Libby hated the way the gossip rags were so fixated on Joley all of a sudden.
"It was a betrayal, Irene," Tyson said, his voice so hard Libby winced. "It was wrong and you knew it was wrong and that's part of the reason you were so angry when you attacked Libby. You felt guilty."
"I did. I do." Irene began to sob.
Libby immediately went to her and put her arms around her. "It's going to be okay. Let the community help raise money for the bills. Take Drew out of the test program immediately and sign a release for Ty and me to have access to the data."
"We could use Drew's blood as well," Tyson added.
"Now? You want to take his blood now?" Irene asked.
"It's important, Irene, or we wouldn't ask. We need to analyze the data and try to figure out specifically what is wrong for this one age group of patients. The drug is highly promising and if I can just put my finger on that one small glitch, we might have a real opportunity for success. Without that specific data, I can't get anywhere."
Irene took the consent form from Libby and slowly began to read it over. Twice, tears welled up in her eyes and she blew her nose. "Go ahead, Libby, he wants to talk to you anyway. He's so angry with me for what I did. Take his blood if it will help."
Libby patted Irene's knee, flashed a warning look at Tyson and hurried down the hall to Drew's bedroom. She heard the doorbell ringing but ignored it as she knocked on the teenager's door.
Drew lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling. His leg was in traction and he looked utterly miserable. He brightened when he saw her. "Libby. I was hoping you'd come to see me."
"Tyson Derrick is here, too," she said, not wanting him to think she was hiding anything from him. "He's the firefighter who rescued you."
"And fell," Drew said glumly.
"You do know it wasn't your fault, don't you?" Libby asked. "Surely someone explained what happened to you."
Tyson joined her, holding up the paper in triumph. He held out his hand to Drew. "How are you? I'll have to sign your leg there. It's a long-standing tradition."
"The drug you took has certain side effects, Drew," Libby said. "One of them is severe depression. I hope you've stopped taking it."
Drew nodded. "I couldn't stop myself. Now I just feel stupid and angry and embarrassed. Pete wanted to see me, but I wouldn't let him in." He looked up at Tyson. "I'm really sorry. You almost died because of me."
"Not because of you," Tyson said, seating himself on the edge of the bed.
Libby had never heard his voice so gentle.
"I'm a biochemist, Drew. I only fight fires during the high season. More than most people, I know the effects of drugs on people. You were using an untested product. You were the test. It isn't safe yet, but I'm going to try to fix that. In the meantime, don't cut yourself off from your friends and family. You need them to help keep up your spirits for the long fight."
Before Drew could respond, there was a commotion in the hallway. Irene raised her voice and a man's voice snapped something back. Something hit the wall and the room shook. Tyson jerked open the door, one hand behind him to hold Libby back.
"Harry Jenkins." He greeted his nemesis, his voice mild. "Always a pleasure to see you. We were just leaving. Have you come to see Drew?" He flashed a small, taunting smile.
Libby caught his belt in warning. He was still smoldering from the night before, from the things Sam said; now he had a target. She tried to remind him the boy and his mother were watching. Tyson didn't seem to care.
Harry's face turned a mottled purple. "You! I should have known you'd be here. Mrs. Madison, I hope he's not bothering you. You don't have to talk to him."
Libby quickly turned back to Drew and deftly took a vial of blood while Tyson stood squarely in the door, preventing Harry from seeing what she was doing. Surprisingly, Drew flashed her a conspiratorial grin and stayed quiet until she was finished. She winked at him and tapped Tyson on the shoulder. Irene hovered behind Harry, wringing her hands together.
"I'll visit you later," Tyson said to the boy. "Libby and I have a lot of work to do." He reached behind him to urge her through the doorway, forcing Harry to step back.
The man followed them out the door. "I can't believe you'd go this far, Derrick," he said. "You're interfering with a legitimate study and it's against the law."
"Not if I have the mother's permission," Tyson said, his smirk plain.
