There was no reason to feel guilty.

Marguerite checked the directions that she had printed off at the library again, nerves bouncing around in her stomach. She never promised Everett that she was going to drop her investigation. Never even hinted at it. She understood why he couldn’t be part of it, but that didn’t mean that she had to sacrifice her chance at answers. Or risk Elena’s future.

What if he finds out, though? She grimaced. They weren’t a couple, although his reasons why they couldn’t be were flawed – calling himself a monster? No. Although she understood why he would think that, even why he’d think she thought that of him. After all, she did say she wanted to ‘fix’ Elena. But it had been a poor choice of words, nothing more. He wasn’t a monster.

Nevertheless, the chances of a future between them? Minimal, especially when she didn’t know what Simon Bell did to him and how that would affect Elena and whatever children might come from this day forward.

The information that Kristen had given her had allowed Marguerite to find a promising lead. Dr. Simon S. Bell had been a lead researcher at a medical institute not far from here. Everett hadn’t told her where he had been when he escaped from the lab, but when they had met, they were on the other side of the continent. Ironic that he’d end up in the town over from Bell’s old stomping grounds.

Marguerite had called him to make sure that he and Elena were still doing well before heading over. She was going to be home later than she anticipated. It would be good for father and daughter to bond, though. And she had nothing to feel guilty about.

At least, that was what she kept telling herself as guilt cramped her stomach.

Blowing out a soft breath, Marguerite headed inside to talk with the man she had spoken on the phone to earlier. Dr. Jeffery Moose wasn’t as large as the image the booming voice on the phone had conjured up, but he was still a fairly large man. His handshake nearly broke her fingers.

“Dr. Ward,” he greeted. “I was surprised to get your call. I haven’t heard anybody mention Bell in, oh, nearly a decade now.”

That was a long time. “Well, I was doing some research for a patient of mine and I came across an article he published on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It was an old one, but there were a few things he wrote that I thought might be relevant for the psychological profile of patients who are affected by ALS.”

She had spent half an hour perfecting her story. Patient confidentiality would prevent too much pushing and she had found an article that Bell had published. Her hands went cold, though, at the thought that this doctor might know even more about ALS and push for more information. Moose scratched his head and shrugged.

“It was never my area, so I can’t help you there.”

Marguerite repressed a sigh of relief. “Could you direct me to Dr. Bell’s current location? I haven’t been able to find anything past his employment here.”

Moose hummed in his throat, rocking on his heels and not meeting her eye. Avoidance tactics. “You have to understand, at the end there, Bell was . . . well, to put it bluntly, he was going crazy. His little girl died from ALS, and he became so obsessive that it was a matter of concern for the rest of us. Eventually, he was fired for unethical practices.”

“What sort of practices?”

“He was experimenting on people without going through the proper channels. Some of the experiments were on kids.” Moose’s expression darkened. “If you’ve got a former patient of his, then you’ve got someone who was screwed up.”

Marguerite shook her head, her heart jumping to her throat. “I never said I had a former patient.”

Moose’s brow furrowed. “Ah. I guess I just assumed . . . I’ve got a copy of some of his notes if you want them, anyway.”

“Yes.” Marguerite took the USB drive that he handed her, her heart pounding and hands trembling. “And, uh, thanks. Oh, if there’s anybody else involved in ALS research that you could direct me to—"

“Already taken care of it for you. I heard that Bell got hired by the military after he left, but I couldn’t tell you more than that. Oh, here are those ALS experts.” Moose handed her a piece of paper with names and numbers written on it. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing.”

“Thanks. This is more than I hoped for.” Her heart pounded as she tucked the USB into her pocket. Her nerves were on end, making her want to run back to the car and plug in the drive immediately.

Moose’s smile widened. “Well, when a pretty girl asks me for help, I deliver. I looked you up after your call . . . I have to say that the picture doesn’t do you justice.”

Was he hitting on her? She managed to flash a smile and thank him again before taking her leave. As she walked to the car, it felt like there were springs attached to the bottom of her feet. Each step took longer than it should have since she had to force herself not to run. Moose had already back inside by the time she had turned on her engine. She pulled away without another glance.

***

The USB contained more information than she dreamed of ever finding. Marguerite had forced herself to hold off from looking into it until a night where she claimed to be tired and retired to the guest room to sit on the floor with her computer while Elena slept. Her heart pounded as she sifted through the notes and finally came to the patients that Simon Bell treated – or experimented on, rather.

