Lethal Dose

“Main Street Station, and the Seventeenth Avenue Farmer’s Market in back of it. Main Street Station was the Virginia Department of Health until about two years ago, when they renovated it and put in a bunch of new shops. Now there’s all kinds of excellent stuff in there. Just excellent. And check this out: Shockoe Slip. Cobblestone streets and great shopping, if you like poking through little stores. Very eclectic.”

Two hours and another venti dark roast later, Bud dropped Gordon in front of a yellow building with a terra- cotta awning that stretched over the sidewalk patio. A tasteful sign indicating they had arrived at Amici Ristorante was fastened to the acrylic stucco. Gordon paid the amount on the meter and handed Bud an extra hundred for the tour. The driver showed his appreciation by leaping from the cab, running to the passenger door, and opening it.

“Usually only do that for little old ladies,” he said, grinning. “Thanks. That was fun.”

“Yeah,” Gordon agreed, shaking the man’s hand. “It was. Nice city. I like Richmond.”

He entered the restaurant and spied Jennifer Pearce at a table near the fireplace. He joined her, ordered a beer, and settled in. The restaurant was elegant, but with a homey feeling thrown in. The walls were deep ocher, the chairs polished ebony, and crisp white linen cloths covered the tables. A Josh Groban CD, Closer, played on the sound system, his throaty voice adding to the ambience.

“Do you always make decisions just like that?” Jennifer asked, snapping her fingers.

“You mean coming to Richmond?” he asked, and she nodded. “Sure. I wanted to see Albert Rousseau’s place before the contractors started work on it. Probably nothing there, but Rousseau’s a big piece of the puzzle, one untapped so far.”

“What about Kenga? There might be something at her place.”

Gordon shook his head. “Kenga forwarded everything she had to me before she left for Saint Lucia. I have all the technical data on Triaxcion, but that doesn’t really get me anywhere. It’s proving the drug is dangerous that’s key. When she got back from Saint Lucia, Kenga was going to start searching through the technical files to see if she could find evidence that the researchers working on that drug knew that people with A-positive blood would have negative reactions.”

“So what do you expect to find at Rousseau’s place? It’s been exposed to the elements for four months.”

He shrugged. “No idea. It’s just a part of the puzzle. Oh, there’s something else. My private investigator found the real estate agent Albert Rousseau was dealing with on the Carmel property. Purchase price was nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars, closing date was set for the end of September.”

“So Rousseau expected a large payday fairly soon.”

“Exactly. He died on the last day of April with very little money in the bank. The deposits on the Porsche and the Carmel property even left one of his accounts in overdraft. According to the real estate agent, the contract required an additional deposit of fifty thousand dollars on or before July fifteenth. The remainder of the purchase price was due about mid-September. And Rousseau told the agent he didn’t need a mortgage on the house.”

“So he was expecting at least a million dollars from some source over the course of the summer.”

Gordon nodded. “And where does an average Joe get a million dollars on short notice?”

“Veritas,” Jennifer said quietly. “Christ, Gordon. These people, whoever they are, are killing anyone who gets in their way.”

“Well, let’s think about who they could be. Usually, people don’t kill other people without a reason. And more often than not, that reason is money. So you have to ask, who stands to benefit from Veritas’s continued success as a company?”

“That’s easy,” she answered. “Anyone who owns large chunks of company stock and the top company executives.”

“And who owns big chunks of Veritas stock?” Gordon asked. Jennifer shrugged. “Not counting the top brass at Veritas, there’s not one individual who stands out as a shareholder. Mutual fund companies and pension funds are the big stakeholders. And no one inside those companies is going to kill to keep Veritas healthy.”

“So that leaves the top execs.”

“Exactly.”

A waiter arrived at the table with bread and menus, explained the evening specials, and disappeared.

“Bruce Andrews is the top dog. He’d stand to gain the most.”

Gordon finished his beer. “He certainly would. The information is public, so I checked into exactly how much stock the top executives at Veritas own. Bruce Andrews is way out front with six million shares of common stock and another three million in options.”

“Six million shares?” she said. “It’s trading at thirty-one dollars. Jesus, that’s a lot of money.”

“It’s not just the shares,” Gordon said. “It’s the options. He has the option to purchase another three million shares at seventeen dollars. The options expire in three months, on December fifteenth. Any downward fluctuation in the stock price is bad news, both for the common shares and the options. An upward surge would be very beneficial.”

Jennifer was silent. She sipped on her drink, then said, “So I was hired by a murderer?”

“Maybe,” Gordon said. “We don’t know for sure. We have no proof.”

The waiter reappeared, and Jennifer ordered the Vitello al Porcini. Gordon opted for the Buffalo con Fonduta Tartufata. They ordered one more drink each and sat in silence for a minute after the server had left.

“What do we do?” Jennifer asked. “What do I do? How did I get involved with something like this?”

Gordon gave her a weak smile. “There was no way you could have known. Think of it like Tom Cruise in The Firm. They made him a great offer and it seemed like such a good law firm to work for.”

“This isn’t a movie, Gordon. This is really happening. I’m working for a company that kills anyone who stands in their way.”

Gordon pursed his lips and swallowed. “All right, then, let’s do this. We try to find something we can go to the authorities with, some sort of evidence that Andrews or whoever is guilty of murder. Then we let the police take care of things.”

“And in the interim?” she asked.

“We try to stay alive,” he said, a grim look on his face.

She shook her head in disbelief. In the past few months, her life had taken an unimaginable direction, and there seemed no end to the depth of deceit someone was willing to stoop to in order to hide whatever it was they were attempting to achieve. She pasted a wry smile on her face and said to Gordon, “Veritas is Latin. Do you know what the translation is?”

“No.”

“Truth,” she said. Neither of them smiled.

34

Wes Connors arrived in Seattle to a light mist. Typical crappy weather, he thought as he retrieved his Taurus from the long-term parking lot at Sea-Tac International. It was late, almost midnight on Thursday, but he drove to his office. He wanted to total Gordon Buchanan’s invoice and send it as an e-mail so Buchanan’s office staff would have it the next morning. With all the travel expenses, plus his daily rate, this bill was getting up there. He wasn’t worried about Buchanan honoring the bill, he just wanted the money in his account sooner than later.

Parking was easy at this time of night, and he took the stairs to the second floor, unlocking his office door and switching on the light. Nothing happened. He flipped the switch a couple of times, cursing himself for letting so many bulbs burn out that when the last one crapped out there was nothing but darkness. He moved across the open space to his desk and touched the power button on his computer. A soft glow from the monitor washed light on his face and threw a dim illumination about the room. His eyes picked up the form on the couch a split second before his brain processed the image. His right hand moved instinctively toward the top desk drawer. He yanked it open and reached in for the gun.

It was gone.