Kathryn’s next meeting with Bouchaule was nothing like her previous encounters. She was escorted from the club by a burly man who did not speak even when spoken to. They went to a different upscale hotel in the city—not the one from the night before—and it was obvious he felt the need to stay on the move.
The silent man led Kathryn to Bouchaule’s room on an upper floor and knocked twice on the door while Kathryn waited patiently over his shoulder.
An uncharacteristically disheveled Thierry Bouchaule opened the door, and the man stepped aside to allow Kathryn to enter.
“Thank you for coming, Kathryn,” the distracted doctor said curtly as he quickly shut the door, leaving the escort outside.
Kathryn smiled as she removed her gloves. “You’re going to run out of first-class hotels.”
“I will not need them much longer,” he replied cryptically, as he lifted the calf-length wool cape from her shoulders and then laid it across the end of the bed. He held out his hand to the nearest armchair. “Please, I will not keep you long.”
Kathryn sensed she’d lost whatever intimate connection she’d had with the doctor, and she feared once he had what he wanted—a sample of her blood again, she assumed—he’d be gone and she’d be left in the dark with the burden of Daniel Ryan’s code key and no answers.
She’d only seen glimpses of this serious Bouchaule. His face had a pronounced crease splitting his brow and a determined set to his usually carefree lips. She wasn’t sure of his emotions toward her, but she had to believe that he may have had genuine feelings for her at one time, because that was her only hope of reigniting their extinguished flame. To that end, she immersed herself in the role of a jilted lover, used and thrown aside—angry, but deceptively tolerant, as only a woman seeking validation can be.
She casually slapped her gloves into her open hand. “I’m not in a hurry.”
He didn’t respond as he jotted something down in his notes, but he must have sensed her intense stare because he looked up and replied absentmindedly in French. “Pardon?”
She sat in the offered low back chair off to the side and attempted to engage him on a more visceral level, crossing her long legs while casually easing up her dress to expose more skin.
He didn’t notice, and she didn’t bother repeating herself, as she could tell her agenda was of no interest to him. “You seem a bit undone, Thierry.”
He hardly looked up as he sifted through the papers spread before him on the small round table. “Sorry. A very trying day.”
Kathryn gazed enviously at the doctor’s notes. What she wouldn’t give for an up-close look, but she pretended to be politely indifferent.
“Anything I can do?”
He threw a hand up and shook his head. “Imbeciles. The weltschmerz makes me weary.”
One’s ideal and the reality of it rarely ever met, and he wasn’t the only one weary of the difference between the two. In her perfect world, Kathryn would give the doctor her blood and be done with him. She would leave the code books to rot in the ground and she would walk away. She would walk away from it all, reclaim her relationship with Jenny, do what she could to help win the war through conventional dedication and sacrifice, like every other citizen, and live happily ever after.
But she had no time to be weary of the evils of the world. No room to pretend she was merely the average citizen entitled to the happy ending. She had to get to the heart of Bouchaule’s obsession, discover the root of his particular evil.
Hearing the German word roll off his tongue so easily only served to remind her that, despite his considerable charm, Bouchaule was somehow connected to Daniel Ryan’s research and very much the enemy.
It was apparent their intimate relationship was lost and that the only tool left her was the possession of something he needed. If he wanted it, he was going to have to work for it, for he was about to become the victim of a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.
“Are you working with the Nazis?”
He looked up at her briefly and smirked, obviously insulted that his use of German disturbed her. “I speak Italian as well … does that mean I am a fascist?”
She stood and smoothed down her dress, wishing she had a cigarette for a prop so she could take an irritated drag and impatiently blow the smoke to the ceiling before answering.
“I don’t know, are you a fascist?”
For the first time since she arrived, Bouchaule gave her his full attention and stepped away from his work.
“You are angry.”
“Are you working with the Nazis?”
He moved in like a parent consoling a poor, misguided child, but Kathryn stepped away, demanding an answer.
Bouchaule put his hands in his pockets.
“Not in the way you think I am.”
“God—” Kathryn turned away, pretending his association with the party was a shocking revelation.
The doctor reached out for her. “Kathryn …”
She turned to face him with the appropriate rage in her eyes. “My government is far from innocent, but I will not help the Nazis.”
