Dr. Glen Herriford frowned from the other side of the bed. "Could be a side effect of the drugs. She was pretty doped up when she came in. Give it a few more hours."
Nodding, Dev put the juice on the table and returned his attention to the woman. Her lashes were already dropping. Not saying anything, he helped her down into a position flat on her back. She was asleep moments later.
Jerking his head to the door, he walked out with Glen following. "What did you find in her system?"
"That's the funny thing." Glen tapped the electronic chart in his hand. "The chemicals all add up to plain old sleeping pills."
"That's not what it looks like." She was too disoriented, her pupils hugely dilated.
"Unless . . ." Glen raised an eyebrow.
Dev's mouth tightened. "Chance she did it to herself?"
"There's always a chance - but someone dumped her in front of your apartment."
"I went inside at ten p.m., came back out at ten fifteen." He'd left his phone in the car, had been irritated at having to stop work to return to the garage. "She was unconscious when I found her."
Glen shook his head. "No way she had the coordination to get through security then - she'd have lost her fine motor skills well beforehand."
Fighting the rush of anger provoked by the thought of how helpless she must've felt, what might've been done to her in that time, Dev glanced back into the room. The bright white overhead light glinted off her matted blonde hair, highlighting the scratches on the face, the sharp bones slicing her skin. "She looks half-starved."
Glen's usually smiling face was a grim mask. "We haven't had the opportunity to do a full checkup but there are bruises on her arms, her legs."
"You telling me she was beaten?" Raw fury pulsed through Dev's body, hot and violent.
"Tortured would be the word I'd use. There are old bruises beneath the new ones."
Dev swore under his breath. "How long before she's functional?"
"It'll probably take forty-eight hours to flush the drugs out completely. I think it was a one-time hit. If she'd been on them longer, she'd have been even more messed up."
"Keep me updated."
"Are you going to call Enforcement?"
"No." Dev had no intention of letting her out of his sight. "She was dumped in front of my door for a reason. She stays with us until we figure out what the hell is going on."
"Dev . . ." Glen blew out a breath. "Her reaction to the drugs says she has to be Psy."
"I know." His own psychic senses had picked up an "echo" from the woman. Muted but there. "She's not a threat at this stage. We'll reassess the situation after she's up and around."
Something beeped inside the room, making Glen glance at his chart. "It's nothing. Don't you have a meeting with Talin this morning?"
Taking the hint, Dev drove home to shower and change. It was just ticking over six thirty when he walked back into the building that housed the headquarters of the Shine Foundation. Though the top four floors were sectioned into a number of guest apartments, the middle ten were taken up with various administration offices, while the floors below the basement housed the testing and medical facilities. And today - a Psy. A woman who might turn out to be the latest move in the Council's attempts to destroy the Forgotten.
But, he reminded himself, right now she was asleep and he had work to do. "Activate. Voice code - Devraj Santos." The clear screen of his computer slid up and out of his desk, showing a number of unread messages. His secretary, Maggie, was good at weeding out the "can-waits" from the "must-responds" and all ten on-screen fell into the latter category - and today hadn't yet begun. Leaning back in his chair, he glanced at his watch.
Too early to return the calls - even in New York, most people weren't at their desks by six forty-five. Then again, most people didn't run the Shine Foundation, much less act as the head of a "family" of thousands scattered across the country, and in many cases, the world.
It was inevitable he'd think of Marty at that moment.
"This job," his predecessor had said the night Dev accepted the directorship, "will eat up your life, suck the marrow from your bones for good measure, and spit you out on the other end, a dry husk."