Cover Shot (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 5) (17 page)

2
3.

Two and two

Stepping out of Amy’s room the next day, I closed the door softly and sucked in a deep breath before I turned for the nurse’s station.

In my hand was a notebook full of heart-wrenching love story, with a healthy dose of everything that made the U.S. healthcare system unfair. In my head was a brain just as full of questions.

If I could get Alisha talking about Goetze again, maybe she’d share something I could use. Or maybe she’d remember something about Maynard.

Anything was better than the big fat black hole currently in the middle of this puzzle.

I waited at the end of the counter for her to turn around, my eyes roaming the hallway. People moved quietly in and out of the rooms, the doctors and nurses bending their heads and talking in hushed tones. I spotted a slight, rumpled man staring at me as he shuffled down the hallway. I waved. He ducked his head, his thick black hair shining under the fluorescents, and scurried into a room three down from Amy’s.

Huh.

I took a step toward the door, then paused. He was keeping watch over someone he loved, who had to be pretty sick to be in this ward.

But why run from a simple wave?

Before I could follow that rabbit trail too far, a doctor stepped out of the room next to Amy’s, making notes on a tablet touchscreen. He tapped with the stylus twice and stuck it back in his pocket before striding into the room across the hall.

My scarlet Manolos grew roots into the linoleum, my eyes still fixed on the space the doctor had vacated.

All this time, we’d been looking for Maynard’s files.

And it wasn’t that he was crazy and didn’t keep them, or that they’d been stolen.

They were electronic.

I reached into my shoulder bag and tapped a finger on my BlackBerry. I loathe feeling stupid.

There was a good chance Kyle would feel just as dumb. So would Aaron. They spent days tearing apart the doc’s home, after all. By time comparison, they should’ve had this way before now.

I had Kyle’s number half-dialed and stopped.

What if they did?

To hear them tell it, the President himself wanted them to keep quiet. If they’d found Maynard’s iPad, would they tell me?

Nope.

Was there a way for Charlie to land here? Or Alexa?

If I could, so could they.

Damn.

I was still debating calling Kyle when Alisha turned to me.

“Good morning!” she chirped. “Good to see you again. Mrs. Ellinger has been doing so much better since you were here the other day.”

“She didn’t look better this morning.”

“She has more lucid moments. At this stage of her illness, that’s pretty remarkable all by itself. She seems to be in less pain.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” I smiled, swallowing the lump in my throat and thinking of Felicia Lang. Had she been as sick as Amy?

“What brings you back here this morning?” Alisha widened her eyes expectantly.

“I’m doing a series on the Ellingers. What happened here last week. Why it happened. How. What are the underlying issues that drive people to act out violently? No one’s ever really gotten to interview a guy who walked into an occupied building and started shooting. They usually don’t make it out.”

She shook her head.

“I saw it with my own eyes, and I still can’t believe it. They’re such a nice family. He’s such a nice man. How on Earth did he end up there?”

I nodded. “That’s actually part of what I wanted to ask you about, if you have a second.”

“Of course.” She stepped to the counter and leaned on her palms. “I’m happy to help however I can.”

“How well did you know Dr. Goetze?”

“What does that have to do with the Ellingers?”

“I can’t explain in detail right now, but can you humor me?”

She tipped her head to one side, then nodded. “We dated. Briefly.”

Better than I’d hoped for. “Did he ever talk about Dr. Maynard and his research?”

“Wesley talked about work all the time. He was obsessed with Maynard. Called him a genius.”

“What were they working on?”

“Didn’t Wesley tell you?”

“It seems he’s too busy to talk to me.”

“Why wouldn’t he talk to a reporter? That’s like free advertising for his practice.”

“He could just be busy. But I admit curiosity. And when one source stonewalls me, I find another.” I winked.

“Maynard is the kind of doctor you expect to find living in a tent in Africa, vaccinating children. The only reason he isn’t is because he’s convinced he can help more people working in oncology.”

