Paul’s involvement was the key. Without Paul, Pia’s claims might possibly be written off as the desperate actions of a disgruntled employee who’d recently been terminated, or even a thwarted lover of the company boss, especially if she were to just disappear. Although she alone had seen the bodies in the tanks and was possibly easy to discredit, Paul Caldwell certainly could not be. He had been with Pia when the first blood sample was drawn, and he was a medical professional with an excellent reputation and credentials who could vouch that the blood had indeed come from the Chinese jogger. She had found out much more than she had expected that evening, and now that she had, she needed to act at once.
Pia texted Paul that she was on her way but didn’t expect an answer, assuming he’d most likely gone back to sleep. Her plan was to return to his apartment regardless of whether he responded to her text. She’d just wake him up as she’d done earlier. Hurrying out of the lab, she descended to the reception area. As keyed up as she was, she had to force herself to walk at a normal pace. In the lobby it was the quietest time of the graveyard shift, and Russ must have been on a break, because only the younger, unfamiliar security guard was on duty. He merely nodded as Pia left. She only had to negotiate the parking lot, and she was home free.
The old Toyota started fine. At this point Pia was worried about every possible negative contingency. Without a problem she drove out of the lot and through the gate. There had been a moment of concern when the guard seemed to take longer than usual to raise the barrier, but he finally did, and Pia was able to pull out into the deserted county road. This was to be another careful ride, taken at just the speed limit, and she made sure that her seat belt was fastened. As excited as she was, she wanted no mistakes or lapses of appropriate judgment.
But then, despite her attention to detail and quite inexplicably, a police cruiser appeared in her rearview mirror. To her horror it came right up behind her, tailgating her. A moment later its emergency lights started flashing and the siren sounded once.
“Pull over, please!” said the metallic voice. Reluctantly she complied, wondering what on earth she could have done. She came to a stop, engine running.
What the hell? thought Pia. Perhaps she had a broken taillight, but she didn’t think so. No one emerged from the cruiser. The question flashed through her mind if she should call 911, but she didn’t. Then, two large SUVs pulled in behind the police car. Alarmed, Pia took her foot off the brake, but before she could move, another SUV sped up from the opposite direction, crossed from the other side of the road and stopped right in front of her, blocking her with its high beams directly in her face. Quickly, two men alighted from this SUV, one at either door. A third man apparently coming from behind rapped on her window, and then pulled open her door. He leaned down.
“Hello, Pia,” said Zachary Berman. “Nice to see you again so soon. We need to talk.” Berman held the door open for Pia, who saw no alternative to getting out of her car.
“I’ve already called the police,” Pia said out of desperation. “You’re just making it worse for yourself.”
“As you can see, Pia, the police are already here. And they don’t seem to be rushing to your aid. Ah, Miss Jones has arrived.”
Whitney Jones walked up to where Pia was standing, and Pia felt slightly more at ease with the presence of another woman at the scene. Pia felt nothing violent was likely to happen with Whitney there.
“I’m sorry about this, Pia, I really am,” said Jones, and before Pia could respond, Jones jabbed her through the sleeve of her shirt in the arm with a syringe and depressed the plunger.
One of the Nano security guards caught Pia before she fell unconscious to the ground.
CHAPTER 45
Thinking back over the course of their three-month friendship, Paul Caldwell made a mental list of the number of times Pia had said something along the lines of “I’ll be right back,” and then had not followed through with her promise. Paul knew Pia could be unreliable. Often when they were on the phone, she’d say, “I’ll call you right back,” and half the time, she didn’t. A couple of times, Paul had invited her to a drink with friends, and she said she was on her way but then had changed her mind. It wasn’t anything that irked Paul about Pia particularly, it was just one element of her unique and otherwise charming personality that he had learned to accept in the face of her other, better qualities.
Paul had come to understand that the sensitivity to other people’s feelings that one might expect from a friend was not a strong point for Pia due to her adult attachment disorder, which she’d admitted to early on in their relationship. After she had confided in him, Paul had made it a point to read about the condition, and the information had made it easier to adjust to her quirks, such as her impulsiveness, seeming lack of empathy, and resistance to trust. But Pia had never been so insistent as when she raced out of the ER a few hours before, saying she’d be right over to his apartment. She’d even sent a text saying she was on her way. Which was why Paul was worried when she hadn’t shown.
Paul had let Pia leave the ER without making any real effort to stop her, which he now regretted. But on a number of occasions, Pia had said she was going to do something when she clearly was thinking of doing another, like seeing Berman or going into Nano, as he was sure had happened in this case. Paul respected Pia’s right as an adult to take responsibility for her own actions, and he knew she was going to follow through on a particular course of action whether he approved or not. But still, the thought nagged at him, what if?
Beyond that, the basic issue was that some five hours after she had left, where was Pia? There was no answer when he tried her cell phone.
If, as Paul surmised, Pia had left after picking up the blood sample, she may have run into trouble. There were three alternatives Paul decided were plausible. The first was that perhaps Pia hadn’t gone into Nano at all — she had taken the sample somewhere else to examine it and either hadn’t had time to tell Paul where that was, or for some reason decided not to. The problem with that idea was that there weren’t a lot of places where microscopes were available at all, let alone at that time of day. The second alternative was that Pia had gone about her business at Nano without incident and opted not to return to Paul’s apartment to wake him up for a second time, and had gone home instead, turning off her own phone. Third and most improbable was that she was still at Nano. First, Paul explored the option that was easiest to check. Since he was not due at the ER until late, he went out and got in his car and headed west.
When he reached Pia’s apartment, he noticed that his parents’ Corolla wasn’t in the parking lot. This wasn’t conclusive proof that Pia wasn’t home, but it pointed in that direction. Undeterred, Paul knocked on Pia’s door a number of times, then retrieved the spare key from the top of the door frame. Paul had chided Pia for selecting such an obvious hiding place, but she reasoned that she owned nothing worth stealing, and it wasn’t like there was any other convenient spot to hide a key. Besides, she told Paul that she always brought the key inside when she was home.
“Pia? Are you here?” As he called out her name, Paul half expected to hear a quiet fusillade of insults asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, but there was no sound. Pia wasn’t in her bed, which didn’t look as if it had been slept in, although with Pia, it was a little hard to tell. Housekeeping wasn’t Pia’s strong suit, and sometimes when she came home from Nano in the early-morning hours, she didn’t bother to take off her clothes and just lay on top of the covers or on the couch.