No Show (31 page)

T
he following day, Terry pulled into Genavax’s parking lot for what he guessed would be his last time. He walked into the reception area.

It was five and his coworkers were leaving. A couple of familiar faces said hi and asked how he was doing after his freezer ordeal. Terry made small talk, but not wanting to make a meal of it, he cut his conversations short. He smiled when Frank appeared from the direction of the restrooms.

“Hey. The new Frosty,” he said.

“The one and only,” Terry replied.

“What you doing here? Surely you’re not starting work?”

Terry grinned, shaking his head. “No. I came to drop something off.”

“Go straight through.” Frank indicated to the corridor leading to the research lab.

Terry frowned. “I prefer not to. Can you do me a favor and give this to Pamela?”

“The Ice Maiden? Sure thing.” Frank took the envelope Terry had prepared the night before. The security guard gave the package a cursory exam. “Do you want me to give it to her now?”

“Give me time to get out of range.”

“No problem.” Frank leaned back in his chair. “Don’t want to get dragged into talking shop for the next couple of hours, eh?”

Terry smiled. “You know it.”

“I’m glad to see you’re finally learning the American work ethic.”

“You taught me well, Master.”

Frank held up his wrist to read his watch. “Okay, the clock is ticking. Now, take a hike.”

Returning to the Monte, Terry grinned. He wished he could be there when Pamela opened the envelope. Instead of finding the copied human-testing data she expected, she would find three Polaroids. The photos were a series, each one numbered on the bottom right-hand corner. The first was a close-up of his letter to the FDA, the second was of the photocopied data going into the envelope, and the last was of him dropping the envelope into a mailbox. He didn’t leave a note. Pamela was a smart woman. She didn’t need it spoon-fed to her.

Slipping behind the Chevy’s wheel, Terry’s euphoria leaked away through a hole in his conscience. For his colleagues leaving for home, it was just another day, just one in a long series of uneventful workdays—but not for long. Once his letter hit the FDA, every day after would be a train wreck. The FDA would serve Genavax with a consent decree, allowing it to chain up the facility and throw away the key. The FDA wouldn’t care that its fines would drive Genavax to financial collapse. Genavax wasn’t strong enough to weather the tornado coming its way. By the time the FDA was finished, Genavax would be dust and all of its employees would be jobless—and all because of him. It was going to be bloody, but he didn’t have a choice. He gunned the engine.

He hoped his coworkers would understand that he was doing the right thing, but he doubted it. Principles were a precious commodity that most people were forced to give up for a cheap price—but he couldn’t follow suit. He put the Monte in drive and
shook off the guilt. He didn’t have time for it. He had Sarah to meet.

She’d called late the night before when he was tired and chock-f of the hospital’s drugs. She was still paranoid, and kept the phone call brief. He barely managed to get a word in before she hung up, but he did manage to say he’d been attacked. He thought he heard a hint of shock and fear in her voice, but she did her best not to show it in her reply. Her response was simple: “Same place, same time, tomorrow.”

Terry crossed the Sunset Mall’s north parking lot on unsteady legs. He felt like a teenager again, suffering the symptoms of first-date nerves. Adrenaline was pumping and control over his own motor functions was minimal. He was a passenger in his own body. A mom held the door for him after a gaggle of her progeny of varying heights poured out.

The air-conditioned air—a stark contrast to the heat outside—wafted over him and made his frostbite tingle. He stopped and scanned the foyer for Sarah. He half expected a spotlight to shine down on her. But there was no spotlight and no sign of Sarah.

Someone brushed past him, grumbling. Terry followed the grumbling man into the mall. He checked his watch. He was on time. The Mexican restaurant was in the far right corner of the small mall, to the left of the UA Cinema. He did as arranged. Ignoring the other stores, he took a seat at a table outside the restaurant.

He had the SFO jitters again. It was all too reminiscent of the airport incident. He was there and she wasn’t. He kept scanning the mall, from the Barnes & Noble opposite to the Panda Express Chinese restaurant at the entrance, to see if she was hiding. He didn’t notice the waitress until she spoke.

“Welcome to El Tiburon. My name is Kirsten, and I’ll be your server this evening.” She handed Terry a menu he didn’t look at. “Can I start you with a drink—a margarita, maybe?”

