Free Accidentally Yours by Susan Mallery Page B

body temperature dropped fifty degrees. She expected to see chilly clouds when she exhaled.
    Pain was everywhere, starting at her heart and radiating out to her fingers and down her legs. The death of hope was excruciating.
    Then she turned her head and stared down the stubby hallway to the closed door of her son’s room. Cody was finishing his homework in anticipation of a Mariners game on TV that night. She saw his happy smile, his trusting gaze. She remembered her promise to his late father.
    “I’ll talk to him,” she told Linda. “I’ll go see him and convince him. He’s going to get that lab up to speed again and they’re going to find a cure.”
    She would buy a gun and threaten Abram Wallace’s life if she had to, she thought grimly. Because they were too close to a cure to stop now.
     
    A BRAM WALKED through the quiet office as he headed for his lab. Normally he enjoyed the silence, but not today. Nothing had felt right since Linda had left that morning. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that she would be back later to scold him about how he wasn’t eating or make him walk out in the sun. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.
    She’d never been anything but supportive, anything but caring. She’d kept him going through the darkest hours of his life after the explosion. After he’d found out people had died because of him.
    Solace, he thought grimly. All he wanted was solace. A chance to forget, even for a minute. But he never forgot. He couldn’t.
    A soft chime caught his attention. He glanced at the security monitor and saw a woman had entered the lab. She wasn’t alone. There was a boy with her. A boy on crutches.
    Abram wanted to bolt for freedom, but something kept him in place. He watched the different cameras as she made her way down the long corridor, following the wide path to the only room with lights on. Then she pushed open the double swinging doors.
    “Dr. Wallace?”
    She didn’t look like any of the people who had died in the explosion, yet there was something about her. It was as if all their ghosts had taken up residence in her and returned to look him in the eye.
    He thought about how some of his colleagues would be surprised that he believed in ghosts. He was a man of science, after all. But he’d learned that there were many things in the world he would never understand and for which explanations would never be found.
    “I’m Dr. Wallace,” he said slowly, willing to accept the punishment in any form.
    “I’m Kerri Sullivan. This is my son, Cody.”
    Cody looked at his mother, who nodded, then the boy moved forward and held out his right hand.
    Abram didn’t want to touch him. He didn’t want to feel his skin or look at him. Because Abram knew what was going to happen to him in excruciating detail.
    Then the scientist in him took over. He shook Cody’s hand, then walked around him, noting the way he stood, the weight he put on his feet and how he used his crutches.
    “He’s old,” Abram said.
    “Nine.”
    “So the disease has progressed slowly.”
    “So far.”
    He turned to Cody. “How do you feel?”
    Cody rolled his eyes. “Mo-om, do I have to do this?”
    Kerri shook her head. “You want to wait back in the reception area?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    The boy went out into the corridor. Kerri turned to Abram.
    “He’s having a lot of good days, lately. Not so much pain. He’s not on anything strong. Yet.”
    But he would be, Abram thought. Soon. Very soon. Then he would be in a wheelchair, then a hospital bed and then he would die.
    Kerri grabbed his arm. “You could save him.”
    Abram took a step back. “No. I can’t.”
    “You can and you will. You have a gift. Goddecided to make you brilliant and with that comes responsibility.”
    Linda had said much the same thing, he mused, again telling himself she wouldn’t stay away permanently. She would forgive him and return. She had to.
    Kerri shook his arm. “Listen to me,” she