Under the Microscope

by Jessica Andersen

  Max froze. “What did you say?”

  “I’m not giving up on Thriller.”

  “Before that. The name on the plane ticket was your mother’s name?”

  “My foster mother,” Raine corrected. “My father took off when my mother found out she was pregnant, and Social Services removed me when-” She broke off and blew out a breath. “Never mind. The Ashertons were my third foster family, but I lived with them the longest, until I graduated from high school.” She swallowed hard, realizing what that meant. “Oh, hell.”

  “If you didn’t buy that ticket, then somebody else did. Somebody who knows you that well.” Max watched her carefully.

  She could feel her heartbeat, hear it in her ears. “Nobody knows me that well. My childhood isn’t the sort of thing that comes up in casual conversation, and I don’t have many close friends.” Make that zero close friends, though Max didn’t need to hear about that.

  “Somebody knows,” he said grimly and turned back toward the SUV. “Come on. I’ll grab my stuff and we can get out of here.”

  Raine resisted. “But we didn’t find anything.”

  “Yes we did. The scene jogged your memory, and now we know about the name. We know the intruder must be someone with inside information or enough pull to run a very good background check on you.”

  Hope unfurled in her chest. “Then you believe me?”

  He glanced back at her, expression flat. “I’m not sure what I believe. Let’s just say that for now, I’m keeping an open mind.”

  “Oh.” Raine tucked her hands in her pockets. “I guess-”

  Her cell phone, one of her few personal posses sions that had remained safe in the SUV, chimed, interrupting her. She pulled out the small unit, flipped it open and checked the caller ID before she said, “Hi, Jeff. How are things at the office?”

  She’d phoned in first thing that morning, and everything had been status quo. But now the young man’s tone was deadly sober when he said, “Are you on your way?”

  Raine’s blood chilled. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “The FDA investigators want you here, pronto. They found something, but they won’t tell me what.” There was a pause before Jeff said, “And there’s more. There’s a cop here named Marcus. I don’t think he’s with the FDA. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  Raine’s fingers went numb on the phone, and the smell of stale smoke churned in her stomach. “We’re on our way.”

  She battled sick nerves as Max drove them into New Bridge and parked in her numbered spot near the entrance of the office building that housed Rainey Days. She was tempted to babble, to give voice to the thoughts that swirled around in her head.

  But she wasn’t sure whose side Max was on yet-hell, she didn’t think he knew, either. So she clamped her lips together and twisted her fingers against each other, straining with the need to reach the office, yet not wanting to be there at all.

  Until she actually heard the FDA reps say full recall of everything, even the samples, and Thriller is banned from the market, the worst hadn’t happened. Not yet, anyway.

  THOUGH HE STILL WASN’T SURE if the danger came from an outside source or the woman walking beside him, Max kept his senses alert as he pushed through the doors to her world.

  Based on the whimsical company name and his past experiences with Raine, he’d expected something smart and creative, but with a thrown-together feeling. He’d figured she would go for something temporary. A cardboard cutout office she could pick up and move on a moment’s notice.

  Instead, he walked into a slick lobby of marble and chrome, with warm hardwood floors and an inviting reception desk. A circular metal staircase off to the right ascended to a second level, where offices opened onto a New Orleans-style balcony that ran the circumference of a two-story open space. A hanging mobile of a complex molecule-maybe Thriller itself?-was suspended from the ceiling, moving lazily in an unseen current of air.

  The layout was attractive and functional. Modern. Well thought-out. Permanent feeling.

  Not at all what he’d expected.

  A low-grade hum of activity permeated the space, but many of the offices were dark. Loose knots of workers wearing business casual were clustered in the lobby, while men and women in more formal attire-suits and dark colors-carried boxed files or hunched over computers.

  The scene could have been entitled The Invasion of the FDA Investigators. Max had seen it before, several times in the course of his and William’s work.

  It had almost always ended with bad news for the drug company. Surprisingly, the thought sent a stab of remorse through Max.

