Sins of the Flesh (19 page)

“You need to get past that to try and remember what happened before. To how Wells was killed.”

Caterina nodded. “I’ll try.”

He brushed away some stray unruly locks from her face. “You can try later. Liliana was kind enough to bring dinner again and I suspect you’re hungry.”

Caterina smiled. It caused a funny hitch in the middle of Mick’s chest. “I thought I smelled something tasty.”

“Let’s go get some eats then,” Liliana said and rose from the chair. Watching the gentle way her gruff brother touched Caterina, Liliana couldn’t help but suspect his feelings for the sick woman were no longer strictly professional. But she said nothing, only led the way down to the kitchen, smiling to herself as she went.

With dinner over and the two women sharing an easy conversation as they cleaned up, Mick had felt driven from the kitchen, unable to stand the way they chatted about everyday things seemingly without a care to the danger which existed. He had not wanted to burst their fragile bubble
with the reality that so far he had nothing to prove that Caterina wasn’t a murderess. He also couldn’t abide the sense of homecoming he felt sitting at the table with them.

Locking himself away in his office, he spent the night perusing the Internet for additional information on Edwards and Wardwell Biotech, and discovered more than he had expected.

News from various science sites confirmed that Wardwell was a leader in developing a number of different fluorescent proteins for use in various applications, as well as an innovator in the field of gene therapies. Much had been made of one of their early experiments, using genes spliced from a urodele amphibian to successfully regenerate nerve tissue.

That would explain Liliana’s comments at dinner about the test results reported by her pathologist friend.

As he sat back, Mick realized that advances from such a success might account for the restoration of Caterina’s sight, but confusion remained about the strange halo sight and skin camo she displayed when stressed.

Why implant even more genes to create a human chimera? Especially one half out of her mind from a powerful combination of dissociative drugs, unless…

MK Ultra, he thought once again, thoughts returning to the CIA experiments with mind control. If Edwards thought he could create and control chimeras with useful traits, those genetically modified humans could be quite useful and profitable.

Only nothing in any of the online articles supported such a crazy hypothesis. He leaned over the keyboard and continued searching. By the end of the night, Liliana had been called back to the hospital for an emergency and he had unearthed a small article from a financial news site.

Edwards had recently met with the head of Gates Genengineering, a larger biotech company whose new drug application had suffered a rejection from the FDA. The NDA was for a therapy similar to the Wardwell process Mick thought had been used on Caterina. The article mentioned possible discussions of a merger. Given the size of the other company, a merger might be worth millions to the owners of Wardwell.

Of course if anyone got wind of what Edwards and his researchers had done to people like Caterina and those unfortunates with the terminated stickers, no legitimate company would touch Wardwell. In fact, Edwards and his cohorts would be lucky not to end up in jail for the rest of their lives.

If Wells had somehow developed a conscience and had been about to blow the whistle on the entire experiment, it made perfect sense as to why Edwards might want his partner dead.

With a merger imminent, it also made sense why Edwards would hire not one but three hunters to go after Caterina. He couldn’t take the risk that she could expose what had happened and ruin the multi-million-dollar deal.

To prove motive, however, Mick had to confirm that the merger was actually proceeding. Opening his e-mail program, he right-clicked on one of the e-mails from Edwards and checked the message header. Buried in the header was the IP address for Wardwell’s system. Launching a hacking program a friend had provided years ago, the system started searching for open ports and found several of them in the firewall.

He used one of the open ports and accessed the Wardwell system, hoping that someone in IT had been
lazy and left at least one of the servers with its default settings. Sure enough, one server still had the “no password” default. Shortly after this discovery, Mick entered the Wardwell system. He didn’t want to linger long, afraid that someone might eventually catch on to his break-in.

He started a search for “Gates” and within just a few short minutes had located a Word document on the server. Better yet, it was in a directory that appeared to belong to Edwards. He quickly downloaded the document and exited.

When he opened the document, it confirmed the merger had progressed substantially.

Gates Genengineering had made an offer of 100 million dollars to acquire Wardwell. With that much money at stake, he now had possible motives for Wells’s murder, whether to silence a whistle-blower or get a bigger share of the money from the deal.

He had to warn Franklin.

He dialed his friend, who immediately answered.

“I’ve got some information and you’re not going to like it,” he said and explained about the merger.

“I’m liking this less and less every day, Mick. I’ve got a family now,” Franklin said. For the first time ever, Mick heard something in his friend’s tone that he had never expected to hear.

Real fear. The kind that grabbed hold of your gut and made you doubt. Even a scintilla of doubt on a mission was not good.

“I understand, Franklin. So here’s what I want you to do.”

M
ick provided Franklin with the basic information about the deal and asked him to try and track down more information as to when it might be finalized. Then he gave him the names and addresses of the two terminated patients whose files he had stolen. He needed to know more about what their families had been told regarding their progress and deaths.

“What about Donnelly?” Franklin asked, concern in his voice.

What about Mad Dog
? Mick thought, recalling his earlier encounter with the man. “Whatever happens with Mad Dog won’t involve you. I promise you that. It’ll be between him and me.”

Because they had a score to settle.

“Thanks, Mick. I’ve got too much to lose,” his friend said and hung up.

Mick snapped the phone shut, Franklin’s last words digging into his brain.

I’ve got too much to lose
. Mick had little if anything to lose.

