by Kira Peikoff
His throat caught when he realized that today might be one of their last days together—ever. A sudden urge possessed him to want to sweep her into his arms. He hurried to the bathroom door and knocked.
“Hang on,” she called. The faucet was still running on high.
He gripped the doorknob. It was locked. That was odd.
“You okay?”
There was a pause. “Not really . . .”
“Do you need anything?”
“Just some privacy.”
“Okay.” He stepped back, disappointed. “Anything I can do?”
“No.” Her voice sounded strangely sad. “No, I don’t think there is.”
CHAPTER 43
Isabel
Chris’s voice burst through her cabin intercom without warning. “Isabel.”
It was the last voice she wanted to hear.
She was lying in her bed next to Richard, with Captain snuggled at their feet. After her encounter with Joan Hughes and her near-death encounter in the Harlem projects the night before, her primary concern today was to rest. She was safe, her mom and Andy were safe, and, thanks to her initiative in finding Joan, Galileo was now away meeting her to assess how she might help them unmask Robbie Merriman.
Isabel was thrilled for the mission’s continued momentum, but she desperately wanted a break. Especially since she’d endured a visit to Chris last night to supply him with more blood. Why couldn’t he leave her alone for just one day?
She groaned, then extricated herself from Richard’s embrace and dragged herself three steps to the intercom. “What’s up?”
Chris’s tone sounded urgent. “I need you.”
She rolled her eyes at Richard. He propped himself onto his elbows and shook his head in annoyance. A lock of hair fell over his broad forehead. He was shirtless, and even with the still-healing gash across his chest from his heart surgery, he was looking stronger every day. His defined biceps and pecs revealed a power that belied his lanky frame, thanks to his hours of physical therapy. The improvements didn’t end there. Since there were no cigarettes on board, his breath was better and his habitual cough was on the wane. His sarcasm had softened to a dry wit, and despite his lingering fondness for bad puns, Isabel found herself more and more attracted to him. Men who were sexy and funny, loyal and trustworthy, were as rare as fine gems. She was only sorry it had taken her so long to appreciate him.
“Isabel?” Chris’s voice asked. “You coming?”
Screw him, Richard mouthed. He beckoned her with one finger and a coy smile.
She turned to the intercom with an edge in her voice.
“I’m in the middle of something. Can it wait?”
Despite sleeping side by side last night, she and Richard hadn’t gotten totally naked. They’d been content to kiss and cuddle, distracting each other from the heavier concerns that occupied the rest of their time. Together, in her bed, they discovered a place to get away from it all. He let her set the pace, so she became comfortable enough to remove her shirt and show her reconstructed breasts to a man for the first time since her own surgery. Richard gazed at them—at the fake curve of her implants, at her uneven nipples, at the raised pink scar that ran underneath her breasts. Then, very lightly, he kissed the scar and he kissed her lips. The simple gesture felt more intimate than sex. Now she wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed with him and continue their exploration of each other’s bodies.
But Chris was insistent. “I really need to see you.”
“Why?”
“Just come to the lab.”
The strange excitement in his voice compelled her to agree.
She sighed at Richard. “I’ll be right back.”
“You want me to come?”
“Nah, it’s fine. Captain will go with me, right?”
When the dog heard his name, his silky ears perked up.
“Yes, you,” she cooed.
He lifted his head from Richard’s foot and wagged his fluffy tail at her. Richard pulled the comforter up to his chin. “Hurry back.”
“Oh, I will.”
With the dog trailing behind her, she made her way down the stairs to the laboratory deck. The ship swayed ever so slightly on the Hudson, where it remained docked. After days on the roiling Atlantic, the river’s gentle current felt almost like land.
In the hallway of the labs, she ran into Dr. Cornell, a taciturn physician-researcher in his seventies who specialized in organ repair. Now that Quinn was gone, he was the oldest and most experienced doctor on the ship. Somehow his presence comforted her, though they’d barely ever spoken. He gave her a friendly nod as she walked past him to the familiar door near the end of the hall.
Its gold plaque still read QUINN. It was startling to see his name there, as if nothing had changed. As if she might walk in and catch him hunched over a microscope, his bushy white eyebrows knotted in concentration.
She traced the plaque’s engraved letters. There was nowhere to go to mourn him. No grave, no memorial. This lab was as close as she could get to the resting place of his soul. The finality of real death—irreversible death—was incomprehensible. How could someone you loved disappear suddenly off the face of the earth? It was like trying to picture a rope with one end, or the edge of the universe. But whether she could accept it or not, the man who had saved her life was gone. Just like her father was gone. Now all that remained of their kind eyes and reassuring voices was an ever-fading fragment in her memory.
She closed her eyes for a moment in honor of them both. Then, steeling herself to face the person responsible for Quinn’s tragedy, she knocked.
Chris opened the door right away. He was grinning. Patchy stubble covered his chin and lower cheeks, as though he’d forgotten to shave. His facial hair, burly build, and thick neck reminded her of a caveman, a repulsive Neanderthal who happened to be dressed up in a scientist’s white coat. But the confidence that had once attracted her was still apparent in his straight back and squared shoulders. He ushered her inside and closed the door. A weird squeaking noise was coming from somewhere in the room.