  He glanced at Raine as they passed through the lobby and headed for the stairs. She greeted people by name, briskly but warmly, exuding a sense of purpose and control. She stopped for a brief conversation with a tech type and accepted a computer disk with a nod of thanks. She tucked the disk in the pocket of her blazer and kept walking, her businesslike strides exuding confidence.

  The panicked, vulnerable-looking woman who’d fidgeted on the drive over had been replaced by a boss. A leader.

  Someone who didn’t need anyone.

  She’s playing you, a small voice said deep inside Max. Using you. The moment you’ve bought her some breathing room from the arson investigation and the FDA’s case, she’ll be gone some where else, living under another name and laughing at you, calling you a sucker.

  Just like Charlotte.

  Cursing under his breath, not sure where to draw the line between paranoia and healthy caution, he followed Raine up the spiral staircase to the second floor. By the time they entered a wide room that had glass walls overlooking the central atrium and Raine’s name painted on the door, he had forced himself into investigator mode and told himself to damn well stay there.

  This wasn’t about the woman. It was about the drug. About the deaths. Maybe about the fire.

  He’d do well to remember that.

  In Raine’s office, three men were already seated opposite the main desk, in chairs that were an odd mix of expensive leather and cheaper chrome and upholstery.

  Max nodded to Detective Marcus, who dipped his chin in response. Raine gestured toward a sandy-haired young man, who was in his mid-twenties at the top end and had tired circles beneath his blue eyes. “Max, this is Jeff Wells, my hotshot second in command. We both know Detective Marcus. And this is…?”

  The third man-silver buzz-cut hair, wearing a suit and a bearing that put him somewhere between lab rat and military-said, “I’m Senior FDA Investigator Robert Bryce.” He didn’t offer his hand to shake.

  Max’s suspicions quivered. Like most federal agencies, the FDA wasn’t known for its lightning-fast response times. It was highly unusual for a senior investigator to be on-site so quickly-hell it was unusual for the FDA to be on-site at all, the day after official word broke of four drug-related deaths.

  Either a powerful figure was pushing buttons higher up or there was more to this than Raine had let on.

  Max glanced over at her, but she avoided his eyes and took her place behind the polished desk.

  Another conference-room chair sat in the corner, but Max chose to lean against the back wall. He hiked one hip up to rest on a series of built-in bookshelves containing the sort of texts and business reports he’d expect to find in the office of the head of a start-up drug acquisition company, but for some reason hadn’t expected to find in Raine’s office.

  The position provided him with an overview of the scene while giving him a little distance from Raine.

  You’re immune, he told himself. You know what she’s like.

  Unfortunately, his libido didn’t much seem to care. Just as she’d been three years earlier, she was back in his head. Under his skin.

  Business, Vasek. It’s just business.

  “What have you got for me?” she asked briskly, using a no-nonsense tone Max recognized from his dealings with her former boss, Erik Falco. Maybe she’d modeled her leadership style after tha
t of the billionaire businessman. Maybe she still carried a torch for the guy, even though he’d been married for nearly three years.

  And maybe it shouldn’t matter worth a damn.

  “I’d like your opinion on this data entry.” Bryce reached for a thin folder perched on the corner of the desk, extracted a pair of stapled pages and slid them toward Raine.

  She glanced at the first page, stiffened and flipped to the second before looking at the senior investigator, body completely still. Her voice was measured when she said, “I’ve never seen these before. They aren’t from my database. Where’d they come from?”

  Max knew her well enough to hear the shock beneath her words. But he didn’t know her well enough to be sure it was genuine.

  He leaned forward to read over her shoulder and stifled a curse when he saw the words Toxicity Report and cardiac arrest. According to the report, one of the women enrolled in the Thriller clinical trial had complained of having chest pains when she’d used the drug. Cardiac monitoring had shown that the woman had shown an irregular heartbeat when given Thriller. The arrhythmia had disappeared when she’d gone off the drug.

