False Truth 6 (Jordan Fox Mysteries)

by Diane Capri

  She placed one hand over Dr. Ross’s and nodded. It was the best she could do without embarrassing them both.

  “I’ve known Saint Louis a long time. He’s very important to all of us.” Dr. Ross talked to explain her behavior or maybe to process her own feelings. “But he’s especially important to me because of my friend, Estelle Marcon.”

  Jordan’s eyes opened wide behind the sunglasses and she leaned closer. They’d discussed Estelle Marcon late last night. She’d been shrouded in mystery for the past ten years. That mystery was one of the stories Jordan investigated in Haiti.

  “You probably already know that Saint Louis was Estelle’s driver and bodyguard. He was with her the day she was kidnapped by the Tonton Moun Nui leader, Marcel Mesrine. That day, Saint Louis saved Estelle’s daughter, Dominique, from the same fate.” Dr. Ross cleared her throat and paused a moment. “But I didn’t meet Saint Louis until later, long after all of that happened. After Dominique’s father, Dr. Peter Wren, moved her to Florida to hide her from Tonton Moun Nui. The next time I went to Sabatier after that, Saint Louis was there to take care of us.” She cleared her throat. “For ten years, Saint Louis has always been there. We’ve relied on him. He’s become family.”

  Jordan’s throat was parched. She still couldn’t speak. She nodded and squeezed Dr. Ross’s hand. The flight attendants passed out water and soft drinks. One or two passengers walked down the aisle to the restrooms. The engine’s noise covered whatever conversations were ongoing.

  Jordan had relived those last few minutes at the Sabatier airstrip a hundred times since this morning. Waiting to load the Cessna. The Tonton Moun Nui driving up and stopping to reveal Auntie Marie in the dune buggy. Marcel Mesrine showing the camera lens cap Jordan had dropped during the late night break-in at the Medicine Factory before she and Saint Louis escaped. Auntie Marie’s body hitting the grass. The Cessna flying off and leaving Saint Louis at Tonton Moun Nui’s mercy.

  No matter how many times she replayed the movie in her head, the ending never improved.

  Jordan squeezed and then released Dr. Ross’s hand. “You were right, though. It is my fault. Saint Louis and Auntie Marie were protecting me.” She swallowed hard. “That was my lens cap. I dropped it in the Medicine Factory and the Tonton Moun Nui found it.”

  “You’ve mentioned the Medicine Factory before. What is it?” Dr. Ross seemed sincerely perplexed.

  But how could she be unaware of activity like that going on so close to the clinic in Sabatier? Jordan’s head shook instinctively. Not possible.

  CHAPTER 3

  Jordan explained what Saint Louis showed her on their midnight adventure. The battered metal shed. Shelves piled with tubs and boxes. Tables burdened by drug-making paraphernalia. Containers marked TOXIC. Combined odors, something like copper, rainwater, bleach, and a sweet, floral scent she couldn’t identify.

  She didn’t mention the unmarked orange tablets or the papers she’d found strewn on a table in the dark corner near the back. She wanted to study those before she told anyone about them.

  “Interesting.” Dr. Ross stared and frowned, her head cocked to one side as if she was trying to understand. “When did you possibly have time to see this for yourself?”

  “What?” The question seemed nonsensical to Jordan. “Thursday night. After dinner.”

  “I see.” Dr. Ross tugged on her earlobe and her lips pressed together in a white slash. “You know you weren’t supposed to leave the dormitory.”

  Had she heard correctly? Reflexively, Jordan’s head wagged once, twice. She blinked. After what had happened to Auntie Marie and Saint Louis, Dr. Ross was chastising her for breaking curfew? “I’m very sorry. Really.”

  Dr. Ross nodded. Maybe she was in shock or something. “You think the Medicine Factory is run by Tonton Moun Nui?”

  “I believe so.” Jordan could barely hear her own voice. She cleared her throat. “They’re at least involved in maintaining it.”

  “People are terrified of Tonton Moun Nui.” Dr. Ross shook her head and spoke emphatically. She clasped her hands together. “You’ve seen Sabatier. No one there abuses drugs. And they couldn’t afford to buy them. They don’t even have enough money for food.”

