Sloane would shoot himself in the balls before he let her down.
The guy she saw was gone now, so he led her back into the room to see Ethan looking at him with amazement. Ethan had driven Sloane around with a few plus-ones. He couldn’t miss that while Sloane had held the others at arm’s length, he’d moved Kat right into his life. So why did he have that shocked look on his face? “What?”
“You’d do that?” Ethan asked. “Still?”
Sloane tucked Kat against his side, pulled out his phone and scrolled his contacts while keeping an eye on the door just in case. “Do what?”
“Trust me to protect Kat?”
He forced his eyes to the bed. Ethan had made a mistake, yeah, but that didn’t change who the man was. “Would you protect her?”
His gaze was solemn. “With my life.”
“Then yes.” He made the call. “Liza, contact Jack at McVey Investigations. The man in the picture I sent Jack on Saturday was spotted at the hospital minutes ago. I want it searched and the security-camera footage scrutinized.” Hanging up, he shifted to Kat. “Can you tell me what happened, what the man was doing? Or do you need a couple minutes?”
Her pupils were returning to normal. “I was walking past the elevators to the waiting room. I glanced at the two people standing there. It all kind of happened so fast. I’d already turned away and took another step when I started to panic. Like my subconscious realized what I saw before my brain caught up.”
Her speech had begun slow and halting, but now she was rushing. He listened, letting her tell it her way.
“By the time I turned to look, he was in the elevator staring at me. Like he recognized me. The panic attack hit hard, along with flashbacks. I couldn’t move until I saw him lift a hand to stop the doors from closing.” She put her hand on his chest. “I heard your words in my head telling me not to panic, to live. I had to get to you.”
Sloane covered her hand. Fought for his voice. “Exactly what you should have done.”
“You believe me.”
It wasn’t a question. “Every word.” She could be wrong, the guy could have just resembled the man she remembered, but he didn’t think so. “Since you saw him, we know he’s here in town, and my investigators will find him. Maybe he has someone in the hospital he’s visiting. I’ll have them stake it out. Let me finish with Ethan, and we’ll get on that.”
She nodded, leaned in to hug him, then tried to step away.
Not a chance. He held her against his side with his arm around her shoulder where he knew she was safe. Focusing on Ethan, he said, “Where were we?”
“Finn.”
“Right.” The one who sold Ethan the designer steroids. “What does Finn look like?” He needed every detail the kid could give him.
Ethan fiddled with the tape holding the IV in the back of his hand. “Not quite six foot. He wore a baseball cap or beanie when I saw him. Dark brown eyes.” Leaving off the tape, he stroked the three days’ worth of beard on his chin. “He had a goatee too.”
Kat stiffened. “A circle kind?” Pulling away from his shoulder, she drew a finger around her chin and upper lip. “Cut close?”
The hair on Sloane’s neck stood up.
Ethan frowned. “Yeah, I think that’s it. Why?”
Kat dug into her jeans, pulling out her phone. “Wait, I have it…”
Sloane dropped his hand to her hip, giving her room to scroll. When she touched the screen, enlarging the photo, Sloane saw the man from her hospital room. The one she’d seen in the hallway. Circle goatee exactly as she’d asked Ethan. Was it possible? Could that guy who’d been involved in the attack on Kat, who had some nefarious connection with David, be their steroid dealer?
He met her eyes. “Show him.”
Kat, her hand rock steady, held it out.
Ethan leaned forward to study it.
One second ticked by. Then another.
Finally, Ethan answered, “That’s Finn.”
Kat dropped her hand and turned, her blue-green eyes radiant and a flush rising over her cheeks.
Sloane couldn’t look away from her. The panicked woman he’d held moments ago vanished as the strength in Kat surfaced. Electric energy arced between them, a powerful force that held Sloane captive.
“Remember when you asked me if I was good enough to make designer steroids?”
What he recalled was spilling out his worries and guilt to her, telling her he hadn’t known Ethan was doping. And she’d comforted him. The woman had been in a goddamned car accident only hours before that, had been in pain and misery, but she’d comforted him. In that single moment when the magnitude of how badly he’d failed Ethan tried to drown him, Kat had been his lifeboat. “You said you’re not.”
“No. But David is.”
Chapter Eight
Kat sat in the chair by Ethan’s bed, her mind spinning. Things were clicking so fast, she could barely catch her breath.
Sloane asked, “Would he make them at SiriX?”
“No. Maybe years ago, but not now. SiriX has grown too big and has too many controls in place. He’s either doing it somewhere else, or advising them on how to do it.” She frowned, thinking. “I need my old flash drive.”
“Where is it and why?”
“In my bedroom closet at my parents’ house.” Her pulse skittered and skipped. “I worked on…” The full implications were mind-boggling. “Jesus, I’m going to kill him.” He’d used her, and she’d been too stupid and star struck to have a clue.
“What?”
She took a breath. “Human Growth Hormone has been shown to slow memory loss in early Alzheimer’s, while anabolic steroids speed up the progression. I worked on testing for both those when I was on David’s team.” Kat shoved up and paced along Ethan’s bed. The young man looked tired, but she needed to know. “You stacked steroids, right?”
