What was Jimmy doing here?Other than looking at my bookcase like he was desperate to jump into it anddisappear.
“I thought I’d go throughthese files this morning, see if I could save you the trouble,” he began. “Andthis note fell out.”
I stared as he passed a noteacross the desk, setting it down in front of me.
The handwriting was eerilyfamiliar. I’dseen pages and pages of notes written in this.
Scattered all over Jimmy’s dorm-roomdesk. In college.
My mouth hung open, thepower of speech leaving me and fleeing to parts unknown.
Jimmy?
No.
But…
“It’s not quite how itlooks,” Gray said, glancing over at Jimmy, who by now had his hands shoved deepin his pockets and was hovering halfway between the desk and the door. Ihalf-expected him to bolt, but on Gray’s nod, he shuffled a little closer.
Jimmy was always a nervousperson, but I’dnever seen himthisnervous before.
I was still trying toprocess the part where it looked likehe’dbeen responsiblefor all the shit that’d been happening to me over the last couple ofweeks.
And the part where Grayknewthat, and Jimmy wasn’t being dragged away in handcuffs because of it.
Something wasn’t right.Whatever it was, it was making my stomach twist up in knots.
The bitter taste of betrayalrolled down the back of my throat. Even the air in the room felt wrong, likethe pressure just before a thunderstorm.
“I was trying to help,”Jimmy said.
“Bybreaking into myapartment?” I snapped,staring at him as the weight of everything that had happened hit me all atonce.
My personal space had beenviolated three separate times—four if you counted returning the files, and it’d definitelyfeltlike anotherinvasion. The three places that had been sanctuaries to me—my car, my office,and myhome—had become places where I was most afraid.
Jimmy had done that. To me.
I clenched my fists to stopmy hands from shaking.Why?
Why me? Why like this?
“John Bryant is paying theresearchers on the osteosarcoma team to fake the results,” Jimmy said. “I saw areport with numbers that didn’t make sense, and I had to know you weren’t in onit, and when I realized you weren’t I followed the trail and… I have proof. It’sall in there for you.” He nodded to the files Gray had put down earlier.
My head spun so violentlythat for a moment, I thought there was actually an earthquake happening. Thatmaybe California was about to snap off the west coast and float out into thesea once and for all.
Stars clouded my vision atthe edges, the first tell-tale sign that I was in serious danger of passingout. That hadn’thappened in years, but it was definitely starting to feel like it was about to.
“I…”
What was there to say tothat?
“But,” I tried again. “But.”
But.
Butwas as good as Icould manage.
“I know this is a lot tohear,” Gray said, all patience and softness, and it didn’t help at all. Theblood rushing in my ears was deafening, all I could think of was that as ifhaving my space violated over and over, now a second person was trying todestroy a project I was so deeply invested in that it’d become a part of who Iwas.
