“I—”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, both of you, leave the poor girl alone!” my mother said. “Don’t you think she’s got enough on her plate without you both jumping on her over this?”
“I’m sorry if you feel that the danger of our daughter turning into a drug addict is something we should just ignore, Elizabeth,” my father said.
My mother laughed. It was a bone-tired laugh, with a touch of hysteria skimming just under the surface. “Of course we shouldn’t ignore it, but I hardly think this is the time or the place to make it into an issue, either,” she said stoutly. “How many times have you told me people make bad decisions when they’re in pain? Surely you agree that’s the last thing any of us want at the moment—least of all Charlotte?”
“Vicodin is a mix of acetaminophen and hydrocodone,” my father bit out. “Hydrocodone is a narcotic pain reliever and acetaminophen increases its efficiency. Among the many possible side effects are impaired reactions and reduced mental alertness. In other words, it can severely affect the decisionmaking process. One has to be careful about letting a patient drive, or operate machinery. But you’re quite happy for Charlotte to be running around with that,” he said, gesturing dismissively in the direction of my hidden SIG, “and very little compunction about using it, when she’s on this type of medication?”
My father must have been tired, too. It was the first time I think I’ve ever heard him sound so testy with her, but my mother was undaunted. She drew herself up straight as a duchess and treated him to a lofty stare.
“And have Charlotte’s actions so far shown her to be anything but entirely rational?” she asked with brittle dignity. She allowed herself a shaky smile. “Terrifyingly so,” she added, and her voice softened. “Whether we like it or not, Richard, our lives are in Sean’s and Charlotte’s hands and I, for one, am prepared to trust her judgment implicitly.”
My father gave a single muffled tut, the only outward sign of his annoyance. He glanced at Sean, as if for support. I didn’t expect for a moment that he’d get it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still taking painkillers, Charlie?” Sean said quietly.
My brain was working too sluggishly to do more than gape at him for a moment. “Don’t start, Sean,” I snapped. “Nothing I’m taking has stopped me from doing my job. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, but are you doing it in spite of the Vicodin?” he said. “Or because of it?”
My mother stepped between us and put an arm around my shoulders. “Be sensible and leave it for now, Sean,” she said gently. “We’re all tired enough to say things we’ll regret in the morning. Come along, Charlotte,” she murmured steering me towards the hotel entrance. “I think for once we can forget equality of the sexes and leave the men to bring in the luggage, hm?”
I shrugged her arm away. “I can still do my job,” I said, dogged, stepping away from her and struggling not to stagger.
“Of course you can, darling,” she said, “but at what cost?”
As we walked through the automatic doors into the lobby, I glanced back and saw Sean and my father, still by the open boot of the car, watching us. They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, I noticed, unconsciously presenting a united front. Ironic that the first time they were in any kind of accord, it was to team up against me.
We slept like the dead, all of us. Ten straight hours. When I woke, I reached out a hand and found Sean’s side of the bed already empty but still warm from his body heat. When I lifted my head I heard the sound of running water in the shower, and I rolled over slightly to check the time on the digital clock by the bed. It was 6:08 A.M.
And as I moved, I noticed something else on the bedside table that hadn’t been there when I’d crawled into bed the night before—my bottle of Vicodin. For a moment the fear ran through me that perhaps Sean had junked the contents, to prove some kind of a point. I reached out and picked it up. The plastic bottle had some weight and I couldn’t help the sense of relief that went with that discovery.
“If you need them, take them,” Sean said from the bathroom doorway. I hadn’t noticed the water shutting off. The light was a little behind him, so his face was in shadow. He had one bath towel wrapped loosely round his hips and was wiping his neck with another.
I felt something hard and frozen tighten at the center of me. “For the moment,” I said baldly, “yes, I think I do.”
“I know,” he said, moving so he was in the light. His eyes were very dark and very cold. “But when we get back to New York, you are going to come off them. And if you need help to do that, we’ll get it for you.”
My chin came up and I met his gaze steadily. “I’m not hooked, Sean,” I said. “I won’t need any help.”
He regarded me for an elongated moment, then nodded just once.
“Okay” was all he said.
The business center was deserted when we went down to the lobby, so Sean was able to log on to the e-mail account Parker had given us without fear of anyone looking over our shoulder. There were two e-mails in the Inbox from the nondescript address Parker had set up for himself. Not worried about downloading viruses, Sean opened the first one.
Parker had clearly spent some time digging into Storax—background and financials. The number of zeros on the end of their annual profit figures had my eyes crossing.
“French parent company,” Sean muttered, scanning the highlights. “Subsidiaries in Germany, Switzerland and the Far East, as well as the U.S. government contracts for bird flu and anthrax vaccines. Fingers in lots of pies.”
“Well, Collingwood told us they had clout,” I said, “and he had no reason to lie about that.”
“Habit?” Sean suggested. He kept scrolling down. “Ah, here we are—Terry O’Loughlin. Bit sketchy, but I don’t suppose Parker wanted to raise any flags.”
The information Parker had uncovered simply said that Terry O’Loughlin had been listed as an employee of Storax Pharmaceutical for the past five years, and was registered as living alone at an address in an affluent suburb of Houston.
“Looks like they pay their legal people pretty well,” Sean murmured. O’Loughlin drives a two-year-old Porsche 911 GT3” To make identifying our subject easier, Parker had included the registration number of the car and the color—Guards red.
“If we’re going to try approaching this guy, we might be better confronting him at home,” I said. “We stand a better chance than trying to force our way into Storax’s headquarters, at any rate. My breaking and entering skills are somewhat limited.”
“Yeah,” Sean said with the ghost of a smile. “One day, when we’ve got time, I’ll show you how to do the job properly.”
“It’s a date.” I gave a wry smile of my own. “And they say romance is dead.”
He grinned at me then, if briefly, and I felt some of the tension go out of my shoulders, but when he opened the second e-mail from Parker, suddenly neither of us was smiling anymore.
Miranda Lee’s body had been discovered by local lawenforcement officers the previous evening. They’d called at her home in response to an anxious request from the friend in Vermont, who’d been expecting her that afternoon and had grown concerned when she didn’t show.
According to the reports Parker had accessed, Miranda had swallowed a large quantity of sleeping pills, washed down with an even larger quantity of vodka. She’d left a terse little note blaming loneliness and the involvement of one of Jeremy’s oldest friends in the events surrounding her husband’s death for her decision.
“Bastards,” I said slowly, clenched with an impotent rage. “They suicided her.”