up to prove it, and I made her a promise to keep her alive to see it happen.”
“Holy shit,” Hank muttered.
“Well, I’d say you guys have some scrambling to do. Get some warrants ASAP, before Cyrus Parks and his people start disappearing or destroying their own evidence.”
“They can destroy all they want,” Hank said. “I don’t know how she did it, but the files she sent are hard proof. There are even videos of lab experiments and people doing them. How the hell she got hold of all this stuff is beyond me, but we have it, and if you’re right, so does every other motherfucker in the nation. It’s going to show up on every news outlet, at which time there will be religious groups after UT for trying to play God. There will be people after them for human trafficking. And another branch after them for medical malpractice and experimentation on human embryos—the freaking list goes on and on. Even the companies attached to them are going to be in deep shit.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Charlie said. “Now, all of you, get off your butts and start picking them up for questioning, or whatever you call the tap dance you do with criminals these days.”
“You sound a little bitter toward the justice system, too,” Hank said.
“Maybe if there was real justice in this world, I wouldn’t be,” Charlie countered. “I gotta go.”
“Okay...and give her my best. Tell her thanks, and to get well soon. It’s not going to take long before the world comes after her, too, just to see what she looks like, so if you need federal protection at any time, let me know. I’d consider it an honor to be one of her bodyguards.”
The intensity in Hank’s voice was proof of how moved he’d been by Wyrick’s story, and it occurred to Charlie that he might need to know what she’d turned loose, too.
He went downstairs, dreading the conversation, and found her in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and eating peanut butter out of a jar, her arm out of the sling.
“Hey, you’re not—”
“Did you know that the heat register in the kitchen leads right down into the one here in the ceiling above my head, and that I heard every word of your conversation with Hank Raines?”
“Good. Then I don’t have to repeat it. So, did your psychic-self hear his side of the conversation, too, or just me?”
“Just you.”
“Then you need to know that he sends his wishes for you to heal quickly, and then if you have to travel anywhere to testify, or need protection at any time, that he would consider it an honor to be one of your bodyguards.”
Wyrick’s eyes widened. She licked the peanut butter off the spoon and then put it in the sink, and screwed the lid back on the jar. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes.
The world shifted under Charlie’s feet when he saw them. Dammit.
“Don’t you dare cry,” he muttered.
She glared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fair enough. I don’t know what everyone else is talking about, either, so do you think it would be okay if I read the stuff you turned loose on the world?”
She shrugged. “You signed up for my war. I agree you need to know what you’re fighting for. Did you bring your laptop?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll send you the same links that everyone else received. You can read to your heart’s content.”
She started to hobble down the hall, and then he came up behind her, picked her up and carried her to the office.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she said.
“I won’t have to, once I get your ass upstairs and in that motorized wheelchair I saw.”
“It was Merlin’s,” she said.
“I guessed. Was that his room?”
She nodded. “And now it’s mine.”
Surprise showed in his voice. “You’re going to pick that one?”
“The only people trying to hurt me are alive. I’m not afraid of the dead. Besides, I’ve already had a talk with the house.”
He blinked. “You talked to the house?”
“Yes. Now go away so I can send you the files. I can’t think when you’re standing here.”
Charlie turned to leave and then stopped.
“Since when does my presence disturb you from doing anything? You always shut everyone out when you’re working.”
“I don’t know. Since I fell out of the sky? Now, do you want to read the stuff or not?”
He walked out, thinking about what she’d said, and then the files began coming. He started reading and