Sarah Woods Mystery Series (Volume 6)

by Jennifer L. Jennings

  The blue sedan inched forward as if threatening to run Carter over, but he refused to budge.

  Once I caught up, I was able to snap off a few pictures of the license plate with my cell phone. I couldn't see inside the car with the dark tinted windows. I tried the back passenger door handle to no avail.

  At this point, a major traffic jam began to form behind us and angry drivers were either trying to get around us, or getting out of their cars to find out what the hold-up was.

  Finally, the driver of the blue sedan punched the gas, plowing right into Carter. I heard myself scream as Carter's torso smashed into the windshield and he flipped up and over the car, landing hard on the cement.

  I screamed his name as I ran over to help, praying to the heavens that he hadn't cracked his skull.

  I needn't have worried!

  Carter got to his feet and shook himself off. “I'm fine, Sarah. I might be limping for a few days but I'm fine.”

  I wrapped my arms around him. “What the hell were you trying to do?”

  A man from the sidewalk ran up to us and said, “Hey man, want me to call the police or an ambulance?”

  Carter kindly waved him away. “Thanks buddy. We're good.”

  Back on the sidewalk, Carter took a few seconds to catch his breath.

  “Did you see who was driving?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yep, it was Logan Taylor. Michael was in the back seat with his sister.”

  I gasped. “What?”

  “Rachel Manning is alive. I saw her. She probably feared that Michael was going to tell us her secret. Do me a favor and get the Buick, then pick me up.” He handed me the car keys. “Quickly.”

  I jogged over to the parking lot, my heart racing. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Carter had seen Rachel in the back of the blue car.

  Had his eyes deceived him?

  I got in the Buick, exited the lot, and circled the block to find Carter waiting for me in front of the Motel.

  He got in, staring at his phone. “Okay, the GPS is still moving, so we have to hurry and catch up before someone realizes that Michael is being tracked.”

  I punched the gas, white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Just tell me where to go.”

  Following Carter’s commands, we ended up on I-84 heading east and remained there for about thirty miles. Since this wasn’t a breezy highway with passing lanes, there was no hope of catching up to the blue sedan. “Where the heck are they going?”

  “Just stay on track,” he said. “The GPS is still in motion, about a mile ahead of us.”

  A troubling thought occurred to me. Why would Rachel abduct her brother? Although it wasn’t really abduction if he willingly got into the car with her. “They could’ve found the phone in his pocket and thrown it into a moving dump truck, or something. We may be on a wild goose-chase.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  A few minutes later, Carter had me take a right on Hungerford Street, and we continued on that road until we hit what appeared to be a dead end. No houses around. “What now?”

  Carter said, “There should be a road on the left here. It looks overgrown with weeds. Take it anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Look.” He pointed to the tire tracks leading into the road. “They went in there.”

  “This could be an ambush,” I said, but I did as Carter instructed and turned the Buick into the road. The hidden road was basically a dirt path filled with potholes, tree branches scraping against the side of the car. I prayed we wouldn’t get a flat tire or a cracked windshield in all this mess.

  Suddenly, we came into a clearing and a lake appeared, with a half-dozen dilapidated cabins. “Looks like a campground,” he said.

  “Do you see the blue sedan anywhere?”

  Carter was too busy opening the glove box. After he retrieved his gun, he said, “Stop the car. I’m getting out.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want them to see the car. The GPS says they are less than two hundred feet away so I’m going in on foot.”

  I stopped the car, cut the engine and looked around outside, spotting the blue sedan. “Over there, six cabins down. That must be where Rachel’s been hiding out, that is, if it’s really her.”

  “Oh, it is,” he said. “I’m positive of that, and she knows I recognized her in the car.”

  When Carter got out, he slipped the gun into the waist of his jeans, under his shirt and proceeded toward the cabins. “Stay here.”

  “Like hell I will.” I exited the Buick and fell in line behind him. He didn’t try to talk me out of it. “Maybe a better idea would be to call the police and give them this location. We could tell them Michael has been abducted.”

