by L. T. Ryan
Finally, he let go.
Mandy kicked back. Her foot connected with his knee. Before he could react, she was sprinting up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until she reached the landing. She heard Mrs. Moore crying behind the door at the end of the hall. Mandy skidded to a stop in front of it. She beat her fists against the door and yelled, “Let me in! Let me in!”
Marcus swung open the door. She bowled him over as she pushed through. He got up and slammed and locked the door behind her. She used her shirt to wipe out her mouth, ignoring the way her stomach twisted.
“What is going on?” Mrs. Moore yelled. She was half furious, half panicked. She pulled Marcus into her arms and held onto him for dear life.
“It’s a long story.” Mandy didn’t even know where to start. “The other day—”
Banging on the door. All three of them jumped. The door handle jiggled, but it wouldn’t open. There was a solid thump, like the guy was trying to kick the door in. Luckily, the door was solid, and the lock was a deadbolt. He’d have to split the entire door or take it off the hinges to get through. Chances were, he would eventually. But they had bought some time.
Mandy rushed over to the window, trying to gauge whether they could drop from the second floor and make a run for it. If this guy was alone, they might be able to do it before he’d noticed their escape. But if he had any buddies, they wouldn’t make it very far, and they’d be back to square one. If he wasn’t alone, why hadn’t they come in when they heard yelling?
Mandy was still trying to work out a solution when they heard a different kind of roar. Another set of footsteps pounded up the stairs. The thumping went quiet. There was a scuffle on the other side of the door. Then a grunt as a body hit the wall.
A different voice spoke. The door muffled it, but there was no mistaking what he said. “You’re going to regret that.”
Mrs. Moore’s crying intensified.
A smile swept across Mandy’s face. “We’re going to be okay.”
“How do you know?” Marcus asked.
Mandy’s smile widened. “Because that’s my dad.”
38
An hour later, the police were leaving Marcus’ house. They’d arrested the intruder and taken the trio’s statements. Mrs. Moore had been cold toward Bear and Mandy over the last week. Now she couldn’t thank them enough. She’d hugged Mandy at least three times and told Bear if he ever needed anything to let her know.
“There is one thing,” Bear said. “Mandy tells me you’re a pharmacist?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
He pulled the pieces of paper from Bowser Freight out of his back pocket. “Can you tell me what these are?”
The woman took the papers and studied them. She looked back up, afraid. “Where did you get these?”
“A friend helped me get them,” Bear said. Marcus had the good sense to stay silent. “Why? What are they?”
“They’re the components of an experimental drug that HealTek is trying to develop. It’s not on the market yet.”
“What does it do?”
“They’re pitching it as a miracle drug that cures cancer. But the FDA won’t approve it because the side effects are too severe.”
“What are the side effects?”
“More virulent forms of the cancer. Untreatable.”
Bear didn’t want to point fingers in front of her kid, but if she knew more than she was letting on, he could use that information to put a stop to this. “How do you know all this?”
Mrs. Moore handed the papers back to Bear and sat on the couch. She placed her face in her hands and cried. After a minute, she pulled herself together. She straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Dr. Sing was a good friend of mine. She trusted me. Not with everything. But I understand how drugs interact with the human body. She would pick my brain.”
“Did you know?” Bear tried to keep the accusation out of his voice. “About what’s been going on?”
“No.” She wiped wetness from her eyes. “I still don’t understand it all. And if I’m being honest, I don’t want to.” She looked away. “I know that makes me a terrible person—”
“We all make mistakes.” Bear joined her on the couch, aware that both Mandy and Marcus were watching them like hawks. “Trust me, I’ve made some pretty big ones in my life. But it’s never too late to do the right thing. To try to fix something. I need you to tell me what you know.”
Mrs. Moore took a deep breath. She looked at Marcus and smiled, but it was sad. Like she hoped this wouldn’t make him see her in a different light. “Aimee—Dr. Sing—had been working with HealTek for about twenty years. She had her practice at the hospital, and she was a consultant with the company. They paid her good money for her opinion. She said at first, it was simple stuff. Easy things. Like which drugs they needed most. Which would be more profitable. She didn’t have a problem telling them. After all, it’d benefit her in the end. She got paid to tell them, and they’d make sure she was one of the first to have the medication.”
“There’s no shame in helping people and getting paid for it,” Bear said. “But you mentioned this was the easy stuff?”
She nodded. “After a while, they started asking her strange questions. Like if it were possible to induce diseases in people. Make them sick at an accelerated rate. She told me that, at first, she believed they were thought experiments. You know, a think tank. This was right after nine-eleven. People talked about biological weapons. She thought she was helping them fight against those things. The questions got more specific as time went on. Her contacts at the company would leave and come back a week or a month later with more questions. She felt like they were using her expertise for their experiments. Every time she asked what was going on, they’d cut her out of the conversation. Eventually, she learned to not ask.”
“Then what?” Bear asked.
