Absolved (Altered series)

by Marnee Blake

  “Didn’t say. But we need to find out.”

  “We need to help here, first.” She glanced over the lawn. There were at least thirty people lying on the ground in various stages of sickness. It looked like others were already being loaded into ambulances. “Damn it. This is awful.”

  “This is Solvimine.” This was like the first day, when he and Jack had walked through Glory and discovered so many in their town dead. He squeezed his eyes closed, trying his best to forget them, that horrible time. But it was inevitable, this destruction. Until they stopped Solvimine, these scenes would keep happening, like horrible déjà vu.

  “No, this is Parker Sinclair,” she qualified.

  Raking a hand over his face, he exhaled, frustrated. “Of course it is, but it’s both. This is the result of putting a deadly weapon in the hands of a madman unafraid to use it.”

  Pressing her lips tight, she glanced away, and he let it go. This wasn’t the time for an argument.

  No, this was another disaster in a string of disasters. And when he returned to the base, their team would need to root out the liar among them. This was just part of the never-ending string of devastation that swirled around them all.

  Beth’s fingers tightened on his arm. “Tomorrow. We’ll figure this out tomorrow. Tonight, we deal with this.”

  “Right. Let’s go get you some help.”

  Shaking her head, she dropped her hand. “There are others who are hurting worse. Them first.”

  He scowled at her. “You just held up a building, almost single-handedly. You’re covered in blood. We’ll help them, but not until I’m sure you’re okay.”

  “I told you I’m fine…”

  “You’re a scientist, not a medical doctor.” When she glared at him, opening her mouth to argue, he lifted his hand. “You get help first, then them. Non-negotiable.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. She probably wanted to look mad, but the pained wince ruined it. She sighed. “Fine.”

  He did his best to smother his triumphant grin, but her scowl said his thoughts gave him away. Whatever. She could be mad if she wanted. Sliding his hand into hers, he allowed himself to relish her fingers in his, convincing him that she was here. Safe.

  The irritation bled from her features, and she lifted her free hand, cupping his cheek. “I’m okay, really.”

  He swallowed, nodding, the weight of his relief humbling. Even considering she might not be all right… “Come on. Let’s get you checked out.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “That’s it for the developers.” Kenny added the list of software developers to the roster of overturned personnel. Fine lines had taken up residence around his eyes. “Time for R and D. You want to look through the external communications or the internal?”

  If Luke had believed that sifting out the traitor in their midst would be easy, he’d been wrong. Not only had they found nothing, but the process was boring and invasive at the same time.

  They were going through all of the personnel in their department, group by group, and sifting through the emails they sent from work computers. So far, they had discovered very little. One of the guys in security was having a relationship with one of the girls in admin—not even an illicit one, since both were unmarried. They just didn’t want their office romance to be revealed yet.

  Yawn. Lots of boring, personal shit, all wrapped in the awkward intrusiveness of voyeurism.

  “I’ll look at the external mail,” he responded, rubbing his eyes. They’d been at this all day. But it was probably better than going back to his room in the barracks and being alone. When he was alone, the terror of possibly losing Beth nagged at him, bringing cold sweats.

  It had been so close. She’d stood there, fighting to hold the place up, knowing that if she failed, she’d die along with the others inside. He’d been on the roof, grilling Jack, when he should have been inside, helping her.

  He’d known they should have stayed together, that it would be safer for them both. He’d chosen efficiency over safety. That risk had almost gotten her killed.

  What was it about his life? Every time he tried to right one wrong, he ended up making things worse. If his obsession to bring down Jack and Parker inadvertently got Beth killed, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

  Losing Beth? It would break him.

  The only way to keep her safe was to find them, stop them. After that, she could go back to being a forensic scientist or researcher or general badass super-genius or whatever it was she did. In safety.

  Maybe Beth was thinking the same thing. That would explain why she had thrown herself into her research the moment they got back yesterday. Or, the fresh visuals of all those people suffering from Solvimine might be stuck in her mind, too.

  None of those people had asked for superpowers. They hadn’t wanted to be the objects of some experiment. They had been hijacked for a cause they didn’t care about.

  Like him. Like her.

  While he’d thrown himself into finding their mole, she again seemed hell-bent on understanding the drug completely.

  His perspective hadn’t changed. If anything, seeing what happened at the factory had only solidified his desire to bury Solvimine entirely. He’d wanted to talk to her about all of it—what happened at the factory, how it had brought back all sorts of memories, how it had fucked with his head. But he’d left her alone.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten involved with her in the first place. He was a mess and bound to drag her down into his bullshit. Better to focus on finding Parker, ending this once and for all.

  Even thinking about it, though—not being able to touch her, hold her—put him into a cold sweat.

  Kenny handed him the list from personnel. R and D wasn’t as big as some of the other departments. Mostly it was Beth, her assistants, and a handful of technicians. Fourteen people.

  He moved the mouse on his laptop to wake it up. Beth’s name was at the top of the list. He paused.

