Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten #2)(11)

Except when he thought about it, they hadn’t. How terrible was it to know that his pain had been about revenge? At least the others had a reason to have gone through what they did. He’d been a loose end she’d needed to clean up.

He looked back at the woman on the screen. Who was she? Villain or innocent player in a game she couldn’t imagine?

It wasn’t his place to find out.

He sat back as Robert began talking about the mission. It was time to fade into the background.





Chapter Two





Becca Walsh stared at the man in front of her. Jimmy was only two years younger than she was, but there were times when it felt like there were decades between them. He stood there in his perfectly pressed slacks, his button-down, and hair he’d likely spent hours getting to look like the wind had swept it back. He was young and single and obviously ready to mingle.

And he was obviously insane.

“Go over the side effects again, please,” she said. Had he really thought she wouldn’t read that sucker?

He flushed as though he’d actually thought he might get away with it. “Mild headaches, upset stomach, diarrhea, hair growth, drowsiness…”

She held up a hand to stop him. “That is not what you said the first time.”

The man sitting beside her chuckled. “You know she has ears, Jim. You were never going to get that past her.”

Paul Huisman had a slight French accent, having been born and raised in Quebec. In the beginning she’d found it magical. She’d considered the idea that they might be good friends, the type who talked in bed and stuff. But she’d been on a sexual sabbatical. She’d promised to give herself two years after her divorce to get her head on straight, and that had proven to be a godsend. Sleeping with Paul would have been disastrous. He was fastidious and fussy, everything she didn’t want in a man. He’d also been angry when his father had passed him over in favor of her when he’d named a new lead in Neurological Research. They were friendly, but she knew he’d sent a report to his father detailing all the ways she wasn’t right for the job. Still, so far he’d backed her up when she needed him.

She glanced down at the preliminary reports on the new drug they were testing. It had been a long shot in the first place, but Jimmy Lao, while young and shiny, was also incredibly smart and one day might revolutionize drug therapy for stroke survivors.

But this was only his first try, and it wasn’t going to work.

“Extreme hair growth in female patients,” she pointed out. “According to this, some of them actually grew beards.”

“Don’t forget the chest hair.” Paul was shaking his head. “And why on earth would it cause the urine to turn pink?”

“Some of them were hairy to start with, and it was really more of a magenta color. At least it was according to the women in the group. They were very precise about the color. I thought pink covered it. I think it was a side effect of the high beet content in the supporting meds.” Jimmy bit back a frustrated groan. “Sorry. It seemed to work well in the rats. I’ll be honest, it’s not as effective in humans. It’s not doing anything I hypothesized. The results were roughly the same as the drug therapies we use now.”

She stood up and moved around to the young man. She knew how it felt to fail. Sometimes she thought it was her primary job. But it was important to pull yourself up off the floor, shake off the dust, and try a-freaking-gain, as she often told her kids. “This is your first try. It never works the first time. This, my friend, is the start of many, many failures. I want you to think of them as another brick in the yellow brick road. You get me?”

He stared at her like he wasn’t exactly sure how to respond. Not a big Wizard of Oz fan, then. “So I’m not getting fired? Because you read the part about the homicidal thoughts, right?”

“I’m fairly certain if I’d started growing hair between my toes, I would have homicidal thoughts, too.” She’d discounted those. It had only been two subjects, and all the murderous intent had been aimed toward Jimmy. Totally understandable. “Go back to the drawing board. And check and make sure all your patients go back on normal therapies. Follow up with their primary doctors and ask them to continue to check in with us so we’re certain there are no long-term effects.”

His shoulders came down from around his ears. “Thank you, Dr. Walsh. I’ll do that. And I’ll get my team back to the drawing board. We learned a couple of things this time around. I wrote it all up for you and would welcome any notes or ideas. Thanks, Dr. Huisman.”

He practically bounced out of the room.

“Was I ever that young?” Paul asked with a long sigh.

“I think I am that young and I’m asking myself the same question,” she admitted. She glanced up at the clock. Almost time to go home. She would sign all the paperwork she needed to sign, say the same things she always said—have a great evening, lots of plans, don’t party too hard—then she would get on the subway and go three whole stops to Spadina, get off the subway, walk exactly eight hundred forty-two steps to her building. She would get her normal Wednesday dinner order of a chicken salad sandwich and chips. She would ignore the bar next to the bistro with its too loud music and boisterous university students. She wouldn’t think about the fact that they were in there eating poutine—which sounded disgusting and gross, and god she wanted some because it was delicious—and she would go up to her lonely apartment. She would turn on the news and eat her dinner and tell herself that this weekend she would do something fun.