“Lots of research, right?”

“Yeah. For the university, and for the pharma companies, too.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Depends on the studies. The drug companies fund more and more of them these days. They have deep pockets, and they want a doctor to sign off on the results.”

“Who owns the results if they pay for the study?” I don’t get paid to assume.

“They do.”

And they make billions of dollars every year off the medicine to treat a disease Maynard was trying to cure.

So he went off the grid to try to save the world.

And got himself killed.

Puzzle pieces arranged themselves in my head, and I couldn’t say the picture didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense.

I looked around, thinking about Tom, and the poor dead woman. Stephanie.

Something tickled the back of my brain. Alisha’s soft voice, chaos, too many people talking.

Oh, man.

A drug company.

Suppressing the urge to overshare by asking one question, I pulled in a slow breath and chose another. “Alisha, how many shots did you hear that day?”

“Two. He only fired two.”

Two. Yep.

Except…what if?

I thanked Alisha for her help and sprinted back to my car.

Digging through my notes for the comments from the day of the shooting, I finally found what I was looking for. Alisha had said it: Stephanie was a marketing rep at Evaris.

Evaris, the third-largest drug company in North America.

Evaris, where there was a VP who lived in Maynard’s building and had rankled Aaron enough to get hauled in for questioning.

So the first victim was (maybe) trying to keep something from a drug company. And the second was an employee at one.

Less than zero chance that was coincidence. I snatched up the phone.

“Miss Emma? Can you tell me which pharma company Dr. Maynard worked with? Or if there was more than one, which one he worked with the most?”

“Hello to you too, missy.” Emma’s wispy voice brightened. “I was going to call you this morning and I got busy. Your Dr. Goetze doesn’t do much in the way of research, which is odd for someone with his background.”

Huh. Somehow, I was going to have to get in to see that dude.

“I found the report you asked for, too,” she continued. “It’s a field of research that’s exploding right now, using live viruses to make the immune system attack cancer. But Dr. Maynard pioneered it almost ten years ago. Brilliant, brilliant man.”

I scribbled, nodding. “Thank you so much for your help.”

“And what kind of clue did you turn up, Lois Lane?”

“I’m not sure yet. But I have a hunch. And my gut rarely fails me.”

“Drug companies, huh? I thought you were going to ask for something hard.” She clicked computer keys in the background. “Here we go.” She fell quiet for a minute, probably reading. “Not companies. Company. Doc Maynard worked exclusively with Evaris, according to the data I have.”

Evaris. Hot damn.

No freaking way two people connected with that place turn up dead in a week and it’s unrelated.

All of a sudden, Tom Ellinger’s insistence that he only fired one shot seemed like the detail we should’ve paid more mind. What if he wasn’t guilty of killing anyone?

Someone sure wanted Aaron and Kyle to think he was.

Hoping I wasn’t crazy for chasing this rabbit, I thanked Miss Emma and hung up, staring at my computer for a full minute.

What did I know?

More than this morning. Both victims had a strong tether to Evaris. Stephanie Whitmire wasn’t just an unlucky bystander. That was huge.

What did I need to know?

Still the top of the list: exactly what Maynard was working on. The more I learned, the surer I was that the key to the whole damned thing was rooted in that. Kyle and Aaron likely thought the same thing, but whoever had told them to hush had enough power to keep them from talking. I liked my tablet theory, but couldn’t think of a place to take it right then.

I clicked to Channel Four’s website. I know from having my ass kicked a few too many times: if I can think of it, so can Charlie. And she was plenty steamed at me.

I scrolled through the political stuff that goes with election season, looking for Charlie’s byline. Her only story of the day was an armed robbery at the RAU Starbucks (two thousand bucks and the clerk’s cell phone). A robbery I still needed to write up. Damn.

Sometimes the best way to untangle a sticky story is to work on a straightforward one. I tabled my new lead and clicked to the PD’s reports database. Finding the one I wanted, I called the head of campus security and got the specifics.

