“Don’t even think about it,” Corcoris whispered into her ear. He stood behind the cart with her, and he linked his arm in hers. She nearly shivered at the unwelcome touch. At least he still wore his suit jacket so she didn’t have to feel his skin against her arm, which was bare beneath her T-shirt sleeves.
Together they pushed the heavy thing into the hall, which was empty. And there weren’t any other people inside nearby offices, at least not within yelling distance. None that Beth could see.
The cart rumbled less and went slower on the carpeted floor than it did on many of the other levels where she had cleaned. The lab floor had a linoleum surface to keep it more easily cleanable, and even the cafeteria’s tile was easier to push the cart along.
The extra effort delayed their progress. It gave Beth a little more time to think.
Maybe she could turn this into an opportunity. A way to finally get Preston Corcoris to admit his ongoing treachery, the way he endangered thousands of people’s lives. And threatened hers and her family’s.
And just maybe she could find a way to get him to say what had happened to Milt Ranich.
They reached the end of the hall. Corcoris kept hold of her arm, yanking her toward him as he pushed the door open to enter his office. He shoved her inside.
The outer area was, as with Jackson’s, a secretarial office, clean and orderly and bland. But Corcoris propelled her through it and into the office beyond.
It was much as she remembered Preston Corcoris’s personal domain, containing an elegant teak desk with matching chairs and tables, a leather sofa and shelves around the room’s perimeter holding framed testimonials to Corcoris Pharmaceuticals products—all garnered when Preston’s father had been at the company’s helm. It smelled of the overly sweet shaving lotion that Corcoris favored. Beth remembered it too well.
“Wait here,” Preston commanded. He went back out but was gone less than a minute before he pushed the cart through the door. “Time for you to get to work...Beth.”
But she knew he didn’t want her to do any cleaning. He just hadn’t wanted to leave the cart in the hall to indicate where she was.
She nevertheless said, “Yes, sir,” and eased her way toward the cart, her mind analyzing what she had on it that she could use as a weapon. Strong soap hurled into his eyes? A mop handle shoved into his gut? She would have to see what opportunities arose.
In the meantime, though, she’d managed, while Corcoris was so briefly in the hall, to push a button on the burner phone in her pants pocket—the button that should record their conversation.
Then there was the other phone, in the pocket on the other side. She had also pushed a button on it—to call Daniel. Assuming he had his own phone on him in the lab.
If so, he, too, would be able to hear everything. She only hoped he would understand and get up here in time to help her.
She began going through the motions of getting ready to clean the office. “Is there someplace you’d like for me to start, sir?” She didn’t look at him as she talked.
“Yes,” he replied. “Right over here.”
She had to look to see where he was designating. It was an inside corner of the elegantly appointed room where the wall was devoid of pictures.
But a door was suddenly opening into it. She saw that Corcoris was holding something that appeared to be a button. What was that all about?
She didn’t want to find out.
“You know, sir,” she said, emphasizing the word sir as if it were an insult, “I think I’d better leave now. I’ll come back later.”
“No, Andrea.” All pretense was gone, and his voice sounded menacing. “You’re coming with me.”
* * *
All bets were off. Daniel, seeing the caller ID when he’d grabbed his muted phone after it began vibrating in his pocket, was frantic. And furious.
He had listened to what was being said.
The meeting with the FDA guys hadn’t yet begun, but Corcoris executives were trickling into the conference room a floor below their offices.
Not Preston Corcoris, though.
He was with Beth. And now it was clear that Daniel’s suspicions, and hers, were true. Preston knew who she really was.
Daniel had seated himself in the front row, right beside where the FDA inspectors had been told to sit by Ivan Rissinger. Georgine Droman now stood before them, chatting away with Alan Correy, Neva Therber and Doug Wrisken.
Daniel didn’t bother to assume his geeky personality as he rose. “Sorry. I have to run.”
Neva looked up. “Everything okay?”
Daniel didn’t answer but headed toward the door, phone held tightly to his ear.
To his surprise, he was followed into the crowded hallway by the FDA gang. He shot them an irritated look. “I’ll be back soon,” he lied.
“Considering your suddenly dropping your undercover personality,” Neva said, “I think Judge Treena would rather we go with you.”
Daniel took an instant to assess them. “What do you mean?”
“We’re CIU, too,” Alan said.
* * *
“Andrea? Who’s that?” Beth pretended to be confused even as she struggled to maintain her shy cleaner’s personality. But she felt horrified.
And scared.
Daniel, are you listening? she cried out in her mind.
She was in even more over her head than she’d thought.
“You, of course, my darling Andrea.” Corcoris’s tone was mocking, his eyes hard, as he leaned against a bookcase near the door, in effect challenging her to try to run. But she knew he’d grab her again if she tried. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you got here. Even tried to confirm who you are by having a guy I’ve occasionally hired to help me with some less savory activities steal a car and follow you, but that damned tech guy you’ve been pretending to care about got in the way. Then I sent him to break in at your parents’, but he was too stupid and got caught.” He glared at Beth. “Are you trying to get—what’s his name? Daniel?—to file lab reports with contents you tell him to?”
