by CJ Lyons
“Not even to BioRegen?”
“Hospital records and invoices show that they supplied the kinds of tissues used—as well as two other vendors. But the quantity supplied by BioRegen was three times the others combined.”
“Not good enough for a court of law.”
“Not even enough to pursue an official case,” Shapiro admitted. “My supervisor didn’t even bother taking it up the chain.”
And yet, the IRS agent had taken the time to learn more about the rare disease than most doctors probably knew. A man on a mission.
“Why isn’t the FDA all over this?” Jake asked. “Or the product safety commission? It’s their job to protect consumers from this kind of thing.”
“Overworked, underfunded, plus any fix would cost millions—can you imagine asking every physician with an outpatient clinic, every hospital, every surgery center to begin inventorying and tracking hundreds of thousands of pieces of tissue? Not to mention the costs of monitoring compliance, creating standards and guidelines, and licensing the providers.”
Jake jerked his head up at that. “You mean BioRegen and the other companies doing this aren’t even licensed?”
“There is no license. No one polices this industry. Hell, the government can’t even decide who would do the job if they had the money to do it.”
He thought of the hollow PVC pipes screwed onto Victor’s feet, thought about mothers like Valerie suffering as they watched their children die. Outrageous indignities—multiplied by a government’s apathy. He glanced at the father in the family portrait. The guy looked normal enough, one hand on his wife and the other on his child, his posture one of protectiveness.
And he couldn’t do a damn thing to save his daughter. Neither could Jake. But maybe he could help nail the bastards behind it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Valerie returned, pushing a high-backed wheelchair. In it, her head strapped between two cushions, was the little girl from the photo. Her face revealed no signs of the trauma from the car accident except for a small scar crossing into her right eyebrow and another on her cheek.
Jake couldn’t say that about the trauma from the Creutzfeldt-Jakob. The disease had left Julia emaciated, her limbs flailing with spastic contractions, and obviously had devastated her mentally. Her eyes circled in their sockets without focusing, her tongue lolled from her mouth, and as Valerie restrained one hand, she slapped herself in the face with the other. Her hair, once long enough to be in pigtails, was cropped close to her scalp, large patches of it missing.
“She’s having a pretty good day,” Valerie said, wiping spittle from Julia’s chin with the bib that hung around the girl’s neck. “I thought you might want to see her. One last time.”
Shapiro got to his feet, his steps as he crossed the room a bit wobbly, but he crouched beside the chair and patted Julia’s free hand, ignoring her attempts to scratch him. She made a noise like an animal, at first it was a moan of frustration, then as he kept up his rhythmic movements one of contentment.
“Remember me, Julia?” he crooned in a calming singsong. “Sorry I didn’t bring you anything today. I know how much you like your fuzzy socks.”
The only sign Julia gave that she understood him was kicking her heels against the padded footrests of her chair. She wore purple fleece socks with monkeys on them. The kind Jake’s eight-year-old niece loved to mix and match with wild results. “Because life’s too short, Uncle Jake,” she’d say. “This way I can have twice the fun!”
Jake had been able to distance himself from Valerie’s pain while listening to Julia’s story, but now, seeing the devastated little girl, seeing those socks … it was too much. He had to turn, pretend to be looking out the window as he blinked away tears and swiped his cheek dry with the back of his hand. He felt guilty—he had no right to this grief, it belonged to Valerie and her family. But he couldn’t help being moved by the sight of the once beautiful child now turned into an empty wraith.
Valerie joined him as Shapiro continued his one-sided chat with Julia. “He’s so good with her,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the two of them. “The only one who took us seriously, who even bothered to look into our case. Not that it could ever do her much good, but at least maybe no one else…”
Her voice trailed off. They stood there in silence, studying the view: a patch of brown grass, a few brave azalea bushes daring to flower despite the March chill, a cracked sidewalk. “Are you really going to investigate BioRegen, Agent Carver? Or are you just here to tell a mother what she wants to hear? Because I don’t need empty words or promises. I lost Julia a long, long time ago—it’s just taken a while for her body to catch up. But that smiling, happy girl, my baby, she vanished when she couldn’t remember who she is or who I am or how to feed herself or even what food is. What’s left, well, that’s not Julia. Hasn’t been her for a long while.”
Jake liked the spark of anger in Valerie’s voice. Fought the impulse to tell her that she’d need that—who was he to offer her advice?
Instead he turned to her. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.
She nodded, brushed her hands together as if she’d completed a grueling task. “Okay, then. What’s the first step?”
Shapiro answered from behind them. “I was thinking maybe Jake could take a trip to Guatemala.”
Jake spun around. “Guatemala?”
“Yeah. I think I may have a connection between your missing girl and BioRegen.”
“What’s that?”
“Until a few months ago, BioRegen’s main supplier was a private clinic in Guatemala. The Clínica Invierno. Given the timing, if the tissue that infected Julia did come from BioRegen, it would have come from there. You could see if there’s anyone down there with symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob.”
With Valerie standing there, looking so hopeful and yet also totally beyond hope, Jake couldn’t argue with Shapiro or question his conclusions. Which, of course, was exactly the way Shapiro had planned it.