It was almost one by the time she found Everett’s file. The name above his picture was Everett Jacobson. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more – that he had remembered and kept his first name or how frail he looked in his picture. Thin, wasting away. Not at all like the strong, healthy, robust person she knew.

The real question was what was missing. There were dozens of people listed to be in Bell’s study, but Everett and Kristen hadn’t escaped from this lab. So they must have stayed with Bell after he was fired and then transferred to a new location to continue the experiments. Had they willingly gone with him? It was conceivable . . . If they were afraid that they were going to die, then they might have agreed to anything as long as Bell promised to make them well again.

Elena rolled over and yawned.

Marguerite shut the laptop and smiled at her. “Hey, sweetie. You ready to wake up?”

Her daughter frowned at her. “Mommy, is Evett my daddy?”

“Wha—” Marguerite cut herself off.

With everything that had happened, she hadn’t told Elena that Everett was her father. Although it was partly because she forgot about it when there was a moment calm enough to tell her, there was also a part of her that didn’t know how to say it. And another part that feared what the consequences might be.

She wanted them to bond, but they had a life and she had a practicum way on the other side of the country. This was a quick trip, or not-so-quick trip, but packing up, moving, and restarting her life wasn’t that easy. And it would only cause Elena more pain to have a father that she never saw, wouldn’t it?

“Yes, honey,” she finally said. “He is your dad.”

“Evett said he was. He said that sometimes mommies and daddies aren’t married. Why didn’t you marry him?” Elena sat up and rubbed her eyes.

Oh, boy. That was a pretty heavy question. “It wasn’t right for us. But I love you. With all my heart and a thousand paper cranes.”

Elena smiled and hopped out of her bed. “Okay. I’m going to see if Evett’s awake yet.”

She bounded out of the room and Marguerite let out a sigh of relief. This relationship was tricky enough to navigate. She really shouldn’t have slept with him. Although she couldn’t muster up any true regret. A smile spread across her face as she remembered how attentive he was. Her eyes drifted closed and she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe they could have another go . . . or two . . . or more . . . once this was over.

Her laptop whirled, bringing her back to the present, and she set it aside with a frown. Everett had been diagnosed with ALS shortly before he came to Bell’s research. There was a note that he had had no family or friends and was suitable for the ‘phase two’ testing.

But there had been dozens of names. Moose said that there were deaths . . . but could only two out of dozens have survived? Or did Bell have other experiments out there who, like Kristen and Everett, were alone and afraid? And, perhaps more importantly, could she find them? Could she help them?

“Mommy,” Elena called from the other room. “Evett is awake. Can we go to the park? Or maybe we can drive out to the forest and go catch frogs!”

***

The next few days were marked by Marguerite slogging through the notes that Bell had written up.

Even though each patient had their own profile, the actual notes only referred to them as numbers. She thought that patient 37 was Everett since the details matched him best, but it was impossible to say for certain. Voice clips of notes that hadn’t been transcribed lulled her to sleep at night, and in the day, she dropped Elena off at daycare and then went to the library to pore over the notes so that she didn’t accidentally keep her laptop open when Everett came home.

Actual leads were buried in so much information that Marguerite felt like she was back in school, overworking herself as she muddled through it all. Ten days after she had arrived at Everett’s apartment, however, she finally hit pay dirt. Simon Bell’s ex-wife’s phone number.

“Simon?” Eliza repeated in surprise when Marguerite phoned her. “Simon and I separated shortly after our little girl passed away. It was just too painful. And he . . . his determination to find a cure kept coming between us. I needed to grieve, and I felt like he didn’t care about our loss. He just kept talking about how her sacrifice was going to save lives. But it wasn’t a sacrifice. She was taken . . . ”’

“Do you have any idea where he might be? I think he might have valuable insights—”

Eliza sighed over the phone. “I didn’t talk to him for years. And I didn’t want to. But he did reach out to me recently. It was so odd – just out of the blue I got a call from him. I didn’t want to talk to him. I guess I haven’t forgiven him.”

Marguerite closed her eyes, hands trembling as she pressed the phone tighter to her ear. It was all she could do not to snap at this woman that she didn’t need their life story. Maybe she ought to have told her that she was a psychologist. That had a tendency to clam people up. On the other hand, if she was already oversharing, there was a possibility that Eliza would want to treat this like a free therapy session.

“Do you have a number for him? An address?”

There was silence on the other end more a moment. “I have his address.”

Marguerite lunged for a receipt on her windowsill and snatched a pencil out of her purse. “Go ahead.”