“No, I’ll just have a lemonade, if you’ve got it.”

“Of course.” She beamed. “I’ll get it for you right away.”

Kirsten returned in less than a minute, far too efficiently for Terry’s liking. She put the drink before him with a basket of chips and small dish of salsa.

“Have you decided?”

“Er…Um.” He flashed through the short menu without reading. “What are your specials?”

Kirsten ran through them.

Terry didn’t know why he was asking. He didn’t care. All he wanted was Sarah.

“Decided?” she asked.

“Actually, I’m waiting for someone.”

“No problem. An appetizer, then?”

He hesitated for a moment. “What would you suggest?” he asked to get rid of her.

“We have a very nice chicken quesadilla.” Kirsten went on to describe an overelaborate Californian interpretation of the Mexican dish.

“That sounds great.”

She left him alone at last, allowing him to keep lookout. He checked his watch. The numbers meant nothing. All they told him was Sarah was late.

Terry didn’t spot her until she put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t have to turn around; he knew it was her just by her touch. She smiled. He jumped up and embraced her in a crushing hug.

“Oh, Sarah.” He couldn’t say any more.

“I know,” Sarah said. Her eyes reflected everything he couldn’t say.

She returned his embrace, and he reveled in the contact. After what seemed an eternity, they let go of each other and sat. They held hands across the table. Terry lazily rubbed a thumb across the back of her hand.

He was glad to see she hadn’t come to any harm. She looked the way she had the last time he’d seen her, albeit a little tired. There were rings under her steel-gray eyes, but the keenness wasn’t tarnished. Her hair needed some TLC, but she was still Sarah. He couldn’t stop smiling.

Kirsten returned with the quesadilla. “Ah, your party has arrived. Would you like to order your main meal?”

“No,” Sarah said. “We’ve got some catching up to do. This will be all for now.”

“Would you like a drink? A margarita, maybe?”

Sarah glanced at Terry’s drink. “Lemonade, please.”

Sarah amazed Terry. She was so collected. He was a wreck.

Kirsten returned in double-quick time with the lemonade. “I’ll leave you guys to get reacquainted.”

“Thanks,” Terry said.

Sarah touched the frostbite on his forehead. She smiled painfully. “Is that from the freezer?”

He nodded and held up his wounded pinky finger. “So’s that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. God, I’ve missed you.”

“Me too.”

“Does this mean you’re coming home?”

“No, I’m not coming home.” Her face was apologetic, but her tone was brusque.

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“No. It isn’t safe.”

“I don’t care.”

“What about your job?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“As of an hour ago, I probably don’t have a job. And in a couple of months, neither will anyone else at Genavax.”

“Why?”

Terry explained in detail what he had done, including his letter to the FDA. “The FDA won’t mess about,” Terry said. “It’ll lock the doors and fine Genavax into extinction.”

“No wonder Genavax was willing to kill you.”

He was still uncomfortable with the idea that Genavax was willing to kill him to ensure word didn’t get out. He didn’t want to believe they could stoop that low, but people had killed for less. He glanced down at the table. Neither of them had touched the quesadilla or lemonades.

“Do you know who closed the door?”

“I think I do. It was either my boss, Pamela Dawson, or a guy called Luke Frazer.”

“I met Pamela.”

“You argued with her. Was it over Genavax’s illegal drug testing?”

“In a way. When you asked me to check out the company to see if it was in good financial shape, I looked beyond its balance sheet. I came across a biotech industry rumor mill on the web. It’s mainly a bitch session for ex-employees to trash their former employers, but some people did post some valuable industry data, like who was in rough financial shape and whose drug wasn’t living up to the hype. Well, there was some dirt on Genavax.”

“Like what?”

She picked up her lemonade and sucked on the straw. “A number of people—ex-Genavax employees—felt that Genavax was falsifying its data. Its fast-track progress rang alarm bells.”

“Being able to do human tissue testing from the beginning would allow that.”

“Well, a couple of ex-Genavax workers I got in touch with through the website confirmed the suspicions, but didn’t know how the company was doing it. They gave me what they could, and I was getting even more when I got into that fight with your boss. I shouldn’t have let her catch me asking about illegal practices.”

