The green bubble at the top of the screen went dark, and the status indicator changed toActive 1 minute ago.
“Fuck.” Emmett tossed the phone aside. What now?
Maybe he should just take his injection. He didn’t want to quit the trial or be tossed out. But how could he be sure it was safe?
He snatched the phone back up and typed, halfway through a backpedaling “only joking, wouldn’t want to get you into trouble” kind of message when the bubbles returned. Blake was typing.
You know what, fuck it, he finally replied. I’m probably gonna quit soon anyway. They’re meeting with their lawyers at 11 a.m.
He followed up with an address.
Tell her she’s a bitch from me.
CHAPTER 29
The law offices of Prentice & Darrow LLP nested in the depths of a severe dark-windowed office building in downtown La Jolla, standing in contrast to the beachy resort-style luxury that surrounded it. Emmett’s heart pitter-pattered as he rode the elevator up. He’d gotten there as soon as he could. They’d probably be in the middle of their meeting, but it might be his only chance to get answers. The time for bold action was now.
The elevator opened onto a posh waiting room: Swedish furniture, low tables splashed withRanch & Coastmagazine, a plate-glass vista out to the Pacific, its glittering patina deadened by the premium tinting.
“Good morning,” said the woman behind the welcome desk. “Do you have an appointment?”
Emmett faltered.Bold action.
“Actually, I’m late for one.” He channeled a tone of clipped certainty, of a man with places to be and money to make. “I’m meant to be in the eleven a.m. with Monstera BioSciences. Running behind.”
“Of course. They’re in the boardroom. Down the hall to the right.”
Emmett nodded and headed off, barely holding it together. That had been almost too easy. A taste, perhaps, of what life was like for the average-bodied White man.
He slowed as he approached a wall of frosted glass crisscrossed with clear diagonal stripes. Through a sliver of clarity, he spied several professionals around a long table, their attention directed toward a giraffe-like man in a baggy suit, presenting before a projector screen.
This had to be them. The screen displayed an anatomical diagram of an obese body. Emmett felt triggered, remembering Dr. Halleck’s office.
The slide changed, and one diagram became a progression of four.Day 1. Day 30. Day 180. Day 360.The body becoming slimmer, the amygdala and prefrontal cortex of the brain larger, the stomach tighter and more angrily red.
Strangest of all was the heart: growing leaner, darker, but also more brilliant, from a soft ball of muscle choked yellow with fat to something resembling a black diamond, effervescent and cursed.
The slide changed and Emmett recoiled, unprepared for the brutal images that had flashed up on the screen: a mutilated body, a severed arm, the mug shot of a rawboned woman in her forties, her emaciated mouth and neck crusted with dried blood.
Tanya Swygert, the woman who’d killed her abusive husband. Emmett remembered her photo, a different one, from the YouTube video. But this… A wave of nausea rolled through him. Judging by the blood on her lips, Swygert seemed to have done more with the body than just shoot it.
Why hadn’t News 8 reported that?Woman eats abusive husband.He would’ve thought they’d be eager to run such a sensational story.
The slide changed; Emmett felt as if his stomach had been slopped into a bucket of ice water. He stepped unconsciously toward the glass, toward the image of Georgina Hodge’s naked body laid out on an autopsy table. In the corner of the screen, a close-up of bite marks.
A pack of wild coyotes flashed up next, posed regally on a hillside of untamed sage scrub. Emmett was nonplussed.
A head turned toward Emmett and Dr. Saito’s eyes met his, as piercing as a needle in soft flesh.
He staggered back from the glass, then turned to flee down the hall.
A second later, a voice spoke behind him. “Excuse me.” Dr. Saito stood behind him, diminutive even in her thick wedges. “Can I help you?”
“No,” Emmett said. “I mean, yes, but—” He collected himself. “I was told you’d be here. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you—”
“Emmett,” she said. “Emmett Truesdale. Is that right?”
He nodded. Her sigh of frustration seemed self-directed.
