Even though I was close to a breakthrough on the medication front, that didn’t stop me from knowing how badly I’d fucked up with my other creation.
“No. Red’s…” My hands balled into fists. “…an aberration.”
“It’s certainly made things complicated around here,” Conor mused, but there was a surprising lack of judgment in his voice. I wasn’t sure if I’d be so generous in his shoes. “Want a beer? Looks like you could use one.”
I sucked in a breath. “A beer would be great.”
The offer gave me hope, but when he led me into his kitchen, where report cards were stuck onto the refrigerator, someone had stacked a kid’s textbooks on the counter, and all the family pets seemed to converge around us, relief filled me.
He was going to hear me out.
Deciding to be upfront, I began, “I’m trying to create a drug that?—”
Conor raised a hand. “Look, as much as I’m curious, the less I know about that the better.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I still needed to explain. “I let someone down. They needed medical care that the doctors couldn’t provide. She died.”
I hated that it was getting easier to utter those two words.
The last time I’d even said them, I’d thrown a lamp into my TV.
Eyes softening, Conor sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No more than me.” I accepted the beer he passed me with a nod of thanks. “I’m close.”
His brow arched. “The overdose would indicate otherwise.”
“I was testing the doses.” After invoking an episode of tachycardia… Hedefinitely didn’t need to know that part. “Prior to drafting in patients for preclinical trials.”
“Smart,” he mocked. “Isn’t that what animal testing is for?”
“With how many people Red has hurt, it was the least I could do for the initial tests.”
“Very Catholic of you.”
I conceded that with a nod.
“You’re trained for… this?”
“In another life, I intended to be a chemist. When I mether, she was already sick. I was stubborn enough to think I could find a cure.”
“So, why are you here?”
The moment of truth.
Was my dream girl… a dream?
“Because I need to know if I’m going insane and you’re the only person I can ask who won’t hold it against me if I am.”
SEVEN
STAN
Conor’s tongue stuck out between his lips as his fingers raced over the keyboard, then, growling in satisfaction, he crowed, “Almost in.”
It’d been relatively easy, if bizarre, contracting Conor to hack into Bellevue Hospital’s security—a promise of a year’s supply of candy corn and that was it.
Why he needed so much of the damn treat wasn’t something I needed to know.
