BooksBarbecue
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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-one
  26. Chapter Twenty-two
  27. Chapter Twenty-three
  28. Chapter Twenty-four
  29. Chapter Twenty-five
  30. Chapter Twenty-six
  31. Chapter Twenty-seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-one
  36. Chapter Thirty-two
  37. Chapter Thirty-three
  38. Chapter Thirty-four
  39. Chapter Thirty-five
  40. Chapter Thirty-six
  41. Chapter Thirty-seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-eight
  43. Chapter Thirty-nine
  44. Chapter Forty
  45. Chapter Forty-one
  46. Chapter Forty-two
  47. Chapter Forty-three
  48. Chapter Forty-four
  49. Chapter Forty-five
  50. Chapter Forty-six
  51. Chapter Forty-seven
  52. Chapter Forty-eight
  53. Chapter Forty-nine
  54. Chapter Fifty
  55. Chapter Fifty-one
  56. Chapter Fifty-two
  57. Chapter Fifty-three
  58. Chapter Fifty-four
  59. Chapter Fifty-five
  60. Chapter Fifty-six
  61. Chapter Fifty-seven
  62. Chapter Fifty-eight
  63. Chapter Fifty-nine
  64. Chapter Sixty
  65. Chapter Sixty-one
  66. Chapter Sixty-two
  67. Chapter Sixty-three
  68. Chapter Sixty-four
  69. Chapter Sixty-five
  70. Chapter Sixty-six
  71. Chapter Sixty-seven
  72. Chapter Sixty-eight
  73. Chapter Sixty-nine
  74. Chapter Seventy
  75. Chapter Seventy-one
  76. Chapter Seventy-two
  77. Chapter Seventy-three
  78. Chapter Seventy-four
  79. Chapter Seventy-five
  80. Chapter Seventy-six
  81. Chapter Seventy-seven
  82. Chapter Seventy-eight
  83. Chapter Seventy-nine
  84. Chapter Eighty
  85. Readers Guide
  86. About the Author

My knees buckle, and I stumble to my left, hurtling into the cage of Experiment Number 412, a male chimpanzee that must outweigh me by seventy-five pounds. Lin’s repeated warnings sound in my head like a klaxon.

“Never, Jean, and I mean never, get close to them. We have techs and handlers for that. Don’t feed them, don’t try to pet them, don’t even get within spitting distance of the cages. Stay in the middle. These guys have a reach of three feet, and, believe me, they’re not cute,” Lin said on our first tour of the lab, a few months after her grant funding came through and allowed us to purchase two chimps.

“They look cute,” I said. “Check that one out.” Mason, a four-foot-tall diaper-clad male, was sucking on a Popsicle in a nearby cage.

“Wait until he bares his canines, honey,” Lin said. “These guys are time bombs with no set timer. A pro wrestler couldn’t hold one still if he tried. You ever hear of Charla Nash?”

I shook my head. “Do I want to?”

“No. Tell you what, you think about that Hannibal Lecter dude. Think about what he did to that nice nurse when they forgot to put the weird hockey mask on him. Compared to a chimp, Lecter’s harmless as a kitten under anesthesia. And you’ll never know what hit you.”

What hits me now is a swat to the face and the bitter taste of iron on my lips. Part of my scalp—the part Number 412 is pulling with the force of a monster truck in a redneck tractor-pull contest—has been either set on fire or pierced with the ugly end of a pickax. My knees sing high C when bone meets tile as two opposing forces act on me: gravity drawing me down, the chimp trying to heave me up by my hair.

Lorenzo’s voice, faint and far away, calls out. “Do something, for fuck’s sake. Do something!”

Is he talking to me? I reach up to the fire on my head, and a hand that’s not a hand but a claw grabs it with a vise grip. Charla Nash, Charla Nash, Charla Nash, I think, the name screaming inside me along with pictures of her missing eyes, her hands that looked as if they’d been fed into a meat grinder, the gash in her face where a mouth should be.

A single shot buzzes in the air over my head, and I float down.

Chapter Sixty-five

SIXTY-FIVE

I’m not unconscious. If I were, I wouldn’t feel fingers working their way through my tangled hair, putting out the fire of pain. I wouldn’t be adding zoos and safaris and childhood fantasies of Jane Goodall to my list of things never to think about again. I wouldn’t hear Morgan yelling like a petulant child who has just had his pacifier plucked from his mouth.