“Can I buy you lunch?”
“Can you buy me lunch?” I knew it was stupid, repeating what he said, but this was a different Leonard Bowman than either the cocky young man or the rage-filled one I’d seen early that morning, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from him.
“Please?” he begged. “I just put together who you are and what you do for a living. I’ll take a look at your wrist.”
“What do you mean?”
He held out his hand, and I slowly put mine in his. Like Gabriel, Leo’s fingers were cool, but roughened like he had worked hard with them. But when he turned my hand over, it was with the fingers of an expert.
“I was doing my residency in orthopedics,” he explained, “when I got CLS.”
My heart skipped a beat. All my better instincts told me to say no, but I couldn’t resist. Plus, that biscuit hadn’t been enough to satisfy my appetite.
“How about Tabitha’s?”
The world wasn’t ready for the new breed of genetic disorders. Normally Nature seeks to advance the development of organisms. But Nature is a true lady and can admit her mistakes, one of which is that too much intelligence, opposable thumbs, and a self-centered outlook is a dangerous combination. Where Leonard Bowman fit into all this, I had no idea. But by accepting his lunch invitation, I stepped right back into that world of questions.
The walk from the town square to the restaurant gave me time to think about the first time I’d heard of CLS. And when I first met Robert. It seemed his memory would haunt me as much as my former life as a researcher. I had been twenty-seven, just out of graduate school, and was looking forward to starting my first real job. Robert, the first man I’d seen at Cabal, had been similar to Leo with dark hair, but old enough for his wry sense of humor to trace lines at the corners of his eyes.
“You the new intern?” He’d come up behind me and startled me so I almost dropped the box of books I carried. He took the load from me without asking, and all I could do was follow, openmouthed, as he led the way.
“Ah, no, it looks like you’re the new epidemiologist.” The lines crinkled, and I caught my breath at his smile.
“And you are…”
“I’m Robert Cannon, a geneticist, and your boss. I’d shake your hand, but I’m carrying this ridiculously heavy load of books.”
“Right. I’m Joanna.”
“Fisher, as I recall. Chuck Landover’s granddaughter.”
“Yes.” The mention of my grandfather had startled me at the time, but I forgot about it with the rush of information I’d gotten from Robert.
“So here’s the deal, Fisher,” he said and indicated I was to precede him into a laboratory with computers on one side and a host of genetics equipment—most of which I couldn’t identify yet—on the other. I held the door open and he set my box down on the table next to a computer.
“Is this my desk?”
“This is our lab. I’ll show you the office later, but I thought you might like to keep your books at hand, not that you’ll need them much.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re dealing with something new here. It’s something we need your help tracing in the population so we can localize the genetic mutation.”
“What does it do?” I tried to keep my excitement in check. This was just what I’d hoped for—to be on the leading edge of researching new disorders.
He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Lots of fun stuff. It causes a host of behaviors like fierce loyalty to friends, inability to understand or buy into the culture’s materialistic messages, for starters.”
“And physically?”
“Early appearance of secondary sex characteristics, particularly body hair on the males. But it’s the psych stuff that’s the most fascinating. Basic drives such as hunger, lust and sleep are assessed as extraordinarily high. Somehow these adolescents find each other, bond, and disappear for days at a time, particularly around the full moon.”
“Around the what? Now I know you’re kidding me.”
“Ever hear of lycanthropy?”
I had, but it had been a long time ago and in a different context. “You mean, like in werewolves? Are you serious?”
“It’s a true disorder. I’ll have to introduce you to Iain McPherson in Scotland; he’s made it his life’s work. But yes, by adulthood, most of the afflicted isolate themselves from their families and all but disappear. Those who stay in society are described as wild loners.”
“But isn’t that rare?”
“It was. Until a few years ago.”
He’d gone on to explain this lycanthropic disorder was relatively rare until the very end of the twentieth century. Previously, one case might occur in a generation and spawn a local legend of werewolves. However, we lived in the era of impulsivity, and disorders such as ADHD skyrocketed.
CLS, or Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome, seemed to be the latest step in the evolution of impulsivity disorders, and it soon became the new diagnostic darling of the pediatrician and child psychiatrists’ offices. Children displayed the full range of symptoms by early adolescence, and often those that couldn’t be cured or drugged into submission would just disappear or end up in the correctional system.
My research centered on finding a common thread. I’d investigated familial patterns, but I felt like there was something missing. Something was making these rare genes express, but why now? Was it some environmental toxin? A virus? Just before the lab had burned, I had acquired boxes of these children’s medical records, particularly from western Tennessee and the Ozark region of Arkansas, where families of Germanic and Scandinavian descent abounded. The Scandinavian culture had the most sophisticated spiritual explanation for werewolves…and the highest incidence of CLS.
And now, here in the Ozarks, I was face-to-face with an adult CLS sufferer. I sat across from him in the booth pretending to study my menu and bit my lip to keep the questions from flooding off my tongue. How long have you had it? When were you diagnosed? Were you a hyper kid? What illnesses did you have? Do you know anyone else with CLS?
Instead he asked me, “What are you having for lunch?”
Luckily the biscuit had been digested quickly. “I think I’m going to have the Turkey Cobb salad.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“Why can’t you women ever eat?”
I looked up from my menu. “’Scuse me?”
“Just a salad?”
“Well, what are you going to have?”
“The steak you had for dinner last night looks good. Someone like you needs to eat to keep up her strength.”
My cheeks warmed again. “How do you know what I had for dinner?”
“I was here, remember?”
I returned my eyes to my menu. How could I forget? He and that witch, Kyra. Unbidden, the image came into my head of him tucking a stray curl behind her ear. And then of him grabbing my wrist with those fingers. I took a deep breath to loosen the tightness in my chest.
“Did you want to talk to me about something, or did you just trick me into coming here to mock me?”
He sighed and rubbed his temples again, but the gesture didn’t inspire the sympathy I thought he was going for. Instead, I felt frustration curl beneath my sternum and reach into my throat. This man could have murdered me the night before. Could have but didn’t. I took another deep breath and blew out slowly to calm myself.
“Look, if this isn’t a good time, I can catch you later.” His expression reminded me of a begging puppy.
“No, no, I’m fine. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“You’re Doctor Joanna Fisher?”
“Yes. I thought we’d already established that.”
“Of Cabal Laboratories?”
“Formerly of Cabal Laboratories.”