Damned If You Don't

by Linda J. Parisi

  He watched Ian nod. “I’ll see what I can do. But you’re going to owe me, big-time.”

  Sam nodded. He understood more than Ian would ever know. “I made a mistake, and I’ll do my time for it. But BioClin, hell, everyone, gets theirs, right, compadre?”

  “My pleasure. Just make sure you don’t get nailed in the process. I wouldn’t want to have to explain that one to Jack.”

  * * * *

  Morgan’s gaze slipped to the clock on the wall across the room. The bookstore was changing shifts. It was time to leave.

  She rose, stared at her half-empty cup of coffee, and threw what was left out as she walked outside the store. A block away, she waited at the bus stop then caught the six-fifteen to Framingham. She stared out the window of the bus and tucked Jack deep into her psyche. Now was not the time to think about love. Now was the time to remember that she had a job to do; now was the time to remember that innocent woman and acknowledge she’d died for BioClin’s greed and no other reason.

  Anger churned in Morgan’s stomach, making the amount of coffee she’d consumed roll like a sick drunk in a bad storm. No mercy. She would get no quarter from her motion sickness; she would give no quarter to the bastards who used her work to kill another human being. End of discussion.

  The bus let her off about a half a mile from BioClin. Hunching her shoulders against the cold and the wind, Morgan walked off the sickness in her belly and pushed her anger deep inside. She needed to keep her wits about her. She didn’t need her emotions clouding her judgment. She’d save that for after she got Anton to confess. Maybe she could even get him to implicate his partner in this terrible crime.

  A small smile grew on her face. She’d make Jack proud of her.

  As she approached the building, Morgan hid her face with her hood, certainly understandable with the weather the way it was, and walked across BioClin’s back parking lot. She slipped behind one of the huge green Dumpsters by the shipping dock and checked her watch. Seven on the dot. Not bad. Not bad at all. She wouldn’t have to wait too long.

  Morgan huddled against the Dumpster, using it to shield herself from the wind. She started shivering and knew no matter how short the wait, it would feel a whole lot longer. She kept checking her watch and about fifteen minutes later, she watched Paul, the shipping manager, walk to his car, get in, and leave. She waited another five very long minutes before she walked up the shipping dock steps.

  Peeking around into the warehouse through an open bay door, Morgan didn’t see a soul. That’s because she knew that the shipping guys took an extra break as soon as Paul left. Always. Nights and weekends. Didn’t matter.

  Inside the shipping area, sitting on several pallets back in a deserted corner of the warehouse, sat boxes of deionized water. The boxes were stacked almost five feet high. But there was enough room between the wall and the pallet to hide until the shipping guys finished, had their packages picked up, and left the building for the day.

  At least waiting inside would be warmer than outside. But it still meant that she had to cool her heels and kill time, even though she itched to dig around and find any incriminating evidence she could, then ram it down Anton’s throat.

  Looking at her watch, she saw it was nearly eight o’clock. Damn, damn, damn. Of all nights, tonight they had to work later than normal. She kept on peeking around the boxes, then slipping back unnoticed. She listened to their banter, wanting to scream at them to hurry up and just go home already. She wanted to prove Anton was behind this. She wanted to confront Anton, push his buttons, get him to talk and incriminate himself, get him to incriminate his partner—right onto the little handheld voice recorder sitting in her pocket, one of the necessities she’d purchased at the store.

  What she got, Morgan realized, was way more than she bargained for.

  The lights finally went out, startling her. She listened to the shipping guys lock up the outer doors, tell each other good night, and leave. As she listened to the door slam, Morgan breathed a sigh of relief. But she stayed hidden. Just in case. Patience was a learned virtue that gave rewards in the long run. And she wasn’t about to screw things up now.

  Her watch didn’t have a lighted dial, so she had no idea how long she waited. But she finally scrambled out of her hiding place, straining to see in the darkness. She skirted her way around larger objects and headed toward the offices and labs. There were two entrances to the main part of the building, one by the warehouse conference room and one leading to the labs.

