Watching the last test rat die, he wondered where the hell he'd gone wrong. Disappointment ran deep as he moved to the cages, took out a rat and laid it on an examining table. He needed to know what had happened, twelve of them, to be exact.
With a muffled curse, he slipped on his lab coat, positioned the rat flat on its back and picked up a scalpel.
Three days and twelve autopsies later, Roland Storm had come to a rude awakening. There was a horrible problem with Triple H. One that he would never have envisioned, but the proof was in the tests—and the livers.
Triple H had been super-successful as a hallucinogenic, but the drawback was that it never dissipated. The build-up of the drug in the soft tissue samples was staggering. In fact, not only did it hook a user on the first try, it also turned out to be the drug that kept on giving. The build-up of Triple H in the rats' livers was astronomical. The livers had all but solidified, and the rats' brains looked as if they'd exploded. If he didn't know it was impossible, he would also have surmised that the nerve pathways in the body had tried to reroute themselves.
He stood for a few moments, trying to come to terms with what to do. Logically, he should destroy the crop and start over. While it was obvious that the first part of his experiment worked—one use and they were hooked forever—there still wasn't any market for something that would eventually kill everyone who used it.
The instant addiction had been the perfect marketing strategy, and would have insured a constant and growing market. But what the hell good did that do him when he was also killing off his customers as quickly as he made them?
He stared at the last of the dissected and dismembered rodents, then swept them into the garbage, yanked off his surgical gloves and tossed them in on top. Dropping his lab coat across the back of a chair, he headed up the stairs. He needed fresh air and a clear head to make a decision as monumental as this.
Once outside his house, he struggled to make sense of his failures. It just wasn't fair. All those years— wasted. He moved toward the path that led to his crop, then hesitated, went back to a shed, took a can of gasoline and resumed his trek.
As he neared the meadow, he could see the long, fernlike leaves of the mossy-colored plants dipping and swaying like exotic dancers flaunting their assets at paying clients.
His eyesight blurred as he contemplated destroying so many years of work. It wasn't fair. His earlier work in cancer research at Lackey Laboratories outside Pittsburgh had been underappreciated and the credit for his work often taken by his superiors. He had resented it— and them—on a daily basis and let it be known. When they finally let him go, he was actually relieved, even though it had left him financially destitute. It was during that time, when he'd come so close to becoming homeless, that he realized there was big money to be made in creating designer drugs. He'd done a little of that on his own, while living in fear he would be caught. Roland was anything but a social animal, and the idea of doing time in a prison horrified him. Being in confinement with the dregs of society would destroy him, and he knew it, so when he learned of his West Virginia inheritance, he considered it a sign from God.
He'd retreated to the small home on the mountain above Blue Creek to lick his wounds. But the rage had still festered as he plotted the different ways he could enact revenge. He stewed about it so long that what had once been anger at one company and a specific set of individuals had become anger at the entire human race. Now he'd come to this.
As he stared at the crop, an idea began to evolve. He needed to look at what he had from a different angle. He had created a drug that was so addictive it could never be kicked. No amount of rehab, no drugs to help withdrawal, nothing—and it was lethal. So what if he unleashed it on the world, anyway? What if every drug user was dead? It would end the need for pushers, which would ultimately end the war on drugs. It would be the perfect proof that he was the smartest and best scientist in the world—and he would get rich in the process. But could he do it? It would amount to him becoming the largest mass murderer ever. But then he reminded himself that addicts didn't count. They were already useless to their families and to the world. He would be doing them a favor by ending an addiction they could not end on their own.
He stared at the field, well aware of the weight of the can of fuel he was holding. All he had to do was pour it at the edge of the field, then strike a match and watch it burn.
But the longer he stood there, the more convinced he became that he would be a fool to destroy this. He kept thinking that he could go down in history as the man who ended the war on drugs.
Once there was no longer a need for Triple H, he would destroy everything linking himself to it and follow the money he'd banked in Switzerland. Rampant drug use would be a thing of the past once people realized what had happened.
They would be too afraid of another Triple H epidemic to take a chance on anything that gave them an unnatural high.
Having made his decision, he felt a huge weight of relief. He'd started his career trying to make the world a better place and had been somewhat conflicted over the fact that he was going to become involved in the drug trade. But this was different. He felt back on track.
He retraced his steps to the shed, replaced the can of fuel and then cleaned up the lab. It was time to begin the next phase of his plan—the harvest. But for that, he was going to need help, which immediately presented its own kind of problem. Who could he hire who would be trustworthy enough to keep quiet about what he was doing?
It occurred to him that isolating himself from the residents of Blue Creek might not have been in his best interests. Except for the occasional trip to the grocery store, he had no other associations. But with forty-some acres of Triple H nearly ready for harvest, it was time to switch tactics.
He changed his shirt and shoes and headed for his truck. Time to go shopping.
Wes was outside the house with a pair of garden clippers that he'd found in the barn, trimming back the overgrown vines from windows and doorways, when he heard the sound of an engine coming from up the road. His first instinct was to hide. He didn't want confrontation. But when the truck appeared and the driver showed no sign of interest in his presence, he relaxed, then resumed his task.
