Page 61 of Speak of the Devil (New Hope 3)

“I wouldn’t say that exactly.”

She stretches out, and I’m almost tempted to climb back in bed with her. “What would you say?”

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to close a deal.”

“And?”

“And… I don’t want to go through with it. So they’re trying to force me out.”

“What’s the hesitation?”

“I don’t want to sell.”

“What is it you’re selling?”

“Drugs.”

“I gathered that. I mean…what exactly? What’s the drug do?”

“It’s in the chlordiazepoxide family.”

“Which means?”

“It makes people compliant. Docile. Effective. Among other things.”

“Huh.”

I can see she’s only half following. “Do you really want to know about my work, or are you just making small talk?”

“I’ve never been very good at small talk.”

“You must be, in your line of work.”

“Obviously, if that’s what you think, you don’t know much about what I do.”

“Fair point,” I say. “Assumptions are the devil’s work.”

She smiles. “You have no idea.”

“Anyway,” I continue. Emily hates talking shop. This is refreshing. “What do you know of chemistry?”

“Not as much as I’d like to.”

“Any successful drug,” I start to say before pausing to make sure she’s really listening. Emily never did. “And by that, I mean any highly profitable one, is nothing more than a formula, a compound of chemicals that when used on a large sample of people is expected to produce a certain outcome.”

She laughs, but nothing’s funny, so I take it as a cue she finds this as fascinating as I do. I continue. “It’s the outcome that interests me most.”

“Obviously.”

&nbs

p; “From the moment a drug company patents a compound, the clock starts ticking.”

“Why?”

“It only has twenty years of exclusive manufacturing and selling rights on it.”

“Okay?”