Jake hated being played for a sucker. But then Julia squealed; this time it sounded almost human, came close to laughter. He stood, his gaze riveted on the little girl trapped in her body and her mind. All he could do was pray that there weren’t more Julias out there.
God help the people who set this chain of events in motion. Because if he did find them—
Shapiro gave him a nod and Jake realized he had both fists clenched, ready to hit someone. “All right,” he told the IRS agent. “I’m in.”
*
State had cleared Caitlyn’s way, making customs in Belize a breeze—it also helped that everyone spoke English. She was worried that her lack of Spanish would be a hindrance in Guatemala, but other than downloading an app to help out, there wasn’t a lot she could do about it in the short time she had.
On the taxi ride over to the dock, she took advantage of decent cell service and dug up as much info on Hector’s former army squad as she could. It wasn’t good. Apparently the Kaibiles were the equivalent of Delta or SEAL Team Six. Worse, maybe. Their training was brutal. According to one article, each incoming class had a dog as a pet—and their final assignment to graduate was to butcher their class pet and eat it. Raw.
Ugh. She understood the need to harden men fighting in a civil war that often employed brutal tactics, but it sounded like the Kaibiles were more sociopaths than soldiers.
She tried calling Carver but it went straight to voice mail, so she updated him with the names Sandra had given her and Hector’s connection to the Kaibiles. Although, knowing Carver and his seriously geeked-out intensity when it came to ferreting out arcane details, he probably not only knew that already but had also researched the origins of the death squad’s name and knew its creed, emblem, and marching song. The thought made her smile. She was terrible at remembering small details; having Carver around was better than her own personal Google.
But, lacking Carver, she did her own search for any major incidents involving Hector and his squad twenty years ago.
There were references in the legitimate media to possible “atrocities” involving “rebel sanctuaries” and a short piece that mentioned the squad in conjunction with a prison that sounded like the equivalent of Guantanamo. Nothing specific and certainly no evidence that anyone associated with the Kaibiles had ever been charged with any crime.
Twenty years was a long time. Plus, after the peace accord, the government would have purged as many records as possible in order to keep its tumultuous past buried. In the name of protecting the precarious peace, of course.
But someone cared enough to draw Hector back to his homeland. There had to be a reason why. If she could understand that, it might lead her to Maria.
The taxi drew up and stopped near the water. She shielded her eyes against the sun bouncing from the bright blue of the Caribbean. Of course she’d lost her sunglasses somewhere along the way. As usual. The water reflected the cloudless sky. A good day to take a boat trip.
The driver pointed her to the ferry. Instead of a ship built to hold vehicles as well as passengers, the boat he indicated looked like a refugee from a Disney ride. It rode low in the water, rows of seats beneath a sagging canopy, two outboard motors in the back.
“That’s the ferry to Santo Tomás? There must be some mistake.”
“No mistake.” He took her money and drove away.
People were climbing on board the tiny craft, the seats in the middle already filled. Caitlyn looked out over the water. It was a hour trip across the Caribbean to Santo Tomás.
Hoisting her travel pack onto her shoulder, she approached the boat. The boy manning the dock nodded and confirmed that they were going to Santo Tomás and eagerly took her American dollars. He crouched and held the side of the boat steady as she ducked below the canvas and stepped on board, climbing over and around the passengers already seated until she found herself a spot against the side of the boat with room to shove her pack beneath her feet and hold her smaller messenger bag on her lap.
“You like the water?” the woman sitting beside her asked. She was dark skinned with a Spanish accent.
“Sure, why not?” Caitlyn used to be a guide on the New River’s white water rafting trips during her college breaks. This boat couldn’t be any worse.
The woman smiled and nodded. “Bueno. Muchos toques. Many splashes.”
As the boat filled, people now jammed hip to hip on the benches, it sank lower in the water and Caitlyn realized what she meant. Even sitting still at the dock, each wave sloshed water over the sides onto Caitlyn. She slid her messenger bag into her travel pack, made sure all the zippers and gussets were closed tight. Her laptop and phone were as protected as much as possible inside plastic bags; unless she fell in, they should be okay. She hoped.
The boy—their captain, she realized—climbed on to the back of the boat and lowered the engines into the water. With a puff of smoke and gasp of diesel fumes, they started and the rickety craft pulled away from the dock, heading out into the Caribbean, chopping across the waves.
Caitlyn clutched the railing and was glad she didn’t get seasick. At least she never had before. She tried to think of Maria, excited as she’d headed off on her adventure.
Maria’s mother hadn’t mentioned if the kidnappers who contacted Hector had provided proof of life. Was Caitlyn racing to save a corpse?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
After eating some eggs and broth, Maria fell asleep again. This time when she woke, the restraints and IV were gone. A cool breeze rustled the curtains at the open doors leading onto the wrought iron balcony. Beyond them the sky was a brilliant cloudless blue.
She got to her feet, wobbly at first and aching in every muscle. But that was nothing compared to the wicked itching from the insect bites covering her skin. She raised a hand to scratch but remembered the doctor telling her they were infected and lowered it to her side, fingers curling into a fist as she fought not to think about it.