From the moment Ally Monroe had come knocking on the door with a basket full of ham biscuits, he'd known he was going to stay. She'd offered food, shelter and friendship, nothing more—which was good, because it was all he could handle. However, he couldn't stay anywhere without money, so as soon as he finished
what he was doing, he was going to walk down into Blue Creek and see about getting a job.
Roland Storm couldn't believe it. Someone was living in Dooley Brown's old place. He'd seen the man out working when he'd driven by.
From the day he'd moved onto the mountain, he and Dooley Brown had been adversaries. It was as if the little man had seen right through everything Storm pretended to be. Still, Storm had chosen to ignore him until he'd caught Dooley Brown in the patch. He'd watched the little man picking leaves off a stalk and slipping them into a small plastic bag; then he'd followed him down the mountain and into the house.
To his credit, when Dooley Brown had turned around and seen Storm standing in his living room, he hadn't panicked. Instead, he had waved a hand toward the sofa.
"Have a seat, neighbor," Dooley said.
Taken aback, Storm had hesitated, then frowned.
"You have something of mine," he said, and pointed to the corner of a plastic bag sticking out of Dooley's pocket.
Before he thought, Dooley's hand went to the bag. Then he sighed.
"What? This?" He pulled it out and dangled it between his fingers. "It's just some herbs. I was going to boil them to make a tea."
Roland grinned. "Tea."
Dooley nodded, then pointed to his obviously crippled knees. "It's for my arthritis."
For a few moments Storm actually considered that he was telling the truth, but he couldn't take the chance.
"Sorry," he said, and snatched the bag out of Dooley's hand. "You've made a big mistake."
He stuffed the bag into his own pocket, but instead of leaving, he quietly shut the door. When he turned around, the old man was gone.
It only took a few moments to go through the house. When he didn't find him there, he ran down into the cellar beneath the house and found him trying to escape through an outer door. He'd killed him then and there, while taking great care to make sure it looked like an accident. It was easy to break his neck, less simple to break his arm. Who would have known such a genetic defect as Dooley Brown would have muscles like a bull? Still, he'd managed to do it, then positioned the body at the bottom of the cellar steps so as to make it appear that he'd tripped and fallen.
But that had been months ago, and now his gut was churning as he continued the drive into Blue Creek. While he hadn't associated with his neighbors, he had made it a point to know who they were and where they lived, and he knew for certain that the man living in Dooley Brown's house was a stranger. Storm couldn't afford to trust strangers to mind their own business. He would find his hired hands, then see what was up with his new neighbor.
Danny Monroe's face was as red as his hair as he stomped out of the local bar. He'd known Mac Friend all of his life. They'd been Boy Scouts together, then on the same baseball team in high school. Four years ago, when Mac's father suddenly up and died, Mac became the sole owner of the only bar and grill in Blue Creek. Now he lived in a three-bedroom brick house, drove a brand-new Dodge four-by-four, and wore fancy cowboy boots made out of python and ostrich. The fact that he could have any girl he wanted was less irritating to Danny than the fact that he'd just turned him down for a job.
Danny still couldn't believe it. Mac had advertised for a bouncer. Danny had been so sure he would get hired. But Mac had told him flat-out that he was too short and sent him packing, as if he was some nobody begging for a handout.
Danny was furious, and it showed. He slammed himself into the seat of his truck and drove away, leaving skid marks on the road as he did.
Roland Storm had been having lunch at the grill when Danny Monroe had come in, then had become an inadvertent bystander to the entire proceedings. As soon as Danny was gone, Roland paid for his food and left. He wasn't certain, but he just might have found himself a hired hand.
* * *
Wes's step was light as he returned to the little house he was beginning to think of as home. It hadn't taken him nearly as long to walk the five miles down the mountain as it was taking to go up, but the weeks he'd spent on the road had gone a long way to getting him back into the fighting shape he'd been in before his world had come tumbling down.
As he came around a turn he saw the Monroe house, then convinced himself it was just curiosity that made him look, when in truth, he was hoping to catch a glimpse of his landlady. When he saw her sitting on the porch, he slowed down.
Buddy was lying near the mailbox at the road. Wes caught himself smiling as the old dog opened his eyes, although he didn't bother to lift his head.
"Hey there, fellow, looks like you've got the best job in town."
Buddy managed a greeting that was somewhere between a gargle and a woof, but it was enough to make Ally look up. Wes lifted a hand in greeting.
Ally laid aside the bowl of beans she was snapping, then got to her feet and started toward the road.
"Hello!" she called.
Wes waited, telling himself it was out of courtesy, but the truth was, there was something about her that left a man with a good feeling, and since he was sadly lacking in that department, he couldn't afford to pass it up.
"Hello, yourself," he said.
Ally stopped just short of throwing her arms around him and settled for leaning on the fence instead.
"I see you've been shopping," she said, pointing to the sack of groceries he was carrying.
He nodded, wondering why he found it so difficult to carry on a conversation with this woman, when he'd thought nothing of giving orders to, and being in charge of, any number of soldiers.
"I got that job," he said.
Ally's smile widened. "That's wonderful," she said. "Congratulations."
"I probably have you to thank for it," he added.
"Why is that?" Ally asked.
"Because he wasn't giving me the time of day until I mentioned your name. When he found out I was staying in your uncle's house, it was a done deal."
"It's a small world up here. People tend to stay to themselves a bit, probably a holdover from the early days of prohibition. Anyway, I'm happy for you."