Stankowski parked and killed the engine. As they emerged from the car, Mandy stood and looked across the car roof at Parker. “Has anyone else noticed that this keeps circling back to politics?”
Stankowski’s laugh was utterly without mirth. “You’re in my business long enough, you figure out that eventually everything goes back to politics, especially in this city.” He grimaced as the trio crossed the parking garage toward a pair of glass-fronted doors marked with the UniVax logo of a DNA molecule twined around the earth. “But, yeah. I catch your drift. I’ll put someone on figuring out who the pressure is coming from, and why. My best guess is that most of the politicking has nothing to do with the case, at least not specifically. On one hand, someone noticed a rash of crime near Patriot and used it to rile up a few powerful locals. On the other hand you’ve got whoever is profiting from UniVax, either politically or monetarily, or both. That side isn’t trying to protect the killer or slow us down by blocking the warrant—at least not directly—but the net effect is the same. Delay.”
“Too bad for them, I’m not in the mood for any more delays,” Mandy announced, spots of color riding high on her pale cheeks. She pushed open the doors and marched through, with Parker and Stankowski at her heels.
They found themselves in a wide lobby that was done up as a museum of sorts, with digitized murals on the walls showing a timeline of scientific progress throughout the ages, with images shifting every fifteen seconds or so in a repeating sequence that represented everything from early experiments proving the existence of microorganisms to Watson and Crick’s discovery of the double helix and later advances in human genomics and genetic engineering.
The ceiling was high above, and supported a half-dozen colorful mobiles shaped as different versions of six-carbon sugar rings, twisting in unseen air currents. At the floor level, the center of the open space was devoted to a bank of computer screens that invited the user to touch a series of icons and learn about UniVax’s revolutionary product lines. Nearby, racks offered colorful glossy brochures, along with freebie key chains and imprinted pencils.
Parker found the whole effect dizzying with its profusion of color and movement, and faintly tacky with its emphasis on marketing. Then a different sort of movement caught his attention, and he looked beyond the computer banks in time to see a pair of elevator doors slide open.
A tall woman emerged, flanked by two men who were dressed in high-end street clothes, but whose bearing and demeanor all but screamed “security.”
The fortyish woman crossed the lobby, her two-inch heels clicking on the polished floor. Her dark hair was swept up into a twist and her sharp features were subtly and expertly made up. Her power suit was a deep plum color, and her jewelry consisted of yellow gold at her throat and discreet knots at her ears.
The whole effect was one of power and control.
Stankowski offered his badge. “Detective Stankowski. I’m investigating a series of murders that have recently been linked to a nanoparticle being produced by this organization. I’m going to need the names and contact information of everyone here who might have had access over the past two months.”
She took the badge and glanced at it for show, but Parker sensed that he was the focus of her attention. His suspicions were confirmed when she returned Stankowski’s badge, walked right past the detective and extended her hand. “Arabella Cuthbert, CEO of UniVax Pharmaceuticals. You’re Radcliff, aren’t you? I saw you speak last fall at the Boston Scientist’s dinner. Fascinating stuff.” Her handshake was firm, her expression dismissive. “I’m sorry to meet you under such…odd circumstances, though. Are you consulting with the police on this matter?”
Aware of Mandy bristling at his side, and time ticking away, Parker nodded. “That’s correct. And before you ask, yes, the detective has a warrant. We need those names, and we need them ten minutes ago.” He paused a beat, watching her eyes. “I would greatly appreciate your help here.”
It was a tacit promise. Work with us here and I’ll swing some BoGen money your way. It wasn’t a game he liked to play, but it wouldn’t hurt in the long run, and it might help them over the shorter term.
Unless, of course, they discovered that UniVax was somehow involved in the deaths and the danger to Mandy. If that was the case, he’d personally see that UniVax Pharmaceuticals in general—and Arabella Cuthbert in particular—went down in flames.
As if the promise of a favor owed to BoGen’s head of emergency medicine was what she’d come downstairs looking for—no doubt warned by whomever had slowed the warrant process—she nodded and turned away. “Follow me. I have the files organized for you already.”
Which cemented it—she’d been warned, damn it.
Parker felt the frustration—and the lost time—vibrate through him, tightening his muscles and humming through his bloodstream like rage, like loss. That anger redirected itself ten minutes later, though, when he found himself leaning over a computer terminal staring at a name that Arabella Cuthbert’s data crunchers had starred for her, indicating that the employee had not only had access to the delivery system and the Dynastin 402, but he’d had disciplinary problems on the job.
More importantly, he’d been involved in the clinical trial arm of validating the delivery system, and he’d been fired three months earlier for letting trials go on long beyond when the toxicities meant they should be shut down.
And his file photo showed an angry-looking man with familiar, pale gray eyes.
“Dr. Paul Durst.” Stankowski tapped the name on-screen. “Where can we find him?”
Arabella handed Parker a thin file. “Here are his employment records and other bits of information I thought might be helpful.”
He scowled as he accepted it. “You were going to hand this over the whole time.”