She crossed her arms. Captain sat at her feet.
“What’s up? You can’t need more blood already.”
He shook his head. “Check this out.”
She tried not to flinch when he put one hand on the small of her back and ushered her to the counter along the far wall. There, in separate cages on separate metal wheels, were three white rats. Their tiny pink feet trudged from one rung to the next, as if spinning the wheels took monumental effort. Isabel had seen rats in other researchers’ labs on the ship, so their presence didn’t surprise her.
“They look tired,” she said. “Are they sick?”
“Actually they’re quite well.”
“Why’s that?”
“They’re alive.”
She spun around to face him. “You did it?”
He beamed, his top row of teeth gleaming under the fluorescent lights. “All thanks to the trace elements in your blood.”
She stared from him back to the spinning rats. “They were dead?”
“Yup.” Chris pointed at them one by one. “Drowned, suffocated, and poisoned. I resuscitated them with test doses this morning. Their brains are perfect, but they’re sluggish at first, like you were. I expect them all to make a full recovery.”
Genuine joy flooded her. “This is amazing! Everyone will be so happy!”
“And get this.” He went over to the refrigerator and took out a chilled clear vial that was about three inches tall. He cradled it in his hands as he walked back to her. “I made enough for one human dose.”
“You’re sure it’s the right formula?”
“The rats are alive, aren’t they?”
She couldn’t stop staring at their plump little bodies. “I can’t believe you did it.”
“I also developed my own check in the process for quality control, to make things easier from now on.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Quinn had this inefficient way of requiring a previous perfect dose to calibrate a new batch, but I one-upped him.”
Chris smiled shamelessly and her delight vanished in an instant. His audacity was galling—a sign that he had no idea what she knew.
She swallowed. “What is it?”
He went to the supply closet and produced a glass flask that contained a colorless fluid. Then he heated the flask over a burner. “This is a solution of hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid. Watch what happens when it reacts with certain elements in the X101.”
Using a pipette, he sucked up one drop of the X101 from the vial. The drop was so small that the level of clear fluid inside the vial barely changed.
“This negligible amount won’t affect the efficacy of the dose,” he said, as he squirted it into the flask. The reaction was immediate. The drop transformed the entire solution to inky black.
“Cool, right?” He looked at her, awaiting her admiration.
She nodded weakly. “But what if the concentration is off?”
“That’s why this works. Only this precise formula reacts to produce black, because of the X101’s specific atomic transfer of potassium iodide and sodium thiosulfate. The compounds I made before I got it right didn’t cause this reaction.”
“I see.” Chemistry was gibberish to her, but she wasn’t about to ask him to explain. All she wanted was to get out of there.
“Isn’t this so much better? Now we don’t need any previous doses for quality control!”
“Yeah,” she managed. And then, to get past the awkward pause: “Good job.”
Her own praise made her want to vomit. She glanced away from his self-satisfied grin and braced herself against a rising tide of nausea. The number of seconds she could bear his presence was dwindling rapidly. She crouched down to pet the dog, who was lying at her feet.
“Does Galileo know?” she asked, without looking up.
“Not yet. He’s away for the afternoon. But I wanted you to be the first to know.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. She felt herself tense. He didn’t appear to notice. Instead he slid his fingers up the nape of her neck and into her hair. She jumped to her feet and whirled around, her heart thudding against her ribs.
She kept her tone casual so as not to reveal her alarm. “What are you doing?”
The lust in his eyes told her the answer. “Celebrating.”
Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her body close against his, wrapping his other arm around her waist. His mouth smothered hers with disorienting force. Before she could process what was happening, his hand was somehow already creeping up her shirt, under her bra, to her breasts.
“Get off me!” she yelled, shoving him hard. He smacked against the counter with a grunt as Captain growled and nipped at his ankles.
“Are you out of your mind?” she cried. “What the hell?”
He scrunched up his face. “I thought you were into me.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
She bent down and scooped up the dog.
“I don’t understand. What about the night we had together?”
“You mean the night Quinn was killed?”
His eyes narrowed to slits. She knew she had said too much.
“Quinn had an accident,” he snapped.
She regarded him stonily.
“An accident,” he said louder, like she was deaf.
His cheeks had deepened to a frightening shade of pink. It was the color of fury.
She shifted her attention to the door a few yards away, but he clamped his hand around her wrist. “Did you hear what I said?”
His thumb and forefinger pressed so hard into her skin that she could feel her pulse throbbing beneath his fingertips.
“I heard.” She suddenly twisted her wrist upside down in a maneuver that flung his hand off. He stumbled back in surprise.
In her arms, Captain bared his pointy teeth as she flew to the door without a second glance. But her uneasiness only sharpened when she stepped out of the lab, and with a chill, she realized why.
Chris now understood that she knew his secret—and the return of the X101 meant he no longer needed her blood.
