Read Diversion 2 - Collusion Online
Authors: Eden Winters
Lucky settled Bo on a couch in his office with a cup of chamomile tea from the cafeteria. Bo ignored the tea and stared out into space. Lucky placed the tea on a low table and sank to his knees by the couch.
“Bo, talk to me.” He tapped his palm against Bo’s cheek. No response. After glancing over his shoulder out of long habit to ensure no witnesses, he pulled Bo to his chest. Bo resisted for a moment, and then settled in with a sigh. He didn’t cry, he didn’t scream, he merely shook so badly Lucky feared he might fly apart.
Bo needed to go back to Atlanta. Yesterday. “Are you okay?” Silence, save for the distant
clop, clop
of high heels down the hallway outside. After a while, Bo whispered, “No. I may never be okayagain.”
Lucky placed a kiss on the top of Bo’s head. “That’s fine. I’ve been ‘not okay’ for years. It’s not too bad once you get used to it. Now what’s going on? I can’t imagine how people got the notion you had anything to do with those patients dying.”
“I got the call late last night. The ki…patients died of renal failure.”
Until yesterday Lucky had managed to convince himself the patients at the center checked in sick and checked out well. Rational? No. Effective in helping Lucky live with himself? Yes. As his nursing aide sister would say,
Dream on, buddy.
“I hate to say this, but aren’t they used to losing patients once in a while?”
Here it comes, go on, say it, I’m cold.
“Yes, but not to kidney failure. The patients in question weren’t critical, had shown no signs of kidney problems prior to a day or two ago.”
“You’re the pharmacist. Got any idea what could cause them to suddenly develop bad kidneys?”
“Yes. It happened a long time ago, but I read about a similar incident while in school and pray I’m wrong. We need a list of the medications they took, and any current stock should be checked for diethylene glycol.”
“What’s that?”
“A substance pretty close to anti-freeze.”
“Anti-freeze!” Back home neighboring farmers used to lace deer hides with anti-freeze and leave them out for coyotes. A couple of the barn cats got a hold of one. It hadn’t been pretty. But for a child to go through the same thing? “You think someone deliberately poisoned those kids?”
“Glycerin is an inactive ingredient in a lot of liquid medications.” Bo lapsed into “textbook mode.” “In the past some shady manufacturers used diethylene glycol because it’s cheaper than glycerin. Back in 2007, over three hundred fifty people died in Panama from tainted cough syrup, and in the 90s wineries used it to make wine sweeter. They wound up killing several customers.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yeah. We need to act now, or there’ll be more deaths.”
“I gotta make a phone call.” Bo’s flexed his fingers around Lucky’s arm. Lucky settled back. Old habits died hard, his need for secrecy, but he wouldn’t say anything to Walter that Bo couldn’t hear. He texted his boss the pictures of Bo’s SUV, then made a call. Walter picked up on the first ring.
“Lucky, what’s going on?” Walter’s asked, a hint of edginess lacing his Boston twang.
“Two kids died yesterday of kidney failure, and apparently rumor’s gotten out about bad drugs. Someone decided to pin it on Bo.”
“Crap.”
Crap? From Walter? Not reassuring. “Yeah. Bo wants the drugs those kids took tested for diethylene glycol. How much access do I have here?”
“Whatever you need.”
“Bo’s in danger. I want him outta here.”
“We’re recalling him immediately.”
“No!” Bo protested. “They don’t have a buyer now. We can’t leave them.”
“Put me on speaker,” Walter demanded.
Lucky clicked the button on his phone. Walter’s voice carried from the tiny device. “Bo? Is there any reason you have to be physically on site?”
Bo chewed at his bottom lip before answering, “No.”
“Good. I want you uncompromised. We may need you to get information information product.”
“Tell the woman who hands out cars that Bo’s isn’t going to make the auction,” Lucky said as he scooted farther back on the couch. Bo sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, rocking to and fro.
“Understood. Keith is returning to Atlanta this afternoon. Bo, I want you with him. And Lucky?”
from Danvers. Work with Lucky today. Get the and samples we need. Quarantine any suspicious “Yes, boss?”
“Do what you do. I should be there shortly. We’ll talk strategy when I’m on site.”
The quietly spoken words might sound like mere encouragement to anyone else. Lucky took them for permission. “Don’t I always?”
