Third Strike

CHAPTER 29

“So, Terry O’Loughlin has agreed to help you,” Parker said, his voice scratchy over the long-distance mobile phone line. Even so, the skeptical note in his voice came over loud and clear. “What makes you think you can trust her?”

“Basically,” I said quietly, “because we don’t have a choice.” I was standing on the open-plan landing overlooking Terry O’Loughlin’s living room, keeping an eye on her as she sat on the huge leather sofa below me. She had her feet curled up underneath her, watching a football game with the fixed concentration of someone who’s not taking in what’s happening on the screen. I couldn’t really blame her for that.

It was nearly 7:00 P.M. Central, which made it an hour later in New York—well outside office hours. Parker had still answered his mobile phone almost on the first ring.

“All we have at the moment is my father’s word against the Boston hospital on what was in Jeremy Lee’s original medical records,” I went on. “We need proof of what the Storax treatment does to people of his ethnicity—and the fact that they knew that and didn’t put out any general warnings, or withdraw the treatment. And for that we have to get inside Storax ourselves. We can’t rely on outsiders—or insiders, for that matter. We need firsthand knowledge.”

“And she’s agreed to take you in,” Parker said flatly. “Just like that.”

I sighed and passed a weary hand across my eyes. “The place is a fortress, Parker,” I said. “Short of aerial bombardment and a small army, how else are we going to get in there?”

His silence spoke louder than his words. Eventually, he said, “I’d be happier if you’d wait and let me tackle it from this end. I’m working my way up the chain of command and the FBI are trying to locate Collingwood and Vonda Blaylock. The more they look into what Collingwood’s been up to, the more they find.”

“But they haven’t arrested them?”

“Not yet,” Parker said, adding quickly, “but they will, Charlie. You can take that to the bank. And when they do, they can’t help but follow the trail right back to Storax. This whole thing will be blown wide open.”

“Yeah, by which time Storax will have shredded any evidence that they had a hand in Jeremy Lee’s death—or Miranda’s supposed suicide—or that they knew about the side effects of the treatment. My father will never clear his name.”

“But you’ll be able to come out of hiding.”

“It’s not enough,” I said. “Not nearly enough.”

Down in the living room, the TV announcers went into a frenzy as something exciting happened in the game, which promptly broke for ads. The black-and-white cat jumped up onto the sofa and tried to climb onto Terry’s lap. She stroked its head absently.

“Where are you now?” Parker asked in my ear.

“Still at the house,” I said, being careful not to use Terry’s name to alert her. The last thing I wanted was Terry taking undue interest in who I was talking to, or what I was saying. As long as she didn’t try to make any calls herself while she thought I wasn’t looking. “Sean’s gone to retrieve my parents from the hotel and bring them back here.”

“Is that wise?”

“Probably not,” I said, “but we don’t particularly want to leave her to her own devices, and it’s easier to keep an eye on everybody if we’re all together.”

“Yeah, it’s a tough one,” Parker said. “Just trust me when I say I’m doing everything I can to work it out at this end.”

“I know,” I said. “But if you can’t come up with anything by tomorrow night, it looks like we’re going in.”

“Why the big hurry?”

“Well, for one thing, it’s a weekend, so half the staff won’t be there,” I said. “And, for another, I don’t know how much longer my father’s going to hold together. This is putting a hell of a strain on him—more than we realized.” More than I realized, that’s for sure.

Parker was quiet again and I didn’t hurry him. We’d drawn the curtains, but they were more for decoration than effect, made of thin material, so I saw the lights sweep across the front window. I heard the sound of an engine pulling into the driveway, the Camry’s motor sounding a lot more mundane than Terry’s Porsche. The garage door clanked upwards again.

“Who’s going in?” Parker asked.

“I will—with my father,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers and hoping I could talk Sean into staying on the outside.

“At risk of repeating myself, is that wise?” Parker said mildly. “Taking your father with you, I mean.”

“I don’t have much of a choice,” I said. “We need complex medical information and I wouldn’t have a clue what I’m supposed to be looking for. I don’t like the idea either, but this is a one-hit deal. We only have one chance to get it right and we have to move soon.”

“Okay,” Parker said at last, the reluctance sounding like a bad taste in his mouth. “But keep me informed, Charlie—I mean it. Every step of the way. I don’t know how much cavalry I can rustle up if you get yourselves into trouble, but I’ll do what I can.”

By the time I’d finished the call and reached the bottom of the stairs, Sean had brought my parents into the house from the garage and was conducting awkward introductions with Terry O’Loughlin. She’d pushed the cat aside and jumped to her feet as soon as she heard the handle turn on the connecting door between the house and the garage, and waited awkwardly until the three of them walked in.

My father barely seemed able to bring himself to acknowledge Terry, but my mother smiled at her with every appearance of sincerity.

