Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(126)

“Not a lot to a man with his own helicopter, probably,” she says.

“Touché.” Cole smiles, but his smiles are becoming more strained with each passing minute of this flight. “I thought his failure, what happened to those men, had broken him.”

“And you were wrong,” she says.

Cole sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring directly into her eyes. “If I’d had one inkling of what he was going to do to you, Charlotte, I would have stopped him. You must know this. You must believe this.”

“How?”

“I would have had no shortage of ideas on that front. I guarantee you. I don’t run a convenience store. I’m the CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the world.”

There’s no arguing with the icy conviction in his tone.

“So that’s why Zypraxon works on me?” she asks. “Because I’m a woman?”

“No.”

She must be visibly startled by his answer. He gives her a few seconds to recover.

“Dylan says he altered the formula a bit and tested it in another woman before you. The results were apparently as catastrophic as he should have expected.”

“Did she . . .”

“He says she agreed to it, knowing the risks. But I no longer put much stock in anything Dylan says. Do you?”

“You tell me. Your history with him is . . . longer than mine.”

Is he wincing or smiling or both? She can’t tell.

“What do you want from me, Cole Graydon? Just my blood?”

“You’re angry with me. Even after all I’ve told you. Can you tell me why?”

“You allowed him to do this.”

“That’s not true. I told you, I had no idea he was even in Arizona, much less that he’d made contact with you under false pretenses. When he came to me after the mess he made with those bikers, he was desperate. He was pretending like he’d planned it all, but it was clear he hadn’t. He’d lost you, and he was on the run, and he knew that both of you would be in serious trouble if I didn’t step in right away.”

“You put me under constant surveillance. You allowed him to watch my every move.”

“No, I watched your every move, because you were a miracle, Charlotte, and even you knew it. Because the drug was working for the first time, and on top of that, you seemed determined to actually use it. As for your surveillance, I fed him only what I wanted him to see, which was almost nothing. I also kept law enforcement from following a trail from that biker massacre to your uncle Marty’s front door in Altamira. Right now Dylan’s holed up in a shack outside of Tucson under constant surveillance, and he’ll be there for the rest of his natural life if I so choose. Or someplace worse.”

“He said I had to perform. He said I had to put on a show for all of you. He said you were so rich and powerful there was no outrunning you.”

“He was wrong, and I’m here to tell you how.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m here to tell you how to make us all go away, if that’s what you want. If that’s truly what you want. I’m here to do the thing Dylan didn’t do in Arizona.”

“What’s that?”

“Give you a choice.”

“I’m listening.”

“What you did tonight, it was remarkable. It required a level of bravery unlike any I’ve ever seen. And if you would like to keep doing it, I can make that happen. I can make it happen in a much safer and more controlled way. I can provide the support and the tools you need to remove all the kinks, shall we say, in tonight’s operation, so that you can take some of the worst human monsters out of circulation for all time.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“You would, in essence, of your own free will, become our test subject. But in that capacity, we would treat you with the utmost care and respect, provided you followed certain guidelines.”

“Such as?”

“Extensive medical testing after each use of the drug. Allowing yourself to be monitored as well. When you’re not pursuing a subject like Pemberton, your life would be your own. Altamira. Marty. Luke. The new resort that’s set to open soon. I imagine there will be employment opportunities there. For all three of you. If you’re interested.”

Because you own the place now, she thinks.

“And what about Dylan? Will I be working with him?”

“Not directly, no.”

“But what’s the point? What will the testing be for?”

“The goals remain the same.”

“You’re gonna find a way to sell this drug? To make it work in everyone? That’s insane.”

“Of course not. The goal will be a stable, restrained, marketable version of Zypraxon that will do nothing more than inhibit those elements of the panic response that are counterproductive to survival mechanisms in populations at risk of being exposed to severe violence.” He seems comforted by this string of buzzwords and marketing speak; he smiles wistfully, like a man who’s just recounted a fond memory of his hometown. “The goal will be a drug that could have saved your mother’s life.”

“You’re gonna start marketing a drug that allows women to rip men in half?”