by Meg O'Brien
I truly considered myself lucky for having escaped Roger Van Court.
“Look,” I said. “It’s been years since high school. I’ve gotten over those kinds of crushes, and I’ve moved on. Surely if you and Lindy are having problems, you could have your pick of women. Why on earth would you want me?”
I could think of only one reason—that I had rejected him once, when he’d flirted with me behind Lindy’s back. It was at a Valentine’s Day dance in our senior year, and at first I thought he was playing a joke on me. But we were dancing, and when his hand slid over my breast I realized he meant to kiss me—right there, where Lindy might see.
I was inexperienced, and horrified that he was being disloyal. I yanked away and ran outside, to the shadow of trees beyond the floodlights of the parking lot. Sitting on the ground shaking, I didn’t even realize that grass stains were seeping into my secondhand gown. Finally I left the dance and went home, scrubbing those stains off in the bathroom sink as if they were blood.
All I could think was, What if Lindy had seen what he’d done? How could he hurt her that way?
Roger was distant to me from that day on. He was always civil enough when we were around Lindy, but his eyes were cold when they were turned on me.
Boys like Roger, I thought, sitting in my office some eight years later, never get over a rejection like that. Or they brush it off and forget about it entirely. Denying it happened.
Which had it been with Roger?
It didn’t take long to find out. Roger stood and came around my desk, walking unsteadily. The wine in his glass splashed out and fell to the floor, staining my worn gray carpet. Lazily, he set the glass on my desk. I tried to move my chair back and away before he reached me, but quick as a flash his hands were on the arms of the chair, blocking me in.
I tried to laugh to defuse the situation. “Stop! Stop this, Roger! This is crazy!”
His answer was to lean down toward my lips and brush them lightly with his. How many times in high school would that have been my dream come true? Now, however, I was revolted by the smell of alcohol on his breath, and the arrogant way he reached for my breast. With one of his hands off the chair arm I pushed past him with all my strength and made it off the chair and around my desk, putting it between us.
Roger laughed as if I were simply being coy, or a skittish colt that needed breaking. I ran for the door, but before I could open it he was on me, his breath hot and reeking at the back of my neck.
“C’mon, Mary Beth, you know you want it.”
I whirled around to face him, smiled deliberately and stomped one of my sharp heels on his foot, as hard as I could.
“You bitch!” he yelled, his face turning a deep red. He began to double over from the pain, and I brought both hands up, punching him with my fists under the chin. When he whipped up and backward from the pain, I kneed him in the groin.
I was tired from the late hour and the day’s work, though, and my movements lacked strength. He ignored the hit to the groin as if it were a mere feather, and when I raised my leg for another try he grabbed it. Toppling me to the floor, he came down fast on me. His heavy weight was brutal and smothering. I tried with everything in me to fight him off, but he had me pinned, and I couldn’t move. I felt his knee forcing my legs apart, and one hand held both my wrists above my head while the other ripped my blouse and yanked my skirt up. I tried to scream, but his mouth covered mine and I could barely breathe. It was not a kiss, but a bruising assertion of power. His hands were all over my body, and everywhere he touched there was pain.
When it was over, I lay on the floor, numb. I sensed when he got off me but it was something far away, not having to do with me at all. Like one of those near-death experiences they talk about, where the patient, in her mind, is floating above the operating table, looking down on herself—a self who is completely detached emotionally and physically from what’s going on.
I heard Roger stumble out the door—in fact, felt the door as he yanked it open and it hit me on the hip. I started to come back, then, and curled into a fetal position, sobbing. It wasn’t until the sun came up that I was able to get up, go into the bathroom and shower.
Part of me knew I should have gone to a rape crisis center and the police. I should have made a report. The other part of me—the one that won out—didn’t want to remember it, think about it, or have to relive it ever again.
Life is not that kind, however. I spent four months that year supposedly “in New York City, making contacts.” That was the official release. In reality, I’d closed my agency in L.A. temporarily while my body grew and I delivered, in Sacramento, a beautiful baby girl.
I had always dreamed of having a baby, but the timing was never right and the right man was never there. In this case I was terrified that if I kept my baby girl, Roger would hear of it somehow. He would do the math, figure she was his, and in all likelihood try to take her away—if only out of a need to assert power. I had gathered from his conversation that night that he had more money than he’d ever need or could use. I also knew that there would always be the Van Court family and its lawyers behind him, getting him out of scrapes as they had in high school.
As for me, I had very few assets. I couldn’t live with the thought that Roger might use that to gain custody, and that my baby might end up with a man like that for a father. At the very least, if he fought for joint custody, I would have to share her with him. I could never do that to my child. Have her spending weekends and holidays at the home of an alcoholic rapist? Just the thought of it gave me chills.
Six weeks after the rape, a private detective came to my house with an offer from Roger: He would pay me one million dollars not to ever tell anyone what had happened.
I was stunned. And tempted. A million dollars would be nothing to Roger, but my house was old, in a bad neighborhood, and my office wasn’t much more than a storefront. I had dreams I wanted to put into effect, and a million dollars would help me do just that.
