CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Dr. Sweeton pushed through the people entering the church, his head swiveling as he sought out Franco Girone. He didn’t see him in the crowd, but the people present all looked happy to be here, the space filled with the sounds of chatter and laughter. He noticed a woman he’d met at the clinic many months before who he’d asked to come in for testing. She had, and he’d thought she was a good candidate for the project. Trinity. Her name was Trinity, and her father had been a preacher who’d molested her for most of her young life. His mind reeled, and for the portion of a second, he wondered if it was difficult for her that this event was being held in a church. She caught his eye, surprise flashing in her expression before he looked away.

God, his mind was everywhere, panic taking over. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. His heart was still beating far too fast, the shock and grief of seeing the photo of Nancy along with what he’d discovered about Franco causing his body to flood with stress hormones.

“Sir, can I take your coat?”

“What? Oh. Yes, thank you.” He shrugged off his jacket. The young woman standing in front of a rack of coats took it from him, and he turned away. A DJ was setting up off to the side, and a small stage had been erected at the head of the dozen or so tables, all set for dinner. There were placards in the middle obviously designating which groups were sitting where. One read T HE G ILBERT H OUSE ; another one said O CEANCREST S OBER L IVING . Each place setting had a colorful ribbon tied around the silverware and a plastic-wrapped mint placed just beneath. And in front of each plate was a printed quote. The doctor was too distracted to focus on the one nearest him, but assumed it was something inspirational. “Keep Going!” or “You got this!” It made him want to laugh, and cry. Ridiculous platitudes to people with severe mental illnesses, like the ones suffering lifelong trauma and addiction. And this was what he was going to leave these people with when he went to prison. Another drop of sweat slid down the doctor’s cheek, and he worked to calm his breathing.

What was done was done. He had to accept that now and try to stop it from going any further, if he possibly could.

And then he looked up and saw him. Franco Girone, standing on the balcony where a choir had likely once sung odes to a savior. Franco was surveying the space, a small satisfied smile on his lips, as though he were looking out over his kingdom and pleased with the results.

Dr. Sweeton wove through the people in front of him, knocking into someone but not stopping to apologize. He raced to the back of the church and up the narrow set of steps to the higher level. “Franco,” he said from the doorway, his chest rising and falling with his quickened breaths, more sweat dripping from his brow.

Franco swiveled toward him, an expression of surprise making him look suddenly younger, the boy Dr. Sweeton had once known, the one who’d discovered his mother’s battered corpse.

“The good doctor arrives,” Franco said. “Well, this is a plot twist. I certainly didn’t expect you to be here.”

Dr. Sweeton felt something deflate inside, what he’d feared most confirmed, even if he didn’t yet know the details. “It is you,” he said.

“What tipped you off?”

His shoulders dropped. Ambrose had come up with Franco Girone as a suspect, and Dr. Sweeton didn’t yet know how. All the doctor had were his memories of the boy and the photo that he’d found in his drawer—the photo that made him suspect the horrible possibility that it was the person he’d loved the most in the world who had betrayed him. “Nancy. I have a photo of you and Nancy from a Rays of Hope event,” he said.

The two of them had been standing together, heads bent toward one another as they spoke. It’d been obvious they knew each other. That event had taken place right before she died. He could tell because he recognized the pink-and-white-striped sweater she was wearing in the photo. It was the same one she’d worn to the treatment he’d administered that ended her life.

He clenched his eyes shut. He felt like he was in a nightmare and couldn’t wake up. He forced himself to look at Franco.

The man smiled. “Ah, Nancy. Strung-out Nancy. She really was a mess, wasn’t she?” He smiled again. “Franco,” he said, raising his voice an octave as if impersonating her, “You’re going to school to be a chemist, right? I’ll sell you a drug formula, and you can make it and get rich.” Franco laughed. “All those drugs of yours, seemingly right within her reach. She tried and failed to get a hold of your product, but she did manage to lift the recipe and then tried to sell it for some cash. When I didn’t bite, she tossed it at me anyway, off to concoct another scheme to buy herself a hit. Crackheads gonna crackhead, you know?”

Oh God, Nancy. This was too much. In the end, it was his daughter, the one who’d been his inspiration for the project, who’d sold him out. “Why did you do it?” He had to know. His work. His life’s work had been corrupted, and what Franco had used it for would be Dr. Sweeton’s legacy too. And Nancy’s, especially since she’d been the one who facilitated this by giving Franco the drug formula. That knowledge was a blade straight to his heart. He was still standing, but he was already dead.

“This? You mean tweaking your brilliant drug concoction to better meet my needs? Because the results have given me joy. Why else?”

But how? How had he managed to get to so many people needing—

The air released from his lungs in a gust. Franco had offered them false hope and healing. And it was all a cruel lie. “You said you could help them,” he guessed. “You promised you’d put an end to their torment and then lured them to their personal hell.”

Franco smiled, lips tilting, eyes dead. “They tell stories about your magical treatment in the TL,” Franco said. “They’ve all talked about it or heard someone who knows someone who knows someone. It’s a fairy tale. A half-baked theory. They speculate on those who’ve gone through your tests and been deemed a poor candidate and turned away. Turned away from what? A miracle that they weren’t quite qualified to receive. No one listens, of course. And more often than not, in the midst of their constant inebriation, all that talk is forgotten or dismissed. Addicts are good for one thing, anyway. Keeping secrets.”

