Free The Immortalists by Kyle Mills

I’m crazy. I just need you to give me a chance to explain.”
    “I’m listening, Richard. I always have been, you know.”
    He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Yeah, I know.”
    He fell silent, and she decided not to press.
    “I told you that Troy thought Annette’s death was related to the data on that drive and that I didn’t believe him. That I thought it was just the grief talking.”
    “But now you’re not so sure.”
    “Troy’s dead, I’m on the verge of going to prison, my lab’s trashed, someone tried to kill Susie, and the cops seem very interested in making that syringe disappear. It’s getting hard to ignore the fact that there are a lot of bad things happening to people who come into contact with that data.”
    He went silent again, and Carly watched the side of his face for a few moments, unsure what to think. “Can I ask some questions?”
    His eyes darted toward her and then back to the windshield. “I’m not having a meltdown, Carly. You don’t have to talk to me like I’m about to throw myself off a bridge.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “About the meltdown or the bridge?” He forced a smile, and she relaxed a bit.
    “What does Susie have to do with any of this?”
    “What if that guy’d succeeded? When we found her in the morning, we’d just think her heart finally gave out.”
    “But what does that have to do with the research?”
    “If there’s anything there that can help kids like Susie, there’s no lawsuit or criminal charge that’s going to keep me from pursuing it. But what if she was gone? With the legal problems, my people run off, the memories…” His voice faded for a moment. “I’d probably just walk away. I don’t think I’d have the strength to keep going.”
    Carly nodded slowly, wondering exactly what he meant by “walk away.” It was something she thought about a lot. What would he walk away from? Where would he go? But those were questions for another time.
    “What if someone is getting close to a breakthrough along a similar line?” he continued. “Or maybe they’re even far enough along to be coming up with usable therapies based on ideas similar to the ones Annette was working on? They might have spent hundreds of millions on research and development. That’s a hell of a lot of money, and I doubt they’d be too happy if someone like me or Annette cut their legs out from under them.”
    “Richard, Sands is going to think you’re running. You’re going to be a fugitive.”
    “Sands? It’s not Sands.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I bounced him off a wall earlier—”
    “Jesus, Richard…”
    “You know what he did? Nothing. Just sat there looking confused. That’s not normal, Carly. If cops know anything, it’s what to do when they’re attacked. He’s taking his orders from somewhere else. I surprised him, and he didn’t know what to do.”
    “Are you—”
    “And what about the missing syringe? I told him I could test the area where it fell to figure out what was in it and get DNA from the man who I stabbed with it.”
    “Maybe that’s why he took the dirt. Maybe he’s taking it to the lab?”
    “So he just had some cop dig it up with a shovel they found in our shed? Come on, Carly. They have crime scene people who do that kind of work. You know that as well as I do.”
    She nodded and settled back into her seat, watching the glare of the lights speeding by. What else could she do?

12
     

Hagerstown, Maryland
April 18
     
    “Are you sure I have an Uncle Burt?”
    Susie slid around in the tiny backseat of the truck, testing the unfamiliar sensation of not being strapped into a car seat. She’d bolted awake an hour ago, scared and confused, but had swallowed the story that the events of the night before were nothing more than one of the vivid nightmares she occasionally suffered. And now even that memory had been lost in the excitement of an unannounced road trip into uncharted territory. Despite what the disease