Matisse had enough sense to grab his jacket before he went out and straight to the carriage house. Once inside, he flicked the old light switch and collapsed into the front seat of the wheel-less, engine-less MG he stored there. He pulled at his hair and stretched his arms, but nothing alleviated the sense that he’d fucked up. It wasn’t Nora’s fault. It was his. 

With a shove, he extricated himself from the car and walked to the back of the building where his motorcycle sat under a tarp. He lifted it out of the way and squatted next to the wheels to pull dried leaves from under the exhaust guard. He’d driven it back from the Ethan Allen Memorial, expecting at every corner to be pulled over by a city cop. But he’d made it the five miles without incident.

Like the guilty man he was, he’d hidden the bike in the back corner of the carriage house, covering it in case someone came by and peeked in the windows.

They wouldn’t, though. It was part of the deal with all the racers. If someone got caught, they took responsibility for themselves. They didn’t bring down the rest of the group with them. Matisse knew each and every racer, and he knew they’d never rat him out.

But that wasn’t the source of his unease.

It was his conversation with Cai earlier. It still banged around his head—the arguments, the questions. He could hear them all as clearly as when Cai had spoken them.

After Nora’d left him in bed this morning, he’d fallen back to sleep for a few hours. He’d gotten his bike, brought it home, and walked to the hospital, never expecting the conversation that awaited him.

Cai was awake when he got there. His skin returned to its normal golden color, the rash he’d gotten from his strep infection only a few bumps visible at the base of his throat.

“Took you long enough.” Sick Cai was grumpy Cai. Used to being active and working at least six days a week, plus volunteering, this forced inactivity was driving him bonkers.

“I had stuff to do,” Matisse said.

“Must be nice.”

“Are you going to bite my head off the whole time I’m here?” he shot back. “Or do you have something to talk about?”

Cai sighed, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Sorry. Yeah. I do.”

Next to the bed was a stool that spun in circles. Hooking a leg around the bottom, he dragged it to him and twirled back and forth. “What’s it about?”

“Tyler.”

Matisse stopped, grabbed the rail and pulled himself to the bed. “I’m sorry about him.”

“I need your help,” Cai went on, his voice commanding with a tone dangerous for whomever was on the receiving end. Even Matisse, who generally didn’t give a shit what people thought of him, was tempted to do whatever the voice asked of him.

“Ryan’s generally better at the people problems than me,” he said.

“Ryan can’t help me with this.”

Shit. Matisse met Cai’s eyes. “Okay.”

“I’m lying here, and I’ve got nothing but time to think,” Cai began. “And I’m thinking about Tyler, and I’m thinking about Nora and all of us. And then I’m thinking about Tyler and Nora—”

“There was nothing going on between Nora and Beau,” Matisse cut in. “Tyler was completely off-base.”

“I know that.” Cai huffed. “I wasn’t accusing her of anything.”

“Good,” he said. “Because it’d be bullshit.”

“Jesus Christ, Matisse. Can you listen for two seconds?”

“Excuse me, Your Majesty.” 

Cai sighed and rubbed his temples. “I think I’m getting better, and then a few minutes with you and suddenly my head is pounding again and I’m about to set off the blood pressure monitor.” 

“Stop being so dramatic,” Matisse teased. “Tell me what you need.” 

“Tyler and Nora are both part of Dr. Murray’s study.” 

“Donc...” Waving his hand for Cai to go on, he tried to figure out what connection his friend had made between Tyler, Nora, and Dr. Murray, besides the obvious.

“So... the girl who threw herself off the roof, Tilly Mason, she was in Dr. Murray’s study.”

“Again—so?”

“And Nora’s brother, who shot five people to death, he was in Dr. Murray’s study.”

“Yes, yes and yes. All true.”

“Matisse. All of them lost it.” He caught Matisse’s surprise and held his gaze. “Think about it. Tyler was fine, gregarious and funny. In the few weeks since we met Nora and his arrest, he withdrew. And then, a kid with no criminal record, no history of mental health issues, suddenly assaults a girl and is arrested. Do you know where he is right now, Tisse?”

He shook his head.

“Baird Five—the psych ward. In this hospital.”

That sucked. “But Cai, Tyler had a rough life. He was homeless for a while, and his family is shit. Who knows how long this has been building?”

Cai shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Yeah, this is all true. But Tyler was stable. What if...” he trailed off, as if gathering his courage to go on. “What if Dr. Murray and whatever he’s doing is what made Tyler go off the deep end? What if he’s the connection between these people who have lost it?”

“How, Cai?” he asked. “You think Dr. Murray told Tyler to assault Nora? That he told Reid to open fire in a high school?”

“No. Not directly. But think about this, Tisse. Think about how Nora is when she comes back from those interviews and testing. She’s withdrawn, quiet. It can be minutes or it can be hours before she’s back to her normal self. And what the hell was up with that crazy initiation they did, driving through the streets, making her think they were going to run over a bunch of college kids? Do you know how hard it is to make Seok lose his cool? He laid into those guys. That’s what I’m talking about.”

What Cai described was insidious, and Matisse couldn’t help the shiver of unease he felt. “That’s messed up.”

“It is.”

“But it’s all conjecture. You have no proof.”

“I don’t.” Cai narrowed his eyes. “But you could get me proof.”

Matisse’s stomach dropped. “You want me to hack into Dr. Murray’s studies.”