“Nor will I.”
Kathryn stared at him doubtfully.
He moved closer, his arms open and inviting.
“Nor will I, darling.”
His endearment was embarrassingly transparent, betraying his desperation, and Kathryn knew she’d made the right move.
She grabbed her cape from the end of the bed. “I don’t believe you.”
“Kathryn,” he said, standing between her and the door, hands raised like a horse trainer corralling an unruly filly.
“Get out of my way, Thierry.”
“Please. Let me explain.”
Kathryn made him suffer her silence for a moment and then tossed her cape back onto the bed and waited, pleased she had gained the upper hand.
Bouchaule gratefully accepted his reprieve with a nod and wandered back to his notes, where he shifted them around with his fingertips before leaning on the table and raising his eyes, his external cool restored.
“Have you any idea what this is all about?”
She crossed her arms. “Senseless slaughter. World domination. The usual.”
Bouchaule smiled. “I see you grasp the basic concept.”
“One as old as time.”
“Unfortunately so, but this time they go too far.”
“They?”
“The Nazis. Your government. Insignificant, despicable men like Forrester and those from Chicago, who have no idea what they are toying with.”
“And what are they toying with?”
“An uncontrollable weapon. A virus.”
He said it so easily, as if he had nothing to hide.
She pretended to be surprised and then concerned.
“That doesn’t seem very smart.”
“It is not. Nor will they succeed if I can help it.”
He looked to his notes again, but Kathryn sensed it was more a distraction than a necessity. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, more intimate, revealing more of the man she knew.
“I am sorry you have been drawn into this ugliness,” he said. “You should never know such things.”
She returned to the chair again and sat down, crossing her legs. “You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you, I’m far beyond the point of shock at man’s inhumanity to man.”
This time he noticed her legs but quickly looked away, finding refuge in his notes and an odd, out of the blue defense of the Nazi regime. “Actually, Hitler is vehemently opposed to biological weapons,” he said.
“That’s very funny, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t laugh.”
“Ironic, but true. The fear of reprisal is strong.”
“Sanity among the mad. Imagine.”
“Your words are truer than you know.”
Kathryn stared blindly at the subtle herringbone pattern material on the raised divider between the front and backseat of the sedan. Thierry Bouchaule now held her hand, his calm confidence a stark contrast to her conflicting emotions.
It was the beginning of the end. In her heart she knew it, but she would do her best to ignore it, because the truth of it was too much to bear. Instead, she would continue playing her part—more of a lifestyle now that everything had changed and paths had been chosen—and she would continue struggling for what was right and good, though right and good had never been more relative than at that moment.
She started the evening determined to get answers and bring down the doctor and his associates. Now she was torn. Her determination was tempered by his honesty, and in turn, her need for conquest was dulled, like her thoughts, which were numbed by the monotonous drone of the highway as they rode in silence away from a night of revelations and hard choices.
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be cut and dry. He was the bad guy, the enemy. She was armed with enough anger and skill to easily overcome his charm and any other methods he tried to employ to sway her. She didn’t expect to find that they were both victims of their pasts and prisoners of their futures and circumstances.
She had pressed him about his connections, and he gave the information freely. Some she knew—enough to know he told the truth—and the rest would be thoroughly investigated when she turned in her report tomorrow.
Bouchaule dutifully denounced the use of viral research for any reason other than a vaccine to stave off an epidemic and claimed to be part of a group of medical scientists dedicated to stopping anyone tempted to use a constantly mutating pathogen as a weapon.
Common sense should prevent such a thing, of course, but Kathryn knew in war there was no such thing.
“That all sounds lovely and noble,” she had said earlier in the evening as they stood in the middle of his hotel room, “but why should I believe you?”
He seemed disappointed when she doubted his sincerity, but he did not hesitate to offer a compelling argument.
It began as a typical tale of blackmail. He was a man forced to do things against his will. He claimed colleagues had been killed for not cooperating with the Nazis after they marched into Paris and took over their research facility and that he had no choice. He was deemed important because of his U.S. connections, and they needed to ensure his cooperation.
