Maybe he thought he was doing her some kindness, offering social interaction to the perpetual shut-in, but she preferred the harmless celluloid company offered by her DVDs.

“Thank you for checking on me.”

She tried to hide her loathing. Intuition told her that things would get worse if Rowan ever figured out how she truly felt. Right now, he looked on her as a favored pet, one who performed the required tricks admirably, reliably, and without complaint. That status could too easily change. He could take away her comforts, such as they were.

She’d learned early on the dangers of refusing to cooperate, and she wasn’t strong enough to die.

“It’s my pleasure.”

God, she feared it was. “Did something happen tonight? You look… odd.”

Would he confide in her? She didn’t think his social life was any more active than hers. Gillie feared crossing the line toward intimacy, and yet she wondered if she could use his fondness to her own advantage somehow.

He brightened visibly, as if he enjoyed her attention. “Yes, in fact. Would you mind making me a cup of tea?”

As if it weren’t nearly six in the morning, as if this were a proper social visit.

She went to the kitchen without complaint and microwaved two mugs of hot water. When she returned, she found that he’d made himself comfortable in her front room, legs stretched out as if he meant to stay awhile.

Well, as long as he’s talking, he’s not doing anything horrible.

Feeling sick, she resigned herself to the reality. Nobody was coming to save her. If her parents had tried to find her, they’d long since given her up for dead. That was, most likely, what the Foundation had told them. In a way, it might even have been kinder.

“You were saying,” she prompted softly.

“We lost a test subject tonight.”

He really meant he’d put her down. Gillie knew how he operated. But she pretended ignorance, as he wanted her to. “Oh no, that’s terrible. What happened?”

Rowan went on at length, describing the hopelessness of the patient’s prognosis. By the time he finished, Gillie realized that he had convinced himself it was a mercy killing, something sacred and well-done. Her fingers trembled against the mug holding the tea she hadn’t touched. She couldn’t stop thinking of him as Hades this morn, and if she drank in his presence, she’d be trapped here forever.

Stupid. You’re trapped already.

But she didn’t drink the tea.

“Anyway, I must be getting home,” he said at last. “But you understand why I wanted to check on you.”

She kept her tone casual. “To reassure yourself of the good you’re doing.”

“That’s right, Gillie.” He brushed his fingers along her cheek in passing, and every fiber of her being tensed in revulsion. “If you could only see how well the people you’ve cured are doing. That’s an idea… Perhaps you’d like to see some candid videos of the way they’ve been able to resume their lives, thanks to your extraordinary gift.”

Yes, of course she would want that. Why wouldn’t she? Show the girl who has nothing-no family, friends, or freedom-the people to whom she gave everything. Why wouldn’t she be delighted? Gillie curled her hand into a fist and tucked it beneath her thigh. Sometimes it was so hard, all the pretending.

But it would be worthwhile. If she gave up hope, she gave up everything. So she clung to the only thing she had left: a pipe dream. To see the sky again before she died and feel the sunlight on her face. In her darkest moments, she imagined turning her face up to that glorious warmth and reveling in the feel of the wind on her skin.

Bliss.

Because she knew she was meant to-ever dutiful and agreeable-she said, “That would be lovely. Can you arrange it?”

His awful smile shone again. “I can do anything I want here, anything at all.”

And God help her, it was true.

The next week passed uneventfully enough.

Mia hadn’t made up her mind whether she really meant to leave Strong alone as promised. Her anger had mostly faded. Maybe she was being too trusting again, but she believed him when he said he’d been sure no harm would come to her. That didn’t mean she liked him for it, but she understood the need to be ruthless in dedication to completing a goal. She hadn’t built her business on sweetness and gumdrops.

As far as she could tell, he appeared to be doing a stellar impersonation of a human resources director. That didn’t mean he was harmless, of course. It wouldn’t surprise her if he meant to delay his plans until she completed her task and left the facility. He possessed that sort of unearthly patience.

Fortunately, she had other matters to occupy her mind. She made a list of the ten most likely suspects and then went about investigating them. Two she checked off almost at once. They’d been caught together in the copy room in flagrante delicto, an indiscretion so ridiculous that she refused to believe either of them was smart enough to pull off embezzlement on the scale Micor had reported: nearly four million dollars in the past two years.

The date stuck in her mind as she went over the data. Two years…

Thomas Strong had only been employed at the facility for three months. And Mia knew very well where he’d been a year prior. So, without a doubt, he wasn’t the thief, nor in all likelihood did he have anything to do with the missing money. She felt absurdly glad he’d been proven honest in this, at least.

However, if this case followed the precedent set by others she’d worked, the perpetrator had a set amount he wanted to reach and then he’d make a run for it. When an employee went missing without notice, that was all the evidence a company needed. At that point, resolution passed beyond Mia’s purview and went to bounty hunters. It could get ugly fast; she had no illusions about that. So she wasn’t just trying to catch a crooked employee; she was also trying to save a life.

“The labs are reporting a network issue,” Greg said, interrupting her reverie.

Her “boss” was proving to be a pain in the ass. He didn’t like it when he caught her going over paperwork, as if he suspected her of some petty espionage. More likely, he thought she was analyzing his Net usage logs. He spent more time looking at Busty Beauties than doing any real work, as far as Mia could see. Lucky for him, she hadn’t been brought in as an efficiency expert.

“I guess you’d like me to take the call?”

“You’re the low man on the roster.”

Mia forced a smile. “No problem. But I thought we weren’t allowed to go in the labs. All the classified research and all.”

“We’re the only department that can.” Greg managed to make it sound like a boast. “How else can we fix their computers if there’s a problem? Here’s the pass. It will get you in the security doors.”

Hm. She made a mental note of where he’d stashed it in his desk: top drawer, right side. Things couldn’t be all that hush-hush in the secure side if a guy like Greg controlled the access.

Of all the places she’d worked-and Mia had rotated through many companies in the course of her inquiries-this one most gave her the creeps. The halls were always silent, people clinging to their own departments as if they offered sanctuary from the wolves that roamed the corridors. She saw no one on the way to the east wing, which seemed odd, given the size of the complex.

She slid the pass through the card reader and then it demanded her ID. She scanned that and the door unlocked. The precaution made sense; if someone lifted the pass from Greg, the computer first confirmed that the user was a member of a department that would have business in the labs. She didn’t imagine that anyone outside of IT could pass the check.

As she stepped through the doors, she half expected ominous music or mysterious shadows, but it looked exactly the same on the other side. More interesting, there was another sealed door, down at the other end of the hall. On this side, they had set up what looked like a couple of computer labs, including servers.