“So she was the starting point of all this.” Ethan shook his head. “And the end point. How did she get it?”
Ferguson glanced at the report. “Apparently she got it from human growth hormone when she was a kid.”
Lamond gave a low whistle. “You think Dr. Mazerski caught it from her? Did he cruise?”
Ethan slapped him on the shoulder. It felt good to get back to the usual banter. He slapped him again. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Lamond. Remember what Dr. Lachlan told us? It’s not sexually transmissible. Dr. Mazerski either got it spontaneously or cut himself with a scalpel while handling the brain tissue. He must have gotten infected through that.”
Ferguson flipped the file and scanned another report. “Craig Peters’ brain biopsy came back positive, as well.”
“I saw his invoice for BioMediSol,” Ethan said. “He conducted the dismemberment of Vangie Wright. He must have gotten CJD while handling her tissue.”
“How many killers get to invoice a company for a murder?” Lamond shook his head admiringly. Craig Peters had charged his own company for “professional services rendered.”
“Yeah. Kind of crazy,” Walker said. “Just like him.”
“We did a check on him. He’d been a surgical resident, but he’d been kicked out of the program,” Brown said.
“No shit.” Lamond rolled his eyes. “Guess that explains why he was so good at what he did. Why did he get kicked out?”
“The program will not divulge details, but it was on the grounds of professional misconduct. That was two years ago. Then he came back to Halifax and worked for Dr. Gill. Shortly after that, he killed Vangie Wright. She was his first victim for BioMediSol. That must have been a trigger. The BioMediSol records indicate he’d begun disarticulating bodies a few months before. It might have unleashed his killing urges.” She glanced around the table, a flush of excitement on her cheeks. “And five or six years before that, his brother went missing. We’ve got Cold Case looking into it…”
“Once a psychopath, always a psychopath,” Lamond said. “Some of the limbs were found under the bathtub in his apartment.”
“Yeah, but throw in the CJD, and we got a psychotic psychopath,” Ethan said.
“Do you think Dr. Gill got infected with CJD, too? He used Vangie Wright’s arms for his research,” Lamond said. He and Ethan had found the records for that, too. BioMediSol kept meticulous paperwork, like the Nazis, detailing their crimes in the name of science.
Ethan and Ferguson exchanged looks. “You get to tell the bastard about Vangie Wright,” Ethan said. For a change, it seemed like justice—or at least retribution—had been served in some small way. Dr. Gill would have to live with the fear that he had been infected. It could take decades for the symptoms to manifest themselves, like it did for Vangie Wright. Or like the other victims who caught it from Vangie Wright, he could show symptoms tomorrow. Either way, every time he bumped into something or forgot something, his scientist’s mind would no doubt play it over, examining it endlessly to determine if it was the first symptom of CJD.
“Better get the fucker to trial before he’s declared mentally unfit,” Ethan added.
“How’s the neurosurgeon doing?” Ferguson asked, looking at Ethan.
He shook his head. “He’s on his deathbed.”
“What a waste of talent,” Ferguson murmured. “And how about the patient who received the transplant?”
“They can’t confirm it without an actual postmortem biopsy, so the patient’s scared shitless. Dr. Lachlan thinks there may be more people out there.”
All these people killed or infected because of corporate greed. And the government had done little or nothing to control it, putting the onus on tissue processors to report irregularities. He hoped this was the wake-up call. Otherwise the government deserved to have the lawyers going for blood.
59
Ten days later
Liz knocked on the door. “Kate…” She smiled hesitantly.
Kate glanced up from her mail, suppressing a smile. Liz’s newly discovered warmth toward her was startling, but to be expected, she supposed. It was one of the benefits of being the country’s latest national darling.
“Mr. Barrett wants to see you.”
“Oh. Thanks, Liz.”
“And welcome back.” Her assistant upped the warmth in her smile and shut the door softly behind her. That would take some getting used to. She felt a touch of nostalgia for the old, frosty Liz.
So, Randall wanted to see her. Hardly surprising. It was her first morning back at work. She was glad he’d summoned her. It was a chance to let him see that she was starting over with a clean slate. And that included him. No more disturbing looks. She was going to cement the professional divide between them once and for all.
And remind him of why she’d been hired in the first place. She flipped open her compact. She was going into his office guns blazing. She didn’t want him to take pity on her; she wanted what was her due.
She dabbed some powder over her bruises, balancing the compact in the palm of her casted arm—she’d already tried holding the powder puff in that arm and had been rewarded with a knock in the head. It had taken a little practice. Everything took a little practice with a cast. Getting a shower, drying her hair, making a meal, getting her clothes on. She made a face at herself. She looked a sight. She didn’t need her mirror to tell her that; her picture was plastered on the front page of every paper in the country.
She knew the press would start leaving her alone when the next big story broke. It’d only been a week since she came out of the hospital. A week of Bruised and Battered: Lawyer Takes Justice Into Her Own Hands, Killer Eludes Law But Can’t Escape Lawyer and so on. A week of constant phone calls, interviews and a horde of reporters waiting to speak to her every time there was a “latest development.”