  Carter charged up to the cabin and rapped on the door. “Come on,” he shouted out. “We know you’re in there. We just want to have a chat.” He banged again. “If you don’t let us in, we’re calling the cops. I don’t think you want that. So open up.”

  After a long thirty seconds, the door slowly opened. Logan’s face appeared. “How did you find us?”

  “There’s a phone in Michael’s jacket with a tracking device.”

  Logan shook his head, upset with himself. “Nice move.”

  “Is Rachel and Michael inside?” Carter asked. “And don’t insult my intelligence by saying that Rachel is dead.”

  Taking a deep breath, Logan massaged the bridge of his nose, clearly agitated. “What are you packing?”

  Carter showed him the pistol tucked into his jeans. “I’d rather not use it. It’s your choice, though.”

  Logan opened the door wider to let us in. “Looks to me like I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Upon entering the cabin, Carter and I both turned to see Michael sitting with his sister on a couch, holding hands. Michael looked terrified, and Rachel was stroking his arm gently trying to soothe him.

  “The jig is up,” Carter said. “An innocent man is in prison for a murder that never happened. Why?”

  Rachel’s eyes were wide with fear as she looked to Logan, as if begging him to explain.

  Logan said, “We know it’s not fair about Andrew. The case was never supposed to go to trial. If his lawyer had done his job, he’d be a free man.”

  “Well, that's one thing we can agree on.” Carter said, taking three long steps toward Rachel. “Why did you fake your own death? I want to hear it from you.”

  She just sat there, eyes blinking at Carter as if she’d lost her tongue. Finally, she said, “It’s... a long story.”

  “We have the time.”

  Logan spoke up, as if trying to protect Rachel. “Look, if she hadn’t faked her death, she would’ve been murdered. It was the only way to keep her safe. It was my idea, and I’ll take full responsibility for the repercussions when the time comes.”

  “Who is this person you’re hiding from, exactly?” I asked, inserting myself into the conversation. “who is this person who was going to murder you.”

  Rachel and Logan exchanged a glance and she nodded. Logan pulled up two flimsy wicker chairs for us to sit. “Assuming you’ve already looked into me, you know my work has mostly been focused on Big Pharma, trying to expose the ways they manipulate the system for their own gain. I have been stymied at every turn Big Pharma is too powerful to allow one man to stand in its way. But I’m not so easily deterred.”

  “Get to the point,” Carter said.

  “The point is, Rachel and her colleagues had developed a groundbreaking therapy that could literally wipe out the need for mind-numbing prescription drugs. Maybe not for every patient, but for a vast majority of them. If that were to become a globally recognized cure for depression, Big Pharma would lose billions of dollars in profits.”

  Carter shook his head, astonished. “So you convinced Rachel to fake her own death, so Big Pharma’s hitmen would what? Pack it in and call it a day? Don’t you think someone would figure it out eventually? You didn’t plan on hiding out in the
woods forever, did you?”

  “All we needed was some time to get the proof.”

  “Well?” Carter said, palms up. “What proof have you got?”

  Logan reached across the table for a file folder and handed it to him. “As it turns out, I may have been wrong about Big Pharma, at least in this case. However, there is Roger Shefke.”

  “Yeah,” Carter said. “We met him yesterday. What about him?”

  “Shefke is a rich man, but he didn’t get that way by selling his publishing business. His investment portfolio is thicker than an encyclopedia. His biggest investment to date, with over three million dollars in, is a Big Pharma giant called Mercer Quaid. And guess what? Mercer Quaid is the top producer of anti-psychotic drugs on the market. If that stock were to dip just half a percent, Mr. Shefke would stand to lose big.”

  “So what?” Carter said. “If Shefke is so loaded, why would he care if he lost a few million? There’s more where that came from. The guy probably makes half a mil a year just on interest alone.”

