She was the boss now.
She placed her palms flat on the conference table and pressed until the numbness receded and she could feel the wood grain beneath her fingertips. “Cancel the party. We have work to do.”
THAT NIGHT, RAINE SLEPT a couple of hours stretched out on the couch in her office, waiting for new information. She had to have new information because what little they had didn’t make an iota of sense.
Thriller hadn’t killed Cari Summerton. It couldn’t have.
The fast-track clinical trials had shown that it was safe for human use. The toxicities were so minor as to be nonexistent. The drug researchers hadn’t noted anything unexpected-certainly nothing had suggested a connection between Thriller and heart attacks. There had to be another explanation for the woman’s death.
But what, exactly?
Coincidence? Fraud? Something else? As the cold winter dawn broke outside her office window, her mind buzzed with the possibilities, each of which seemed equally unlikely, but none more unlikely-at least to her-than the thought that her drug was a killer.
Please, God, let there be another explanation.
By ten that morning, as Raine downed her third cup of coffee, changed into the spare power suit she kept in the office closet and headed for a council of war, she wasn’t any closer to an answer. She just hoped to hell they found one soon.
Tension hung heavy in the conference room, which was crammed with nearly half of Raine’s forty-person staff. She sat at the head of the table and gestured for Jeff to begin with the first report. “What have we got on the caller? Is James Summerton for real?”
A sleepless night was etched in the young man’s earnest face, but he shook his head. “Not much. I’ve confirmed the names and the address, but nobody’s answering the phone. I can’t find an obituary on Cari Summerton in the local paper, but they may not have gotten it organized yet.” He paused. “Sorry. I wish I had more for you.”
So do I, Raine thought, but she didn’t say it aloud because she knew Jeff was already working as hard as he could. They’d each taken a chance on the other-her in hiring a young genius with no managerial experience, him in working for a startup company with only one major product in the pipeline. He was putting his sickly younger brother through college. She was trying to grow up at the age of thirty-five and learn how to take charge of her own life.
They both needed Thriller to succeed.
“Keep looking,” she said. “We need to be absolutely certain this guy is for real before we proceed.” Scam artists had planted severed fingers in fast food before, looking for a quick settlement. It was possible that Summerton was looking to cash in on an unexpected-or faked-death, figuring the company would pay rather than risk Thriller’s reputation on the eve of its launch.
If that was the case, she’d be tempted to pay, just to keep things quiet. But, if there was a problem with Thriller, they needed to know about it before the drug went on sale. She was trying to do this right, trying to protect the consumer while covering her own butt.
She had already called the Food and Drug Administration-FDA-where she’d filed an unexpected toxicity report that likely wouldn’t get read for a few days or even a week. Then she’d called her distributors, delaying the launch.
She’d said there were problems with the print ads and the commercials, that the hype wasn’t where she needed it to be. “Push it back a week,” she’d said. “We’ll have everything straightened out by then.”
She hoped.
That had taken care of the new prescriptions, but there were thousands of sample packets already in use. Were they safe or not? One possibly fraudulent death report wasn’t sufficient evidence for her to recall the samples, but if another user died and the press got wind that Rainey Days had known about the problem…
Instant media crisis. How could she balance the company’s welfare against the possibility that she might be endangering lives?
Raine pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to fight back the impending headache. She gestured to her head epidemiologist, Red, who was a sharp- faced woman with wild auburn hair, a mercurial temper and a photographic recall for facts and figures. Raine asked, “Did your department find any cardiac problems in the toxicity databases?”
Red scowled, apparently taking the question-and the death-as a personal affront. “Of course not. There’s nothing to find. Thriller is safe for human use. Hell, it scores better in terms of side effects and cross-reactions than aspirin. This is a setup. It has to be.”
Raine, who’d butted heads with Red on more than one occasion, fixed her with a stern look. “You did check the clinical-trial databases for cardiac toxicity reports, right?”
The epidemiologist bristled. “Of course. There were none. Headaches. Sleeplessness. A few sniffles. Nothing more, like I already told you six times.”
Ignoring the attitude because Red was the best at what she did, personal style notwithstanding, Raine called on the other department heads. They didn’t have much to add until she reached Phillip Worth, the gaunt, forty-something head of the legal department.
“You need to get yourself an investigator,” Phil said. “We can’t plan a strategy without more information. Is the dead woman really dead? Did she actually take Thriller? Was an autopsy performed? Tox screen?” He spread his hands. “There’ll either be a monetary demand or a lawsuit. We need to be prepared for both.”
Raine nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” Both about the preparations and the investigator. “I’ll work on it.”
She dismissed the meeting soon after, knowing that the longer they sat there, the more unanswered questions they’d accumulate.
Tori lingered while the others filed out. She was quiet for a moment, then said, “What’s wrong?”
Raine nearly laughed because at this point what wasn’t wrong? But she knew that wasn’t what Tori was asking.
The women weren’t close, weren’t even really friends, but they shared an unspoken bond of two people working to figure out who they were when everyone around them had been defining them for too long.