  Guilt pricked at him. He and Beth hadn’t defined their relationship, but reading through her emails felt like a violation. Should he be investigating her? He glanced up at Kenny. What was he going to do—tell Kenny, ask him to do Beth’s search? How would he explain that? He’d want to know why, especially because they’d already searched the emails of Kitty, Nick, and a whole bunch of their other friends.

  He didn’t share info like that. Not even with Kenny.

  Their job was to look for suspicious information. The base had been alerted that someone was going to be looking through government email. Beth knew, but not that it would be him.

  He typed her information into the computer and hit the button to request access to her email with more force than necessary.

  There weren’t many external emails. Anything between federal offices would be included in the internal emails, and he was only concerned with messages to outside folks. There were a few she’d sent to her mother’s doctors. He couldn’t help but admire the way she cared for her mom. He envied her connection to her mother. Luke hadn’t seen or spoken with his mom in years. She was in Arizona, he’d heard. When she’d abandoned his dad to his anxiety disorder and bipolar depression, she’d explained it away, saying she couldn’t do it any longer. Luke got the impression she couldn’t do anything else with him, either.

  He didn’t read the doctors’ emails. They weren’t what he was looking for.

  There were some notes to colleagues who had left the government.

  Again, the invasion of privacy made him squirmy. He was about to tell Kenny he couldn’t do this when his gaze snagged on a pharmaceutical company email address with the subject line: Rush Drug Development.

  Unease settled over him. He opened the first email in the grouping.

  In typical Beth style, she dove right into the topic after her greeting. The first paragraph included a request for collaboration on a drug to unblock plaque and clear the brain tangles that some scientists believed were responsible for brain death in Alzh
eimer’s patients.

  The string of emails included information about how a facet of a chemical Beth was working with might be used to open up the physical blockages in the brain. In the attachment was documentation of a portion of the chemical component breakdown of Solvimine.

  He pushed his chair back, standing quickly. His gaze bounced around the room, unable to focus, making everything into a swinging blur.

  “Luke?” Kenny’s voice drew his attention. His friend had straightened, alert. Probably afraid there was danger. All of them were wound so tight.

  “I’m fine. Sorry.”

  Kenny nodded, but looked at him for a few longer moments with a furrowed brow before going back to his own work. Luke hit the up arrow key a dozen times, reading the email more closely. The letter was follow-up to a discussion they’d had on the phone. Beth had spoken with this former colleague, now the head researcher at the leading pharmaceutical company, explaining that she’d received government approval to approach commercial organizations with a chemical that might be used to help those whose neurological pathways were tangled.

  He looked again at the attachment. Was this the molecular composition of the entire drug? No, surely she hadn’t been that careless. He wasn’t versed enough in chemistry to recognize the formula. But even if it wasn’t the whole drug, he didn’t know how the separate components worked together in the greater compound. Were the different pieces dangerous independent of each other?

  None of that mattered. What mattered was that Beth was already working with a company to use Solvimine. She’d told him that she would consider his position regarding the drug’s danger before she used the research. But this message was dated three weeks ago.

  She’d lied to him. Or, if she hadn’t lied, she’d at least omitted information.

  Why didn’t she tell him?

  He knew, though. She didn’t tell him because she knew he would disagree.

  Betrayal thickened his throat, and tension tightening his shoulders. The urge to hit something was overwhelming, and he clenched his fists to hold them steady. While he’d been lying there with her, thinking that he might have found someone who understood him, someone who got his animosity toward the drug, she’d been hiding this. She’d been through the change—didn’t she understand? She’d seen people die.

  This was before that, though. Maybe she’d reconsidered.

  He skimmed the rest of the emails. The most recent one, written before their time in her apartment, before the events at the factory, didn’t show any indication of that, though. She was checking on the status, wondering how close they were to clinical trials.

  Either way, she should have told him about this. She hadn’t trusted him.

  He pushed back from the table, running his hands through his hair. He didn’t know what to think.

  Did Martins know about this?

  He had to. Beth claimed to have government approval. That meant Martins. She had used her work email address, for fuck’s sake.

  She’d only left him in the dark.

  “Luke, you okay, man? You’re freaking me out.” Kenny leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on the table in front of him, his face concerned.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine. I think I just need a break.”

  Kenny studied him with narrowed eyes. “All right. Bring back food.”

  Luke nodded, pushing out of the room and into the hall. Alone, he buried his hands in his hair.

  Why hadn’t she said anything? They’d talked about the drug at her mother’s home, and again last night while they were at the factory. He’d given her opportunities to tell him what was going on. Yet she’d remained quiet. Whether she was still going through with this pharmaceutical company’s development or not, she could have discussed it with him.

  He trusted her.

  There had to be more here. If she lied to him, there had to be a reason. She felt something for him.

  Didn’t she?

  …

  “There’s got to be something here.” Across from Beth, Seth Campbell smacked his palm on the conference table before rubbing his finger and thumb into his temples.

  At the head of the table, she leaned back, rubbing her eyes. Since she’d gone through the change, she’d abandoned her glasses. Like Luke, her eyesight had improved completely, making them unnecessary. Sometimes she missed them.