When it came down to it, though, I couldn’t pay the price for taking money from Roger. He would want some kind of control over me besides the money. And he’d find out I was pregnant.
At first, I tried to think of ways to make the pregnancy work—like a marriage of convenience to someone else, then pretending to the world that my baby was his. There was no one in my life, though, no one responsible and settled. No one I could trust to do that for me.
Briefly, I’d thought of Patrick Llewellen. The little adobe house in Hollywood was a duplex, and Patrick lived next to me then, which is how we met. He and I had become friends—and more. Eventually I’d ended up representing him. The problem with asking Patrick to front for me, as my baby’s father, was that I just never felt I knew the real Patrick, or that I could trust him with the fact that I was pregnant. He seemed too much of a flirt, a playboy. There was also something about Patrick that always seemed hidden; something that lent him a mysterious air.
So I’d gone away to have my baby, and then, though it broke my heart, I gave her up for adoption. The social worker assured me she was going to a good home, with loving parents who would treat her as if they’d given birth to her themselves. I got to hold her only once, minutes after she was born. She had a mark the size of a dime on her neck that I worried about. The nurse said it was a birthmark called a “port-wine stain” and reassured me that it would fade away in time. I began to cry then and asked her if my baby had gotten that because I’d done something wrong. I’ll never forget what she did. She put my baby in her little nursery bed and held me in her arms, patting my back. She didn’t tell me not to feel bad that I was giving up my child, for which I was grateful. Of course I’d feel bad, she said—there was no way out of that. Instead, she kept murmuring, “It’ll get easier with time. Just like your baby’s birthmark, it’ll fade away in time.” I thought she was an angel, and that surely I didn’t deserve her, but I thanked God for putting her there by my side.
When I left the hospital I cried for two
days straight before I had the strength to leave the motel in Sacramento and drive back to L.A. There was a lot of time to think on that drive home, and the one thing uppermost in my mind was that I’d never survive the loss of my child if I couldn’t somehow put her out of my mind. Finally, I made the decision to throw myself even more into my work. I swore I would do whatever it took to build Mary Beth Conahan into a world-class literary agency.
The thought didn’t escape me, though, on that long, lonely stretch near Bakersfield, that I’d made my agency “my baby.”
My attention jumped back to Lindy when she asked, “Mary Beth, where did you go?”
“Hmm? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking of things,” I improvised. “Trying to figure out what’s going on with my authors and now us. You don’t really think Roger tried to kill us last night, do you? I mean, why would he?”
Lindy got up slowly, as if every muscle in her body hurt, and walked over to the railing. She looked frail, even old. It was as if she’d lived many more years than I, by some strange warp in time. Staring out at the ocean, she said. “You know, don’t you, that Roger’s family owns a pharmaceutical company?”
“Of course. Courtland Pharmaceuticals, isn’t it? I used to sort of poke fun at that when we were in school. Court-Land. Surrounded by sky-high fences with guards at the gate. Like it was a country unto itself.”
“That’s exactly what they had in mind,” Lindy said bitterly. “Roger’s father has always felt he had some…I don’t know, Divine right to do whatever he wanted, whether with business or family. The man is a tyrant. He’s dying now, though.”
“Really? He must be rather young still. In his early sixties? What’s wrong with him?”
She turned to me, her mouth curving in a cold smile. “A brain tumor. He had surgery years ago, and they thought it went away. Fortunately, it came back.”
“Fortunately?”
“I hate that man. I hope he dies, Mary Beth. I really hope he dies.”
“Lindy! You can’t mean that!” But I wondered. Did the apple not fall far from the tree, in terms of violence? “Has he done something to you? Something personal, I mean, since you married Roger?
“Not to…” She paused. “No.”
I hesitated, but somehow I knew that if I didn’t push, she’d never get it out. “Lindy, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”
She sighed and sat in the chair next to me again, drawing her knees up and encircling them with her arms, as if to warm herself. “It’s ugly, Mary Beth. I found out something he was doing. Him and Roger. Something so awful…” Tears filled her eyes.
“Having to do with pharmaceuticals?” I asked.
“I…yes.”
She still wasn’t coming out with it. “Tell me,” I said firmly.
Tears slipped onto her cheeks and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “If I do, you can’t tell a soul. Promise?”
“I…okay, yes, I promise.”
“The thing is, I confronted Roger and threatened to go to the police. He said if I ever told anyone, he’d take Jade away somewhere and I’d never see her again.”
“Jade?”
“My baby.” Lindy’s voice shook. “She’s the most beautiful child in the world, Mary Beth. She deserves—” Lindy shook her head, burying her face in her hands. “She deserves a better mother than me.”
“Oh, Lindy, you have a baby? But I don’t understand. Have you done something—”
“Not me, no. It’s Roger. But dammit, Mary Beth, I should stop him, and I don’t know how. I can’t risk him taking my baby away.”
For the first time, I was genuinely frightened for her. This was just the kind of threat I would have expected from Roger if I’d let him know I’d had his child and then he’d fought me for custody.
“Look, start at the beginning. What exactly is Roger doing? And why do you hate his father so much?”
