“Or three,” Raine snapped. “Someone is out to get me.”
“Not necessarily.” Ike reached for a slice of pizza. “Could be that they want your drug off the market and you’re merely collateral damage.”
Raine started to snarl a response, but checked herself because Ike was right, and at least her explanation didn’t start with the words
“I think we can rule out the first two options,” Max said. He shot Raine a look before he said, “While I’m willing to believe you might fudge some paperwork on behalf of career and company, and we both know you’re capable of taking off when things get tough, I don’t see you setting the fire or bombing your own office. It doesn’t play.”
Tired of defending herself, Raine said only, “Where does that leave us?”
“Trying to figure out what’s the real target here-you or Thriller,” Ike answered for Max. Ignoring the pizza, she balanced a small handheld computer in her palm and held the stylus poised. “So give us something to start with. Who has it in for you?”
Raine simply stared at her. “Who are you again, and how are you going to help?”
When Max drew breath to answer, Ike waved him quiet and said, “My official title is communications director of Boston General Hospital, but I dabble in providing information to outside clients, as well. I know a little bit about everything.” She reached over and patted the mean-looking laptop, which purred like an expensive sports car. “You give me an hour and a name, I’ll tell you things even their own families don’t know about them.”
Raine glanced at Max. “I wish you’d talked to me before hiring a consultant.”
“You’re my client, not my boss,” he said, expression shuttered. “You want me to figure out what happened with those women and your drug? Stay out of my way and let me do my job-which involves you answering Ike’s question.”
Stung, Raine said, “I don’t have any enemies.”
Ike’s lips curved. “Everyone has someone who doesn’t like them. You got a family member who thinks you got the inheritance he deserved? Bitter ex-husband? Psycho ex-lover? A former coworker? Fired employee? Think a little. You’d be surprised.”
“I doubt it.” At the uptick of one of Ike’s carefully shaped eyebrows, Raine blew out a breath and said, “Fine. Give me a few seconds to think.” As though she hadn’t been thinking about it for days now, trying to figure out who might be after her. Two minutes later, she was no closer to having a suggestion. She didn’t have many friends, but she didn’t have many enemies, either. She didn’t consider herself the sort to inspire strong emotions. Killing emotions.
She shrugged. “I haven’t got any family. I never knew my father, my mother lost custody when I was very young, and I grew up in the system. I haven’t kept in touch with any of the foster families I stayed with, and wouldn’t say I made much of an impression either way. Same with college and work. I’m…”
“What about your ex-husband?” Max asked.
“Rory?” Raine paused to buy herself a moment. Then she shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not because I have any great faith in his moral fiber, but because this is too elaborate for him. It would’ve required too much planning. Too much effort.”
She pictured her ex-husband as she’d last seen him, the morning after the stupid bout of goodbye sex that had gotten her pregnant.
An aging musician she’d met waiting tables, Rory had never made it as a rocker, never managed to be anything else. He wasn’t a bad man, or an evil one. He’d tried to take care of her, tried to protect her from a world that had given her too few breaks. But he hadn’t been able to manage his own life, never mind theirs.
If their split hadn’t been amicable, it had been necessary once she’d grown up enough to realize that security without ambition wasn’t security at all.
Max was watching her intently. “Your ex might have resented the fact that you would have been a huge financial success if Thriller sales took off.”
“I still could be a success,” she countered. “I
And she’d probably give it to him, partly for old times’ sake, partly out of guilt that she’d never intended to tell him about the pregnancy.
“Then who could be after you?” Max leaned forward, eyes intent on her. “Your old boss? You left Falco in the lurch when you took off. Think he’d want to get back at you?”
Raine shook her head. “Unlike some people, Erik forgave me without hesitation. He understood that sometimes it takes distance to put things in perspective. And no, before you ask, I can’t think of any coworkers or former employees who might have it in for me, either. I told you, I don’t have any enemies.”
“What about Jeff?” Max asked.
Ike’s eyes sharpened. “Who?”
“No,” Raine said immediately. “It’s not him.” More accurately, she didn’t want it to be him.
“Your receptionist seemed to think otherwise,” Max countered. “Tori said he’d been hanging out with the FDA investigators and computer techs way more than he normally did.”
And there had been two bodies recovered from her office, not three. Raine grimaced.
“Let Max and me decide who is and isn’t a suspect,” Ike ordered. “That’s why you’re paying us. What is his full name? Stats?”
Raine sighed, but didn’t bother protesting anymore. “Jeffrey Wells. He graduated with degrees from both MIT and Harvard last year, with every honor imaginable. I wouldn’t have been able to hire him, except he wanted a flexible schedule and had his heart set on a position at a start-up pharmaceutical company.”
Ike paused in her note-taking. “Why was the schedule important?”
“He’s got a younger brother with some medical problems. Jeff is-was?-putting Joey through school while they waited for a transplant.” Raine recalled the picture Jeff kept on his office desk and found herself wondering who had talked to his family. What had they said? Was Jeff dead or alive? She swallowed hard. “I still can’t believe-”
“I’ll check him out,” Ike interrupted. “Anyone else?” When Raine shook her head, Ike said, “Okay then, let’s look at our final option-corporate sabotage. Who would benefit from keeping Thriller off the market?”
“At least three other companies have comparable drugs in development,” Raine answered. “Pentium, TopCat and Pyramid. But the rumors say their versions aren’t nearly as effective as Thriller, and the nearest is at least a year away from being brought to the open market. I’m not sure what they’d gain from trying to-” She broke off and swallowed, struck anew by the sheer scope of what they were talking about. “God, can you even imagine it? Whoever it is, they’ve gone to a ton of trouble. Product tampering to kill those women, breaking into my place to change the computer records, then setting it on fire. Blowing up the office…” She trailed off as nausea swam in her gut at the awfulness of the list. “Who would do something like this? Why?”
“That’s what we need to figure out.” Ike slid her chair back toward the computer. “I’ll start looking at those companies, along with Jeff Wells.” She glanced at Max. “Anything else?”
“Get me the names and addresses of the dead women’s next of kin,” Max said. He stood, scooping up one of the two pizza boxes. “We’ll need to conduct interviews and figure out what the women had in common. We need to identify the risk factor connecting them.”
Irritation flared through Raine. “I’m telling you,
He lifted one shoulder. “Whether they were killed by the drug or murder, there has to be a reason those particular women died. There’s some connection there. It’s up to me and Ike to find it.”
Raine lifted her chin. “And what will I be doing?”
Ike snorted. “Staying the hell out of my way, hopefully.”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Max said. Pizza box in hand, he backed toward the connecting door. “Both of you be ready to roll at 6:00 a.m. We’re registered under a safe name, but I don’t want to stay put any longer than necessary. Just in case.”
Raine stood and stalked past him into the other room. “Can I have a word with you?” When he followed, she shut the door. “What in the hell is going on here?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I think it’s better this way, don’t you? Besides, with William busy on other