  “Shefke is the one who approached Rachel about doing her project when he got wind of the research. He wanted to have control, so he could eventually squash the whole thing. He realized that the only sure way to make this go away, was to eliminate the people behind the research. Then he could do whatever the hell he wanted.”

  Carter turned to look at me as if wondering what I thought about all this. I had to admit, Logan had presented a compelling case. “Why would Shefke risk going to jail?”

  “Because he knows he’ll never see the inside of a jail cell. He’s too rich. He’s too connected. He thinks he’s infallible.”

  “Let’s assume you’re right about Shefke,” I said. “What physical proof do you have that he caused Dr. Spealman’s heart attack? Or caused Dr. Linzer to crash his car into a ditch?”

  “That’s the problem,” Logan said. “We have no physical proof. Not yet. However, I have reason to believe that Shefke is planning another murder.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Dr. Boyle. He’s the loose end that needs to be tied up. Even though, technically he left the group early on, he still helped develop the therapy. He’s still using it in his private practice.”

  My chest tightened as I looked at Carter. “He’s planning to meet with Shefke tonight to talk about the book.”

  Logan said, “You need to warn Boyle right away. Shefke’s got a different motive for the meeting, I’m sure.”

  “Barry won’t believe us.” I turned to look at Rachel. “Unless we tell him that you’re still alive and why you faked your murder.”

  “No.” Logan slammed the file down on the table. “That’s not an option. I’m telling you guys, we need hard proof or else Shefke and his lawyers will crucify us. What we need is to catch him in the act.”

  Carter snorted. “Catch him in the act of committing murder? Please. The guy isn’t stupid.”

  “But that’s just it,” Logan countered. “He doesn’t know that we’re on to him. He thinks Rachel is dead. He’s probably feeling pretty secure. We just need a plan.”

  “We have surveillance equipment,” I said. “We could place hidden cameras around Barry’s office, but we’d have to tell him why. He needs to be in on this for it to work.”

  “Fine,” Logan said. “You can tell him about Shefke, but you can’t tell him about Rachel just yet.”

  Michael’s head was leaning on his sister’s shoulder, eyes half-mast. She continued to rub his hand, snuggled close. I wanted to lash out at her. To scold her for putting Andrew in a most compromising position. But I could see that she was also a victim. Still scared for her life.

  “Rachel,” I said. “How did you do it? I saw the crime scene photos. There was so much blood.”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed as if summoning the courage. Finally, when her eyes opened, she took a deep breath and began. “When Logan came to visit me last January with the news about Shefke, I realized I had a tough decision to make. I wanted to tell Andrew my plan, but Logan talked me out of it. He said it was too risky. We never believed he’d get arrested. In fact, the plan was to frame Pablo Catalino, a patient of mine who is a repeat sex offender. He was the sickest person I’ve ever met, with no real hope for recovery...” Rachel paused to take a breath and check in with Michael. He was staring off at the wall, seemingly uninterested. “In any case, Logan came to my office once a week for the month leading up to the big day. We took several pints of blood each time and stored it in blood bags with the appropriate amount of phosphate dextrose to keep it from clotting. A coroner wouldn’t think to test for that substance unless he suspected a staged crime scene. Logan had provided me with a temperature controlled heated box to store the blood bags in my basement. Then, on that morning after Andrew left for the gym, I took the bags up to the bedroom and slashed them open with a steak knife to simulate blood splatter caused by a violent stabbing. I ripped the shower curtain off the rod, smeared some blood going down the stairs, and left through the back door wearing a disguise. Logan was half a block down the street waiting for me and I’ve been here in hiding ever since.”

  It was quite a story. If I’d read this in a crime novel, I’d be rolling my eyes. And yet, part of me couldn’t help but admire her bravery and resolve. Most importantly, I felt immense relief knowing that Andrew would not be spending the rest of his life in prison. “Carter and I will go talk to Barry today and set him up with the surveillance if he agrees to it,” I said. “I’m willing to wait this out for another day or two but, if Shefke doesn’t make his move, I’m going to the police. This has gone on for much too long.”