Tori had an ex-husband with quick fists.
Raine didn’t have that excuse.
Aware that her receptionist was waiting for an answer, Raine blew out a breath. “There are three major pharmaceutical investigation firms in the northeast. The top two won’t take the case without a six-figure retainer.” She dug her nails into her palms and felt success trickling away. “Everything I have-and then some-is tied up in Thriller. I had to borrow against the office computers to pay for the TV spots.”
Saying it aloud only made it sound worse.
“You said there were three companies. What about the third?”
“Vasek and Caine Investigations,” Raine said, trying to ignore the fine buzz of warmth that ran through her when she said the name. “It’s a small company, fairly new, but it’s gotten a hell of a cachet in the past few years. They have the reputation of taking on the impossible cases and making them possible.”
Tori’s eyes narrowed and she studied Raine’s face. “Which one are you avoiding, Vasek or Caine?”
Raine winced. “That would be Maximilian Vasek. Max. We had a…”
She wasn’t even sure what to call it. They hadn’t dated, hadn’t been lovers, hadn’t even kissed. He had known her during the worst weeks of her life, three years earlier. She’d leaned on him, depended on him, formed a connection with him.
And then she’d taken off.
She hadn’t even said goodbye. She hadn’t known how to.
“We knew each other,” she said finally. “It didn’t end well.”
“Did it end badly enough that he’d turn you down flat if you called and explained the situation?” Tori asked.
“I don’t know.” It was possible the emotion had been all on her side, that he’d been relieved when she left. And hell, it’d been three years. Surely she was little more than a bad memory by now?
Surely, he didn’t still
think of her, didn’t still wonder what might have happened if she’d stayed and worked through her problems back in Boston rather than running away?
“Call him,” Tori ordered, sounding bossier than Raine had ever heard her before.
“There’s got to be something else we can try first.” Raine heard a pleading note creep into her voice. She’d stared at the New York phone number off and on all morning, knowing she had to make the call.
She wasn’t sure which would be worse-having him hang up on her, or having him not remember her at all. In fact, it would probably be better just to show up. He wouldn’t throw her out of the office.
Would he?
A knock brought Raine’s head up in time to see Jeff enter the room. His expression was grim enough to send a chill racing across her skin when he said, “You need to see this.”
He clicked on the TV, the one they’d used to watch the debut of her commercial-was it only yesterday? It felt like a week ago.
He tuned to one of the major twenty-four-hour news stations, and Raine’s stomach knotted. “Oh, God. Cari Summerton’s family went public?”
If they had, it meant this wasn’t a scam. There really was a dead woman. She really had taken Thriller. Those basic facts were too easy for the reporters to check.
It also meant the media bloodbath had begun.
Jeff shook his head, eyes hollow. “Worse. Whoever broke the story got three other families to come forward. It’s not just one dead woman, it’s four.”
Four dead.
The words buzzed in Raine’s brain like a scream that was echoed in the strident ring of the conference-room phone. Tori answered, and her already pale face went ghost-white. “Please hold.”
She held the receiver out to Raine just as the TV news crawl read, Four women die after taking the sex-enhancement drug Thriller. A spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration reports that an investigation will be launched immediately.
Raine looked at the handset. “Is that the FDA?” When Tori nodded, Raine pinched the bridge of her nose, where a stress headache had taken up permanent residence. “I guess it’s time for that last resort.”
It looked like she was headed to New York.
And Max.
Chapter Two
When a knock at the apartment door signaled the arrival of his take-out dinner, Max Vasek poked his head out of the bathroom and yelled, “Be right there!”
And it was about time, too. He’d called in the order nearly forty minutes ago. Then again, he’d learned that stuff like deliveries and repairs always took twice as long in New York City versus back in Boston, where he’d grown up and spent a chunk of his adult life.
It was a geographic law or something.
Hair still damp from his post-gym shower, wearing worn jeans and a heavy flannel shirt he’d left unbuttoned because the thermostat was on the fritz again and the five-room apartment was randomly cycling between arctic and parboil, Max padded to the door barefoot. He plucked a ten and a twenty from his wallet, undid the safety locks and opened the door. “Keep the-”
Then he stopped. Standing outside his apartment was a tall woman wearing a calf-length red coat and a bulky wool hat, tipped down so it obscured her face. She was long and lean, with a big leather bag slung diagonally across her body, city-style.
Clearly not his Chinese food.
“Whoops, sorry.” Max rocked back on his heels. “You the new tenant in 5B? If you’re wondering about the heat, the super said he’d get to it this week sometime, and he’s pretty good about stuff like that.”
The woman took a breath, and he saw her gloved hands twine together and hold before she said, “I’m not the new tenant.” Her husky voice was the first punch of a one-two, with “two” following the moment she looked up, so he could see her face. “I need to talk to you.”
Max’s breath whistled between his teeth, forced by the shock of that second punch.
Her long dark hair was pulled back under her hat, but a few loose curls touched the aristocratic angles of her face and the long curve of her neck. Her eyes were a haunting light brown that seemed to glow against her rosy skin and dark lashes, adding a pout to her full, dusky lips.