  There was no evidence of cardiac toxicity during the clinical trials, Raine had said to him, light brown eyes reflecting absolute sincerity.

  Anger flared through Max, threatening to grow to a conflagration. She hadn’t lied to him about something that important.

  Had she?

  Chapter Five

  Raine’s heart rocketed in her chest and a thousand thoughts jammed her brain, each more vital than the last. She stared down at the toxicity report. The words blurred. “This is impossible!”

  Agent Bryce didn’t even blink. “This record and ten others like it were found in your clinical-trial database, Ms. Montgomery.”

  “No, you’re wrong! No adverse effects were reported during the clinical trials. There weren’t any toxicities in the database besides dry mouth and headaches.” Aware that she was close to shouting, close to tears, Raine turned to Jeff. “Tell him how we went back through the databases right after we heard about the first death, just to make sure.”

  He nodded quickly. “I double checked myself. There weren’t any cardiac toxicities in the database.”

  Bryce’s expression flattened. “That’s because they were deleted on Ms. Montgomery’s authori zation. You’re looking at a data ghost my people pulled off the server.”

  Raine surged to her feet. “That’s a lie!” She felt Max move up behind her. She shrugged him off when he touched her shoulder, but she took the hint. Vibrating with indignation, she sank back to her seat and hissed, “I’ve never seen those reports before in my life. If I had, I would have backed off on the clinical trials while we investigated the toxicities. There’s no way I would’ve sent Thriller to market without checking into something that big.”

  Bryce made a noncommittal noise. “Yet your pass code was used to delete the records.” He glanced over at Detective Marcus, then back to Raine. “You stood to make a ton of money in the first few weeks your drug was on the market. Maybe you figured you’d get away with it for a few days or weeks, even a month before the cardiac toxicities started popping up. When the death reorts started coming in, you figured you could grab the money and run.”

  Raine felt a scream building in her throat, in her soul. She stood again, this time with deliberate slowness. She pressed her palms to the surface of her desk and leaned forward to glare at Bryce. “I never-” she paused “-ever deleted a toxicity report. I didn’t call 911 from the neighbor’s vacant apartment, then set my own house on fire and accidentally knock myself unconscious in the burning building. I didn’t buy the damn plane ticket, and this isn’t all part of some big plan on my part.”

  This time she quieted when Max touched her shoulder. His voice was deep when he said, “I don’t know about you three, but it looks to me as though someone is setting Ms. Montgomery up for a very long fall.”

  A shimmer of surprised relief washed through Raine at his support. But before she could respond, Detective Marcus challenged, “Based on what evidence?”

  Max’s fingers tightened on Raine’s shoulder, holding her quiet as he said, “For one, your hypothesis has a big hole in it. This isn’t a cash business. The invoices from the initial drug purchases won’t come due for thirty days at the earliest, and it’ll take sales a while to peak. There won’t be any money in the first few weeks for her to run with.”

  “Profits from licensing agreements, then, or presales,” Bryce insisted. He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be following the money trail, you can bet on that.”

  Raine matched his glare, drawing strength from the man behind her. “Be my guest, but make it quick because you won’t find a damn thing, and while you’re doing that, the real arsonist is going to be out there, doing…” She trailed off, not liking the options.

  Max overrode her. “More importantly, if this is a setup, then we’ve got a murderer out there.”

  She glanced up at him. “Murderer? What do you mean… Oh.” She swallowed hard, her stomach free-falling at the realization. “Oh, God. You think someone killed those four women to make it look like Thriller has a problem?”

  Max said, “It’s a possibility that Vasek and Caine will be investigating as our top priority.”