“I know what I’m asking. I know the position I’m putting you in, and I know how you resented Seok when he put you in a similar position, but I can’t think of any other way to know for sure.”

He wasn’t able to sit another minute. Kicking the stool out of his way, Matisse paced around the room before he stopped next to the window. He stared out at the sunny sky and the glimmering lake so at odds with the darkness Cai hinted at. “What exactly do you want?”

Behind him Cai let out a huge breath. “Let me explain. Remember when Nora first met the doctors?” He leaned back against the pillow, as if his arguments exhausted him.

“How could I forget?” he muttered. While Nora’s fear continued to upset him, Seok’s freak out ending in a cold-cock to the doctor’s face was his favorite bedtime story.

“It’s been bothering me for more than the obvious reasons.”

“More than reinjuring a woman who’d just been shot?”

“Yes,” his friend answered. “The doctor who held onto her hand. The way they watched for reactions. The way they said it was necessary. I kept thinking about college. When I was a psych major, there was a long list of potential hazards associated with any studies I took part in. And I did. They were required for most of us. None of that paperwork looked anything like the contract Nora brought home.”

Ryan had gone over her contract, and all of them had read through the potential hazards and side effects it could cause. It certainly had a few: trauma, stress, anxiety. What did Cai think was missing?

“I thought it was pretty in-depth.”

“Yeah?” Cai asked. A cough had choked him before he could continue and Matisse went to the bedside table and poured him a glass of water. Cai sipped it quickly and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Thanks.”

“So what was wrong with the contract?” Matisse asked when it looked like his friend could breathe again.

“Do you remember anything about physical trauma? Do you think a car ride like that was typical? Tyler said they did the same to him and nothing was listed in the potentially hazardous side-effects section? For God’s sake, it listed sleeplessness! Sleeplessness, but not whiplash? The whole thing—I fucking hate it.”

“Fucking hate,” Matisse repeated.

“Don’t be a smartass, Tisse. I’m serious.”

“Sorry. No. You’re right. It’s all shady. So what am I doing? Getting into Murray’s records? Seems easy enough.”

“Murray’s, and Nora’s brother’s, and the girl, and Tyler,” Cai said.

“Fine,” he answered.

“And Nora’s.”

No. Not Nora’s. “We agreed, Cai. She tells us what she wants us to know. We ask, she tells. If she’s ready.”

“This isn’t about what Nora wants to tell us, Matisse. I want to know what she doesn’t know. Why do they want Nora? What is their plan? Why are they doing the things they are? What kind of study, funded by a university in Vermont, gets this sort of funding? Think about what they were offering her.”

“They made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”

“A deal with the devil.” Cai had stared at his blanket before peering at Matisse. “I know what we agreed. I know what I’m asking you to do.”

“I’ll do it,” he’d said. “But we share it with Nora. I’m not leaving this for her to find on your laptop. She’s not going to feel betrayed by me. Especially if it turns out to be nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” With his hands fisting, face tense, Cai disagreed. “It’s definitely something.”

“So do we tell her before or after?” Matisse asked, dread unfurling in his stomach. No matter how they approached the situation, Nora would be upset and it would be on him. He would be the one giving her the bad news.

“I don’t know,” Cai replied, gold eyes hooded. “I’ve gone back and forth. Do we tell her we are doing this for her own good?”

“I hate it when people say shit like that to me,” Matisse answered quickly.

“I know. I do, too,” he whispered. “I can’t figure it out on my own. We need everyone.”

“So we meet, make a decision and inform Nora of our decision. That’s going to go over well.”

“Well, fuck, Tisse. I don’t know.”

“Two fucks, Cai.”

Mouth opening to yell, Cai suddenly snapped it shut and closed his eyes to take a deep breath. “I can’t figure it out on my own,” he repeated. “I need your help. I need all of your help.”

“Let Nora help, too,” Matisse offered. Watching Cai’s face shutter, he quickly spit out, “Or don’t. What the hell do I know?” He kicked the stool out of the way and left, ignoring Cai and the coughing fit he broke into. Stabbing his finger onto the elevator button, he then found himself sandwiched in the conveyance, shoulder-to-shoulder with humanity.

It took every strategy Matisse knew to keep his shit together enough to get outside. Once there, he walked around campus, eventually ending up outside Converse Hall. He stared up at the top floor and tried to figure out which window Tilly Mason had thrown herself from. Even though he hadn’t seen her fall, he’d seen the result of the girl’s decision. He and Ryan had hit the fifth floor in time to see Dr. Murray being dragged away from the window by two burly guys. Perhaps that’s why he was sympathetic to the man.

Sympathetic wasn’t the right word. Emotion words, he always sucked labeling an emotion and making sense of it. But he’d seen how upset the doctor was. Dr. Murray tried to stop Tilly. He had tried to catch her before she let herself drop from great heights and tumbled to earth.

And the man had been beside himself. Could he really be evil? Because what Cai was suggesting was evil. It was setting people up to fail or go crazy. 

It was like that old Alfred Hitchcock movie—Gaslight?—where people merely telling her she was crazy drove a perfectly sane woman insane?

Was Dr. Murray trying to unbalance Nora? Did he want to push her over the edge with tests and interviews? 

In a second, Matisse’s decision was made. He would hack into Murray’s study, get every piece of information he could find, and only then would he tell Nora what he did. If it turned out to be nothing, then he’d bury it in the deepest hole he could find. 

But if Cai was right, and it was something, then he’d make sure the man was exposed for the devil he was.