Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten #2)(83)

Damn it. She’d talked to Owen on her cell phone this morning. She remembered one of the interns being in the room at the time. This was why she wasn’t a spy.

“Did you think you could get away with it?” Carter asked in a cold tone.

“With what?”

His eyes narrowed. “I know you’re planning on getting rid of me. God, and to think I believed you could be the one woman in the world for me.”

“I thought that was some woman in nephrology.” He’d mentioned that he’d grown disillusioned with a woman.

“I lied. It was always you,” he returned. “I’m embarrassed to say it now, but from the moment I heard you were coming to the foundation, I thought we could have something special. You have a great mind and I have all the resources to make you even greater. We could have made an excellent team. We did make an excellent team.”

“I never gave you any reason to believe we could be more than friends, and this is an inappropriate conversation. I need you to leave.” Why had she told Owen to stay away? She wasn’t comfortable with Carter. The hallway was public, but there was only one tall man in a ballcap at the end of the balcony railing. He was taking pictures and paying absolutely no attention to the drama playing out behind him. Owen was back in the exhibits waiting for her to come for him.

“Of course you did, but then that’s what women like you do,” Carter hissed. “You get what you want out of a guy like me and then go find some asshole with muscles to fuck.”

She wasn’t going to let him do this to her. He’d obviously set this up. She didn’t completely understand why, but he hated her deep down. “I’ll be having a talk with the foundation human resources when I get back to the office. Don’t bother me again.”

He leaned toward her, his voice a quiet snarl. “I’ll have a talk with them, too. I’ll have a long talk with them about Project Tabula Rasa.”

The words stopped her in her tracks. Tabula Rasa. It was Latin for blank slate. She forced herself to turn. Tabula Rasa was what Hope McDonald had privately called her work. It was a nickname and not anything that would have been on her formal files or the work she might have tried to publish about it. McDonald had been working for a pharmaceutical company at one of their European labs at the time. “What about Tabula Rasa?”

The project had taken place in the lab she’d run from and sworn to never go back to. The universe seemed intent on reminding her of that terrible day.

He stared at her for a moment and then something dawned over his face. It was as though he’d figured something out, some puzzle piece falling into place. “Well, now who holds the cards? I know about what you did when you worked with Hope McDonald. They kept it quiet, but I know what she was really working on.”

“She was working on memory function,” Becca replied. McDonald had been creepy and a little weird, but she hadn’t been the problem. Her staff, on the other hand… She wouldn’t think about it. Dr. McDonald had been almost worshipful of her patients, especially the ex-military ones.

“She was working on how to erase memory,” Carter said. “And you helped her.”

Heat flashed through her. It had always been there, the idea that McDonald wasn’t what she seemed. Hadn’t that asshole told her that?

You’ve got no idea what’s really happening here, do you? They say you’re so smart, but you can’t see what’s right in front of your face. Let’s see if you’re good for anything at all…

“I helped her with her research and her research was all about restoring memory. She did an enormous amount of good for soldiers with retrograde memory loss. She was dedicated to them.” The whole McDonald family had been about service. Hope McDonald had specialized in helping soldiers with brain injuries and memory loss. Her father had been a senator serving on the Armed Forces committee, and her sister Faith worked with various medical charities in Third World countries. Hope and her father were gone now, but they’d done their part to help. “You should think before you start trying to ruin the reputations of people who aren’t here to defend themselves. But I am, and I’d like to know exactly what you’re accusing me of, Carter.”

“I bet you would.” An infuriatingly smug smile appeared on his face. “I think the ethics board at Huisman would be interested in your part of that project.”

“My part was to help her understand how plaque is formed and new ways to destroy it,” she shot back. She had no idea what he was talking about. He was playing a game. He couldn’t possibly know something about the project that she didn’t.

“How are you going to explain what you did to Tomas?”

She shook her head. “Tomas?” A memory flashed across her brain, a vision of a handsome young man with sandy blond hair and blue eyes that held his pain. “Tomas Miller? He had long-term memory loss brought on by a combination of injury and PTSD. He was a patient of Dr. McDonald’s. I treated him for a few weeks. I couldn’t manage to make any headway with him. It was a frustrating case. What does he have to do with anything?”

“So much, but it’s obvious you’re going to play the innocent. Think about that before you try to get me fired. I know things about you. Things that could kill your career. I think we’ll have to talk about this again. Privately,” he said, a leer in his eyes. “I have a much better hand than I thought I did. I’ll see you back at the office.”