  “Agreed.” Jordan frowned and reached up to push her hair behind her ear. Dr. Ross seemed unusually obtuse here. Perhaps she couldn’t bring herself to imagine a situation where Haitians could be setting themselves up for yet another failure. Jordan spoke slowly. “The drugs are not being used or sold in Sabatier. They’re being exported out of Haiti.”

  “Exported? How? By whom? And to where?” She shook her head several times, hard. “That can’t be true. Nothing is exported out of Haiti. They have nothing to export.”

  “Saint Louis believes otherwise.” Jordan leaned in and lowered her voice. “Haiti has nothing legal to export. But these illegal drugs are being smuggled out of Sabatier.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dr. Ross cocked her head. Her eyebrows dipped close to the bridge of her nose as she frowned. “No one in Sabatier has any means to make or export anything. They don’t even own cars.”

  “This is no joke. Auntie Marie wouldn’t be—” The side-by-side seating was awkward. Jordan wanted to look straight into Dr. Ross’s eyes, but she couldn’t. She raised her chin high and extended one finger at a time as she stated the contrary evidence. “Look, Tonton Moun Nui had at least two dune buggies at the Medicine Factory the night I was there. There’s the Cessna. We saw Tonton Moun Nui offload and on load boxes the day we arrived. Something was going in and out. Saint Louis has a van. And those are just the means of transport I know about from this past week.”

  Dr. Ross’s lips worked in an odd way, like she was trying to grasp what Jordan saw as the obvious truth. Dr. Ross glanced down and ran a hand through her hair. She sighed. “What illegal drugs do you believe Tonton Moun Nui are smuggling from Sabatier?”

  “Hard to say yet. But what happened to Auntie Marie is related to the Medicine Factory.” Jordan inhaled deeply through her nose to be sure she had enough breath to say the rest. “Not even Mesrine would kill an old woman because I dropped a plastic lens cap. He did it because he knows I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. He knows I recognized it, or at least, he fears I did. He doesn’t want me to tell anyone. Killing Auntie Marie was his warning to me.”

  Dr. Ross simply stared at Jordan. She didn’t respond at all.

  Jordan waited through a couple of moments of silence. “Last month, Tampa police busted up a drug cartel. The illegal drugs they brought into Tampa included counterfeit pharmaceuticals. They believe those drugs came from Mexico. But they could have come from anywhere, really. Even Haiti. Saint Louis told me the Medicine Factory was at least partially owned by Mexican drug dealers.”

  Dr. Ross blinked. Twice. Again. “How do you know all of this?”

  “I broke the story,” Jordan said, aware that her tone carried a tinge of pride. “At the time, I wasn’t focused on what kind of drugs were coming into the Port of Tampa or where they came from. I was more interested in stopping the leader of the cartel.”

  “I see.” Dr. Ross nodded slowly.

  Jordan rolled through her hefty mental index of conversations from the past week. It took her no more than one-point-five seconds to find the one she wanted. “The night I saw you at Dominique Wren’s performance last week? I was asking you about students at Plant University getting sick?”

  She waited for Dr. Ross to nod. “A friend was with me. The head nurse at the Plant University Health Clinic, Ruby Quinn. She was saying it seems like there’s a correlation with academic performance. I was wondering if you’d heard anything about a synthetic Adderall, like a Super Adderall, going around on campus.”

  Dr. Ross listened intently. She nodded again. “I’ve heard rumors about synthetic Adderall, as you call it, being used locally. But I haven’t treated any cases. Haven’t heard anything on the medical reports, either.”

  “Suppose it is a synthetic—” Jordan
felt the familiar tingling in her stomach. This could be a story. She could be the first to break it. She’d been consumed by all things Haiti lately, and had almost forgotten about the potential for a solid Super Adderall story to launch her career somewhere beyond intern. “What does that really mean, anyway? Synthetic?”

  “Whether you want to call it synthetic or counterfeit, or a designer drug, which is a term I can’t stand because it glamorizes the stuff, these are drugs that have been altered from the FDA approved versions.” Like Jordan, Dr. Ross seemed glad to have something to talk about besides what happened on the Sabatier airstrip. “So whatever the active ingredient is—which in the case of Adderall is mostly dextroamphetamine—the synthetic version is using unknown alternatives to mimic the effects of that ingredient. The real Adderall requires a prescription and is carefully controlled by authorities to prevent abuse. Does that make sense?”

