I sat down in Jenny’s dining room with the phone and a folded piece of paper on which I’d been keeping numbers. My first call was to Jenny in Sacramento. Already she sounded happier. She was pleased to hear I was at her apartment, until I told her there’d been a little break-in. I described my set-to with Gregory, and she made a lot of nice coos of concern. She wanted me to join her in Sacramento. I said I would try to make it tomorrow or Sunday.
Next up was Rita. “Are you all right?” she asked with some urgency. “We heard the fire alarm across the way. Suddenly there you were being chased by those two guys.”
I gave her the playback on Karen and our escapade with Pratt. Rita was enjoying it until I got to the part about needing her help again. “I already owe you a dinner, Rita. Boulevard, Chez Panisse — it’s your choice. I need you to hook me up with Kumar. I’m going to tell him what Gregory was up to, but I also want him to get me inside LifeScience.”
“Is Fleur de Lys on the restaurant list?”
“They’re all on the list.”
“Right answer. Okay, I’ll give you his private cell number. But give me a chance to talk to him first.”
Five minutes later, I got the all clear from Rita. Kumar answered in a friendly tone. He said he was happy to name his contacts at LifeScience for me, one of whom turned out to be Doug Englehart. Not only did Kumar give me Englehart’s direct number, he promised to call him on my behalf. Kumar also thanked me for warning him about Gregory’s scheme. He’d keep an eye out for any spies Gregory might have inside the company.
I braced myself for the next call. Abe Harros’s voice had been on my home machine. He reported, snidely, that my story about being with Gregory in the parking lot last Wednesday had not checked out. Abe wasn’t in his hotel room, so I left him a voicemail inviting him over to view my tape of Gregory. As soon as I hung up, I regretted the message. My words had been just as snide as his.
My last call was to Dr. Nikano, Sheila’s allergist. I wanted to catch her before she left for the day. She’d reviewed the pathologist’s report and had managed to get a sample of Sheila’s blood.
“I did some further analysis,” she said, “and saw elevated levels of mast cell tryptase. That points to an allergic reaction, so anaphylactic shock seems certain as the cause of death. Knowing her history, we have to assume some kind of shellfish is the culprit.”
“It may be a culprit, but it’s not the culprit. The culprit is whoever gave her those proteins. Abe Harros said there were needle punctures in her arm.”
“That’s correct. I’d like to know where the punctures came from. She wasn’t receiving allergy shots. If she’d been vaccinated recently, it would explain a lot of things — but she wasn’t. I checked her records.”
“I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, if I can get you more information on what compounds Sheila was working with in the lab, can you test whether they connect to her death?”
“Absolutely. Something very peculiar happened here.”
“You’re right, Jill.” I told her a little bit about Dugan, LifeScience, and Karen. I also warned her about what the Harros family was likely to say about me. Jill said not to worry. She’d gotten a dose of George’s temper herself. “You’ll be the first to hear when I find out more, Bill,” she promised.
I thanked her, glad to have one more person trust me.
I rose from the dining table and realized how stiff my body was. My adrenaline had drained away and my muscles had contracted into soreness. A bruise the size of a softball had bloomed on my left thigh. My ribs screamed when I raised my arms. The toes on my right foot throbbed. My lower lip was swollen. I needed to soak in some hot water.
I drove north to the city in the gathering dusk. Darkness was coming earlier every day. Fall was here. I felt myself floating in the river of taillights.
Back at my flat, a message from Doug Englehart was waiting. He wanted to see me in his office. He’d call back in the morning to tell me what time. I gazed at the blinking light on the machine for a moment, thinking about what that meant. The game was on. I’d be inside LifeScience tomorrow, a Saturday, and with any luck I would be able to do some poking around in a mostly empty building.
I limped into the shower and let the hot water pound me until the tank ran out. By the end of it I was lying under the barrage in the tub. I used my foot to turn the water off and lay until it drained out. The tub still was warm, but cool night air eddied over me. The flat was silent. My skin tightened into a shiver.
What was I going to find inside LifeScience tomorrow? With my body still aching and my energy ebbing, I felt a twinge of fear. I was gambling everything on this move. I’d be on Dugan’s turf, and I didn’t yet know how far he and his security staff were willing to go. The working-over I got at BioVerge might be a mere appetizer. Or the ranks within LifeScience could close against me, cutting off any chance of finding answers.
As a boy, hunting with my father, I’d had the fear I’d be mistaken for quarry. When my parents split up, the fear was I’d be left without shelter or food. The fear I felt now was more nebulous, more diffuse. The danger might take any form and come from any direction. Dugan or Harros could well find a way to turn the people I now trusted against me. Everyone seemed to have a hidden ambition, an ulterior motive. Everyone but Sheila.
Sheila and Karen. In many respects, Karen was my best hope. I suddenly felt very afraid for her. I rose from the tub, threw on a robe, and dialed her cell number. Relief flooded my veins when I heard her voice. She was fine, taking refuge at a friend’s for the night. She’d started to look over the materials Sheila had given her. They looked promising. I told her I hoped to get into LifeScience to speak to Doug Englehart tomorrow. She asked me to come over to her hideout afterward.
I agreed, then hung up and called Wes. I wanted at least one other person to know where to come looking for my body.
“You know that this is kind of crazy, don’t you?” Wes said. “I’ve been in some tight places, dealing with VCs to fund my company, but I never went prowling into enemy territory. This guy Dugan sounds like the type who’d slip you something invisible that rearranges your DNA. You wouldn’t figure out what hit you until months later.”
“That’s exactly what I think he did to Sheila. I’m not saying I’m looking forward to this, Wes, but you know better than to try to talk me out of it.”
“Yeah, you’ve got your teeth sunk into this one, Billy. Okay, just act like you belong in the building. Fake it till you make it. If you don’t call me by three tomorrow afternoon, I’m coming to find you myself.”
“Thanks, Wes. Don’t be afraid to call the police, if you think you have to.”
“Same goes for you, Bill.”
“Right.”
But as I clicked off the phone, I knew it wasn’t an option. Dugan and Harros had all the pieces on the board arranged against me. If the police showed up, it would mean I’d already failed.
24
Doug Englehart woke me up. He was ready to see me. Could I come right down?
I looked at my clock. Seven-thirty on Saturday morning and this guy was already at work. I mumbled something that even I couldn’t understand and said I’d be there by nine. That gave me forty-five minutes to get my wits about me and forty-five minutes to drive to Palo Alto.
As I rolled over to get to my feet, a stabbing pain in my ribs reminded me of the fun I’d had yesterday. At least I could take satisfaction in visualizing Gregory’s pain reliever intake this morning.