“I am not a particularly brave man, Kathryn,” he said. “I did not want to die, so I did what they asked of me.” He then told of how, for added insurance, they took his sister from her home in the middle of the night, leaving her husband to die from a gunshot wound to the head after a futile attempt to fight off the intruders.
The story sounded suspiciously like Juliette’s—forced, she had claimed, into Nazi service in exchange for the lives of her mythical children.
Kathryn looked Bouchaule up and down, trying to size him up, gauge his sincerity. The agent in her applauded his technique. He chose the perfect moment for a well-placed sob story, and she would have viewed it as a convenient contrivance had she not known the Nazis capable of it and worse. She was not, however, wholly convinced it was true, and it irritated her to hear the same excuse employed against her again, especially when she was inclined to believe it—again.
She raised a doubtful brow. “So they’re holding your sister?”
“Not anymore.” His piercing eyes grew haunted and he looked away, momentarily stripped of his composure. “My sister is dead now.” When he spoke again, it was almost to himself. “She was always a fragile thing.” He cleared the emotions, and his throat, and turned his attention to the paperwork on the table, which he gathered in an irritated fashion.
“No matter. Her suffering is over.”
Kathryn could picture vividly the poor woman’s torture and imagined her saying anything, even pleading for death, just to make it stop. If Bouchaule was playing her, he was playing hard and in all the right places. It made her own struggle for normalcy seem futile, as memories of her own interrogations surfaced and momentarily stole her away.
For better or worse, her captors had been more interested in mental torture than physical, and she was spared the fate of many who had succumbed to the Nazi’s sick pleasures. From her dingy concrete cell, she’d heard the macabre choir of the tortured, and she shuddered, as the ghostly echoes filled her head again.
She flinched when Bouchaule touched her arm.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
She dismissed it as a random shiver and quickly returned to the present. This was no place for past demons.
“I’m so sorry.”
His eyes accepted her sympathy, but his demeanor remained unchanged as he turned his back on her. He was angry. That was not what she intended.
“The man in the hall is my sister’s husband, Bertrand,” Bouchaule went on as he continued packing up his papers. “He was brought to me that night. I saved his life, now he protects mine … hardly the actions of a man who believes me the enemy. The bullet stole his speech, not his life, and not his hatred of the Nazis who destroyed his world.” He looked up. “My rage is no less.”
Bouchaule snapped his folio shut and leaned on it.
“You may believe what you like about me, Kathryn, but believe I have no love for the Nazis or their evil schemes. They are a means to an end, a way to continue my work. War is nothing more than greed disguised as ideology. I care for none of it. Had your government not expelled me, I would be using them instead, and I promise you, morally they are no better.”
As his frustration grew, so did his bitterness along with the staccato of his accent. He tossed his folio on a nearby chair where his coat was draped.
“You are like a foolish child, choosing this side or that, as if it really matters. Either would destroy the world if given the chance, and it saddens me you think me capable of facilitating such madness. I would hope after all we have shared—”
“Don’t play the victim with me, Thierry, I’m not buying it.”
It was her turn to flash a little anger. If he thought he would bully her into cooperating, he had another thing coming. They had to be on equal footing for her plan to work. There had to be some measure of respect, attraction—something.
“You’ve made it perfectly clear what I mean to you, and any schoolgirl notions I had to the contrary have certainly been put in their place.” She longed for that cigarette prop again. “Any way the wind blows for you, right? Well, apparently, the wind is blowing in my direction, and this little fool knows it.”
He clearly expected her to cave in, and the curious lilt of his head as he considered her reaction told her he understood the root of her anger, as she intended. On cue, he resurrected his charming self.
“You are wrong, Kathryn,” he said, his voice softer as he moved closer. “I care for you very much.”
She laughed. “Let’s not kid ourselves. You care only for your work.”
“More than that,” he readily admitted. “I live for my work. It is more important than my life, and, yes, more important than your life, and I am sorry if that sounds cruel or coldhearted, but it is a fact. I cannot, will not, lose sight of that.”
Kathryn tilted her head, unimpressed. “And why should this make me believe you’re not working for the Nazis?”
He stared at her for a moment, and she could see him changing course like a sailor hoisting his sails into the prevailing winds.