  “I think so.” Jordan wished she’d pulled out her voice recorder before this conversation started. She scrambled to commit Dr. Ross’s words to memory. “And these synthetic drugs are bad because they are not FDA approved?”

  “It’s not the FDA approval that makes them good or bad. It’s what the approval means—that the drug has been tested and is safe and effective when used as intended.” Dr. Ross clasped her hands together in her lap. “These synthetic drugs are extremely dangerous because we don’t know exactly what they do to the body. They often contain an untested combination of chemicals to make them stronger than, in this case, actual Adderall. Which is in line with the symptoms we’re seeing. Adderall overdose effects. Nausea, stomach cramping, aggression…”

  “Sounds like poison.” Jordan was wondering now why anyone would take Super Adderall. “There must be benefits, right? I mean, do they get a buzz like cocaine or something?”

  “You mean like euphoria, self-confidence, sociability?” Dr. Ross frowned and shook her head. “Maybe there’s some of that. Students think the drugs make them more alert. Help them focus better. Until they start vomiting their brains out, spike a fever, and end up in the clinic too sick to move.”

  “Why haven’t we heard news reports on this? If Super Adderall is so dangerous, shouldn’t law enforcement be stepping in?” Jordan spoke her thoughts aloud.

  “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Dr. Ross seemed near the end of whatever energy had briefly fueled her responses. “For one thing, the onset of these symptoms and the increasing prevalence of them leading to emergency situations is fairly recent. And it’s all over Tampa, by the way. Not just at the university. My colleagues say they’ve seen similar cases at several high schools and middle schools and a few from the party scene in Centro Tampa.”

  “Oh my god, that’s terrifying.” Jordan’s arms were suddenly covered in gooseflesh. “Shouldn’t law enforcement be trying to track the labs where these synthetics are being made and shut them down?”

  Dr. Ross closed her eyes a moment. “I’m sure they’re trying. I’m sure it’s a complex operation. To have these drugs spreading all over Tampa? Must be at least one major dealer in Tampa. Maybe more.”

  “What does it look like? Super Adderall? Have you seen it?”

  “Not personally, no. But everyone in the medical community is looking for it.” Dr. Ross sighed and stretched her neck. “Every time we get a new patient, they’ve already taken the drug and it’s been metabolized.”

  “Is it a liquid? Or a capsule?”

  Dr. Ross shrugged. “The patients have taken it usually eight hours or more before they come in with symptoms. It could be tablets, capsules, or even a time-released product, depending on how sophisticated the manufacturing operation is.”

  Jordan took a deep breath and a giant leap of faith. “What if they’re making synthetic Adderall at the Medicine Factory and bringing it into Tampa? What if the Medicine Factory is the source?”

  Dr. Ross pursed her lips and said nothing.

  Jordan wanted to read silence as an affirmative answer, but she waited for a verbal one.

  “The synthetic Adderall is very dangerous and its use is spreading. We need to stop it immediately.” Dr. Ross nodded as if she’d reached some sort of conclusion. “Go straight to the police when we land in Tampa. Tell them about the Medicine Factory. Let them investigate before Tonton Moun Nui moves the operation somewhere else.”

  The captain announced final preparations for landing in Tampa. Passengers and flight attendants stirred.

  Jordan drank the last of her water. “I’d really like to have more evidence. I don’t want the story to slip out to the public and give the local dealers an opportunity to flee.” She handed the empty bottle to the flight attendant collecting final trash throughout the cabin.

  “That’s a risk the police need to handle.” Dr. Ross’s eyebrows knitted together at the bridge of her nose again. “Jordan, if you don’t tell the police about the Medicine Factory, I’m going to have to go myself. I have obligations now that I know all of this.”

  “You’re right. Of course. I’ll call as soon as we land.” She agreed because the last thing she needed was Dr. Ross getting involved before Jordan was ready. “We both need to know about Saint Louis, too. You have connections in Sabatier. Can’t you find out?”