I hung up the phone with a giggle, opening a blank document.

Richmond Police are asking for help identifying two suspects in the late-night robbery of the Starbucks in the student center on the Richmond American University campus.

“Witnesses interviewed at the scene reported two Caucasian females in masks and bikinis,” Al Gableman, Chief of the campus police department, said. “A review of the security tape appears to show two young women in swimsuits, but no masks are present.”

Gableman said the clerks on duty at the time of the robbery were all male.

I kept the language as plain as possible, but there was no candy-coating it: the guys got distracted by boobs, and the bikini bandits got away with the loot. Gableman at the campus PD said they didn’t have a clear shot of the women’s faces, but he’d send Larry stills to run with the story. Facebook would eat it up, and Andrews would be pacified for another day. I hoped.

I finished with numbers for the RPD and the campus police, then read back through and checked Bob’s budget email. Fourteen inches. That would fit just about right with a small header. Perfect. One easy thing a day was better than none. I proofed it one last time and sent it to Bob.

Clock check: four thirty-five.

I flipped back to my what-do-I-need to know list.

Item two: Stephanie Whitmire.

What did a drug marketing rep know that could have gotten her killed?

24.

Making connections

I
went back over Stephanie’s social media profiles, checking photo tags and noting names for her boyfriend and closest friends. Clicking through their profiles, I found my in—one of the women in most of the victim’s photos was a coworker. I needed intel on Evaris, and young single woman plus dead BFF equals someone who almost certainly will want to talk. I pulled up a private message window.

Hi Casey,

I’m a reporter at the
Richmond Telegraph
working on a story about Stephanie’s murder. Can I buy you a glass of wine after work?

Send.

A green light told me she was online. Message read. Reply bubble.

Steph’s mother tells me the guy who killed her is not in jail because of you. Bite me.

Ouch. Trying again.

I was there, and there’s more to this story. I know you don’t know me, but you can believe I want to find who killed your friend every bit as much as you do. What harm could one drink be?

Message read. Crickets.

I watched the window for a long minute before I clicked back to Stephanie’s profile. Maybe there was someone else. Clearly someone not the woman’s parents, from Casey’s reply.

I was just about to call the boyfriend’s cell (I’ll never understand why people put their phone numbers on public profiles, but it doesn’t stop me from being grateful for it) when my messages binged.

From Casey:

Meet me at Sine at six thirty.

Perfect. I copied the boyfriend’s number to keep him in reserve and clicked to the drug company’s website. I had just enough time for a little reading before happy hour.

M
y BlackBerry binged a text arrival as I stepped out of my SUV in Shockoe Slip at twenty after. I nearly dropped it thanks to spontaneous applause when I saw it was Chad:
Call me when you have time to talk.
Maybe he’d found something. And I wanted to know if there was any way cyberspace could locate Maynard’s iPad. 

Heading into an interview, give me a half hour?

Bing.
Sure.

Swinging the heavy door open, I waved to the hostess as I strode to the bar. I recognized Casey from her Facebook photos and perched on the stool next to her, nodding to the bartender when he turned to look at me.

“I’ll have a glass of the Williamsburg Governor’s Reserve, please,” I said, turning to Casey.

“I’ll take a double scotch, neat,” she said.

The bartender smiled and turned to get the drinks.

“Thanks for coming to meet me,” I said.

“I’m not here for you. I’m here for Steph. And her family. Do you know how much it hurts them that their daughter is gone, and the man responsible is still sitting next to his wife? And they have to see it in the newspaper every day, this story of how a ‘nice guy’ was driven to the brink.” The words flew from her lips like daggers, each cutting deep.

I closed my eyes for a long second. Would I be angry in her shoes, with the information she had? Damn straight. “If I’m wrong about this, I will issue a public apology to the family.”