And there had been many of those. The whole body-parts-for-sale scheme had fallen apart, bringing down a host of other players. TransTissue had been temporarily shut down while the police combed its facilities to find the stolen body parts of murder victims and clients who never consented to donate their bodies. TransTissue was now on the line for failing to screen its tissue properly. Legitimate tissue banks were frantically scrambling to restore their image, until Kate issued a public statement announcing she had signed a tissue donor card. That had taken a lot of soul searching. But she realized that there was a greater good. She couldn’t let BioMediSol get away with perverting it. All the lawyers at LMB had followed suit.
Hollis University lost its endowed one-million-dollar chair for neuromuscular research after sources reported that Dr. Gill had been in breach of ethical standards before, but the university had turned a blind eye to his methods—hoping to share the glory of a Nobel Prize.
Dr. Gill himself was in bad shape. He’d had a nervous breakdown, was on antidepressants and had been released on bail for charges of offering an indignity to human remains. He faced a prison term of five years, but Kate guessed that his own mental hell would last until the end of his life.
She walked slowly out of her office and down the hallway. Voices greeted her on both sides—support staff from the cubicles, lawyers from their offices. There was genuine warmth in the greetings. She was one of them. They were glad she was back. She was cynical about their sudden friendship, but decided she might as well enjoy it. Who knew, maybe she’d grow to like them.
She took the elevator instead of the stairs to Randall’s office. She was still a little wobbly in heels. She’d had a concussion from the tire iron. The wound in her thigh throbbed under the stitches. Her body had never been so battered in her life.
But she couldn’t lie around at home. Although Alaska was devoted company, there were limits to the amount of conversation you could have with a dog. Enid and Muriel had visited every day, bringing casseroles and cookies, until she was sure she’d be twenty pounds heavier before she could run again. Finn had been gold, taking Alaska for long walks and feeding him,
even while she was in hospital. She’d been well taken care of.
It had helped to take her mind off Ethan. Even though she knew she’d done the right thing, telling him they were over had been unplanned and agonizing. She’d been excited when he’d come to her hospital room, not sure of what she felt. But when he told her he loved her she realized that there was no going back. There never was. They had thrown something precious away. She was as much to blame as Ethan. She knew now she couldn’t pretend her past hadn’t existed. If she ever found another person to love, they’d have to know the truth. And love her, anyway.
She paused in front of Randall’s door. Her nerves jangled. She didn’t want to talk about John Lyons, about what happened in the parkade. She’d already given her statement to the police—not to Ethan, that would have been too painful—and it’d been hard to relive what had happened. The sudden, bone-chilling knowledge that someone wanted to hurt you.
Kill you.
And you couldn’t run fast enough. The knowledge that a steel bar was going to crash down on your head. Exploding pain. Blackness. And that strange vision she’d had before she passed out in the funeral home parking lot. She’d been convinced she’d seen John. Of course, she’d also been convinced her sister had been talking to her while she was fighting for her life. It must have been from the drugs Anna Keane had shot her up with.
Her head throbbed. There was one thing she hadn’t spoken about to anyone. Except her doctor. And that was the fact that when she stabbed Craig Peters, she was sure she got his blood on her. And she’d had an open wound on her thigh…
The fear had welled up inside her. What if she’d contracted CJD?
Come on. Remember what the doctor said?
How could she forget. She was lying in her hospital bed. Her surgeon had come to visit.
“I need to discuss something with you,” he’d said, his expression grave. “Craig Peters had CJD.”
After explaining to Kate what it was—and in her groggy state that took some time—the surgeon said, “I’m telling you this because you need to know there is a possibility you were exposed to Craig Peters’ blood.”
“Oh, God,” Kate said. After fighting for her life, she now had this to deal with? She closed her eyes.
“Kate, it’s not as bad as you think. The type of CJD that Craig Peters had has never been transmitted by blood as far as we know. And even if it was, the chances of having actually contracted it are extremely low.”
“But his blood was on me. I felt it spatter me.” Kate forced the words out. Remembering the violence, the primal urge to survive, the absolute terror, was something she did not want to do.
“Even so. Let me give you an example. HIV is a blood transmissible disease, and yet it’s a one in one thousand chance of getting HIV from a needle stick injury. So you don’t automatically get the disease if you are exposed to infected blood. And in the case of classic CJD, as far as we know, no one has ever gotten it through blood exposure. So you can see the odds are in your favor.” He patted her hand.
“I see,” she murmured. But she couldn’t erase the memory of what CJD had done to Craig Peters in his final moments.
Just don’t think about it. I have a much better chance of being hit by a bus.
With that reassuring thought, she took a deep breath and knocked on Randall’s door.
“Come in.”
She walked into his office. Its clean lines and sharp angles calmed her mind. She had been a lover of Victorian architecture for years, but this modern aesthetic seemed so confident of its own inherent strength, she felt herself drawn to it.
Randall stood and walked around his desk. “Kate!” He ushered her into his office, solicitously holding her elbow. His grip was sure, strong. She swallowed. Despite the tempering of her resolve, his proximity made her pulse hammer.
She gently pulled her arm away and lowered herself into one of his ingeniously designed chairs.
