Covert Attraction

by Linda O. Johnston

  Unless the cleaning was somehow also designed to obscure something that could otherwise be used as evidence. Beth would keep her eyes open for that.

  But shouldn’t the FDA just have shown up completely unannounced? Beth had only a vague idea about how those things were usually handled. She had sometimes been aware of inspections when she had worked here before, but the only time she had heard much about them was when they went well and she was ordered, in her public relations capacity, to come up with releases to announce that to the world.

  Less favorable results had been handled delicately by her bosses. Like her missing friend, Milt Ranich.

  When all this was over, would she finally know where he was?

  In a short while, she and the other cleaning-staff members gathered their equipment and started off with their carts down the hall toward the service elevator.

  She had to wait for several carloads but eventually got into the same ride as Gabrielle Maroni. The young cleaning-staff member seemed giddy about being so important that day. “It all depends on us,” she said, grinning broadly as she held on to the long handle of one of the mops extending from the top of her cart. “If we don’t sanitize something right, our company could fail the inspection and get into big trouble.” She did a fist pump. “It’s about time they recognize that the cleaning crew rocks.”

  Beth couldn’t help smiling, even as she maintained her shy personality—and realized that this young woman didn’t catch the irony in what she said. Too much cleaning in areas of the FDA’s focus might be the exact wrong thing to do, in the agency’s estimation. It could appear that they were attempting to mask a problem. And maybe they were.

  “I just hope I do everything okay,” was all she said.

  “You will.” Gabrielle gave Beth’s arm a squeeze. “But if you’re worried, you can always tell Mama Mary to double-check what you’ve done.”

  Beth would as soon drink some of the cleansing soap as ask their boss to inspect her work. But she said, “Good idea. Are you going to do that?”

  “No way,” Gabrielle said. “I may be pretty new at this, but I know I’m handling it just fine.”

  It wouldn’t be long until the elevator stopped on the second floor. Beth hadn’t been alone with Gabrielle since the major lab cleanup to which she’d been assigned.

  “You’ve been here longer than me,” Beth said. “I’ve been wondering since the other day—have there been any other...accidents...like the one we had to clean up? I mean, where so much stuff was trashed and all over the floor.”

  Gabrielle’s vivacious expression suddenly turned blank. “We’ve been told not to talk about that.”

  “Then there have been others,” Beth speculated. “How many since you’ve started working here? And do you know how—?”

  She really meant who rather than how, but it didn’t matter. Their elevator arrived and the door opened. Gabrielle shot her a glance that looked both scared and relieved. But before she got out, she said very softly, “What I heard was that it happens sometimes when a report shows stuff it shouldn’t.”

  In other words, where the results were bad, Beth figured. But it was too late to get anything else from Gabrielle. She was already out the door, shoving her equipment ahead of her.

  Beth pushed her cart out of the elevator, too. She watched Gabrielle’s back for a few seconds, then started making her way down the hall to the lab area where she was assigned to clean.

  It was, she recalled, the same one where she had met Daniel—was it only a few days ago? It was Friday now. That had been Monday, not even a week.

  As she entered the outer room of the lab, she went through the same procedure as she had then: changing into sanitary clothing, pulling on a vinyl cap and sanitary gloves. And, yes, she exchanged her cart for the cleaner one that waited for her.

  Then she opened the inner door and went inside.

  And stopped. Her being assigned here was a mistake. This lab was occupied now by several technicians who appeared busy. Conducting regular tests—or some kind of preparations for the inspection? That, Beth couldn’t tell.

  But Daniel was there among the half a dozen other men and women dressed in white lab jackets and also wearing gloves who clustered around the laboratory tables and computers.

  With all the organized chaos, she considered leaving and reporting the apparent mistake to Mary.

  On the other hand...could she somehow use this? Maybe she could find a way to clean corners without getting in anyone’s way.

  While eavesdropping.

  Still, Daniel, with whatever he was doing, was much more likely to extract something that could turn into evidence against Corcoris.

  Especially if any of these lab worker bees had been instructed, officially or not, to change results or reports to make the company look better to their inspectors.

  Was that possible, especially here, where there were so many of them? She would have to ask Daniel later.

  Daniel appeared to be doing something with a formula, pouring stuff from one flask into another. She would ask him about that later, too.

  Meantime, for now, she found an area at one corner of the room where no one was working. She said nothing to anyone, not even Daniel, and everyone seemed to ignore her.

  The chaos gave the impression of fear. Or was it supposed to look efficient?

  She was glad that her mother’s long-term medication was now generic. Beth felt sure now that if she were ill and needed a prescription, Beth would ask her mother’s doctor to give her something not manufactured by Corcoris.

  Manufactured. Did all this furor in the labs today carry over to the other building across the campus where she’d been so briefly yesterday? Were the people involved in making the pills and liquids that the company sold also stressed-out while preparing for another possible inspection?

  “Hey, why are you in here now?”