She dimpled, though the expression maintained a reptilian coldness. “Of course. But once I learned you were involved, I figured I could get a little something out of the exchange. Rumor has it you’ve got some big money coming in soon in the next grant cycle.”
“Then you know something I don’t,” Parker said. He smiled at her, but expected that his expression was equally as cool as hers. “And don’t think you’re seeing any of it after this stunt. You could’ve given us this name six hours ago.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Just business, Radcliff.”
He bared his teeth. “Not to me, it isn’t.”
And just like that, he realized, all hope of detachment was lost. He was in way over his head, and sinking fast.
Unwilling—or unable—to deal with the thought, he spun and headed for the door, shoving the file at Stankowski. “Come on. Let’s find Durst.”
Mandy stayed put, her eyes locked on Cutthroat Cuthbert. “Is there a way to reverse the delivery system, an antidote you’ve developed to block its effects and unbind the targeting sequence from its receptors?”
The other woman hesitated for a fraction of a second before she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no. There would be no benefit in such a thing, because the delivery system should only be carrying beneficial molecules. Why would we want to reverse the effects?”
Mandy stared at her for a long minute before she said, “Why indeed?”
“How about a drug that causes nausea, followed by systemic pain?” Parker said, watching her reaction closely.
“Definitely not!” she said vehemently. “What do you think we are, monsters?”
“You wouldn’t develop something like that on purpose, obviously.” Parker looked pointedly at the handful of brochures he’d picked up in the lobby. “But I was thinking that maybe there was a painkiller candidate that wound up causing pain rather than blocking it…”
“No,” she said firmly, dismissal clear in her voice. “Was there anything else?”
But as they were headed out of the building, Stankowski murmured, “She knows something.”
“You bet she does,” Parker agreed, anger crystallizing in his gut. “I hope you made friend
s with that last judge, because if we don’t get what we need out of Durst, you’re going to need an arrest warrant with her name on it.”
“Count on it,” Stankowski said, not even bothering to remind Parker that he was the cop in this equation.
As they climbed into the unmarked car, Parker felt something he hadn’t felt in what seemed like a long, long time: hope tempered with fear. Hope that they might be on the right track, fear that they wouldn’t be in time.
And both of them were emotions he could ill afford.
Chapter Ten
Mandy couldn’t quell the nervous jitters as Stankowski drove them to the address on file for Paul Durst. On one hand she envisioned that they’d reach a dead end, finding that the address belonged to an abandoned lot or a Chinese restaurant, or that Durst had moved out weeks ago, after he lost his job.
On the other hand, though, she couldn’t help imagining the relief of finding him, IDing him as the hooded man and discovering the raw materials he’d used to make his poison, along with a convenient store of the antidote.
“Hey,” Parker said gently from beside her. “Try not to think about it. Stressing about it isn’t going to change anything.”
“You’re right.” She exhaled and forced herself to relax into her seat. “I know you’re right. Doesn’t make it any easier to stay chilled out, though.” She paused, and forcibly turned her attention to the folder he had open in his lap. “Anything useful?”
Instead of answering immediately, he looked at her for a long moment, then smiled faintly. “Atta girl.” He took her hand and absently rubbed his thumb across her knuckles in a gesture he’d just developed starting that morning, one that tugged at her even though she knew it was the sort of thing he never would’ve done if he’d thought there was a threat of a future for them.
Reading from Durst’s employee file, he said, “Not to bend the theory to fit the results or anything, but my gut says this all fits with what we’ve seen. Durst has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and coauthored a dozen or so papers on the early generation nanoparticles. He was at a mid-level university, which doesn’t make much sense given his scientific production, unless we figure such a small place might not have had a strong ethics committee, meaning he could bend the rules more than he might’ve done elsewhere. About four years ago, UniVax wooed him away from the college and set him up here, giving him a pretty much unlimited budget as long as he delivered a functional targeting system within five years.”
Knowing she’d get seriously carsick if she read over his shoulder, Mandy let her head fall back and stared at the interior of the car roof, thinking. “They fired him because his system failed its Phase II trials?”
“No. They fired him because he was hiding toxicities in the animal experiments, trying to push the targeting system through to human trials.”
“Oh.” Mandy didn’t even bother trying to hide the shiver. “Then the muggings have all been some sort of perverse real-world beta test?”
“So it would seem.” Parker closed the file as Stankowski double-parked in front of Durst’s address.
Mandy was relieved to see that it wasn’t an abandoned lot or a restaurant. Rather, it was an apartment building not unlike her own, generic and not in the best section of town.
“Not a very upscale address considering what he’s been making the past few years,” Parker noted.
“Or he moved on long ago and his work records weren’t updated,” Mandy said, feeling her quick burst of optimism drain.
“We’ll know in a minute. Backup’s here.” Stankowski popped his seat belt and climbed out of the car as two cruisers pulled up behind his vehicle. The officers who joined him on the sidewalk outside the apartment building weren’t full SWAT, but they were wearing protective gear that drove home the reality that if Paul Durst was the hooded man, he was a murderer.
Feeling faintly nauseous, Mandy climbed out of the car and followed Parker across the sidewalk.