  As she entered the hallway leading to her office, ex-office, she reminded herself, Morgan thought she heard voices. Her heart rose in her throat. Trembling, she wondered who the hell would be working this late?

  You would.

  During off-hours, most of the building wasn’t lit up to save on electricity. But today, there were lights coming from the chemistry lab. Morgan skirted by the door with care so as not to make noise and headed to the front of the building where the offices were.

  She passed by a bank of cubicles where most of the technologists and scientists working for BioClin had their desks, and headed for her office. She wasn’t surprised to find it practically empty. Her personal items had been thrown in a box on top of the desk. But she went through her drawers anyway, just to see if they’d left anything behind. They hadn’t.

  Turning quickly, she continued down to Anton’s office. The door was closed. She reached out to turn the doorknob when she heard voices coming. Damn.

  Morgan had no choice but to get the hell out of there. She continued toward the front of the building and the lobby and tiptoed across the marble entrance, then into another bank of offices. She hurried down another hallway past another set of cubicles and turned into the molecular biology lab. Maybe she’d get lucky and find something Anton left behind.

  She combed through stacks of papers in the corner of the lab, but they were all package inserts and control inserts for the equipment they were using. Then she went into the prep room. She found a notebook and scanned the pages quickly. No help there.

  By ducking through the refrigeration area where huge stand-up refrigerators and minus-seventy-degree-Celsius freezers lined the walls, Morgan would come out on the other side of the building. It was a shortcut to her lab she had often used.

  At first, she thought she was losing her mind, because the floor should have been empty. It wasn’t. There was a man’s dress tie in the middle.

  That’s odd.

  Without thinking, she picked up the tie and put it in her pocket. It smelled of dry-cleaning fluid and something else. Something familiar. Something on the edge of her mind, but she couldn’t quite place what.

  Morgan shook her head. She couldn’t waste time worrying about it now. She needed to find evidence. Hard evidence. Anything that would link the notations in that file to Anton Dvorak—and his partner.

  A mixture of hurt, regret, and anger ripped through her as she stepped into her lab. Funny, she’d thought she’d walk right back into her cocoon again. Her hand skimmed a countertop as she remembered the hours she’d spent here, the lonely hours, and the empty hours. Jack had changed all that. She didn’t need her cocoon anymore.

  In her line of business, to prove that something works the way it’s supposed to, a scientist needs to ask why at least five times. As she searched through her lab for clues of any kind, Morgan started asking those questions. Why would Anton want the project? To have something he coveted from the get-go. Why? Because he wasn’t smart enough to get it on his own.

  Okay, so he got what he wanted, then found it didn’t work. Why take the risk of endangering someone’s life? Money. But somehow that didn’t quite ring true. Anton was the type of person to put his efforts into corporate politics, not actual work, and then take the credit for the accomplishments of others. Prestige?

  Perhaps. But that would only be part of it. Anton was an egomaniac. He had to be the best. One-upmanship. He was trying to prove he was better than everyone else. Prove it to whom?


  E. T.…Elaine Tanner.

  He killed a woman because he was competing with Elaine? Possibly. But there was more. He killed that woman because he was competing with—her. Now that made a whole lot more sense.

  What else made sense was that because Anton wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, he’d stolen her notes and experimented on that poor woman because he wanted to prove he was smarter and a better scientist than all of them, especially Morgan Mackenzie.

  Morgan’s fists tightened. Anton Dvorak was going to burn for this. She was going to see to it—personally.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Morgan left her lab, anger and betrayal simmering just beneath the surface of her skin. She desperately wanted to find something, anything that would slip the noose around Anton’s neck.

  All she had was the tie in her pocket.

  Frustrated beyond belief, Morgan was about to slam the door when sanity returned. Along with voices. She didn’t dare get caught. Not now. Not until she could prove what was going on.

