk of the secondary cancer decreased over time. In this case, that truism was either false, or the patient would have gotten the leukemia as an adult anyway. What was clear was that the AML was back, following successful treatment about three years ago.
“Do you think… Vita is going to work?” C.P. asked. “In this case.”
“Isn’t that the million-dollar question. Or billion-dollar, as the case is, right?”
He sat forward and focused on the bubbles on the inside of the glass he’d made for her. Then he checked out the freshly manicured red nails, so perfectly done.
“What do you think the response will be?” she prompted him.
“I think… I think it better work in this patient. Based on those records, there aren’t many options available to them considering the amount of drugsgiven over their life-span. They’re already at threshold doses between the treatment for the Wilms’ tumor and what’s going on now.”
C.P. made a noncommittal noise as she finished the G&T.
“Guess this is good timing for you,” he murmured. And mostly kept the bitch out of his voice. “What with the negotiations and all. Or will you sell, anyway?”
She put the glass on the coffee table and rubbed her hands together as if she were cold. Or ready for a big, greedy payday.
“So, who handles the contact for this patient?” he asked. “Have they even been approached?”
“Yes. They have.”
“And they’re up for it?” He frowned as she nodded. “How the fuck did you manage this without me—never mind. I don’t give a shit about that. When can they get here?”
C.P. put her palms on her knees and braced her shoulders. Then she faced him. “They’re already here. It’s me. I’m the patient.”
SIXTEEN
SURFACING FROM Astrange dream, Lydia came awake in a dim room, in a bed she didn’t immediately recognize, in a house that she drew a lot of blanks on. But she knew who was with her. She knew the arms that were wrapped around her, and the body pressed against her back, and the leg that had wheedled its way in between hers.
Daniel.
In the gentle juncture between the amnesia of rest and the painful reality of consciousness, in the buffered, semi-dreamscape of rousing… she drifted into a fantasy where what she knew was real was the nightmare and what she was about to wake up to was a normalcy that made her eyes tear up—
“Hi,” came a gravel voice in her ear.
She smiled and stroked Daniel’s arm. They had fallen asleep together after she’d helped him back from the garages. Then they’d woken up and ordered a meal from the kitchen like they were in a hotel. Then… back to sleep on top of the covers,still in the clothes they’d been wearing down in the clinic.
“How did you know?” she murmured. “That I wasn’t asleep?”
“Right there.”
The arm she’d been stroking extended out over the duvet, and she followed the forefinger’s direction across to the full-length mirror mounted next to the door out of the room. And sure enough, there she was with her eyes open—and right behind her, spooning in, was Daniel. With him mostly hidden by her body, she could almost pretend things were the way they should have stayed.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Ten-thirty.”
Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder. “That can’t be right. We ate lunch at—”