He sat on the edge of the bed and rested his clasped hands on his knees. “I cannot force you to help me, but I would like to take you somewhere and show you something. Do you trust that I will not harm you?”
Kathryn thought it an odd thing to ask, as if he knew all along their relationship had been nothing more than a mutual ruse. The chess match was on, and both sides had run out of pawns to sacrifice. Now the real moves would begin, with dire consequences for any misstep.
She reached out and touched his shoulder. Time to play nice.
“I trust you.”
“Thank you.”
He stood up with a relieved grin and then eagerly rolled down his sleeves, buttoned the top button of his white shirt, and smoothed his disorderly hair back with the palms of his hands, quickly becoming the well-coiffed man she knew. After a final look around, he gathered up his leather folio, black doctor’s bag, coat and hat, and escorted Kathryn out the door. He whispered something in French to Bertrand in the hall, which elicited a disapproving glance over the shoulder.
Bouchaule responded sternly, “Just do as I ask.”
Obviously, against his better judgment, the silent man led them to a sedan parked around the corner.
Once settled in the backseat, Bouchaule pulled out a dark silk handkerchief and fashioned it into a blindfold.
“Firing squad?” Kathryn asked with a smirk.
“I am sorry. This is not for me but for the men I work for.”
“Well, the men you work for can pay for what that’s going to do to my hair.”
Bouchaule laughed.
“You are beautiful, no matter your hair.”
Their first personal exchange of the day seemed like a triumph. She closed her eyes as he raised the handkerchief to her face but not before surreptitiously glancing at her watch, so she’d at least know how long it took to get to wherever they were going.
Forty-three minutes later, she found herself standing before an ominously dark estate, the only light coming from the row of lamps lining the twisting gravel drive.
Kathryn gazed up at the two-story gray stone building and was reminded of Forrester and his wealth. “Yours?”
Bouchaule smiled as he stuffed the silk handkerchief into his pocket. “Friends in high places again.”
Kathryn smiled too, sensing they’d reached solid footing again.
Bertrand entered the house first and turned on a light. Sheets covered the furniture and the large paintings decorating the walls. The place appeared abandoned.
They lingered in the first spacious room as the bodyguard disappeared, and Kathryn leaned on what could only be a grand piano hidden under a significant shroud of white.
“What is this place?”
“My temporary home, my workplace.”
“Doesn’t seem very lived in.”
“I told you, I live for my work. I have no need for this—” He waved his hand at the neglected opulent surroundings.
Bertrand came back and shook his head.
“Good,” said Bouchaule. “We have the place to ourselves.”
It occurred to Kathryn she should feel threatened. She was in a strange place with a burly man who could snap her like a twig and another whose intentions were cloudy at best, but her need to know overpowered her reason, and she was left with the comfortable illusion of safety.
“Come with me, please,” Bouchaule said.
Bertrand removed his coat and hat and eyed Kathryn suspiciously as she passed.
For the first time, she noticed the scar on his temple, and the possibility that the sister story was true made her nauseous.
Bouchaule led her through the house and out the back door of the spacious kitchen, where a lighted pathway led to a smaller stone building that housed a few rooms and a small laboratory.
He led her into a claustrophobic office teeming with boxes and files. He moved some of the clutter from the green leather loveseat against the wall opposite the antique oak desk and offered her a seat.
“These boxes contain files.” He pointed around the room. “Each file represents a patient. Every patient represented here is dead because ambitious men had no regard for the consequences of their actions. This is merely a sampling of their arrogance. This is what I wish to prevent, with your help.”
He went to a wood filing cabinet in the corner and pulled out a folder from which he removed a black and white photograph of what looked like a fuzzy spherical amoeba. He held it up like he was showing her a mug shot.
“What do you see?”
He was becoming the serious, intense Bouchaule again, and Kathryn needed him a little closer to Prince Charming.
“Is this one of those tests where I tell you it looks like a pet from my youth and you tell me all my troubles stem from my overbearing mother?”
His grim expression fell away, and he smiled as he sat beside her. “I think we have seen the same psychologist.”
