“You’re not going to ruin this part of their home, too, are you?” Irene asked. “Where will the children sleep?”
“Dr. Conridge—” Shen began, but Irene waved his concern away and closed the bedroom door.
“It’s all right, Shen. Miss MacKilligan and I are old friends.”
The fangs receded while MacKilligan’s shock grew, large blue eyes blinking wide. “We are not friends.”
“Is it because I often forget who you are?”
“No, you don’t. And it’s Doctor MacKilligan. Or Ms.”
“Oooh,” Irene couldn’t help but mock. “A tiny feminist, are we? My generation breaks all the boundaries and your group comes in and pretends to be above it all?”
MacKilligan started toward her but Shen was there to catch her, pulling her back.
“Perhaps we can all meet later,” he suggested. “For a tasty lunch? Or coffee!”
“Yes, that’s what we want,” Irene teased. “For your little friend to shift into King Kong in the middle of a Starbucks on Fifth Avenue.”
“King Kong?” MacKilligan screeched, coming for Irene again. But the bear caught her around the waist, held her back with big, strong arms.
“How dare you—”
“I’m just joking,” Irene said, not letting the girl finish. “Can’t your generation of trailblazers take a joke?”
Irene moved across the room and sat in a large club chair, crossing her legs and staring at the seething MacKilligan and uncertain Li. “Now, we must figure out what we’re going to do about you, little miss.”
“Do about me?” MacKilligan snapped. “You mean put me down like a stray dog?”
“Trust me. If any government gets its hands on you, they’ll treat you much worse than any stray dog. In fact, you’ll be lucky if all they do is put you down.”
* * *
Stevie stopped struggling in Shen’s arms and stared at the woman she’d hated since she was fourteen. She’d been working on her dissertation for her first PhD. It had been suggested by one of her benefactors that she take her work to Irene Conridge in Washington State for a “frank overview.” As someone who had read all of Irene Conridge’s books before she was six, she was thrilled by the very idea.
Until she’d actually met Conridge. Without even looking at her, Conridge had tossed Stevie’s manuscript onto her desk and sneered, “Is that really the best you can do?”
Shocked, Stevie had taken her paper and gone home. She’d worked for a few more months before going back to Conridge.
And had gotten nearly the same response, “Really? Is this the best you can do?”
Another few months of work. Her sisters began to worry. Her stress level went up. But she wasn’t about to be defeated. Her idol wanted a perfect dissertation, so she’d get one.
The third time she’d sent her dissertation ahead and followed a week later. With her long legs up on her desk and her black and gray curly hair in a very messy bun, Conridge had asked, “Honestly, child, is this really the best that you can do?”
That’s when Stevie’s rage had welled up. She could feel her fangs itching to break free. Her claws nearly clearing past her nails. She knew there was only one way to hold back the tiger-striped badger yearning to break free and tear a chunk out of Conridge’s very human throat . . .
“As a matter of fact,” Stevie had snarled, “it is the best I can do, you old cunt!” Then Stevie had swiped her dissertation off the desk, making sure to knock down the pictures of Conridge’s smug husband and their smug-looking children, and stormed out.
The fact that the third iteration of her dissertation ended up winning nearly every award known to science for that year short of the Nobel—and she’d only lost that to an entire group from Norway who’d invented a functioning mechanical heart that worked in pigs—meant nothing. All those awards and citations and newspaper articles spouting about how she was the future of science were boxed up somewhere in her grandfather’s house in Wisconsin. She couldn’t even bear to look at them. Because all she’d wanted was Conridge’s approval, and she’d never gotten it. Something she’d hated the old bitch for ever since.
At the time, Charlie had been terrified that Stevie would walk away from science, and Stevie had definitely entertained the thought. But, to quote Max, “She’s too stubborn to give up shit.”
And Max had been right. Although Stevie felt the disappointment every day, she’d refused to give up something else she loved after she’d already walked away from music.
Stevie pushed Shen’s arms off her waist and walked around the bed until she could sit on it while facing Conridge.
“So what do you want?”
“To help you.”
Stevie couldn’t stop a harsh snort. “You? Help me? Why?”