  Morgan’s heart sped up as she slipped into the hallway that led back to the warehouse. She’d come full circle, made an entire circuit of the building and come up empty. Except for the tie. And as disappointing as that might be, it was time to leave.

  As she walked closer to the warehouse doorway, Morgan realized the sounds were getting louder. She stopped near the warehouse conference room door. It wasn’t quite closed, and what she was listening to sounded like—what the hell? Damned if it didn’t sound like a porn movie.

  Now that was just ducky. Here she was in the middle of putting her life on the line only to stumble onto an interoffice tryst. She shook her head. Could things get any worse?

  Probably. She could get caught. Better to get the hell out of there while she could.

  Her focus returned, and she shook her head. She approached the room with caution and realized the door was partially open. Morgan didn't consider herself a prude by any means, but this was way too kinky, even for her. She paused, needing to make a decision. Slip past the open door and pray she wasn’t noticed, or turn around and go back through the building and face the risk of getting caught by someone else?

  At that moment, one of the participants in the porn movie decided to get vocal. Really vocal. Morgan stilled—in shock. Her blood ran cold. She knew that voice. And all of a sudden, she knew why Anton had done what he’d done. But the other participant?

  Cats had nine lives. Morgan hoped she had more than one.

  She stood tall, flipped on the tape recorder in her pocket, and pushed the door all the way open. The other participant wore very distinctive cologne, the same cologne she’d smelled on the tie.

  “Well, well, what have we here?” she asked, anger and betrayal simmering inside her gut. “I believe this belongs to you, Doctor,” she added, holding out the tie for him to retrieve.

  The scene that greeted her reeked. Dr. Huan Chuan Lee and Elaine Tanner. Intimately embraced.

  He jumped and twisted his head around, crying out in disbelief as she walked into the room. Morgan tried not to think as her heart shattered in a thousand pieces. What greater betrayal could there be than a surrogate father fraternizing with the woman who had used her process to kill? A ball of ice formed in her belly.

  She closed her eyes, unable to believe what refused to leave her sight. When she opened them again, it was to find the one person in the entire world she’d least expected to find in this position, disengaged and zipped up, thank goodness. He had turned away to put himself together before turning back around. When he did, his gaze refused to meet hers.

  “Why, Huan? For the love of God, why?”

  He didn’t answer. He turned away as if the sight of her reminded him of what he’d done.

  However, Elaine Tanner didn’t seem fazed at all. She gave Morgan a knowing smile before turning her attention to Morgan’s mentor.

  “You didn’t finish, Lee. Come back here right this instant!” Elaine commanded her lover. When he didn’t, she screamed at him again to continue making love to her. Morgan swallowed hard to keep from getting sick.

  “No.” His face grew red, and his gaze never left the floor. “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can,” Elaine scoffed. “It’s more fun when someone watches,” Elaine added, looking straight at her, giving her that smile again.

  Morgan didn’t know what to say. Or do. But Elaine was a different story. She sat on the conference table where they'd been going at it, her blouse still half open and her skirt barely pushed down to cover herself. Morgan looked away before her stomach contents reached the point of no return.

  “Huan, listen to me,” she told the man she’d looked upon as a father. “There’s no mistake that can’t be rectified. Remember that.”

  “Mistake?” Elaine cried. “Why would you think this is a mistake?”

  “You might not care about anyone,” Morgan answered. “But, Huan—” He stared at her a moment, a guilty flush rising up his neck, before looking away again.

  “Really, Morgan,” Elaine retorted. “You’re so plebian.”

  Plebian? “You won’t get away with it, either of you. Murder is murder.” Morgan threatened. “And you definitely won’t be able to explain if anything happens to me.”

  This time neither one of them answered.

  Morgan stared at Elaine, her gaze accusing Elaine not just of murder, but torture as well. Unfazed, Elaine simply crossed her legs in what was supposed to be a sexy pose. Morgan thought for sure she would really hurl. She had to swallow several times not to.