They laughed easily, and he seemed more like the man she had come to know. Their eyes remained locked, smiling in spite of the circumstances and the posturing. Confident that things were moving in the right direction, Kathryn was the first to break contact.
“What am I looking at?”
“That is a healthy cell.” He showed her another photo, this time an oblong fuzzy blob. “This is a cell infected by the virus. This man died within hours of exposure.” He handed her another photo. “This is yours.”
Kathryn stared at it in confusion. It looked the same as the first. “It’s healthy.”
“So it appears.”
“But?”
Bouchaule gave her a quick lesson in normal cell biology and reproduction before explaining her abnormality.
“Your cells did not allow the virus to infect them.”
“I have a natural immunity?”
“That was what they thought and hoped when you did not become ill. If you carry the antibodies, your blood could provide a vaccine, but you do not, which is why they have no interest in you.”
“So, why do you have an interest in me?”
He paused for a moment, and she thought he was going to say something personal, but he turned away and reached for a large manila envelope on the edge of the desk.
“You carry something far more extraordinary.”
“Which is?”
He opened the envelope, which Kathryn noted had University of Pennsylvania stamped on the back, and showed her a series of photos. He pointed out subtle nuances in the cells as the series progressed, and using terms that went far beyond her brief education in biology and chemistry, he enthusiastically pronounced her somewhat of a miracle woman.
Bouchaule took pity on her slightly befuddled look and smiled. “Simply put, your cells absorbed the virus, but they did not succumb to it. You see, viruses take over the cells they infect. They change the healthy cell into a host for their own reproduction. The cell bursts, distributing more virus cells, and so it goes. Your cells consumed the foreign invader and transformed it … used its own techniques against it, as it were. They reproduced like an infected cell, only they reproduced your own healthy cells and then some.”
“And then some what?”
He moved closer and took her hand, his face beaming. “Your cells, my darling … your beautiful, healthy, reproduced cells … essentially treated the damaged cells in your body as foreign invaders and replaced them.”
Kathryn waited, as if he was joking and at any moment would say something that actually made sense and was medically feasible. His silence told her he wasn’t joking, and seeing his face, she knew he certainly believed what he said to be true. It didn’t sound possible, but she couldn’t deny her recovery, and found her heart begin to pick up its pace on the off chance he wasn’t insane or wildly off the mark in the blind pursuit of his obsession. She slowly put her hand to her throat, imagining her “beautiful, healthy, reproduced cells” working their magic.
“The miraculous return of my voice.”
“Precisely. You should not be able to sing, but …”
He waited for the magnitude of what he had revealed to sink in. Kathryn found it hard to let go of conventional wisdom.
“But I’ve been sick or injured before and—”
“It is not inherent to your physiology. It was done to you.”
“The accident?”
Bouchaule frowned grimly as he put his photographs back into the envelope on his lap. “I think we both know what happened to you was no accident.” He looked up again and continued, as if it was now understood they were both on the same side. “What happened to you was done before the incident, or you would not have survived the virus exposure.”
Kathryn’s theory about being used as bait for his return was beginning to feel like a fact. “How can you be so sure I was infected at all?”
He merely smiled. “Oh, you were infected. Trust me.”
She would have to.
He took her hand. “Think, darling. Have you had any vaccinations, given blood, had a transfusion, anything of that nature recently?”
Now she was intrigued and felt a little like a character in a science fiction novel thrust into a strange reality. Her rational brain still told her it couldn’t be true.
“No, nothing.”
While Bouchaule rubbed his chin at the mystery of her inoculation, Kathryn pondered her “miracle woman” status. Did she believe in the spontaneous rejuvenation of her damaged cells? She was no genius, but she’d had enough biology to know things didn’t work that way. Surely, he was mistaken.
“You’re a doctor … a man of science. You know it’s not possible.”
He smiled. “I have learned to remove that phrase from my vocabulary. You should as well, because you are living proof.”
“If I’m so special, why would the government just let me go?”
Bouchaule leaned back, his frustration back at the mention of the group.
“Because they are myopic fools who cannot see beyond their desire for destruction. They are looking for antibodies in your blood, which they will not find. It is the proteins, you see?”
“No, I don’t see.”
He waved away the explanation as if the how and why were irrelevant to her pending cooperation.