“Yes, I took oral pills and injections on a set schedule, and then stopped altogether for a period.”
She nodded and turned back to Sloane. Oh yeah, it was all coming back to her. “David had me running tests on a protocol of stacking or cycling anabolic steroids that sped up the progression of the degeneration of brain cells seen in Alzheimer’s. Then in a second group of testing, we included a blocking agent he developed as part of the cycling. David’s theory was that if he could develop a drug to successfully block the destruction of healthy brain cells from long-term steroid use, then it might also block the destruction caused by Alzheimer’s.”
Sloane stood still, but his muscles were coiled as if ready to spring. “Did it?”
“No. All it did was produce clean urine.” She’d been so stupid. So naïve. “I didn’t realize what he was really doing, which was figuring out how to beat steroid testing.”
“Jesus.” Sloane shoved his hand through his hair. “That’d be worth a fortune. And definitely worth going after you if Dickhead tried to fuck with Finn and Finn wanted to keep him in line.”
“Consequences, Dr. Burke. That’s what Finn said. Because David was screwing with them.”
“Maybe demanding more money. Making threats. Who knows.” His voice softened to liquid death. “What I do know is that you paid the price, and that’s not happening again.” He crossed his arms. “What happened to the test results?”
“Destroyed.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Then what’s in your closet at your parents’ house?”
She’d done one thing right. An odd combination of pride and embarrassment mixed in with her fury at David, and at herself for being so dumb. “David was so brilliant, I admired him like other girls admire rock stars. I kept his formula because I thought it could be important to another project of his someday.”
Sloane’s gaze locked on her as he closed the distance between them. His intensity sizzled along her nerve endings until it was only the two of them in that room. A smile tilted his mouth while he skimmed his fingers along her jaw, sending tingles running through her. “You’re a hell of a lot smarter
than your family or Dickhead ever gave you credit for. No matter what happens now, don’t you forget that.”
He was proud of her. Called her smart.
Loved her.
She held on to that glorious, heady feeling for a few priceless seconds.
Then she stiffened her spine as reality flooded back in. “I have to tell my parents. Warn them. Show them what I have.”
He cupped her face. “You’re better than them. They weren’t there for you.”
Kat latched on to his wrist. “They were in their way. They took care of me when I was hurt. They just didn’t believe me. Couldn’t.” It still hurt. “David was the key to SiriX’s future, while I was their ordinary, troublesome daughter.”
A muscle in his cheek jumped.
She needed him to understand. “We’re not our parents. I won’t ignore the signs that they could be in trouble. Just like you keep your mother protected even though she didn’t protect you or Sara when you were kids. That’s who we are.” But if Olivia came into Kat’s shop again and called Sloane a murderer, the woman’s face was going to have a hard landing on Kat’s glass bakery case.
His face softened, and he leaned his forehead against hers. “I get it. I’m going with you.”
“I know.”
His mouth quirked. “I need to talk to the investigators Liza’s sending over and arrange for Ethan’s security. I’ll get someone to take my car home, and we’ll take yours to your parents’ house.”
* * *
Kat walked through the house with Sloane at her side and her parents trailing her. It’d taken her less than five minutes to realize that words were useless. They didn’t believe her, so she had to show them.
Her dad caught her arm as she headed toward the stairs in her childhood home. “Honey, you were in a car accident only a few days ago. The bruising on your face shows you hit your head again. With your history of concussion-related emotional issues, this obsessing isn’t good for you.” Her dad shot a dark look at Sloane looming next to her.
She ignored the obsessing comment. “This isn’t Sloane’s fault.”
“You were calming down before you met him. He’s having a negative effect on you. Now you’re suddenly secretive and more paranoid.”
She flinched. “Secretive?”
Sloane put his arm around her, a warm, solid presence against her side.
“You didn’t tell us you were in an accident.” Anger sparked in her mother’s gaze. “We had to find out on the news. Then SiriX was connected to his…” she inclined her head toward Sloane, “…doping scandal.”
“I didn’t call you because I was fine. The doctors released me. And the media made the connection, not Sloane.” She straightened her spine. “But I think there is a connection. David’s involved with making designer steroids for the man I told you about, Finn. I showed you the picture. He was there in the hospital. Amelia saw him too.”
Her father pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Think, Katie. You never once said anything about David and steroids, not until the accident when you found out the driver was on steroids. You’re making wild leaps and connections that aren’t there.”
“Kat’s not brain damaged or delusional, she’s trying to help you.” Sloane’s voice cut deep into the building tension. “But you’re standing here trying to convince her she’s crazy instead of rushing up to her room to see what’s on her files. So I have to wonder, who’s really afraid of the truth here?”
Anger splashed color across her dad’s cheeks. “Don’t you dare—”
“William.” Her mom cut him off. “We’re all tired and stressed. Let’s get this over with.” She stepped in front of Kat. “After this, Kathryn, you and I are going to talk. This nonsense has gone on long enough. You have Marshall half-believing your delusions. It has to end.”
She stared into the same eyes she saw in the mirror every day. The two them looked alike, and yet they were so different. “When I was little, I wanted so much to be just like you. I watched you get ready for work every morning and dreamed that one day I’d do that too.”
