That must have really been one hell of a surprise for the woman, Krys thought. “Wow.”
Morgan couldn’t help smiling. “That was what everyone else in the family said once they heard the story. But fortunately it all ended well.”
It was the kind of story that made people believe in happy endings, Krys couldn’t help thinking. “You do have a pretty remarkable family.”
“It’s your family, too, now,” Morgan reminded her.
But Krys lifted her shoulders in what amounted to a noncommittal shrug. “That’s going to take some getting use to.”
“Well, that’s what Uncle Andrew’s party is for,” Morgan told her. And then he changed the subject. “What do you say we get those interviews over with while you’re in an upbeat frame of mind,” he encouraged.
He wasn’t about to get any argument from her, Krys thought.
“Not exactly what you hoped for, was it?” Morgan asked Krys as they left the last interview site. They had spent what amounted to a totally fruitless day talking to the remaining three out of four test subjects she had managed to unearth.
Krys sighed, shaking her head. “No, but to be honest, it was kind of what I expected.”
They walked back to his vehicle. Morgan wasn’t quite sure he was following her. “How so?” he asked.
Her smile was weary. “It was as if they were all reading words that were written by the same person from the same script. Oh, they were all slightly different—” she pointed out “—just different enough to make it seem as if they had slightly different things to say,” she said. “But all three test subjects who agreed to talk with me made it sound as if they really believed—or were made to believe—that they were part of some groundbreaking process.”
Her face clouded over. “If you ask me, they were afraid to say anything different because none of them wanted to wind up like Claire. Dead.”
Morgan couldn’t argue with her conclusion. “You’re right. The department did its best to keep what happened to Claire Williams out of the news, but we failed. One of your journalist buddies broke the story the second that someone leaked it and he was able to get his hands on it.”
She frowned, thinking how hearing about Claire’s murder must have influenced the people she had talked to today. Fear had obviously been their motivating force. “He wasn’t my buddy,” she corrected him sharply.
“Just a figure of speech,” he told her. He didn’t mean to insinuate that the person who had broken the story had been someone associated with her inner circle. “At least the people you talked to today seemed like regular people. Frightened,” he emphasized, “but real. That Jacobs guy,” he said, thinking of the CEO who had been her last interview today, “was like some character who was sent here straight out of Central Casting.”
There hadn’t been a single genuine thing about the man, Morgan couldn’t help thinking. How could someone come across that phony, that caricature-like, and still be breathing?
Krys laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “You got that feeling, too?” she asked him. “It was as if Jacobs had been programmed to sound like an earnest, hardworking CEO who had nothing but the best of intentions motivating him when it came to the drug his company is working on.”
“Not working on,” Morgan reminded her. “They’re just about ready to launch that thing on the open market. If there’s even a hint of impropriety with that drug’s production, not to mention with Jacobs himself, the company could stand to lose a fortune. That’s the only reason Jacobs gave you that fifteen-minute interview instead of telling you to go take a hike. He wants to make it look as if he’s cooperating with you, answering your questions and being totally affable so that you walk away from the interview completely satisfied and thinking that cancer drug they’re putting out is the just the best thing short of the Second Coming.”
“I know,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “I totally agree with you. The only problem is that we don’t have a shred of evidence to back us up.”
He thought of one thing they did have. “You have Claire’s original interview.”
“Yes, which supposedly she was in the process of rescinding,” she reminded him. At least, that was what the woman had initially said to her—just before Claire had called her again and hinted that she had been forced to say that. Krys had the impression that the woman was about to go back on that, but she was never going to know for sure.
Morgan remained where he was, in the Weatherly Pharmaceutical parking lot, thinking about what had just transpired. “Well, we’re not going to change anything tonight,” he told her. “Right now, what you need is to relax a little, blow off some steam. What do you usually do?”
Her answer was automatic. “I work.”
He shook his head, refusing to accept that. “You can’t work all the time.”
“Yes I can,” she told him. Then, when he continued looking at her as if he knew better, Krys threw up her hands. “All right, you win. I don’t work all the time. Sometimes, when I really need a break, I curl up on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and watch Casablanca.”
He waited for her to tell him what she really did. When she didn’t change her statement, he said, “You’re kidding, right?”
Krys frowned. “You asked,” she said, slightly insulted by his attitude.
Maybe, as illogical as it seemed to him, that was her go-to move.
“No, you’re right,” he conceded. “I asked. Tell you what, you deserve a break no matter how strange that break seems to me. We’ll pick up some popcorn at the grocery store, go home, and I’ll download the movie from that internet app I’ve got. Then you can go to town and knock off some steam by watching—” he took