This was nothing like the weapon she thought she was chasing. This was so much more, and if it was true, more important in the global scheme of things.
As the medical implications turned her confused expression into awe, Bouchaule’s grin grew wider, and he was almost giddy.
“Now you see, my darling?”
She did indeed see, and for the moment, she was drawn into the humbling ramifications. Not only could it be used in place of the dreaded vaccine, but it could also be used to cure countless maladies that had plagued mankind since the dawn of time.
“My God.”
Bouchaule squeezed her hand enthusiastically. “I knew you would understand!”
He released her hand quickly and babbled on about his precious proteins and cell behavior and abnormalities as if she were one of his lab buddies and she had the slightest inkling of what he was talking about.
She could easily see how this driven man had made his work his life. There was no cool control to his passion, only excitable chatter, and she had to admit, this bookwormish man-child had taken her by surprise, as if the real Thierry Bouchaule had just made his first appearance.
“Will you help me, Kathryn? Help me make history?”
How could she say no?
“What do you need me to do?”
Bouchaule led Kathryn to the front section of the lab, which was a separate room with a metal-framed hospital bed set up in the corner. A tray of equipment waited on a nightstand beside it, and he donned gloves and took 500 ccs of her blood. He then pressed a small gauze square to the needle entry point in her upper inner forearm and gently lifted her arm by the wrist and held it high.
“Elevate this for a moment.”
Kathryn smiled at his serious bedside manner.
He returned the smile, evidently aware of his intensity, and kissed her palm.
“Thank you for this, Kathryn.”
“I’m just lying here.”
“You put your trust in me. That means more than you know.” He kissed her palm again and laid her arm on the bed. “Lie still, just for a little while. I must attend to this.” He picked up the bottle of her precious blood and crimped off the rubber tube protruding from the stopper with a twist of a metal band. “You may recline here if you wish, or when you feel able, wait in the office.”
Kathryn nodded, and Bouchaule gave her a reassuring pat on the hand before disappearing through the main door of the lab.
She couldn’t believe he just offered her free roam of the office that overflowed with files, including the folio he was carrying that night. He didn’t need to offer it twice. As soon as he was out of the room, she sat up but immediately regretted it, as the room faded. She felt nauseated.
“Damn,” she whispered, putting her hand to her forehead and slowly letting herself back down on the bed. Maybe he knew she’d never recover in time to dig up anything useful.
She didn’t intend on waiting. She didn’t know how long he’d be gone or what “attending” to blood involved—he could be gone an hour or a few minutes—but in either case, she might not get another opportunity to study those files.
She gave herself a few more minutes out of necessity and then slowly sat up, praying her body would cooperate. Satisfied that she could at least make it to the office couch, she slipped out of the outer lab and into the office next door.
The room had one window with wide wooden blinds that overlooked the main lab. The blinds were open, but Bouchaule was too engrossed in his work in the isolated quarantine room to notice her watching him as he slowly turned the handle on his centrifuge and watched the attached vials spin like he was God, hovering over a carnival ride.
With a watchful eye on the window and her ears focused on the hallway, in case Bertrand approached, Kathryn planned out her route of discovery, starting with Bouchaule’s leather folio.
Kathryn peered through the blinds and watched Bouchaule throw his lab coveralls to the ground. He was very agitated. Apparently, all did not go as expected, and she wondered what that meant for her future. The door to the office suddenly opened and Bertrand entered. From the look on his face, he was not happy to see her in there alone.
“Hello,” Kathryn said pleasantly, turning to face him.
The imposing man glared at her, the same glare Forrester’s lawyer, Floyd Robeson, used to employ.
She leaned back on the windowsill and in French said, “Take it easy. I’m not your enemy.”
Bertrand appeared momentarily surprised she knew the language and raised his chin like an animal investigating the scent of a new creature, but in the end, he was obviously not impressed, as his eyes narrowed with disdain and his lips twisted into a sneer.
Kathryn smirked and shook her head as she pushed off the sill and casually sat on the edge of the desk. Despite her cool demeanor, her heart was racing. She was glad he hadn’t shown up five minutes earlier, while she was snapping pictures of documents with her small Minox camera, which she carried inside her purse.
