Damned If You Don't by Linda J. Parisi

problem was that the pathways were unknown. Trust me, if someone had figured them out already, they would have come up with the ultimate diet drug way before now.”
    “I see.” She turned to watch him stare at the computer screen, his face serious and his gaze filled with concern. “Something tells me you found a pathway.”
    Morgan smiled. “By accident, of course. Then it took a while to recreate the experiment, but I was able to do it.”
    “And?”
    “Then I made the biggest mistake of my life. I presented my findings during a project meeting, and BioClin leaked my findings to a bunch of bankers.”
    “I don’t understand. You recreated one experiment, right? That’s not a whole lot to bank on.”
    She winced at the pun. “True. But think of it for a moment. Think of the investment capital that could be offered. Just to continue. All of which would make the company stock price soar. They’re a small company. Everyone has stock options. It’s part of the gamble. If the project you’re working on succeeds, you win. Up until recently, BioClin’s stock wasn’t worth that much.”
    “I see.”
    Morgan sighed. “I guess I could have lived with their greed. After all, companies are in business to make money. And the officers of small biotech companies don’t always get a chance to make a boatload of money on their stock options.”
    “You don’t have to be nice, you know.”
    She nodded. “I know. Funny thing is, from the company dynamic, I also thought they were looking for the prestige and the glory—the ability to thumb their nose at the huge pharmaceutical companies and their enormous research-and-development departments. It’s a small community out there. Everyone knows everyone else. Being able to beat the big boys is a huge feather in a company’s cap.”
    He smiled. “Follow the dollar. Works every time. However, by the way you’re talking, I’m figuring there’s a huge ‘but’ in there.”
    Tears filled her eyes, and then anger filled her belly. “They jumped the gun, Jack. I couldn’t get it to work.”
    He looked down at her thoroughly confused. “But I thought you just said you did get it to work.”
    Morgan shook her head. “You can’t understand the excitement, Jack. But you also have to understand that years of careful research go into getting a drug on the market. I was able to recreate one experiment.”
    “Okay, kitten. I get the point. But you said you were able to do it successfully. I’m going to assume that means more than once.”
    Morgan sighed. “Yes, you’re right. I did what I set out to do all right.”
    She closed the presentation file and found the file that would haunt her for a long, long time. She clicked on it and a picture filled the screen. Pinky and Louie. Her test mice. God, every time she looked at this picture she felt evil inside, for their poor little bodies were simply lying on the bottom of a cage, emaciated, grotesquely twisted, and totally lifeless.
    “I found the trigger, all right. I found out how to turn the metabolic process on, Jack. There was only one small problem. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.”

Chapter Ten
    Jack didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched out for several long, cold minutes. Her heart sank. Morgan knew what she was; the picture on the computer screen only brought that home with startling clarity.
    Dr. Morgan Mackenzie. Murderer.
    She hated that she’d killed those mice. If they’d gone in the name of science, she could have lived with that. But somewhere, somehow, she’d let her ego get in the way. Science and ego never mixed well. Hadn’t Dr. Lee told her that?
    “Morgan?”
    She turned from him as shame flooded her body. “This is all my fault, Jack.”
    He wouldn’t let her run away, swiveling around the chair until she faced him once again. “Hey,” he said, his voice soft with understanding. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because you made a