  Logan and Rachel stared at each other for a moment as if they could read each other’s minds. I had a hunch they’d become close over the past few months. Maybe even lovers. I couldn’t imagine how Andrew would react to all this when he found out.

  “Okay,” Logan finally said, “If you manage to convince Barry to help us out, we might be able to nail this Shefke bastard.”

  Chapter 13

  On the drive back to Hartford, I felt like I was suspended in a state of stunned bewilderment. Carter seemed just as baffled as me.

  I called Barry Boyle’s office and spoke to his wife, Tracy. I told her we were on our way to see them for an urgent meeting. She agreed to reschedule Barry’s next appointment.

  “We’ll be there within the hour,” I said. “We’ll explain everything when we see you.”

  Ending the call, I leaned back and stared out the windshield as Carter weaved in and out of traffic. I thought of calling Sammy but decided to wait. I had to focus and keep my mind on track.

  “What do you think of Logan Taylor?” I asked Carter. “Do you think Shefke is killing Rachel’s colleagues?”

  “I don’t know. But clearly Logan is a desperate man. He’s failed in his quest to expose Big Pharma, so he’s going after the next best thing; the rich and entitled. His theory makes sense in a twisted sort of way.”

  “You have to admit he’s good. He was able to convince Rachel to turn her life upside down. Although, I can’t help but wonder if he’s just using her as material for his next big story. Maybe he’s hoping to win the Pulitzer for investigative reporting. That would certainly redeem his career.”

  “Yes, it would,” Carter said. “Ambition is fine, but he doesn’t seem to care about the collateral damage.”

  “I can also tell that something is going on between Rachel and Logan. I could see it in their eyes. I mean, think about it. They’ve been living together for two months now, in a secluded, abandoned campground on a beautiful lake. I bet he’s fallen in love with her and has been dragging his feet on the investigation, in hopes of prolonging their arrangement.”

  “Well, their arrangement is about to end very soon.”

  When we got to Dr. Boyle’s office an hour later, it was almost 2:00.

  Barry and his wife ushered us inside and locked the outside door.

  “What’s going on?” Tracy’s said, tuggi
ng on a strand of her black hair, twirling it in a nervous fashion. “You sounded so serious on the phone.”

  “Maybe we should all sit down.” Carter motioned for us to go into Barry’s private office. “We have some alarming news.”

  Barry pulled out chairs for everyone and offered us water. I noticed the sweat stains on his white shirt. Poor guy was on edge, and he had every right to be.

  Carter took control of the meeting, and I was glad. He cleared his throat once we all were settled and waiting. “There’s been a development, and it appears that Barry’s life is in imminent danger.”

  Tracy gasped. “How do you mean?”

  Carter made a point of giving Barry a stern look. “We have reason to believe that Roger Shefke might be behind the death of your colleagues, and you might be next.”

  Tracy made a hollow, frightened sound and grabbed her husband’s hand. “I knew it. Didn’t I warn you about this?”

  “It’s not so much a conspiracy theory,” Carter said. “We believe this is just one man acting alone to protect his own interests. Now, I can’t tell you for certain what this man has planned, but here’s what I propose. First, Tracy needs to leave town for a few days. Do you have family you can stay with?”

  She nodded. “My folks live in D.C. but I don’t want to leave my husband.”

  “He’ll be safe, I promise. Sarah and I are going to keep an eye on him. We’d like to set up surveillance here at the office as soon as possible. Barry, are you feeling okay?”

  Barry loosened the top three buttons of his shirt. “Just a little hot in here. I need a drink.” He got up and went to the mini fridge by his desk. He returned to his seat with a bottle of Gatorade and guzzled it.

  “I know this is a stressful situation,” Carter said. “But I also know that you want this to be over. Will you help us solve the deaths of your colleagues?”