“The thing was…I must have dropped some. I did drop some. Into the formula we were working on.”
Harm frowned, listening hard now. “How much? What exactly was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“The hell you don’t.”
“No. This is the thing. I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, it was morning, and Yale had just gotten to work, so had your uncle…and they were shaking me, waking me up, all excited, because the trial I was finishing up the night before had worked. Really worked. The results were everything we’d ever dreamed of. Only…I didn’t realize about the accidental addition into the formula until I got home, looked for my bottle, and there was nothing in it. The top was even gone, so I knew it had spilled.”
“Are you talking one pill, two, what?”
“It was a mix of different things. Several different things. I drove back to the lab immediately that same night. I looked everywhere. You know how things were locked up in that back lab. No one had been in there, not cleaning staff or anyone else. So if I could have found the pills…but I didn’t…because there was nothing to find. They’d become part of the formula. No one knew that but me, and I obviously couldn’t tell anyone.”
The lieutenant had clearly made a choice to stay silent, to let Purdue confess all he was willing to without distractions, but now she interjected. “What exactly are you talking about here? One specific amphetamine? Or a mix with cocaine or E or-?”
“It was a cocktail. A mix of different things. I’d gotten it before, from a friend I knew. A friend who’d given it to me before.”
“But you don’t know exactly what was in this cocktail?”
“No. I was exhausted that night. And after that…I just didn’t know what to do. It all just…exploded. Everybody was so happy with the success. Everybody believed we got the dream, a cure for one of the worst cancers there is. Everybody thinking we were all going to be rich. But because of it all, Dougal suddenly tripled the security on everything. Nobody worked alone on anything after that, even for short periods of time. The idea was to protect us all, make sure we were watching out for each other, not because he didn’t trust us to work alone. But by then, Dougal, he wanted everything exactly right, verifiably right, so there were two people on every procedure we did…”
Purdue raised stricken eyes to Harm. A boy’s lost eyes. “The work I did here…it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My father…growing up, he was meaner than a snake to me, to my mother. That never changed until I got into college. It’s not like I was still afraid of him after that. It was more like…I could taste the revenge. No one in the family had gone this far, certainly not him. He started telling everybody how good I was, how important-”
Harm shook his head impatiently. “That story would have worked on me-and I know my uncle would have listened. If you’d just come clean when this happened.”
“But I’m telling you why I couldn’t. No one knew. I was the only one, and it was just a mistake. I never intentionally did anything wrong to the work. In fact, I was part of the reason we’d gotten so far-”
“Only then my uncle died.” Harm knew the next sequence in the story.
“I had to get to that formula. I had to make it disappear. That’s all I wanted to do. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted it to disappear before someone discovered that the formula on paper would never work again. It wasn’t really stealing, Harm. I didn’t gain from it. I was just trying to make my mistake go away.”
Harm figured Purdue’d be happy to spew out more excuses until the cows came home. He interrupted with something that had preyed on his mind for weeks. “You killed my uncle.”
“No. No. That was accidental. Completely accidental. We were alone in the lab, early one morning. He was so happy. This was what he dreamed of, the only thing in life he really wanted, not for the money, but the cure. But he couldn’t understand why we’d been unable to duplicate the one perfect batch, you know? So that’s why we were in there so early…”
“And?”
“And…I thought I could tell him. At that point, I knew I had to tell him. He was suspecting that something was wrong. He was going to figure it out-he’d been involved in the trials and experiments for more years than any of us. He could see something was off, was analyzing, trying to pin it down…so I told him because I had to. I thought maybe even he’d understand. Only then…”
“You killed him.”
“I didn’t. He…just…fell to the ground. He started crying like a kid. Then he started holding his chest. He wasn’t that old, you know? I swear I didn’t actually realize he was having a heart attack-”
Harm listened for another ten minutes. But then he’d heard all he could take.
Chapter 13
Cate had to open half the cupboards in the break room to find anything remotely edible. Finally, she came across some paper plates. Doritos. A few slices of leftover cheese and things in the fridge.
She shook out the Doritos, unsure whether she was feeling more mad or hurt. Actually, there was no real contest. Anger won the prize.
For sure, she had some hurts-a variety of bruises from the ugly tangle with Purdue. Her head was pounding from a lack-of-sleep headache. She’d ruined her new black dinner dress. She’d had the hiccups twice in the last hour, and every time she thought of that tussle with Purdue, she got another case.
It wasn’t every day she ran into a criminal. It had been a story until today. A TV script. Fiske had died and she’d been pushed off the deck of the boat and things had happened, but none of it had been real until Purdue had his hands on her today. She’d never been afraid of anything in her life before, and now, when she really needed to curl up in someone’s arms and feel safe for a while-the stupid lab was filled with strangers. Why on earth so many police had shown up, she had no idea, but they’d obviously shown up to help, and it was a ghastly hour on a Sunday morning, and none of them could have had time for any kind of food. There was no breakfast food to be had in the entire place. She’d brewed fresh coffee and then tea, but that wasn’t food.
On top of which, Harm had been closeted in Fiske’s office with Purdue and the lieutenant and medics-and everybody else, practically, but her.
Like she was invisible.
Like she hadn’t been through hell and a half herself.
Sniffing-loudly-she used the worst paring knife she’d ever seen to create slivers of cheese, sprinkled them on the Doritos, found some dried onions…what a disgrace!…and then popped the plate in the microwave for a few seconds. Possibly she slammed the door on the microwave, but she figured she was entitled.
Her feet hurt, too.
She’d almost forgotten that.
When the microwave pinged, all of thirty seconds later, she reached for the door-and saw Harm. Standing right there in the doorway. As if he’d been watching her forever! When she’d needed him! And she’d been miserable!
Only then she saw the expression on his face.
She didn’t lose all that being mad. She just flew across the room and threw her arms around him. “Hey. Everything’s all right. You’re safe, I’m safe. It’s going to be all right.”
He clung and clung and clung. Or maybe she was the one doing some of that heavy-duty clinging, but darn it, he looked terrible-all rumpled, his cheek swelling up, his shirt ripped, a cut above his eyebrow he’d gotten heaven-knew-how, whiskers on his chin. The worst, though, the really worst, were his eyes. She’d never seen him look so…sad…before. It was unbearable.
“There was no formula, Cate.”
“No?”
“They were working on a real-enough formula. But the one they thought successful-hell, I don’t know if it actually was, but it almost doesn’t matter, because it can’t be duplicated. So. We don’t have our cure.”