“I so glad we’ve met because I wanted to thank you,” she said, “for all the support you gave Miranda after Jeremy died. You didn’t have to do that, I know, but she was so grateful.”

Terry looked flustered, but my mother gave her hand a gentle pat and moved on into the living room, looking round. Her eyes were bright with curiosity. “What an interesting space,” she said, although I heard the reservation in her voice. “Shall I make us a nice cup of tea?”

Sean glanced hopefully at her. “I’m sure we could all do with some food.”

“Of course,” my mother said. “If you’ve no objections?” she added politely to Terry, who was regarding her with confusion. “I’d hate to interfere. I know I don’t like anyone else in my kitchen. You must be terribly unsettled to have strangers in your house like this.”

She made us sound like distance relatives who’d unexpectedly dropped by, rather than fugitives from justice who’d ambushed Terry and were almost—but not quite—holding her at gunpoint.

“Sure,” Terry said, suddenly aware that my mother was still pinning her with an inquiring stare. “Why not? Knock yourself out.”

My mother beamed at her and bustled out to the kitchen. We could hear her opening the fridge and the cupboards to take a quick inventory, talking to the cats while she did so. The black-and-white one stayed on the sofa near Terry, but the others had decided to see if they could con a second meal out of this new arrival.

“I could do with a drink,” my father said, with an intensity that rang all kinds of alarm bells. He moved over to the bottles Terry kept by the TV set. I glanced at Sean, found him watching my father with narrowed eyes.

“Why don’t you wait until you’ve had something to eat, Richard?” he said, his voice so calm and reasonable it sent shivers down my spine. “Elizabeth’s a wonderful cook. You wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite.”

“I’m quite aware of my wife’s abilities,” my father snapped, slipping on his glasses to inspect the label on a bottle of Scotch. He clearly found it to his satisfaction. “But I think you’ll find that a good single malt would never spoil one’s appetite.”

For a moment Sean didn’t move. He and my father locked gazes, and somewhere in the back of my mind I swear I heard the crack of bone and muscle as they silently struggled for supremacy. Terry’s eyes darted between the two of them. I felt the sudden mortification that can only be brought on by the embarrassing behavior of a close relative in front of strangers.

Sean let the challenge drop with a shrug, like it was no big deal, his expression carefully neutral. My father eyed him uncertainly for a second, then his gaze shifted to Terry. “Would you mind, Ms. O’Loughlin?”

She made a kind of “whatever” gesture, which he took to mean assent. He saw me still staring, though, and waved the bottle in my direction. “Will you join me, Charlotte?” he asked. Then, before I could answer, added with a definite taunt, “Ah, no. Best not to mix alcohol with what you’re taking, hm?”

I hid the flinch under a flare of anger. Sean stepped between us.

“Back off, Richard,” he said pleasantly. “This isn’t the time or the place to give your daughter a hard time.”

My father opened his mouth to respond, took one look at Sean’s face and, uncharacteristically for him, shut it again. He settled for sweeping out in his best superior consultant’s manner, taking the whisky with him—presumably in search of a glass. So, he hadn’t quite lowered his standards far enough to swig straight out of the bottle.

I turned back and found Terry watching me, her face thoughtful.

My mother appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was drying her hands on a tea towel, her movements slowing as she registered the level of tension.

“You don’t keep much in stock do you, dear?” she said, smiling nervously at Terry. “I’m going to need a few things.”

“I eat out a lot, but I could run down to the store,” Terry offered quickly. “There’s a Randalls about two blocks east of here.”

Sean threw her a swift glance that said Oh, please, and turned back to my mother. “It’s okay,” he said, reaching for the car keys again with a resigned sigh. “Give me a list.”

My mother cooked mountains of lasagne and insisted we eat at the dining table with due ceremony. My father was halfway down his third shot of whisky by the time we sat down, and he was starting to show the effects. His speech was straight and his mind seemed as sharp as ever, but he was edgy and restless, his hands fidgeting with the cutlery, like he couldn’t keep them still. It scared me more than I liked to admit.

I could have done with a drink myself, but I’d stuck to water and promised myself one Vicodin later, just to ease the dull background ache in my leg. Over the past few days I hadn’t been able to exercise it at all, and spending hour after hour sitting in a car had a cumulative effect. The pain was grinding me down, I realized, dulling my responses when I couldn’t afford for them to be anything but scalpel-sharp. I was doing my best to hide it from Sean, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding, even if he had yet to confront me with it. And if my father had been on form he would have seen it, too.

“So,” Sean said when we’d cleared our plates with a single-minded speed that was probably both gratifying and insulting to my mother’s culinary abilities, “what’s the plan for tomorrow, Terry? How do we get in?”