“Good. It’s time to summon the locals, who’ll likely bring Danvers and the Cunninghams in for questioning. Let’s make sure they have the right questions to ask.”
Lucky ended the call. “We have work to do,” he told Bo. “You gonna make it?”
A look of grim determination settled over Bo’s face. “I don’t have a choice. Mind loaning me some of your son-of-a-bitch? I have a feeling I’m gonna need it.”
“I told Martin there was more to you than you let on,” Ava groused, printing out a prescription history of one of the victims. It didn’t surprise Lucky a bit to find her and Martin both in the pharmacy on a Sunday. “I couldn’t quite figure out why a man with as much spunk as you let Sammy run you over. I bet he shit his pants when you flashed your badge at him.”
“No, actually I haven’t talked to him lately.” Although Lucky would love to watch the kid’s reaction.
Ava leaned down a few inchesto murmur into Lucky’s ear, “Maybe you should. Anything shady going on ’round here, he’ll be right smack dab in the middle of it, mark my words.”
She handed Lucky a few printed pages. “This is everything. If you need anything else, let me know.” She dabbed at the corner of her eye with a wellused tissue. “Those poor li’l babies.”
Lucky raised his hand and hovered it over her back. Should he pat her? One pat or two? How hard? Martin approached. Lucky gave Ava a quick tap and beat a hasty retreat.
He took the lists back to the office designated as command central. Bo sat behind the desk, peering into his laptop. Keith wasn’t there. Probably still in Danvers’s office, the closest the asshole would ever get to a corner office of his own. “Here ya go,” Lucky said, handing Bo the printouts.
Bo tapped a few keys on his laptop, ran a finger down a printed page, then tapped a few more times. “That’s strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“The shipment we got from Primero contained Fluorouracil. Neither of these patients had prescriptions for Fluorouracil. And it gets worse.”
“How can it get worse?” Lucky stared at the printout, recognizing a few drug names, mostly the narcotics.
Hello, chloral hydrate, my old friend.
“They’re listed as receiving a med that only prolongs life, since their chemo drugs are unavailable.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Both patients were being treated for leukemia, but paclitaxel, the drug they were originally prescribed, is on the indefinite backorder list. The doctors switched them to something more readily available, but not nearly as effective.”
“You mean to tell me they weren’t receiving what would help them?”
Bo shrugged. “The doctors did all they could with what they had on hand. But, and this is the strange part, judging by their charts, both patients showed improvement. We need to talk to their doctor, or better yet, the pharmacy staff. These can’t be complete lists. Both kids had the same doctor. You find Dr. Stanley Grayson, I’m going to check up on his other patients.”
Lucky left Bo in the office to report in to Walter. Sammy met him outside the door. “Reggie! Oh my God, man. Am I ever glad to see you!”
Huh? Those were words Lucky didn’t hear often.
“I’m kinda busy right now…”
“No, man. I need to talk to you.” Eyes a few shades lighter than Bo’s begged Lucky. Damn but he was a sucker for imploring brown eyes.
“Make it quick.”
“Are you really an undercover narc?”
Narc.
How Lucky had once hated that name when he’d been on the other side of the law. “Something like that.”
Sammy nodded, staring at the floor. “I need you to meet me in the parking lot after five.”
Whoop! Whoop!
Alarms rang through Lucky’s brain. “Why?”
“I didn’t know, man. I swear I didn’t!” He staggered, slapping a hand against the wall to steady himself. “I gotta make a run tonight, and Ineed you to go with me. Whatever you do, don’t tell Dr. Grayson.”
Lucky watched Sammy slink down the hall. Didn’t that beat all? An episode of his favorite soap opera couldn’t beat the drama at Rosario Children’s Center.
He dialed Walter’s number, stopping midway when Keith poked his head out of Danvers’s office door. “Oh, there you are. Saves me the trouble of hunting you down.” Keith clamped his mouth shut. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Anger, not insults? Nope, wasn’t Lucky who’d pissed in the man’s corn flakes—this time.