  Bryce shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ve already got my suspect and the electronic evidence to back me up.” He tapped the thin folder. “These files were deleted using Ms. Montgomery’s pass code. There isn’t any access to the system outside of this building, and I bet you’ve got spyware on your machines, so it should be easy enough to figure out when and where the changes were made. I’ll bet-”

  “Wait.” Raine held up a hand. Her palms were clammy, and the sore spot on her head echoed the beat of her pounding heart. “You’re wrong. There is outside access. I had the techs build me a back door I could use from the PC at my house.”

  It had meant connecting the system to outside communication lines, but at the time, the company had been so small it had seemed like a minimal security risk.

  Now that risk loomed large and foolish. Maybe even suspicious.

  Silence ticked in the room for a long moment. Max let go of her shoulder, leaving a cool patch on her skin where his body heat had warmed her. He moved around the desk and leaned back against the far side, so he faced the three men while Raine stared at his back.

  But there was no mistaking the dark musing in his voice when he said, “Which would explain the attack on Raine, and why the earlier scans didn’t find the data ghosts. The guy in her house was using the computer to input them.”

  Her head spun as the scenario made an awful sort of sense. “But that means-”

  Max shot her a look over his shoulder, one that clearly warned her to shut up. Then he returned his attention to the men and said, “That means that Agent Bryce and Detective Marcus have some work to do.”

  Bryce stood, a scowl etched on his face. He fixed Max with a glare. “I’ll be watching you two.” He transferred his attention to Raine. “And don’t leave town.”

  “Right. Stay put. Got it.” Raine pressed her palms against the desk, holding herself steady. “I’ll be here when you figure out who is trying to ruin my life, and why.”

  Her voice broke on the last word, evidence of the rage, the humiliation and the damned dumb confusion rocketing through her.

  Who was doing this?

  Why?

  Bryce stalked out of the office, followed by Detective Marcus, who nodded briefly at Max as though acknowledging an adversary, or maybe a kindred spirit.

  Jeff stayed behind. “Raine, are you going to be okay?”

  Knowing he was asking about more than her health, or even her safety, she nodded. “Max is on our side.” She hoped. “I’ll be fine. If the FDA goons will let you into the system, have the techs work on those faked toxicity reports. I want to know when they were entered and when they were deleted. And from where.”

  The techs who’d built he
r the back door should be able to identify its use, but would that be enough? It would prove that the entries had been made from her house, but it wouldn’t prove that she hadn’t been the one to delete them.

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and wished for an aspirin. A vacation. A friend.

  At the thought, she glanced at Max, who had retreated to his spot by the bookcase. “Thanks for backing me up just now.”

  His expression flattened. “Don’t make me regret it.” He pushed away from the wall and stalked across the office.

  He was at the door before she found her voice to say “Wait! I thought you believed I wasn’t responsible? Or was that just an act for Bryce and Detective Marcus?”

  He turned back. “I haven’t decided what I believe yet. I just hope to hell you don’t make a fool of me again.”

  And then he was gone, the glass door swinging shut in his wake.

  Leaving her alone.

  MAX DIDN’T GO FAR. Down in the office lobby-where he could watch both the front and rear exits, just in case-he paused by the front desk, where a pretty dark-haired woman manned the phones. He overheard the tail end of her conversation.

  “Of course you’re concerned, Barbara, but there’s no evidence of a longer-lasting concern. You used your sample packet and you feel fine, right?” The receptionist’s expression softened a hint and she chuckled. “I see. That definitely counts as fine, and then some. So hold onto the rest of the pills for now, and we’ll let you know when you’re cleared to use them again, okay? Great. Bye, now.”

  When she disconnected, all trace of humor fled from her face, leaving her eyes dark and worried when she looked over at Max. “How’s she doing?”

  “I take it I don’t have to introduce myself?”

  “Raine told me you’re working on the case. I’m her assistant, Tori Campbell.” The woman offered her hand, but kept her body language closed, making Max wonder exactly what Raine had said about him.

  He took her hand, noting a mostly concealed flinch that told him far too much. “Call me Max.” He nodded to the row of lights on the telephone, some lit, some blinking. “You taking all the calls?”