Raine Montgomery. He knew her instantly, even after-what had it been? Two years? Three?
Three years since she’d disappeared from her room at Boston General Hospital without a word, proving that he’d been wrong about her. She hadn’t had a deeper layer buried beneath the brittle, scared exterior. She had been exactly what she’d seemed on the surface. Shallow. Self-absorbed. Career-minded at the expense of family or loyalty.
And so achingly beautiful he’d talked himself into believing she needed him, talked himself into believing they had a future together.
Until she’d taken off.
“I went to your office and spoke with your partner. He gave me this address. I hope you don’t mind.” She tilted her head to look up at him, because although she was a slender five foot ten, he still topped her by nearly six inches. “May I come in?”
“I do mind.” In fact, he was going to kill William for giving out his home address. “And no, you can’t come in.” Max didn’t need to glance back into the bare rooms to know he didn’t want her anywhere near his apartment, or his life. “Since I know damn well this isn’t a social call, I can only assume you have a case for Vasek and Caine. Make an appointment during business hours and we’ll see what we can do for you.”
Translation: he’d pawn her off on William, who was nearly impervious to big brown eyes.
Max was tempted to tell her to get lost, but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew her company was getting set to launch their highly touted female sex-enhancement drug-not because he’d been keeping tabs on her, but because the buzz had been impossible to ignore. It stood to reason that she wanted to see him about Thriller.
The drug was slated to bring in big money. Big publicity. Exactly the sort of thing his and William’s company needed if they wanted to break out of the nickel-and-dime stuff and into mainstream competition.
“Tomorrow could be too late,” she argued. “I need to talk to you now.”
He was faintly surprised by the persistence, which jarred against his memory of a quiet, polite woman in a hospital bed, one who didn’t want to be fussed over as the doctors struggled to control a blood clotting issue. It was that very desire not to make a fuss that had made him want to fuss over her. Want to be with her. Want to wrap her in silk and take her away from danger and ugliness.
It was what his techie friend Ike called DIDS. Damsel In Distress Syndrome.
But, Max thought grimly, knowing you have a problem is the first step in fighting it.
He didn’t budge from the door. “You need to talk to me? So talk.”
She took a breath and glanced away. “First, I need to apologize. You were nothing but kind to me three years ago, and I treated you badly. I was sick, hormonal and upset and going through a really terrible time in my life, but that’s no excuse.” She paused and looked at him squarely before she said, “I’m sorry. I should have said goodbye.”
Three years ago, that might have mattered to him.
Now, he scowled. “Agreed. So what?”
He expected her to back down. Instead, she stood her ground while something dark and haunted moved through her expression. “I’m in trouble. You’ve heard of Thriller?”
He nodded, accepting the change of topic if not the apology. “Female sexuality drug. Lots of publicity. Launches sometime this week.”
“Actually, it was supposed to launch today. The FDA put a hold on it.” Still standing in the hallway, she unslung the leather bag from around her neck, opened it and pulled out a folder that was filled with a half inch of papers and had a data disk taped to the front inside a plastic sleeve. She offered it to him. “Four women are dead from cardiac arrest. According to the reports, the only thing they had in common was that all four took Thriller before they died.”
He ignored the folder. “Call
William in the morning and make an appointment. Our history back in Boston doesn’t give you the right to hunt me up at home, and it doesn’t qualify you for preferential treatment. Hell, if anything, I should tell him to ask for hazard pay.”
He told himself he’d meant the comment as a joke, but it landed flat.
Three years earlier, he’d been more or less content with his lab work at Boston General Hospital. With a Ph.D in biochemistry, a postdoc in a fertility lab and a half-dozen major first-author papers to his name, he could’ve run his own group, but preferred having someone else manage the basics, leaving him free to pursue interesting side projects.
It was one such side project that had put him in contact with a then-pregnant Raine. When danger had stalked the lab and its patients, Max had appointed himself the pretty divorcée’s guardian, and had thought his growing feelings were reciprocated.
In the end, an empty hospital room had proven otherwise.
“I already spoke to your partner about the case,” she said quickly. “He told me to talk to you.”
Max bet she was leaving out a few steps. Like how she’d conned William into giving up his address. No doubt she’d implied-or outright said-that they’d been lovers, when they’d been nothing of the sort.
Though they might have been lovers. If they’d met at another time, under different circumstances…
It didn’t matter, Max told himself. They’d met the way they’d met, and parted the way they’d parted.
And he’d gone on to make some really bad decisions in the aftermath. Maybe it wasn’t fair to blame her for them, but that didn’t change the upshot.
Damsels in distress were nothing but trouble.
He held up a hand before she could speak again. “Look, Raine. An apology doesn’t change anything.” He stepped back, into the apartment. “If you want Vasek and Caine to handle your case, you’ll have to deal with William, not me.”
With that, he shut the door on her. He didn’t slam it, because a slam would indicate anger, suggesting he still cared.
Under the Microscope Page 2