“Things went quiet for a while. They still consulted her, but not on anything big. Those questions in the back of her head never got answered, you know?”
“When did they start consulting her again?”
“About five years ago.” Mrs. Moore rubbed her hands together like she was cold, then crossed her arms and hugged herself. “Now, they were asking the opposite questions. How to cure diseases. Not just treat or manage them. Eradicate them from the human body. The big question was about cancer.”
“How did she feel about that?”
The woman shrugged. “Every pharmaceutical company is looking to cure cancer with a pill. That’s the dream. The golden egg. She told them what she knew, and they’d come back every week with new questions.”
“I’m sure she felt better about that line of questioning.”
“She did.” Mrs. Moore smiled. “She was excited and thought they’d be able to do something together. She was a brilliant doctor. And they had a lot of resources. It was a match made in heaven.”
“Until it wasn’t?”
She nodded. “Aimee was naïve. Innocent, almost. She liked to believe the best in people. I think that’s part of what made her a good doctor, you know? She didn’t judge. One day, she told me she’d done something terrible. She wouldn’t tell me what, just that she needed to fix it. She asked my opinion on two scenarios. The first was that she would go to the authorities, but she’d go down with HealTek. I didn’t know in what context.” She blew out a breath before she continued. “The second scenario was that she would attempt to fix it herself. While it might have taken longer, she’d save a lot of lives. And keep hers.”
“I’m guessing she went with the second.”
Mrs. Moore nodded. “That’s what I told her to do.” A sob escaped, and her voice shook with emotion. “I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t want to lose my friend. Whatever she had gotten caught up in, it was because she was trying to do the right thing.”
Silence filled the room as Mrs. Moore sobbed. Mandy walked up to her and placed a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “It’s not your
fault. She made her choice. You were trying to protect your friend.”
The woman looked up at her, tears still in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“Do you have any idea what was going on?” Bear knew more now than he did earlier in the day, but he still didn’t have the whole picture. “Do you have any idea what HealTek has been doing?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never talked to them directly. I fill prescriptions and answer questions about drugs. That’s all I ever did for Aimee. Occasionally, I’d set something aside for her, but I think she got most of her resources from HealTek directly.”
“Do you know if she was participating in any clinical trials?”
Mrs. Moore shook her head. “In the last year, we haven’t really talked about it. Maybe I should’ve asked what was going on. I could’ve been—I could’ve been a better friend. I could’ve asked. But I was afraid.”
“She made her choice. That’s not your responsibility.” Bear’s phone buzzed. He got up from the couch, his head swimming with information. “Hello?”
“Is this Mr. Logan?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Anna from the hospital. Sheriff McKinnon is stable and would like to talk with you. She’d like to see you immediately.”
He felt a hundred pounds lighter. McKinnon was stable. He turned to Mandy and smiled. “I’ll be right there.”
39
Bear stepped out of Mrs. Moore’s house just as someone was pulling into the neighbor’s driveway. It was dark enough that the headlights blinded him. He put up a hand and waited for the driver to cut the engine. After a few seconds, the car shut off and Bear blinked away the spots in his vision.
It wasn’t until the man climbed out of his car that Bear realized it was the councilman who had threatened him and McKinnon. “Good evening, Mr. Logan.”
“The hell are you doing here?” Bear said.
“Picking up my son.” He straightened his jacket, smoothing a crease along the front. “Tell me, how’s Sheriff McKinnon doing?”
Bear didn’t care that Mrs. Moore and the kids were at the door. Or that this was a sitting member of the town council. He didn’t know what kind of power Henry Richter had, and he didn’t care. Even if he shared a name with one of the founding fathers of this town and even if he had all of HealTek to back him up, Bear wasn’t afraid of him.
And when he launched himself over the garden fence dividing the two properties, he enjoyed the petrified look that crossed the other man’s face. Bear grabbed his tie and yanked him closer. “What did you say?”
The man sputtered. “What are you doing? Let me go.” Bear shoved him back so hard, Richter landed on his backside with a grunt. He looked up at Bear with terror and embarrassment. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I’ll tell you what I’m not.” Bear stepped closer. He towered over the other man now. “I’m not afraid of you. But you need to be afraid of me.”
Richter stood up. His hands were shaking. He covered it up by brushing the dirt from his pants. “You’re going to regret that. I’ve already given you one warning, Mr. Logan.”
“Like you gave McKinnon?”
The man shrugged. “I told her to wrap up the investigation. She refused. I was trying to help her.”
They were toe to toe now. “What did you do to her?”
“It’s what she’s done that matters. It’s what you’re doing. If you’d just left well enough alone—”
Bear didn’t bother letting him finish the sentence. He reared back his arm and punched the man in the face. Richter fell for the second time in as many minutes. Bear heard Mrs. Moore gasp behind him. The neighbor’s front door opened and a teenager peered through the screen door. It took Bear a minute to place him. Mandy had shown him a picture of the kid who had been bullying her. It was him.
Pete.