Surprise softened the hard edges of her mom’s face into a prettiness Kat hadn’t seen on her in a long time.
“But I wasn’t like you, Mom. And I don’t know who was more disappointed by that, you or me.” Turning, she headed to her room and realized that last part wasn’t true. Kat had learned to like herself, to like the woman she was striving to be. In large part because of seeing herself through Sloane’s eyes, and she loved him for that gift.
Once in her room, Kat set her laptop on the bed then found the box in her closet. Sloane reached over her head, lifting it down for her. Taking off the lid, she was sucker-punched by nostalgia and old grief. She gently lifted out the music box with the pink heart on the top. Once she eased the lid open, the ballerina popped up. A knot formed in her throat.
Sloane pressed his body against hers. “You okay?”
She touched the figurine. “My grandmother gave me this after my first recital at her dance school. Said I was as pretty as this ballerina.” It had meant so much to Kat since her own parents had been too busy to come watch her childish attempts to dance.
He leaned down, studying the tiny dancer. “She’s pretty.” Straightening, he met her eyes. “But you’re beautiful.”
A sensual tension strung out between them, making her skin pebble in response and nearly causing the air around them to hum with it. Her parents hovered in the doorway, probably feeling the burn of the desire that flowed between her and Sloane. “Thanks. Once everything settles down, I’m going to take this to my condo. Put it in my bedroom.”
Sloane touched her hair, skimming his fingers down the length. “Take the music box home with us tonight. Put it in the bedroom or wherever you want. It’ll be safe there.”
Kat couldn’t look away from his eyes. The idea of putting her special things in his house, the place he hadn’t taken his other plus-ones… She was getting in too deep, living on a hope that what they had together now was strong enough to survive the test of whether or not he killed Foster.
“Kathryn, I thought you had something to show us.”
Her mother’s condescending voice shattered the moment. Kat opened the little drawer on the bottom of the music box and took out the flash drive. After carefully storing her music box, she plugged the flash drive into her computer and focused on scanning the list of names of the data and formulas she’d copied.
Ah, there it was. “AAS Blocker.”
“Anabolic-androgenic steroids.” Her mother pushed the box aside and sat next to Kat. “What about it?”
“One of the experiments I worked on. David was part of the studies showing that long-term use of anabolic steroids can speed up Alzheimer’s progression.”
“SiriX did some of those, yes.”
Kat had her mother’s attention. Even her dad moved in closer. Hope swelled in tiny, fragile bubbles. Maybe they would listen to her. “David tested ways to block the progression of brain damage caused by anabolic steroids, theorizing that might lead to finding a way to block the destruction of brain cells caused by Alzheimer’s.”
Diana’s eyes narrowed, causing lines to dig in around her eyes. “He never mentioned this to me. That doesn’t sound like David’s theories.”
“I believed him.” Hook, line and sinker. “We ran the testing using his formulation, but it failed. However, we discovered a side effect that the blocking agent kept the steroids from showing in urine.” Kat clicked on the file, opening the formula. She slid the computer to her mom’s lap. “If I give this to the lab Sloane is using to test Ethan’s steroid kit, I’m betting one of the products will match it.”
As her mother started reading, Kat got up, pacing to the door. “David sold that formula, or he’s making it.”
“You’re making more of this than it is.”
Her dad’s dismissal hit a nerve, the one that had endured a lifetime of not being taken seriously. Kat pivoted and faced her father wi
th half the room between them.
It felt like miles rather than feet. She pulled in a calming breath. “What if I’m right? This whole thing is unraveling. David’s been lying for years, and not only to me.” Renewed anger pumped through her. “He’s risking all your work and everyone at SiriX. Even worse, Finn had thugs beat me with a baseball bat, then he showed up in my hospital room. Who says he won’t hurt you or someone else out of desperation?” She loved her parents. It would kill her for either of them to be hurt.
“Or go after Kat again. He knows she remembers him now.” Sloane’s arms bulged beneath his dress shirt. “No one is hurting you again.”
From across the room, the touch of his eyes and the feel of his words wrapped around her like a caress.
“I can’t believe this.” Her mom’s face paled. “It’s a mistake. David wouldn’t do this. He’s committed to improving the quality of human life with therapeutics.” She stood up, color splotching over her pale cheeks. “Why are you doing this? We’re so close to our goal with SiriX, and you want to destroy it all—decades of my and David’s work, the family—why? What makes you hate us all so much?”
Kat froze beneath her mother’s bitterness. “I don’t hate you.” The words clogged in her throat.
“David’s a good man. He’s put his life’s blood into SiriX, trying to help people, while you quit so you could sell people heart disease and diabetes in a pretty package.”
She stumbled back, desperate to escape the pain lancing her with every word.
“Diana, stop it.” Her father tugged on her mother’s arm. “Katie—”
“Is that what you believe too? That my bakery is nothing? That I’m nothing?” A black void opened up, and Kat shied away. She didn’t want to feel this desolation. Couldn’t do it. It was easier to emotionally retreat, let the gray numbness envelop her.
Obsession (The Plus One Chronicles) Page 8