Harry took an aggressive step forward. "You think you're going to get away with this, but you aren't. I have resources you haven't dreamed of."
"Do your worst, Harry," Tyson encouraged him. "You should be in the lab, not dogging my every step. What the hell are you doing in Sea Haven anyway?"
"Protecting my interests. I'm not letting you ruin my entire career, you and that doctor friend of yours. We'll see how highly everyone thinks of the two of you when you are exposed for what you really are."
Tyson slid behind the wheel of the Porsche and adjusted his sunglasses. "I'm going to be spending a few days in the lab, Libby. You feel like helping?"
"Absolutely."
14
TYSON was a tyrant in the laboratory. He ordered Libby around as if she were his assistant, didn't acknowledge anything she said and was so focused on his work he didn't see or hear anything else around him. She lay down twice on his futon and fell asleep, but in forty-eight hours he didn't stop once. She fed him eggs while he examined several compounds. He didn't seem to notice, opening his mouth on command and chewing when she told him to. His eyes were continually glued to his computer. Libby found him absolutely fascinating.
His mind seemed to work at three times the speed of anyone else she'd ever met and he was definitely on the track of something. Tyson reminded her of a hound dog on the scent trail. Nothing else seemed to matter to him--not even her. It should have hurt her feelings, but she was too impressed with his single-minded purpose. He poured over the data, compared notes, went back to his original earlier experiments, often muttered to himself and ran tests over and over. Sometimes he'd become excited and show her things, only to break off in mid-sentence, frowning and turning away to check something else.
Several times a day Sam brought them food, food she hand-fed to Ty to get him to eat, although sometimes even that didn't work and he ignored the offer. Sam apologized every single time he saw her for his outburst, but Libby couldn't help but feel uneasy around him. Tyson never looked up or acknowledged his presence.
"Has he eaten anything at all?" Sam asked.
Libby shook her head. "Very little. He's possessed."
"He's still not speaking to me." Sam looked tired. "He's pretty stubborn. He can hold a grudge a long time and I guess, this time, I deserve it. At least you should eat something, Libby. I've got the late shift later this evening. I won't see you for a while."
"I'm going to head out, too, maybe take the day and get a few things done, but I'll check on him tonight," Libby promised.
"Thanks." Sam disappeared up the stairs and with a little sigh, she gathered up her things and began to follow him, careful to be quiet.
"Where are you going?" Tyson spun around instantly, giving lie to the belief he wasn't aware of her presence while he was working. He was definitely paying attention and it startled her.
"I figure after two days, Ty, I need a shower. Technically I'm on vacation, but I usually put in a shift at the hospital and I'm not getting any sleep here." She indicated the computer. "You have fun and I'll come back in a day or two." She flashed him an encouraging smile.
Tyson stretched and came across the room with long, ground-eating strides. "Give me a second and I'll go with you. I need a break anyway." He reached her side, circled her neck with his arm and kissed her. Instead of his hard, hungry kisses, he was gentle, tender even, and it turned her heart over. "I like you in my lab."
She laughed. "Because I was such a big help to you."
"Actually you have been. Remember when we talked about the plants in the rain forest of Peru an
d how many of them have a symbiotic relationship with insects or plants around them? I haven't been able to get that out of my mind."
He followed her out of the basement, blinking a little in the light, reminding her of an owl. She smirked at him. "Just out of curiosity, Tyson, are you aware that owls see in black and white?"
A slow grin spread across his face, wiping away the weariness. "Do I remind you of an owl?"
"Just thought you might be interested--for future reference." She grinned back at him, almost daring him to come up with a matching fact.
He scratched his head. "Owls' irises dilate and contract independently in the two eyes. Fascinating creatures. BioLab is working on a retina retainer drop. It will hold the retina's shape to stop eyesight from worsening. They're only a couple of years out before they'll have it ready for humans." He held out his hand. "Do you want to go home? Hopefully your sisters have food and drink around."
