by Dani Pettrey
“He was a scientist at BioTech, but not in pharmaceuticals. He was part of their innovation and advancements team.”
“Which means?”
“It’s a fancy catchall title for the various projects they did. Erik worked with RFID technology.”
“Radio frequency?”
“Microchips,” Stanley said.
“What does microchip technology have to do with the pharmaceutical industry?” Piper asked.
“Why don’t we step inside and I’ll explain,” a feminine voice said.
They turned to find the woman from the parking lot.
“Elaine.” Stanley hugged the woman.
“Mr. Johnson, it’s good to see you again.”
“Stanley, please. Does Gladys know you’re here?”
“No, I spotted you out back when I pulled up, so I headed out here first.”
“She’ll be so pleased to see you.”
Landon sat back, trying to take in the information Elaine was sharing. “Let me see if I can wrap my mind around what you are saying. . . . Erik was working on the RFID containers that the insulin is stored in?”
“Correct.” Elaine nodded.
“But he thought something was wrong?”
“Right. He came to me, concerned that the transmitters were compromising the integrity of the medicine.”
“Compromising how?”
Elaine explained the entire process, and Landon struggled to keep up when she went into elaborate technical detail, but he grasped the big picture. BioTech’s advancement of encasing insulin in traceable containers was negatively altering the medicine because of the heat the transmitters emitted.
“Did Erik share his concerns with anybody?” Landon asked.
“Of course. Erik immediately took his concerns to Ed Thompson.”
“President of Operations at BioTech?” That figured. No wonder Ed Thompson had been eager to get them out of there.
“That’s him,” Elaine said, not bothering to hide her distaste for the man.
“And what was Mr. Thompson’s response?” Though Landon could already guess.
“He thanked Erik for his hard work and said he’d pass the information along to the right people.”
“But you don’t think he did?”
“Neither did Erik. Production continued as usual. Erik questioned him and was told it had been handled. Thompson told him he needed to focus on his work.”
“And to stop asking questions?” Piper said.
“Exactly.”
Landon exhaled. “But he didn’t?” Good man.
“Not Erik. He continued to research it, and when he learned that a dozen people who had taken BioTech’s insulin had died, he knew he had to do something.”
Piper’s eyes widened. “They died from the insulin?”
“It couldn’t be proven, not from the outside, but questions were being asked. And those are only the few cases Erik was able to confirm. I fear there are many more out there.”
“Did Erik go to anyone else?”
“Yeah. Somebody at the FDA.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No. Erik said the less I knew the better. The man told Erik they couldn’t do anything without some kind of proof, something more definitive than Erik’s hunch.”
“Twelve deaths weren’t enough?” Piper asked, her tone indignant.
“I guess not, not when the victims were elderly and had diabetes.”
“So what did Erik do?” A man like Elaine was describing wouldn’t just quit. Not when he knew more lives were at stake.
“Up until his death Erik was working to compile the proof, his studies, the data, but it wasn’t a quick process. You’ve got to understand; we are kept under a microscope. There are security precautions, no equipment allowed in or out of the lab, no laptops. Everything is searched upon arrival and departure. Erik couldn’t simply print out his findings and walk out the door with them.”
“Could he have e-mailed them to somebody?” Piper asked.
“All computers are monitored.”
“Then how did Erik conduct his research?” Landon asked. Surely he was watched at the lab.
“At first only at the lab, but after taking his findings to Mr. Thompson and seeing how that ended, he started working on his own at his apartment, trying to piece the research together as best he could.”
“So we should access his home computer.” Hope filled Landon that they’d finally have access to some solid evidence—though he had no idea how all they were learning linked to Karli.
“I’m afraid not.” Elaine’s dark braid tumbled over her shoulder, and she slipped it back into place, tightening the rubber band at the base in the process. “The last day Erik came to work . . .” She swallowed. “The last day I saw him he told me he was going to take a few days and pay a visit to Phyllis Wheeler’s family.”
“Who is Phyllis Wheeler?”
“Phyllis Wheeler was the most recent victim of BioTech’s tainted insulin. As I said earlier, the deaths were always viewed as being caused by natural complications of the disease, but Erik knew better. His investigation led him to believe he could prove their deaths weren’t natural if he could get ahold of one of the vials Mrs. Wheeler was using. Neither of us had access to the filled vials—only sample casings—and it takes time for the contamination to occur. Erik needed a vial that had shipped at least two weeks prior for it to show evidence of contamination.
“Erik spoke with Phyllis’s husband by phone, hoping to convince him to let him examine one of the unused vials or even better still to have an autopsy performed on Mrs. Wheeler. He was convinced the tainted insulin would leave a trace if properly looked for, but Mr. Wheeler was too distraught over the death of his wife to listen. Erik planned to visit him in person. He called me after leaving the office that day to say his apartment had been ransacked. His computers, his hard drives, everything was stolen. He tried to contact the man he’d spoken with at the FDA, but was told he no longer worked there. Erik started to get paranoid.”
“What do you mean paranoid?”
“He thought someone from BioTech had gotten to the FDA contact.”