For Walter, Lucky put up with Keith. He’d never dare tell the man, but for Walter, he’d do pretty much anything, like he’d do for Charlotte—or Bo. Damn it! He needed to quit adding names to his “I’d do for” list. Still, one glimpse of those big soulful eyes had him wanting to do the damnedest things. Like be nice. Lucky didn’t do nice. Keith’s muddy brown peepers didn’t have nearly the same effect.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Come with me.” Keith spun on his heel and stalked back into the office to punch a few keys on the laptop.
Lucky aborted his call and sank down into an executive chair probably worth more than his car. He stared at strings of number and dates, eventually making sense of the data. He closed his eyes and fisted his hands. A punching bag, the ugly couch in his apartment—Danvers. Anything to hit. Keith in a pinch. Not that Keith’s discovery deserved punishing, but this might be an emergency.
A knock sounded a moment before the door opened. Walter filled the doorframe.
“Every time the pharmacy turned in an inventory sheet, that son of a bitch emailed the information straight to Primero Care,” Lucky told him. “They knew exactly what Rosario needed, and set about getting it.”
Walter hurried across the floor to peer over Lucky’s shoulder. “I want hard copies printed, and the entire contents of this computer transferred to our server.”
Keith nodded from where he stood against the wall, oozing smugness.
Lucky let Keith slide for the moment, too busy wanting to find Danvers and beat him to a bloody pulp on principle. And the worst part? The part sticking in Lucky’s craw? Danvers hadn’t done one fucking thing to break the law. He deserved to be fired and a whole lot more, but so far he’d not done anything to merit jail time.
“He’s being interviewed by the Feds. Maybe they’ll find more than we did. If not, the asshole walks.” Though Lucky hated to admit it, and the words didn’t come easy, he quietly added, “You did good, Keith. Walter, I need to talk to you.”
He rose and stalked from the office, not wanting to look back and find a smirk on Keith’s face or he might be tempted to physically remove it. It’d be a whole lot easier to like the guy if he weren’t such an asshole.
Walter followed Lucky into the hall. “Boss, we got a worse problem here than Danvers. We need to set up interviews with the pharmacy personnel and nursing staff without tipping off a Dr. Grayson.”
“What do you suspect?”
“Bo believes the victims may have received drugs from a source other than the pharmacy.”
“While administrators frown on the practice,” Walter said, stroking a hand over his chin, “it’s not unheard of for a doctor to order medications. However, some states are enacting laws preventing them from dispensing prescriptions directly. It allows addicts to doctor shop.”
Doctor shopping, the latest drug craze. Even Bo’d gotten in on the act at one time, going from doctor to doctor, making up symptoms to get scripts for narcotics and filling them at different drug stores to avoid notice. Thanks to a new national system, more states were coming on line, requiring pharmacies to report prescriptions to a common database, making such practices easier to catch. Still, patients slipped through the cracks.
“Set up the appointments and include the hospital administrator. I want you there, too, Lucky. Since the drug shortage began two years ago, seventy-nine facilities have been found to be importing from shady sources. Some were counterfeits.”
Counterfeits. A little of this and a little of that, cooked up in a vat and sold for the real McCoy. It might cure you. It might kill you. Lay down your money and spin the wheel. “There’s a guy from receiving, says he has a delivery to pick up and wants me to go with him after hours.”
“Go. But you’ll have company.”
Lucky backburnered his “I work alone.” Whoever’d coined the phrase “Where angels fear to tread” must have meant a drug trafficker’s lair.
Lucky sat in a conference room with the center’s administrator, the Director of Pharmacy, Walter, Keith, Bo, and one visibly shaking nurse. Bo sat in a corner, taking notes.
“Dr. Grayson is such a good doctor. Everyone loves him. He’s devoted to his patients,” the nurse said, dabbing away tears with a tissue.
“Did you notice anything unusual about the two patients in question?” Walter asked, in full “I’m your favorite uncle, you can tell me anything” mode.
“Well, with their preferred treatment unavailable, the meds we gave made them comfortable, kept them stable until we could find the injectable chemo they needed. When they started to improve, we nurses thought it was a miracle.”
Lucky glanced sharply to the left to find Bo looking back. Bo’s chin dipped in a barely perceptible nod. Interesting.
Walter turned to speak to the hospital administrator. “I want Grayson’s office searched for samples. Keith? Go with him.”