She took a deep breath, and sat straight, as if stiffening her spine. “I’m not sure I know when it really all started, Mary Beth. But for the past year or so, Jade hasn’t been well. She has chronic infections, and last year her pediatrician said her immune system was compromised. She didn’t know why, but she was set to do more tests. Before Jade could have them, though, Roger canceled the appointment and insisted on changing to another doctor. One recommended by his father.”
“Do you know why?”
“I didn’t at first. So when Roger insisted on using a new drug on Jade—something the research scientists at Courtland came up with—and the new doctor agreed, I thought it must be all right. In fact, I was relieved when I learned that Roger and his father thought they’d found the so-called ‘magic bullet’ everyone’s been looking for. Do you know what that is?”
“I have some vague knowledge of it. Apparently, medical research scientists have spent years looking for a drug or vaccine that will cure or prevent all diseases, and with no side effects. Something that’ll rid the world of cancer, heart disease, everything down to the common cold.”
Lindy nodded. “The one Courtland’s calling a magic bullet is a drug that supposedly strengthens the immune system to a point where disease and viruses can’t take hold. Especially the ones antibiotics don’t work on anymore. They say it can even protect people from chemical weapons and biowarfare.”
“But that sounds fantastic,” I said. “If Roger and his father have discovered that, surely it must be good for your baby? Not to mention for the world?”
She shook her head. “I found out that the only human testing Roger and his father ever did was in secret, and only on homeless people they paid to be guinea pigs. I confronted Roger with this and asked him why they hadn’t done the usual type of clinical testing, the kind they always do before they send a drug to the FDA for approval. After all, Roger is president of Courtland now. He’s the one who should be making sure this new drug was tested properly.”
“And?”
“And he said the FDA takes too long, and it could be years before they approve the drug. He said Jade could be really sick by then, if not worse, and that a really bad infection could kill her at any time. He said we couldn’t afford to wait that long.”
I thought back to information I’d read in a book by one of my authors, about the way drugs are approved—or not approved—by the FDA. A lot of it was about the agency’s sluggishness in approving drugs, and the people who die while waiting for them.
“I hate to play devil’s advocate,” I said, “but I think I can almost understand what Roger is talking about. There’s just one hitch. Courtland won’t be able to sell the drug on the open market until the FDA approves it. Is Roger planning to use it only on Jade until then?”
“God, no! That’s the other thing. He’s already selling it to countries that don’t have such stringent rules about pharmaceuticals. And you’ll never guess who’s paying the most for it.”
“Who?”
“Some Middle Eastern countries. I’m not sure which, but Roger sells the drug to pharmaceutical companies, and they sell it to their military. It’s supposed to make them immune to smallpox, anthrax, and all those biological and chemical weapons you hear about. That way they think they can use those weapons on us in a war, but they won’t be hurt by them.”
“My God. Lindy, you’re not seriously telling me that Roger has his hands on something that could keep our armed forces and our entire population safe from bioterrorism, and he isn’t rushing to get it through the FDA? So that we can be protected? Instead, he’s raking in bucks by selling it to countries who’ve declared themselves our enemy?”
“It gets worse,” Lindy said. “Apparently, the first batches of BZT-21—the ones Roger tested on the homeless—were defective. The drug worked the way it should on some people, but on most of them it worked in reverse, weakening their immune systems instead of strengthening them. You know those stories in the news about that latest mystery illness that’s been killing Middle Eastern troops? So far, they haven’t linked that
illness to the first batch of BZT-21. But Roger and his father are worried that it’s only a matter of time.”
“Why would they think there’s a link?” I asked.
“Like I said, it gets worse.” Her voice began to shake more, and I could barely hear her. “Three-quarters of those homeless people died, Mary Beth. The rest ended up with illnesses they hadn’t had before the trials, and they’re either very ill now, or have already died, too.”
I was speechless, I was so shocked.
“But nobody will ever know,” Lindy said, her voice filling with tears, “because none of their families knew where they were, anyway. And you know what Roger did to cover up what had happened to them? He paid a fortune to have them all cremated, without any records being kept.”
“My God! And this is the drug he’s using on Jade?”
“He said it wasn’t, and that he’s using something new on her now. BZT-22, they’re calling it, and it’s supposed to be safe. But a few weeks ago there was blood in Jade’s urine. Roger claims that it’s a normal side effect. But Mary Beth, there aren’t supposed to be any side effects, let alone blood in the urine. I’m really worried.”
“What does her doctor say?”
“That’s the other thing. I don’t trust the one Roger’s father recommended, and he wouldn’t let me take Jade to her old pediatrician. The thing is, Mary Beth, I think he’s making her sicker than she was, and he can’t afford to have anyone find out.”
“And you’ve known this how long?” I said. “A few weeks? Lindy, I can’t believe you haven’t done anything about it! You haven’t gone to the police and had Roger locked up?”
She turned on me angrily. “Of course not! He’d get right back out on bail, and I told you, he’s threatened to take Jade away. Or have someone else take her away, if he’s locked up. She’s my baby, Mary Beth! I don’t think even you would risk something like that.”
I chose to ignore the “even you” part. Lindy had always accused me of being emotionally cold. She’d have no way of knowing that I could understand what losing a baby was like.