He no longer needed her alive.
CHAPTER 44
Chris
Chris sat cross-legged on the floor of his lab, cell phone in hand. He wasn’t technically allowed to have one—it was against Galileo’s rules—but when the hell had he ever played by the rules? Not as a teenager, when he knocked up his high school girlfriend and abandoned her to a life of small towns and small dreams; not when his parents shunned him for deserting his kid and told him he deserved to fail; not when he took up dealing drugs to put himself through Harvard; not when he undermined his competition in graduate school to study with the master biochemist Horatio Quinn; and certainly not on the ship, when he learned enough about the X101 to no longer need Quinn at all.
He powered on his white iPhone, which he kept hidden under his mattress in his private cabin. There was no call history because he’d never used it before. But for the past seven years, as long as he’d lived on the ship, he knew the day would come when he would need to sneak off—and execute his master plan. All along, he aimed to cultivate a business partner on the outside, someone knowledgeable enough to help him convert the physical existence of the X101 into glory and wealth. Ideally this person would help him get a patent, a prestigious journal publication, and some national press, then help him license distribution to the highest bidder. No doubt pharmaceutical companies all over the world would trample one another for a piece of the drug that defied death. The companies would love that it could be manufactured and sold immediately, without the hassle of FDA approval, because the drug worked on a corpse, not a patient—and there were no rules governing acceptable medication for the dead.
Of course Galileo would never dare come after him. If he did, Chris could expose his illicit routes, members, and allies around the country. The blow he could deliver would paralyze the entire Network. But he wouldn’t have to go that far. The power of the threat alone was enough to ensure he would escape without retribution.
He smirked just imagining the look on his father’s face when Old Pop realized that the son he’d condemned to failure all those years ago was a celebrated scientist worth millions. Then Pop could no longer be ashamed. Once Chris was a mind-blowing success, his family would have to admit they were wrong to think he was a negligent asshole. They were wrong to tell him to give up his grand ambitions in order to be a young father and husband, trapped in a pathetic conventional life like theirs. They would be horrified to realize how deeply they had misjudged his talent and genius, and they would beg him to accept their apology. And he would, because he was forgiving. He might even agree to meet the son he’d never wanted. The kid probably hated him, but once he got rich, he could write a check to smooth things over. Everyone would have to admit he was a star and they were lucky to dwell in his orbit.
He’d come this far already, putting up with year after year of painstaking toil in obscurity, not to mention Quinn’s ferocious possessiveness. Year after year of cultivating his skeptical mentor’s trust—while stoking his paranoia about everyone else. Year after year of keeping his own head down in front of Galileo, waiting for the day it would all pay off. He wasn’t about to let some prude bitch get in his way now. She hadn’t been bold enough to condemn him outright, but the accusation was plain in her eyes.
It was unfathomable how she could have come to suspect him. Between the raging storm and the fire, nature had handed him the perfect cover that night. In the same moment, he’d recognized his opportunity and seized it. Time was of the essence, since Quinn had been on the verge of giving up the whole secret synthesis procedure to Galileo. Stupid Quinn would have erased Chris’s proprietary claim to the knowledge, so thank God that threat was over.
But his new problem was just as worrisome. What if Isabel went to Galileo with her suspicions—and then Galileo kicked him off
the ship? So many excruciating years would go to waste, his life’s master plan ruined in an instant.
About ten hours had passed since Isabel’s unnerving revelation. It was 10:05 P.M., and so far, at least, his worst fears hadn’t come true. When Galileo returned from his off-site appointment around 5 P.M., Chris had rushed to corner him before she could. He announced the return of the X101, and Galileo had practically exploded with euphoria. He led a procession to see the resuscitated rats in the lab, where all the other staff cheered and whooped and slapped Chris on the back. Isabel and Richard were the only ones who didn’t join in the hoopla, but no one else seemed to notice. Afterward, the party moved to the top deck to celebrate with a feast of the kitchen’s best stock—brisket and potatoes, with cherry cobbler for dessert.
Now the rest of the ship had gone to bed, and Chris was back in his lab, alone. Pacing. The ridges of his iPhone dug into his palm. Time was running out to make a sly exit. Any minute, Isabel could be ratting him out. As much as it pained him, he had to let go of his original plan to make as much of the X101 as he could smuggle out. It would take too damn long. He also originally wanted to wait to leave until he had a partnership in place on the outside, someone cunning enough to guide his next steps. But at this moment he knew no one, had no money, and nowhere to go.
All he had was the single vial of X101. He needed to escape with it ASAP.
And he could think of only one person nearby who could help him. It was someone who wanted to profit off the drug as badly as he did. Someone who also played by his own rules. But unlike himself, this person had financial savvy and power and connections. And a common enemy in Isabel Leon.
It was the investor Robbie Merriman.
Chris had memorized his number after having snuck a peek at Galileo’s recent call history on the satellite phone. He strode to the lab’s door to double-check its lock, then dialed the digits. He noticed that his hands—whose steadiness he prized—were trembling.