by Rene Fomby
Andy looked up at Sam, both women’s eyes red and watery. “So you see, Samantha, I get it. I understand the pain that comes with responsibility, with everyday mistakes that have soul-crushing consequences.” She reached over and took Sam’s right hand in hers. “But the thing is, we don’t get to decide these things. I didn’t mean to get Tommy killed, I made what I thought was the best decision at the time. And I chose wrong.”
“I am so sorry,” Sam said, brushing away a tear of her own.
“That’s not why I told you all this,” Andy said. “I’m not looking for sympathy. That boat set sail a long time ago. I just wanted to help you understand what’s really going on, here. What’s at stake.” She glanced over at Gavin, who was staring at her with an anguished expression, then back at Sam. “I was read in on your whole file, everything going back to last summer. The attempted abduction, the fire. And none of it, absolutely none of it was about you. It was all about your daughter, about William Tulley’s failed attempts to silence you so he could get away with seizing your daughter’s inheritance. And even though we don’t yet understand how all this fits into Tulley’s master plan, this last explosion was almost certainly masterminded by him. Tell me, what was your very last memory before the explosion?”
Sam squeezed her eyes shut. “I was just going back to the restaurant to get my sunglasses. Mehmed was standing there, and I decided to open the car door for him and start the engine, so he could wait in the air conditioner, out of the heat. I grabbed my key fob and pressed ‘unlock,’ and then everything went black.”
“That’s exactly what we thought had happened,” Gavin chipped in. “The Israelis originally thought it was the Palestinians, because the bomb signature traced back to them, but the placement of the bomb made no sense for a terrorist attack. Too few victims, and the car was yours, a rental car, not a car bomb that had been tricked out a long time before and parked in place.”
“So somehow my unlocking the car door set off the bomb,” Sam said, finally putting the pieces together about what exactly had happened.
“Right,” Andy said. “And fortunately, you and your friend were still pretty far away from the car when the blast went off. If you had unlocked the car the usual way, by simply grasping the door handle—”
“I’d have been blown to pieces, along with Mehmed. Instead of being here in the hospital, getting stitched back together,” Sam said, shaking her head. “But why?”
Gavin spread his hands wide in front of him, shrugging. “Maybe Tulley thinks you’re getting too close to saving the trust. Maybe he has big plans for swooping in and buying up parts of it in a fire sale. Who knows? The thing is, with you out of the picture, who’s left to protect Maddie? A grandmother who barely knows her, and has been living as a trust fund baby herself her entire life?”
“No, you’re right,” Sam agreed. “And—Andrea, thank you. That’s really what I needed right now. A good dose of cold reality, a good kick in the butt. I just have to keep pounding away at it, until I either win or lose at this little game. This little, deadly game. And if anyone has blood on his hands, it’s my dear father-in-law. I guess I really can’t blame myself if I dodge a bullet and it hits somebody else.” She looked up at Gavin, just as the doctor appeared in the doorway. “But I was being honest about the river thing. Someday, and I hope sooner rather than later, Maddie and I have to escape all this insanity, get back to a simpler existence. For her sake, even more than mine. She needs to grow up in the real world, and not end up like her grandmother, spoon fed mushy compliments and self-serving half-truths her entire life.”
“And whatever Andy and I can do to help make that happen, we’ll be there for you, Sam. For you and your daughter.” He glanced toward the doorway. “But the doctor has a look on her face that says we have more than overstayed our welcome right now.” He nodded toward Andy as she uncurled from the bed. “We have some other pressing business we need to discuss with you, the real reason we came all this way out here to see you. But for the moment, we’ll just leave you in peace with la doctora and head downstairs to grab a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.”
Andy and Gavin stepped out into the hall, closing the door softly behind them. As they started down the hallway, Gavin suddenly stopped. Andy turned to face him, puzzled. “Andy, what you said back there. I had no idea. Is all that true?”