There was no conversation to be had, and she couldn’t really blame the man for his attitude after what he’d been through. In fact, she felt compelled by a sense of esprit de corps to acknowledge his tragedy.
She clasped her hands around one knee and continued speaking his language. “Thierry told me what happened. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The Frenchman looked away, clearly uncomfortable with Kathryn’s sincere condolences. He quickly resumed his glare, giving fair warning he was not swayed by her feminine guile like his brother-in-law.
Bouchaule returned from the lab, distracted again and still displeased. He brushed by everyone present without a word and tossed a folder onto his desk before collapsing into his chair and rubbing his eyes.
“I take it we’re not making history today?” Kathryn chided.
“Thank you again for your cooperation, Kathryn. Bertrand will take you home now. I will not trouble you again.”
Kathryn pushed off the desk and turned in disbelief. “That’s it?”
Bouchaule’s face was indifferent. “Is there something more?”
Yes, Kathryn thought. What about the flirting, the obvious attraction, the inevitable sex, the uncovering of secrets, the saving the world from itself?
It all suddenly seemed moot, which was wholly unexpected. All she could hope for now was that someone could make sense of the documents she’d photographed.
“I guess not,” she said, as she picked up her purse from the desk and headed toward the door.
Bertrand blocked her way and snatched the purse from her hand.
“Hey—”
“Bertrand!” Bouchaule yelled.
The man ignored him and dumped the contents on the desk, fishing around inside when he didn’t find anything suspicious among the lipstick, face powder, flowered handkerchief, thin wallet, and change purse.
Kathryn crossed her arms and eyed the purse. “It doesn’t go with your shoes, but you’re welcome to it. Would you like to frisk me?” She held out her arms and then turned to Bouchaule. “Would you?”
“Pick that up,” Bouchaule said in French to his bodyguard.
Bertrand made one more pass inside the empty purse before glaring at Kathryn and begrudgingly replacing her belongings. He handed it over and burned I know you’re up to something into her face with his unflinching glare.
“Merci,” she said politely, thankful for false bottoms.
“Kathryn, would you wait at the house, please?” Bouchaule said. “You will be taken care of shortly.”
Kathryn sat at the piano in the grand entry room of the house and played Beethoven’s appropriately moody “Moonlight Sonata” while she waited for Bertrand to carry out his orders, whatever they might be.
You will be taken care of shortly, Bouchaule had said. She wondered if he was upset and misspoke or if it was intended to be as ominous as it sounded. She feared the worst. After all, there was no reason to keep her around, now that she was apparently no longer the miracle woman.
As she walked away from the office, she could hear Bouchaule reprimanding poor Bertrand, who was just doing his job. Once she got outside, she thought about running. She had fifty shots in her camera, and she had used them all. She had to get the film to headquarters.
The files stacked in the office belonged to patients. Every one she checked was deceased, just as Bouchaule had said. She photographed a few of the files, but the contents of Bouchaule’s leather portfolio made up the bulk of the photos.
Littered with page after page of biochemistry equations, some in perfect order, others scribbled in the margins like afterthoughts or eureka moments, the folio appeared to be the treasure trove she had hoped it would be. There were also photographs, like she had been shown, and coded documents that looked like they were coded with Daniel Ryan’s book code. She was tempted to steal a page but feared Bouchaule would miss it and then her cover would be blown.
Her gamble to give him what he wanted in hopes of gaining his favor, had backfired. Not only was her mission a failure, but her life was now in serious jeopardy as well.
She heard footsteps on the polished marble floor and chose not to turn to see her fate. She steeled herself and kept on playing.
Bouchaule slid in beside her on the bench.
She raised her brow, surprised he’d stick around for the execution. He seemed to have a hard time starting the conversation, so she thought she’d get on with it.
“Where’s Bertrand?” Loading his gun?
“He has retired for the evening.”
Kathryn glanced at him sideways but continued playing.
“Don’t be angry with him. He was just doing his job.”
Bouchaule started playing softly with his left hand, adding another layer to the bass parts.
“He was rude. It was uncalled for.” He kept playing. “I was rude as well. It was wrong of me to dismiss you so. I apologize. Please forgive me. I was—” He searched for an explanation, but, in the end, offered none.
