Free Listed: Volume VI by Noelle Adams

federal trials.
    Emily
had daydreams like everyone else, but she’d long since given up hoping they
would come true. It was fine. She had a perfectly decent life, good friends,
and a great father. She didn’t need anything more.
    There
were Lauras in the world, and there were Emilys.
    And
the Emilys would never get the prince.
    ***
    A month later, Emily
sat stiffly in a hospital room and watched her aunt die.
    When
she first starting getting the fevers, she’d been restless, sometimes violent
in her delirium. She wasn’t anymore. She just lay in the bed, so pale she
matched the sheets, and she never even opened her eyes.
    Maybe
it was the medication, or maybe her body was simply shutting down.
    Emily
made a point of never lying to herself.
    She
was her aunt. She was all the family she had in the world.
    And
she was going to die before the week was over.
    She’d
been sitting by her aunt’s bed for the last several hours in a numb stupor, but
a motion from the doorway managed to catch her attention.
    When
she turned her head, she saw Paul standing just outside the door, in all of his
cool, expensive sexiness.
    She
hadn’t been expecting visitors, and she just blinked in his direction, trying
to get her mind to work.
    He
made a slight inclination with his head toward the hallway.
    After
verifying that her aunt’s condition hadn’t changed, she heaved herself to her
feet and walked on unsteady legs. Under normal circumstances, she would have
resisted his summoning her with just a gesture of his head, but she didn’t have
enough energy to argue today.
    “Is
she okay?” Paul asked after she’d joined him in the hall and they walked to an
empty waiting area nearby.
    She
gave a silent half-shrug.
    Her
aunt wasn’t okay.
    “I
didn’t realize it had gotten so bad. I wish someone had told me.” Paul’s eyes
were sober, strangely quiet, in a way she’d rarely seen them.
    “She
just kept getting worse. It happened fast.”
    “I
would have come back from Switzerland right away if I’d known.” He’d been
skiing with friends for the last couple of weeks.
    She
gave another shrug. “What could you have done?”
    “What
do the doctors say?”
    “They
still have no idea. They’re assuming it’s a virus, since it didn’t respond to
any of the antibiotics they’ve tried. They had the CDC in and everything, but
no one has seen anything like it.”
    “Has
anyone else gotten sick?”
    Emily
shook her head. “It doesn’t seem to be contagious that way. They say it doesn’t
pass from person-to-person contact. They have no idea what’s going on.”
    “And
the fevers are the only symptom?”
    “That’s
it. No symptoms except the fevers. But they just get higher and higher and last
longer and longer, and they’re going to kill her soon.” She thought she’d cried
as much as she could, but her voice still broke on the last word.
    Paul
glanced away, his expression strangely tight. “I’m sorry.”
    She
believed him. He’d played around most of his life, but he wasn’t a bad-hearted
guy. “Yeah.”
    “Have
they…” Paul trailed off and started again. “Have the doctors considered the
possibility that this isn’t random?”
    “What
do you mean?”
    “I
mean you and your father are witnesses against Vincent Marino.”
    It
was so strange to hear Paul talk about his own father so distantly, as if he
were a stranger.
    “I
know that, but I’m the key witness, and I’m not sick. Besides, they tested for
poisons and toxins and everything. They think it’s a virus.”
    “I
didn’t mean he’d been poisoned. My father traffics in arms, among other things,
and he doesn’t just sell guns and missiles. For a while, he’s been interested
in the development of biological weapons.”
    She
gasped. “You think he did this to my aunt on purpose?”
    “I
don’t know. It might not have been on purpose. Maybe your aunt was exposed to
something accidentally on the job. I just want to make sure the doctors look
into