The stiff line of her mouth softened slightly, and I held her gaze for another ten seconds before I spoke again. “But I don’t think I am, Casey. I get more convinced every day that someone set this man up. And I don’t think Stephanie’s death was bad luck. Is it possible that she knew anything about a drug trial? Maybe a trial Evaris didn’t want anyone else to know about?”

Her eyes popped so wide a passerby would’ve thought I’d slapped her.

The bartender put napkins and drinks in front of us, and I thanked him without taking my eyes off still-silent Casey.

“You’re going to need to say something.”

She blinked. “We didn’t work on trials. We sell meds, we don’t create them.” The words were stiff.

My internal lie detector bleeped.

“You don’t have to work on trials to know things,” I prodded gently.

“Steph didn’t tell me what she knew.” Her eyes dropped and so did her tone.

Uh-huh. I just bet she hadn’t.

“Come on, Casey. What’s going on? You’re here for Stephanie, remember?”

She grabbed the scotch and downed it in two swallows. My turn for the wide eyes.

The ones Casey turned back on me were scared. “She didn’t tell me what. Only that she was afraid.”

I pulled a notebook and pen slowly from my bag. “Do you mind if I write some of this down?”

She waved a hand. “No names.”

“Of course.”

I jotted what she’d said so far and looked up.

“Did you tell the police this?”

“What?”

“That she was scared.”

“I haven’t talked to the police. Steph’s parents said they didn’t ask too many questions. They say they know what happened. The funeral is tomorrow.”

I nodded. “Can you remember anything else? Did she tell you how she found out about what made her afraid? Or exactly what she was afraid of?”

“Getting in trouble. She got an email. Someone copied her on it by mistake, she said. But whatever was in it, she kept saying she wished she could unsee it, and she was afraid they’d notice she’d gotten it. I thought she was being dramatic.”

And you didn’t think this worth mentioning when she turned up dead? I bit down on the words before they could tumble out. I wasn’t there to point fingers.

“Do you know if she saved the email that upset her? And where?”

Casey nodded.

“She said she backed it up to her cloud.”

“Any idea how to open her backup?”

“She gave me the password.” A tear slipped down one perfectly spray-tanned cheek. “I swear I thought she was being paranoid.”

I patted her hand. “Anyone else probably would, too. Any chance you have that password on you?”

Casey shook her head. “It was weeks ago. I didn’t think she was serious. Something about her birthday.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. Damn.

She dissolved into tears. “I’m so sorry, Steph.”

I bit my lip, my eyes lighting on the plastic badge dangling from her neck. Maybe not the best idea ever, but I was running out of time.

I patted Casey’s shoulder until her sobs quieted, then handed her a napkin for her nose.

“I wish I could be more help to you.” She blew her nose, then sniffled as she wiped at her eyes.

I smiled. “You actually could.”

“How? I told you everything I know.”

I nodded to the badge. “I’d like to have a look around Stephanie’s desk. Surely they haven’t cleaned it out yet.”

She shook her head. “They asked me to, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch her things. You think you might find something?”

What I thought was that a trip to Evaris could be the fastest way to an answer. And Casey could get me inside. I glanced out the window at the low-hanging harvest moon and stood, dropping some cash on the bar for the drinks and waving for Casey to follow me.

“Only one way to find out.”

I scanned the ceiling for camera bubbles, but didn’t see any as Casey pulled off her badge and swiped it through the electronic lock on the door leading in from the garage.

“We’re on the sixth floor,” she said, punching the elevator call button.

I glanced around. “Is anyone usually here this late?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. “Most people knock off by about six.”

I stepped into the elevator and tried to settle my jangled nerves. It wasn’t like I was breaking in. I was with an employee.

Funny how looking for something nobody wants found can make a girl edgy.

The doors whispered open to a dark, quiet maze of cube walls and gray carpet. Casey eyed me as she stepped off the elevator. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Just hoping this isn’t a wasted trip.” I tried my best for an easy smile.