“How are you feeling?”
She didn’t want to get into the details. No more personal stuff. This was her boss. She gave a brisk smile. “Better. Thank you.”
He sat behind his desk and studied her. “You took a beating.” His gaze was frank, not pitying.
It pierced her reserve. Damn him. She looked away. “Yes.”
“Kate…” There was something in his voice that made her gaze swing back to him. “I was very concerned about you.”
The memory flooded her. So. It hadn’t been her imagination.
It had been dim in her hospital room. She’d been dozing, the drugs from the surgery dulling her pain. Then she’d heard footsteps. Quiet. Too quiet. She stiffened. Was it John? A whimper of fear escaped her. Her fingers scrambled for the help button.
“Kate. It’s okay,” the voice had murmured. It was a familiar voice. It was unexpectedly tender, soft. A hand hesitated over her brow, then lowered. It smoothed the hair off her forehead.
Then he was gone.
She’d thought it had been a dream. Had assumed the arrangement of roses and lilies had been delivered by a florist during her surgery. Not by him. “Thank you for the flowers. They were beautiful.”
She had told herself it was an act of compassion. Or an act of repentance.
But when he said, “You are welcome,” she knew.
It had been something else.
She looked away, her heart pounding. She forced her voice to sound cool, collected. “I understand you were the one who tipped Ethan off.”
He nodded.
She didn’t want to imagine that phone call. It must have cost Randall a lot to call Ethan for help. “Thank you.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “I feel somewhat responsible for putting you in that situation.”
She had thought about that in the hospital. Randall hadn’t been part of the TransTissue conspiracy. That was a relief. But Randall had wanted to use her against John to build his case. Even though it was his responsibility as managing partner to protect the firm’s interests, there had been a personal element to involving her. It had been one final power play, a master stroke to turn John Lyons’ protégée against him. And it hurt that he would still try to do that.
“I didn’t know you’d run into him in the parking garage, Kate.” His eyes sought hers. “I swear it.”
“But you insisted I come in and meet with you.”
“I had received information that Lyons had a financial interest in BioMediSol. I knew that he had settled TransTissue’s claim. I wanted to find out what you knew.” He leaned forward. “But when I called you, I thought he’d bailed out on me. I would never have insisted you come in if I’d known he was still in the building.”
She studied him. He hadn’t meant to put her in danger.
He was asking for forgiveness. And she wanted to tell him she forgave him. But to do so would acknowledge an intimacy that made it all the more imperative to retreat.
Instead, she shrugged. Then smothered a wince when pain shot down her arm. “I knew more than John wanted me to. I was a threat.”
To her relief, he followed her retreat. “How did you find out about the criminal activity at BioMediSol? Didn’t John take you off the case before the settlement?”
“Yes.” She leaned back in her chair. “But I’d done some research and had heard about U.S. cases where there was fraudulent screening. Then I learned that the funeral home was trying to convince families to donate bodies. I realized something was up.” She made no mention of her break-in at the funeral home. When the police came for her statement in the hospital, she told them about the BioMediSol records she stole. She also told them about the Department of Health letter from Claudine Wright. Then she waited for the charges to be laid.
Instead, she received a phone call from Detective Ferguson, informing her that the police had decided they did not have enough evidence to proceed with charges—which she knew was untrue—and with a strict caution to not ever again attempt to investigate potential criminal activities. The message wa
s clear: they were covering her butt this one time. She wondered if it had been Ethan who’d pulled the strings for her.
Randall’s gaze had not left her face. She wished she knew what he was thinking. Despite his apology for the danger he’d put her in, he was still her boss. She’d breached a few ethics and broken a few laws to uncover the fraud.
But he’d be a fool to fire her when LMB was desperately spinning its image to mitigate the scandal from John Lyons’ criminal activities and suicide.
And he was no fool.
She waited.
He cleared his throat. “Kate, you have integrity, a need to find the truth that sets an example for our firm.” Admiration warmed his eyes. “I know you’ve been wanting to move to the litigation group.”
“That’s what I was hired to do.” She couldn’t resist the arch look she gave him.
“When you are able to take on some files, let’s have another chat.” He stood. He held her eyes with his own. And despite her resolve, a flush heated her chest.
He said softly, “Welcome back.”
She braced herself for what she knew she would see in his gaze. Be strong.
But his eyes were questioning. Not demanding. And in those brilliant depths she found something entirely unexpected: tenderness.
What was even more unexpected was her reaction.
She liked it.
She eased herself out of the chair and walked to the door. She turned. “Thank you. It’s good to be back.”
She felt his eyes on her as she limped into the corridor.
So much for resisting him.
If she wanted to continue at LMB—and she most certainly did, after Randall’s promise to move her into the litigation group—she had to learn to deal with Mr. Barrett. Right now, she had the upper hand. She knew it, he knew it. She’d been through a hell most people did not physically survive. If they did, they emerged with trauma that ruined their lives.
But not her. Hell had tempered her confidence, strengthened her resolve and eradicated her fear. Her wounds—both old and new—were now healing. She was ready to plunder everything that her life promised.
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