“Do you ever listen to a word I say, you knuckle brain?” she answered with an ironic smile and a twinkle in her now-dry eyes. “I told you long ago I was an only child. And, by the way, the female lead, every single year, every single play at Hellgate High back home. And I’m a damned good actress, don’t you think?”
“But—”
“The truth is, my life has been pretty magical. I have like zero complaints, really. I may not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I never went hungry, and I pretty much got everything I wanted. And achieved everything I put my mind to. But is that what she needed to hear back there?” She paused to look back toward the door to Sam’s hospital room. “No, some holes you fall into, some deep dark places you find yourself climbing around in, they leave you with their own kind of holes carved deep inside your soul. Holes you can’t just crawl out of and move on. The damage, the darkness, it stays with you. So she wasn’t looking for someone to help her get back on her feet. That part’s easy, especially for tough broads like her. No, what she needs right now is a little help finding her own inner strength, a path to healing that begins very deep inside of her. So that little story, that was just a way of touching her in places that are very tender, very raw, but places she needs to deal with, instead of always trying to pretend they don’t exist. Helping her frame up her own inner discussion, find a way to recognize what is really troubling her.”
“And that is?” Gavin asked, now turning back again to walk slowly down the hallway toward the cafeteria.
“Heck if I know,” Andy answered, joining him. “But one thing I do know, sometimes the tougher someone is on the outside, the more she’s just hiding what’s really going on inside. Feelings have to find an outlet, a vent, or else they just build up until they explode. And from what I’ve read about Samantha Tulley, right now she’s clenched up tighter than a mule’s butt in a snowstorm. She doesn’t have a single soul to vent to, but she’s got pressures in her life coming at her from every possible direction, pressures that would destroy almost anybody else. That act back there—” She hooked a thumb behind them. “That was just my way of helping her reach out for the briefest moment, to help her let off a little bit of that steam. To share a moment with someone other than herself.”
“And you just made all that up on the spot?” Gavin asked, incredulous.
“Hell no!” Andy laughed. “That was from the second act of ‘My Sweet Home Montana,’ my senior year play. I can still bring it, though, right?”
Gavin didn’t answer, wondering once again how much of Andy’s game was truly real, and how much just an act. And, in the end, whether the answer to that question even mattered.
※
When they returned fifteen minutes later, coffee cups in hand, the doctor was just finishing up examining the cast on Sam’s right arm.
“She’s looking pretty good, but she still needs more rest,” the doctor warned them. “Don’t make me order you to leave.”
“We won’t,” Gavin promised. “Just a few short minutes, then we’ll be on our way and let her sleep.”
The doctor gave him a hard, no nonsense look. “See to it. She’s been through a lot. Any business you have with her can wait for a few more days.”
“Yes ma’am,” Andy promised, reclaiming her spot on the right corner of the bed.
They waited until the doctor had left the room, then quickly caught Sam up on their investigation, the deaths of all the doctors, nurses and patients, and the connection back to William Tulley and the bank.
Sam stared at the cast on her right arm, trying to understand everything she had just
learned. Finally, she looked up. “That explains where the bulk of the bank’s missing cash reserves went, transactions dear old dad-in-law must have papered over so we couldn’t trace them back to him. Does this mean I somehow own a pharmaceutical company, a company that by the way I am also apparently suing on behalf of one of its victims?”
“No,” Gavin answered. “While the money to buy the company came from your daughter’s bank, the two companies were entirely controlled by William Tulley. Just a few thousand more deaths we can hang around his neck if we ever get lucky and catch the son of a bitch.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sam observed. “And now we have iron-clad evidence making Labarum Pharmaceuticals directly liable for all the deaths related to the manufacturing issue. Clearly, they knew way back when during the clinical trials that the molecule could flip and become deadly, and they literally tried to bury the evidence so no one would ever be the wiser. Until you two came along.”