“You were disappointed, and I forgive you,” Kathryn replied nonchalantly.
“Yes. Terribly disappointed. I thought we had something this time.”
Kathryn stopped playing. “This time? You’ve seen this before?”
Bouchaule continued playing and reached across to fill in Kathryn’s abandoned treble part.
“Once,” he said, his voice carrying over the warm acoustics of the piano. “The result is the same. The body naturally replenishes its cells, but because the anomaly is not inherent, it loses its potency until it is thoroughly flushed out.”
She knew for sure now that she wasn’t needed any longer and that Bouchaule had reached a dead end.
“I’m sorry, Thierry.”
He smiled and shrugged. “A mere setback. The reservoir is out there somewhere, and I will find it. It is only a matter of time.”
Kathryn tried to remain calm as Bouchaule spoke the magic word. She began playing again to mask her interest.
“Reservoir?”
“A host. Someone to whom the anomaly is inherent. They would be like a life spring to my work.” He stopped playing and turned, the bookwormish man-child revived. “The effect of their gift, however short-lived, would be invaluable to unlocking our greatest physiological mysteries. Do you see?” He faced forward and let out a dispirited sigh. “There is so much we do not know. So much we cannot see, but it is all right there.” He grasped at the air with his fist.
While Bouchaule looked to his scientific castle in the sky, Kathryn looked to her fate. She stopped playing and the room fell into an eerie silence.
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?”
Bouchaule seemed offended by the question, but then slowly shifted and bowed his head. He was silent for a moment, and when he finally spoke, it was with the funereal candor of the bearer of bad news.
“I cannot. I think you understand.”
She closed her eyes and smiled humorlessly. “Of course.”
He took the hand closest to him.
Kathryn stiffened, as her survival instincts awakened, and she mentally took inventory of the objects around her that she could use as a weapon in her attempt to escape. She had learned about the reservoir, so she couldn’t regret her earlier decision not to run, but it was all for naught if she didn’t survive the night.
She cursed her instincts for being wrong and lulling her into a false sense of security. She didn’t take Bouchaule for the murdering kind—not for her murder anyway.
Her first stab at survival would be to reason with him, beg for her life. He had a soft spot for her. She knew he did. He had to. She turned to face him, as vulnerable and desperate as she could manage and still keep her edge, and tried to convince him to spare her life.
“Thierry, please. I promise I won’t—”
Her lips were captured in a passionate kiss, and she realized he didn’t have murder in mind at all. He pulled away, his eyes hungry and searching, and Kathryn’s startled expression was not altogether an act. She finally smiled, signaling her approval and relief, and Bouchaule relaxed, as if he had expected rejection. He tenderly stroked her face, his eyes now filled with adoration and respect.
“I cannot be without you. I have tried.”
Validation had never felt so good, and Kathryn bathed in its satisfaction and let Bouchaule caress her face with his repentant eyes.
“I am so sorry for the pain they caused you.”
“Thierry …” She certainly didn’t need to be reminded.
He kissed her gently. “I know the pain of your injuries, the burning agony of the antidote injections. I know it all, and it hurts my heart to know it was because of me.”
Kathryn tried to block out the memory. She hadn’t told anyone of the pain, not even Jenny, simply stating that she didn’t remember anything about the first few days, hoping that one day it would be true.
“I want to send you far away from me, from this,” Bouchaule went on, “but I cannot, for I can think of nothing else when you are absent from me.”
“Then don’t send me away.”
“It is not safe for you.”
“I don’t care.”
He closed his eyes, as if struggling against his better judgment.
Kathryn saw her opportunity. Certain things trumped better judgment every time. Whether he had found a reason to keep her for his work or he genuinely cared for her was irrelevant. She was in, and she would make sure that wouldn’t change. She kissed him long and hard and then pulled back, her half-lidded eyes filled with promises of great things to come.
Predictably, he relented.
“It will not be easy.”
“I don’t care.”
He put his arms around her, his new possession, and smiled contentedly. “You are so brave, my darling.” He kissed her gently again and smiled. “Now, tell me of these schoolgirl notions.”