Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
And now he knew that despite Brittany leaving their marriage with no more than she’d arrived with, she’d be just fine.
With a sigh, he set the photograph of Nancy and his first wife back on the bookshelf behind him, facing away from it. He set his elbows on his desk and rested his forehead on the heels of his hands. He’d tried so hard to redeem himself, to leave a legacy that Nancy would be proud of, to make amends for his mistakes with his daughter by helping others who were suffering the same way she had. And he had helped. He had. So many saved souls. He was proud of that. He’d sacrificed for it. But then things had gone so horribly wrong, and he couldn’t figure out how. Or why.
He’d gone to see the woman in the psychiatric ward who had survived the most recent attempted murder—after all, that’s what it was, only not just an attempted murder of the body but of the mind and soul—and it’d almost brought him to his knees. Broken him. Not only had she been dropped into the epicenter of her trauma, but she seemed to be stuck there. Death would have been kinder than that. And so the best the hospital could do was keep her unconscious. The fact that the altered drug had been formulated so that even when the narcotic wore off, the result did not, was a horror he hadn’t expected. He’d been working around the clock to create an antidote based on the pill Ambrose had provided him. But so far, the antidote was weak and would likely only work on those who’d absorbed a small amount of the toxin. Not doses like the one taken by the woman in the hospital, who had already dropped in a black hole in her own mind and was too far gone. And he couldn’t administer the pill that had been formulated to induce violence just so he could test his antidote. If he did that, he’d turn into the man who’d twisted his project.
Maybe he was no better. He’d thought he was. But because of him, this was happening. The work of his heart had been corrupted. Perhaps everything good eventually was.
Or perhaps if it could be corrupted, it wasn’t good at all. He’d convinced himself it was good because he needed it to be. Back to his own ego, once again.
God, he was so tired. He’d come home early to sleep for a few hours. He’d been up for days, and his faculties were failing him. A few hours’ rest and he’d feel better, and then he’d persevere.
He began to rise from his desk, picking up his silenced phone and noticing that he’d missed a text from Ambrose, and a call as well. He read the text asking about a Franco Girone.
Franco Girone.
Where did he know that name from? Another text came through from Ambrose.
On the way over.
And there was a link below the message that brought up a photo. He stared, his skin suddenly prickling, mind buzzing. The man in the photo, whom he now recognized as Franco, had been a little older than in this image the last time he’d seen him in person . . . and Franco hadn’t been smiling then, like he was in the photo. It all drifted to him in foggy snippets of memory. Franco’s mother, the woman who’d run Rays of Hope in the Tenderloin, had just been killed. He’d met the man—how old had Franco been then? Twenty or twenty-one?—at an event, and then later at the free clinic. He’d been deeply traumatized by his mother’s murder. Dr. Sweeton had tested him for Project Bluebird but ultimately decided he wasn’t a good candidate. The man had exhibited traits that weren’t conducive to a successful regression therapy. His psychopathy had been questionable, but the doctor hadn’t been able to tell if that was related to his current trauma or something else underlying that was already present.
He slowly lowered his phone as he thought back to the event from the photo. It’d been so long ago, but he wondered . . . Dr. Sweeton stood, going over to his file cabinet and opening the bottom drawer, where he stored flyers and pictures from talks he’d given, and sometimes personal photos he was forwarded from events. Items he didn’t necessarily need, but ones he didn’t feel right throwing away either. He’d been tossing things here for years.
He picked up the box, carried it to his desk, and dumped it out. It only took a few minutes of sifting before he found what he was looking for. He had a hard copy of the photo that Ambrose had sent him a link to. The man who had organized the Rays of Hope event had put them in the thank-you card he’d sent later.