He rose, intent on checking on Caterina, when he heard the insistent
beep-beep-beep
of the alarm system
signaling that someone had opened a point of entry into the house.

He rushed to the guest room hoping it hadn’t been Caterina, but she was gone.

Cursing, he grabbed the stair railing, vaulted down to the middle of the stairs, then up and over the handrail to the next level. He landed on the wooden floor with enough force to rattle the nearby furniture.

Ahead of him the kitchen door leading to the backyard was wide open.

He ran toward the door and the cell phone at his hip began to buzz. A message flashed, alerting him to the fact that Caterina had breached the designated perimeter for the ankle bracelet she was wearing.

He rushed outside, believing he would have to give chase as she ran off the property, but instead he watched as she executed a graceful dive into the built-in pool in the backyard.

Shocked, he was about to go after her when the house alarm increased in pitch, alerting him to the fact that it would soon trip and dispatch instructions to the central station.

Since Caterina didn’t seem to be going anywhere and he didn’t need the police coming to check out the call from the central station, he returned inside and shut off the alarm. He answered his phone when it rang a second later.

“I got a warning here at the station about the ankle bracelet. Do I need to send in the troops?” Ramon asked.

Mick walked toward the edge of the pool where Caterina was treading water in the center, her arms wrapped tight around herself, shivering. The violent chattering of her teeth visible even with the long distance.

Something was wrong, but it was nothing that needed to involve Ramon.

“No,
amigo
. Everything is under control here,” he said, but as Caterina’s skin faded away to the bright blue of the pool lining, nothing could have been further from the truth.

Mick walked to the edge of the pool and crouched down, meeting her gaze, made an almost iridescent aqua from the reflection from the pool water and the increasingly intense hue of her skin.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Hot… burning up,” she replied, and slowly sank beneath the surface of the water.

Shit
, he thought. Liliana would be pissed as all hell if he let Caterina drown on his watch.

He quickly yanked off his shirt, pants, and shoes, placed his cell phone within easy reach on the pool deck, and dove in.

With one powerful stroke he reached her.

Wrapping his arms around her body, he dragged her to the surface, where they both gulped in a big breath of air.

To his surprise, she laid her head on his shoulder and once again said, “I’m burning up.”

She was. Even with the cool water surrounding them, heat poured off her skin. Her body shivered against his with brutal force, her teeth rattling together until, with each second that passed, the chill of the waters penetrated her body and brought some relief.

Relief from the fever racking her body didn’t bring an end to the transformation of her skin. Luckily the high fence surrounding the property offered some privacy for the moment, but not much.

Anyone with a second story facing their way could get a good look once they left the water, since the back porch light illuminated a wide swath of the yard and pool area. He had to get her to restore more of her human state before they could return to the house.

He raised one hand and ran it across the slick strands of her hair in a soothing gesture. Bringing his lips close to the shell of her ear, he whispered, “Are you feeling better?”

She nodded and finally relaxed a bit, releasing the tight hold she’d had on her own body to wrap her arms around him.

So not good
, he thought at the soft press of her body against his.

Think baseball
, he said to himself as he cupped her cheek and urged her to lift her head. When she did so, he said, “I need you to lose the camo, Cat.”

Realization sank in as she examined her arms.

She screwed her eyes shut and beneath her breath began her mantra. Her lips barely moved as she said, “Focus. Focus. Focus.”

He braced one hand in the middle of her back and joined in the mantra. Only it distracted him from safe thoughts of baseball.

Caterina clearly noticed the natural reaction his body was having to her being so close.

“Focus,” she said more loudly, and opened her eyes.

They were back to normal, not that he could ever call eyes that blue and beautiful normal.

She bit her bottom lip, worrying it with her teeth as she raised one hand to steady herself against his shoulder.

The movement only pressed them closer together and
revealed another truth—he was not the only one who was possibly aroused.

Her pupils were wide and a bright stain of pink colored her cheeks. A flush of passion and not fever. The pebbly hard tips of her nipples rubbed across his chest and he would have had to be a saint not to touch.

He was no saint, but somehow he restrained himself.

He cupped her cheek, leaned his head close and asked, “Do you feel well enough to go back into the house?”

Caterina focused on his warm breath and the hard palm of his hand against her skin. Closed her eyes and imagined it was a lover’s touch. A touch that begged for sweet compensation in return.

Opening her eyes, she inched toward him until her lips almost brushed his and whispered, “Yes.”

His breath hitched in his chest and against her body; his erection jumped in response. He applied gentle pressure and urged her face upward as she acquiesced to that demand.

Human demand.

The call of male to female somehow reaffirming that she was still a woman. Still so much more than someone’s lab experiment.

When she brought up her head, he was bending toward her. He paused as his lips brushed hers, the warm spill of his breath enticing her to savor his mouth.

She touched her lips to his, telling herself to focus on them. On him. On the pleasure his touch brought her.

Mick groaned at her consent, certain that this was insanity and yet he couldn’t stop kissing her.

She brought both hands to his shoulders. They were still hot against his skin, but not as hot as before.

But way more hot than was right, and he knew that as good as this felt and as much as he wanted to part her thighs and drive himself into her, honor demanded that he stop.

Easing himself away but keeping a steadying grasp on her, he said, “We need to get you back inside. Make sure you’re okay.”