Andy cleared her throat. “About that. Unlike you two, I’m no lawyer, but I think you may have a problem with that lawsuit. It seems Boucher and Tulley had been regularly raiding the till at Labarum, and when the manufacturing crisis broke out, there was only about five or six million left in the bank. Barely enough to keep the lights on, even without the recall and the lost sales. Now the company is deeply in the red, and all of its employees just found out that their next paycheck will be a big giant goose egg.”
Sam batted her eyes once, then twice. This story just kept getting better. “So what you’re telling me is, it’s just like the Chinese raw materials manufacturer all over again. Even if we go to trial and win, there’s no money left to pay out any damages.”
“I’m afraid that’s the bottom line, Sam,” Gavin agreed.
“All right, then. I guess I owe my partner an email pretty soon breaking the rotten news to him. Although I don’t think he’ll be all that surprised.” Sam rubbed her chin, thinking. “Well, if there’s no money in the deal, I assume Tulley just saw it all as an opportunity to use Crismon and Labarum to launder the money from the bank. Although that seems like an awfully indirect way to pull that off.”
Gavin noticed that Sam’s eyes were starting to glaze over. Clearly, the doctor had given her something in her IV drip to send her back to sleepy land. “Look, Sam, I think we’ve covered enough territory for one day. Why don’t we let you rest now, and we’ll swing back by early in the morning. We still have a few more questions, but it’ll help if you have a clearer mind. And I don’t want your dear demon doctor to have us thrown out of here on our butts.”
Sam laughed quietly at that, her eyelids already starting to droop. “Okay, Gavin. Andy. First thing, though, okay?”
“We’ll bring donuts,” Andy promised, grabbing Gavin by the arm and steering him toward the door.
88
Akko
Since Sam’s injuries didn’t require any dietary restrictions, her doctor merely glared at the donuts the next morning and left without making any comments. Andy and Gavin had also brought along three large cups of coffee from the local Starbucks equivalent, which although alarmingly strong, still beat the cafeteria’s burnt offerings by a long shot.
Sam was sitting propped up in bed, obviously much improved from the previous day. She chewed on the donut slowly, looking for all the world like it was the best French pastry she had ever eaten. Gavin pulled up a chair while Andy grabbed her usual spot at the foot of the bed.
Gavin brought out a notepad and a pen, ready to take notes on anything new that came up during their conversation. “Obviously, our objective right now is largely what it has always been, to find out where William Tulley and his daughter are hiding, and bring them to justice. Only now we have a few thousand more reasons to motivate us, plus one more promising target. Peter Boucher. Sam, do you know anything about this guy? Did his name ever pop up at any time in relation to the bank? Or any of the other Ricciardelli business dealings?”
Sam shook her head. “No, I’ve never heard the name before. Not even in regard to the lawsuit. To be frank, Harry has been handling all of that stateside. And we haven’t had an opportunity yet to pour over any of the details on that case.”
“Right. Gotcha. Well, it was worth a shot. Because we’ve got an entirely new can of worms to deal with in the case of Mr. Boucher. Seems that just before he disappeared into thin air, Boucher absconded with a massive amount of a dangerous new experimental drug called Xenophant. A drug that promises to be very useful to people like the CIA to force information out of certain individuals in places like, say, Guantanamo. But with side effects that make it unethical to use in any legitimate medical setting.”
“Side effects? Like what?” Sam asked.
Andy spoke up. “In very small doses, the patient would suffer severe nausea, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness, gastric pain, and elevated heart rates and blood pressure. In just slightly larger doses, the drug is almost always fatal. And the actual fatal dose varies greatly from one individual to the next, driven by factors the early trials couldn’t identify.”
“Sounds like a real winner,” Sam observed dryly. “And you think Boucher has handed it off to the CIA, or some similar group?” She was watching Andy carefully out of the corner of her eye. Andy had used almost identical language to describe her employer, and her connection to Gavin.