  Beth had been using a disinfectant on the outside of some wall cabinets while listening to the people closest to her. They’d all been grumbling in terms that made them sound as if they were afraid for their jobs if they didn’t get whatever they were doing right.

  Now she turned to see who was talking. It was Ivan Rissinger, the deputy CEO, who worked closely with Preston Corcoris. He was all dressed in sanitary gear, too, but it was definitely him.

  He had been there when Andrea had gotten into trouble at the company and with Preston Corcoris.

  She had pretty much avoided Rissinger since her return, as she had the other top executives.

  But now he was looking at her.

  She made sure she was in character as a lowly staff member, glancing down at the floor before regarding him again. “Are you talking to me, sir?”

  “Yes. There’s work being done here. We don’t need the cleaning crew getting in the way.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she responded, not quite looking at him. Was her disguise good enough? “My boss said I should come here and I did, but I’ll leave now.”

  She quickly collected the paper towels and bottles she had been using and reorganized them on her cart, then pushed it toward the door. Fortunately, Rissinger didn’t seem to look at her again, as if she was way beneath his regard.

  She did catch Daniel’s quizzical glance and nodded slightly as she continued out the door. He didn’t have to worry. She didn’t need protection. She just needed to leave.

  But Beth was concerned now. Whatever these people were doing seemed disorganized and inappropriate. Were the underlings being set up to take the fall in the event the feds agreed that something was amiss here at Corcoris?

  That wasn’t what she had been after.

  She wanted the real people at fault—starting with Preston Corcoris—to pay for what they had done. Especially since her fears about at least some of the drugs they manufactured her
e might be coming true, judging by what she had overheard those doctors say.

  People’s lives might hang in the balance.

  * * *

  Daniel wasn’t sure what that was about, but he wanted to make certain Beth got out of the lab all right.

  He found it somewhat amusing that all these lab techs were trying to outmaneuver each other, all wanting to show that they knew exactly what they were doing.

  “How are those tests going?” Ivan Rissinger had come up to Daniel where he worked with some samples of one of the long-term Corcoris antibiotics, CorcoBiotica.

  “Perfect,” Daniel said with a grin. “Every sample I’ve checked seems spot-on.” He decided to ride the executive to see if he could learn anything. “But should I do something different to prove it? I mean, I’ve been preparing the same kinds of records as I was told to, but I heard that the testing and reports are going to be checked out by the FDA. I’ve never directly interacted with them before. Is there any way I can show them what I’m doing or whatever so I can prove everything here is fine?”

  “We’ll see.” The look on Rissinger’s long well-lined face appeared speculative.

  Why? Daniel had expected him to shove a negative response to him immediately.

  Was the company looking for scapegoats in case things didn’t go right?

  “Thanks,” Daniel gushed. “Can I show you what I’ve been doing?”

  Manny Busbey came over to them, looking miffed. Had he wanted to show off to Rissinger, too? Daniel hadn’t worked directly with Manny before but, from his pompous know-it-all attitude, had the impression that the guy had been here since the start of time. Or at least the start of his career after college, which had to have been a couple of decades back.

  “But I don’t mean to steal Manny’s thunder,” Daniel said, using his hands to gesture toward Manny in a way that a model on a TV game show pointed out something valuable.

  Rissinger turned toward Manny and started questioning him, too—about his tests on the new diet drug, CorcoTrim.

  That gave Daniel exactly what he needed: a lack of attention.

  Time for a restroom break...and, he hoped, an opportunity to check in with Beth.

  * * *

  Beth didn’t really want to return to the basement and Mary Cantrera’s disapproving glare. And criticism. She had no doubt that Mary would tell her that Beth was the one who was wrong, that she had given her a different room number for her cleaning assignment.

  Maybe she should just head for the lab where Gabrielle had been assigned to work at the end of this hallway. But then all she would be able to do was clean, not learn anything helpful. Gabrielle had already mentioned more than she’d appeared comfortable saying.

  Not that Beth had heard anything before that would assist her much while in Daniel’s lab. She hadn’t been able to interact with or learn anything from him—or from anyone. No one she’d been near had said anything worth her eavesdropping.

  Grumbles and concerns, yes. Admission of fooling with the formulations or hiding anything from the FDA, no.

  That didn’t mean that none of them were doing any of that. But if they were, they simply weren’t talking about it.

  Well, she couldn’t just stand here. The hall was empty, but with what was anticipated for later in the day, there would undoubtedly be a lot of foot traffic here soon.

  And Ivan Rissinger wouldn’t hang out in the lab forever.

  She pressed the button for the elevator, then heard a door open from the direction from which she had just come.

  Assuming it would be someone she wouldn’t want to communicate with, she studied the damp equipment on her cart as if searching for something.

  “Are you done cleaning?” asked a wonderfully familiar voice. Daniel’s.

  She reminded herself to stay in character despite how glad she was to see him. Seeing no one nearby didn’t mean they were definitely alone. “I need to find out my next assignment,” she said softly, daring to look at him.