“Keep an eye on these two.” Stankowski gestured for one of the officers to watch over Mandy and Parker. “Stay well back. I’ll let you know when it’s clear.”
Parker looked like he wanted to protest, but didn’t. Mandy figured they were lucky Stankowski hadn’t dropped them off at the lab or ordered them to stay in the car. No doubt he would have, if it weren’t for the seemingly slim chance that Durst would tell them something useful, or they’d see something in his place that would put them on the right track toward finding the antidote promised in the note.
Within the next few minutes, she might even be cured. It seemed so impossible she barely dared hope, but she was enough of an optimist that she hoped for exactly that. A cure. A future.
She glanced at Parker, taking in the square set to his jaw, and the flat, emotionless expression on his face. A few days ago, she might’ve seen only that outward facade, the cool disinterest he did his best to project to the world. She knew him better than that now; better, oddly, than she’d known him even back when they’d been lovers for several months in a row. The new knowledge allowed her to see the tension beneath the coolness, the caring beneath the lack of it.
It was possible that she was projecting again, seeing what she wanted to see, but she didn’t think so.
This time it’s real, she thought, and carried that certainty with her as she followed Parker into the building, under the watchful eye of their riot-geared protector.
Parker, however, was having none of being protected. “You do your thing,” he told the officer in an undertone, pulling his gun from inside his jacket. “I’ve got this.”
After a quick check with Stankowski, who reluctantly nodded, the young officer moved up to join the others, leaving Parker and Mandy to bring up the rear. The group moved into the stairwell, with one of the officers peeling off to put the elevators out of commission, blocking off escape in case Durst tried to run.
Stankowski gestured for Mandy and Parker to stay on the third level, waiting while the officers stormed Durst’s apartment on the fourth floor.
When they were alone, waiting, straining to hear the sounds coming from above, Mandy whispered, “How well do you shoot?”
Parker surprised her by answering with more than a quick, “Well enough.” Instead, he whispered, “My dad took off before I was born and my mother raised me alone. She was a cop with the Pittsburgh PD, and she took me to the shooting range when I was about thirteen and I started getting into the sort of trouble teenage boys get into. She taught me to handle a gun, and she ran me through the prison once, to give me an idea of where I’d end up if I messed up badly enough.”
Mandy frowned, seriously confused. “I thought your family was from Long Island.”
“The hospital rumor mill is like a vacuum—if you don’t fill it up with something, it sucks up something else.” He paused, attention focused on the doorway to the fourth floor. “Besides, the medical community tends to prefer dealing with their own kind.”
It took Mandy a moment to digest that. “I get it. You’re a reverse snob. That certainly explains why you always had a certain fascination with my family. You think that I think medical ability is genetically inherited.”
“No, I think the entire community thinks that, but not because of genetics. Because of money, and the sort of education money can buy, as compared to scholarships, second jobs and Pell Grants coming out your ears.” A muscle pulsed at the corner of his jaw. “But that wasn’t what you asked. Back to the gun. My mother promised that if I kept my grades up and stayed out of trouble, she’d help me get certified for rifles, handguns and carrying concealed as soon as I was old enough.” He paused, and his voice went hollow. “She was killed in the line three weeks before my eighteenth birthday.”
“Oh,” Mandy breathed, wincing with a sympathy she sensed he’d reject out of hand. “I’m sorry.”
The knowledge explained a great deal, both why he was working in tandem with Stankowski and seemed almost more comfortable with police work than he did as a hospital big shot, an
d why he carried an instinctive dislike for people he perceived as being privileged, or maybe overprivileged. Including her.
She expected to feel the usual burn of resentment at being typecast by her father’s reputation, but there was no anger, no nothing. It was as if the knowledge of her own impending death had helped her, if not forgive, at least move past what her father had done.
For the moment, at least.
She reached out and touched Parker’s shoulder, which was tense beneath her fingertips. “I think—”
“Quiet.” He held up a hand, and in the ensuing silence she heard running footsteps coming from one floor up. “Behind me,” he ordered, moving so his body was between her and the door, and the gun was angled upward.
Mandy braced herself to see the hooded man as the door swung open. Instead, it was one of the riot-geared officers. He looked unnaturally pale beneath his gear, and swallowed hard before he said. “Stankowski wants you two. He’s got something he thinks you should see.”
THE DETECTIVE met them at the door to Paul Durst’s fourth floor apartment, looking as grave as Mandy had seen him during their relatively short association. He gave them sterile gloves and booties to pull on, reducing the risk of crime scene contamination, and then waved them in. “This way, and make it quick. Once the others arrive, they’re not going to want civilians on their scene.”
Which meant that whatever they wanted to show them had to be important, Parker knew. Stank might seem casual, but he was a by-the-book cop.
He led them through a good-size sitting area containing little more than the basics: a stiff-looking sofa and chair upholstered in neutral beige sitting on either side of a low coffee table that was bare of any books or magazines. There was an entertainment center against the wall, its racks empty of CDs or DVDs, though there were players for both tucked beneath the midsize television.
Doctor's Orders Page 11