“You never mentioned any of this before I accepted the job. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted a reason to check out the company, and with you on the inside, I had a direct line to the heart of the beast.” Sarah looked impressed with herself.

“Sarah, I’m your husband, not your mole. They tried to kill me.”

“And I’m a reporter. I had to know.”

“You put me at risk.”

They were silent; neither wanted to let the rift escalate into an argument that would spoil their reunion. Terry got proceedings moving again.

“Is Genavax why you were hiding?”

She shook her head.

“Is it the women on the list?”

“Yes.”

“Are they tied to Genavax in some way?”

“I don’t want to say.”

“C’mon, Sarah. You have to. You’ve been skulking in the shadows for nearly a month, and people have been killed. I was nearly killed.”

Sarah moved in close and checked over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being listened in on. Terry noticed they were under Kirsten’s watchful eye, but she wasn’t within hearing distance—the ambient mall noise was too great. Sarah went to speak, but instead, her grip tightened on Terry’s hand.

“What is it?” he asked.

Sarah’s gaze was fixed on something. Terry craned his neck to see. Holman and Deputy Pittman were cutting a swath through the mall worshippers from the main entrance. They separated to go around the concession stand in the center of the mall. Terry cursed.

Sarah whipped her head around to face Terry, her expression murderous. “You told them,” she hissed. “I can’t believe you told them.”

She shook off his hand and stood.

“I didn’t.” He reached for her, but she recoiled. “Believe me.”

Holman and Deputy Pittman had been striding, but they stepped up their pace to a jog when Sarah stood.

“I thought I could trust you.”

“You can.”

Holman and Deputy Pittman broke into a run, and Sarah bolted. Terry raced after her, but kept a watchful eye on Holman and Pittman. Kirsten flew out of El Tiburon, screaming for Terry and Sarah to stop. Shoppers stopped and stared in prairie-dog fashion.

Sarah clipped shoppers and chairs, knocking them aside to escape. Terry couldn’t believe what was happening. He was concussed by the enormity of it all. Life didn’t happen this way for people like him. Holding a marriage together shouldn’t be this dramatic. What the hell was he doing?

Unfortunately for Holman, he’d taken the long way around to intercept Sarah, and he wasn’t going to make it. He crashed into a mother and child, getting tangled up in the stroller. All three went down heavily—Holman the heaviest.

Deputy Pittman wasn’t as impeded as her boss. Although weighed down by the array of cop toys hanging from her belt, she cut Sarah’s lead. Sarah wasn’t far from the four pairs of glass doors at the south exit, but the deputy would get to her before she reached the doors.

Terry couldn’t let Deputy Pittman take Sarah down. He didn’t want Sarah thinking he’d betrayed her, not when he was this close to holding on to her. He had to stop the deputy.

Deputy Pittman closed in, preparing to tackle Sarah from the side. Sarah glanced back and from the look on her face, she knew she was screwed. Her look of desperation nearly split Terry in two, but it spurred him on not to let her down. He kicked a chair out of the way, giving him a clear run at the deputy.

Deputy Pittman was within arm’s reach of Sarah. Terry made his move. He dropped into a soccer-style sliding tackle.
He struck the mock-marble floor and accelerated on the highly polished surface. He stuck his feet out, chopping Deputy Pittman at the ankles. She crumpled, collapsing on top of him. Sarah smashed through the doors, flinging them wide.

Deputy Pittman flailed on top of Terry, fighting to get to her feet. Terry rolled the deputy off him then rolled on top of her and used her as a springboard to get up. He spotted Holman steaming toward him like a force-ten gale. Deputy Pittman got to her knees, and Terry booted her in the backside, pitching her forward.

He blew through the same doors Sarah had and raced after her. She’d just crossed the crosswalk and was disappearing into the field of cars in the south parking lot.

“Sarah!” he bellowed. “Wait up!”

She threw a glance in his direction, but kept on running.

“Sarah!”

“Sheffield, stop!” Holman ordered, blasting through the doors with Deputy Pittman at his side.

Terry charged across the crosswalk and into the parking lot. He called Sarah’s name again. She didn’t look back this time.