“I love it.”
She held it up in front of her and it looked like it just might fit. She was afraid to look at the price tag.
“Oh, that’ll look just gorgeous on you,” Dress Shop Girl gushed. “With your eye color and your hair. It’ll be perfect.”
Tessa had never in her life consciously chosen something because it matched her eyes or her hair.
Lien-hua indicated toward the fitting rooms. “Try it on.”
A few minutes later Tessa emerged wearing the dress. Thankfully, the saleslady had gone to help someone else who’d just walked in and only Lien-hua was there waiting to see her.
“How does it look?” Tessa asked nervously. In the fitting room she’d looked at the price. She couldn’t remember ever trying on anything this expensive.
“This boy, Aiden, he’s going to be blown away. Do you like it?”
“Yeah, but I’m telling you I can’t afford this thing. We should probably—”
Lien-hua held up her hand. “I want to get it for you.”
“No, it’s too much. I’m serious. Especially for something I’m only going to wear once.”
“Well, twice, at least.”
“Twice?”
“The wedding.”
“Oh, well, yeah. I guess. Sure.”
Lien-hua looked satisfied. “Yes, I think this will be the perfect dress for my maid of honor.”
A pause as that comment settled in. “Your what?”
“Full disclosure: I had ulterior motives bringing you here. Since last week I’ve been wanting to ask you to be my maid of honor.”
Tessa was quiet. “I don’t think I’m really maid-of-honor material.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, first of all, I have no idea what a maid of honor is even supposed to do. I mean, just help make you look pretty? Believe me, I’m no expert at that.” Then she realized how that might have sounded. “Not that you need anyone to… I mean—”
“I know what you’re saying. But in any case, you do know how to make someone look pretty. Just look at you.”
“I’m not pretty.”
“You are. Very pretty.”
Tessa said nothing.
Sure, Patrick told her she was pretty too, but he had to. He was her dad. The only time boys ever told her she was pretty was when… well, when they had ulterior motives of their own.
Lien-hua’s just asking you to be the maid of honor because you’re Patrick’s daughter. She feels obligated to come to you. There’s tons of other people she could ask instead.
“Well?” Lien-hua said.
“Um… Yeah, I’d be honored. Really, I would.”
Lien-hua smiled, and after all she’d been through this week, it was nice to see. “So, what about this dress?”
“I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
“Let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s just get you ready for your big night.”
65
The public safety officer called me back on my cell.
I stared at the screen for a moment before answering. Although I wanted to find out about Aiden Ryeson, I also knew Tessa might very well resent my checking up on him like this, if she found out.
The phone rang again.
If she found out.
The dad in me took over and I answered the phone.
“Agent Bowers here.”
“Sir, this is Officer Ted Young from the school. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to return your call earlier.”
“That’s alright.”
“You phoned regarding Aiden Ryeson?”
I took a deep breath.
It’s not too late, just tell him you don’t need the information after all.
But then the counterargument: No, Pat, this is about your daughter. She has a history of going out with boys who have a violent streak. Remember San Diego? Remember what happened out there?
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, he’s a good kid. Never any problems from my end. I called his track coach and he hasn’t had any issues with him either. Good grades, no detentions.” He paused and then added, “Anything I need to know?”
“No,” I told him. “I appreciate your time.”
We ended the call, and I slowly lowered the phone.
While Officer Young’s information reassured me, I seemed to feel worse than I did before I’d spoken with him.
I was sorting through my feelings about the whole thing when an e-mail came in, forwarded to me from Margaret.
The results of the chemical analysis of the pills.
Both FDA and PTPharmaceuticals confirmed it — the pills we’d found in Montana were counterfeit versions of Calydrole.
And they were remarkably good ones — the packaging, the imprinting on the pills, the shape, color, size, everything looked legitimate, and even a cursory chemical analysis established that the active ingredient of Calydrole was present, not in the right dose, but with enough of it present to avoid initial detection that the pills were counterfeits.
But there was something else there too: a neurostimulator most commonly known as Proxictal.
Evidently, it wasn’t possible to tell from the analysis they’d done so far, but taken in conjunction with the active ingredient in Calydrole, the Proxictal could very likely contribute to the disorganized cognition and downward-spiraling thought process that led some people to consider taking their own lives.
The FDA proposed that if this pill were taken for seven to ten days the effect could be “exaggerated.”
An excipient is the inactive substance in medication that helps deliver the active ingredient, and not only was the active ingredient found in the wrong amount, but the excipient was one that helped deliver the Proxictal rather than Calydrole.
The combination of chemicals that constituted this drug made it appear that it had been designed for one purpose: to make depressed people seriously consider suicide.
However, despite all of that, remarkably, PTPharmaceuticals was holding out on recalling Calydrole or warning consumers about the tainted versions of the drug that were evidently already on the market.
They said that it was because there was no evidence yet that this wasn’t just an isolated case, since only one pack had been found to contain the counterfeit drug. But the real reason wasn’t all that hard to deduce. Making an announcement like that, recalling their number one pharmaceutical product, would be devastating to their stock prices. Market shares would drop. They could lose millions on Monday alone when the markets opened again.
According to the e-mail, however, Margaret had convinced the FDA to put out a public health warning, and they were going to release the details at a joint five-o’clock press conference.
I’d just gone back to my notes when I got a call from Agent Kantsos.
Things were finally starting to come together.
He found out that two local businessmen in Kadapa had been admitted to the hospital last week with “grievous injuries including amputations of several of their extremities.” After quoting the person he’d spoken with, Kantsos added, “One of the men was missing both ears.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. They’re not giving anything up and there’s no indication yet who did this to them. According to the local authorities the men were terrified of what would happen to them if they did.”
I thought of the amorphous connection to Valkyrie and what they’d already been through. “I can understand why.”
Through a couple of factory workers in the area, the police had, however, located a business site in Kadapa where the two men worked.
“The place was cleared out when they inspected it,” Kantsos told me, “but there was evidence that pharmaceuticals may have been manufactured there until very recently. That’s how they put it, ‘may have been.’ But they’re just hedging their bets. It looks like we found our facility.”