Then he knew who she was, but not Daniel. She dropped some of the pretense without revealing the entire truth. “Yeah, but that Daniel’s too honest, and they pretty much only have him working on some of the older stuff from your father’s day that was actually safe and effective.” She stood up straighter, squaring her shoulders. “It’s only your more recent meds where you’re filing official reports that contain fraudulent quality-control test results, right?”
“What does it matter? Our clinical trials are nothing short of perfect.”
“Only because the highest-level ingredients are used for the drugs that are provided for those tests, the stuff that’s used in the labs in this building. The stuff you sell to the public, with the ingredients shipped to the manufacturing building—that’s another story.”
“No one’s proven that,” Corcoris spat. “And once you’re gone, no one will even try to.”
That wasn’t true. The wheels had already been set in motion to investigate and prosecute everyone here who was involved—him especially. But to inform him of that would only be more dangerous.
He motioned to her. “Here. Let’s go.” He was pointing toward the door that formed a hole in his office wall.
“What’s that door?” Beth said, partly for Daniel’s benefit. He had to be listening. Otherwise, she would undoubtedly die.
Like Milt?
“I’m going to show you.” Corcoris’s leer suggested that to go there would be dangerous. Potentially lethal.
“I don’t think so.”
“I do.”
Beth gasped as Corcoris darted around to the front of his desk, opened a drawer and extracted a small but lethal-looking gun, which he cocked and aimed toward her.
&nbs
p; “Are you going to shoot me if I don’t?” Again, that was for Daniel’s benefit. Beth hated how her voice squeaked in fear.
Too late for her to grab something from the cleaning car to protect herself. None of it would do any good against a gun anyway.
“Of course. Let’s go.”
She didn’t move, though. To go there would certainly be foolish. If she had any chance at all to survive, she had to stay here.
Instead, she tried to keep talking. If nothing else, there would be a record of this conversation to make it easier to prosecute Corcoris...even if she was no longer around. “Is that what you did with Milt Ranich? You know, even though he seemed thoroughly disgusted by the way this company was being run, he didn’t betray you.”
“Really? Well, if he hadn’t yet, it was only a matter of time. The guy was a wimp. He kept telling me how to run my business for the good of our customers.” He said the last in a high-pitched, mocking tone. “But I’d have lost millions if I’d done things his way.”
Which would have been the right way, but to keep him talking Beth didn’t remind him of that.
“So where is Milt now?” she asked.
“He’s down there.” He motioned again toward the doorway. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
“I don’t think so.” The only thing Beth could do now was to stay as stubborn as possible. If he shot her here, it’d be pretty clear who did it, another crime to add to his already huge list. “He’s down there?” she asked. “Or is it his remains?”
“Whatever.” He pulled the gun up and held it the way Beth saw cops aim on TV shows—stiffened and ready to shoot. “Let’s go.”
“No.” Beth closed her eyes, bracing for the pain she knew would come—assuming she was alive long enough to feel anything.
“No!” That was another voice from outside the office door, which suddenly burst open. A beloved male voice that she had longed to hear for so many reasons. “U.S. Marshal,” Daniel shouted. “Drop your weapon.” He held a gun that looked even more lethal than Corcoris’s, and it was aimed right at the horrible man.
Daniel got right beside Beth. She had never been happier to see anyone. He no longer looked like the lab geek he had portrayed here. He was all tough-and-muscular lawman, even wearing a protective vest over his shirt that said U.S. Marshals Service. “Drop it, Corcoris.”
“You? Then you’re not—” Instead of dropping his gun, the man fired.
Daniel had used his body to shove Beth out of the line of fire, but she screamed, “Daniel!” Surely he hadn’t been hurt.
Apparently not, since he shot back, several rounds.
Preston Corcoris crumpled to the floor.
Daniel hurried past Beth, grabbed Corcoris’s gun and checked his neck for a pulse.
“He’s still alive. Call the paramedics.”
“Already done,” said a female voice from near the door. Only then did Beth glance that way. The three FDA inspectors were there—also wearing U.S. Marshals vests.
Really? What was going on here?
It didn’t matter. Beth stood and ran over to Daniel. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I should be asking you the same thing. It was a damned fool stunt you pulled to come up here and face him alone. You should have told me that was what you were up to.”
“You’d have tried to stop me.”
“You bet I would. In fact—”
Beth reached up, planted her arms around his neck and drew him down for a hard, determined kiss.
Chapter 22
It was over.
Beth let Daniel tell her what to do as EMTs came and checked over the still-alive Preston.
Their opinion was that he would survive. Good. The jerk would pay for all he had done.
They went downstairs to the conference room once Preston had been whisked away in an ambulance. The two of them intended to talk with the executives who had planned to hold a meeting with the FDA at Preston’s orders. Instead, the execs were told only the minimum amount of information, but it was clear that investigations of the company would continue, and all of its executives would be interrogated to learn what they did or didn’t know.