Terry sat with her forearms resting on the glass tabletop. She frowned. “I think the best idea is going to be the same way I go in every day,” she said. “Through the front entrance.”

“It has dash and cunning, with a healthy dose of stupidity,” I said to Sean. “I like it.”

“Ballsy, certainly,” he said, turning back to Terry. “What about security?”

“Just the usual,” she said with a shrug. “There are a couple of uniformed guys in the lobby area, another half dozen somewhere close by. I’ve only seen them called out for real once—we had trouble with some animal rights protesters a year or so back. I’m no expert, but our guys seem to know their job. You know, they move fast, take no prisoners.”

I hoped that was just a phrase, rather than an accurate description.

“So, what’s the setup at the front entrance. Do you have a swipe card?”

Terry nodded. “Outside the main door. You go through two sets of glass sliding doors into the lobby, then through the metal detectors into the rest of the building.”

“Metal detectors?” I said. I glanced at Sean. No guns.

Damn.

“Isn’t there a back way in or something?” The last thing I wanted to do was go into the dragon’s den unarmed. “We might as well write ‘Eat Me’ across our foreheads and cover ourselves in barbecue sauce.”

Terry allowed herself a small smile, but shook her head firmly. “The whole security system was overhauled at the start of this year,” she said. “They brought in consultants and tested it pretty thoroughly. The only way you stand a chance of getting in is walking right in through the front door and having somebody they trust vouching for you.”

The mention of the word trust brought a cloud to her face, as if the scope of her betrayal was really coming home to her.

My mother was sitting next to her at the table. She reached across and put her hand over Terry’s, gave it a squeeze.

“You’re doing the right thing, dear,” she said. “You must know that. These people you work for, they’re prepared to let patients die for the sake of profit, and then pass the blame on to someone else.”

“It’s not like—” Terry began, then broke off, bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right, of course. It’s exactly like that.” She sat back and gave us all a tired smile. “Would you excuse me, please? I hate to be a bad hostess, but it’s been kind of a stressful day. I’m gonna call it a night.”

Sean and my father both got to their feet as she did. She gave them another wan little smile and headed for the stairs.

“What about her phone?” I asked quietly once Terry was out of earshot.

“I removed the landline phones from every room except the living room, and I have Terry’s mobile right here,” Sean said, lifting a small gloss-black cell phone out of his pocket.

“She gave it up without a fight?” I said. “You surprise me.”

“Did you have to remind me about that?” Sean winced a little. “I wasn’t prepared to go another round with that lady.”

My father, meanwhile, seemed to be paying little attention to our conversation but was focusing on his whisky glass, which was now all but empty. He tilted it and stared regretfully into the bottom, then pushed his chair back purposefully.

“I think you’ve had enough, Richard,” Sean said, and this time he allowed the fangs to show through the veneer of civility that habitually cloaked him. It even made my father pause, but only for a second. With a careless shrug, he reached for the bottle of single malt.

“In your opinion, perhaps,” he said.

“No, Richard, in my opinion too,” my mother said with quietly commanding dignity. She looked across the table straight into his eyes and suddenly her face seemed much less soft than I could ever remember it. “Tomorrow’s going to be a trial, but with any luck this will all be over soon,” she said, her voice soothing. “We can go home—back to our normal life.” She let that one sink in for a moment, then added gently, “Why don’t you go to bed, darling? Get some rest. I’ll be up shortly.”

He seemed to waver, then nodded, his face grave. There was a very slight sway to him, I noticed. The food had not quite managed to absorb the amount of spirits he’d put away over the last couple of hours. He was not a drinker by nature and his system wasn’t hardened. It was starting to land punches.

“It seems I’m outnumbered,” he said stiffly. “In that case, I’ll say good night.” And, with an almost firm tread, he walked out of the room.

We watched him go. Sean glanced at my mother. “Thank you,” he said.

She made a little self-deprecatory movement of her shoulders. “I didn’t do it for you,” she said simply. “I did it for Richard. And for myself, if I’m honest.”

She looked down at her hands, at the plain gold band on her left hand. “And I’m going to do something else for Richard tomorrow—and I know you’ll argue, Charlotte, but my mind is quite made up about this.”

I saw it coming, felt the jolt of that realization like a fist to the stomach, knocking the breath out of me. “No,” I said. “No, you can’t—”

“Elizabeth—” Sean began at the same time, his voice a low growl.

“Yes, I can,” she said calmly. “He needs me. You’ve seen that—both of you. He’s been strong for me for most of our married life. Now it’s my turn to be strong for him.” She got neatly to her feet, her face almost serene now her mind was made up. “When you go into Storax tomorrow, I’m going with you. And I’m afraid,” she added with a firm but apologetic smile, “that nothing either of you can say will stop me.”