“That would make perfect sense,” Andy agreed. “But Gavin and I have some confidential contacts deep inside both of our organizations, contacts that would have to be in the know on something like that, and they’ve heard nothing. So, as scary as it might seem for this drug to fall into the wrong hands inside our government, we’re now worried that the buyer is someone else completely. Maybe even Russian. Or Chinese. Or, even worse, North Korean.”
“Or, more likely, Tulley himself has a plan for the drug,” Gavin suggested. “But whatever that might be, we can only guess at this point. Which brings us back to our only new lead in the case. Peter Boucher.” He pulled out a photo of Boucher from his briefcase and set it in front of Sam. “You sure you’ve never seen him before?”
As soon as she set eyes on the picture, her insides turned over like she was back in that room in Las Vegas, coated with Boucher’s sperm, inside and out. For a panicked moment, she felt her gorge rise in her throat, and she thought she was going to throw up the contents of her stomach, which was at this point the half-eaten donut and a few sips of black coffee. She clamped down on her jaw as she pointedly looked away from the picture, trying to force his image out of her mind.
“Are you okay, Sam?” Gavin asked, suddenly alarmed by the ashen look on Sam’s face and the manic, frantic look in her eyes. Realizing that the picture he had handed her was the very source of the problem, he snatched it away quickly, stashing it back in his briefcase.
Andy had seen it too, and moved quickly to the head of the bed, grabbing and squeezing Sam’s right hand while giving a quick scan of the bedside monitors, now showing a huge spike in Sam’s heart rate and blood pressure. She was about to grab the alert button to summon the nurses when the numbers started dropping back to normal levels.
“I’m—okay, I guess,” Sam finally gasped out.
Gavin hesitated to ask the obvious question, particularly since he already knew the answer. Finally, sensing that Sam had recovered enough from her initial shock, he decided to risk it. “Okay. It’s clear that you recognize the bastard. All right, Sam, let’s take this a little slower. We’re in no hurry here. Whenever you’re ready.”
Sam nodded, swallowing hard. After Luke had died, she’d found a way to encapsulate certain feelings, to wrap them up and shove them away into a dark corner of her soul, a place where they could stay locked up for all eternity. Hopefully. She’d thought that this memory had been safely locked away, as well. But clearly, it hadn’t. She swallowed again, steeling herself, pushing the memories back into the past. Maybe to stay in the past this time. Andy brought her a glass of water, which she accepted gratefull
y. After taking a long gulp, she settled the half-empty glass in her lap, and stared into the calm surface of the water. Then she looked up.
“I have seen this man just once. In Las Vegas, the first week in June.” Slowly she recounted all that had happened, leaving out the most sordid details of what he had done to her while she was incapacitated. “So, clearly, he must have slipped me some of that date rape drug. It matches all the symptoms I felt when I woke up the next morning.”
Gavin wrote some brief notes on his pad. “This leaves us with two important questions. A, how did he know you were going to be there? Because there’s no way this was all a coincidence.”
“Agreed,” said Andy. “And what is the second question?”
“What was his final objective, in the end? This could not have been about sexual assault. If it was just about sex, he had a thousand better options that night than targeting you, Sam. I mean, don’t take me wrong, you are an amazing woman, but if someone simply wanted to rape a good-looking woman, Vegas—”
“Has options left and right that would leave me looking like Cinderella’s stepsisters. Yeah, I get it.” Sam stared back down at her glass. “So, if it wasn’t the sex, if sex was just a—convenient side benefit—then we’re left with an objective that only I could possibly satisfy. An objective that ties into William Tulley’s personal interests. And I think I might know what that is.”
Andy and Gavin were suddenly on high alert, as Sam slowly looked up. “I’m just speculating, here, but in the days immediately following his sudden disappearance, Tulley managed to use his private connection to the bank’s accounts to pull almost every single dime out of the cash reserves. And so, ever since I took over, and following the advice of my security people, any trace of that kind of activity over a few hundred thousand euros requires a minimum of four signatures. With one notable exception. Me. I can move money around at will, with zero oversight.”