The nurse twisted the tissue in her hands. “Am I in trouble?” Tears shimmered in her eyes, spilling over her lashes and leaving mascaradarkened streaks down her face. “Was Dr. Grayson doing something wrong?”
“No one’s being accused of anything,” Walter assured her, pushing a box of tissues across the table. Lucky added a mental “yet” to Walter’s assurances.
The interview continued, Walter asking innocuous questions easily answered by the woman’s personnel file. “How long have you worked at Rosario?” and “Where did you work before?”
No one but Lucky seemed tonotice Walter’s sneaky glances at the door, or the way he flexed his fingers when he talked. Stalling for time. Lucky helped him out. “How long have you known Dr. Grayson?”
The administrator returned and placed two vials before Walter. “I found these in a cabinet in Grayson’s office.” Even from a distance of a few feet, Lucky recognized the name “paclitaxel.” He snatched up a vial for closer inspection. Whoever designed the phony label knew their stuff, but the number listed for National Drug Code didn’t match any sequence he’d ever encountered with US goods. If he had to guess, he’d bet on the vials originating in China. He accessed the Internet via his cell phone and keyed in the number. No match. Not good.
“Do you recognize this substance?” Walter held a clear glass container up for the nurse to see. His thumb dwarfed the tiny bottle. Lucky would hate to play poker with the man, for Walter Smith never gave away anything, but this time, Lucky couldn’t help noticing the lips set in a thin line, the tightening of his jaw. Mount Walter fast approached eruption.
“Oh my God! Where did he get those? We haven’t been able to get our hands on this stuff in weeks!” The nurse stared wide-eyed at the tiny bottle.
Bo scribbled away. When he’d finished, Walter said, “That will be all. Thanks, you’ve been a big help.”
The nurse managed a wavering halfsmile. “Can I go now?”
“Yes, you may. Please don’t discuss our conversation with anyone.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
To the administrator, Walter said, “I’ll need the names of every patient who could possibly be receiving this medication. These won’t be going back into stock.”
The hospital staff filed out, leaving Walter, Bo, and Lucky. “Grayson is on vacation, I’m told,” Walter began, rubbing the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “Just as well. I have a feeling he’d hamper, if not hurt our investigation.” He waved one of the vials in the air. “Bo, I assume it’s safe to say that his visits with his patients allowed Grayson time to administer this.”
“Yes,” Bo replied. “Some chemos have to be administered slowly. An hour would be plenty of time. I’m guessing while the patient played Angry Birds.”
“Why would the bastard poison his own patients?” Lucky asked.
“He wasn’t trying to poison them,” Bo replied. “He was trying to save them, even though paclitaxel is an off-label prescription for leukemia. With other chemos in short supply, he used what he could get, even if he had to go out on a limb to get it.”
“You’re taking up for him?” Sometimes Bo baffled the hell out of Lucky.
“No, I’m not taking up for him.” Bo slammed his hand down on the conference room table. “You asked a question, I answered. For two weeks now I’ve watched this hospital struggle, rationing drugs and doing its dead-level best to treat its patients. What would youdo if someone you loved was sick, and couldn’t get better without meds, and no matter where you went, no pharmacy had them? What would you do, huh? Then you find ad after ad on the Internet, promising exactly what you need. Would you take a chance? Would you, to save their life, especially knowing that, if you do nothing, they’ll die?”
“Bo, calm down,” Walter interjected. “We’re not here to decide motives. We’re here because these are here.” He indicated the vials. “We need to find out where they came from, and more importantly, we need to have them analyzed. I’m assuming Keith is rounding up any stock as we speak. I’ll take them with me to the lab. Bo, the car we issued you has been collected. I’d like you to return to Atlanta this afternoon with Keith. Anything else the hospital needs can be handled from the office.”
“What about Lucky?” Bo asked. He held a pen in a white- knuckled grip.
“He has one more task to finish.” Walter gave Lucky a raised- brow glare.
“Yes, sir,” Lucky replied, checking his watch. By the time he immersed himself ass deep in alligators, Bo should be pulling his suitcase out of the back of Keith’s car in the parking garage of the SNB.
“Gentlemen, while we’re still officially on the job, due to the nature of this case, the FDA is assuming control. Any evidence you’ve collected please forward as soon as possible.”
Damn. When the bad guys went down, Lucky wanted to be the one swinging the bat.