Sins of the Flesh Read Online Free Page A

occur based upon the last statement in her medical history.
    Uncontrollable seizures… episodes of rage… full expression…; he repeated these phrases to himself before turning to the notes he had made from her medical history and his own research.
    Apparently, Edwards and Wells had been able to identify beneficial gene sequences in nearly half a dozen creatures. Using modern cloning techniques, they had isolated those sequences and replicated them in sufficient quantities to be able to combine them with viral carriers.
    Although the idea of intentionally letting a live virus loose in someone’s body made him nervous, apparently it was common practice to use simple viruses, such as the ones that caused colds, to become transport mechanisms. Once those carriers were injected into the subject, the natural viral process took over, replicating and insinuating the DNA into the subject’s genes.
    As Mick reviewed his scribbling by the light of the streetlamp, he realized that Edwards and Wells also appeared to have found a way not only to target where the recombination occurred, but to control the replication process and the expression of the implanted gene sequence.
    Or at least they’d
thought
they had learned to control the replication and expression.
    The seizures from which Caterina had supposedly been suffering, together with the aberrant activity caused by the gene, clearly meant their control wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
    If
that entry in her medical history was even true. The entry could be the start of groundwork for framing Caterina for Wells’s murder.
    He put aside his pad and leaned back against the stone balustrade which surrounded the center of the square andformed a backrest of sorts for the nearby cement bench. He laced his fingers behind his head while he imagined what kinds of behavior the foreign genes might cause, as well as how desperate someone might need to be to try such a risky procedure.
    Once again it occurred to him that he would have rather chosen to blow out his brains, but…
    He surged forward and pulled out Caterina’s photo from his jacket pocket. Ran the pads of his fingers across the glossy surface, intrigued not only by her beauty, but also by her tenacity.
    Such strength.
    Passion.
    Intelligence.
    Hard traits to resist, he thought, and recalled the check he had folded and slipped into his wallet.
    Quite a bounty.
    Enough to make him set for a couple of years. Maybe even allow him to leave this rather treacherous and troublesome life for a more rational one.
    Possibly even an honorable one, with simpler demands and easier decisions to make.
    He risked another glimpse at Caterina’s photo. It was a damn shame that the sole decision he would have to make about her was whether to take her in dead or alive.
    As soon as it was dark again, Caterina moved from the safety of the Pine Barrens and slipped through an unlocked door into one of the buildings along the edges of Camden.
    Inside she kept close to the outside wall, plasteringherself to its rough cinder block. When she heard a sound, she paused and held her breath.
    Someone coming her way. The footsteps soft, regular as a metronome as the person approached.
    A night watchman?
    A flashlight beam swung back and forth, back and forth in a determined arc. Swept across the unlocked door and then in her direction. For one heart-pounding moment, the light tracked across her midsection, but then moved on.
    Why hadn’t the guard seen her?
    The light had been directly on her. She glanced down at her stomach, recalling where the beam from his flashlight had hit her body.
    Grey mottled with specks of black had blossomed across not only her midsection, but all of her torso, making her nearly invisible against the cinder-block wall.
    She picked up her hand and stared at it. She couldn’t understand the current color of her skin any more than she could the forest hues which had covered her flesh the day before.
    She focused on her hand