Libby went with him out to her car and didn't protest when he produced the keys and slid into the driver's seat. He loved driving the Porsche and she loved giving him that small pleasure. "I thought you were totally oblivious to my presence, Ty."
"I always know when you're in a room with me. I have Libby Drake radar. In college I could spot you walking clear across campus. I'm not going to miss you in the same room." He glanced at her and then back to the road. "I know I'm not very talkative when I work."
She laughed. She couldn't help it. "You don't talk at all. Or you start to talk and forget and stop in the middle of it because you've thought of some great idea."
There was a long silence as he handled the Porsche through several tight turns on the narrow highway. Libby rolled down her window to watch the scenery flashing by. Several miles went by before he spoke.
"I'm sorry. I'll try to get better."
She glanced at him sharply, hearing the wariness in his voice. He thought he'd upset her, because he usually managed to upset the people around him with his tunnel vision. "Don't be sorry." She flashed him a reassuring smile. "When I'm at work, no one expects me to entertain them. I found it all very interesting. I know you're going to be able to figure out why the drug is reacting differently on the adolescent brain."
He frowned. "That may take some time. I might be able to figure out how to stop it from happening, but the why of it is going to be more difficult."
"That doesn't make sense. Don't you have to know why before you can fix it?"
Tyson shook his head as he pulled into the Drakes' long drive. He waited until he parked the car and stopped the engine. "It doesn't always work that way, Libby. Research is often discovering something by accident."
"Maybe, but you don't seem to do anything by accident." She got out of the car and walked with him up to the house. "Everything you do is careful, Tyson. You're thinking it through."
"Harry was close, but he was just in too much of a hurry. He lets the marketing people pressure him." His grin looked a bit like a hungry shark. "They stay away from me."
"I'll bet they do. You aren't at your most courteous when you're working."
He frowned again, looking more rumpled than ever as he pushed his hands through his hair in agitation and genuine concern. "Was I rude to you, Libby?"
She leaned into him and kissed his blue-shadowed jaw. "No, Ty, you weren't rude to me. Believe me, if you ever are, you'll hear about it."
His smile flashed, making him look younger and far more boyish. "Good."
Before Libby could open the door, it opened from the inside and she found herself staring at all of her sisters. None of them were smiling. She frowned. "You weren't worried, were you? I called a couple of times and left messages on the answering machine saying I was all right." She stepped into the house. "Oh, God. Nothing happened to Jonas, did it?"
Sarah closed the door behind them. "Jonas is fine, Libby."
"We got your message," Joley added.
Libby stopped in her tracks to stare at her younger sister. "Joley! You dyed your hair." Joley was a natural blond, her hair nearly platinum, the closest of all the sisters to Hannah's hair color. She often dyed, streaked and rinsed it with various colors, but never midnight black. She looked like Libby now, with her pale skin and large, mysterious eyes. "Mom is going to kill you. Why did you do that before the wedding? Please tell me you're not going into a Goth phase right before everyone gets married."
There was a small silence. Libby became aware of the tension in the room. She glanced at Tyson, suddenly uneasy.
He reached out and took her hand, his thumb running in a small caress of reassurance over her skin. "What is it?"
"I think you'd both better see this," Sarah said. "Why don't you sit down and have a cup of tea? There's a gossip rag you need to take a look at. It arrived on our doorstep with a little note." She handed Tyson the note.
It was on plain typing paper. A single word said, "Enjoy." There was a smiley face stickered beside it. Tyson turned it over and over in his hands, not certain why such a simple thing felt sinister, but it did. He exchanged a worried glance with Libby.
Libby reached for the gossip rag. "I'm not going to like this, am I?" she asked Joley.
Joley put a hand on her shoulder as if to steady her.
Libby lifted the fold one of her sisters had carefully creased and nearly dropped the paper as the photo swam into focus. She stared in utter horror at the front page photograph. It was taken at Tyson's new home through the panels of glass and showed an obviously naked woman wrapped in the arms of a very naked man. The headline read: Drake Lovenest.