“Did Erik have proof of that?”
“Not that I know of. I think it was just a hunch. Erik said something about BioTech’s reach being longer than he realized.”
“So who does Erik believe broke into his place? Someone from BioTech?”
“Yes.”
“Did the police look at BioTech?” Surely suspicions had to be raised.
“No. Whoever did it made it look like a regular robbery. They trashed the place and took anything of value.”
“But you think it was them?” Landon asked, totally in agreement based on what he’d heard.
“I know it was.”
“And Erik’s accident?” Piper asked, inching closer to Elaine.
Elaine wiped the tears slipping down her cheeks. “Was no accident.”
“You believe they killed him to silence him,” Piper said softly, resting a hand on Elaine’s arm.
Always trying to comfort. Her love inspired him.
“I think there was more to it,” Elaine said, sniffling. “After Erik left for Canada, I saw Grant Nelson, head of security, searching Erik’s work station.”
Landon tilted his head. “Looking for what?”
“My guess, a microchip. Or the evidence that Erik had been building one.”
“A microchip?”
“A microchip could store all of Erik’s data. It’s small enough to hide from the eye and, if made with the right materials, undetectable by the security detectors,” Elaine explained. “We only design them at BioTech; we don’t manufacture them. But Grant pulled items from Erik’s trash that suggested Erik had been assembling one there.”
“So if Erik had the proof he needed, why did he go to see Mr. Wheeler?”
“Scientific data is one thing; tangible evidence from a victim of the tainted insulin is another. He felt he needed con
crete proof before anyone would believe him, and he wasn’t sure whom to trust.”
“Wait a minute,” Piper said. “Did you say Erik went to Canada? His accident was in Canada?”
Elaine nodded. “The Wheelers lived in Vancouver.”
“So he died in Vancouver?”
“No.” Elaine shook her head. “That’s the part I don’t understand. Erik left to go speak with the Wheelers in Vancouver, but at the time of his death three days later, Erik still hadn’t arrived at the Wheelers’. He died outside of Nicola, two hours north of Vancouver. And the really weird thing is he was driving southbound on Route 5 at the time of his accident—completely opposite of where he should have been.”
But precisely en route from Glacier Peak resort, where Erik’s folks said he’d been visiting Karli.
46
Snow rained down as they pulled out of the Johnsons’ drive. It was eerie how quickly the blizzard had begun, eerier how Mr. Johnson had anticipated its imminent arrival.
“Where do we go from here?” Piper asked.
Landon considered their options. “We need to figure out if that microchip still exists. I think Erik might have given it to Karli for safekeeping. Why else would he travel to see her right before his death? And that would explain why someone was after Karli.”
“The older man that paid a visit to Glacier Peak?” Piper said.
Landon nodded. “I bet he’s the man who called Wellspring claiming to be Karli’s father and then her doctor and who broke into the clinic to steal her file.”
“Do you think he retrieved the chip when he killed Karli? Maybe we’re already too late. Maybe we have been this entire time.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“There were marks on Karli.” He swallowed. “What I’m now betting were torture marks.”
“You think the killer was trying to get the microchip’s location out of her?”
“Yes, but Reef interrupted him before he could finish. He couldn’t leave a witness, so he killed Karli and hid until he could escape.”
“And then what?”
“I think he assumed Karli had passed the chip to Reef.” Landon’s breath caught as the pieces fell into place and he realized the danger Piper had been in from the start. “It explains the sense you had that someone was in your house the night of Karli’s murder.”
“He thinks we have it?”
“Or that you’re trying to find it.”
“Do you think he’s still following us?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“It’s sweet, really.”
“What?” He gaped at her.
“No. Not that the killer is following us. I was thinking about Karli and Erik. It’s sweet that after all those years he knew he could trust her to keep his secret safe. To protect the microchip until he had the physical evidence he needed to make his case.”
“He knew she was an expert at hiding, and with her living only hours from the Wheelers’ it would have been an easy drop-off.”
“I wonder what went through her mind when Erik didn’t return. When she realized they’d gotten to him? Poor thing. She sure had more than her fair share of heartache in this life.”
The sheer rock wall of the canyon loomed large on their right, heavy snow blanketing it. The wind swirled tufts of snow through the pass in front of them. Landon gripped the wheel more securely. Ice, no doubt, was hiding beneath the freshly falling snow.
Something clicked beneath them. It was faint, but Landon heard it all the same.
“What was that?” Piper asked.
Reaching under his seat, he felt a device taped to the underside of his seat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We’ve got to get out.”
“What?”
He slowed as best he could without fishtailing them, opened the driver’s side door and yanked Piper. “Now!”
Landon’s left shoulder collided with the snow-packed surface, pain burning through his socket. Piper landed beside him with a grunt, her slender form jolted by the unforgiving surface. An explosion shook the earth as they tumbled over the embankment’s edge, the ground slipping away from them. Snow and debris clouded his field of vision; jagged rocks battered his body as gravity propelled him downhill. He slammed into a steadfast object that ripped the air from his lungs.
