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As the terse demand hit the cold air, Lydia appreciated the female’s no-nonsense approach to conversation.
And she did bring up a question that was worth asking.
“Just someone I know,” Daniel hedged.
“Who is…?”
“A person I once used as a source in a brokered deal for information—and no, I’m not going any further than that.”
In a rush of memory, Lydia remembered the details of Daniel’s previous life, before he’d met her, before the cancer had come for him: She recalled the terrible story of how his mom had thrown herself off a bridge when he’d been a teenager—and how he’d tried in vain to save her. After that, he had floated around under the radar of the system, a homeless kid who had stayed on the streets and learned to survive. Somewhere along the line, he’d joined the military… and after that, he’d worked for a clandestine agency, a shadow arm of the U.S. government tasked with protecting the human genome from bioengineering.
Which was how he’d come to the Wolf StudyProject, and why he had lied to her in the beginning about who he really was and what his purpose in Walters had to be.
She could only guess what the information he’d brokered with the “source” for had been and why it had been required.
And no, she didn’t want to know the contact he had used.
“Can you give me a name?” The female known as Alex Hess looked over at Lydia. “Or you?”
“He never told me,” she replied. “And I never asked.”
Daniel squeezed her hand. Then brought it up and kissed it. “I’ll say this. I believe he, too, was… different. In some way.”
“But how did you know he’d be a help?”
“After I met her”—he nodded at Lydia—“and learned what she was, I got sick. Or was diagnosed, whatever. I didn’t know anyone like her, but then I thought of him… and figured he might have some contacts. That’s how I got your number.”
There was a pause. And then the female said in a dry voice, “Any chance he had a mohawk?”
“As a matter of fact… yes.”
Alex Hess rolled her eyes. “He’s a goddamn busybody. But what I can’t figure out…”
“Is what?” Lydia asked roughly.
“I don’t know any wolven, either. Yeah, sure, I’msorry about… what’s going to happen to you both in a couple of months. I just don’t understand why I’m some kind of connector for you? I’m just being honest. A dying human, a wolven, and me? There just aren’t any intersections here.”
As Lydia lowered her head, Daniel stroked her arm. “Looks like all three of us are confused.”
Lydia was trying to think of something to say when from out of the corner of her eye, movement registered in the trees. Flaring her nostrils, she got nothing in terms of scent. Then again, the wind was blowing from the opposite direction, so there was no way to sniff out who or what it was.
But someone—or something—was watching them.
“We’ve got company,” she said quietly. “Rightthere.”
TWENTY
DOWN IN C.P.’Slaboratory, things had gotten quite quiet, the hustle and bustle of researchers dimmed down, only a few stragglers passing by outside of her patient room. Although what time was it, midnight? She checked her watch. Then slipped off the exam table and went over to the computer at the desk. After she signed in, she glanced at the clock at the bottom right-hand corner of the monitor. 12:17 a.m.
But who was counting.
Turning away from the blue glow, she tucked the two halves of the loose fleece she was wearing around her bare upper body and paced back over to the exam table. Then she returned to the desk. Went back to the table.
Glancing down at her bare feet, she noted the pressure marks from her high heels, the bunions, the callouses. Wearing stilettos was hard on the toes and heels, but mostly where it didn’t show… on the balls of one’s footsies.
When she’d arrived down at the facility, she’d had no intentions of getting into a hospital johnny. No, thank you. She’d come in fully clothed as she always was, ripping the door open with her chin held high and her professional facade firmly in place. It had only been after Gus had shut them together in this exam room that things had gotten undone. And not just her jacket and blouse.
Goddamn, you were never more naked than fully clothed in front of a doctor—when you knew something was wrong with you.
