As it was, no one knew about her project, and no one would either. She would make sure of that.

“You okay, doc?”

Without thinking, only on instinct, Irene turned and swung, slamming the two-by-four right into Niles Van Holtz’s head. She hit him so hard, his head hit the other wall and then he hit the floor.

“Oh . . . oh, that can’t be good.” She’d killed a Van Holtz. As she crouched beside him, Irene’s mind quickly zipped through all the law books she’d read over the years, looking for any way she could prove this was self-defense.

“What the hell . . . Irene, what did you do?”

Irene looked up at her friend. “He snuck up on me,” she replied calmly.

Jackie crouched beside Van Holtz’s prone body. “You split his head open.”

“A few stitches. Perhaps some slight brain damage, but none that we’d notice.” She put her fingers to his throat. “He’s got a pulse. Chances are high he’ll live.”

Sighing, Jackie glared at her. “The emotions you should currently be experiencing are regret, tempered with a little guilt.”

Since they’d met so many years ago, Jackie remained the “emotional one” and Irene the “logical one.” Jackie had artist-like sensibilities. She had no control over her spending habits or her tendency toward rage. Irene didn’t understand human emotion and had long given up trying. When most little girls fell in the park and scraped their knee, they cried. Irene analyzed what had made her fall and why, exactly, her knees should hurt so much. Then she would analyze the momentum it took for her to actually do the level of damage she’d done.

“Guilt?” she asked. “For what? It was self-defense.”

“That’ll never play to a jury.”

“Damn.” She’d really hoped it would.

“Tell me what happened.”

“I thought I heard something.”

“You did hear something. I heard it too.”

The two friends stared at each other, then Jackie took Van Holtz’s arm and pulled it around her neck. “This is what we’re going to do. I’ll take him back to his family. You get that shit out of here tonight.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts, Irene. Take it out of here tonight. Okay?”

Irene nodded, realizing she had to put her ego aside when it came to this. “All right.” She didn’t need to help her friend lift the still-unconscious Van Holtz.

“Do you know what to do with it?”

“Leave it to me.” Irene headed back to her office. “I have my backpack in the car and extra clothes here. I’ll change and then I’ll move that stuff out.”

Jackie headed down the hall. “See you at home in about an hour?”

“Yeah. Perfect.”

Irene closed her office door and pulled out a bag she kept for emergencies or seriously latenights. Nothing fancy, just a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. But the perfect ensemble for what she needed to do.

Still, the question remained . . . did she get rid of all of it? Could it really hurt just to keep a smidge? Just for testing purposes only, of course.

Before Van opened his eyes, he realized two things. First, he was sitting against a car. Second, his sister was pissed off.

Hand to his poor abused forehead, Van forced his eyes open and looked around. As he’d guessed, his back rested against the family limo while his sister ripped the head off the She-jackal.

“Where is the little bitch? I’ll kill her myself!”

The jackal seemed unimpressed by his sister’s tirade. “You go near my friend, I’ll rip your throat out myself.”

“Oh, really?” Carrie stepped into the jackal’s space and Van knew he had to say something before things went from bad to worse.

“Carrie. Cut it out.”

Immediately his sister was by his side. “Are you okay?”

“I think you should get me home. I think Dr. Vasquez may need to sew up my head for the night.” Leave the stitches in longer than twenty-four hours, though, and the skin would heal right over them. The dilemma of having a seriously amped-up metabolism.

“Okay.” Carrie grabbed his arm and helped him stand.

“How long have I been out?”

The She-jackal shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I’ve been arguing with her for at least fifteen minutes.”

“Her?” his sister snarled.

“Need stitches,” he reminded Carrie, before she could blow something else out of proportion.

With a grunt of annoyance, Carrie helped him into the limo and got in after him. She slammed the door shut, glaring out at the jackal’s retreating form.

“Where’s Irene?” he asked.

“That bitch wouldn’t tell me. But trust me when I say I tried to find out.” His sister turned in the seat and looked at him. “You’re not mad, are you?”

How could he be mad at a woman with such great instincts? “I scared her and she reacted. Don’t blow this out of proportion.”

His sister gave an annoyed sigh and leaned back into the seat. “Fine. I won’t. You want to let this go, that’s on you.”

Irene pulled her car over to the side of the road and got out. She grabbed hold of her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. She’d headed out to one of the richest neighborhoods in town, about fifteen minutes from the university. It made the most sense because of all the open property and, thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about the flora and fauna. What she’d created did damage to only one thing . . . the human body. For everything else—animals, plants, trees, insects—it remained a nourishment. How her good intentions had gone so horribly wrong, Irene still didn’t know.