Conridge leaned forward and said, sounding deeply earnest, “Because I love you.”
Shocked, Stevie blinked and jerked back a bit. “What?”
Conridge laughed. “Just kidding. I barely love my children and I actually ejected them from my own body. If that’s how I feel about them, why the hell would I love you?”
Shen let out another long sigh. “I don’t see how this is helping anyone.”
“Just be quiet,” Conridge told him. “You are a very sweet freak of nature, but you don’t have nearly enough active brain cells to interject yourself into our conversation.”
Shen nodded his head. “I see why you’re Kyle’s favorite.”
Conridge locked her gaze with Stevie’s. “The boy has always had good taste and good sense. He brought you to me for a reason, Doctor Stasiuk-MacKilligan. Because I’m the one person who can and will help you without feeling the need to lock you up or put you down. Of course”—Conridge suddenly smiled and Stevie had the urgent need to make a run for it—“that situation could change at any minute.”
* * *
“I don’t hear anything,” Kyle whispered to Max and Charlie. They were still downstairs, the kid refusing to go up after his aunt or to let them go up after their sister.
“That’s because we’re downstairs and they’re upstairs.”
Kyle, with an exasperated expression, glanced at Max over his shoulder. “That’s so we can keep living. I swear, I think all you honey badgers have a death wish.”
Max smirked. “Not our own deaths.”
The kid’s back tensed. “Stop trying to terrorize, Max!”
How could she, though? When she was just so damn good at it.
* * *
Dr. Conridge had walked out of the room but returned a moment later with a pair of jeans.
“These should fit you,” she said, handing them over. “They belong to Kyle’s sister. The dancer. You seem thin enough.”
While Stevie slipped them on, Dr. Conridge jotted down some information on a pad from the bedside table and handed it to Shen.
“Take her here. They’ll be waiting for you.”
“Manhattan Behavioral Center,” Shen read out loud.
Zipping the jeans, Stevie informed Dr. Conridge, “I can choose my own mental hospitals, thank you very much.”
“I know you can. You and your strange obsession with checking yourself in every few months is something that fascinates the science community. But the Behavioral Center isn’t a mental hospital. You’ll find people there who can actually help you.”
Stevie folded her arms over her chest, her gaze narrowing on Dr. Conridge.
“Why are you doing this?” she finally demanded. “We both know you’re not a good person. You’re not helpful. What do you want from me?”
“Do you remember Dr. Matt Wells?”
“I dated the asshole for six months. Of course I remember him.”
“Bad breakup?”
“Bad enough. Max put him through a wall and Charlie ran him down with her pickup truck.” She glanced at Shen, probably saw the look on his face. “He’s lion.”
“And?”
“That means he was asking for it.”
Dr. Conridge leaned against the chest of drawers. “Would you be averse to getting in touch with him again?”
“Setting aside the fact that he’s a lousy lay, an arrogant prick, and is one of those insecure men who feel women shouldn’t be scientists because we’re ‘distracting,’” she said with finger quotes, “why the hell would I want to willingly get near him again?”
Dr. Conridge looked off, took in a breath. After a few seconds, she said to Stevie, “I think he’s experimenting on hybrids.”
Stevie’s expression didn’t change, but she suddenly shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “What makes you think that?”
“Because we keep finding the bodies.”
Stevie’s arms fell to her sides.
“All hybrids?” Shen asked.
“All hybrids. The Group, my husband’s organization, is on it but Wells is very careful, very protected, and very smart.”
“But I heard he was doing good work,” Stevie said.
“In biogenetics.” Dr. Conridge brushed stray hairs off her forehead. “I could be wrong about him. But we can’t get close enough to find out.”
“But you think I can.”
“Men are men. No offense,” she added, glancing at Shen.
“I’m a panda.”
“Sometimes,” Dr. Conridge continued, “they can’t help but brag to old girlfriends. To prove that they didn’t need them to be successful.” She shrugged. “It’s at least worth a try.”
“What exactly do you expect him to tell me? ‘And on the weekends, I’m Dr. Mengele’?”
“I think he has a second lab. Not in the city. We need to know where that lab is.”
“All right,” Stevie replied, no hesitation. “I’ll see what I can do.”