  He remained in his dorky character, smiling broadly beneath his glasses. Somehow even that was a turn-on for her, but thinking about his hard, hot body now seemed completely out of place.

  “I wondered why you were in my lab,” he said. “We were given a lot of instructions when I got here about preparing for the inspection later.” A fleeting rise to his brows told her that he’d heard things that might be interesting.

  She would be eager to get a recap from him, but that wouldn’t happen until later. After the workday.

  Over the weekend? Today was Friday, and like it or not, she had the next two days off. Shouldn’t the janitorial crew be required to clean when fewer other people would be around?

  It would surely be easier to snoop then.

  If she were given the opportunity by Mary Cantrera, she would volunteer. Because she needed the overtime pay, she would tell the woman, not for the first time. That should sound realistic.

  Of course, she would need to be careful. The FDA didn’t work only on weekdays, so they might still be around conducting their inspection.

  That could be a good thing if she found a way to make some suggestions about what they should look for and on which computer accounts they should check for it. They most likely had—or could get by subpoena— unlimited authority.

  “I was told to clean in there,” she responded to Daniel’s voiced words, not their unspoken conversation. “I need to find out where to go next.” She wished she could just leave her cart here rather than rolling the heavy thing with her, but that was against policy—and she didn’t want to call any more attention to herself than she had to.

  Like now, when the door to the lab opened again and Ivan Rissinger strode into the hall. He glanced at them. Beth looked toward the elevator, which remained one floor below, according to the digital readout above it.

  “I’m taking a bathroom break,” Daniel said to the other man. “But after, would you like me to show you more of what I was working on?”

  “No, I’m taking a break, too, then going back upstairs,” Rissinger said. Beth wished she could glance at the expression on the executive’s face, try to determine what he was thinking, but that would be a bad idea. “I understand from Manny, though, that the preparations going on in that lab are progressing well. You agree?”

  The elevator arrived and the door opened. The last thing Beth heard before rolling her cart inside was Daniel’s voice. “Couldn’t be better,” he said.

  * * *

  Daniel felt frustrated.

  First because he had seen Beth and couldn’t really talk to her. He wanted to warn her.

  While working in the lab, he had seen and heard some things that could mean the company was busy not only fudging reports in a way that could be undetectable by the FDA but also making threats against those who might disclose anything. Tacit threats, where reports about them also would not amount to usable evidence—sort of the way Beth had experienced. But threats just the same.

  His fellow techies were busy covering their tails, even as they grumbled.

  “Do you know why the FDA is coming a second time on such short notice?” he asked Rissinger as they both still stood in the hall. The enthusiastic lab rat who was him might as well take advantage of the opportunity to question Rissinger. “I heard they were here not long ago and thought they only made unannounced inspections if they’ve heard about some kind of problem with a product or something.” He looked expectantly at his current companion after pasting an interested but nonaccusatory expression on his face.

  “Nothing I’ve heard about.” The gaze the older man shot toward Daniel clearly expressed an order to shut up.

  Daniel wanted to keep pushing, but his cover persona wouldn’t do such a thing. He took a few quick steps and reached the restroom door first, then held it open for the other
guy, his ostensible superior.

  “Thanks,” Rissinger said.

  They weren’t alone inside, and Daniel had nothing else to say. He soon hurried back out.

  Time to return to the lab, perform more quality-control tests that could be shown to the FDA as coming out perfectly—whether they were based on actual ingredients or not—and record voices of his fellow workers if they were still in complaint mode.

  * * *

  Daniel discovered, interestingly enough, that at least one of his coworkers, Samantha, was freaked-out by what was going on.

  Her cubicle was around the corner from his. When he returned to the lab, he started to pass her—and saw that she was simply staring at her computer screen. Her hands were on her keyboard but she wasn’t typing.

  And when he looked a little closer, he saw how frozen her expression appeared beneath her wire-rimmed glasses.

  The tall woman was sitting up straight in her chair. Her light brown hair was tied behind her head with a yellow band.

  Maybe he should just leave her alone. He already had taken on the responsibility of making sure one person stayed safe: Beth. And yet...

  Even though he couldn’t protect everyone, this woman had worked here long enough to possibly have some answers for him.

  He approached her, and she aimed a startled glance in his direction.

  “You look as tired as I feel,” he lied. Scared, yes. Tired, no. “I need some caffeine. How about you? Want to join me in the cafeteria for some coffee?”

  She appeared ready to tell him to get lost, but instead she said simply, “Okay.”

  Since they were in the lab offices area, they neither had to sign out nor change clothes. Soon they had filled disposable cups with coffee upstairs in the cafeteria. Daniel also bought a large chocolate chip cookie for them to share.

  The room filled with tables was nearly empty at this hour of the late morning. That was good. They’d be able to talk.

  Daniel looked around, though. Beth might come here at any time to clean. Or maybe one of the other cleaning staff would. But at the moment, there were only a few other workers—low-level executives, since they wore dark trousers and button shirts that would have gone well with a suit jacket and tie—and the two women cashiers in view.