Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) - By Unknown Page 0,54
at him. “They think I killed Patten. They’re looking for me.”
“The press is just making assumptions. We know you didn’t do it.”
“We, yes, but how about the police? How can I go back now?”
Manus sat down next to her. “Listen, Leila, you can’t think about that now. It’s not important. What’s important is to keep you safe. Here, happy birthday.” He placed the small box of chocolates on the table in front of her. “Your favorites: dark chocolate truffles.”
Did his fellow Stealth Guardian really think he could distract her with truffles?
Her hand reached for the box, but she only stared at it without opening it. “Thanks.”
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Aiden started and took a tentative step closer to the table. After their earlier confrontation he thought it wise not to approach too closely. For all he knew, she could still scratch his eyes out. And he wouldn’t even blame her if she did.
When she looked back at him, he suddenly noticed the tiredness in her eyes, as if resignation had set in. “What else is there to talk about? My life is practically over. Everything I’ve worked for . . . ”
“I’m sorry,” Aiden replied, looking for a way to smoothly turn the conversation to what he needed to ask her. “But there are important things we need to figure out. And we need your help.”
Manus patted her on her forearm, making Aiden want to hiss like a beast. “As much as I hate to agree with him, he’s right. There are a few things that don’t make sense.”
“Like that there are demons in this world?” she mocked.
Aiden shifted from one foot to the other. “No. Unfortunately that makes perfect sense. But we don’t understand why they want to kill you when they want what you have.”
Leila raised her eyes and tossed him a inquisitive look.
“The Fire Department believes that the fire that broke out in your apartment was arson.”
“How? You were there. Wouldn’t you have seen if somebody had started a fire?”
Aiden pushed the rising memory back, not wanting to be reminded right now how she’d looked lying in her bed. “It was an incendiary device, a little bomb, most likely with a timer on it.”
“Oh my God! The demons did that?”
Aiden scratched the back of his neck. “Actually, I’m not sure.”
“Why not? You told me the demons are after me. And now you’re saying they’re not?”
Manus lifted his hand. “That’s not what Aiden means. What’s strange is why the demons would kill you when they don’t have the formula for your drug or a sample of your drug in their hands yet. Don’t you see? Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg? You’re valuable to them. They wouldn’t kill you until they’ve gotten what they wanted.”
“But then why did they kill Patten?”
“I’m not sure they were the ones who killed him,” Aiden answered, drawing her gaze onto him. “Tell me something. We know that they didn’t get your drug’s formula because you’d already wiped the backup disk, and the data on the laptop was fried. But is there a chance that the demons could lay their hands on a sample of the actually serum?”
Leila instantly shook her head. “Impossible. The clinical trials are conducted in Inter Pharma’s outpatient satellite clinic.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, normally clinical trials take place in clinics of hospitals and medical centers, but we wanted to maintain confidentiality and prevent any chance of our data leaking out. So we required the test subjects to come to our own clinic, where their doctors would administer the drug under our supervision. It was the only way to make sure that nobody else had any samples of the drug. We only gave them one dosage at a time and supervised its administration. Nobody could have taken a sample.”
Her voice had taken on a calm and efficient tone, and he realized that she had slipped back into the skin she felt most comfortable in, the brilliant researcher.
“And you’re sure there’s no other copy of the data anywhere?” He searched her eyes.
Leila blinked, her fingers playing with her diamond studded pendant. “I’m sure.”
Manus let out a long breath. “Then it doesn’t make sense that the demons would have tried to kill you. They still need you, because the only way for them to get at it now is for them to force you to reproduce it from memory.”
His colleague was right. Which then invited another question. “What do you know about Jonathan?” Aiden asked.