  “Nothing on the security cameras. No phone calls from any landlines here or any government registered cell phones. We’re still waiting on the details of some private phones, but nothing on them yet. Nearly a dozen employees opted out of allowing their phones to be searched. We’re getting subpoenas, but it could be a day or so.” Seth’s voice was wary. “Luke, is there any internet activity?”

  Martins had doubled their manpower, trying to connect all the dots and find any leads to Parker or his interests. It was slow going.

  “Nothing that we’ve found so far or that hasn’t been related to searches we’d run in our own investigative processes. We’re still working.” Luke’s mind had remained uncharacteristically quiet, but his voice sounded weird. The combination made her anxious, but she wasn’t sure if it was justified or not.

  Seth nodded to Luke. “Let me know if you need any other resources.” He gathered the paperwork, moving to stand. “We’ll meet again in a couple hours. Everyone should get something to eat.”

  While the room dispersed, Seth motioned to her, Luke, Nick, Kitty, and Blue, asking them all to hold back.

  When the door closed behind the rest of the gathering, Seth glanced between Beth and Kitty. “Did you hear anything?”

  This meeting of the department heads had been called so she and Kitty could listen for any notes of betrayal.

  Crossing her arms, Beth sighed and shook her head. “Nothing. Everyone seems horrified to think someone in our midst is a traitor.”

  “I agree,” Kitty chimed in. “It isn’t anyone who was here.”

  “Damn.” Seth blew out a breath. “This would be easier if it had been one of them. These investigations are hard on all of us.”

  Yeah, deception sucks. Luke’s grim thoughts echoed through her mind, and her anxiety increased.

  “Well, I guess now we need to cast our net further down the food chain,” Seth said.

  “We’ll instruct the department heads to get their groups together, one by one,” Beth said. “Then, Kitty or I will attend each meeting so we can try to sift the traitor out that way.” She hated that they were having so much difficulty unearthing their mole. It was disconcerting. But most of all, it was pulling her from her research. Since the factory, she had been determined to complete her understanding of Solvimine. Parker was going to act soon. She needed to be ready.

  They needed an antidote.

  “That could take a few days.” Seth scowled, obviously unhappy about that.

  That made two of them. Beth gathered her papers. “I’ll have someone on the administrative team put together a schedule for today. Someone discreet. We’ll go from there.”

  Seth nodded, and the others voiced or grunted their agreement before filing out.

  Luke remained, next to Beth. When they were alone, he took a breath. She braced herself because whatever he was thinking wasn’t good.

  “You are helping a pharmaceutical company create a drug for Alzheimer’s based on Solvimine.”

  The effect of his words was like a punch to the stomach. She closed her eyes. “Yes.”

  “So, it’s true.”

  How had he found out? The emails—he’d gone through everyone’s emails. “I should have told you earlier…”

  “Yes, you should have.” She hasn’t changed her mind since the last email. “Kenny and I were investigating everyone’s correspondence. We haven’t found anything illegal.” He paused, crossing his arms over his chest. “I only found proof that you hadn’t been honest with me.”

  “That’s not true. I told you how the drug could help.”

  “You didn’t tell me that you were
already working with someone to make it,” he gritted out. “You told me you’d consider my opinion.”

  “I did consider your opinion. I think the good that this drug could do outweighs the risks.” Stepping closer, she reached for him, desperate to make him understand. “You met my mother…”

  “I did.” He closed his eyes, inhaling softly. “And I know you want to help her. I do. But you didn’t tell me. If we’d discussed it, maybe we’d have been able to find a better option. Something that wasn’t this dangerous.”

  “She doesn’t have time.” Struggling to remain composed, she swallowed the tears rising in her throat. “The tangles in my mom’s mind are making her forget to breathe. She can’t wait for us to come up with a plan you’re comfortable with.”

  “So you just decided not to tell me?” His hurt, the feeling of being disregarded, clawed at her.

  She glared at him. “Just because I consider your opinion doesn’t mean I’m going to do what you tell me to.”

  “Beth.” He buried his hands in his hair. “I’ve been trying to contain this since Parker got hold of the research. It’s already done so much damage.” It’s never going to stop this way. What keeps someone else from recreating Solvimine? What ends this nightmare?

  She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get it.

  She looked up at him, trying to reach him through the hurt. “Bad things have happened, but good things can, too. The drug my friend is working on could open the physical blocks in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. I only gave him a piece of the Solvimine research. I’m not stupid enough to give it all to him. But what he’s doing, what I’m helping him do? It’s bigger than that now.”

  He cursed under his breath. His mind was full of pain. She reached to touch his hand, but he moved away, as if he couldn’t touch her. Her own hurt mixed with his, and she could barely think around it all.

  “Luke.” She had no idea what to say to fix this. He was closed to her, so angry. Worse, the truth was going to force him further away. “This isn’t just for my mother, but for all of the people like me, too, whose mothers or fathers or grandparents are slipping away.”