Page 28 of Private Exhibit (Gentleman Hackers #4)

ANDY SAT back with a sigh as his car pulled away from Devon's building.

Poor Dev . The boy had probably fallen off the high of that morning. Leaving aside the discomfort and embarrassment of waking up the way he had, Devon had been in great spirits when they'd left Andy's place to go to brunch.

And then it all came crashing down.

Andy winced. He'd seen it clear as day on the boy's face. The envy. The wishful thinking. Gods damn it all . He wanted to give Devon all the things the boy had been denied all his life, but what if it wasn't possible? What if there simply wasn't enough time?

The car plunged into darkness, turning off the sunlit streets and diving into the hospital's underground parking garage.

Andy blinked hard, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The car stopped in his assigned spot, and Andy flew out the door, barely pausing long enough to make sure the car was locked before he headed straight for the elevator.

He stepped into the empty lift and automatically reached for the button that would take him to the basement level. Fuck . Andy slowly moved his hand up. He stopped, his finger hovering over the 3 button.

Andy let out a shuddering breath, swallowed hard, and punched the button before he could overthink it.

The doors slid shut, and the elevator moved.

Andy swayed, his body expecting the lift to stop after only a couple seconds.

It kept going. Andy felt every muscle tense when the elevator finally slowed.

The doors opened, but instead of a pair of double doors across an echoing hallway, Andy saw the main hall of the third floor stretching out ahead of him, the wide, carpeted expanse bordered by office suites on either side.

The doors began to slide shut again.

Andy shot out a hand, stopping them, then took a deep, bracing breath. He had to force himself to take one step. Then another. The doors closed behind him, and Andy felt his knees start to give out.

Gods. Four years . He shook his head. How was it that he used to walk this hall every single day? It seemed like another life. A whole other person.

Andy clenched his hands into fists at his sides and made himself finish that once-familiar route. He came to a stop in front of a door, blinking dumbly at the sight of the words that once defined his entire existence.

Suite 301

Medical Diagnostics

Dr. Anderson Gerard

Andy shuddered. Dr. Anderson Gerard . Who even was that man anymore? It certainly didn't feel like him.

He pushed on the door, laughing when it unlocked and opened without resistance.

It wasn't long after he'd gotten the office that he had I.T.

key it to his biometric signature. There had been one too many times that he'd rushed down there in the middle of the night, his mind full with a fresh idea, only to have to run back upstairs to his apartment because he'd forgotten his key card.

Four years later, and the bio-key still worked.

Andy stepped inside the office and let the door swing shut behind him, cutting off the soft sounds coming from the hallway and the other offices nearby.

The room was chilly and unnervingly still, even more so than the morgue.

Everything was spotlessly clean, though nothing had moved.

Despite the intervening time, Andy could tell at a glance that all his files were exactly where he'd left them.

The Hopkins, Calloway, Reeger, Scott, and Dallak files were all still spread out across the table to the left.

The files for Jacobson, Andrews, Fisher, and seven others were laid out on the bigger table to the right.

On his desk, the remaining files were waiting to be sorted onto either table.

Andy had been trying, at the time, to separate the cases by age of death, whether a patient fell in that ninety-one percent who died within a year or in the remaining nine percent who lived longer.

Before that, he'd had the files separated by ultimate cause of death, whether it was a sudden attack or a slow progression.

Prior to that, he'd separated the files by the various treatments that had been tried.

And then a dozen other factors, trying to find any kind of connection.

Any tiny shred of a pattern that might help him solve the damned thing.

None of those files was for Devon. None of them was even for another transman with Ashworth-Grahams. Andy would know.

He had full scans and complete genetic workups for each of those patients.

Every single one was male, pure and simple.

No anomalies. No question. But why he didn't have a file for Devon in particular was beyond him.

Andy had put out calls across the land, asking every hospital, every clinic, every doctor to send patients his way. Or, at least, a copy of their files.

But neither Devon nor his file had ever come into that office. If either had, would anything have changed? Would Andy have found the answer? Or would it have just been another dead-end?

How many other patients was he missing?

Andy slowly scanned the room. It was strange to think just how rare the disease was, considering how many files he had there.

By the looks of his office, Ashworth-Grahams was an epidemic.

But when compared to the total population of Agoran?

Of the entire world? Those files represented a mere handful of people at best.

But each of those people had been someone's son. Someone's brother. Even someone's father, on exceedingly rare occasions.

In the middle of his desk, the Perry file still lay open: a seventeen-year-old boy who'd fathered a daughter with his high school sweetheart right before he died. Andy had been re-reading that file when he'd gotten the call that Junior was in the E.R.

As it turned out, for the last time.

Andy dropped to his knees.

Whoa, Dad. What the hells?

Andy looked up, panting as he stared at his son.

Junior crouched down in front of him, his eyes wide. Are you alright? Are you hurt?

“What?” Andy gasped. He shook his head, feeling confused. “No. I'm fine. Why?”

You look like you're having a heart attack .

Andy paused. Was he? Deep down, he knew it wasn't the case—none of the signs were there—but it still almost felt like it. He shook his head again. “I'm fine,” he repeated, trying to convince himself just as much as his son.

