Then it would be Alexis Morgan and not Sebastian Briggs who would change the world.
And maybe I can trick Wendy and Roland into getting rid of Briggs for me.
“Lex?” Wendy said.
Alexis pulled herself from the murderous reverie and looked down the flight of steps. Roland was already behind the wheel of a blue sedan, and Wendy was standing beside the open passenger-side door.
Time was already slipping away.
But maybe there would be a better chance later.
From the back seat, as Roland pulled onto the highway following her directions, Alexis asked Wendy for a piece of paper. “I don’t remember the road names, but I can draw a map from off the highway,” she said. “Then it will be up to you, Wendy. Roland and I won’t be much help.”
Wendy turned, her frightened eyes just at the level of the seat. “What do we do when we get there?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Roland said. “We’ll think of something, babe.”
Wendy touched his arm with affection, and it triggered a rush of feeling inside Alexis.
Mark. How could I have forgotten him? Are the drugs already changing me that much?
“Can I borrow your phone?” she asked Wendy.
“No calls,” Roland said. “These people seem to be one step ahead of us, all the way. We can’t trust anybody right now.”
“I need to call my husband.”
Roland glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t know you were married.”
He’d been at the wedding. They’d all been acquaintances then, if not friends, bound by a force they couldn’t define. Now Alexis understood their involuntary denial-the Halcyon had dulled their awareness, but the memory of the original trials must have hibernated deep in their unconsciousness. They were like survivors of a bloody war in which they still weren’t sure which side had won.
“Mark can help us,” Alexis said. “He’s got sources at CRO that can-”
Roland nearly ran off the highway as he slammed on the brakes and pulled to the shoulder of NC 501. Impatient homebound commuters blared horns as they passed.
“Goddamn, Roland, you nearly killed us,” Wendy said, with the bickering familiarity of a long-time couple.
But Roland was nearly over the seat, reaching for Alexis. She shrank away. The Halcyon was supposed to suppress the rage and fear, but cracks showed in Roland’s face.
God, what if the compounds are merging? What if it all clashes together in a hot ball of crazy?
“CRO?” Roland said. “Who the fuck is that?”
Alexis shrank out of his reach, not trusting him. “You know. The pharmaceutical company.”
“They killed her.”
“Who?”
“The girl in Cincinnati.” Relief and confusion battled for control of Roland’s face, but neither could beat the anger that pinched and contorted it.
“Keep moving,” Wendy said. “Lex is about to take her dose, and we’ll lose her.”
“Those guys are in on it somehow.” Roland turned his attention back to the steering wheel and spun back into traffic. “Hell, it’s starting to feel like everybody’s in on it but us.”
Mark? He couldn’t.
But Alexis had images of him meeting with defense officials, lobbying the health committee, moving in mysterious orbits that were always a little too complicated to explain. She’d taken it as the dedication of a career- driven husband, but maybe her own career had clouded her perception.
And one image froze in her mind, like a still frame from a movie that summed up the entire plot and theme: Mark shaking hands with Burchfield, an ambitious eagerness in both their eyes and a smug, conspiratorial air.
She couldn’t be sure when she’d seen that. It could have been after a meeting of the bioethics council or it could be simply a fantasy, but it screamed at her so insistently that it became the truth.
The bastard.
She didn’t know what he’d done, but she was going to kill him. Wendy’s voice pulled her from the self-inflicted pain as she realized she’d been digging her fingernails into the flesh of her wrists hard enough to draw blood.
She looked down at the wounds and found she was able to focus.
“Two minutes until your pill,” Wendy said. “You’d better give me those directions.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Mark parked half a mile from the Monkey House property, pulling the car into the concealment of the roadside pines, whose late-afternoon shadows stretched toward darkness.
He’d never been there, but he’d overhead the plans for its security system. It was one of a dozen facilities on the company books, although it had been mothballed and listed for sale since the 1980s. However, the price was too high, even for the booming Research Triangle Park, which meant no danger of a serious offer.
The revived Monkey House project had been pitched as “Burchfield’s baby,” which suggested only a few close allies were in the loop. But maybe Burchfield was careless in his arrogance, and Burchfield was not without enemies who would be watching his every move.
Enemies both in and out of government.
The Glock had been almost a joke, one of those little macho tokens that were supposed to make corporate executives feel like big shots. Mark had even licensed his handgun, which diminished the locker-room points at the racquet club. He’d only had it out at the range three times. It had made him uneasy to even store it in the closet, and he never thought he’d actually be concealing it, fully loaded.
He’d insisted on a newer model with an internal locking system, because he wasn’t comfortable with the series of trigger safeties. Now he only hoped he didn’t have to use the gun at all.
Mark had dressed in leisure wear, taking a cue from the jogger. Workout freaks could be seen just about anywhere, in all hours and types of weather, without arousing suspicion. People merely turned away with slight resentment as they touched their own soft bellies and made useless, silent vows to get themselves fit.
Mark didn’t run, though. He needed to get the lay of the land first. Two compact research complexes stood to the west of the property, glassed entrances giving way to brick, windowless structures. Mark had seen dozens of them as a CRO exec, and the shiny prescription medications with inventive names often grew from well-lighted but tediously mundane operations in such featureless buildings.
To the south, the orange glow of Raleigh was just visible against the horizon, a state capital that was more sprawling than metro. Sunset brushed the top of the pine forest to the west, an area that industrial development had yet to claim.
CRO couldn’t have chosen a more remote, yet easily accessible, location, which made him wonder how far back they’d been planning the need for secrecy. There was a cartoon he’d once seen of a gorilla standing amid a crowd of briefcase-toting businessmen in suits, with the slogan, “If you want to hide, hide in plain sight.”
He didn’t have any sort of plan besides finding Alexis and getting her out of there. He tried not to think about the fallout, but he was shocked at how little he now cared about his career at CRO.
Alexis. When in hell did you become the most important thing in my life?
The undergrowth scratched at his face, and vines that he hoped weren’t poison oak whipped at his ankles. The forest canopy blocked the dying rays of the sun, which slowed his progress but helped him feel less vulnerable and exposed. He found a road of crumbling pavement that appeared to run parallel to the property, and he followed it where the walking was easier. If any vehicles approached on the access road, he would be able to hear them and hide in the woods.
A minute later, he came upon the sedan with the tinted windows parked just off the road, pulled into the weeds in a halfhearted attempt at concealment. It was a Lexus, not the kind of car someone would use for off-road exploration.
So Briggs has got company besides me.
The road widened ahead and Mark entered the woods again. Foot-high grass and small saplings thrust up
