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exactly Giacomo
had said about me. Maybe he’d told Marty about how he’d asked me to
strip right there in his office the first time I went to meet with
him. About how I had—in total shock of my own actions—obliged.
About how that was already only the first of several… encounters I’d had with my chemistry professor.
    “Yeah,” Marty said. “He said you have a
memory thing. That it may be triggered by certain chemicals.”
    I relaxed. Of course that’s what Giacomo had
told him. I felt foolish for my own concern.
    “That’s right,” I said. “It’s a form of
epilepsy. I’m on medication to reduce the effects, but sometimes I…
well, I guess I misplace an hour or two every once in a while.
Blackouts. It’s not full amnesia because I always remember what
happened later, but the disorientation has affected my schoolwork
before.”
    “We’ll be careful, then,” Marty said,
amicably. “It’s really no problem.”
    “Good,” I said. “Thank you.” I adjusted my
backpack strap and started toward the door.
    “You’re Caleb Seager’s little sister, aren’t
you?”
    I jerked to a stop as if pulled by a cord
connected directly to my heart. I turned and looked at him and saw
sympathy on his face.
    “You knew him?” I asked.
    “I knew of him,” Marty said. “He was a
couple of years ahead of me, but when I got into this program, I
walked right into his shadow.”
    I nodded. “I know what that’s like.”
    “The grad school can’t stop singing his
praises,” said Marty. “With good reason, of course. I mean, he was
brilliant. It wasn’t just because…” He trailed off, realizing
suicide probably didn’t make for polite conversation when you were
discussing the deceased with his baby sister. He coughed and
dropped eye contact, and in that moment, I realized that my
feelings weren’t hurt at all, and Marty seemed somehow very
human.
    “Yeah,” I said, trying to rescue him. “I
know. He really was smart.”
    “His team made excellent progress on
chemicals related to that Alzheimer’s drug. They say he was just
tenacious. That he’d spend all day and night in the labs, testing
and retesting.”
    “My grandfather had Alzheimer’s,” I told him.
“He was a very important person in both of our lives. Like a second
father. When Caleb was in high school, Grandpa started to get
pretty bad. By the end, he didn’t even know who any of us were
anymore when we’d visit him. It was awful. Definitely made an
impact on both of us.”
    “That explains Caleb’s dedication,” Marty
said, nodding solemnly. He glanced down at the form I’d given him
to sign and made a forced chuckle. “I guess forgetfulness runs in
the family, then,” he said.
    I felt my face contort at the awfulness of
that jab.
    Marty recognized his mistake immediately. “Oh
God. Caitlyn, I am so sorry. I didn’t…”
    “It’s okay,” I said.
    “No, really. That was awful of me. I was… I
was just trying to lighten the mood and…”
    I gave him a pass. “No really,” I said. “I
understand. Really, I do.”
    Marty signed the form and passed it back to
me. We walked out of the room together, and Marty turned to
activate the electric lock on the door. “That wasn’t cool of me,”
he said.
    “Oh wait,” I said. “My phone.”
    Marty held the door open, and I rushed back
into the room to grab my phone. The clear plastic tub sat on a
table at the back of the room across from the emergency station.
Mine lay alone at the bottom. I grabbed it and started toward the
door, but I stopped.
    We’d cleaned up after lab, of course, and
someone had taken care of Cane’s guy’s area for him. But they’d
missed something. A tiny piece of paper the size of a fortune from
a cookie was wedged and crumpled under the digital scale. I grabbed
it and absently uncrinkled it as I headed to the trash can.
However, when I read what was written on the paper in block pencil
letters, it halted me in my tracks.
    The paper said:
    BURN