Law enforcement officials, both local and federal, began to arrive to conduct their investigation.
And Beth called her parents outright. “It’ll be over soon, Mom and Dad,” she told them. “I’ll be able to stay in closer touch anyway. It still would be a good idea for you to take that vacation until things are all straightened out, but I think we’re all safe.”
Thanks to Daniel McManus, but she didn’t tell them that.
Eventually, after her information had been taken and local Moravo Beach detectives had interrogated her briefly, Beth was permitted to leave.
Daniel was waiting for her in the Corcoris main building’s lobby. “Are you okay?” he asked her. “You look tired.”
“Nothing that a nice dinner and a glass of wine won’t cure,” she told him. “I’m jazzed. That jerk is going to get his comeuppance at last. Not to mention have some nice scars where you shot him.”
Daniel laughed, then grew grim. “He could have killed you and stashed your body where he said he put Milt’s.”
“But he didn’t.” She paused. “Care to celebrate with me?”
“Oh, yeah.” His sexy smile made it very clear how he intended to celebrate, and that only made Beth want it all the more.
* * *
Later that night, Daniel lay awake in his bed long into the night.
Beth was breathing softly beside him, sound asleep.
Lovely, sexy, naked Beth. Their lovemaking had been extraordinary, topping even the memorable times they had engaged in sex before.
He wanted more. In fact, he wanted her beside him like this for the rest of his life.
But that wasn’t going to happen. They had discussed their futures a bit over dinner. She’d talked to Judge Treena about the possibility of taking back her former persona. It would still take a while to ensure she was safe from repercussions from any of Corcoris’s coconspirators, but maybe eventually, she could come back to Moravo Beach forever.
And Daniel? He felt utterly relieved that Beth was okay. Maybe it hadn’t been his job to protect her, but he had. At last he could put his sense of failure over Edie behind him. The situation had been different. He could never bring Edie back. But now he had to look forward.
With Beth? Unlikely. He enjoyed working for the CIU. He didn’t see how he could be headquartered here.
They might be around this town for another few days as things settled down. Maybe as much as a week.
But then Beth Jones would return to Seattle, at least temporarily.
And undercover agent Daniel McManus would go back to the Covert Investigations Unit of the Identity Division, U.S. Marshals Service, in Washington, D.C.
He sighed and took Beth into his arms again. For now.
Since it couldn’t be forever.
* * *
Sitting back in her narrow seat in the government plane and sipping a glass of wine, Judge Treena Avalon was pleased.
A week had passed, and she was finally returning home.
Oh, things hadn’t gone down exactly as she had planned. She had intended for Beth, formerly Andrea, to stay safely in Seattle while the first CIU undercover operative she’d sent, Daniel, gathered the evidence needed to bring that brazen jerk Preston Corcoris and his cronies down.
But things had grown more complicated with Beth’s arrival. It had been time to modify her strategy.
Now she was on her way back to D.C. on a government plane. So were her three operatives who’d also gone undercover and helped to precipitate a happy ending to this operation: Neva, Alan and Doug.
They had left Preston Corcoris in federal custody i
n California. Yeah, the guy had survived. He might be sorry.
For now CIU had a lot of physical evidence, not to mention eyewitness testimony, that could be used against him and some of his top-ranking coconspirators in court—not just the hearsay that was all Beth had had before.
The reports Beth had rescued from the to-be-shredded pile in executive Bert Jackson’s office had contained some pretty damning stuff. Preston’s threats against her were pretty damning, too, and they were all recorded on her phone and Daniel McManus’s.
There were indications that someone in the FDA had been accepting bribes—and warning Corcoris of pending raids. Whoever it was still hadn’t been identified, but that would come.
And that person hadn’t been Corcoris’s sole coconspirator. Several people within Corcoris Pharmaceuticals were now suspects, and evidence was being collected to use against them. That included his assistant Ivan Rissinger, manufacturing mogul Bert Jackson and more.
And there were even indications that Preston Corcoris, if he didn’t get the results in lab tests that he wanted, would sneak in at night and throw samples on the floor in a rage, although no one had ever proven—yet—that it was him.
But worst of all for him, and best for them? That somewhat secret door he had opened from his office and tried to get Beth to go through led down into the bowels of the headquarters building, someplace no one ever went. Except for Corcoris.
And on one of his trips months earlier he had apparently brought along Milt Ranich, ostensibly to show the guy some records that would exonerate not only Corcoris but his whole company. Or that had been the implication, at least, before Corcoris lawyered up and stopped talking.
Poor Ranich had instead been shown a gun, possibly the same one Corcoris had leveled at Beth. Remains believed to be Ranich’s were found buried down there. Forensics results and a coroner’s report were still pending.
Treena knew what they would show. She lifted her wineglass in a silent toast to Beth and Daniel and the three musketeers behind her.
“Hey, Judge, are you okay up here alone?” That was Neva, who’d taken off her seat belt and wended her way up the aisle of the small, noisy but fortunately smooth plane.
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