Sweeton’s heart was pounding in his ears, his vision growing foggy. “You told them you worked for me?”

“No. I told them I was a competitor who offered the same services. Only I didn’t turn anyone down. I didn’t require scans and questionnaires. I told them where to show up, and they marched straight to their death.”

The doctor clenched his eyes shut, reeling with despair. It was horrendous, what Franco had done to people so desperate they’d believe most anything. The exact opposite of what he’d spent his career working to do. Suddenly his whole life seemed foggy, motivations questionable, when he’d always been so sure . “Why did you bother using the ‘BB’ imprint?” he managed to ask. Bluebird. He’d imprinted his own pills that way as a reminder that every treatment session was in honor of his Nancy.

“Because I wanted you to see me,” he said. “I wanted you to know what you’d done. And I wanted you to watch me flush your work straight down the sewer, where all your patients dwell.”

“Why now, though, if you’ve had the formula for so many years?” Nancy had been dead for two decades now.

Franco eyed him. “It’s not the easiest of tasks, saving the money to set up a lab worthy of the scope of my project. You should know that, Doc. And then there’s the gathering of the ingredients. Psilocybin from Ecuador? Really? That wasn’t specified. It took me many iterations to get that right. Do you even know how many species of mushrooms I had to gather and test? But if you’re asking what really sent me down this path? I saw one of them eight years ago. One of the parasites who killed my mother. She obviously hadn’t served her full sentence. She was passed out in a doorway. I gave her an injection and watched her die. And it wasn’t satisfying. I could’ve done more. Why didn’t I? And then later, I remembered what Nancy had given me. All those years, I’d kept it. I’d stuffed it in a book to use as a bookmark, and it was still there, sitting on my shelf. My mind went everywhere. I started thinking bigger. Much bigger.”

Behind Franco, Sweeton saw Ambrose and Lennon come in the front door, clearly breathless, heads pivoting in all directions. Franco began to turn, and the doctor said quickly, “I understand the desire for revenge. I do.” Franco halted and faced him again. “I don’t know if you know what happened to Nancy ... why she ... became what she did. But she was savagely victimized. I brought her to the clinic where I did volunteer work when she was only a little girl. She went down the street to get a slice of pizza, and members of a street gang pulled her into an alley. She spent four days tied to a dirty mattress on the floor of a garage, being raped.” He pulled in a breath. Nancy. Even after all these years, and even with the knowledge of her betrayal, the thought of that garage where her soul had been stolen still caused an internal scream of anguish. He was supposed to protect her, and he’d failed. “But what you did, Franco, it didn’t vindicate your mother. It will never bring her back.” He didn’t dare set his gaze behind Franco again, lest Franco follow it and see help on the way. But the doctor saw Ambrose and Lennon moving forward through the tables.

They know. They’re looking for Franco.

Franco tilted his head. There was no compassion at all in his expression, merely derision. “Do you think I have any illusions that this will bring my mother back? I don’t. It will, however, make it far less likely that another innocent victim will suffer what my mother did. In any case, this is for me , Doctor. It’s been great fun. And despite that you’re talking in past tense, the fun is only just now beginning.”

Just now. What did that mean? Had he been right to bring his bag with him? But if so, how would Franco get all these people to ingest a tablet or pill while they were at a charity event?

Franco put a finger to his lips. “You chose not to help me. You tested and probed me and then turned me away. And I deserved to be helped. They do not, you bastard. Maybe this is on your shoulders.”

Maybe it was. Maybe so much was. Franco did look behind him then, his gaze obviously falling on Lennon and Ambrose, speaking with a woman near the DJ booth. A man at the table nearby popped something in his mouth before turning to a woman next to him, saying something and shaking her hand.

The mints.

The doctor’s stomach cramped, and blood rushed to his head. “The mints,” he breathed. Oh God, the mints.

Franco turned back toward him, his smile growing.

“Clean clothes,” Franco said. “New deodorant. It’s been drummed into them. Good hygiene is important. Present yourself well tonight. Our funding depends on it.” Franco laughed as the doctor stared in horror. “Like they’re toddlers. They’ll eat the mints, Doctor. Or at least most of them will. While I’ve been up here talking with you, enough already have. You don’t want to upset them now, do you? The slightest provocation to their nervous system—rushing blood, rapid heart rate—and it will act that much quicker. Specific triggers aren’t necessary. Most anything will do. Eventually, they’ll attack and trigger each other.”

The doctor lurched forward, moaning as he grabbed the rail, overlooking what would almost certainly be a savage melee in mere minutes. He couldn’t shout. It would only make the toxin take effect that much sooner if he panicked the crowd. He sucked in a breath as he felt Franco’s body heat as the man drew close, and then something sharp sliced into his lower back. “I can’t let you report me, Doc,” Franco said close to his ear. “But I do want you to last long enough to watch.” The doctor sucked in a staggered breath as Franco pulled the blade out of his skin, the agonizing pain where he’d been stabbed making the room below him spin. He felt the warmth of his blood saturating the back of his shirt. Behind him, he heard a door close softly and latch. He was locked on the balcony, losing blood quickly. He couldn’t yell for help, and in moments, he would be forced to watch a violent mass murder. If the police had been alerted, they’d ensure it was that much bloodier if they came in guns blazing. There was little hope of stopping this. Franco was right: it was just beginning. The doctor leaned over the ledge and waved his arm, trying desperately to get Ambrose’s attention.