Withdrawing the knife, Corday typed in the file name. There was a year’s worth of gathered data on Claire: physician notes, photographs of her paintings, a log of her treatment. At the end of it all was a series of disturbing images. The face of the dark-hair corpse had been crushed on impact. It was just gone. Something had darkened her skin to grey, left it blotchy in the places where bone stuck out.”

“It took us three days to find where she’d landed in the Lower Reaches. We don’t even know how she got out of the North Wing. The only video we have is of her walking down the hallway, alone.”

“Why does her skin look like that?”

“The heat of her body melted the sludge just enough that it encapsulated the corpse. Sewage leeched into her, there was some kind of chemical reaction.”

Corday cut her a hateful look. “I know you, Dane.”

A frown defined the wrinkles on her cheek. “I know you do.”

It’s what she wasn’t saying, what she’d never say... because unlike him, Premier Dane knew how to keep her mouth shut.

Since the breech, it had been a hard two years for everyone under the Dome, perhaps even hardest for Dane. Now that she was Premier, she had the responsibility of every person above ground and below. Day in and day out she toiled with her cabinet, organizing repair crews, trying to figure out how to keep livestock and crops alive without sun. Her people were starving, several had gone mad.

It didn’t matter that she was warm in the Premier’s Dome. The weight of the world was grinding her down. Corday knew it, he didn’t judge her for it, but he did hold her accountable for everything concerning Claire.

Dane offered him one small hint. “If I could have unhooked Claire from the ventilator, I would have done it. But, so long as the virus is still unaccounted for, it was not a safe risk to take for the people of Thólos.”

Eyes narrowed, Corday stood totally confused. “What?”

“I did everything in my power to keep the Omega safe, well fed, and happy.” She wasn’t defensive, she wasn’t explaining herself to Corday, Dane was merely stating facts.

As if the reason was suddenly obvious, Corday’s eyes grew wide. Horrified, the man felt the yet unseen nightmare sink in.

There was only one reason a pragmatic woman like Dane would have done such a thing.

The reports were a lie. Shepherd had never died.

That’s why Claire had heard him; that’s why they sedated her... and every purr she had imagined had been real, sent from his side of the link to comfort his distressed mate as she recovered.

“Did she kill herself?”