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Chapter 18
Chapter 18"Did she know?" Martha asked. "When she married you, did that girl know who you were?"It was early, and the depot was still quiet. Damon had brought his mother's capsules and a plate of toast, and he was sitting on the edge of her bed while she ate, the way he had done every morning since Ruth Abbott's. Neither of them had said much since yesterday. The anger was still there in his chest, but it had gone quiet, like a dog that had stopped barking but was still watching the door."I don't know," he said. "I don't think so.""How can you tell?""Because when she called me the other night about that file, she sounded scared. In three years I never heard Celeste sound scared about anything."Martha nodded slowly and picked at the crust of her toast. "She was a sweet little thing," she said. "That's what I keep thinking about. She used to bring you drawings. She used to sing to you. Her mother would call her to go home, and she'd hold on to your bed rail and refuse to let go."
Chapter 17
Chapter 17"Your brother has been missing for three days," Richard Sterling said, "and you haven't cried once."He said it the way he said everything at breakfast, without looking up from his newspaper. He was sixty-two, grey at the temples, still handsome in the way that made board members trust him, and he had eaten the same breakfast every day for as long as Celeste could remember. Two boiled eggs, dry toast, black coffee."Crying won't find him," Celeste said."No. But it might make people believe you're worried.""Which people?""The police. The board. Your mother." He folded the newspaper and finally looked at her. "Jace emptied my safe and ran. Forty vials, Celeste. Do you know what forty vials cost? Do you know how many years of work that was?""I know.""Where would he go?""If I knew, I'd tell you." She took a sip of her coffee and kept her hand steady. "Maybe he went to Mickey. Maybe he's trying to sell them.""Mickey is dead. The police found him in a warehouse near Northg
Chapter 16
Chapter 16"You're scaring me," Benji said. "You haven't said a word in twenty minutes. Tom, he hasn't said a word in twenty minutes.""I can count," Tom said from the back seat.Damon kept his eyes on the road. "Just get us home, Benji."When they pulled through the gate, Lena was in the yard with Max, hanging washing on a line Tom had strung between two posts. She took one look at Damon getting out of the van and put down the basket."Did you get it?" she asked.Tom held up the two white bottles. "Three weeks' worth."Lena let out a long breath and smiled, the first real smile Damon had seen on her face since the warehouse fire. Then she looked at him again, and the smile faded."What happened?""Can you keep Max out here for a while?" he said. "I need to talk to my mother."Martha was sitting up in bed doing a crossword when he came in. She looked up and saw the bottles in his hand, and her face lit up."You got it," she said. "Oh, Damon. Tom said that vet was a dragon.""She was."
Chapter 15
Chapter 15"Keep?" Damon said. "What does that mean?""I don't know," Celeste said. "I've been staring at it for an hour, and I don't know."He walked to the edge of the roof and back again. The wind had picked up, and the tarp Tom had tied to the railing was flapping behind him."What else is in the file?""Medical notes. Blood tests, every year until you were eighteen. Every single year, Damon. Somebody was testing your blood the whole time you were growing up." She stopped, and he heard her cough into her hand, a dry cough that went on longer than it should have. "There are photos too. And forms. I'm going to take pictures of everything and send them to you.""Why are you doing this?"There was a pause. "Because the doctor who ran that trial signed every page in this file," she said. "His name is Dr. Alan Pell. He still works for my father. He has an office under our house, and he's the one who made those vials." Her voice got quieter. "I've known Alan Pell since I was a little gir
Chapter 14
Chapter 14"How many days is that?" Martha asked.She was sitting up in bed with a glass of water in one hand and the first pill in the other. Lena stood by the door with her arms folded. Benji had stayed out in the hallway, because he said he couldn't look at Mrs. Hale's foot without feeling sick."Enough," Damon said."That's not a number.""Take the pill, Mom."Martha looked at the six packs on the blanket next to her, then at him. She had been reading his face since the day he was born, and he had never been able to hide anything from her for long."So it's not enough," she said."It's enough for now. I'll find more."She held his eyes for a moment longer, then swallowed the pill and handed him the glass. "Your shoulder's bleeding through your shirt. Go and let Lena look at it before you drip on my floor."Lena cleaned the cut in the office. It wasn't deep, just a long scrape where he had landed on the concrete, but she took her time with it. She didn't ask any questions while she
Chapter 13
Chapter 13"If you tell me to drive faster one more time, I'm going to stop this van and make you walk," Benji said. "I'm doing ninety on a forty road, Damon.""Then do ninety-five."Benji gave him a dirty look, but he pressed down harder on the gas.Corbin Medical was on the east side, near the old freight yards. In his first life, Damon had walked into that building four months after the outbreak with Benji beside him and a crowbar in his hand. Somebody had already set fire to the front offices by then. The only thing left was a locked cage at the back, full of the antibiotics hospitals kept for people who couldn't take penicillin.This time there was no fire. There were two trucks.The first one was already leaving the loading bay as they turned the corner. It was a white box truck with no name on the side, and it drove off toward the expressway. The second truck was still backed up to the open bay, and three men in dark jackets were throwing the last boxes into it as fast as they
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