A copse of trees had broken his fall, nearly breaking his back in the process. Piper hit moments after him, a cry escaping her lips. Fighting the sharp pain in his chest, he forced himself to roll onto his side so he could check on her.
“You okay?”
Snow and pine needles clung to her hair. Blood trickled from her forehead. “I’ll be all right.” She propped herself gingerly onto her elbows. “Was that a—”
“Car bomb.”
“When?”
“Probably planted it while we were . . .” His words dropped off as his eyes focused on the mountain towering above. Dear God.
“What’s wrong?”
A billowing wave of snow roared toward them.
“Avalanche!” he hollered.
Horror filled Piper’s eyes as she caught sight of the wall of snow charging at them. It was too late to move out of its path.
“Grab hold of the tree. Don’t let go. Shield your face.” He wrapped her arms around the trunk, praying it was sturdy enough to not get yanked up with the debris. Wrapping his arms around her, he too grabbed hold of the tree, shielding her with his body “As soon as it slows, cup a hand over your face and stretch your other arm up as high as it can—”
The deluge swallowed his words, crashing over them, white engulfing his vision. A never-ending torrent of snow roared past them, moving at what had to be sixty miles an hour. His arms burned as he held to the tree, struggling against the surmounting pull of the avalanche.
Sound faded and white turned to black.
He smiled with satisfaction as the explosion shook the mountain. He’d left Government Camp as they left the house, sped to get through the pass well ahead of them, knowing the explosions would seal off the pass. He had no desire to get stuck in the poor excuse for a town, not for the time it would take to clear the road. The chip’s whereabouts still remained a mystery, and that bothered him, but the threat had been dealt with. Surely no one remained to trace it back to them. Mr. Thompson owed him an apology.
47
The roaring finally stopped, and all was silent—deathly silent. Piper continued to thrash her head and body until the snow settled, praying she’d created enough room to form an air pocket and allow movement. Her right hand was cold; she prayed that meant she’d cracked the surface, but then again, all of her was cold. She was buried in snow and ice. Too frightened to open her eyes because of what she might find, she prayed.
Please, Father, help us to survive this. Help them to find us quickly.
Opening her eyes, she found herself wrapped in a cocoon of white, but relief filled her at the faint light seeping in around her hand. She’d broken the surface. Praise God. That opening greatly increased their chances of survival.
She could feel the warmth of Landon’s body behind her. She’d felt the strength of his muscles straining against the avalanche as it bowled over them. Now he was still—too still.
She wiggled her head around in the space she’d created and found him unconscious. She pressed against him, trying to rouse him within the tiny confines. No movement. No response. Her heart sank.
She wiggled her hand as far above the surface as she could, trying desperately to draw attention to their location. Using her free arm, she began digging, tunneling, fighting to reach the surface, the motion of her arms mimicking a swim stroke. Faint light filled the cavity. She prayed the snow falling in was from the sky and not from the accumulation burying her again. Trying not to push too hard against Landon, she braced the soles of her boots against the trunk and used the traction to help propel her upward.
She broke the surface to snow swirling
around her, white engulfing her. The blizzard had fully moved in. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing it would hamper search and rescue. She fished her cell from her pocket, only to find it crushed.
Lying flat on her stomach, she dug to free Landon. His left hand sticking above the surface helped direct her efforts. Ignoring her numb hands, she dug, praying she wouldn’t be too late. After the fifteen-minute mark Landon’s chances of surviving being buried in snow dropped to twenty percent.
Ignoring the pins and needles stinging her fingers and hands, she kept digging until she’d cleared his head.
She cupped his face in her hands. “Landon.” She rubbed his cheeks, the blistering wind burning hers. “Landon, can you hear me?”
No response.
Clearing the powder down past his shoulders, she sat on the snow behind him, a leg draped on either side, her boots once again braced against the tree trunk. She looped her arms underneath his shoulders for leverage and, pressing hard against the tree, lurched back. The snow shifted beneath her, terrifying her that it would all give way, but it didn’t. She tried again and this time managed to raise Landon’s torso above the snow line. Heaving and pulling, she finally pulled him onto the surface. She located his cell, only to find it dead. She fought the desperation threatening to close in on her.
The snow was so thick and dense, she couldn’t see past her hand. She screamed at the top of her lungs. Surely someone heard the explosion. Surely someone would know they needed help.
Tying her yellow jacket to the tree, she moved a few feet in a straight line from Landon in the direction she believed the road to be. They couldn’t have fallen that far. If she could make it to the road, they’d be much more likely to find help. If the road even still exists. An avalanche of that magnitude probably buried the entire pass. Another step and she lost sight of her jacket. The heavy snowfall, mixed with thirty-mile-an-hour winds and the avalanche’s destruction, obscured everything. She had to go back to Landon—quickly, before her footprints disappeared. If she didn’t, she risked losing him in only a matter of feet.
Making it back, she found a thin layer of snow already covering him. They needed to find shelter of some kind, because the harsh reality was they might not be found until the blizzard passed, and there was no way they’d survive out in the elements.