“This makes a lot more sense now,” Bear said. “You’re a piece of work, Richter. And you’ve turned your kid into a bully.” By this point, Pete had made his way out and was standing next to the passenger door with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Bear glanced over at the kid. “Don’t turn out like him. You might bully your way through life for a while, but one day you’ll come up against someone bigger than you. And you’ll regret wasting your life chasing power and prestige.”
Richter started to get up. “Don’t you dare talk to my son…”
Bear pushed him back on his ass. “Sit down.” He bent over and stuck a finger in the man’s face. “You’re lucky the sheriff survived whatever you tried to do with her.”
“What are you even talking about, Logan?”
“It’s only a matter of time before we nail everyone else involved. And I look forward to seeing you hang there with your buddies.”
“You’ve got nothing.” The councilman sneered. “By the end of the week, you’ll be gone. And no one will remember you. No one will miss you.”
“We’ll see about that.” Bear turned to leave. He cast a glance over his shoulder. “If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t bet on you, Richter.”
After Richter and Pete backed out of the driveway and drove off into the night, Bear walked up to Mandy and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Stay here. Lock the doors. I don’t think anyone else will bother you tonight, but stay vigilant, okay? You protect these two, got it?”
Mandy’s face was set in stone. She stared into the darkness. “Got it.”
Bear hugged her and looked at Mrs. Moore. “She’s a good kid. Listen to her.”
“What are you going to do?” the woman asked.
Bear turned back to his truck. “I’m going to end this.” He ground his teeth together. “One way or another.”
40
Bear knocked on the door as he entered the hospital room. A nurse was checking on McKinnon’s vitals, and when she saw Bear, she frowned. Patting the sheriff’s hand, she walked toward the door, making direct eye contact with Bear. “She’s still weak. Don’t get her worked up, you hear?”
Bear put a hand to his chest. “Me? Never!”
The nurse scowled and left the room. When Bear turned to McKinnon, she smiled. He doubted she had the energy to laugh. He pulled a chair up to her bed and gave her a once over. She looked pale, but otherwise the same. Her eyes drooped, like she could use nothing more than a good night’s rest.
“One of the great ironies of a hospital,” Bear said, “is that they want you to rest and relax so you can heal, but they’ll wake you up twenty times during the night.”
“Yeah, they don’t really like it when I fall asleep,” she said. “Then they can’t ask me the same questions over and over again.”
He chuckled. “How’re you feeling?”
“Good.” She grimaced. “Well, not good, but better. Thanks to you.” When Bear waved off the comment, she scowled. “Seriously, Riley. You saved my life. I owe you big time.”
“I might have to cash that in sooner than later.”
For the first time, McKinnon took Bear in. He knew his face was already bruising and he still had flecks of blood on his shirt.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I found Jeremy Olsen.” When her eyebrows went up, he continued. “He’s the same guy who tried to kidnap Mandy. And the guy who tried to run us off the road. He works for Bowser. Pretty sure it’s off the books.”
“How did you find that out?”
Bear had the good sense to look sheepish. “I may have reexamined Bowser’s part in all of this.”
McKinnon nodded. “And?”
“They’re in bed with HealTek.” He handed the pieces of paper detailing the drugs to her. “Our good friend Mr. Weinberger tipped me off that they make him leave the room when certain shipments arrive. He told me the lot numbers. I pulled this info from their computers.”
“I won’t ask how you did that.” She sifted through the papers, then looked back up at him. “Weinberger? Really?”
“Really. Didn’t even have to r
ough him up for it.”
She shook her head. There was a small smile on her face. “What are these?”
“According to Marcus’ mother, they’re components of a so-called miracle drug. She learned bits and pieces from Dr. Sing, but she doesn’t have the full picture. It looks like Sing had been involved since the beginning. First as a consultant, then more directly.”
“Did Moore know anything about the clinical trials?”
“No. We need to find Sing’s notebooks. That’ll give us more information. Maybe enough to make an arrest.”
The sheriff looked through the papers again, and then handed them back to Bear. She looked more drained than when he’d first entered, and for a second, he was afraid the nurse would come back and kick him out. But when McKinnon spoke again, her voice was clear. “We’re so close. We have the dots. Now we have to connect them.”
There was a knock on the door, and Bear twisted around to find Weinberger standing there. “Maybe I can help?”
Bear didn’t bother hiding the skepticism from his face. “What changed your mind?”
“My daughter. Laura Lynn. She’s… getting worse. I don’t know what else to do.”
Bear was still trying to reconcile the Weinberger he had met a few days ago with the man who seemed to have found a healthy dose of humility. “Thought you didn’t know anything.”
“I don’t. But I know where you can get some answers.” The man nodded and entered the room. There was only one chair, and Bear wasn’t going to give it up. It forced Weinberger to stand with his arms dangling at his side. “The company houses its labs below the building. Most employees aren’t allowed down there. As the warehouse manager, I have access for deliveries. I can get to four out of the five floors.”
“And the fifth?”
“I think that’s where you’ll find your answers.”