Paul opened the door as she got there and ushered her in with a string of exclamations about food and love. Sula took the boxes to the kitchen table, while Paul dug out a stack of napkins. They each devoured half a pizza before saying much.
“What’s happening with our Trojan horse?” Sula asked between napkin wipes.
Paul grinned, mouthful and all. “I have a password.”
“Hot damn. Do you know who the user is?” Sula pushed her pizza aside, too excited to eat now.
“Eric Sobotka.”
“He’s a scientist. He has access to the clinical trial database.”
“I know.” Paul was still grinning. “I’ve already been in there.”
Sula jumped up and went around the table to hug him. “What have you found?”
“Tons of stuff. But I don’t have any idea what I’m looking for, so that’s why I needed you here.”
“We’re looking for anything we can find about Miguel and Luis Rios. I should have given you the names.”
“You probably did.” Paul shrugged. “Let me eat one more piece of this heavenly pie, then we’ll get right on it.”
After forty minutes of searching, the names did not come up.
“Rudker deleted the files. I knew he would.” Sula slumped into a chair. She’d been pacing Paul’s living room for the last thirty minutes, checking over his shoulder on occasion. “Warner must have expected him to do that, which was why she made the disk. And I lost it.”
Paul turned to her. “You didn’t lose it. The bastard had you arrested, then broke into your home while you were in jail and stole it from you. Who would have seen that coming?”
“Certainly not me.”
“What now?” Paul did not give up easily either.
“You’re not going to believe this, but I’m thinking of going to Puerto Rico.”
“Get out.” Paul’s mouth fell open. “You don’t fly.”
Sula hadn’t let herself think about that part of it. “I have to get that data. A woman in Portland also committed suicide while taking Nexapra during a clinical trail. She was only twenty-eight. Her last name was James, but the clinician said she looked Hispanic.”
“Jesus. Clearly not a good drug for Latinos.” Paul shook his head. “Can you do it? Get on a plane and fly across an ocean?”
“I hope so. Maybe with enough Xanax in me.”
“Can you afford the ticket?”
“No, but I have a credit card.”
Paul leaned forward and grabbed her hands. “I have a free flight from years of building up credit card points. It’s good for anywhere on US soil. I’ll get you a ticket with it.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Of course you can. It’s not a gift; it’s a loan. Without any interest. You’ll pay me back whenever you can.”
Sula was overwhelmed by his generosity. She tried to refuse again, but he ignored her and turned back to his computer. In a few minutes, the Chase credit card site came up and Paul found the number to call for cashing in his travel points. While he was on hold, he asked, “When do you want to go?”
Sula’s pulse quickened. It was happening so fast. “Soon, I guess.” If she waited, Rudker would have an opportunity to destroy the original files in Puerto Rico. What if he had ordered someone to do it already?
“Wednesday?” Paul was waiting for an answer.
“I don’t have a passport.”
“You don’t need one. It’s a U.S. territory.”
The only thing she had planned for the next few days was more job searching. “Okay.”
Great Gods. Sula could not believe she had just agreed to get on a plane and fly 1,500 miles. She’d never done this before and didn’t know how to prepare. Her pulse escalated.
“When do you want to come back?”
How long would it take? She planned to visit the research center and maybe the families. “Two days,” she finally said. Was that reasonable? She couldn’t afford to be gone longer than that.
“Which airport?”
“I don’t know. The research clinic is in San Juan.”
As Paul talked his way through the ticket purchase, Sula paced the room and tried not to hyperventilate. She could to this. Thousands of people got on planes every day and so could she. She had never left Oregon before. Did they speak English in Puerto Rico? she wondered. She would get online as soon as she got home and find out everything she could.
When Paul got off the phone, he printed out her itinerary while simultaneously reciting it to her. “You’ll catch a flight at 5:45 in the morning and fly to Phoenix. From there, you’ll fly to Orlando, Florida, then on to San Juan, arriving at 9:36 p.m., San Juan time. Three flights and twelve hours of travel. Quite an ordeal for your virgin flight.”
Sula had to sit again.
“Take your cell phone. Call me as often as you like.” Paul hugged her. “You’ll be fine.”
“You should come with me.” She didn’t want to do this alone.
“I wish I could, but it’s too short of notice for me. I have two jobs.”
“I know. I’m being selfish. This terrifies me.”
“What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.”
“Nietzsche didn’t have to worry about falling from the sky.”
Chapter 23
Wednesday, April 21, 5:58 a. m
One Xanax was not enough. Sula began to hyperventilate the moment she felt the air rush under the plane and lift it off the ground. To keep from vocalizing her terror, she put her head on her lap, closed her eyes, and recited an old prayer her mother had taught her as a child. She had no faith the Gods would keep the plane afloat, but forcing herself to remember the strange Indian words helped distract her.
Once the plane leveled out, she was able to breathe somewhat normally. Everyone around her seemed so calm. The young boy next to the window had been reading before the takeoff and was still reading now. The men and women in suits with their laptops all seemed intent on their work. She glanced out the window-from her seat on the aisle-and had to close her eyes again. This was not natural. The physics made no sense. Taking off in a glider plane would have been less frightening.
Sula stopped the flight attendant, a woman who looked old enough to be her grandmother, and asked for a glass of water. When she came back with it, Sula took a second tranquilizer. Two hours and twenty-one minutes, her itinerary said. An eternity. And only one leg of a three-flight journey. What in the hell was she doing? Sula breathed from her stomach and let her mind go blank. After a while she drifted off.
The second take-off out of Phoenix was only slightly better. At least she knew what to expect this time. About the time the plane leveled off, they hit turbulence. The first dip made her physically ill. Her head went back to her lap. She could not even pray. She begged Tate to forgive her for being so selfish. For running off on a wild goose chase to help people she didn’t even know and getting herself killed. Why hadn’t she made out a will?
The shaking and dipping seemed to go on forever. Sula looked up occasionally between spells and noticed other people chatted and read as if they were riding a bus across town. She vomited twice during the descent and vowed that when this trip was over, she would never get on another plane.
The Florida airport was considerably more intimidating than the Phoenix layover had been. The crowds were thicker, the languages more diverse. While in the bathroom brushing her teeth, Sula overheard a conversation that sounded like Swahili. She hadn’t even left the mainland and she was homesick already.
She had to ask directions three times during the long hike from Southwest to American Airlines, but people were friendly and helpful. Sula hoped that would be true in Puerto Rico as well. She’d read on the visitors’ information website that seventy percent of the population spoke English. She was counting on that because she spoke no Spanish. She’d brought a pocket dictionary for emergencies.
Her watch was no longer useful, so she kept checking the time on her cell phone, even though the airport had clocks everywhere. During the two-hour wait to board, her stomach finally settled down so she ate a cheeseburger and watched people come and go.