  “I’ve already tried. I’ve got a call in to Dr. Peter Wren. He has more connections than I do.” Dr. Ross bowed her head briefly and then looked Jordan square in the eyes. “But I’m not giving up on Saint Louis until I know for sure. Even if it means I go back down there tomorrow to see for myself.”

  “You’ll call me as soon as you find out anything?”

  Dr. Ross nodded. “I will if I can.”

  Jordan passed the rest of the time by scrolling through the pictures on her camera. It was her first chance to examine them. She found the photos of the orange tablets. She couldn’t tell much about them in the viewfinder. When she located the pictures from the Medicine Factory, she zoomed in on the photo of the table with papers on it. Most of the writing was in Creole. There were lists and numbers and tally marks. She zoomed in as far as the camera would allow. She found one word that was the same in both Creole and English: Tampa.

  Under the word were the letters she couldn’t make out on the tiny screen.

  CHAPTER 4

  Tampa, Florida

  The second the Airbus landed, Jordan hit the ground running. She grabbed her sling bag and dashed ahead of the other passengers toward baggage claim to collect her duffle. Dr. Ross’s threat to interfere had eliminated all of Jordan’s wiggle room. She didn’t know how much time she’d have to tie all the pieces together, but no time to waste, for sure.

  She got stuck waiting for the next tram to the main terminal. Her foot tapped impatiently against the carpet, which didn’t speed up the tram at all.

  Her excitement had evaporated, and now the job seemed overwhelming. How could she find enough evidence, persuade the police to make an arrest, and be prepared to break the big story at the same time? Her breathing came too fast.

  “One thing at a time, Jordan. You’re no good to anyone if you give yourself a heart attack.”

  An elderly couple heard her talking and moved a bit farther away from her at the tram stop. She wasn’t sure if it was because she seemed crazy or because she smelled like she hadn’t taken a proper shower in a week.

  If the Medicine Factory was the source of the counterfeit Super Adderall, Jordan would have background and support material that no one else in the world had. That would be more than enough for the exposure she’d promised Saint Louis. But not enough for her. Jordan had to be the first reporter with breaking news to make this as big as she knew in her bones it could be.

  “This has got to be the slowest tram on the planet.” She reached into her sling bag and fished out her phone. She’d call Clayton Vaughn, her favorite Tampa Police Department rookie. Maybe he’d tell her what evidence they’d collected about Super Adderall so far and she’d find a logical place to start her local investigation.

  A man st
anding behind her said, “Actually, all the trams are the same.”

  Jordan whipped her head around.

  Dr. Eric Lee. “Speed is set by the computer. What’s the rush, anyway?”

  Jordan dropped her phone into her bag. “Sunday’s a work day for me. I’m running late.”

  Since she’d heard his words on her voice recorder after she’d fainted last night, he made her nervous. Dr. Eric Lee knew a lot more about Estelle Marcon than Jordan had realized. What else did he know?

  The tram pulled up and the electronic doors opened. Jordan and Dr. Lee filed in with the other passengers. Strangely, no one talked while the tram moved the short distance from the gates to the main terminal.

  When the doors slid open again, Jordan and Dr. Lee stepped out.

  He walked with her all the way to baggage claim and stayed with her until the carousel’s conveyor belt began to move.

  She felt like she was being watched or guarded or something. Not in a good way. Which was stupid. He’d been nothing but nice to her for the entire Haiti trip. She had no real reason at all to be worried about him. Still.

  Jordan looked around the baggage claim area to find the other members of the team. Passengers from her flight were milling around waiting for luggage, but she didn’t see anyone she recognized. Maybe they were stuck waiting for the next tram.

  Dr. Lee’s bag came out from behind the plastic barriers before hers. He reached down and grabbed it. “I left my car parked here. Can I drop you off somewhere?”

  Get in a car with him? Not a chance. “Thanks. My friend is picking me up. She’s already here.”

  He extended his hand, which Jordan shook. “See you around, Jordan Fox.”

  “Thanks for everything.”

  He turned and walked toward the elevators that would take him to the long-term parking lot. Jordan watched him go, feeling silly. Especially since she didn’t actually have a ride.