Her travel pack was at the foot of the bed. The police must have brought it. Nothing inside appeared to be disturbed. She used the bathroom, showered, and felt better with fresh clothing. As she combed her hair in the mirror, she was surprised that she looked like the same old mousy Maria as always. The girl no one ever noticed.
Funny. She didn’t feel the same. Would her father see that she’d changed? Or would he still treat her like a silly child who couldn’t think for herself?
She set her jaw, scowled at her reflection. No matter what he said, she wasn’t quitting school, wasn’t giving up on her dream. He could kick her out, cut her off from his money, she didn’t care.
Except she did. Not the money—although she had no idea what kind of job she’d be qualified for. But how he felt about her. The worst punishment he could ever give her when she was a child was the silent treatment. She might be grown up now, but she still needed him, needed her father’s love.
Was a little respect thrown in with the love too much to ask?
After scaring him to death and making him fly a thousand miles to rescue her, maybe it was.
She sighed and turned away from the mirror. She repacked her bag and made the bed, then turned around the empty room, restless. Maybe the phone was working again and she could call her parents. Well, maybe not her parents—she wasn’t quite up to facing them yet—but at least Linda and the others, let them know she was okay.
The door opened onto a wide corridor with high ceilings and old-fashioned hand-carved cornices and crown molding. At one end were glass French doors, at the other was a staircase, and in between were five more doors like hers, three on each side of the hall. The house resonated with an old world elegance that surprised her, given its remote location. A woman, Helda, sat in a wooden chair outside her room, reading a magazine.
“Hello, there,” she said brightly. But she wasn’t smiling. Instead she glanced at her watch as if Maria were unfashionably early for a party. She brushed invisible wrinkles from her nurse’s uniform and folded the magazine into a crisp bundle that she tucked beneath her arm. “You look better.”
“Thank you.” Maria wasn’t sure of the protocol. She was a guest and owed these people her life. Somehow she felt like they were waiting for something more than mere thank-yous from her. What could she offer them?
Helda didn’t give her a chance to say anything. The nurse took Maria by the arm and ushered her down the hall. “I think you need real food,” she said, her German accent thickening. “Come, lunch is almost ready.”
She led Maria to the end of the hall and down a wide set of beautifully carved wooden stairs. Every wall was filled with paintings done by the same artist whose vivid colors had brought a smile to her face when she first woke.
“Did the doctor paint these?” she asked. They didn’t seem to fit Dr. Carrera’s level of sophistication. Instead they felt as if they’d been painted by someone younger, less constrained by rules and convention. Someone trying to break free of invisible boundaries, just like Maria.
Or maybe she was simply projecting her own feelings onto the art.
“Doktor Otto? Nein, he did not paint these.” Helda gestured with a sweeping motion, indicating there were many more paintings. For the first time her smile was genuine. “Michael. Herr Doktor’s son. He is our artist. Our ray of sunshine.”
“He is very talented.” Maria stopped to admire a large canvas on the foyer wall at the bottom of the stairs. It was positioned to receive the light from the windows above the massive mahogany front doors. Despite its size, the painting depicted one small vibrantly green leaf splashed with a drop of rain. The motion, the rainbow of color in the water, the hint of sunlight, all combined to create a powerful although simple image.
Maria smiled again, raised a finger to trace the path the raindrop would have taken as it fell, touched the leaf, and bounced back into the air. Hope. That’s what the painting said to her. Life is hope.
“Maria.” The doctor’s voice boomed through the foyer as he crossed a spacious living room to greet her. He always seemed
so exuberant, passionate. Must be nice to live so far from civilization, devoting himself to his patients. “I see you found our resident artist’s work.”
“Yes. They are quite lovely.” Maria almost laughed at the way she found herself mimicking the doctor’s formal speech patterns. Her parents had taught her how to do that when she was a child and they’d introduced her to their friends at cocktail parties. The art of blending in—she was a master. “Helda said your son painted them?”
The doctor pulled up short, his expression going from sunny to cloudy and back again in a blink. “Yes. Michael. You’ll have a chance to meet him. Come, come, you must be famished.”
Helda left and he led Maria into a large dining room, his steps jerky, as if his balance was off. A waiter held out her chair for her at a massive mahogany table that could have seated twenty. The room was elegantly appointed with European style: heavy velvet drapes; crystal chandeliers; thick, hand-woven rugs.
It reminded her of her parents’ club back home. Only instead of overlooking the golf course, here they overlooked a vista filled with the jungle climbing up into mountains tinted blue purple on the horizon, their peaks reflected in the lake below the house. No signs of other humans as far as the eye could see other than a glimpse of the corner of the large building behind the house. All she could see from here was bright yellow paint and a row of windows covered with ornate wrought iron grates. The main hospital building, she assumed. Given its expensive décor, she decided the clinic must be more of a spa than an actual working hospital.
“It’s lovely,” she said, nodding to the view. “After lunch, perhaps I could go for a walk?”
“My dear, the jungle is no place for a lovely girl like you.” He sounded just like her parents—overprotective to a fault. “And we can’t risk infection setting in with those nasty scrapes and bites of yours.”