  “Oh, this is going to be so delicious. Darling,” Elaine continued, turning to Huan. “I have an even better idea now. You’re going to do her right in front of me. Then you’re going to do me.”

  Horror filled Morgan’s soul at the reality of the truth she’d stumbled upon. And yet, a part of her still couldn’t believe it. “You arrogant, stupid fool. Did you really think I came here without any backup? The FBI knows all about what’s going on. You murdered poor, defenseless women, and then you tried to pin it on me.”

  She caught her mentor’s gaze this time and watched him go pale. “I didn’t kill anyone, Morgan.” His gaze flipped from her to Elaine and back again until the reality of his situation finally sank in. “Tell her, Elaine. You have to make it clear. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Elaine licked her lips, and Morgan watched as a glazed look entered the woman’s gaze at the thought of murder. “Oh, Lee, where are your balls? You truly are spineless. And believe me, when it comes to lovers, I’ve had much better.”

  A terribly hurt look stole over her mentor’s face along with disbelief. As if he couldn’t believe Elaine would say such a thing. “Elaine, please. You can’t mean that.”

  Elaine merely laughed. “Be a good boy. Do what I tell you to and shut up.”

  Huan stiffened. It was one thing to be humiliated in private. And for pleasure. It was another to be humiliated in public.

  “No.”

  Taken aback, Elaine narrowed her gaze. “What? What did you say?”

  “I said, no.”

  She let her legs part for his view alone. Morgan watched him stare at what was being offered for a long time before turning her face away from the scene in disgust. How could he not know what a bitch this woman was?

  “Oh God, you’re both sick.” She shook her head, bile filling her mouth, and swallowed heavily before continuing, “In a way, I almost understand Elaine. She’s always been off center. But you?” she asked Huan. “How could you? All your principles. All your values, your integrity.”

  Her friend and mentor raised his head and met her gaze for the first time since she’d entered the room. Several moments later his shoulders slumped and his gaze turned sad. “Look at me, Morgan. Really. Look at me.”

  “I can’t. At the moment, you disgust me.”

  His eyes closed in pain, but when he opened them, only resignation remained. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “T
ry me.”

  Elaine laughed, the sound brash and harsh, grating on the ears. She jumped off the conference table and sauntered over to him, trailing a finger across his crotch and outlining his semierection. “Men are men, Morgan. They all think with this. And only this.”

  Morgan had to turn away as the man she knew and respected crumbled before her very eyes and became a psycho’s lapdog.

  “I can’t believe that. You have one of the most outstanding minds I’ve ever encountered, Huan.”

  “Mind? You cannot see a mind, Morgan.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I am not very beautiful, am I, Morgan?” he asked her, his tone beyond bitter. “On the outside?”

  “So what?” she cried. “It’s what’s inside that counts.” He raised a sardonic brow in answer. “You have a wonderful family, a respected career, the ability to save the world, not destroy it.”

  He shook his head, the truth of his words swirling in the misery of his features. “I have an arranged marriage and an icicle for a wife.” He paused, his gaze resentful. “I have a career where I reached the top of my profession at the age of twenty-eight. Do you know what happens when you reach the top?” She didn’t answer. “There’s only one place to go. And that is down.”

  “Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.”

  “I’m not.”

  Morgan snorted, beyond angry. What a waste. She stared at him, condemning him with her gaze. “Why couldn’t you have waited? You knew I was working with test mice. Poor, innocent women that you don’t know…”

  He blanched and had the grace not to even try to meet her gaze. And that’s when it hit her.

  There was someone else. Another victim. Someone that made him unable to meet her gaze.

  “You’ve killed someone else? Another nameless victim?”

  She looked over to see an expression of desperation and delight steal across Elaine’s face. “Sorry to disappoint you, Morgan. You see, you did know her. She worked for me. And you.”

  “Rebecca,” Morgan whispered, dread filling her soul. “Oh, God, no, I beg of you. Tell me I’m wrong. Please,” she begged.