“Yes.” It was hardly audible.

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am that the treatment for her bone cancer worked.”

I looked at the back of Trent’s drawer where the incriminating discs lay. My gaze lifted to Faris, taking in his lab coat with a new understanding. Cold struck through me, and I stared at Trent. He wasn’t just running biodrugs, he was making them. I wasn’t sure if it horrified me more that Trent was actively flirting with the same technology that wiped out half the world’s population, or that he was blackmailing people with it, threatening their loved ones. He was so pleasant, so charming, so damned likable with his confident personality. How could something so foul lay next to something so attractive?

Trent smiled. “She’s been in remission for five years now. Good physicians willing to explore illegal techniques are hard to find. And expensive.”

Faris swallowed. “Yes—sir.”

Trent eyed him with a questioning arch to his eyebrows. “Good afternoon—Faris.”

“Slime,” I hissed, ignored. “You are a slime, Trent! Scrapings from under my boot.”

Faris moved shakily to the door. I tensed when I smelled a sudden defiance. Trent had backed him into a corner. The large man had nothing to lose.

Trent must have sensed it, too. “You’re going to run now, aren’t you,” he said as Faris opened the door. The sound of office chatter filtered in. “You know I can’t let you.”

Faris turned with a hopeless look. Astonished, I watched Trent unscrew his pen and stick a small tuft in the empty barrel. With a short puff of air, he shot it at Faris.

The large man’s eyes widened. He took a step toward Trent, then put his hand to his throat. A soft rasp came from him. His face began to swell. I watched, too shocked to be afraid, as Faris dropped to his knees. The heavy man grasped at a shirt pocket. His fingers fumbled, and a syringe fell to the floor. Faris reached for it, collapsing, stretching for the syringe.

Trent rose. His face blank, he nudged the syringe out of Faris’s grasp with a foot.

“What did you do to him?” I squeaked, watching as Trent put his pen back together. Faris was turning purple. A ragged gasp came from him, then nothing.

Trent slipped his pen in a pocket and stepped over Faris to reach the open door. “Sara Jane!” he called out. “Call the paramedics. Something’s wrong with Mr. Faris.”

“He’s dying!” I squeaked. “That’s what’s wrong with him! You freaking killed him!”

The sound of worried chatter rose as everyone came out of his or her office. I recognized Jonathan’s fast footsteps. He lurched to a stop in the threshold, grimacing at Faris’s bulk on the floor, then frowning at Trent in disapproval.

Trent was crouched beside Faris, feeling for a pulse. He shrugged at Jonathan and injected the syringe’s contents into Faris’s thigh through his slacks. I could tell it was too late. Faris wasn’t making noises anymore. Faris was dead. Trent knew it.