“You really think there’s more to this than the police are telling her parents, don’t you?” She gestured to a hallway and I followed her, nodding.

“I promise I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Sneaking around dark office buildings isn’t exactly my idea of a stellar evening.”

“I hope there’s something here that will tell you for sure. Her mom is so heartbroken. Some closure for them would be nice.”

We walked silently past a row of doors with platinum nameplates, and I almost tripped over my own feet when I saw Alan Shannon’s name on one of them. The same Alan Shannon who lived in Maynard’s building worked in spitting distance of the other murder victim?

Aaron told me his alibi checked out and they’d let him go, but roughly a million crime stories have taught me that true coincidences are rarer than magical glass slippers.

Casey turned and stopped, pointing me into a cube not twenty-five feet from Shannon’s office.

I swallowed hard, a bulletin board with photos of Stephanie and Casey and other folks I assumed were coworkers catching my eye. Playing softball, having drinks, dressed up for Halloween. My inner Lois Lane said this woman was not a bystander. She’d stumbled across a secret. A secret so big someone was willing to kill or pay big bucks—or both—to keep it quiet.

I lifted stacks of folders and paper on the desktop, no keyboard in sight.

“Computer?” I asked.

Casey shrugged. “We all have company-issued laptops. She probably took it with her.”

Strike one.

Thirty-five minutes of flipping through folders and rifling through drawers later, I was more than a little ready to tear out half my hair. Nothing. Or nothing that looked like anything. Since I couldn’t walk out with the contents of Stephanie’s desk and I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring Shannon up with Casey, I was at a loss.

I looked up. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for. You don’t remember anything else?”

She shut her eyes. “I wish I’d paid better attention. I can’t even tell you what I’d give to go back and listen to her.” She twisted her lips to one side. “I also have to pee.”

I picked up another folder and nodded. “Can I stay here?” Holding my voice steady wasn’t easy, what with the slightly underhanded plan forming in my frontal cortex.

She nodded, adding that the bathrooms were on the other side of the floor and promising to be back shortly.

I held my breath until she was out of sight, then dropped the folder I was holding onto the desk. Slipping off my shoes, I picked them up and padded quickly to Shannon’s door.

I tried the knob, whispering a prayer under my breath.

Locked.

Of course.

Glancing around, I reached up and pulled a pin out of my hair, working it slowly into the lock the way Joey had taught me. Prodding gently, I felt a lever give. A push lock.

My face broke into a grin. That I could handle. Find the right one, pop it, and it’s all good.

Twenty-eight seconds later, I swung the door wide.

Three maple filing cabinets lined the cream-colored back wall, which was dotted with mounted animal heads that seemed to follow my every move. Shudder.

Could I find something? No idea. Casey would be back in a few minutes.

I crossed quickly to the desk and surveyed the drawers. If I were hiding something, I wouldn’t put it in the big file drawer. Or the side one.

The top? I slid it open and shoved my hand inside, feeling for paper.

Nothing but a pack of Winstons. Yuck.

I turned for the file cabinets, flipping through neatly alphabetized folders and catching a breath when I saw Maynard’s name. I wriggled that one free.

Empty.

Forgetting my bare feet at the wrong moment, I kicked the cabinet, then bit blood out of my lip trying not to howl. Eyes smarting, I hobbled to the credenza next to the desk and opened it.

A cell phone dock, an electric razor, and a stack of plain white printer paper. I sighed. I suppose if I was trying to cover up something that would cause thousands of people to die, plus murdering a couple here and there, I wouldn’t leave a confession laying around my office either.

I leaned forward to flip the door closed and a glint in the cabinet caught my eye. Pushing the speaker dock aside, I reached behind it.

And found a thumb drive taped to the back wall of the cabinet.

Could be nothing. Could be perfectly legit work documents. Could be love letters—or porn.

But maybe not.

I shut the cabinet and stood, dropping the drive into my pocket.

Just in time to hear voices in the hallway.