Junior studied him for a long moment, then winced. First time back in here?

Andy slumped onto his backside and rested his arms across his knees. There was no way he could make himself stand up quite yet. “Yeah.”

Junior copied him, sitting on the floor. Spent a lot of time in here .

“Yeah, we did.”

What's with the talking?

“What?”

You rarely talk out loud to me.

Andy blinked. He hadn't even realized he was doing that. Communicating telepathically had become second-nature. Every once in a while, he even caught himself responding to the living with a projected thought, only to realize after the fact that they couldn't hear him.

Then again, he'd spent most of his time with almost nobody but ghosts over the past four years. There had been little need to talk out loud.

Andy breathed a laugh. “Guess I've been spending more time with Devon than I realized.”

Junior's look of concern vanished right off his face. You mean the boy you were kissing?

Andy rolled his eyes and got up. “Don't start that again.”

What? Junior snapped, jumping to his feet. I'm allowed to be upset.

“And I'm allowed to date.”

But not a guy my age!

“He's almost ten years older than you!”

A knock sounded on the door, and a doctor poked his head into the room. “Everything alright in here?”

“Fine!” Andy snapped.

The doctor held up his hands, eyeing Andy strangely, then hurried away, muttering, “Prick.”

He's right , Junior bit off. You are a prick .

Don't you dare talk to me that way, young man , Andy fumed, clenching his jaw to keep himself from speaking out loud again. I am still your father .

Junior snorted a laugh. Yeah. Some father. You spent way more of my life being my doctor than being any kind of dad. He threw his arms out to his sides, gesturing at the room.

I didn't have a choice.

Yes, you did. You could have just hung out with me. Spent time with me.

I did spend time with you–

Yeah, in here. You spent my whole life putting me through scanners and tests and blood work! Maybe I just wanted a dad. Did you ever think about that?

I was trying to save your life!

You robbed me of my life!

“And you robbed me of mine!” Andy yelled.

Junior's eyes went wide.

Andy felt his heart sink the moment the words came out, regretting them instantly. Junior, wait. Kid? I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.

Junior's lower lip trembled. Yes, you did.

Junior–

I get it. You didn't wanna get saddled with a dying kid. I ruined all your plans. Hells, how many times did I hear you say you never wanted to be a doctor in the first place? It was all my fault–

Junior , Andy gasped. He shook his head.

No. It wasn't your fault . Andy braced himself, trying to decide if he could admit that Lydia had known she was a carrier, but he'd been keeping that secret for so long, he wasn't sure he could actually say it now.

He couldn't bear the thought of his son finding out that truth.

It had been a delicate thing, dancing around it for years.

It was well known that Ashworth-Grahams was genetic, so Junior knew he'd gotten it from her.

But he still didn't know that she'd intentionally had him, knowing he was going to die.

Junior–

Fuck you!

With that, Junior vanished.

Andy bent double, bracing his hands on his knees.

In the next moment, he found himself on the floor, gasping for breath as tears streamed down his cheeks. Gods damn it all . He knew Junior was right. Andy had robbed the boy of his life, constantly putting him through tests instead of enjoying what time they had.

And Andy knew he was about to do it all over again with Devon. It was the only reason he was there. Finding a cure hadn't mattered over the past four years, but it mattered now. How could he live with himself if he didn't do everything in his power to try saving him?

But could he do that and give Devon any kind of a life in the meantime?

Andy shook his head. He wasn't sure. What if he found nothing and wasted Devon's last days with exams? What if he didn't do enough, then found a cure after it was too late?

What the hells was he supposed to do?

Another knock sounded on the door.

“What?” Andy yelled.

The door slowly opened, and a nurse peeked into the room. “Sorry to bother you, Doctor Gerard. Someone said they saw you up here–”

“What do you want?” Andy snapped.

The nurse flinched. “I just wanted to let you know that the Masons will be here at ten tomorrow.”

“Who?”

“The Masons.” The nurse paused, eyeing him expectantly. “To claim their son's body in the morgue.”

Andy blinked dumbly. It took several seconds for him to realize whom she was talking about. “Oh.” The man Andy hadn't been able to identify. The one Devon had tracked down, using those impressive skills of his.

Damn it . Andy was going to have to witness their grief. He was going to have to sit with them and try to console them while they dealt with the reality of their son never coming home.

He'd done it a hundred times, but this one suddenly felt harder.

Andy knew that if he didn't find a cure in time for Ashworth-Grahams, he was going to be doing that very thing with Devon's friends.

Granted, it seemed like most of Devon's friends could see ghosts, so it wouldn't be a complete loss, but they would still grieve.

The same had been true for Andy himself.

And would be true again, once Devon died. Andy would have to deal not only with Devon's friends' grief, but his own.

He gave the nurse a nod, then waited until she left the room.

Andy took a deep, bracing breath, and pulled himself up. He eyed the files spread out all over the room, knowing he still had all their contents practically memorized, but he couldn't trust in that. Andy had to be sure.

He gathered all the files, stacking them up on his desk.

Then he grabbed the first one and sat down to read.