For a terrible moment Libby couldn't think. She couldn't get enough air into her lungs to breathe. She could only stare in horror at the picture of her first sexual encounter now available for the entire world to see. She looked like a porn star.
There would be no way to identify Tyson--his head was down, his tongue lapping at her breast--but her head was thrown back, her arms cradling him to her. Black hair hung down her back, her eyes were closed in ecstasy.
"Oh my God. This can't be happening. Mom and Dad are going to see this. All of my patients." Libby choked on bile rising in her throat. "I'm going to be sick." She jumped up and raced for the bathroom, dropping the paper on the floor.
Tyson picked it up, studying the one large photo before turning to the inside where the headlines promised more. The other pictures were grainier and somewhat fuzzy, impossible to identify, but equally as revealing. He became aware of the slow burn of ice cold rage spreading through his system. His temper had always been slow moving, but now it burned like a wildfire out of control when lost. This was different. This was something far deadlier.
He lifted his head slowly and looked around the room at the sober faces of Libby's sisters. His gaze settled on Joley with the wealth of midnight black hair streaming down her back and curling around her face. She looked exotic. He'd never noticed she had the same sultry mouth as Libby. His breath hitched. "You dyed your hair so you would look like Libby. So everyone would think this was you and not your sister, didn't you?"
Joley shrugged, struggling to look casual. He caught the gleam of tears in her eyes before she turned away. "I'm used to it. Any publicity in my business is still publicity, negative or not. I don't like it, but this will kill Libby. She isn't tough enough to take the jokes and innuendoes. People are very cruel and she doesn't have a tough skin. The late-night talk show hosts are going to have a field day."
"And you have a tough skin?" Tyson wanted to smash something. Joley Drake was making a huge sacrifice for her sister. She wasn't nearly as tough as she pretended to be. He could see her hands were trembling, but she sank gracefully onto the floor in front of the sofa and reached for the cup of tea Sarah handed her.
"This is a big deal, Ty," Joley warned. "The magazines have been trying for a couple of years to find dirt on me. Lately they've really worked at it. This isn't going to die down right away and you have to keep Libby from telling the truth. They'd crucify her."
"What does
the article say?"
"Look at the headlines. They're following up on the faith healer article, and wondering if the Goddess, that would be Libby, or the Queen of Debauchery, that would be me, was caught in a love nest. It went so far as to imply there was more than one man there. They've even circled a picture they believe is proof of the second man. Libby's name is mentioned, but of course, the real speculation is whether it's me or not. Hannah is too tall. They can't implicate her, so with my hair dyed, everyone will believe it's me. I've instructed my publicist not to comment."
"You can't do this, Joley," Tyson said. "I appreciate that you'd want to, but Libby won't let you and neither will I. We didn't do anything wrong. We were in the privacy of my home."
"I think you need a really good security system," Sarah said. "If you don't mind, I'm going to put one in for you."
Tyson rubbed his hand over his jaw. "I doubt she's ever going to want to go back to that house." His mind raced a million miles an hour with ideas of retribution, but there wasn't a single idea of how he could change what had happened. He looked around the room at the faces of Libby's sisters. All of them, even Sarah, looked sympathetic.
And Joley. She sat by herself, one leg drawn up, her head on her knee, the black waves of hair cascading down to draw a veil over her face.
"Joley." He said her name softly. "No one has the right to do this to anyone. It doesn't matter what your profession is, they shouldn't hunt you down and peek like voyeurs into your private life."
She sighed and lifted her head, a wan smile on her face, one that didn't reach her eyes. "Maybe they shouldn't, Ty, but they do. I'm not letting them hurt Libby. My career can take this." She shrugged. "Who knows, maybe it will benefit from it, but not Libby's. She has to maintain a certain reputation."
"You hate this." She did. He could feel her misery. All of their collective misery and somehow, instead of condemning him, they made him feel a part of their protective circle.